 All right. Good morning everybody. Thanks so much for being here. This is 2020 Evolving Asian American Theater. So, brief intros. My name is Jeff Liu. I'm a director based in LA. To my left is Victor, you pronounce it, Mayog. Okay, Victor Mayog, who is a freelance director, AD of Second Generation Productions in New York. Next to him is Leslie Ishii, an actress, a director, a teaching artist, also co-facilitator for TCG Diversity Inclusion Institute. And next to her is Roger Tang, producer, player at ED of Porkfield Players in Seattle, also editor of the invaluable, indispensable Asian American Theater Review. All of you are members of that, right? And get the digest? Yeah? Everyone. Okay. Okay. So, here we go. Today we are looking at models of ethnic specific theater, which I think we can all agree is one form of home that we have created for ourselves. From one and only one in 1965, useless players, to now, we're talking how many? Roger? Several dozen. Yeah, several dozen. Of course, it's always a bit of a struggle, staying alive, some go, some are formed, but we're going to talk a bit about that, some of the best practices, the ways in which theaters have had to change to accommodate audience, community, what have you. And then after that, I want to get on to how these theaters are also called upon to interact with the mainstream, sometimes do battle with the mainstream, whatever that is. It's an interesting question yesterday, I think it was Andrea who brought up, well, is integration the goal? I don't know that it has to be the only goal, but I think it's clear from the last panel that these are battles that have to be fought. They're going to be fought whether we fight them well or not, so we might as well fight them well, it strikes me. But we'll get to that in a moment. So, first, we'll talk about certain models of ethnic-specific theater, and I'll also pause at different times so that you guys can chime in and keep us all in time. We'll see if we can do this. So, Victor, do you want to start off? Sure. Thanks, Jeff. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. I'm Victor Mayog. I'm the Artistic Director of 2G Second Generation in New York. And raise your hand if this is your first contact conference. Good. Yes. I asked because it's my first one as well. Yes, so hello. Welcome. I think one of the things that I want to be able to articulate today as we sort of move forward, and I think it works with plays as well and any all sorts of initiatives that we actually have to go back to, at least even on a personal basis, are our origin stories, right? So there's a sense of contextualization between where we're going and really the resonance of how it started. And I think that's been an interesting part of this journey for me. And I'm going to be focusing mainly on some of the New York transformations because that's where I've been in since 1995. Though Tiatra and Antanan in San Francisco gave me my start, my first professional directing job. And actually just this year, Rick Chiomi and Randy Reyes commissioned me to write my first full-length play. So Asian-American theater has been very, very generous to me in giving me a start. So we know Pan Asian Rep came out of that thesis collaboration with Ellen Stewart. And she said, and please chime in here anytime Tisa, she wanted to create a space for Asian-American artists but also to make Asian-American works popular. And she's been doing that and she's really been a beacon for that sort of work. And further along, I think around 1989 or so came my theater trying to find a home for Filipino artists that eventually started to change in the late 90s to try to be much more expansive to try to be Pan, to have sort of a Pan-Asian focus. And then in 2004, there was a writer's lab that happened with Mai that focused in creating a home for Asian-American writers, which now I think is about 30, 30 writers. And those works go throughout the country. With NACO that started in 1989 with Mia and Richard Eng trying to create works that wanted to really put value on Asian-American contributions in this culture. And so with that, their mission is to create works how are Asian-Americans positioned in European works. And then I've seen that move through adaptations of work and then I know Mia is now starting to commission work as well. Lately, I've noticed the work of Biorch Lee in the National Asian Artist Project and Biorch said to me who was in the original chorus line, she goes, it's taken me so long to come back here but I'm coming back. And now I want to train our Asian-American artists to really work in musical theater through a national chorus through classic musicals like Oliver. And so that's happened over the last couple of years. And also there is the Leviathan Lab that I know Ariel has started that is sort of a studio that has film that has actually done site-specific work and I know now they're in the middle of another transition. They've also done some Shakespeare as well. And when I came on to 2G two years ago it was working in sort of short form plays. And when it started in 1997 with Willie Yang he wanted to do large-scale musicals because he had gotten some parts in Miss Saigon and then he said, well, where else do I go after this? So he wanted to create a vehicle for that called Making Tracks that actually explored Japanese internment, the Chinese railroads. And after Lloyd Sutter go over, he really worked inward and tried to create a space for Asian-American writers to just work, just to do it, to write their first play. And Carla took that to an even further level where she said, well, let's do some puppetry. Let's begin to expand sort of the forms that we're working with and sort of tap into the restlessness of what we're supposed to do. And so when I took over about two years ago I said, well, now that we've cultivated this community how do we actually then begin to not just move inward but move outward? Now that we have the skills, people have been trained, people are getting experiences, how do we begin to move forward in the work? And so that's part of what our work is now is to return to full production and try to bring this community both to the mainstream but at the same time if we're saying we're being neglected by some folks in the mainstream the question that we're talking about at 2G is who in our own community are we ignoring? And so we started a program a few years ago called Community Voices and it was a program for LGBTQ API. So a place for them to write the first place, a place for them to actually have a place to talk and we're hoping to continue that program as well. Yes? Let me just jump in now for just a second because I have to leave to go and float around to see the other panels and meetings. But going back to Pan-Agent that was founded in 1777 as the oldest age professional Asian American theater company on the East Coast that era, I just want to say how important it is because it was also an act of taking our destiny in our own hands and having to act with activism with providing opening with opportunities for Asian American actors who have been marginalized on the mainstream. So I think some of these issues are still so current and we have more opportunities today and there are other breakout panels wanting to explore this more. So I think it's very important to say we started at that and we're still continuing this group life. This whole thing about equity on Broadway I've lived 15 years. I don't even see Asian American dancers in chorus very often, I mean a few of them of course have gotten you know... ... ... So thanks. So not to dominate this, but I think that so many of the reasons that Panaging was founded and you talked a little bit about the artistic the artistic repertoire of course is highly expansive and I'm just so happy that I see so many now younger people and artists following in the same tracks. I think our trajectory has really spawned so many tentacles and you're carrying it on in your own individual ways in singular creative distinctive ways so I feel very gratified I said yesterday I'm the grandma the old Buddha you know the Empress of China was called the old Buddha well so I just wanted to say that that act of activism and for political change is still going on Thank you. Thank you. Just a little footnote when I got appointed to the Kata board and became artistic director of 2G it was Tisa who wrote me right away and said will you come and meet with me? So thank you. So that's where we are. Roger, Leslie, do either of you want to add something about some of the cases you've seen in terms of I think specific theaters? I mean basically I mean I was here the first guy to start an age American theater was only five and for years we used to put in our things into our case statements at the north of the age American theater one of only five across the country and right in the middle of the 90s it just exploded and there were so many it's hard for me to keep up even though it's a self-appointed job for me to try to keep up with all the people that were doing stuff I know I'm only catching around 50, 60% of what's going on around the country so it's like oh let me see this great diversification of voices because our voice is so full so multi-dimensional that one organization can't possibly hold it I would just add East West Players is beginning to celebrate with anniversary and we're the oldest POC theater in the country now so we hold the mantle with this sort of pride but also a little bit of sadness that others have fallen away knowing sometimes it's time for theaters to fall away and other things grow and come up new I come from the northwest Asian American theater I too feel the Asian theater has been incredibly generous in giving me opportunity to develop and continue my livelihood there's Mo'Auello in San Diego of course there's a plethora of theaters in the Bay Area the west coast and we've already mentioned Mu Performing Arts so it's gratifying to see that we're national you know it's not in just these major pockets now on the coasts we're national all throughout Texas Steven it's a drug band there's South Asian theaters in Texas and there are people up in Florida and I've seen people in Georgia do stuff so that's kind of a little astonishing for me but it's very heartening because everybody's finding their voices I would also add that I'll mention a few sort of turning points that may or may not be interesting to you is that all of these theaters and the people in them are a resource to you if something comes up maybe in the future don't hesitate to contact them because 9 out of 10 they'll try and tell you what they went through but for East West a few moments is one thing that has successfully been done over the 50 years is two transitions of artistic directorship power which is not the easiest thing to do and believe me there was drama so I'm not going to go into interesting how you survive that and go on and what is sometimes necessary number two is the move of space from a 99 seat theater equity waiver plan to a full on equity contract mid-sized theater that involved the capital campaign all kinds of things that are kind of fraught because everyone knows mid-sized theater is one of the most difficult to stay alive so corner Tim Dang if you want to know about that okay the other thing is and this partly came out of one of these conferences is the recognition that wow we have to do more to fully include the South Asian community under the umbrella of Asian American theater and this is something Tim committed to and basically among other things he said okay then we're going to do one South Asian main stage play out of the four every year and this is now in the fourth season of that which is ongoing to that and I wanted to mention those a couple of other things we've talked about I think move is a great example of taking what is sort of unique to the Minnesota Asian American community and reflecting that especially you know the focus on Korean adoptee and also work which is very unique which I found very moving also through this conference when some of those people came and talked about what it was like to develop work there I also wanted to mention Silk Road by defining Asian America this way right which allows them to also embrace many predominantly Muslim countries and all along I think it makes them extremely relevant now this is partly what I think Andrea was talking about because I know that's still uncomfortable even talking to folks of well is a big culture yeah exactly and I think people are divided about it I did also want to link to that I'll give a shout out to Aya Dr who I believe is now officially the second Asian American playwright to make Broadway after David Henry Wong is that correct am I spreading a vicious who's who's second oh right right right Rajiv Joseph sorry and Aya I think is maybe one of the most important players right now because he's writing about Islam in a way that the mainstream Lord audiences can understand and want to buy tickets to that's a very sort of unique combination of qualities which I think is very interesting does anyone want to chime in and yell really loudly something they want to talk about now a case study that you feel like everyone needs to hear like right now or you can always save it to the end yeah cool can anyone throw out a few of the have Asian American companies been doing this kind of work you wanted to actually lift up it's a neighborhood that has a long historical place obviously for Asians and Catholicers but it's not one of them more traffic neighborhood so there's a lot of conceptual problems where people think of it in a certain way as being dangerous or you know not able to take their family and so we started doing these sexist tour so we actually first year was focusing on people who live and work there the second year was on people why they go there the third year was on Bruce Lee for a reason and then last recently we just mentioned that it was about women who have made a difference in the 90s if you google there's no document or record of these women in their lives and the contributions they made to the neighborhood other than in their local areas and so what we did was we actually cite the commission localization of our providers to write pieces based on their experiences have been okay great and then they actually we cite them in different places throughout the international district and then we actually take people on a real walking tour which is a huge thing in Seattle and then and then they encounter them in the open spaces in the parks in the alleyways and so there's a real blend between what reality is and people actually getting to experience it we also do it in historical spaces so like the Wing Luke Asian Museum where it was converted from an old historical building that has a long history in a hundred some year history and then we actually cite by actually placing actors in the different historical areas of the museum so that they actually people can actually see what life was like had they been to this hotel that's been converted to museum so we've been doing more of that stuff we want to move into doing some more environment I mean like really specific out and exterior spaces but that's what we've been doing I think Jeff if you're asking for a shout out for companies doing things so I guess a company that's been a big friend to Asian-American companies is Yellow Earth Theatre based in London which for many years did readings of Asian-American plays over I don't know how many years maybe five, six, seven years so you know and it's and one of the last plays that it produced and toured nationally was Wave by Sarno so that did a UK national tour that I produced and directed unfortunately that company is probably winding down so by the end of this year won't be exist anymore we'll see I hope not but I think that you know and they're new friends for internationally for Asian-American theatre companies that are very receptive so I think that as we go further on in this discussion once we've covered the domestic perhaps we can have a look at the international it's back there and then we're gonna move on okay I'm gonna come back yeah thanks hi I'm Katie I live in Austin and I it will toot my own horn but it is to answer May's question I do not run an Asian-American company but we are mostly people of color who are mostly queer identified who are mostly women or female assigned gender at birth we do a site specific project regularly I think almost every year we did a piece called before this was Texas which is about relating to the land of Texas and so as an Asian-American I was we I would look at language around invasive species but also my collaborators were Chicano or of indigenous descent and so it was an interesting way that we related specifically to the land in our bodies and so my company is called the generic ensemble company and we're based in Austin we are not Asian-American but I'm Asian-American and and we're we're trying to work across race and ethnicity so I think I saw was it you oh okay hi I'm Leilani Chan I'm with theater productions we're based in Los Angeles and we're actually culminating a two-year cycle of what we're calling pop-up theater we got funding from Irvine Foundation to do this work with restaurant workers and we wanted restaurant workers to be able to participate in the work so we kind of going with this pop-up restaurant pop-up flash mob style theaters so that restaurant workers could perform in the work and we've been doing so that there's minimal rehearsals but it's site-specific performances around Los Angeles and then I also wanted to mention Pangea World this is answering May's question of course Pangea World Theater got the Coveted Art Place Grant to do a really that's a major major competitive national grant to do site-specific work in a Mina would probably talk more specifically about it but to do work around an area that's being gentrified but working with immigrant communities to do site-specific work in that area to engage with how that community is changing but I guess I would like to what I'm thinking is how do we tie this to what you're talking about it's very different doing this place-making work and working with community-based work and then talking about representation in the theater so I guess I'll just voice a question I'm having is what is the hope then you know because I prefer I've gone another route where I want to work with my community and I want to talk about stories I also have cynical in that I don't think the mainstream is going to change until we can prove to them we have an audience and only to community work is my belief that it can happen so I'm just opening that up for dialogue give me some hope that mainstream can change I'd love to hear it cool we will be getting there alright okay so that's a nice segue every now and then while our theaters and homes are struggling trying to survive get an audience all that something will happen that requires some kind of response it's 25 years after Miss Saigon and these just happen and you go wow have we had any impact at all really but of course every one of these flash points is also an opportunity of some kind right so I think Roger is going to talk a bit about that I'm going to talk a little bit about this because basically it's like where these things have been happening across the country it's like I started adding the episode oh my god this is a huge list it's like okay I have a big file full of instances across the country like across the world we all know about the Nightingale in San Diego where they cast all the major roles of white people excuse what this is with Fantasy China but this is San Diego is an area with major Asian American population in Chicago there is Pippin a Bollywood spectacular they did a Bollywood version of Pippin only one API in the show rest was white and there's no South Asians on the production staff come on let's we can hop on over to England we know all about that the original thing with the Royal Shakespeare Company cast all the major roles as white actors because Asian actors would not be credible in other roles they were doing in repertoire popping back over Broadway there's Priscilla, Queen of the Dether they were when they're casting roles they say they're sinking for quote-unquote Cynthia B-Mail asian actor can be any ethnicity as long as she can convincingly portray Asian on stage as if there were no Asians around around in New York with all these New York Asian American theater companies they could tap there is the mystery Edwin Drewd at the round about white actors were cast to play two Siri Lankin characters and they did so wearing brown face makeup as native Siri Lankins it was so obvious York Times called out production for silly imitation exoticism and observed a burnt umber makeup I like that and let me see and of course locally here in Philadelphia there is the Julius Caesar by Lantern Theater where they had a concept of Japanese Taylor or Rome and they withdrew without ever leaving a Japanese person or mixed blood person behind and they did not bother to consult anybody with who's expert in Japanese culture I would like to call out Makoto Horano for pending that absolutely wonderful piece pinpointing every single thing that they did incorrectly in that piece so besides being that that was just a marvelous thing a textbook case of how to do that and of course which many of you heard Makoto has been a problem not only in Seattle but in Providence where they cast it entirely with all the roles with white actors at the same time while trying to be as accurately accurate in their costuming and makeup and props as possible paying more attention to the props and costumes than they did to the ethnicity of the actors let me see I think people have noticed that it was ignited by a Seattle Times article outside the by Seattle Times columnist that sparked a number of protests people may not know about the Providence River Island case where in some ways it's quite worse when somebody presented a petition to the producers staff members said oh we're sorry about we understand what you're talking about we're sorry about the offense and then when they would buffed up the letter to the president of the organization they said well we fired that person so that's a big long list and I know that it's not exhaustive it's happening and one of the main things I'm thinking what the hell as they said 25 years since Miss Saigon and it's still and it's still going on and they're coming from people who we think we should know better so this go ahead that's a very interesting phrase in terms of we think we should know better or these people should know better and it raises something I've been thinking about which is that conscious bias is something we all know about unconscious bias might actually be even more powerful looking at some of the science research about that kind of thing is that there's a lot more stuff that doesn't have as much intentionality as we're in control we think we do the right thing and often we don't I think that's something worth thinking about as we deal with these different issues Kathy can I call on you since we've been talking this is really interesting I thought because part of what we have to ask about these different events is what comes out of them right so it might be a panel it might be like La Jolla Playhouse did you guys all watch that online the sort of what comes out of that those follow up panels in LA and then dealing able to get some of those major artistic directors into a room to at least pay lip service to talking about these things now how many of them are serious about changing their organizations is a different matter but through that I think it becomes incumbent on us to identify who the real allies could and are going to be it's not going to be everybody but you don't need everybody right these relationships with OSF and with others partly came out of that because the issue became hot again because and then if they have egg on their face they're going to have motivation at least a while right a window and how we capitalize on that Kathy can you talk a bit about what has come out of this most recent Mikado thing in Seattle yeah so the Seattle situation was a lot like what happened with the nightingale in San Diego where because of the yellow face casting it became this huge controversy and a lot of people started protesting but it was all based on emotion which is completely valid but it wasn't moving the dial forward and the minute that editorial times article hit because I've been following what's been happening around the country I'm very fortunate and I actually do have the privilege of working I'm in charge of all the grant funding program for the arts in Seattle so in that position I immediately brought to the mayor's attention and a lot of people in the city and they were like well but we don't know if this is a big enough issue so I kept pressing and we actually were able to I got the permission to host the forum with the Seattle rep and from that forum it was the first time we're actually in a room and a lot of people said this what made it amazing in Seattle we're considered a very white liberal progressive community and it was the first time it didn't feel like the people of color were in a room just talking to the choir which is huge because lots of times you have race conversations and it's people of color talking with each other non people of color never even deal with it but to actually have a room that was a mix and so many people that were artists and arts administrators and arts leaders artistic directors board members in the room and the goal though and I know I got a lot of flak from people of color and specifically Asian Americans and I'll you know and it was very uncomfortable but because they didn't feel I pressed enough they felt like the conversation was too polite which Seattle really is but what was great about it was amazingly so people of color like this is a great opportunity where you could have really said this is the issues and why it's wrong and but the non people of color from that same experience they came up and they were like oh my gosh we had no idea they really are living in a bubble and no idea that yellow face is an issue that a lot of the structural racism exists in our country still exists and so it had to be a conversation of just introducing these ideas just enough where a lot of the non people come in the room were like I felt so uncomfortable I felt like all this stuff was becoming awareness for me that they never had before but that was critical to get them there if we had pushed their buttons too much it would have been so easy for them to go we can't even deal with this and just walk away and what's been really gratifying since then since then in the mayor's budget speech never has the word arts even ever been mentioned no matter which administration in the most recent one just happened a couple of weeks ago the mayor of Seattle actually publicly said he actually called out the Mikado incident in his budget speech lauded our office and said this is an example of when a city employee sees an issue happening in the community that is important it's about race and equity and actually used this challenge as an opportunity to address it but more importantly a lot of the arts organization leaders have actually been coming and saying you know we need to figure out how we can work on this and change this they'd never been aware that there was a problem and that's the reality lots of us people of color we automatically think oh everyone should know this is a problem and then we're kind of mind sided when things happen and we're like don't they understand that it's a problem and the reality is a lot of people don't a lot of people if it doesn't come across their consciousness on a day to day basis like it does for us people of color it really isn't part of there so we have to use those opportunities to see how we can move the Dal Ford sometimes moving the Dal Ford means being really strategic and building up for those moments when they come not of course coming from our passion but not being so emotional that we're just looking at right now I want today but help work together and partner with them to really address equity and for the first time our arts commission actually publicly stated at the mayor's arts awards that now racial equity will be the main focus and priority of the work that they do and they call the community to hold them accountable to that that if they see instances of inequity happening and with our funding because we're working on actually getting approval of an equity fund that will actually give funding to organizations who are leading with equity racial equity and we are also a lot of the arts organizations like the Seattle rap which is one of the best most established arts organizations in the city they've been calling me weekly now saying we want to hold more conversations like this we need to like have this be a community in the forefront of our consciousness and so it's been really inspiring to see the Ford movement because of taking a challenge and a controversy and turning it into opportunity to really make change I also want to point out the really interesting thing of how do you apply leverage to different parts right and funding is one of those things this is a conversation we've been having in California as well is that well okay if you are accepting public funding and part of it is to support diversity and also to serve the community what does it mean if you take that money and then your stuff isn't diverse and you import all your artists from New York anyway so you're not even employing white LA theater artists right how do you call them out on it rather than letting them get away with it and as soon as you get to money right people can get mad on the one hand but they might also care more on the other hand right so then how do you balance those sort of the carrots and the sticks the other thing is criteria how do you become more specific about well how do you measure whether you've been genuine and successful in promoting diversity with the money our taxpayer money that we've given you is it casting is it board is it staff is it all of the above and there are ways to measure that we had a comment urgent comments let's give them the mic just quick footnote underscoring with Seattle rep if we're looking for allies in the field Jeff Herman who's the new executive director at Seattle rep this all blew out on the second day of the job he had just literally walked in the door two days ago and he was quick to action and really responsive the show as you probably know was a not a Seattle rep production but they were in Seattle rep's house and they felt very responsible and responsive to the community so I just want to acknowledge the allies that we have out there I'm Justin I'm a local performer here I just want to follow this thread of what next and and also just a little personal anecdote from our community with the lantern theater production actually a lot of things really did fruitful things came out of that that event didn't end at the letter which might look like on paper that's what happened but two big major things happened in our community the first is there were a lot of Asian-American performers theater makers technicians designers and people that identify with that community that all felt we were in our own little bubble because we feel very segregated both geographically there's a lot of our cities very wide but also artistically and when this moment happened there was a sudden a calling of voices a lot of hands started going up and people started being public on forums on social media and then we started making connections with each other saying hey I don't know you but we should all meet and eventually we had a series of meetings between all of these artists and those led to discussions on how do we deal with this issue we have two options we could do this in a public forum we could have a town hall sort of gathering and talk with this artistic team this theater point out the things that were wrong with this production or we could figure out a way to do this in a private manner and ultimately I think what we decided is what we decided was to do this in a small gathering actually in this very room with the artistic director with the man executive director and a few of the staff and a lot of our community many of whom I had met for the very first time in those meetings and this is all serendipitous with rick shiomi doing his residency at interact that actually just was happening at the same time and the planning of the kata being here but so after that there was a little bit of silence but now there's a new initiative here in Philadelphia that he is actually spearheading that the executive director of the lantern to get together a lot of the artistic leaders from our theaters together to I'm not sure what the next steps are but that's the first stepping point is we're getting together this month and who knows what's going to come of this but I do want to say like there's the next steps for us it was a good it was a strategy to come together and do this in a very private manner and instead of a public way that some of these other incidents that you mentioned have been dealt with but yeah thank you interesting you mentioned the RSC orphanage hour so that really activated a whole bunch of movement in the UK about 18 months was it two years ago now but you see the RSC isn't interesting in the UK it's interesting what you're saying about Seattle rep but I word of caution the RSC would have a racial equality action plan equal opportunities it's set up to it's taken the money to support diversity etc so you have to be careful allies they not be allies firstly secondly being really shit hot on the people that are into the law the constitution I've gone into the RSCs are memorandums etc etc it's just a question about current and stick there's no stick the RSC has held extensive workshops has had lots of meetings of directors etc etc and hasn't employed anybody to my knowledge in the past year and a half the two Chinese actors that moved the dog puppet there's public in the orphanage hour there's public sort of yes we're going to you know these people come in in this level and they're going to be trained up to be Shakespeare actors blah blah blah but as soon as the contract was over and the spotlight was off them they were out on their ear so I think that it's really interesting that it's great that here you're putting in mechanisms to support diversity and get pledges but you have to be very careful about carrots and sticks you know so you had a bit of carrot they had that stick ready I do have to move on soon super urgent super urgent go for it Marie-Ren Marie-Ren hi this is actually a question and so a lot of this coalition building and action that we've had in terms of a lot of the activities that have been going on around the country in terms of inequity you know what one of the questions that Andy Lo brought up at one of the Los Angeles Network meetings that we had had is how can we go past being reactionary and just being more and thinking about how can we be more proactive about what is our voice what is the message there are of course a lot of different points and a lot of goals that are all important and so I think that's where a lot of intersectionality comes into place and yeah it's like how would we you know like I think it's really great that a lot of people are organizing right now because of as a reaction but to stay connected and to stay organized and there's our segue okay so among other things you can make a very good argument that the tone of the American theater is set by the Lord system everyone knows what that is right the legal resident theaters they're basically the network of the major regional theaters of the United States okay between them they can give people careers basically they offer more equity contracts than Broadway and commercial theater combined okay so if Vanya and Sonya Macha Spike is the most produced play in the states this year which I think it is right Broadway to there well it's not like Christopher Ryan needed the money but yeah you're wrong but the point is that's the in as it were in terms of mainstream theater so it's also then one logical area for activism right and going to Lalani's question worth it not is worth talking about so I'm going to turn to Leslie now thank you Jack it's really interesting experience being on this panel because I come from starting out at the Northwest Asian American Theater in Seattle which we have to look at the origins it was first called the exclusionary act so it was born out of activism and I come from community activism being in the Japanese American community there and doing my part as a young adult to go to those redress hearings to connect us to the plenary that was just before us and had family directly impacted by the internment so a lot of my career has been a love of the arts for sure but it was always always based on activism so I love Jeff that you called upon me to get to at least open up this conversation around activism there's a kind of a duality that I think occurs like you're mentioning I started at the Asian American Theater but then I actually went to the Northwest Asian American Theater and then was trained at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco and I'll get into this a little bit more at the next breakout session on training and that was at a time and actually I really appreciate that Amelia is here that was the start of a lot of the first conversations and gatherings on color blind casting when those terms were beginning to have been trained at a very predominantly white based approach and really went through whitewashing and was actually told I won't work unless I speak a certain way it was true at the time it was true and I have worked because of it however I live a double life that I think now is becoming more integrated because of my activism actually continued on that I kept my other foot in the world of Asian American Theater and then one of the first things I did was I went to East West Players and met with Noble McCarthy and she said you will teach I had just come out of ACT and she said you will teach and that's because I had the skills at the time that were most of us didn't have access I was one of two people of color in my class at ACT at the time and there were a couple above behind me so that average has not changed unfortunately when we talk about access so when we look at the Lord theaters what are we training for we're not getting access into the most major programs that actually utilize the MFA students the candidates that come out so it's an interesting prospect also just to move over to some I put this out to my panelist on an email I said am I wrong or are there really only about six artistic directors of color in the Lord system is it five I thought it was Chay you at Victory Gardens Victory Gardens is not technically oh that's right it's not technically okay thank you he is an idea of a major yes thank you yeah Sheldon Epps Pasadena Playhouse Kwame Kwema Baltimore Center Stage Joe Hodge Playmakers Rep Diane Paulus ART American Repertory Theater she's half Japanese which I didn't know which I was so happy to learn and of course Tim Bond Syracuse Stage so that I just named three Asian Americans is there more oh yes yeah I'm going to get to our associate thank you yes oh she's artistic oh yeah that's right fantastic yes and so yay there's a little bit of hope Leilani associate artistic directors Eric Ting at Long Wharf who you saw in the video at Oregon Shakespeare Festival Robert Fleming at Arena he was just appointed to his position Dan Rodriguez which is an interesting story finally just made associate artistic director and Seamus Weco at Pasadena Playhouse Hannah Sharif Center Stage and then Liesl Tommy at Berkeley Rep so there's a handful of people of color in these positions in the Rep in the Lord Theatre which is I believe 72 theaters active in this country so well that's more than there has been in the past and that's hopeful Jeff asked me the question what's the vision you know is there a percentage we're shooting for and some talks with other colleagues I'm not sure that's actually the question why I think we should be goal driven it helps us to rise to the occasion and to look to have something to look for because we can get very ensconced in our own internalized oppression and be reactive so to be literally the activism to be proactive is really interesting to be able to think about our vision I think the bigger question and I share this with colleagues Sharif as one is how and do we prioritize developing our top leadership and in what context because the context has been largely in the mainstream that was developed by the white white really as our colleague just mentioned supremacist mentality and if we're the coming majority then in what context do we actually train our people I'm really excited to think about my vision which is a state of the art national theater for people of color if you look around at the nation I've had the good fortune in the last few years to travel for different programming and see the state of the people of color theaters in this country we deserve more I love seeing this building and that there's newness to it but most of us need a sound system most of us haven't changed out our carpeting most of us thankfully at east west were a historical site and there are some ramifications about what we can change there but we are living and inhabiting theaters that are not up to date and it's shameful and it's not necessarily our fault it's not for not having tried it's unconscionable and we are the coming majority and here's where the hope is Leilani thank you for bringing that up we have been doing this for years and we actually know what to do we've been in our communities we've been giving voice we're making a decision to be visible despite the challenges we're starting to see how our liberation is connected to each other which is critical these are not one-offs that happen it's been systematic and we have to look back at our history and not just see where the victimization is but how we're connected because of it and begin to build our liberation based on that we have to and I sound old school, I know but it's actually so relevant to keep bringing up the term liberation I think it's important that we take a moment here to breathe and look back at our generations and see the DNA that has come through all of us it's so fortunate that Tisa will travel to be with us and that she represents the generations that started the indigenous American theaters and we have to note that what she keeps bringing up are things that have been left behind that still need time and energy integrated with all the incredible wonderful energy that comes from our younger generations and I know we'll get to that in the intergenerational breakout session we're community organizers we always have been so I'm really excited to see how the community organizing is going on differently look than we were in Los Angeles last time I can feel it and I have to share with you that in Los Angeles we're 91% students of color in the educational system now I have the great fortune of straddling working with major institutions like center theater group one of the largest consortium of theaters in this country Oregon Shakespeare probably if not the first or second behind them larger consortium of theaters in this country and then working with Asian American theater and the white mainstream is very quickly in terms of language because I'm a voice teacher is losing currency students will speak English in the classroom because they have to around their subject but they actually silo off by language and usually when I'm in the classroom and this is the great thing about getting to see the whole landscape is there's usually no less than 6 to 12 languages in the room it's incredibly exciting and if you haven't been out to California I hope you come because you start to feel I've been starting to feel more agency because I'm finally in the majority we're in the majority there now so we're the leading edge and developing all of the strategizing of what it's going to mean in 2042 which is now our projection around majority so I hope you keep and work with us and keep a close eye on what we're doing because language is a very big key to how we keep connected to each other and keep sharing and cross pollinating around that not to dilute and become Asian enough or white enough but keep connecting around who we are and for me is that Japanese American that means reclaiming my language because of internment we stop speaking Japanese so looking at language, looking at the coming population and we are it I want to ask a quick question before I throw it back to Jeff is how many feel that they have agency some of the time how many feel you have agency half the time in your livelihood how many feel you have agency all the time oh wow I'd like everybody to raise their hand right now everybody raise your hand I'm asking you now to raise your hand and to remember this moment because I have just now deemed you with full agency all the time every moment every moment you must give yourself agency and never forget that and after I just gave you permission you now have to own it so I want you to breathe that in right now breathe it right now everybody please a collective breath in and now a big sigh saying yes I accept that because we won't move forward without it but we are looking different from the last conference I'm starting to see agency and I only hope that we just continue on through this movement through this conference to practice giving ourselves agency working with each other and making our connection strong thank you Jeff so no that brings us back directly to Lelani's question I'm going to ask you guys to participate again and thank you so much for participating I wanted it to be like this I think it's working out it's like if everyone's quiet it's like ugh no yeah the question of right this sort of community based model versus the okay how do we break into the main stream and then how do those things kind of support each other is a very interesting one because I do feel very strong that both are necessary you know what I mean so you asked about okay if you're doing the community based stuff right if you can prove that you have an audience and a market of your own well then I mean they'll come to you because they want the money right that's always been a problem with Asian Americans relative to population ticket buying power this is a fact I always bring up you know what if you're an entrepreneur that's an incredible skill Tyler Perry however you think about his work he does not need the approval of Lord he does not need the approval of white critics and he started as a theater artist not a filmmaker a theater artist he knew his audience he knew where they were he didn't he sidestepped all of that stuff right and now no one can ignore him and everybody wants to have a development deal if you can prove that you're on your way it's difficult in the Asian American situation relative to population this is why one of the things I want to throw out as well is that traditionally film TV web I'm going to add web to that now and theater people are wary of that relationship right well guess what the web is actually the one place where Asian Americans are overrepresented relative to population okay what does that tell you about market right and it's beyond okay we have to use social media for marketing because I have it on very good authority that actually the people who are online they're very allergic to marketing they don't like to feel like they're being marketed to what it really is it's another place to generate content which creates engagement okay so I want to throw that thought out there for you know the later marketing panels and stuff like because I think it's a very important distinction I think a lot of theaters only see it as marketing and I don't know that that's actually the right way to explore that sphere which is huge it's much bigger in the future than now the other thing I want to point out in terms of hope is and you've been looking at the major networks lately ABC arguably now has the most diverse slate of false shows in the history of American television that did not happen by accident it's years of activism it's the NAACP it's the Asian-Mazific American Media Coalition and it's also the zeitgeist catching up with the national and global population slowly but surely and I would encourage us to think of theater as part of all of that in fact part of the progenitor since theater came first but it's not the enemy when we presented Yellow Face for YouTube at TCG David Henry Wong one of our most prominent playwrights was saying you know what I'm not threatened by this web stuff at all he even said I don't even care if people want to take little clips of my shows because it's all going to generate interest in theater I don't know that I agree with that necessarily but that's what he said so I'm passing it on to you the other yeah oh yeah I see I'll get to you the other thing about Lord is that we do need people who want to play that game you know it's a strange place to be how do you climb the ladder and maintain that identity but without people like David Henry Wong I don't know that we'd be further than where we are now but it's not everybody you need to know how to and want to play that particular game we need playwrights who are designing shows that are for crossover do you know what I mean it's not every play that's going to do that that's just the reality the mainstream theaters are not going to produce certain kinds of Asian-American plays and they will do others and that's a conversation we can have but we can be very savvy about that and I think the community root and the mainstream root can work together if the right sort of leadership is in place so I throw that out there okay looking forward towards 2020 and even 2042 right which is when America becomes majority minority what do we want to see but first do you have comments on this topic why don't we do that now before we move on okay yeah can I just answer that really quick yeah so there's one before we forget I forget we track the people in spark our Asian-American leaders in spark our Asian-Americans leaders coming up especially make note of our generational intergenerational breakout I want us to track them and make sure they get somewhere we have to start tracking our people we have to start giving that push to make sure they're supported throughout their process let's hear some folks got urgent hands up thank you all and I actually want to want us to take that agency that Leslie has given us and say we don't need to play the Lord game what I want us to do is to take that agency and be rebels and revolutionaries and be artists and say that system is already struggling why are we not trying to build something else up why are we not supporting our institutions because guess what what we want is those buildings and those spaces and those resources that we're sharing and if we build up our companies we can take those over and create new models I just think it's a broken system and model and we still keep trying to fight for it and it's not our audiences and it's not our community and I just think that we have to think outside you know I encourage us to think outside of the box I think this conference this gathering is outside of that box and I know we want to make a living wage and it's hard to be artists these days and it's hard to compromise who you are to be in those places is ultimately what we should not do I just want to thank you so much for saying that that was way more articulate than the two sentences I will say which is I encourage all of us to be bad Asians bad bad Asians in the Ivoishi sense because I think that's the only way that we'll be able to do what Gracely Bog says which is a revolution is possible we are such creative people and I can't agree with you more we don't need to rebuild what we have that is shitty and poops on us why don't we imagine something that is amazing and is for tomorrow and for our communities and for our children that was a lot longer than two sentences I'm sorry just to kind of go on this Lord thing just but really for those of you I work with theater communications group that supports the not-for-profit theater which includes Lord theaters and all to put it in perspective there are 1800 professional theaters in this country the Lord universe is approximately 70 so you can see that it is a very small perspective percentage of the ecosystem but I also do want to say that we are an ecosystem you lift and support and rise together all boats rising on the water together that if we start to become divisive and say well you are all bad there us community theater good here that is essentially falling into the trap of racism and oppression that has been dogging us from day one so I want us to recognize the ecosystem in that way the other thing is within the Lord world I mean they are waking up and seeing what the Zeitgeist is right now there has been a Lord diversity that has been in place since last year and they have been having racial equity workshops and a lot of this has been really pushed into place by Tim Bond and Joe Hodge who are artistic directors of note and then largely supported by strong allies at OSF and Steppenwolf and other places around so there are don't demonize because there are people within the Lord structure that have the same values that everybody else does and just lastly I think the spark thing has been thrown around a little bit I just wanted to give a shout out because Victor Mayog, Snehal Desai and also Nelson Eusebio who are not here are part of TCG's pilot year of the spark leadership program specifically targeting leaders who aim to be the executive and artistic directors of theaters and our hope is that within three to five years of completing the program they are going to be in major leadership positions in our theaters and these are ten incredible people and we have got three Asian Americans out of ten I didn't have a thing to do with that I wanted to just build off of the last three points I think it is striking balance because I do believe in the concept that we need good people everywhere yes and I don't think it's an old school thing to throw out the word liberation and I just always want to remember the term self-determination in all of these cases where self-determining are actions and I think it comes down to percentages of time so we're all going to take different percentages of time fighting different battles. Me personally I want to definitely support instances where folks have to challenge representation issues in larger systems of power but it's going to be a smaller percentage of my time do you know what I mean I want to spend way more on yes holding people accountable to public funds and leveraging that towards development in our communities but beyond that it's like I don't want to deal with what's gross like they're just going to be gross they're going to continue to be gross and not even think that they have to think about that and so yeah I just want to create and collaborate and just be self-determined and yes I do feel agency all the time yes absolutely so yeah but balance and loving each other this is such a rich and beautiful discussion and one of the things you mentioned Tyler Perry and one of the things that I had the luxury of getting a show produced at a local theater in DC where they decided to do a new ticketing policy forum theater half of all seats were pay what you want and still they were not the season the show before they were not getting people to come into the theater and so I along with a few other people spearheaded using community organizing strategies as a tool for getting new quote-unquote audiences basically people around the corner they weren't talking to into the theater that they were uncomfortable talking to and so we basically created a whole team a volunteer team of people who are inspired enough by the content of the play because it actually spoke to them about issues going on in their communities and then more and more people came it was sold out it was the most diverse audience that one woman executive director Nan Barnett had ever seen in her 40 years of going to theater now of course I don't know what theater she was going to too as well you know obviously that's all you know whatever but but it really spoke to something and it made a difference to not only the performance it enriched the experience of each other person in the audience that you know the mmm's and what people were responding to it enriched that tapestry of the experience of the audience and also the post-show discussion because people got a chance to know each other deeper and I feel like it was something that I wish more theaters were open to doing yeah thank you go for it I just wanted to say this piece of advice if you have a chance take a leadership position if you have a chance even if you don't want that take a leadership position because it's a rare opportunity and I haven't worked in the Lord theater I ran a theater program in Cleveland Mississippi for three summers in the deep south and suddenly that I think everything I do is a Filipino play right and so suddenly the way that people were having a relationship with me in my relationship to the secret garden to the folks who were coming to this program changed I ran a training program for five years in Colorado and suddenly the the the tone of the staffing and who was making the decisions changed so I don't honestly I don't really always want to be in charge but someone gave me that advice maybe 15 years ago and it's been hard because I sometimes I just want to light back but I know that when I can change that you know the priorities and the budgets change the priorities in terms of what the why is going to be or who that scholarship money can go to it makes a big difference so that's my two cents for you Hi my name is Gina Pisa Sal I'm a resident dramaturge at a Lord theater in Philadelphia people's in theater company and just to speak to your initiative to reach out to community I feel like you know we're saying Lord as a kind of unit force but as like a Lord theater in the suburb of Philadelphia we're outside of Philadelphia too there's a certain uniqueness and a certain localness to us and there's a certain individuality that I think we need in our conversation about diversity and inclusion that other like even Philadelphia theaters or OSF or you know Chicago like has different conversations and different needs by different communities and it's obviously fueled by the individual artists that are there so I kind of just want to acknowledge that we can bring our own kind of local sensibility to our work and what I've I'm doing work as well what I'm kind of doing that research of is when the what is thrown at us in terms of responsibility to the larger Asian American culture so when you have an Asian American dramaturge in the room working on an Asian American piece like what am I and I'm adopted Korean but for some reason I become the expert on Asian American culture in the room so when you're saying like it's it's so interesting to name all of these individuals that are right the rising of the ranks but to know that they also come with their individual sensibilities about art so that that we have people of color in place of power is great on a visual level but in terms of bringing sensibility like the individual sensibilities we have to I think account for that and not assume that our our priorities are going to be kept and in for you know kind of put forward by people just because they're in those places of power so I just want to kind of acknowledge the local kind of movement that's necessary I think in the regional theaters and that's why the regional theater started because they wanted to address communities in these different cities you know so I think we all have different needs and we all have really individual groups of artists like in Philadelphia that we need to like we can't have the same conversation that Seattle's having because we're not majority Asian you know so it's it there's a local conversation I think that needs to happen within every institution one thing I was going to say is that A if we look at like what is our vision for 2020 or you know 2042 it's what I love about coming to these conferences is so many passionate artists at heart creative people it's us being able to create the work that we want to experience right if you start with what your vision your passion is and make that a reality that's what excites people about wanting to connect to that work but I also want to say in terms of agency aspect because sometimes it's like you know Leilani you know like where is there hope I'm doing the stuff I'm passionate about but are the people coming and I think there's a whole paradigm shift that's happening in terms of the funding world and that they are we I am also a funder we can be your allies as well and that what I've noticed though is a lot of times with communities of color and because of the institutionalized structures that have always existed there's been this divide where people feel like oh I can't approach that because that represents the mainstream society but the reality is the whole conversation there's a huge paradigm shift I'm heading straight out of here to the grant makers and the arts conference and all of us the biggest question we're grappling at the conference is equity, diversity and the changing demographics and how do we actually make sure that we're engaging the people who are actually at the community level doing work that is going to engage all the different diverse communities that we want to reach out to but a lot of them feel like they know how to reach out to community so I'm inspiring all of you to reach out to them don't think that just because they're the big Ford Foundation or any local funder that you go to that they're too out there and they're too much represented the government or whatever reach out to them because they are actually craving that they want to hear what your ideas are they want to know what's new what's different, what's inspiring and how it's addressing the current issues of the day which are not these institutions way back here but are the people doing the ground making work and I think that's how we'll shift it if you get funders to hear your stories they're going to get passionate about how can we support this work and that's where the paradigm will really shift I just want to follow on from that that there is a language of funders and funding so I have been a consultant for the Arts Council England for about five, six years now to learn that language so it's not for everybody but for those you know those with producer bends learning the language that funders and those people in power use is a very helpful thing I think the points I'd like to make is firstly let's talk about the US becoming you know the minority become the majority but today we're already are in the global majority you know if you add together the Asians all around the the world we are in that global majority and those that want to claim that heritage of being in a global majority you know just something for people to consider I think the second point I'd like to make is around the balance between the collective vision and uniqueness there's something about the uniqueness of being an artist or being a curator or being a funder working this area and I think it's celebrating and supporting that uniqueness and yet having a collective vision to support that it's quite of interesting it's a different mix you know being of Asian descent we come from societies that were more collective and I don't know that's something I thought that came through the final point I'd like to make is that these theatres of different sizes I don't understand the terminology but I think there's basic economics that you know we are professional so we're creating something and want to sell it for more than what we created it for so I don't see any issue with people wanting to create products or stories or whatever but I don't know I don't know I don't know about the world really so I think you know that basic entrepreneurialness I want to sell my things I do to as many people as possible that's bummed on seeds and I don't see there's any I'm in America for goodness sakes I'm almost feeling like am I in America here with this community this that which is great I'm one of those too but we're the people that want to make money are they in this room are they any of those people come and find me and let's make some money so I used to be a grant maker briefly at the San Francisco Foundation I just want to echo what you said funders in general including at Ford the big foundations are very receptive to meeting with grant seekers and actually they need to it's their job and their job also includes site visits not just with people they're currently granting but potential grant applicants and when I was at the San Francisco Foundation we would meet with grant seekers many many times per week if we had enough time read proposals give feedback and there's actually a lot of parallel between the theater community in the U.S. and the philanthropy community because it's quite small and so funders know each other within cities and across the country I mean you're gonna see a lot of people I know next week but also philanthropy is facing very similar issues around race and for those of you who might be interested in funding a non-profit admin or leadership the San Francisco Foundation has a I hate what's called but it's called that it's the multicultural fellowship program and there are six two-year fellowships designed to cultivate young leaders of color in philanthropy and non-profit leadership I won't go into all the different programs but one is arts and culture so if you or you know of anyone or you yourself are interested Google it or talk to me and then in terms of where in 2020 or 2040 so my experience of being Asian American and Japanese American in this country is being is having a white mother having born in northern Mexico having a Panamanian uncle having a black uncle from southern Georgia who has claimed me as his son and it produces me as such to everybody in Georgia and his entire family in southern Georgia claims me as their own and so in terms of ethnically specific theater you know I don't I feel like I don't fit in anywhere and I feel like they're more and more of us I was at two nights ago hanging out with Rick Shilmi and Roger and with Chris Chen and Jessica Wong and it was interesting how Rick and Roger were there and then three young playwrights are all Hapa and I have a Hapa friend who's Filipina and black and I have my best friends is Bengali and his wife is Guatemalan and so I just I don't know where to go with that but I do want to shout out and give props to Campo Santo in San Francisco which was founded some years ago by Sean San Jose who's performing tonight at Tree City Legends he's Filipino American two Latinos and Margo Hall who's African American that was the four founding members and they I would argue that they're an ethnically specific theater because all of their theater is quote unquote ethnic but all of their theater is also multi-racial and Tree City Legends it's three brothers who are supposed to be Korean but there's one Korean actor Sean who's Filipino and a Latino actor and that's you know Obama for me is nothing new and his family and his half Indonesian sister is nothing new and I'm sure it's not new for most of us anyway that's all he's not new but it's new that he's the president right let's bring it back to the panel 2020 or 2042 if you like what do you want to see, what do you think you will see I mean what I'd like to see is more theaters, more people taking control into their hands, the agency part it's like okay you know not relying upon outsiders just to generate the organizing principles and I can do this myself you can do this yourself that's how I got started because I decided what's stopping me from doing this absolutely nothing and while I'm not I don't have a million dollar budget I'm still producing theater and I think it's culturally relevant to my era so that's what I want to see I also want to be able to see going back to that relating to the mainstream is like being a little more prepared to deal with these shall we call questionable instances of which there have been so many of them and not be so shocked about that it's like maybe take a little cynical view of saying okay we know what's going to happen some people have not had the opportunity to be enlightened so let's be prepared to enlighten people with the prepared curriculum as they say to try to educate people I have a question Jeff he keeps asking me this question I would like to see resource come to theaters of color Asian American theaters to allow us to grow to the state of the art I would like to see us grow our networks so that we all see ourselves as leaders because it's my belief that if you take leadership and leadership can be many things you actually contradict victimization and so that means to strengthen our networks growing and growing and growing we are everywhere I think for me it's okay to be a little bit pissed off and to say something truthful I've worked with some more mainstream partnerships and that's been very very helpful and new for 2G but I know it's really a true partnership when the contract comes in and it's not like a one shot deal and that you can say that to them and then you just keep on going back I think being a little bit pissed off is good right and also demanding more and actually being curious where you think you don't belong find a way to belong that's the way that I've gotten to so many of these other places just because of my own naivete that I didn't even know right so what I've been trying to do is I've gotten older is actually claim some of that naivete so I can go to places that I don't think I should be to ask for things that people might not even know they weren't giving me that's what I'm hoping for and dollars? Yes yes of course all those things that make these ideas move because we're not going to move away from the sort of the fault of Christianity as what this was founded on capitalism that this was founded on and all the other things right transaction that New York City was founded on I'll give you a bunch of you know I'll give you some beats for all this people are looking at those things so let's not also ignore some of those origin stories the other panel is something that struck me is they were talking about forgiveness right I agree with all of that because it's much more healthy in the long run but I also think that the other side of that is that forgiveness on its own doesn't get the job done it's power right you're going to have to accumulate power one way or another and I know other people will say no there have to be alternatives okay fair enough but for instance if we talk about many of you are very passionate about these sort of alternative to lords right they've still got to be funded somehow if you can't fund it just through your ticket sales meaning entrepreneurial then essentially you do have to become funding activists right now the funders are coming around but you're still going to have to learn to play that game which may be just as much work as breaking into the Lord like don't fool yourself about that but it can be done you know what I'm saying but I mean be realistic about okay if you want to do this completely outside of the box thing you still got to answer that fundamental question and what are the allies that will get you there strategically right okay 1245 I think this has been a great discussion I want to thank all the panelists and the American Arts Initiative please take this agency to the rest of the conference and back home thank you