 Good morning Can you hear me? Good morning, folks. Thank you Welcome back. I hope everyone had a good night last night. Yeah, good How many people met someone new at the opening reception last night? Yay Awesome. Thank you. I hope that continues. I hope there's a lot of open space For people to continue to make connections chat and meet new people So thank you for that openness. Just a couple of really quick Housekeeping announcements, and then we'll we'll get on with our day So many of you are using the app. Thank you for that Our goal is to not have a printed program next year. We're trying to be more environmentally conscious and modern and And so we're gonna go with an app next year So if you haven't already downloaded it if you could and start playing with it and let us know what works What doesn't work? That would be great. We've noticed one little glitch If you click on the schedule some of the PD sessions from this afternoon haven't The connection hasn't been made with the descriptions So there's two places to access that information if you go to the professional development Tab and click on it all of the sessions all of the locations come up You'll notice that there's a nice little pop-up interactive map So when you click on a session, it'll tell you where in the building the session is as well So don't just click on the schedule part because you might miss some of the sessions So that's today's announcement for most of today where we're in this this lovely building Tomorrow as everyone knows in the afternoon, we're going to meet them Meachem is about an hour bus ride. So just to prepare you now tomorrow We're all gonna get on buses and we're gonna go to meet you once we're in Meachem. We're in Meachem So whatever you need for the afternoon, I used to run camp. So I'm talking to you like can't children now Whatever you need in Meachem, you must take with you Okay, it's a very small town. There is not an ATM in on every corner the bar at Dancing sky is cash only that's not debit. That's not tap. That's not That's cash like yeah, so if you want to buy anything at the bar tomorrow bring cash Okay Also The days are quite warm. The evenings are quite cool. So I would bring layers And I'm gonna talk to you like can't kids make sure your name is in the back. So when you lose that You know who's it is? Okay? That's it for my announcements. Have a great day. I'm now gonna turn it to Nina and Mike. Thank you It's a great pleasure to be here this morning and introducing this year's speaker Marcus Yusef Retter director performer creator producer artistic director the breadth of this artist's work has transcended upon us for many years and Outside of as many accolades. He continues to be an integral pillar in our Canadian theater landscape promoting and advocating for the consistent representation of marginalized voices as well as this continuous building of bridges between communities is just a glimpse into Marcus's profound legacy and mark in our national ecology I first met Marcus while studying at Concordia University in Montreal And he was knee-deep in the growth of the new world theater but I was privileged enough to witness his death and understanding of many forms of theater and its relationship to the Canadian landscape in an educational setting Looking back almost 15 years ago. I remember being in awe of his care His passion and devotion to the art And the love he shared in provoking thought and passing knowledge to a new generation of practitioners I remember him to be an intense yet approachable Advent but kind and more profoundly I was in awe of his dedication to continued learning and growth as an artist and as a human being In which his life's evolution fed the work and vice versa I don't have to go into detail about his career achievements. You can see that for yourself on the app And reading his bio Many of his works continue to receive international claim which speak to the global universality of his artistic message But even in his bio his impact is modestly outlined Marcus is a child of theater He is persistent and consistent in his quest to ensure that all voices are given space and given his spotlight That is not just a checkbox for him. It is his life's work And he continues to Challenge the definition of what that means for himself as an artist a producer and as a human being But most of all he doesn't care for the status quo He assumes that in order to engage in conversations from coast to coast to coast About the evolution of theater who gets to play how one gets to play one has to challenge The parameters in which all people get to explore those questions And fully dive into the murkiness of the unknown for the sake of opening possibility This year As we all come together to embolden our power Underline our uniqueness and celebrate our collective will to build the kind of theater in our country that reflects every person I'm so happy to introduce as our keynote speaker for the pat 2019 conference the multifaceted powerful and determined mr. Marcus Thank you Just look at the set everybody I did want to be on the the wheel. I thought that would be Fun. Thank you, Mike. Um, that's uh, really really uh, super kind of you But for the record, uh, I actually am quite a slave to the status quo. So, uh, so just put that out there. Um, so Uh, 9 15 a.m. My favorite time for a keynote Good thing everybody was in bed by 10. Um I myself slept like a colicky baby. So, uh, Sorry just before I start, um Are there are there some kind of negotiations going on right now? Sorry between packed and uh Equity right, okay My note here says riff if you want, but i'm not going to. Um, so yes As Mike said, I'm Marcus. You have on the playwright and artistic director of Vancouver's new world theater, which I have led Since 2005 and uh, as you can tell from my shaking, which I'm not acting Uh, I'm a little nervous Oh Go hide behind the wheel. Um Just about a year ago, kevin loring stood up here. Well, I'm not here in Ottawa in a very swanky room with a nice view theater is so weird And kevin spoke beautifully to the theme of last year's conference, which was as everybody remembers the future of storytelling And as most of us, I think remember pretty well. It was an extraordinary speech About the precise cultural moment that we are in A moment that kevin and lorry have put themselves so profoundly in service to As stewards of the national art center indigenous theater department Kevin's speech the future of storytelling is indigenous was as I know most of you already know A reminder of how complex this current moment is It was a deeply inspiring call to action And it was a nuanced vision of how each of us might stand in the center of the multiple histories that we all occupy often through no desire of our own and Through the work that we all do try to imagine a future that is at least somewhat a little bit richer Fuller more just and better sure sucks. They didn't get their heritage funding. Hey Sorry too soon too soon. Sorry But you know while I have a platform, um I think the heritage folks might be here. Are they here or is it too early? Yes. Hello. Welcome Welcome and to be clear. This is me talking. Okay, not kevin and lorry not them at all, but uh What's up? Come on like And And I know I know you agree and I know it's not you guys But one thought is just maybe try to get the minister to read kevin's speech if he hasn't might make a difference I don't know and also just you know to speak about myself for a second I really appreciate that the minister would get back to me about my letter, you know I spent a lot of time on it. So be great to get a response That was a joke, but anyway And now I stopped harassing you and thank you for being here And so this year it's my turn now Obviously this year's theme isn't the future of storytelling because we did that already and so As folks have already been told numerous times this year's theme I'm sorry. It's a work in progress It does it does make me laugh a little and I'm sorry I'm sorry, but in part that's because I got the call from boomer asking me to do this keynote exactly 11 days ago And boomer wherever you are, I'm sorry for saying that but it's the truth and you know me already so I figure you expected it And seriously boomer and ret and the whole patch team big round of applause for all the work that it's taken The funny the funny thing is Funny thing is and this is on me not those guys But it actually took me another four or five days to fully understand that work in progress wasn't just a way of saying Theme tba on the website So, you know, I figured I I didn't really need to write a speech, right? I thought I just you know bring some stuff think about things a little and just riff, you know, see what happens Is he joking? They ask themselves How long is this keynote slot again? Beware any conference with the theme work in progress Or Embrace it Because that's kind of what we always do right It's what I believe all of us in this room do best and what I would further argue that we in our little profession They actually have to offer the wider world our ability our willingness And the professional necessity for us to embrace whatever occurs It's the heart of our art form. It is for me the primary definite definition of play so for real a work in progress This conference as we have already heard and I hope we continue to hear takes place on treaty six territory home of the kree And probably other nations About which I had no idea no clue at all until I looked it up on the internet three days ago It is also not long after the prime minister of this country more or less fired This country's first ever indigenous minister of minister of justice judy wilson rebo Despite the fact that our prime minister made reconciliation with ten of these indigenous peoples Along with electoral reform remember that everybody a central component of his government's mandate And it won't all be this political I promise but indigenous reconciliation A work in progress And in my view the whole liberal government debacle slash meltdown happened in part Because that first ever indigenous minister of justice Refused to do something which has more or less been considered business as usual for a very long time That is to find a quiet way to help a big canadian corporation Avoid prosecution for bribing a murderous dictator in a reason of the world my family is from Where western governments and corporations have been bribing murderous dictators in exchange for access to their resources For a very long time indeed And again, I want to be this political But it's almost as if the prime minister and his people Didn't realize that if you invite folks who belong to groups who may have been systematically excluded from the circles of majority power That might they might I should say actually try to change how things get done It almost could make you or I should say it did make me Suspicious that the prime minister's much-wanted dedication to reconciliation Not managed not to mention feminism Might be as much about electability and image as they are about ethics and conviction and If the liberal party loses the next election and the conservatives win And then implement some of the more regressive social policies that I think many of us fear they might I'll be very curious to see what happens to the powerful surge of attention All of us in this room have paid to the idea of reconciliation over the last honestly Not very many years Because if there's one thing that I've learned over the 15 years I've been running a small somewhat political indie producing company called new world fear It's that systemic change is always a work in progress And that we all of us are far more dependent on the winds blowing from those who control the levels of power i.e. Where we get our money Then we ever really want to admit And I believe that the real test of our commitment to whatever whatever it is that reconciliation might become Will be when the government of the day is not using it as part of a relatively painless Way to occupy the moral high ground and consolidate the progressive vote It will come when the government of the day drops reconciliation As part of its political agenda It will come when the national arts center indigenous theater department is denied funding for the second year in a row By a government who has staked their moral and ethical claim to power on that reconciliation. Oh, sorry. Hang on. That just happened. Sorry This is the best theme I get to say whatever I want. It's all good, right work in progress. And you know what? I actually want to go back I kind of want to start again What are the great personal benefits that I have received or taken from our sector's recent attention to reconciliation And the ideas and agendas of our indigenous colleagues Is learning to speak about how each of us is fundamentally always a work in progress I've learned that that I really like it Especially in kind of quasi formal contexts when we introduce ourselves not just with our job titles But with a bit of a story about where and who we come from And how we all find ourselves in this place at this moment Vancouver based indigenous player at kim harvey Who made it kick ass hilarious first play called camlupa anybody play here at Persephone this season Tells me that theater maker linty lachance calls this present calls this presencing yourself as opposed to presenting Sharing how the stories of your ancestors and you collide So while I unquestionably speak to you now as a playwright and artistic director I also speak to you as a mixed race son of an egyptian immigrant father and middle-class american mother Someone who grew up across suburban north american suburbs long before mixed race was recognized as an actual thing I speak to you as one of globalization's beneficiaries For without globalization and its good Powell capitalism My father never would have gotten a foreign exchange scholarship to berkeley and boarded a jet plane that over the course of two days in 1960 flew him around the world to a brand new life in an utterly foreign culture Something that would have been close to unimaginable for human beings just 20 or 30 years before he did I speak to you as someone who met half his family the egyptian half for the first time six years ago At the age of 43 when I traveled to my father's home for the very first time speaking of ancestors I speak to you as someone who inherited a lot of his creativity my sense of humor and Tendency to shift disturb from his iconic classic rebellious deeply unhappy mother Who my partner amanda and I cared for through 15 years of her early onset alzheimer's While we raised our own young children and I tried to build a career as an artist These glimpses of mine and my family's stories Hopefully give you a clearer idea not of who I am but where I've come from They are stories which I bet Though unique for sure are also probably not that much different than the stories each of you brings with you into this room because I think it's undeniable that all of us Very much including those equity staff members. We've been bargaining with our all works in progress The product of rich complicated absurd tragic joyful and conflicting histories that do and don't make sense to us That is something I always try to remember particularly when I'm writing When I find myself in the midst of conflict Because I think our histories are important and I think they're even important in relationship To the big old shipstorm that is the current attempt to renegotiate the cta It's a work in progress much like I'd argue much of the theater ecology in this country might be in the midst of as much change as it has ever been Since the original decision by government through the candidate council to establish a theater culture in this country more than half a century ago I believe that the theater institutions that were set up 50 or so years ago were mandated to serve communities Which tended like most majority groups and through no fault of their own and some labor agreements too To be largely unaware that the shows they were making or to put it differently The performance rituals that they enacted and the values and organizational structures that defined them were not in fact universal but specific They were not inevitable But constructed A product of a particular time and place. They were not natural Or the norm but simply an expression of culture an entirely legitimate culture but also a singular one like any culture one among many And lest anyone think I'm now going to start taking a big jump. I can't believe I wrote that On poor old Williams Shakespeare And big musicals and the hundreds of thousands of majority white Canadian theater goers who love our Shakespeare festivals And the sound of music at Christmas. Let me assure you I am not. I went to high school in London, England I became a theater artist because of the years I spent at the Stratford youth festival doing workshops with hundreds of other young people Workshops led by Kenneth Branagh and Sisley Berry and Trevor Nun. I am writing a Christmas musical right now For the art club family wants to talk about it. I'm happy to In fact, I'm actually writing two Christmas musicals right now. Yes. I'm no dummy and I love them both unreservedly And 90 to 95 percent because I've already done one of the 30 to 40 thousand people who will see those musicals Will be white Just a fact, right And it's also kind of weird I always get kind of sweaty and a bit nervous when I use the word white In the presence of a group of white people or mostly white people in a way that I don't feel nervous When I say Asian or black or brown What's being to a group of folks who identify that way and if anybody can explain why this is I'm around till fronting morning Because white is the thing, right? It exists. It's not bad Not at all. In fact, as those who know me No, and as someone who grew up as the only brown kid for miles. I'm very into white people Like so into white people. I like you like I'm just saying let's not be afraid to use the words It's like if I should tell you I was sent to elite private schools in the uk and did not have to go into debt for university Or my rich dad helped us buy a house in Vancouver in 2005 Those are not my only identities But they're real And they matter And things are changing Pact has now for a while been led by theater makers who learned our trade outside of those older originally mandated institutions With majority white audiences And as everyone is very aware its current president Nina is a Filipino Canadian Its vice president Mike Payette is black Yes See I can do that. I'm allowed to do that. Oh the jokes we brown people get to make With no fear of retribution at all It's a purple I I deliberately did not make a joke about Nina But it matters because I think the cta negotiations taking place And in my hope that we will radically rethink the rules governing how we make theater in this country Is a work in progress that is attempting to reflect many of the profound changes that have been taking place not in our sector But in our society over the last generation When I was a kid in the 1970s mixed race was not understood to be an actual thing When the idea in the 1970s the idea of reconciliation was 40 years From entering our public consciousness In the 1970s the idea of a person in a wheelchair on stage was unimaginable So it's about time And it's really hard work And just for a second in recognition of that hard work I asked for another round of heart a big applause for our extraordinary friends on the pact negotiating team and Around for all the folks doing those negotiations on behalf of equity Please That's great Because let's let's let's remember what Mallory said that any so eloquently recounted last night were all people Inside of institutional structures. Yes, but surely the people apart is what matters And one of the reasons I think this process might be so challenging and I'm speaking about something I know absolutely nothing about which Matthew morrow new world's managing producer will tell you is kind of my stock in trade And what one of the reasons I think it might be so challenging is actually I think something that might echo Something that Ivan said to you yesterday, which is okay because Ivan hobble is not a bad guy to echo He designed the collaborative protocol that has guided 10 years of our space progress lab A four company administrative studio that has been the center for Vancouver indie theater community a center in the Community for a decade I believe the negotiation process might be so challenging in part because It's rituals and protocols And the pro that define the process that you all have been busting your butts on for the last two years Come to us directly from the history of industrial relations Didn't expect that to be an applause line, but sure It is a model born out of the brutal exploitation of factory workers in the 19th century And a subsequent organization of those workers into collective bargaining units an act of underclass solidarity That was treated as a criminal act met by 19th and 20th century industrial capitalists Governments and state security forces with brutal violence and repression It is the noble history of hard one of the hard one right to collective bargaining in this country fought and paid for In blood by workers resisting the oppressive exploitation of close to every waking moment of their lives on this earth They said try to turn it to 12 Sorry Work in progress But it is thinking about this history That helps me understand why when I open the cta I feel like i'm reading a list of every single shitty thing that's happened in canadian theater for the last 40 years It's like a shitty thing happened somewhere and there's 26 emails and seven committee meetings and the clause is added That is basically a translation of whatever real transgression took place into legalese and an attempt to guarantee that this Single shitty thing that happened one time in one place is never repeated by thousands of other people Many of whom know each other very well and have absolutely no relationship to that single shitty thing whatsoever It's oh so many of us great That's good because i'm only halfway through You can just tell me to stop okay if it goes on too long seriously actually, uh, it's a history It's a history that helps me understand why at magnetic north about 10 years ago I was asked to attend a meeting with caea folks equity folks in which the agreed upon protocol was impunity i.e. We could tell the truth about the ways in which we had done end rounds Or shafted the agreement that we thought were unavoidable given cta or ita protocols that were so labor intensive That it was patently unreasonable to ask any artist or organization that isn't structured like a corporation to comply with them kim harvey says playwright kim harvey indigenous playwright kim harvey says it's when one bad practice is universalized and turned into bad policy It's when a specific and individual is assumed to be universal The meeting at magnetic north was a good thing a helpful step a sign of flexible more responsive leadership at equity And I was grateful for the opportunity That we had I was grateful for the opportunity But we had to create a one time only special protocol in order to be honest not a good sign A not-good sign of a system born out of pain struggle and fear A model that assumes that exploitation is a fundamental value in our relationships to each other And it's also cultural it is a model that emerges from history and culture that is also singular not universal Constructed not inevitable one among many not the norm and then A new generation of artists and theater makers comes along Artists and theater makers from different cultures generations and aesthetics artists who work with non professionals black indigenous and artists of color Artists whose work is part performance part activism artists with disabilities artists who work whose work sometimes but not always centers the lives and experiences of those with histories and experiences Often but not always at the lower end of hierarchies of power and access histories and experiences That actually reflect a fuller range of the multiple cultures that inhabit the country we live in And many in this new generation are people whose histories and experiences have very limited connection to but don't negate those of the regional theater managing directors and pros makers or the workers of the winnipeg general strike in 1918 But the model they are asked to work with and suggests not deliberately But implicitly that the way that they want to make work either threatens the livelihoods of their fellow more traditional artists Or has somehow inherently exploitive of the very historically marginalized voices stories and people These new artists work is designed to amplify and empower Okay, sir if you want all seven if you go ahead and applaud this Was the ad hoc assembly ad hoc assembly everybody knows the ad hoc assembly, right? Yes This was the ad hoc assembly's response to a request from equity that they enumerate clause based concerns with a proposed agreement While we appreciate that clause based specificity is more tangible The labor of enumerating them has thus far not borne fruit We do not believe the answer lies in adding more clauses to a document that is already 200 plus pages We believe that the necessary shift is better located in the agreement's underlying philosophy The necessary shift is better located in the agreement's underlying philosophy So before I realized that work in progress was the actual theme for this conference I came up with a very long title for this keynote It is I think it's probably good that everyone's so pissed off or freaked out But are we really sure this is the house we want the keys to And as someone who runs an organization, I also know how fucking irritating the burn the house down argument is I actually don't think or I I think I don't think that this house should be burnt down All these histories are real on all sides and that the house were inside whether we like it or not And the circumstances of my life have meant that I am often straddling multiple contradictory histories Feeling like I'm neither one nor the other that I'm both inside and outside. It's the mixed race experience That's now an actual thing It's a very work in progress place to be both precarious and full of possibility Like all good art making A couple of years ago, Kevin Loring and I just gonna keep saying Kevin's name and I figure everything will go okay We're on a retreat for bc artists of color at Harrison hot springs We smoked a joint by Harrison Lake. It was actually the first real conversation Kevin and I had ever had I'm not sure what that anyway and talk We talked about family Kevin tried to explain to me what it meant to come from a single place One spot that your ancestors have been for hundreds or thousands of years And I tried to explain to him what it meant to have grown up moving every 18 months Be the son of a father whose culture is completely different than mine And having only met my family for the first time when I was 43 years old Very different histories colliding. There was no conflict or labor negotiation in that talk Just one of Kevin's really really strong joints And later a performance by Kevin of something I think he called indigenous dignity was not that actually but something like that Which was one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life But I was also very high The necessary shift Is located in the underlying philosophy It's the easiest thing to forget When you're under overworked and underpaid When you devote endless hours to an underappreciated under compensated labor of love as everyone in this room does or has It's so easy to forget That it's not about the remittance or whether the grant got in or what somebody else said about what somebody else said The only thing that gives us any real Perspective or agency in the maelstrom of details and unpredictability and emails coming at us 24 7 Whether we're in a boardroom or a rehearsal hall Is the underlying philosophy I think it's currently our most important maybe our only truly important work in progress And the good news is the shift in philosophy is already happening in so many places and I only know about a very few of them On page 10. There's only three more to go just so you know In the 1990s in vancouver a bunch of us were part of start starting companies But with the lupo conspiracy urban ink electric company new world ruby slippers savage society to some extent pie and rumble They were a bit older and others We did so because there was no room for us Things were pretty quiet in vancouver and the bigger organizations felt impenetrable Maybe like they do to all artists But they didn't just feel impenetrable They felt like secrets Like the folks running them at the time wouldn't tell us or maybe just me How things actually worked They played their cards really close to their chests. They behaved like corporations Polite on the outside, but like they had control over resources They were afraid someone would take away from them if they were transparent about how they got them and what their underlying philosophy was As our little companies grew We started choosing to spend more and more time together Led by kim collier and inspired by blake brooker and one yellow rabbit And apologies to those who've heard this a million times We formed a loose network of a dozen or so artist run companies called progress lab, which met regularly for drinks and conversations What i experienced in this group of like-minded artists was that my feelings of loneliness and isolation lessened And my confidence in what might be possible for me and for all of us grew We started making things together and organizing and driving it all Was a conscious decision to change our underlying philosophy In a highly fraught environment of a bunch of independent artists who'd barely kept it going into their early 30s We made it an explicit decision To treat each other not as competitors, but as collaborators When one of us got a gig in timbuktu or Something great happened to jonathan young again We chose to take a deep breath and forgive ourselves for being for feeling jealous because jealousy is a normal human emotion And trust that if something good happened to them Trust that something good happening to them would in some way or another be good for the rest of us Because we were an invisible little not yet seen on the far flung edge of the continent Thousands of miles from toronto in a small city whose identity wasn't and never will be defined by its theater What was the option to try to eat each other alive? In my view this shift in underlying philosophy self-aggrandizement alert Led to one of our little scenes most significant contributions to the sector as whole Concrete evidence of the benefits of transparency and collaboration It led to growth and success Not evenly shared of course, but as a whole Which also makes me think of those larger institutions that felt so impenetrable to us 25 or 30 years ago Institutions that are now only now seeing a generational change in leadership How many new artistic directors of larger theater institutions in the last couple of years? And on behalf of gen x Thanks a lot baby boomers Oh, well guess it's the millennials turn now Just went to legs like whoa, whoa, hang on It is true whoever somebody went that's true. That's true The potential impact of this generational change in our larger institutions First they came clear to me last year when I received an invitation from that very same indigenous playwright and producer kim harvey To come down to the bmo theater center at 8 30 on a weekday morning and be a community witness To a treaty she would be signing Supported by her indigenous treaty signatory witnesses. Uh, lori marshawn and kevin. There he is again With ashley corcoran and peter cathi white from the arts club and darrell and maybe someone else from the citadel I can't remember The citadel and the arts club had commissioned a new work from kim and to formalize this commission kim had negotiated the signing Of a treaty instead of a playwright skilled contract I know at least a few of you know kim and her ferocious writing Subscribe to her blog honestly. It's infuriating but do it And her equally ferocious commitment to remaking and indigenizing the protocols and processes by which we make our work It was a hell of a morning Musqueam actor writer hallamia sparrow began with a welcome to the 40 of us or 40 or so of us from the theater community who had gathered She then began to speak in absolutely direct Unqualified terms without I might add of being blamy or mean at all About the long history of exclusion That she and other indigenous artists had experienced at both the citadel and the arts club I could not believe that these things were being said publicly in the arts club itself In the presence of arts club leadership. I was emotional and moved I also and i'm not proud of this but I also felt jealous Kim's 30 years old She has the guts. She had the guts to take something i've talked about On endlessly for decades shifting the underlying philosophy and speaking publicly and directly But some of the challenges people have experienced dealing with our larger historically mandated institutions and kim actually did it It's amazing how powerful that jealousy thing can be I've gotten a lot of validation in the last two years as much or more than any one person in this business should reasonably expect Given how constrained things are and yet here. I was feeling that about someone I love So I took a breath and told myself what's good for one of us It's going to be good for all of us And it was incredible this this event How it turned a bureaucratic business ritual signing a contract into what we do A piece of theater a ritual a kind of community performance And equally important is the role ashley and peter and daryl played as part of that ritual They consciously and generously chose to be present and presence The experiences of those who are critical of that institution and their institutions and their histories It's happening a lot now as generational transition takes place as the leadership of our larger organizations is being assumed by folks Who learn their trade outside of the cultures of large institutions in a milieu that was perhaps and i'm not being critical But a milieu that was perhaps slightly more aware that the way one set of people does things is never universal And always specific not inevitable, but constructed not the norm, but simply one way For me ashley and peter and daryl were Modeling a way to be in charge of a historically determined structure without feeling forced to take personal Responsibility for every single shitty thing that happened there or every resentment Whether justified or not that people in their communities might have towards it By not taking it personally and feeling like they had to protect or defend They were making it more likely for those who have come from different histories and experiences to feel like it might be possible For them to have some agency within those institutions as well I think it's exactly what's happening right now with the cta But i don't believe it's only equity staff who bear responsibility for getting the cta some of us certainly i Am very much hoping for i think we bear an equal number of very important responsibilities Because if we want to move to a more collaborative more responsive more generous system One that allows us all to be more human in our work Then i believe it is also our responsibility to do that be more human To not hide behind rules and regulations and minimum fees To provide supportive work environments that might make it easier for employees and contractors to have children And be good parents To listen to artists when they say what they think they need in terms of process to always presence and prioritize The human needs of the artists and technicians and administrators that we hire If we want to convince a not quite union run By folks steeped in the culture of adversarial labor relations That another way of doing things is possible Then we who control the dollars and the work hours and the work life balance of those we hire Must attempt to make generosity and flexibility and transparency the engine of everything we do Because what some of us on the smaller end of the sector have learned over the years Is that however small the resource we control is it's almost always more Than the individual artists we work with And so whatever our revenue pressures It is critical that we shift the underlying philosophy and not behave like profit driven corporations with secrets Like smog guarding his pile of treasure underneath lonely mountain. Sorry I was a bit much, but oh, yeah It was late. It was late when I wrote that The benefit Could be That the sum total of all the work we make is much more likely to reflect the actual society that we live in Which if you're in a big city is barely majority white anymore And definitely includes folks with disabilities and indigenous people too And nobody is saying we should stop doing musicals and shakespeare or even working with trg Got a trg bug in my thing. Anyway We are saying we all need to figure out a way to enable and prioritize the other work as well If we have the courage to do that in a way that is both ethically and physically responsible My experience tells me that the whole thing will get better And we as a sector will in fact gain influence and grow A final more granular action. I think we might be able to take is something I just heard about yesterday Kevin mooring. There he is again. I told me That one of the few areas of current agreement with equity is around community engagement protocols protocols Kevin and chelsea wrote those protocols their protocols and they sent them in and their protocols became as I understand it You can correct me later the basis for the agreement about how we can work with non professionals One of the most interesting and exciting aesthetic developments in our form over the last generation They wrote a guide, I'd imagine Based on how they work with people in kevin's ancestral community It's how good policy is made people who know something about it write plainly and clearly about how they do it And there's no way that the good folks at equity could ever be expected to know how to do what kevin and chelsea did So maybe we are going to have to do more of that The thing is if we don't end up getting an agreement We're going to have to do it anyway Either way I feel absolutely confident that we are going to shift the underlying philosophy because the truth is The shift it's already happening Right now I think a large part of what we're actually doing is trying to figure out how and it's really hard But how to get it so that our administrative systems Can catch up It's not a super rousing finish But what's what I got Always always end with administrative systems. That's my role Work in progress. Thanks very much everybody very nice to you. Thank you Thank you, thank you. Yes, we can do it Thanks Marcus, thank you so much for that as a mixed-race brown kid You too. Yeah, there's a lot of us And much resonated. So thank you and I look forward to hearing from all of you Questions craze what resonated what didn't Yeah, so thank you for that Marcus is here until Friday morning when we spoke 11 days ago We we managed to to grab a few days with Marcus. So thank you. Thank you for your expediency In in in creating that in less than 11 days We now segue into the AGM the the membership meeting we need a few minutes to Add a few tables Everyone is welcome members and non-members At the beginning of the AGM we need to have a quick vote to give non-members Voice and to officially welcome you to that process, but please feel free to to stay And we'll be back with you in a few minutes. Thank you