 Hi. Welcome everyone. Thank you so much for your patience as we dealt with a few technical difficulties as that start of this panel. But welcome. Thank you for joining. This is disability representation in storytelling. My name is Celine, and I am the associate producer of the playwrights realm. Those are of you who are new to the realm. This panel is part of our community offerings this year, which can be found on our website, and we can be reached at community at playwrights realm.org I will place both those links in the chat. As a reminder this panel is being live streamed to how round and will be available on how round for viewing afterwards. Before I hand things over to tally to identify the access features and introduce the panelists. I'd like to hold a brief space to acknowledge the spaces that we occupy. I'd like to share that I'm joining you today from the traditional unseated territories of the Lenape and can RC. I offer recognition and respect and acknowledge that colonization is an ongoing process that continues to impact the lives and lands of native communities. I would like to acknowledge that in addition to the physical land that we occupy the platforms technology and equipment that we're using consume resources that are based in physical lands, and are not universally accessible to all peoples and communities. Thank you so much for observing that moment with us. I will now invite tally to join us who will be going over the access features of this panel. My name is tally McCray. And if you're joining us on zoom. I'm just going to spend a few moments letting you know how you can access the access services we have for this panel to use the closed captioning you can click on the three dots in the toolbar below and select either subtitle or transcript view. In order to change the size of your captions, you can select subtitle settings. The working interpreter for this panel at all times will be visible to all of the audience members using that gallery view, excuse me. As soon as the working interpreter turns their camera on. Participants will make it a practice to state their name before they're speaking and transcripts will be available during the panel at the link that Celine has shared in the chat. And they will also be available after the panel by emailing the playwrights realm. If at any time during tonight's panel, there is a problem with the captioning or ASL interpreters, please select the playwrights realm in the chat. And excuse me, please select the host in the chat and notify our team of any of those technical difficulties. If you're joining us on zoom, and you'd like to ask the panelists a question, you can also select the playwrights realm or Celine in the chat tonight, and share a question anytime during the panel. If there is time at the end of our discussion we will get to as many questions as we can. I am so thrilled tonight to pass this off to tonight's party host, EJ Joseph. EJ is an incredible force in the world. So I'm going to pass it straight on. Take it away EJ. Give me a second here. I'm a little sip. Hello, hello, hello everyone. Hello, and welcome. Welcome to our webinar. The webinar is titled disability representation in storytelling. Disability has a whole host of disabilities included. We want to welcome each and every one of you to tonight's event. I'm going to introduce myself. My name is Albert Joseph, and I am your party host. All right now, I'm your party host. So I want to invite you all to sit back and be ready to be here for a wild ride. I want to be able to engage their souls and minds for tonight's event. We are thrilled to have esteemed panelists. We call them VIP, the very important folks. We have some very important guests here with us tonight. I'm going to go ahead and introduce our esteemed guests. I do want to, again, myself is Albert Joseph. I also go by EJ. My pronouns are he, his, they, or them. I am an actor, an advocate, director, an ASL consultant, and I am here in Boston, Massachusetts. So without any further ado, I want to go ahead and introduce our guests for this evening's webinar. First, we have Madison Mae Williams. Madison. Welcome. So glad to see you all here. Shall I pause? I want to introduce everyone first and then I'll have you come back on. The next individual is Andrea Kovic. The next panelist that we have for this evening is DRC. And I'm going to go ahead and introduce you to our next panelist. And I'm going to go ahead and introduce you to our next panelist. So these are our esteemed panelists for this evening. So please go ahead and introduce yourself. Tell me your roles, your pronouns, and please introduce who you are. Madison, you can start first. If you don't mind introducing yourself, telling everyone who you are. My name is Madison Mae Williams, but you can call me Maddie. I use she her pronouns or anything said respectfully, coming at you live from UC San Diego where I am a third year PhD student in the Department of Theatre and Dance. I'm also located on the unseated territory of the Kuma'i people. I'm a black woman in her mid 20s, and I'm wearing a black turtleneck, large eyeglasses and large wooden earrings. My research falls into the realm of lots of different areas, but in practice I am a dramaturg director and music director. And I'm really passionate about and enthused by work that increases visibility and representation for people of marginalized identities and especially work that is accessible and radical and I'm looking forward to discussing what work that fits those descriptions looks like tonight. Thank you all for being here. So looking forward to our conversation. And I'm going to popcorn it over to DRC. Yes, thank you, Maddie. DRC. Thank you very much, Maddie. Hi everybody. It's great to be here. My name is DRC, chairing to Neil. I go by he they pronouns and I am here in Columbus, Ohio. I am a dark skinned black male with black eyeglasses and blonde dreads that are twisted that I just got done. I am a second year PhD student, soon to be third year in ABD if the Lord see fit. And my research is primarily in English and disability studies. I do a lot of work at the intersection of disability erasure and Afrofuturism. And so I look at Afrofuturism, because white people aren't there. And quite frankly, it makes me really happy to be able to have a space that is specifically dedicated to people of minority populations, but also looking at the idea of knowing that just because you love something doesn't mean that you can't criticize it. I also come here as a former actor, I have a degree in musical theater as well as two master's degrees in creative writing and rhetorical theory. And I have played everything from Ursula in the Disney Broadway production as well as Audrey to in Little Shop of Horrors which I really enjoy. So I'm grateful to be here and I look forward to it. And I will pass it on to Andrea. Thank you so much Darcy. My name is Andrea Kovic. I use she her pronouns. I live on the lands of the Coast Salish people, particularly the Duwamish, the first peoples of Seattle, Washington. I'm a dramaturg and an accessibility consultant. And as a visual description, I'm a white woman with brown hair, shoulder length hair, and brown glasses wearing a purple v-neck shirt seated in front of a white wall with a bookcase. And I'm also a writer, so I've written some articles on disability representation. And I love it when all of my passions can come together when I can talk about accessibility and representation at the same time. So I'm so excited for this panelist and to be here with you all. Thank you. Great. Wonderful introductions. Thank you so much to the three of you for being here. I am overjoyed to have our discussion this evening. I really feel that this discussion is quite critical to the times that we have find ourselves in. It's important that we have these dialogues in our community so we actually can start having some action behind our discussions. So as though this is a long-awaited conversation and it's a long-awaited time for representation to be seen on stage. On stage, in videos, in storytelling broadcasts, our identities shall be shared. So now I want to have a conversation around hot topics. So before I do that, as I said before, I am your host. And I do want to thank Talaria McCrae. Talaria and I had a conversation and should ask me to be the moderator. But that feeling of being a moderator feels more upstage, right? It feels more, I'm above the panelists. I want to be on the same page as everyone. I want to be on the same level. I don't want to be controlling or moderating anyone, right? And so I asked her to change that title because I am on par with each and every one of you this evening. We are in this space sharing equity, sharing voices together. We are inclusive and we are modeling that tonight. So I want everyone to feel welcomed and feel on the same page with one another. And I thought that was very important for me to bring that up and to actually model that this evening, a page of oneness, a sameness. We know the story of King Arthur and how they're at the table and everyone at that table is the same. And I want to have King Arthur in the round table. We want to make sure that we have that representation be the same and I want that to actually be seen here tonight. And I want everyone to feel that we are all the same. And we're all here to learn something from tonight's discussion. So without any further ado, let's have some discussions around terminology. We have the word diversity. We also have the word inclusion. So diversity versus inclusion. Let's take a look at that and unpack that. People in the community use that those words interchangeably. Diversity means inclusion and inclusion means diversity, but tonight I want to take the time to parse out the two words. When I take a look at those two words. I don't see them the same. I don't see them as interchangeable words or concepts. They are not the same. I would love to pick the brains and minds of each of our panelists this evening and have you share your thoughts about what's diversity and what's inclusion. Tell me what the difference is and what is your definition of those respective words. Who wants to go first. I'm going to open it up again on this one to open up a little bit. Thank you, EJ for this question. I think it's really timely and an important question to consider in not only within academic spaces, not only within theatrical spaces, but unpacking what these two terms mean and the differences there in allow us to do the work that we all are here to do. So for me, when I hear the two terms, equity and inclusion, equity I think more of in terms of optics, I think about, okay, what is the makeup of a given space, who is included in the room. And I say included, and I will get to my point on inclusion, but literally who is occupying a space who is making decisions, who is being brought to the table. And this comes down to just simply who's there. And that's where I approached that term. In terms of inclusion, I think more about the, how are these people's work being engaged with honor celebrated. To me, inclusion requires an active engagement with the work. And equity, or sorry. Inclusion needs effort. It's not enough to just bring people of various backgrounds, experiences and intersecting identities into a space, but inclusion to me involves an active engagement with celebration of, and bringing not necessarily power to but allowing people to be empowered in a given space. To me that's where I feel that the two terms, while they can be used in tandem. Inclusion is the next step after diversity, it's the what comes after, if that makes sense. I'm a pop it over to DRC. Um, no, I was gonna say thank you. So I was, I was just thinking, you know who doesn't know the difference between diversity and inclusion. The Tonys. And the answer to this comes in the form of Ali strokeers when, when she won the best actress for Oklahoma, because diversity said that oh congratulations the first wheelchair user ever in Broadway is 120 year history to ever win best actress congratulations. And they had this woman in a wheelchair and don't get me wrong I was thrilled, absolutely thrilled that she won, but inclusion would have had her on the floor with the rest of her cohort. So she could get her flowers and her applause by her coworkers as she won what they did was they had her backstage just in case she got the award outside ostracized apart from her community. And, and when she won they like it was like, they didn't, you would think that the that the people who built the stage would have thought. We have a wheelchair user who is up for the highest award of the night. We should put a ramp here just in case, which they did for the Oscars, and many of my friends were in the Crip Camp premiere for the Oscars and I was thrilled that the Oscars in its 93 years, finally added a gorgeous to their stage. I'm like now. Yes. I mean it was I was thrilled, but to see Ali Stroker I was furious when she won because I was happy that she won but it felt so cheap to watch her be behind the curtain and then they had to take the podium out and like they had to do all these things to move it. And then you know she was there her beautiful yellow gown, and I just thought. This is moonlight. This is moonlight and La La Land all over again, but it's not going to get nearly the same attention or respect that it deserves because she's just a disabled girl, and everybody here is going to clap and think oh my god good for her. So the bottom line is whoever designed that stage should be fired, whoever designed that show should be fired. And I don't care how people feel about it because that's the difference the people who run the show and make the decisions don't know the difference. Maddie pointed out people, you know the difference is power, the difference is agency. And so the difference is the people who can actually say no this stage should be built like X and why there should be closed captions available at all times. It should not be a one off just in case someone is here because it makes our show feel better. And that's just how I see it. Andrea, do you want to add something. Sure, thank you. I just want to say amen before you drop in. Amen, amen, please now. Let me take my sip right now. I think I'd like to add that so many times diversity is used to think more about race and culture. And it really can includes also different identities different lived experiences. Different perspectives and backgrounds. And diversity is really just one component, like everyone else is saying on this panel. It doesn't really mean much by itself. I mean, sometimes you hear EDI. Well, actually, you hear that a lot. That really means that they all have to go together and accessibility should be included in there. So inclusion needs accessibility. You can't have inclusion without accessibility. And when I think of inclusion. I tend to think more about what is usually called subjective social inclusion. Where it's about a feeling of belonging. And it means that there's both acceptance, empowerment, respect and equality. All in there. And so it's some it makes it somewhat harder to identify inclusion when it is a feeling. That's really what is necessary. It's necessary to do more than just make it look like there's inclusion. Which is like going back to the Tony awards. It looked like the inclusion, it was not. So just adding my two cents there. I agree with what the three of you have shared. I don't even know where to start. I have been fighting for, I can't even for countless years. For more than, I'd probably say for more than 10 years I have been with this battle. To understand a week truly a part of the community. Are we actually here and fighting for us to be casted. Because our generation wants to see us. They want to see icons and role models like us. And there's, I mean, some of us have intersectionality that's at work. In addition to our disabilities. And that needs to be seen as well. So many of us are dealing with, for instance, racism. And we have to think about how racism is, is quite critical. It absolutely is. Racism is prevalent racism is out there. It is something that is at the depth of the iceberg. It's real. And it does require unpacking of such. We also have autism as well. The ability to speak or not speak the ability to hear or not hear. And we see those kinds of oppressions happen, especially within black and brown and indigenous individuals. There are individuals within the black and brown and indigenous communities that also have disabilities. But again, how rarely do we see us. How rarely are we casted. How often do we see our stories on stage. Count. Do we see us. I mean, I can count on one hand. I can count on one hand and we need to see more. We don't have time to wait. We don't have time to sit back on our laurels. It is time now. It is time that we have the opportunities just like each and every other one out there. It is our opportunities for equity is now. It's time for us heard. It is time for us to have the limelight. So I'm just thinking, what are we waiting, what is the audience waiting for? What are the Tonys waiting for? What are they out there waiting for? Because I mean, we've been here waiting for over 400 years. And are we supposed to be waiting for another 20 years to fall on deaf ears? All right, come on now. Absolutely not. If I can add to this, I just wanted to add. So this, this is reminding me so much of when I was in college, I was a theater major. Oh, go ahead. It's time for us individuals who have disabilities for our stories and our voices and our presence to be seen. For sure. We have to be out there. I was just going to say, I, when I was in college, I had a. So I was just trying to finish my story because I was just getting right up over here. My brother for sure. No, no, I just wanted to add, like you said, like, so what are people waiting for? I will never forget when I was in college and I, you know, to your point, I am a very proud out queer man who also has cerebral palsy who is also black. And people, people just immediately are like, Oh my God, your life must be so trash. Like it must be so hard. And I'm like, it's hard because you make it hard. I don't feel that way. And case in point. I was in college. The RC speak the truth. I was trying to be in theater. I wanted to be a theater major. And because I loved theater, I love Broadway, love acting. And the Dean. Was like, no, because the classes were on third floor. They didn't have an elevator. And, and, you know, it, it would have been fine for him to just be like, unfortunately, we're unable to accommodate this request. Like that would have been the diplomatic way to handle the situation. But he decided that he was going to be real 100 with me. And, you know, came downstairs and was just like, you know, look, they don't, he's like, Broadway doesn't hire people like you. He was like, I can do a scene much faster. If I just cast up a person and move on. And so because he said that. I felt like, I'm going to be honest when I only stroke her one. It made me, I got so many messages from all my friends that was like, you know, you should be up there. That should have been you. I'm like eight years younger than her. And like my friend was like, that should have been you, but I was like, I'm not sure how you can handle that. But you know, I just internalized the message I got from this Dean that like I just wasn't worth it. And so I threw all of that away for many years. And it was because I was told by another director in musical theater department. Well, you know, you just have to wait for the right director with vision. Is what I was told. So as it has nothing to do with me. I had to find a director with vision. assuming that Brad Pitt isn't gonna save us all with his executive producing superpowers, like the bottom line is there just isn't enough people who are willing to do what you're asking. It's like, yeah, we wanna do this and yeah, we want the stories. But the bottom line is it's the people who are in power who have to want to make that happen because half the time if we're doing it, it falls on groups of people who don't wanna hear what we have to say. So I just wanna throw that in there and say that it's not all us like it's, cause there are plenty of people who want to tell the stories and wanna do the work. But I'm gonna just be honest, every single Negro spiritual and Negro published work in the world has a white publisher. Harriet Tubman's master was white. Frederick Douglass's publisher was white. Halle Berry is half white and she's the only black woman to ever win an Oscar. So let's be honest, there are always gatekeepers and people attached who have to do the work cause half the time that's what being a minority is. That's what being underrepresented is. You can beat on the door all you want but unless somebody is there to open it, it's not gonna work. The DRC, that's absolutely, that's right. And I actually was just thinking that any of you wanna add to the DRC's comment and you wanna say something? Any of you? Andrea or Maddie? Hi, how are you? Thank you. If you don't mind. I'd just like to say that I think part of the problem is that there isn't really statistical data out there and without that statistical data that measures representation is harder to hold the theater industry accountable and say, look, this is how much representation we have and this is totally unacceptable. So I think one practical strategy to trying to hold the gatekeepers accountable is that there needs to be a statistical data or more statistical data. A great white paper was put out by the Ford Foundation that was written by Ritt Judy Heumann. It's called Roadmap to Inclusion and it does a great job in looking at disability to representation in media, TV and film, but there isn't really anything similar in theater right now and I think that's a major gap that we need to fill. Andrea, you make a really good point. However, you can't tell the individuals with disabilities and deaf individuals are very low in terms of numbers, especially within black and brown and indigenous communities, those who have disabilities, they're actually the lowest in terms of data. That can be seen through the theater community, through the film community, in terms of conversations that are out there, you can actually see the work and then you can actually count. Well, how many times have you seen BIPOC individuals with disabilities on TV? How many times have you seen them in films? I mean, it's not very often that you actually see an individual who is either deaf or has ability and you have to think maybe what, every five years you'll see a person that's deaf or has a disability and it's kind of the same story again and again. There isn't much difference. I mean, why can it happen monthly? Why can it happen every week? I mean, there are stories that are out there to be told and there needs to be an awareness and the opportunities that are given to us to welcome us to the community and not just completely excluding us and our stories and also erasing us from history. That's also simultaneously happening. We are part of history. We are currently making history and our stories need to be told so they are documented in history. That's valid and that's real and that needs to be, again, documented in history. I wanna feel empowered. I want us to feel that we are creating a space for our next generation to have inspiration and to have goals and ideology to say, oh, look, I can become an actor if I have a disability or if I'm of the black and brown communities and just looking at us tonight and how such a cornucopia of backgrounds we have tonight, different identities, crime, death, and everyone else here has their own particular disability. So it's nice to see that variety and our goal is to promote more of that. I feel like I'm talking too much, guys. Let me, you know what? Let me put a pause on the talking and turn it over to the next person that has a question for everyone. I'm gonna tag in because everything that we've been talking about in this moment feels so timely, especially in regards to the ways that we talk about the ways that our identities intersect and thinking about ways that we can celebrate the work that we do and just jumping off the points that the three of y'all have made. Something that really resonated as we were just having this conversation is the language of having to fight and always having to fight against institutional and systemic issues. And something that for me that I find really important that the work that I do is finding joy in the ways that my intersectional identities exist and the way that I navigate and move through the world. If all I did was focus on fighting, I would be even more exhausted that I already am on any given basis. And it is, as we've been talking about, we need this representation for folks coming up in the theater industry and in storytelling beyond just the work that we all do. So something that I have a question about for all y'all is how do you celebrate your identities and the way that you move through the world in the work that you do, whether it's through advocacy or in the creative work that you do, what brings you joy about the intersection of disability and storytelling and fighting for more access and representation. So if I can start this, it's just when you said this, it just reminded me. So a lot of people are just like, wait, you got to be Ursula? Yes, yes I did. And in front of like thousands and thousands and thousands of people, I used to sing with the DC Gaymans Chorus for seven years and we got a commission from Disney and their lawyer was right in the front row with all of the lyrics to make sure we didn't mess anything up. And they told us that the show only had one solo which was Poor Unfortunate Souls. I had to fight 400 gay men for the role of this one solo. And in answer to your question, it's like, how did I get the solo? And this also ties into the academic work that I do. So I'm trying to, as a person growing up who is also, I don't think that people understand and I take this back to what EJ said earlier. People don't understand it because people don't see it. The black community acts like disabled folks don't exist. And if you see them, it's trauma-based only. I lived in DC for 13 years and for the first seven years, every week people would come up to give me money out of nowhere. I'd be minding my business in a three-piece suit and someone would literally shove money in my face because the only time you ever interact with black disabled people is trauma. That's the only way people understand it. So I do this work where I'm trying to coin this new word and if y'all know it, y'all can credit me. So the word I'm talking about is called Afrofantasm because I'm trying to bring together this concept of not only being black and invisible and disabled but using that as a weapon to get what you want in the case of Ursula, I knew that there were no other disabled people in that chorus. And I also knew that, you know, as a black person, I know that song very well. I love it and I love to do it with sass. So I made my wheelchair act like it was tentacles and in the audition, I completely destroyed that audition. And like the director was just like, wow. And so I was told that in order to do the role, I had to do full drag, which I've never done in my life. It was like seven hours of makeup every day. And they had a huge ballroom gown that they put over my wheelchair. So you couldn't even see it. Like it literally the way it was designed, you know, it was like tentacles everywhere because we got the budget from Disney. So they put me in this gorgeous costume with this makeup and for me to do the performance, I had a smoke machine underneath my chair. And it was epic. It was epic. And the only way that I was able to pull that off, like in my mind, I had to just keep telling myself, like you are the only person who could have actually done this justice in this way. Because everyone else that is doing it is gonna do it the way that they know based off something that they didn't see. Ain't nobody seen me. We don't exist. So they don't know what I can bring to the role. And like that is for me is how you answer this question. Like you have to take into consideration that like you and your experience is very particular and very singular. And so when you use that in conjunction to whatever people are asking you for, it creates an entirely different experience that some people will be ready to receive. And, you know, that's the reason I mean, I love playing Audrey too. The plan, oh my God, it was so fun. And you know, I just, but I was in my chair the whole time, I was actually one of the bums on skid row and I literally was malting throughout the show. I was like growing leaves becoming a mutant plant until I became the puppet. And so, you know, you just have to give, you have to come with your own version of it and combine it with what people already have. I mean, part of it does require you to have something ready to go. You have to want it and be thinking about it in advance. Cause when it's show time to speak and the mic comes to you, you gotta have something to say. But at the same time, you know, it's also being, it's just knowing that like, yes, I want to do this. And I'll stop talking, but I just wanted to say, I saw a crib camp and there was a quote in there that I will never forget. The man said, if you are disabled and a wallflower in this world, you will be eaten. And he said that in the 70s with Judy Heumann at that camp, because those are the people who turned around and made the 504 sit-ins that brought us the ADA. So he is absolutely correct. Like in order for it to be in this industry to do what you do, it requires a certain level of bravado that I feel like able-bodied people quite frankly just don't have. Either you bring it or you don't. And if you do half the time, people are like, oh shit. So, you know, I think that's how you do it. That's the joy, that's the power, that's the work. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, DRC you're right, mm-hmm. You know, for me, in terms of finding my joy, to find my joy, I would have to say through my experiences and the dramaturg experience. Having the character, having my own experience and having those intertwined to show an authentic appearance. Also upholding integrity, of course. But it's interesting thinking about the concept of integrity. So I can show my audience or show our audience. Okay, that actor is telling a story through someone that perhaps the audience member has never seen before. So I leave behind them food for thought. So that particular actor playing that role is telling a story through that lens. And that's actually what makes that character different than others. How that character is played, it makes them unique. As opposed to what's been normalized, it's nice to see something that's different. It's nice to see different normalized. Because we are here, we are the norm. And I want to represent my story. I wanna represent my communities. And I wanna share my love as well with the audience and everyone partaking in that particular show. That is what I wanna share. I want us to feel that we're human, right? So that's my joy. Yeah, I just wanted to ask really quickly. Since we're talking about the different types of characterization on stage and the kind of ways that character would work, I just wanted to know like, obviously I was just talking about the way that I was doing Ursula. But for you all and maybe Andrea, I'll start with you. If you were Brad Pitt with unlimited money and you could come in and do whatever you wanted, you could executive produce whatever show you wanted. What would disability representation look like for you? Like if it were done right, like what do you think that would even look like? Because for me, I have this whole thing about like, I had the very good fortune of being in a production of Tommy, the Who's Tommy, that was all in ASL. And it was gorgeous. And everybody had to learn ASL, the whole crew, all of the cast and the everybody. Our sets were designed so that at no point would you ever not see someone signing. So it wasn't just the person in a box from the side of the stage, you could look at it. Yes, yes. But we took that in mind. I mean, their sight lines were become a huge thing. So we designed the set that way and the whole cast had to do this. But it was- And before I need to interrupt, just to be honest with you, deaf people want that. They wanted that. Sure, I mean, yeah. I imagine that having subtitle boxes at the bottom of a screen is not optimal. Because I know, like I said, as a wheelchair user, I went to see Ragtime and couldn't even see Summertime. She was at the top of the third floor of the Ford Theater and I was so, I was craning my neck like, what, this is my song that I can't even see. Cause they didn't care about sight lines the way that theater is designed. So, yeah, we try to think about that. So that's the question that I have for you all. What does it look like? Like what does proper representation in theater look like to you? And like I said, Andrea, I'll start with you. Sure, thank you, Dorsey. So first I wanna say that I find the most joy in supporting and helping disabled playwrights. And so my idea of representation is really a creative team that includes the representation that we're trying to achieve on stage. And I would say that like the best experience I've had on production was mostly disabled people on the creative team working on that. And there was like a Dazzle, a director of artistic sign language. And so it was such a refreshing process to work with other artists who had similar experiences and also very different experiences. So for me, representation really has to take access to a new level. It has to, representation can't just stop on stage with what you see. It has to be throughout the process. That's the time of representation that I'd love to see. So any thoughts, Mary? I think what you named specifically in regards to access is so key. And something that really resonated is similarly the best experiences that I've had have often been with working with creative teams that are made up of mostly disabled people. And to me, thinking about what the future of representation of disability and storytelling can look like in the future also requires a huge overhaul of the administrative side of things as well. So who's in the room casting? Who are the casting directors? What spaces are being utilized? Are your, how are your designers engaging with access? It's one thing to focus on representation in stories themselves. And I think that that of course is extremely important and I'm not discounting or trying to separate the two. It requires a full overhaul of the way that we think about access and the ways that different identities intersect in the way that we think about access. So what might be accessible for one group might not be the same for others but thinking about ways to navigate strategies and ways of designing, directing, acting and dramaturgy that allow the widest range of access for the most amount of people. To me, that is what the future of disability storytelling should look like. And hearing about the work that people are doing to make that happen is what brings me a lot of joy and brings like a high amount of passion to the work. And sort of just tying back into what you all have been talking about in regard to joy seeing those changes being made and knocking on the door and making those changes happen is what's necessary for us to achieve that. So if I had my Brad Pitt moment as DRC suggested that would be my first thing is start from the beginning who is in the room when the decisions are being made and how does that affect the rest of the process? But yeah, that's my number one thing is how are we making that equitable clear across the board? But I'll tag in EJ for any thoughts on that too. Oh, but DRC, I'll cut you off. No, I just wanted to add really quickly. No, I think when people talk about access, so they think that you mean the boring part like who's in charge of casting? Like that's not necessarily what I mean. I was thinking like in my head, you know, I mean, I have a story that I've always wanted to write that I would love to put on the stage about a wheelchair user that's like literally surviving a zombie apocalypse because and in my mind, like it would require like, you know how theaters have those long aisles? I like in my mind, I literally envision like a chair user like crawling down the long aisle like fighting off monsters on the floor. Because if this were real, that's what I would do. And like people, but the thing is like, I find it hilarious that we work in an industry of imagination and yet people cannot imagine making use of the whole space and different levels. Like I, you know, in my mind, I was like, yes, there will be pyrotechnics in this show because I would have WD-40 and a lighter in my pocket if zombies were coming for me. So you would see flames. Like it would be a whole production. And like people can't even bring in their minds what that would look like. They're just like, oh, that, I mean, I mentioned it to some people and they were like, oh, that's too much. Why? Why is that too much? And I'm just like, why is it too much for you to envision like an actual wheelchair? You thought that just because I said chair user that I was gonna be in the chair the whole show, I'm not in the whole chair my whole day. So like the hope, like that's not, and the idea is that people just don't have the mindset. So when I want to just expand this idea of access to include like physically what that actually looks like one stage like in the work, like in the stories and not necessarily like just who can come to the, you know, the casting calls because that is also very important. Who's directing, who's writing all that kind of stuff. I mean also the physical work on stage because that we need help with that too. But yes, EJ, please. Yes, yes, absolutely. I wanna share this little anecdote. I just have to share this story. I was teaching, you know, at a deaf school, the horseman school here in Boston is in Austin. They just celebrated their 150 year anniversary. So, you know, I did a little research on the school. I did a little research on Austin and I was teaching. And you know, there was a production that was going to be happening and we had an audition and the audition was open to some deaf children. Deaf children with more than one identity. Some of them also had disabilities. And so I was teaching a little bit of acting to help them prepare for the audition. And the children were very inspired, very excited. And I, you know, I said, you guys are ready for the audition. You're ready. One girl eased up her hand and I said, yes. It was a Latina little girl. And she asked me, you said, anyone can audition? And she said, I don't think I can audition. And I said, why do you think you can audition? And she said, because the theater won't let someone with cerebral palsy in. I looked at her and I said, where did you get that idea from? Where did you get that idea? The word you are not allowed. Where did you get that idea? I said, let's hold on one minute. You are going to audition. You have something special. You have something to show. Everyone can audition, even you. And she said, really? And I said, yes, you will audition. And I told her, I will be right there on the day that you audition. So she actually went to the audition. She decided to sign up. She auditioned. I saw her audition. I asked her how she felt. She said, oh my goodness, I was so nervous. And I said, that's good, that's good. She was so excited. She said, thank you for making me audition. One week later, she got cast for the production. And she was so excited. And do you know where she is now? At Gallaudet University. Majoring in theater. This is a young Latina girl who's deaf and has cerebral palsy, who was told that she was not allowed to be in the theater. And I told her, you are welcome. You are welcome in the theater. And don't let anyone tell you differently. You are needed on stage. And that's the solution right there. Let me take another step. Yeah, I'd just like to say that that is exactly one of the important points about representation. The younger people need to see that on stage. They need to have someone encouraging them. And that's what representation can do. Yes, yes, absolutely. Sorry, even just thinking about it makes me very emotional. Sometimes we just feel so tired of fighting, but like we say, we have to find that joy. And that was a moment of joy. And that kind of joy removes barriers. It's so powerful. It's like fire and it builds and it grows and it deepens your passion. A love for humanity, recognizing our shared humanity. I'm telling you, thinking about all of it, it just fills me up. I just get so emotional. Somebody else take the floor because I'm just overwhelmed right now. No, no, for sure. I think that that's such an amazing thing to bring up. And you changed that girl's life. I wish to God that somebody had grabbed me in college. I wish somebody had grabbed me in undergrad and had been like, don't listen to that. Like nobody said that. Nobody was there to counter the negativity of the Dean when he told me that I shouldn't do it. Because if they hadn't, I probably would be in NYU right now. But that said, but this is also like what you're talking about is a lot of it pertains into this idea of, that's kind of why I do the work that I do, studying Afrofuturism as I do. Because Afrofuturism says that, it's the marginalized people that are in the middle. For a long time, everyone has always been on the edge. Everyone has always been on the outside. And there's this understanding that difference, when you say difference, they mean different from white. They mean different from European. Like that's what that means. And so this is why I do the work that I do with Afrofuturism because that is erased. Chadwick Boseman, rest in peace. When he said, he was talking about how when Black Panther was built, that was like Black Panther is the first mainstream Afrofuturist movie ever. And the argument was, apparently they wanted them all to have British accents. And him and Lupita Nyong'o were like, absolutely not. And the director was just like, the people at Marvel were just like, but why not? It's so sophisticated and refined. And Lupita Nyong'o was just like, because Wakanda is invisible. Europe has never found it. Europeans have never been here. They've never set foot in this place. We don't know what English sounds like because they've never been here. That's right. So for you to suggest that is offensive. And they were like, that's why everybody in here will have nappy hair. Everybody's skin will be dark. I mean, I give props to Amanda La Steinberg who turned down the role of Princess Shree before it went to Leticia Wright because Amanda La Steinberg recognized that an entire cast of dark-skinned people should not be upended by light-skinned privilege. And she declined the role and it went to what we now know as a teacher, right? So, but even with Amanda La's idea, she recognized, she saw that she could not be in the way of a movement. I'm not saying that she wasn't deserving that she didn't deserve to be there. Of course she does. She blacked too. She deserved to be there too. But she also understood the power of colorism and the fact that light-skinned privilege is a thing and that for hundreds of years, light-skinned people have gotten privileges that dark-skinned people don't. And so this is what the kind of stuff that I wanna apply and the idea of the things that I wanna talk about in relation to disability and the recognition that people presumably playwrights have this responsibility to recognize the difference and to actually do the work, not just say that, oh, it would be lovely if we did. No, like, so I'm gonna pass this question to Andrea. I'm just like, you know, cause we gotta talk about the work that the playwrights are supposed to do, like what their version of it is. Thank you, Gersit. Yeah, I think that playwrights are so important to the future of theater and what they can do to actually begin the processes to plant the seeds of access within their work, to bring in ideas about, like you're saying, like colorism and to actually responsibly address our intersectional identities. I've been thinking a lot about how we can think about accessibility at the beginning and write it into the work that we're doing and then by doing so that it really becomes a central tenant that is upheld throughout the development and production process. So that means that accessibility is really a key idea even in rehearsals. We are thinking about human beings in rehearsals. And how exciting would that be? And so that can look like incorporating sign language into the place, incorporating audio description, incorporating captioning. And it's important also to note that doing that means incorporating deaf and disabled people into the creative team. So getting away from the idea that the playwright needs to be this solitary genius in the inaccessible attic, we don't have to do that anymore. We can actually consider different ways to show sensory overload besides using lights and sound which are likely to trigger performers or audience members. So who is it actually written for if that's what you're doing? And that can also mean like even in the writing, are you thinking about the disabled character and planning for their access needs, not writing a 60-second quick change because that's not gonna happen properly for like a wheelchair user. We just, that doesn't go so well. So I'd love to hear all your thoughts about how we can responsibly do this and incorporate access into work to start responsible representation in the future at theater. So anyone have thoughts, Darcy? Do you wanna start? I can, yeah, I just wanted to add, I mean, as you were talking, I was thinking, the idea is that for black disabled people, recognizing, so like when you're in the future, when we're in all work, recognizing that, so while things shouldn't be trauma-based, you also can't forget about intersectionality because the reality is the way in which I experienced my blackness has everything to do with having cerebral palsy. And I always tell people from the age of seven to 17, the first time I met any white person, the first thing out of their mouth from the age of seven to 17, when they saw me in a wheelchair was, oh my God, were you shot? Where were you shot? That's just the understanding of young black people in wheelchairs because the mind immediately goes to gang violence or that I was doing something inappropriate that I shouldn't have been doing. The bottom line is I'm not saying that you build an entire narrative off of that, but to not include it is disingenuous to my experience as a person who has grown up. So understanding that it is because I was both of these things that I became the person that I am and that when you write characters that are based on this understanding, taking both of these things into consideration, it requires a deeper understanding of intersectionality, not just surface level ideas that you hire a diversity firm to bring you. It's actually hiring people as consultants, talking to them, having interviews and things like that. So that's definitely I think a responsible way that future playwrights could learn how to do their craft better. I'm gonna pass it to Eja. Yes, I agree. I agree with you 100% DRC. I encourage deaf and disabled persons to write your own material, to be directors, to be stage designers, lighting designers. We need more BIPOC people in those fields. I can't emphasize more enough. It's so important. We should not feel excluded from the black community. We are black. Whatever our identity is, we are also black. We are with you. We are supporting you. We are advocates for each other. We have one goal, a common goal. And we all need to remember that. I think that's it for now. I'll hold my other thoughts and I'll pass it on. This is Talarie just offering us all a reminder that we are about nine minutes away from our ending time for this panel. I wanna remind audience members that if you have questions, you can drop those into the chat. You can send them directly to the Playwrights realm in the chat or you can send them to the panelists. But panelists, go ahead and keep this conversation going. I will jump back in if we get a really juicy question. So I wanna get a consensus from the panelists. I know that there are a couple of panelists that still need to finish answering this question. So I'll reserve the remainder of my comments to give other panelists a chance to answer this question as well. I think that the three of y'all answered this question with such clarity and grace that I have nothing else to add. I mean, y'all hit the nail on the head in regards to the work that needs to be done. And like I've emphasized throughout, I think that celebrating the joy and finding those moments in the work is key. And the strategies and suggestions that y'all have names are a ways to do that work. And to me, that's the key. Thank you. We did get one question in the chat. EJ, would you like to share the question or do you want me to do it? Either one. Yes, I'll sign the question. What would you say to organizations who believe that anti-racism work and anti-ableism work need to be done separately from one another? What would you say to those organizations? I would be like, excuse me, let me go ask the black half of myself how I feel about this and then I'll follow up with the disabled half and I'll get back with you. Straight up. Like, if we are operating from an understanding of the ways that our identities intersect in a socio-political lens, there is no way to do one work without doing the other. The process needs to consider how our disabilities are racialized and how our race is also disabled and thinking about the ways that our identities combine. You can't do the work without one. You have to understand how people navigate through the world and consider how that affects the way that they do their work. Amen. Yes. That is it. We've been talking about this for an hour and a half. You need to consider it. There is no other way. I just wanted to extend on what Maddie is saying. The real problem is that people do not believe that disability counts. Like, they believe that, because you would never say that. Look, I just want to point out, and I might be real controversial, but oh well. I find it really, really interesting that President Biden signed an anti-Asian hate bill today at the White House, but we can't get an anti-lynching bill passed through Congress, and it ain't come through yet. And Black folks been waiting, but yet that flew through Congress very quickly. So that just tells me that the United States, due to the model minority myth, because they believe that Asian people are so valuable and they provide so many things to the United States. They do all this work and give us all of our tech and all of the most important things that we need, that that's really important, whereas Black people are just not worth it. I feel like that's the underlying current that comes across. Similarly, asking a question like this in the same kind of way, it suggests that A, you can separate the two out, but B, that embodiment is not worthy of a discussion. This is why we have Black pride and disability pride get scoffed at. The idea that someone can be happy in the body and the corporeal form that they inhabit and be fine. People cannot wrap their minds around this concept. So until they can, this will continue to be an issue for people in the industry, because they, you know, but the bottom line is you need to understand that when you get up in the morning, your bathroom doesn't care. That's what I've been saying for many years. I'm sorry to interrupt, but yes, yes. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's the truth. You got me stirred up because, yes, I applaud anti-racism. It's absolutely necessary, but we still need to go deeper. There are layers. And anti-abolism is one of those layers. You cannot do one work without the other. You know what? Let's not, let's not confuse. Let's not, let's not get confused here. Let's just make sure there's no confusion and I want to be very clear. You're either with us or you against us, period. So let me, let me back up and say it clearly. So let's, you know, I'm a black person. We are black people. So the disability community or the gray community or the trans community cannot exclude us as black people. So I'm with you, DRC. You can't be excluding people who have differences within your own community. Trans black people. I don't care if you're black. I don't care if you're Latin X. I don't care if you're Asian. We need to be fighting together to the full extent, both anti-racism and anti-abolism. BIPOC, Deaf Disabled Community. You have Andrea here. You have Maddie here. You have DRC here. We are representations of our generation. And our generation needs to have people that they can look up to within the context of their intersectionality. In a sense, it needs to be that we are not special. I'm telling you, please, let me not get on my soapbox, but that's what I have to say. It can't be either or let me take a sip. Let me take another sip. Thank you so, so much, EJ, and to all of the panelists for sharing your time and your minds with us tonight. We are coming to the conclusion of our time, but I just want to express so much gratitude to you all, to the rest of the team, our interpreters, our caption, our stage manager, and just deepest thanks. This is so much bigger than a single conversation, and the end of our time tonight is not the end of this. We have so, so much work to do. Thank you for sharing yourselves with us tonight. If you are joining via Zoom, you will receive a follow-up email, but feel free to send any comments and questions to us at community at playwrightsrealm.org. Thank you again, everyone, for joining us.