 Beautiful. So, welcome everybody back here to the North, and you see the theater center at the Graduate Center CUNY. My name is Ron Kenshka, I'm the director here of the program. So, thank you. First of all, the New York Theatre Workshop to show off here is one of the great institutions, legendary institutions in New York City, the closest that we have to the Royal Court in London. And anybody who works in theater knows how hard it is to want to theater. But you also find out that I'm surrounded for five years, or seven years, or ten, or ten years, but Linda and German both worked for 30 years and got the ship at the back of the steering wheel of this great institution and created a body of work, like an artist's paintings, like Holder's Wife's poems, a great way as an artist that this New York Theatre Workshop will be on no one. Like about it, it created a style. Of course, once you have a style, it's recognizable, it's not other people who have other styles, but they have a strong handwriting, I think, and it is something that is of significance to what they created. And tonight is not a PR talk, it's not, you know, because thank you, you know, for all of you that's trying, we're trying to have a real honest talk. What does it mean to produce theater? How was theater in New York City when they started? How was it on the left? What is going on now? What did they learn? Especially what are the experiences? And we have many of our audience in life, and high around the world, so we best want to say hello to everybody in some words listening. Hello, young Kent. He, she, they, who will love theater. I remember that talk. And also this Dean and Patricia who were here tonight. So this is something of importance to really look back and to be the one person within the future that you are speaking about. It's all about actually the work of it. And so we are also practicing. It's a dialogue as what we do here. There's a bridge between academia and professional theater, international and American theater. And I think it's a great topic. I also would like to thank the audience for coming. We need great theater. We also need great audiences. It's ultimately for them. So that means a lot that we took time out and not very much is out there. So it's very important for us also to be those at their screens. Also welcome. And Joseph, who did great work here in New York City. He was our founder there. And many others who are here with us. And also really thank you all for coming. We might start. Just everybody knows. Everybody should know who you guys are. We don't. We have some undergrads from around the nation, not international viewers. So maybe we go around and you can use a little bit who you are and what you did. So we get a little bit of an idea of before we start. But I think I would like to present from 9 to 2. And it should be off. So we have a lot of time. Yeah. But we've never really seen the audience actually ever. But still it doesn't. So it's important to have a time where we listen. We do kind of radical listening at least. You know, I seem to be talking all the time. So. Linda. I was a little bit about how to get back to the theater. And who are you working with? I'm Linda Chapman. I came to New York in 1973. And after time. And after a number of adventures, which I won't go into right now, I did meet Jim. I was pursuing directing. It was his first season as artistic director of the workshop, 88, 89 season. And my friend Lola and I subsequently worked on our play Richard and Alice from the workshop. And Jim in 1995 asked me to become his associate artist. Director at that time. So I sort of let the directing go. I'd already given up on the acting a while back where I decided that what an actor has to do was not what I wanted to do. And at any rate, we we hooked up. In 1995, Jim's already kind of underway. We had, we had created the usual suspects community by 1995, which we can talk about a little bit more if you'd like to, but that is our extended artistic community. And we've got members of that artistic community here tonight. Still. And yes, and together we developed a lot of work. I worked a lot on the development of, of. Of new projects. That was a big focus for me. So in summer residencies are Monday three readings. Other kinds of development opportunities. So that's a little bit of the palette and we can go into any of that. And you born? Where were you born? I was born in Spokane, Washington, where my family still lives. Came to New York on a greyhound bus. $500 in my pocket. Me. I just want to say that Spokane, Washington, and Stan Washington has outlawed all assault weapons. I grew up in Hartford outside of Hartford, Connecticut. I came to New York in 1972 or a college. I was probably thinking I was pursuing. You're acting. I got that sort of side track into casting. And I spent a year and a half at. Your communications group. As a sectionist. Then was the New York Shakespeare Festival. In the casting office for five years and 1975 to 1980. And then I arrived with chorus line and left with. Pirates of Canada. And then I went to arena stage in DC. And then to the workshop. Also, I look at sort of. In the. More familial perspective. I went from my father Joe. To my mother, Zelda. With my great aunt Rosemary. Also in the next all the way through. Yeah. My name is. I'm the current artistic director at the workshop. I'm from St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. And I grew up in carnival. The raid performing. My mom was an art teacher and she sewed the sequence. I'm a little carnival. So everything was always simple transformation. It took me a while to realize that I'm always trying to make a bespoke thing. In, in four walls. And then I'm always trying to burst about in the streets. I think that has to do with that experience in carnival. We moved a lot right up. I moved to New York in 2000. And I had some survival jobs went to the O'Neill. Obviously was almost there. And I was thinking about going to a corporate life. And he said, your mom doesn't need you to buy her house. She needs you to sew the dreams that you put in you. So I, my first professional job in theater was stage managing the. The deal with the only shot ever one. I often say that was my first grad school. I did a point to grad school for directing after having spent some time acting and writing. I met Jim and Linda before graduate school. I actually think it was Liz diamond. Who first introduced me to a reading on Mondays at three reading. I remember sitting outside of the workshop and thinking one day. I'll get an invitation to go in and Liz invited me in at that time. Melanie, you know, I was doing a lot of assisting associate directing work. Went to graduate school, came back, did directing for about 10 years. Some in New York, moved to California, moved to Hawaii. And was always invited back in different ways to do workshops. There was a James Baldwin piece that was, you know, that we were thinking, hoping to track into production. And, and then got the call to, to answer this mighty call. And so big, big shoes all around on my writing. I've been trying to step into them with great, great truth. I'm Jean Passamante. I'm from St. Louis, Missouri, where you can buy a handgun. Anywhere you want without a permit and without a background check. And you could carry it loaded anywhere you want. And now they're trying to find the libraries. Just put them in there. So I live in New York. And I've been here since 76 after college. And I did a lot of, I worked at various theaters. And I guess I too started wanting to act, wanting to direct. Did a tiny bit of it and realized it wasn't enough somehow to sustain me in all the ways in which one needs to be sustained. And so I did, I worked at Williamstown and Lincoln Center and a bunch of other places. And then, and then the O'Neill where was Lloyd Richards, associate director and did the casting. I got to cast Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, August Wilson, this first play there. And that was all pretty great. And then I met Allison Clark. Well, I already knew Allison Clark and Stephen Graham. And they told me that they had a group that they were trying to start. Well, they had an organization called, it was originally called the Stephen Graham Foundation. And they decided they needed to go for nonprofit status. And it would be very difficult to raise money for an organization called the Stephen Graham Foundation. So they changed the name to New York Theater Workshop. They asked me, because I had been working with playwrights at the O'Neill and elsewhere, to be what they called the project director. And you can get more into this. But that's, that was how I got into, got to New York Theater Workshop. And then did that for four years, I think. And then went to new dramatists after that and have done a lot of really crazy stuff in television. I've been writing soap operas for 26 years, which surprised me more than anything in my life, that I actually loved it and had a great time and learned to do the normal stuff from it. So that's all. Thank you. Thank you all. So that's maybe something in the engine. Let us know in your field what you're all about. What was your idea on this? Well, I met Jim when I was still working with the Worcester Group. I was with the Worcester Group about 11 years and I was a manager, but I also performed with them and was attempting to create new work as a director. I met Melanie Joseph at about the same time I met Jim. We were part of the women's project. So I think an underlying value for me has always been ensemble. And how do you create ensemble in the commercial theater of New York? My teachers had trained with Erwin Fiskatter, German political theater director at the New School back in the late 40s, warrior teachers. Their names were Robert and Joan Welch. They moved to Spokane. I think they were primal states. The communists, the red listing of the period, honestly, they never said that, but I think that was the case. And they were contemporary with Judith Molina. So they were in that same Harry Belafonte, just passed away, was a classmate of theirs. I mean, the whole generation of B. Arthur, exactly B. Arthur, the golden girl. Yeah, of course, how could I forget? An amazing group of actors. But, you know, Molina kind of shows us the way, you know, in terms of, what was the quote? You said that when we had a little meeting, Frank, this daughter taught us about breaking the fourth wall and the living broke the fourth wall. I have that in my sort of my educational DNA coming to New York. Anyway, we had worked with Melanie. We had a director's group. This idea of how do we work together? How do we collaborate? How do we break down the system? And I think Jim and I had a residence who were both born in 1950, kind of come out of that same moment of political, you know, wanting to get away from the middle class America that our parents worked so hard to build. And I think we found in each other kind of coming from, I came from the downtown theater, worked with Bristol Field and George Martinius at theaters of the new city. Sonya Moore, the Russian who was trying to teach the most updated version of the Stanislavsky system. Jim and I resonated with each other, kind of me from the downtown. He had his downtown experience and also had the regional theater experience. So, how do we make work? How do you have an ongoing philosophy of conversation? I think the conversation is actually where we really started. We both love theater history. How do you make an ensemble out of freelance theater workers? And I think that's where the usual suspects came from. Growing out of Gene's new director's project, which was there. I think Jim was taking the material that was handed on to him. And Stephen Graham was always interested in supporting individual artists who were not going to necessarily be commercially viable. So, Jim was very conscious of what that beginning was. Eric Indolean, Peter Sellers were two of the first artists that Stephen Graham supported, some of the first productions. Even before it was a workshop that the Graham Foundation was supporting. So, I think that, for me, that idea of ensemble and an ongoing company and an ongoing conversation, how do we develop ideas that we all share and can continue to build on in the environment, the commercial environment, basically, that we find ourselves in? Yeah, I just wanted to say, before I jump in here, this is an historic occasion to have this line of history in place, which I've been trying to do for a long time, and it's been impossible to get all of these people to stay in the room and practice it. So, thank you. Thank you. You know, I have my mythology, the legends that will pass down that perhaps, as we know about myth and legend, gets embroidered into telling and passing along. So, Jean is here to correct me if I'm wrong. I just remember, I'm trying to answer your question by going back in time. When I was at the arena, stage we see, I got a call to see how I would apply for this job. And I had noticed the work of the workshop already, and had someone not consciously thought in my mind, this is a theater I would be interested in, somehow, being involved with. And I didn't say that about many, because there was a lot that wasn't that interesting. What I really responded to, partly because I was a young director trying to make my way in a pretty uninterested, disinterested, let's say, world. This, as far as I could tell, and to this day I believe this is still true, was the only organized effort in support of the director, and in the craft of directing, art of directing, the only place that in 1979, when it started as the foundation, in the American theater, was, and we really honestly still is about the playwright, the play, the writing is the center, or the 8X, maybe the center is the one word. And the director, and I've heard even directors, surprisingly how many directors have said they are the servants of the playwright, which always astounds me. But the director was never acknowledged as an artist, as a facilitator. And what I loved about the workshop with Steven and Jean was that they said the director is equal. And they formed an organization that supported both of those attaches. And that was very powerful to me. And something I wanted to put my life energy in service of. The other thing that I loved about it is that, and again, Jean, you have to really correct me if I am this wrong. We have to. Having inhabited institutions, the Mirachaker Festival and the Arena Stage, and an organization like the Your Communications Group, which is the service organization for the field of not-to-profit institutions, I loved that there was almost an allergy to institutionalizing of real estate and a subscription season, all of that. It was really about we're going to start with the artists that we're believing in, and we're going to make form and structure follow what they need and want. And it would be as much as, if you need your rent paid, we'll do that. I need a new tech writer. I need a few actors to sit around the kitchen table and read me these few scenes, all the way up to supporting and producing workshops. And one of the first things was that I recall, you can probably feel better on this, was Harry Condolian being one of the first writers. His play Christmas on Mars, which was one of the first that I remember of his impact, had a big, healthy grant from the Stephen Graham Foundation to support. And I thought that was really a remarkable way to center the artist. And so I really wanted to follow that. And what I loved about what happened when it went from the foundation to the economy of theater through genes, guidance and wisdom, I'm sure, it tried to preserve and reinvent those basic ideas that it was about the artist, the artist's road, the thing, structure followed that as much as possible. And the other thing that I loved about it is it was about and understood that structure, that idea centered what theater making really is, which is relationships. You can't make theater without someone else. And you have to figure out when to balance, you have to find when to find the balance between this is my egotistical or my personal impulse and this person's personal impulse. So when do I surrender to that? When do I yield to that? When do we together synthesize into something different? That's the real core of it. It's not about a sort of dictatorial, something at the top, like certain things tend to go. But I think that was it. The other thing that I loved about this place was in the title of it, New York Theater Workshop. So as I, when I first arrived, I thought that the discussion was with the board about how do we raise our profile? How do we have impact? How do we, more people know about what we do and care about it. And not just from the perspective of rather check. What does this mean? What does this do in their field? And so what I liked was that this is a theater that can only happen in this city. That is called New York. So it's right there in the defining of the organization. A theater. And as we always talk about, it's that part of our work that where the needs and wants and care of the audience is most important. We're the first priority that's going to happen. And then the workshop is where the artists and their process and their needs are first priority. And those can shift and change, but basically those are the two things so that in my way of thinking now, I could do my job. What was going on in the theater was a conversation with our community. It was where we put forward to our community the voices of our secular shamans, our sacred beings speaking to us and helping us understand the experience we were having. And it wasn't just one voice, it was a multiple voices over a period of time. And on the workshop side, which could involve the audience if there was a need for a process to be here in front of the audience. I remember learning that over and over again at a first performance, at first preview of what you would learn by hearing when they laughed, when they cough, when they were sort of shifting around, once you learned what was heard and what landed and what didn't. So that could be a vital part of the process. So the thing of New York Theater Workshop, the multiple equally important things and in the land of budget and fundraising and so forth. At the time this was all sort of formulating for sure there were organizations that were solely about process. And in the funding world, in the check writing world, they were important, but this fear thing is really much more important. And what we were trying to do is to say this is all equally important. We do not emphasize this over that. The needs perhaps of resource on this side might be greater than that, but we only dispense resource with equal commitment to that. Probably more human resource went into the development. Correct. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Also, the creation of this community of artists seemed really important to me because I have a, again, what I remember of my first moments at the workshop is Jean sort of a bunch of plays under consideration for future and I had to jump in and pick two plays to fill out a season. I remember thinking I don't really, I've never played the role of artistic leader before, but I'm sure this is not the way I want to do it. This is like suddenly having to pick two plays and this is what's here because that's expedient. And I really wanted ultimately felt like the goal would be that I would be listening to artists and assembling a conversation from the bunch of artists that it really be the artists that will lead you and that I was just this sort of conversation. What was the hardest to do? Out of this community of artists, I mean, I think we had almost, when I started in 95, I think we already had about 100 people who had been new directors in the past. We kind of tried to, you know, try to herd all of the community members who had preceded us. There was a playwright's group, kind of an ad hoc playwright's group, and we invited those people in. There were actors who've been in the shows. So I think what's hard is out of 100 people who have 104 more projects and you have limited resource in a season, how do you pick three or four projects out of these 100? I mean, we created a problem for ourselves right off the bat. Well, also, I think one of the, one of the things that was really important to me was in the field, and I think much changed in this respect, there's a lot of focus on supporting emerging artists. And I always wondered, well, where's the point at which an artist stops emerging and they stop needing support? That never happens. And there's no room for that. And why are we segregating artists? So our community was hopefully putting together, you know, artists with years of experience, with something new, and hopefully they would be benefiting each other. So what else was hard to besides hundreds? Yeah, well, that is the thing that comes to mind, is certainly the endless pursuit of resource to do what I believed in and what I was surrounded by people who I loved and believed in and wanted to make them happy. And that was relentless. Well, we also, I think this, we both have this kind of value of not wanting to say no to artists, you can create a community, you've got people who want to be part of what you're trying to create. So we kind of made a rule that we didn't say no. You might not be able to do what a person wanted or an artist wanted to do, but could you give them something else? Could you always offer something? So I think that also was a challenge that we, that we, you know, and you never satisfy everybody or anybody. Usually. There was, yeah. I think that is that. Well, how many suspects are there today? Over 500. Yeah, because... 20 to 600. We never successfully figured out a way to say you're out, because that seemed like the opposite of the case. Only when we lose people's contact information. What would we need to do five production a year with 100 years? Yes, exactly. What are some of the production that crystallized for you, what you did? This went right. This actually showed what we dreamt about. I think we have, Joe and I really have a lot of differences of opinion, believe it or not. I mean, even though we did work pretty well together for a long time. For me, what, when I look back at the workshop, and there maybe weren't the biggest successes, but to me the work we did supporting ensembles, again, back to the ensemble. For me, this is always that, how do you make a company? You know, we have companies within the companies. I mean, so city companies sort of got its, got its start and both are using space at MRTW. When I first, even before I started, she was a by lesbian brothers who we met down the street at the Wildcalfe became, you know, part of the, the ongoing, ongoing groups to elevator repair service. And then numerous, numerous really other, the improbable fear. Bella McDermott. Now it was a big opera director, but you know, we met them through PS122 originally and his company, Ruben, Ruben, Belendo, and yeah, who was just the director of Victor's piece. So they're numerous companies. So for me that, and I think that there is still something to be done there in terms of how do we give resource to independent theater? Because I'm a little aghast, frankly, but the workshop has turned into the institution it has. Never my goal personally. So to see how an institution can support individuals or independent theater to me, more than any one production to me, that's been a big, that's to me, you know, one of the big successes, frankly. And we started our, we kind of got, that flows down through the, through the pandemic, but we started a project in the Fort Street Theater, our small theater called Next Door at NYTW, where we were supporting independent productions, never to the level I wish we put it. But again, I think there's something in that as we look at, how do we, how do we reclaim the theater now post pandemic? I think so-called institutions, an institution is really most concerned with, its own survival, or as much as we espouse wanting to support individual artists, the institution is, needs to survive first and foremost. So, okay, given that that's how we have set this up, you know, with our corporate, our corporate not-for-profit theaters, how do we, how do we keep the independent theater movement alive? Because that's, no matter what you're seeing on Broadway, those, all the seeds came from the independent work. I really do believe that. I think, listening to your question, Frank, personally, I would say probably the whole drama of our natural glory, the production of my, my own natural glory, was the most, the darkest moments. I mean, there were also moments of, there was a moment about 20 years ago, where I didn't think we were going to, not just me, but all of us didn't think we were going to make it. And that was a, there was a generosity of board members who stepped out and got us through it. 2008, the big, yeah, the big crash. Yeah. What did you, what were you the happiest about? What did you take the most pride in, in terms of dancing? What was it worth? Yeah, or what came to fruition? You called that crystal. Yeah. Not to pick one of your children. Yeah, that's, I wouldn't, I wouldn't think of it in that way. I think it was that, that, well, I don't know, people, others would have to tell me this, but I think that the notion that we could not be pinned down, that there wasn't necessarily a, we couldn't be branded for a long time. Right. Jeremy managed something. Yeah. The, when we were doing some marketing research, we did some surveying of people who were attendees, the things that made me happiest were, the consistency, the thing that, that was the most prevalent was, just worth putting it more logically, was the, what they loved was that they never knew what was going to happen to them, or what they would find when they walked through the double doors into the space. That was somewhat about the reconfiguring of the space over and over again, which I really loved. You know, I think maybe the most successful, well, the most potent of those was the scenes from the marriage that you go to. So that the space itself becomes a character or a piece of the experience. Or Hades Town. Hades Town. But I think, I think I liked, I think I felt the best about that fact. And that probably just in a personal level, as a kid growing up as a little gay boy in the 50s and 60s and not really cleared that there was a place for me ever in this life. And I found life and possibility sitting in a theater seat. And, as my, long gone friend, Garland Wright said, everything I ever learned about life and history I learned in a theater seat. And I think that has been my personal lifelong goal is whatever I experience positively, I want to share it. And I think that has, that is probably the most clear I can be about the psychological gesture of artistic leadership for me was the sense of sharing what excited me. You know, I was in the room and we did a reading of slave play. And we have been as a, as an organization through several training sessions and really focusing in on white supremacy, racism, all of those important things. And I sat in the reading. I didn't know what I was getting into because I had read the plan before I walked into the room, sat through the reading and had the most transforming experience emotionally from that play. And I thought, I think maybe I've learned as much from sitting for these two or three hours in the presence of this writer and these artists as I have all the training and so forth, which was maybe that fed why I could have that experience. But it was what it, nothing was clear to me in that moment. And I think we should do this. We should share this. Recognizing that some people might not find it exciting, but I found it powerful. And giving a space for one of my MPVs at some place. Yes. Like this happens. And my great-grandfathers, they said, you know, I don't look for movements, I also let movements come to me. And I said, you have to create it. I create the space we have. It's a very hard work. And I would like to thank you both. Really in the name of New York City Theater, International Theater. But what you did is a life's work. And I think we should just say that you came on to us like a ring of the wine. What did New York City Theater workshop mean for you? I remember the first production I saw, which I can't remember by Tina reading before production or not. But I saw Light Wraith the Roof. Kea Cawthorne's Light Wraith the Roof by Michael Garces directed. And it was about a lot of things, but centered in it was communities of people who were living in abandoned subways and Chris McKinney was in it. And I remember several things. I remember in terms of the mise en scene, I remember what I think of still as an essentialized version that was both the exposed brick of the space that we were actually in, but a design that felt magical, transformative, essentialized. Beautiful. I remember the design walking in right away. And then I walked out and I walked to the subway and I got on the subway and I drove past, or rode past a place that seemed abandoned, but I am sure I had rode past hundreds of times. And I was awakened in a new way to what might be happening in that corner that I could in my comfort just drive by. And I still think about it. And I changed by that moment, by what it forced me to, and invited me to look at people. I was invited to care about in a deeper way than I thought I'd care about intellectually, but had me sit with them in a way that was beautiful and challenging. And so I still hold it with me. So the workshop was a place that to me, and it was aesthetically pleasing. It was virtuosic in so many ways. There was poetry to it. And yet it provoked me in an artful way to try and be a better citizen. That's what the workshop was for me. There was this, not a lecture, but a virtuosic artistic experiment that shook me up to a moment and woke me up to a calling for better citizenry. And that is what it meant to me. That's what it still means to me. And that's what I hope it can continue to mean to generations of people. Maybe before we come, what would you kind of dream of? Think of a dream for you, who were there in the very beginning. Maybe give us also your interpretation of what was the very beginning, the ACON, the Dorothy idea, and how did you look at those 30 years? You actually followed it. I went into that very closely. Well, I think in the beginning I had a sort of practical idea that, well, both practical and personal inclination was to work with the artist, and Jim was talking about it, to kind of cultivate directors because they seemed to provide the theatrical and divine spark to material that otherwise were on the page. And not to denigrate the playwright because certainly that page comes from the playwright. But I think, you know, my own... I did... It was a pretty thriving time, I think, for the off-Broadway theaters in New York when I started it there, but there was playwrights' horizons in the public, but all the theaters that still exist, but it was prime time, I think, for all of them. And I felt, well, I don't know how we compete as a very new group of people who started really without a central artistic idea or a mission, but mostly just, well, let's find some good plays to produce, I think. I mean, I don't want to denigrate it because it was a wonderful thing, and generosity and openness as Steven Graham to make this happen is remarkable. But, you know, I felt we needed to... The practical part was I thought we needed to get our own people, you know, we needed to cultivate our own people. And I do remember, you know, working with Michael Greif who was one of the first, I think, maybe the second year in the New York just project, and just watching that minded work with theatrical ideas, you know, it was a very funny kind of quirky play called 70 Scenes of Halloween. And we had such serious limitations in terms of budget and time and everything else, but somehow it was out there. That play was completely realized. And David S. Bjorns is doing the farm yard by... That also, nothing was completely realized. And I just said, okay, here we are. This is kind of what needs to happen now. But, you know, these things take time and I think there's a very long, very large, to be honest, learning current for me and for the board to kind of get used to the idea that we really need to grow our own crops here, you know, and I, again, to be honest, felt I think I neglected. This sounds terrible, but, you know, it neglected the audience part of the equation because I was so interested in the development of the artist part. And sometimes it worked what they did, and sometimes it didn't. And that was obvious. And to me, it was kind of okay because I really saw, all right, we're getting somewhere here. But then I have to say, you know, for the 30 years that I've watched these guys do what they did, it's just been extraordinary because, you know, they're producing genius is really a match, I think, that they've managed to do both these things to cultivate this group of writers that is a very large group of writers, and artists, I should say, not artists, writers, but to make such magical work that and it was, I mean, it's fun for me because I look at it and say, yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking of, but I didn't, you know, for various reasons, didn't have the wherewithal to make that happen. So it's been a marvelous experience to see that that heightened level of production, the theatricality, using theater for what only theater can do, take ideas and make them tangible and, you know, and in the ozone at the same time. And so I've been very grateful that I've been able to continue this relationship because it meant everything to me, so it's been a great thing. Well, just to pick up on something you said, you mentioned Christ. Yes. That was one of the things that caught my mind in my eye way back when, long before I was affiliated in any way. This was a theater in New York that was interested in writers who were not American. It was an international impulse from the start that the world of theater making is bigger than just our self-enclosed conversation. That was exciting to me and something that we've tried to keep alive as much as we could. But a lot of things always come back to, in my, as I was doing it, and I think you can say that we always refer back to fundamental conceptual values put in place by Stephen and Jean. Well, yes. And I think some of those directors that you cultivated, Jean, we continue. So the usual suspect community. And Liz Diamond. Yes. Running the director's program. Liz Diamond's play that she did from the director's project. I think it was the first play we did for the director's project. I don't remember what it was, but I remember. Well, I'll say I was in at the moment after the workshop. It was clear. Yeah. Yes, I think so. I think so. And I didn't really use it. Yeah. But I did not. I still want to use it. I don't want to use it. Now, look at you. That's how I do it. That's one time. Yeah. It's just you make this joke. It's not easy. It's not easy. It's just something totally different. You know that. Space. The east four three was. Start. My first theater is the Kubikul November, the Kubikul Vehicles West 40 something street. One thing it was. It's kind of a. Yeah. Yes. I think I had some. Romantic idea about it because I had heard about. Plays by, I don't know. about negative people had that had been done there and so we rented that and we did you know our very first play which was from a playwright I met at the O'Neill, Robert Lintz and and then I think a particular for one more play and then we found the Perry Street Theater which I loved but and it was very narrow because you know not much through the brown stone basically and I think we that was the theater from when I was never I think by the time I left we stopped using Perry Street right and you guys used it or you did I remember saying mutt mutt not mutt yeah we were there we got kicked out because the building was so oh that's right yes we could probably still be here yeah it was well we were kind of outgrowing it though yeah it was what 99c house yeah right yeah yeah yes and we weren't really filling it and let's just put it that way yeah the the the space on east four street was purchased in 1992 I was involved as a suspect and as a curator but yeah and and then summer of 95 we moved into the the office what we call our office space next door the brownstone next door so yeah we were still the offices were on 42nd street right yeah I can't remember yeah yeah so did that move change your work the building that we uh I think so I think it um when we moved into to 70 94th street we were coming from a 99c pier and we were very concerned about because it had 299 seats a tiny little stage that was really high and the roof was really low and we just knew we couldn't as Jeanne said we couldn't fill 99 seats how were we not what are we doing with 299 so we reduced it made the stage bigger reduced the capacity 250 which we thought well 50 more seats is going to be something we could deal with and then there was room to add 49 more if we were to come to that and then once we started to get some serious royalties from rent we raised the roof of about six feet and that and I think it was weirdly made the space work we did that the it was before rent we did that the season that summer when we moved in I remember the blue awnings at the same time yeah we did that work yeah well again Stephen Graham made that uh the purchase of the space possible yeah it was being inhabited by a group called the fourth wall kind of psychosocial political but but the real origins the real origins of that space were the truck and warehouse yeah from Bruce Mellon and uh uh partner but they own they had they own TVs yeah they purchased that they created the truck and warehouse originally and it was a it was a commercial all Broadway space just in the interest of history and my own music the ridiculous theatrical huh yes mounted the truck and warehouse theater for a season or two right there uh and we had many of them the major works for theater at that theater uh and uh we I think before we inhabited Tom I am the uh women behind bars women behind bars to the to bond yeah so there's a big connection exactly and where's house there I mean for this is New York theater strategy rented it for a couple of seasons then the ridiculous um and then the fourth wall wrap but we love the fact that there was this the history was embedded and the fourth below four street theater in the in the uh in the other building was one of the very earliest of the all Broadway spaces and uh it was um you know it was back in the 50s so both of these spaces have you know we it's I think that's just for us we really love that we are part of this thing and then the lorry side and the Yiddish theater you know so yeah we connect I think both of us that's probably where our native yelling yeah yeah that comes from coming back to the church up um this what decades some might say of the golden theater in New York City of the golden theater uh American theater in the decades um now people must say everything has changed the time of corona there's a radical change much people have some we thought but just someone who told me that I nailed Mark Russell or Kenny helped me to put something up and Mark so we know until there is death I don't know what to say when you put your arm what do you think of the time now how do you react to that with the history the history of the history before the history what's on your mind okay how are you going to wrap your arms around it I spent most of my life I spent most of my life um in an underdog and when I went to graduate school I felt like I was indoctrinated to a level of privilege that was unusual for me and I feel I worked very hard but I've been very lucky um to work in a lot of places and have a lot of support and speak a lot of truth in those places but it's been very kind of magical and I think my hope for myself and for the workshop and for the field is that I am leaders tasked with the moment can be alchemists and can be on the ropes because I think the field is on the ropes right now and can take that moment and through will through coalition building through holding on to what was magic in the past and visioning can be alchemists I think my task right now you know Jim I meant he said you've got to find a way to make your artistic director be a artistic practice be a curation and I think for a place that is known for the yes and in a time that is known for no it's first and foremost my job to find ways to find ways to that yes find ways large and small to find the goal again and some of that is going to be through approaching the work in a more communal way to say you know I often say we make the cohorts of artistic directors and I say we can't be like sports teams we've got to you know know our part in the field no I think part of what the workshop here is to do is to do something more risky rather than work some of the work that's going to experiment with form some of the work it's going to be very director driven in different kind of way artists driven in different kind of way that's our lane but we can hold hands with other other theaters in ways that we we've tended to be a little more like sports teams that say it's not you know I'm only wearing this jersey and so I think out of necessity we're going to need to do some more coalition building and I think that could be good moving forward and luckily having had a freelance career for a long period of time you know I have a lot of friends and a lot of these places and we all want to hold each other up I've gotten kind of radical about some of my fun but we're the different financial structure than the workshop was born out of and that the times are calling upon us to have and so whether it's big meetings at foundations there's a piece that you know there's a big contraction the bonus for contraction and as a leader tasked with visioning the next wave I've got to respond when people say we're at capacity and take care of people and also find ways to push past that and some of that means when there was a piece that I you know heard a reading of and five minutes and I said we've got to do the show it's larger than anyone's going to prove for me to do the show and I went and I had a meeting coming up with the board foundation and I called some friends and I said I've never called Darren Walker putting a good word I'm gonna make a big ask and luckily I went in and I was very clear that if I did not get a significant yes from this foundation I was going to have to say a devastating no and so I I'm luckily 20 years of relationships because it is all about relationships paid off and I walked into the room and he said oh so-and-so just call she sends her love and I said I'm going to make the big ask and I made the big ask and hopefully that gas will allow for a show to open our season that will be a signature that will feel like a reporter once quoted me saying my my taking over of leadership would be an ombring and I actually said an ombring very different and to me there's so I wouldn't have said yes to leadership in a lot of places especially in these times I probably would have built something for scratch but because this is a place that is extraordinary and I want to respect the ombring of what has been passed to me and move it forward and I have to be an alchemist and I have to look the very hard heavy times and not live in fear I say often in our cabinet meetings we have to live in reality but not fear and I know that the reality is if things move in a certain financial trend that is happening across the field there is a world in which the workshop would not exist and I take that very seriously and also if we do not audaciously invest in the way that is signature for the workshop in artists in radical new ways in you know putting our investment in the work then we shouldn't exist and so how to hold space for both of those and I'm learning as I go and all I can be is myself engaging with those questions in the best kind of way I know how with the team that I have with the coalitions that I can build and luckily you know my friends and friends we've known friends we're getting to know I also feel like I I lean on my own audacity and the brilliance of the people who've been doing this for a while I don't think we can cut these times and we have to collectively try and problem solve we often say that sometimes you know out in branches at new times meeting the fear um like that horton here so who do you what do you see do you see news data what what do you feel could that be do you have some intuition of what do you think in the new times it's very different than your times you know what what what is the problem what is origin what is meaningful what do we need one of the things I love about the workshop and I want to continue is that there's no single form I'm always like fight the monolith there's no one way and part of the no one way is that the new way also holds space for what was brilliant in the old way so I always want in a season or you know to make space for what is virtuosic um and and arrange that virtuosity I myself have a very strong probably coming from the premium coming from carnival I have a very strong um idea of how do we how do we crack accessibility and so how do we I often say the art within the walls of the theater is the art of the art the art of sustainability is the thing that's most challenging right now in this time that's kind of brutal and no in economics but I'm also interested in the larger art which is the art of belonging so how can we get the work out to more people how can we create that sense of community not just within the walls but within I want to operate more like a library you know I'm interested in what is the public space on Thursdays we have these open streets how can we engage more with those open streets how can we we are a map in many ways to a cross section of so many people and we are in a society where social isolation is literally killing us and dividing us in so many ways and so how can we make sure that the intentionality that it's not just for the elite because I do think that there's a way in which the art can be separated for only a small group of people and not just drives division how can we forcefully effectively and intentionally make that virtuosic risky art and invite more people to the table and bring bring the art to where more people are and know that that as more people have access to the art it is not it is not a space of generosity that actually makes us relevant if we are supposed to serve a civic good if we are supposed to be like libraries then let us intentionally lean into that in the way that we are in which is creating this productive virtuosic art question for you all and I had a busy talk with Katanya and I hope she will not mind me quoting her she said I feel we are like 1640 now maybe 20 years no theater you know as of when she says what she works on the scene now also on Broadway but it can happen to be at least a better offering but she feels she's afraid she says you want so many theaters closing the regional theater the question you are supposed to hear and what do you think about how you know you go out of gene what do you think of the moment this right now can be made for 2022 what do you think of New York theater well I see a lot of work being done by younger people who we have supported going into the institutions I think that's wonderful I'm kind of looking for the ones who don't want the institutions though so I again you know because this goes back to I think what that beginning of theater the the origin of theater where are the artists if they're not downtown and they're mostly not the real the new generation creating work that we haven't seen before where are they coming from so I'm looking for the ones who don't want the salaries in the mainstream is there a feeling that art has you know the theater is art and it has it has a reason I don't know where they are but that's kind of what I'm looking for I'm looking for the ones who want to make it themselves again and I know how difficult that is because well I'm like real estate I'm playing the real estate market really for a lot but but it that's what's so different now than when I was young and first starting but I don't really know where they are and there are far-flung spaces doing work I mean I look to the places like the tank uh jack and bushwood star you know those are the places to me that have that chocolate factory you know do they have the money do they have the support you know that's the question you they are there but can they do a lot of like a plant these go over and grows by they make a gym what do you what what do you see right now I don't think you can separate what is happening in the background from this field converges the part of that um and I do feel 2020 was a major line of demarcation between the old and a new yet emerging in all respects global about our species everything that's a new century and and we're well we're experiencing in April of 2023 is the dying away of structure that functioned for how we lived as a species in the 20th century and the 21st century structures are still tentatively finding their way so I don't really know that we're any of us are going to know what those are for a while but I think it's all a request it's all for grabs it's all to be discovered to be invented and I think there's an excitement to that and I think one does point about artists wanting to get away from the institutional structure is is correct um I also remember coming to New York in the mid 70s in that neighborhood of east fourth street valley how exciting that was because it was so uninstitutional it was so against the grain and it's now kind of grown up and got old like me and there's a new generation that's going to do that that's going to go through that same process and I could just give a little shout out I was I went it's a young artist who been in conversation with for a number of years and came out of the new school and he invited me to a university settlement and Bob and Israel is is curating a group of emerging artists and it's sort of interdisciplinary their performers though and I went to an evening you know in my obligatory mode and I was so inspired by the work and they have nothing that is the most under resourced developmental program in the New York theater they get they get a pittance but each of the and it was each piece was totally different they're all work in progress though I would say there's something and that reminded me of why I did theater what what I saw there so just to say if it is out there and there are little little sprouts but that was one place that really really warm for me in that way so let's give let's give Baba some support because he's a poet himself you know and yeah so that there that is that is that's something real that's that's something real so if he's there then there are others and his father was in the movie theater oh yeah his mother yeah his mother just passed and I'm with him yeah I think it's part of where as much as I love the main theater in the theater workshop one of the most important things to me was that our smaller theater which had been used as dressing rooms and spillover spaces and all of those kinds of things and it really took a lot and I knew I could see when we were talking about when are we gonna put the seats back in there was a there was a significant amount of resistance because we knew once the seats went back in that it would become a theater again and that theater would be called upon to serve its purpose in a certain kind of way that was going to mean there was going to be another level of work and all of those kinds of things well there was a a call from um some Ukrainian teens who were refugees from the war who had put together this verbatim piece of theater and they asked if they could have a weekend in the fourth street theater and hadn't been transformed yet and I said I don't know how to stay here if we can't find a way to say yes to that because we are in little Ukraine we have you know young people who've gone through the unimaginable and and we've got to find a way to say yes and the team rallied around and we found a way to say yes and I thought it was just going to be like you know music stands and on what I'm sure is a tiny tiny budget but with the support of the space there was such an incredibly moving evening of theater that to me is as moving and more important than something that might have a 10 million dollar budget on Broadway and I think part of what we've got to do is figure out how to say yes to some of those important moments and how not to think that scale is everything for artistry to find those entry points to find those spaces even on a small budget we can say yes and the piece ended up being unbelievable all of all the young people came in they were 12 to 17 they came in their regular outfits they did a mix of Ukrainian and English translated and by the end they were all wearing suits that to me symbolized how they had had to grow up in this experience and they were pushing around strollers and at the end they tipped over the shoulders and there was a bunch of rocks and then blackout and I'm sure the budget was $500 maybe whatever it was and it was as impactful it sticks with me the way light rays the light rays roof sticks with me and I think we've got it even if it's not on scale we've got to find a way those of us who have some space to find ways to say some of those yeses and and for audiences to show up to that work because it can be as impactful it's going to be the thing that nourishes the soil so that things can continue to grow how are we good for audience question maybe jean how do you look at new york theater if you go up now with your 50 years of experience well um I guess we keep the mic yeah that's what it's for I find um you know I admire everything in new york theater workshop pretty much without exception and but I you know I'm I'm frightened when I go to see a play and everyone in it is gray hair and white you know I mean not everyone in it everyone in the audience and um and I kind of I just and mostly that kind of work will put me to sleep but you know I also find that I have a great affection for and usually respond more to to theater that comes from um while two exceptions the two exceptions that come to mind are they're from britain you know the last thing I saw was um uh the play love which was at the armory and the jungle at saint ends and both of them obviously part of an institution cultivated within an institution that probably a lot of federal funding and very long rehearsal periods and everything else and I don't know you know I that kind of work to me it completely appeals to me because it touches on real issues and and done in an extraordinarily theatrical and fascinating way but I get scared by it because can you know how do we do that here without having to rely on the institution I mean are there ways to be able to do that work you know and somebody's um you know hypothetical garage that we always say but um so you know I I I hope there's a way to scale that kind of work down so that it can be done by smaller theaters and more people and new companies and that it can grow an audience of you know diverse people of all ages who will find it worth investing in and and worth following as a as a calling you know I'll say this not sound wild but I think a lot about universal health care you know because I think how can we safety net so that the level of experimentation can still happen on any budget but without asking people to go um to a level of not making enough money because there's no support network so if they fell in the thing you know they fell they fall off the sidewalk and then they're out of it and so I just keep thinking what are some of the some of the basic social networks that if we had individual institutions or individuals or collectives wouldn't be so hard pressed in this cruel cruel time um to to institutionalize to the salary to have you know a lot of the things that need to happen so that we can feel like we're not going to be left out on the street if we don't make a certain kind of minimum and so I think about that a lot with the responsibilities I have how can I and some of the rooms we're also it's a very glamorous rooms this is a devastating time and the top 0.1 grew their wealth in this time we are in some of those rooms we are in conversation with some of those people how can we use our platforms to say how do we make change how do we support not just our organization but how do we support some of the network underneath that safety net underneath that's going to allow artists and all kinds of human beings to exist with more freedom take more risks um and create whatever is the art of their soul without feeling like they're going to fail if they don't become institutionalized well may I jump in um absolutely this is what I was saying earlier you can't separate the journey or the unfolding of this field of these artists from the larger picture and it has never changed in the course of my lifetime the lack of value that our culture places on the role of the artist it's never changed it maybe has got a little better of a worse over time in different moments but that has never changed um and at least in my experience the voices of the artists are the ones that go beneath the sort of a passes for journalism well you know which tends to be um MSNBC versus Fox or and it's about Trump said this or Trump did that in the courtroom today rather than talking about what Patricia just mentioned is there are basic fundamental value questions that we're not addressing probably purposefully by some to keep us from talking with those but but this is where it gets so frustrating to me because I think we're only going to break through if we can hear the voices of the artists loudly and clearly and they're centered in our moments because I really believe there they are the ones who have the vision and the passion and yet we're denied their presence or their presence is minimized by all of the value issues so this is not a familiar struggle and a formulation but I think it's more intense these days in April 2023 as you say there um the first is just this is a thank you because in a championing form and the director's you also championed the expansion of design and the expansion of dramaturgy and as a dramaturge to a designer just and more but I just want to say thank you for that um and it was then really meaningful when address came to New York City as a theater maker in 2000 with one year lease and we would rent space across the street at Tatra Circulo it meant that we were in community with you and the form and with my mama and with Tatra Circulo and it's east forth is so special it's a special space um and I just was wondering if if you would just give us maybe the audience that's out there just a little bit of that community that that's like there's east forth is will always be something quite special in terms of the community the relationship to the art that is in the theater that's being made there so I just love to hear a little bit about that well come on jump in I think what you have Ellen Stewart right she's our mama and she is the mama of this you know and I think that Mia you it was fully groomed in the best sense by Ellen and carries on in Ellen's spirit I think I think Ellen would be very happy with what she's doing so I think that's first and foremost then you as I say our two spaces have historic president the truck and warehouse what was the name um David uh of the of the four street theater anyway so I think you got you've got that in your street um the um new brononists actually started in in that that we've had had a early presence in that space so as I say I think the La Mama space itself was a German cultural um center for immigrants and there there's a theater in you know the building on east four street with the uh with the circular steering that's an old aster place and there was a theater up on the top floor that I know the late Robert Patrick used with his little company back again in the in the 90s so I think there's that and then we have formally we have the fourth arts block because uh what was it about 15 years ago now Jim the the city wanted artists who were renting spaces on east fourth street to be able to buy them and they went out of their way to figure out how to do that and the workshop wasn't in a city space at that the city home space but because we took a lead and we had a little more resource than some of the smaller companies we did take a hand in uh some seeding the planning and and we we uh earned the the shop space the New York there were shops the shop space next to La Mama in that but the fourth arts block is a coalition of all of the small theater companies and spaces on that block now so and it's been designated as a cultural district which is rare so I think you you've got you've got again there's there are layers of culture and layers of history that make the block what it is and if there is any downtown theater that is probably still the center and then of course the public theater is just you know is a is a block or two away yeah but anyway I think that's you know and breaks going south at a yeah it's something that is meaningful to me right across the street from the workshop is what is the bar called still water that's now under renovation to be a restaurant and then they're reclaiming club 82 which was a legendary historically uh cross-dressing drag club and they're people they're doing red blossoms that I've been talking to you are very aware of the history of that community that street and very much want to be honoring that and be a part of that so I feel like that is the kind of energy that's very healthy and exciting which is to be understanding where you come from and figuring out how you check that and let's give it to yeah um hi it was um it's pretty inspiring I have one practical question is because you're speaking of history where do you keep all your archives for the album I wrote my piano so over the pandemic one of the things that happened was a great archive project and so all kinds of things that have been hidden in you know desk drawers and in the basement and in a storage space were all pulled out and put primarily I think in the rehearsal studio upstairs and we have two archivists um that was funding from the archive project and now we have in these great very organized with a with a digital archive that you can cross-reference so you can say Michael Garcess and all of a sudden all the pieces that he has you know been involved in it will tell you box 47 and then you can go to box 47 you can pull the thing out you can pull out the original Jonathan Morrison letter pitching you know what would become right you can pull all of these things out and so I think it's a great question there has been for a long period of time and I think one of the things that's wonderful about going into the workshop is you feel the history of ghosts that were predated in your theater workshop you feel like it's the ghosts of New York theater workshop and now it's organized in the last couple of years in this way and I think we're figuring out how can that be a resource as often as possible to as many communities as possible and that there that was that predated me but it very much appealed to my desire for this to function like a library to to have all of this history that has been documented available in a variety of ways and some of that will mean coming to Eastport Street which I think is a magical very very special place and the embodied experience of being in that space is irreplaceable and then I want it also to be accessible for people who might be international or national or or uptown and just not have an ability to get to Eastport Street in certain ways so I'm very excited that the the archive is really there and available in variety of ways for people. Yeah one more question on there? Oh excuse me I know still has the one said when you're in a period where the theater has nothing to say the sets get bigger so I think what we're talking about which is um you don't have to have these library sets um then you get to the essence of theater but it does then the question I I know that uh a friend of mine I was looking at spaces theater spaces possibly to rent and it was one space and we said um well what's going on here it's empty and they said oh we're doing a show it opens it goes into rehearsal opens at the end of the week and we said what are you doing with it now and they said well nothing and we have a show coming in and I said well couldn't you get people coming in doing a stage reading or a reading something that doesn't interrupt the set and I'm not um advocating the idea of you know putting on theater 24-7 and using the space like that but is it possible to have theaters functioning or doing more theater or inviting more theater in during their downtime when when when that's possible? Yeah I think I think we're all figuring out how to be the best resource and one of the resources that we have even in economic thinking stream time is space and one of the biggest challenges is who makes sure the lights are turned on and that the cookie doesn't get left so that then the mouse comes you know all what is the surround that's why I often think that the part of sustainability is what I mean some of that operational some of that just like functional in order to make that yes a yes without burning things down we've got to have a certain amount of stack support we've got to have a certain so it's one as a person who always wants to find the yes is the person who's you know I and there's a person who's very aware that we have space and our space is not just space it's a space that comes with a lot of respect that when you walk into the space you know you see people's shoulders kind of go up and and as much as in some ways it's a challenge that it's become institutionalized it can also be a real value especially for emerging or all kinds of artists that people say oh I'm here I know that doing the reading at New York Theater Workshop gives something to somebody so even if all you can do is turn on the lights and give some music stands I want to be able to offer that asset and I also have to raise funds and do a lot of things to make sure that the lights can be turned on and the cookie can be swept up so that then the room is there for the next day in the next generation yeah and I think they are the one of the theaters that really opened the doors the shed if I ever see one was empty for three months in both spaces we are just at 500 million dollar projects just in the days we don't have money or we are on the way to duty it's not about these this layout but one or two more questions um if not you know really um I think we all are very close to criticize we are very fast to say what's wrong what's missing what hasn't been done and we don't say thank you now for show our gratitude and I think this is also really a moment to say something to two great workers in the community of theater in global theater the American theater but especially of course New York and theater games very rare that people are so long put their life in and that's what James said only look they put their lives energy there like flowers that belong you know you'll see that the beautiful colors won't be all organic beings and we want to shine and be alive in the sense of fierce and they were alive and they did an incredible work over the town it's a great commitment everybody works with there on your top of this especially in New York and the American theater so um a lot of respect I think you know to what you guys did what you created and what you gave as a gift they are always an artistic gift for the next generation so we really want to say thank you all so the listeners thank you so much thank you for caring about the theater in the biggest possible way because