 I'm gonna be a gap in your voice now to reconvene us. I think we're on TV, hello, how around, TV. So everything you say, this afternoon, can and will be used against you at Broadcast Nationally live. So just keep that in mind. It looks like many of you were here this morning, so thank you for staying with us for the full day, but we also have some new folks in the room too. We love you. Do you want to look at 30 seconds going around? So let's just do a quick 30-second go around, also just for all the new folks that are here to say who you are, and for folks on TV as well. So I'm Jeremy Cohen of the Artistic Director here at the Playwrights Center. I am. We're two blocks away from the economy, at the City of Minneapolis, also a member of the School we need to collect into this primary performance room. Lisa Channer, Founder and Artistic Director, Peter Nobimost. Amy Robin, Touristic Director, Welcome to the theater, Governor. The needy could be old playwright in residence that mixed blood, co-writer at the Playwrights Center, Artistic Associate at Park Square, and actor and director. Joe Octor, and I'm a playwright member of the Workhouse Collective. I'm John Akihran-Claura. I'm a playwright fellow here at the Spirit Center as Director and Director of Public Spaces. I'm Deborah Garchin, and I'm a Jerome fellow at the Playwrights Center. Miriam Mas, Co-Founder of Red Eye. I'm Jessica Wong, and I'm a playwright and co-founder and co-writer of the unit collective. I'm Sarah Saltway, and I'm a Jerome fellow here. Richard Koch, Artistic Director for Park Square Theater. There's a student I have, or writer, runner of the Many Voices Program here at the Playwrights Center. I'm Elizabeth Deacon. I'm at the Guthrie Theater and the Marketing Department. I'm Sina Hodges. I'm the Director of External Relations at Theater Latte Dap. Jameel Ju, Producer and Residence at mixed blood theater, freelance director, playwright. Alyssa Adams, I'm the Director and Director of Public Spaces Center. I'm here from the Producer at Children's Theater Company. Haley Finn, Associate Artistic Director at the Playwrights Center. Kira Omolanski, Playwright and Residence at 10,000 Things. Rod Russo, History Theater, Artistic Director. Anika Maneski, Artistic Associate at History Theater. Now I'm going to go on and on. I'm one of the founders of the Workhouse Playwrights Collective and a freelance playwright. Dominique Serrand from the Moving Company. Nathan Keeperx from the Moving Company. Fran Urez, Artistic Director of Move Performing Arts. Mark Langenship, Online Content Editor of Theater Development Fund in New York City and your scribe for today. I'm Brad Erickson. I'm the Executive Director of Theater of the Area, the Service Organization in the San Francisco area. I'm also a playwright. I'm Tori Bailey. I'm the Executive Director of Theater Development Fund in New York City which is our Service Organization. So we, as we broke, we said that we would confer a little bit over lunch and figure out how we wanted to direct the afternoon and we have now decided how we want to do that. We want to remind you all that what we're doing here, the three of us are doing here today and joined by Jeremy, is we are really here to learn from you. The things that we're hearing in each city are really fascinatingly different. And so the things that we hear from you and that we'll learn today, we can't learn in LA on Monday, right? So there was a question of a little bit of like, what are we doing here today? What we're doing here today is learning from you. Hopefully, it'd be great if you learned some things along the way today and leave with more than you came in with. But unfortunately, really, what's more important to us is that we learn from you. So just to put that on the table because really all of this is, we will be gathering all of these different perspectives and the stories and the anecdotes and the experiences that we've heard from around the country in compiling it and reconsidering it together. And we will be talking about ways that you can continue to be involved in the conversation with your peers who have been invited to these conversations in all of the six cities in an ongoing way. Mark will tell you more about that when we get to the end of the day. But again, to focus again, we are here madly taking notes, either physically or mentally, about what we're hearing and what we're learning from you. We wanted to loop back a little bit from where we started the conversation today and focus for just a little bit of this afternoon and we've got two hours and that's it because then we have to go catch a plane on some of the data that we sent out, some of the research that we had commissioned. Specifically with the research that Alan Brown, working with from Wolf Brown, did looking at some of the research that he did from the intrinsic impact work, the Theater Bay Area Commission. Some of you all were involved with that work that we did nationally. It started out with 18 theaters in six cities around the country. We followed it up with 30 more theaters in different cities around the country. We have literally collected tens of thousands of audience surveys and it is the raw data from those surveys that look into the way that the theater experience performance has moved an audience member. They're asked to fill out a survey within 24 hours of seeing the show and 30 or so different questions that look into the ways that an audience member has moved intellectually, emotionally, the way that they were caught up in the play, we call it captivation, the way that they were either bridged socially, which means that they were learning about a group of people that are different than yourself or the way that you were bonded with sort of your own peeps. These are the sort of different things that we were looking at in five different categories and then measured. So that was a lot of the basis along with work that Alan Brown had done at South Coast Rep in Orange County and with Steppenwolf in Chicago that became the basis for the 26 or 27 page essay that hopefully many of you got a chance to read. We did not look specifically at new work. So Alan said that I think the closest thing that I can look at, we did do some work around risk and risky work. That's why there was a full study that he did around risk because that was the closest thing that we had to new work. Some of the work in the studies were new, but we weren't necessarily sorting for that. And Alan found what was to him a surprising, some really surprising things. And so we wanted to kind of just review that a little bit just now in five minutes maybe and then hear from you about ways that you are experiencing that yourself and the way that you think about your own making and the way you would maybe describe your community, your audience. So Alan describes audiences being on a spectrum. From risk averse, I do not want to go to something that is pushing my boundaries. To risk tolerant, like no, all right, I'm maybe, I'll be open to that. To risk seeking, which is like I love that. I want to go do it to the far end which is I actually want to be involved in some way in making the work itself. So that's the spectrum, right, that he posits. And that individual people sit somewhere along that line and that work fits along that line. And it's not a good or bad thing. I mean, I think we have a real, I think we have a bias among theater makers and that the thing over on the far right, the risky as possible is good and this other end is bad. And one of the things that Alan has found more and more in his work that is what he used to call aesthetic growth, he's now calling aesthetic enrichment, which is that there's a reason why people keep going back to the Christmas Carol year after year or to the Nutcracker or to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. It's not bad, they're not dumb. People are wanting to reconnect with something that is meaningful to them. It is, they're reconnecting to meaning. That is beautiful. And maybe that is really what your work is all about. New work could still be about reconnecting people to something that is meaningful already to them. That is not bad. It is just very different from something that is meant to kind of blow your head off, right? So where do you and your audience fit right now along that line is one thing that we'd like to be looking at and where is your making? So let's just take that. And the second question I'm gonna ask, I'll ask the question just to prepare you is he also posited this idea and goes into research that has been done around learning. People who are working in education, this idea of approximate learning, that the best learning you do is when it's just barely beyond what you know now, right? But it's graspable. So is there a corollary to that for in the arts and to theater in particular? And especially around risk taking. So I want you to think about when you're gathering an audience or where is your audience? Do you have a set audience that maybe you're trying to move along this line or you keep putting that approximate, that goal keeps moving further and further ahead? Or are you perhaps finding a new audience each time? And are you thinking about that idea of approximate learning? So we'll go to that. But I wanna start with this idea of risk averse to risk seeking to way beyond where is your audience, where is your community and where is your art making yours? Because we won't hear this in LA, it'll be different here. That's what we're trying to learn. Go to that. And playwrights definitely jump in. And please do not be embarrassed to say, I will say this. My work is realistic. I'm sorry, it is not pushing really any valid risk so ever, right? And that's probably a right. So there I am, I'm gonna put my, I'm not way on the far right end, I'm more over in the left. So I've put that out. But not all the way. Not all the way. And the content pushes, but not at the form, right? So where is your work and where is your audience? I'll be at what I write too. I feel like I use a familiar, I try to use a familiar form so I can get away with things in the content. I love that, that's awesome. Can you give an example of that? Like, well this sounds like it's risky, but it's actually less when you think about it. I wrote a play that's a stand-up comedy routine. And the reason I made sure it was a stand-up comedy routine was so I could get away with talking about things because people could relax as they did when it was. Does that make sense? Yeah, I understand what a stand-up comedy routine is. I know what my role is when I'm watching a stand-up comedy routine. That way I get to get away with talking about really anything I please. It's a stand-up comedy routine. So it's the division of formal, on the left side of the spectrum maybe, but content is more on the right. But not formal fear necessarily. It just has to be familiar to the audience. I don't have to make it theater familiar. I just have to make it familiar. Right, right. They understand it. They show it. Other people? And I work for a theater that produced that play. So I think that where we fall, I think when we do push the boundaries on content, we present it in the play where people say, okay, that's fairly linear. I can follow that. But if we push the form with another of Aditi's plays, people come to expect a specific type of story, a story that's steeped in a cultural tradition, any type of cultural tradition, but that they're going to see on stage a story that's not often told. So I think our audience is risk seeking, but we do couch it in the familiar, either familiar people telling the stories or familiar way of telling the story. I'll share a story. History theater, we do real stories about real people. In this fall, we did a musical about the Lindbergh Kidnap called A.B. Kids. And it was, it'd be the first show that the first production of it outside of New York hadn't been done in 18 years or something like that. I thought it was very safe. It fits our mission perfectly. Lindbergh, Little Falls, the airports, fricking terminals, wasn't named after him. We had a notorious lifestyle. All of the stuff that's come out of that, almost every Minnesotan knew something about Charles Lindbergh. And it was a musical about the kidnapping called A.B. Kids. And that was one of the issues that every time we would say a musical about, musical about the kidnapping, our audience, which I thought I knew really well, decided they would not come. They had one and nothing to do with the musical and they said that as much to us. So I thought it was like no risk. It was probably the best production we've done in five years maybe, according to me. How everything went as you planned and better than expected. And virtually nobody came. Lost our shirts at the box office. So risk taking and playing it safe, reminded me of the Woody Allen line about his love life. He says, women want two things and I don't know what they are. What was it about that project that you think was the thing that's made them say no? Well, I was in the airport a week after we opened and the phones were not ringing and we didn't make any goals. And a woman grabbed me by the arm and said, I saw the show last night, it was really fabulous. I love it. It's the best thing I've ever seen to tell all my friends. And the woman next to her said, a musical about a baby kid. And I said, I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. So a baby kid I mean I never got to see. And that's a message we heard over and over again. You know, whether it was the title or the subject or that it was a musical. It would not come. And I don't know. Maybe it's our marketing or packaging of it but every time you do a new work and you package it in a way it appeals to, well, our audience base at least and then hopefully wider. But that was an experience I'm still living it, it's January, I'm still shaking with it. Wow, how did that happen? On the continuum of risk, we live on the other end. Right. And so, and when we ask people, like, when you want to get a ticket, you go online, and then we find you in the coffee shop, and then we take you out to the cars, and where I went to, you know, it's quite like a little secret between us, and then people don't often know that there's a performance happening, but people aren't there to see it. And so, when I ask people, we get to know people intimately afterwards, we sit down and we have coffee, and ask them how they, you know, maybe it's nine people, that's our audience, we set up really quickly. And sometimes it's one at a time, but one of the things that I ask them, and I get to know them all personally, why do you keep coming from this thing to the other, it's because they never know what their experience is. So for them, theirs is a high-risk type of tolerance, and they don't care really about the content, they care about the experience, and therefore they want to be part, they want to be really close to what's happening, and so we get them really involved. So they're almost, they're at the end where they feel like they're making it? They're not making it. I mean, we've never had a situation where an audience gets to be in the performance, although that's a job soon. It's more that, we'll use the car as the example, the boundary between performer and observer is not there, so the front seats, the performer, the back seats, the audience, that's the entirety of the art of this, and everything else is the stage, so to speak. So, but there's a lot of risk involved, physical, personal risk being in a car where someone's performing, as it's driving, so there's physical risk. We've found out that physical risk is actually interesting to people, they want to take, they feel that there's something in that experience that they want to, and then others want to go near it in the barge pod, remember in the beginning years when I get in the car where people are stripping down and driving, and acting. They're actually driving in it. Yes. Yes, this is not stationary. So that's high risk to somebody, no? Yeah. People like that, there are people who love that, so I was going to say, our company makes all original work, often with playwrights and designers, and often fusing lots of historical ideas together in very physical form. So our audiences are inherently seeking something that's new, and maybe risky, but I think also we had an interesting experience where we did one show based on the Africa Field Mesh, and it sold out, and it was really beautiful, like there was this beautiful singer, Kira wrote it with me, it was like beautiful singers, and it was really beautiful, you know, and then we did Pick It On The Battlefield the next year, which was a mash-up of and played by Aura Bal and one by Rojek, you know, whatever, who's heard of them, no one, like actually everyone in this room has heard of that, maybe, but you know it's like in a lead audience that knows who those people are, and it was also a beautiful show, but you know we didn't do as well, we lost our shirts, and I thought, oh our audience will be excited to come and see this odd, and now we're kind of, he's about breath and all the women around him, you know, and that's a musical, so I think actually we're going to do well with that, probably because it's, again, it's kind of, it's like bringing people in for new ideas, but then we're giving them this really, hopefully, they're there also, they want the cookie too, our audiences, they want, the cookie is like beauty actually still, big bodies moving and gorgeous sound, we're using a lot of, I use a lot of original sound too, so people come to expect that from us I think, and so when we do something that's not that, like they come to battlefield with text, I don't think, I think they're like, ah, this is the singing and the moving, you know, where is that? And the breath piece, again, it's an lead audience in a way, I was thinking about the way that Grotowski speaks about wanting an elite audience, a small amount of people that come and see it, not a big, I think ours is not as elite and small as yours, but probably on the spectrum of the amazing theater we make here, ours is closer to the, whatever the side we're doing, it's weird that the right side is far right, I feel like it should be the left, it's kind of between Golcun and, I don't know where. MU is an Asian American company that does theater and type, so we do it, everything we do is from the Asian American experience, which is a huge umbrella that includes a lot of different cultures. So, and that also, since we're one of the only Asian American companies in town, that also means that our programming takes on a lot of different aesthetics. So we try to, and we also have responsibility to our Asian American community, as well as our Asian American artists, and giving them opportunities to do things that they wouldn't regularly be able to do. So we arrange from new plays by Asian American playwrights to Sondheim, and everything in between. The common denominator is that you will see plays and taiko created by and with Asian Americans. That's the only common thread. So within that, we don't assume that you would like play like Kung Fu Zombies versus Cannibals the same as you would like a little night music. But what we do have in common is that we are telling it through this Asian American aesthetic, whatever that means, and I think we're still trying to figure out what that is. But each show is completely different, except for that common denominator. How long have you guys spent producing it? 21 years. Wow, we can go right. A lot of people have. So are each of those projects risky in different ways? Do you find yourself knowing that or do you place each project in a different place? Each is risky, and we don't have a home. So we're also in different venues. So every project has its own campaign. And we have to be clear about what that is. So the person who is expecting us to do a little night music, that's important to us too because that gives our artists an opportunity to do a play that they don't usually get a chance to do. So that they know that we're doing Kung Fu Zombies. We try to do everything we can to make it seem like this is not a little night music. You're not going to like this if you like a little night music. But maybe your nephew will or something. So I don't mean to judge because there's a lot of different people that enjoy it. But to just be very specific about what that is, so just because it's mood doesn't mean that you're going to get the same kind of play except for that we're trying to figure out what is the aesthetic if there is one. What does that mean to go to a moon show? The closest thing we've got to is a certain amount of heart because no one is telling our story except for us. So it means a lot more. We can't mess this up and our artists are then committed to the project in a deeper way because no one else is doing it. Can I also just ask that as people are talking about the word risk, I'm a little concerned that the word writ, I kind of hate the word, we're talking about it a little and I also hate that we are. But I think I hate it in the way that people talk about diversity or liberally. I hate it so much because I feel like risk is this weird construct that we put onto things that means bad. Like if you're a producer it means maybe I won't sell tickets or there's goat fucking on stage. When we say risk I would love the theater field to be really specific about when you say risk what do you mean and where is your fear set, what is it about so we're at least talking honestly with each other about risk for you may not be as beautiful sonically because it's so text heavy but then you're also as an artistic director talking about is a theater leader about how many people came and those are two different risks rather than that when Miriam and Steve are talking about we want to do this play which is really risky for us. Well not really because you're red-eyed so nothing, everything. That's why I want to go, I want to go to everything. I guess I just think it's super important that we be... It might be about the audience in your particular audience too. What is risky to one audience? Also risky to me it's interesting you have a negative connotation I think of it as positive. So I think all artistic work should have risk in it. But what does that mean? But the word has come to mean nothing. It's like becomes moniker for like we risk. Like Kira writes a play she's risking because she's fucking, she's a player, she's broke or you produce play run and you risk that like you can't have your pay your staff because you might not still pay. I just want to be, I feel like the marketing part of risk which does have negative connotation or possibly, it's never, the risk is never, no one's ever like, you know what, I'm producing bless your heart. I'm going to say this because everyone does it. I'm going to produce, you know, to kill a mockingbird and the risk that you're talking about to kill a mockingbird, I mean maybe people, I don't know, we all, it never kind of generally does well. I hope you didn't really know that. I mean no one's ever like, I wonder if I produced to call it, through risk, is like not, if we risk it, it's like if we risk it and I'm concerned that when, when we talk about it from a ticket sale perspective or an audience engagement perspective, in America in particular, we directly connote it with how artists are thinking about taking risks in the way that I think you're talking about. And I think, I mean that's one of our values here at the Clarity Center, right, being able to take risks. And I think that in that sense, you know, from an artistic perspective that I think most artists in their work want to be taking risks, want to push the boundaries of what they are doing and capable of doing. So I think maybe it's coming from two angles, theater perspective, artists perspective. I don't know any playwright who sits down and is like, yeah, I'm writing this safe play. That's the play I'm really excited to write about. It's always, you know, excited to write about. Maybe they're writing it, but excited and really are coming from a genuine place about wanting to write that play. It tends to be that they're investigating something or pushing something or challenging themselves emotionally, intellectually, artistically. Well, risk is so subjective, right? I mean, as an audience member, the risk I take is that I'm wasting my time and I'm wasting my money in going to see something that I may or may not like, right? But I mean, in terms of our context, we've taken our, you know, we all have other jobs. We don't, we're not relying on our theater-making to own us a living because we just know it can't. Believe me, we've done all the research now, can't. So let me take this for just a second because I feel like what I was trying to get at here was great and what we've done is zoomed up into about orbital. So what I think might be a way to do this and to build on what Jeremy was saying is to have you define how do you think of what does it mean to you? And where do you, you know, is it about trying something new artistically that you don't normally do? Is it a financial risk? Is it a risk that your audience will reject it for some reason when you think about risk and is your audience willing to follow you in things that are unexpected and unusual to them? So as I'm asking you to talk about where does your work sit and where does your audience sit in this, we're using the word risk, insert something else along that continuum then help define for us what that means for your making and what it means for your audience. So that'll help us get back into the specificity that I'm hoping to get out of this section. And let me just reiterate too that we are also asking playwrights that question even if you're not connected to a particular institution. Just as a writer that question, do you want to answer? Right, like I love what you said. I write in a kind of, I intentionally write in a form that will be familiar to the audience so that I can insert the content that is going to push them, is what I heard. So, yeah. I think the risk that we ask of our audience is to be meaning makers. Okay. So that the meaning is not handed to them that they need to feel. We asked, you know, I was at a workshop recently about logic models. And at the top of the logic model is your vision, right? And our vision, at Red Eye, instead the world will be full of people who embrace ambiguity. So, you know, if that's how we impact the world we're two millennia. So can I answer? Are there things that you come up against then as you're thinking about the plays you want to include that feel like, oh, it would be a risk for us as producers to do it or a risk as artists to do it? You know, the summit, having this discussion, what are the criteria? Who lacks the work primarily in consultation with me? They have to have a role for me. That's one criteria. After 30 years. And they were really the other criteria we're looking for, as I said, is that they're not going to be done on any other stage. This is a piece that only Red Eye could do in this community, you know. And I don't mean that somebody else can do them in a different way. But the way that we do the work would not be the same way you would see it anywhere else. That there's some way that we, that are, that the way you're going to move through time and space and story is going to be different at Red Eye and allow you to see something different. So that's a little vague. But that's the work that interests us. And I think I agree with Jack about, you know, we, because we're a founder-led organization, artists founded an organization that it's about, Steve and my vision. So unapologetically so. And so it's about leading the audience. You know, it's about showing the audience things that they may not know they want to see. You know, it's not something that the audience is asking for, necessarily. Park Square's planning to expand to two stages after 40 years of one, or using the point. The biggest risk in my mind is that my theory that we can actually develop, serve multiple audiences is simultaneously both worth. We are doing that now, and we have been doing it for the last 20 years in one very clear sense. We have that daytime student-teenage audience, which is a very discreet audience of teachers and their students. And that's 20-some thousand kids. And then we have that other work that we do, which is built on a traditional subscription model, which takes its shots in form like this. But that's built on the risk that we can build trust with that, with a core audience over many, many years. And then the new risk that we're kicking on is like, we can do that, and we can do this, and we can do a third thing, which is to be strong enough and broad enough to have additional audiences come into the mix that we can legitimately serve over time. So it's very exciting, but that's full of risk. The model is the risk that I'm most concerned with. It's like, I can't pull it off, or we don't know how to do it. Is that audience risk for you, just so I'm hearing you right, that getting new audiences into the second space will be hard, or getting your current audiences in the main stage to go into the second stage? The model presumes we can do some of both. Because the audience we have with our subscribers, I think probably falling in here, and Alan's risk in that middle mid-sentence room, that between risk tolerance and sometimes with seeking, not very often risk-aversive, they wouldn't sign up for a bunch of places they've never heard of. But they're going to be, they are still safe because they feel like it's going to be a good piece, and even if they don't like it, they're going to respect it. So that's the trust thing that's built, that there's quite a range, relative range to content. But there's some risk factors there. We can't go into the overtly sector without getting a lot of trouble. It doesn't mean we won't do it, but we know there's trouble coming. So there's that kind of risk. But again, the larger one is that we've talked this morning a lot about the idea of marketing and we're going to like the language when we need it. And there's a kind of marketing that we do know how to do to that traditional audience, and that we do know how to do to teachers. We don't know how to do the marketing that a lot of you guys do on a regular basis with an audience that just shows up or that finds your particular wonderful eccentric piece. We don't know how to do that yet. So we have to learn from the rest of you and from our partners, which is why we have partners, to try to pull that off. So it's kind of... Can you say really quickly what that is, just so people know that? And I think it's cool for the record what the partners is for that space? The quick model there is that we... We developed five years ago when we knew we were going to be voting out. I invited discussions with... At that time it was 22 or 23 homeless theaters in Twin Cities, and I listened to them. And I took notes on what they loved about the spaces that they used and didn't use and what they hated about them and what they needed. And we decided we didn't want to be a rental house, but we wanted to be in partnership with some groups over a period of time, hopefully to learn from them. So what came out of that was a request for proposals and what came out of that is three companies that at this point have agreed to be with us for the first three-year cycle. And they'll either do a show every year or a show every year to find their producing model within the new space. And then we'll be marketing, their shows to our audience and to each of their audiences to each other. And what we're hoping to do is to learn a lot the first year, do better the second year and walk away the third year further along than we'd ever been without each other. But that's the cap. Awesome. Can I just jump in here to say really too, so it's in the record that the Southern Theater is starting a similar program with 14 resident companies who will perform and rap over two months of time to and of two or three company at a time. And these companies make new work and it will be a subscription model. This is new, like a Netflix. So audiences pay one price a month and they go see anything they want whenever they want. And this is really exciting and new and I only know about it with my company. It's going to be announced right soon, my company's going to be one of the 14. So I know about it because that and it's going to be announced starting next year in 2015. It's all companies that make original work so that's kind of its point. I think as a writer it's hard to talk about risk because the thing to vocabulary as a writer to talk about it is is emotional and personal. I started to write because the process of writing is how I'm able to make sense of the world. But I was attracted to theater because I had a point of view that I wanted to share with an audience. So I think it's very vexing and very troubling to me that data about writers not having an audience or not thinking about an audience when they're creating a piece we were talking over the break a little bit about that audience can be very small and become very big but if you don't have a point of view to share then why do I need to show up? But also why make it in the first place? I just I don't understand that. But I'm also a member of a theater company collective I guess what we're doing is always risky because we're programming right now we're selecting whatever we want to do and it's how many people really pitch the plays that they want to do it's like who has something they want to do right now and then everyone talks a little bit about what they want to do and we don't it's not competitive so far it hasn't been what we've decided on Tuesday we're not doing it it's not competitive and it's pretty generous and it's like why does this have to happen for you right now? Is this a personal reason you need to get this done right now? Is it a timing thing? Is there a space issue? So but for that we have a collective of writers who are all so aesthetically different and we're constantly all changing the form that we write in so we're always talking to different audiences and we have a core audience I think we have a core audience of people that always come to see a workhouse show but there's a new audience every time we can do a better job of work maybe our right is doing all the jobs but we're always trying to find the community that that writer is trying to talk to so we're really trying to get out of the way of whatever the writer is trying to say and talk directly to their audience so for writers to not be thinking about their audience I guess they would just never thrive in our theater collective because if you can't tell us who you want to talk to then we can't go find them and that's hard for me so I'll jump off it that's hard for me personally but also just to add to it Joseph because I'm also involved in the workhouse we don't know what the play that we're talking about so I guess from the traditional point of view we're all the way in the risk because we actually don't we actually backed the writer like the writers who are part of the collective we don't look at the play at all once they get their shot and it's their slot and they've talked a little bit about the play but writers have changed what play they've done writers have decided that they want to do a workshop instead of a production I think Tristan's play changed completely to a similar play so in that sense I guess there's a risk institutionally that the writer's not going to just completely freak out and that's challenging for us for me and I guess maybe because I mentioned this earlier growing up in a kind of in a kind of in a New York audience which did seem at the time very in race and class I imagine that audience still exists when it does so it's very hard for me as a writer at some point this is specifically the group I want to talk to because actually I want to talk to that audience that I grew up with which is kind of all everyone and so that's always been a challenge for me creatively I think risky I don't know it's not something I think about I think it's a little nerdy actually it's like thinking that you're cool I don't know when I can sit down and go I got to write a risky play now I'm so risky I think that sometimes I think that the only way you can surprise an audience is to give them something familiar first and then kind of keep changing it up it's an interesting thing sometimes that both spectrums because I've done a lot of plays and a lot of times both camps can get into a place that is very unsurprising in a similar way so I don't know artistically the word risk is very big but I think institutionally you can really talk about risk because you're wondering is the institution going to survive so I want to talk a little bit about the model of a collective because we're a collective too and I think there's differences here because like you guys we sit down and we talk about who wants to do what and we have a broad community of artists some of them are generally more sophisticated and when we've often for funding reasons we've chosen to show work in the same building of part of the city audiences have come thinking that it's all one voice but it's actually multiple voices and we've ended up I may not like what ex-person ended up doing because like you everyone's making their own work either with playwrights or devising it themselves there's a huge spectrum of practice and so the risk we're actually taking is that we're engaging with each other we're all helping produce each other's work we're all supporting each other's work and then if one of the work isn't as good up to our own standards then we all fall down in that realm so the risk is actually both shared and taken on primarily by artists and we also see our audiences being primarily artists as well so it's interesting because the collective model I just think has a different shift than a traditional theatre producing model and I'm interested that artists are choosing collectives as a way to produce to get work that they really want done produced instead of going to more traditional formats to get them done and I wanted to kind of see to it Joe was saying originally about being about ready for a community or a audience and so I have a clarify question about this spectrum it's from risk of verse to beyond risk seeking is risk of verse, risk tolerate alright, risk seeking and then there's the I actually want to be involved in some way in the creation of the work so that's where I feel confused about the spectrum because I think as a playwright my aesthetic choices and the structure and content even is I guess non-traditional non-linear all those things but the thing that so if that's risky then that's risky but the thing that grounds me I think is that part, is that piece of engaging or that piece of communicating with an audience or a context so and that's important I think that so I also then co-operate a unit collective which is a resident company here and we do the show once a month and our most, our safest and most successful evenings have been ones that are directly working with like the sewer neighborhood so we like interviews like a resident in a purple play about them and then tons of people come because they all know that guy you know so that feels weird that that's on the far end of the spectrum for me well let me point out and maybe remind those of you who read it and if you haven't Alan posits actually that there's a matrix so this is one part of the matrix right this risk averse to I want to be involved in the creation of the work and then the other part of the matrix that goes up and down is about engagement and he doesn't know he's like positing this and let's test it and see if there's any validity to it and the bottom of this line is like no engagement come in sit down shut up and go right that's that engagement up to you know other ways of being far more you know involved in the post-show discussion or like I'm going to tell you everything I thought about you know your work and how you can change it those sort of things are reading it or being really involved in both pre and post shows sort of engagement things and that seems like it there is so there's there's actually an up and down along with a right to left and so I think that that's what you're getting at is that there's a lot of engagement that's happening up here while you're having this formally it sounds like sort of unusual let's use maybe that word you know and those two things are getting together in that does that make sense? and they seem to just go so naturally together so in that way that it feels not risky at all but if you're telling someone and it makes sense that the neighborhood is going to come through that story and then maybe it's in a non-traditional format when it's presented that way but it's so natural that people want to engage in it but it just doesn't feel it allows me to take a lot of risks as a creator then I have a lot of aesthetic range where I can try and see if it works but that's the the safety is engagement yeah so my context that's my safety net say it I don't understand this discussion why? because I think there's a producer hat which says this risky which we brought up is it so risky? but it's a hat I never wear I'm an artist I just do the work that I feel I want to do in front of an audience with the people I'm working with and then when the work has reached a certain point and we say well now let's go and bring an audience to it but I don't understand this discussion I don't choose to risk less or more I do what I do and then I try to find a way to bring people to it because I thought about them when I did it and I hope that they think about me when it comes and you're not thinking about let me flip that are you thinking about the specific people you bring to it or like no I just think lots of lots of shit ton but so it's not an issue I don't when I go see Matisse don't wonder at the time when he painted it was new to people of course it was new to people because that's when he was painting so I'm a living artist today older most people and I do what I think I should be doing and I don't question that's not a question the question is how do you get people to see that work how do we as artists do the work that we do and then once we've done it without thinking ever is this going to sell it's not going to sell but is this true to what I'm doing as an artist and is there an audience in mind do I think about of course I won't think about the audience always you won't do but it doesn't mean that we take less risks or more risk is what we are we are artists but I don't understand the measurement good question I have to agree with Dominique because I haven't said anything all day and the reason I mean the reason is because of what he said and it's like every time I sit at the computer I mean I've written over 30 plays most of them haven't been produced now some of them are getting produced but I still I still get to the computer and I do the work it doesn't matter like maybe that's risky I don't think so but I'm still going to be doing it I've been doing it for 25 years now so I don't really I guess I've never seen that as risky I mean it's just I'm an artist I'm doing the work and this is the field I've chosen to do it in and if I don't want to do that anymore then I get out of the field so Dominique right I get that totally and let me just ask a follow up question are there ever times or have there been times that's a lot of work when you were writing and you were thinking you know if I write about this particular issue or if I write this play in this way it will have more or less of a chance of being picked up and produced I've never thought about that which is probably why most of them haven't been I'm not being funny because that's never entered the realm of like how I think about what projects I do and like this is what I want to say and you know maybe most people won't be interested in it and that's fine but I still have to sit down and write and that's just how I've always approached my work I get commissioned by people now to do projects and those are guaranteed to be produced so I'm going to sit here and say I'm not getting work done but those are based on commissioned projects and also now being able to be part of a work house where I don't have to worry about is a theater going to produce my work because I know I'll always have an artistic home to do that but it's just been working in the form of always thinking about well I don't want to just be powerless and sit around waiting for someone and say yes and so I guess just listening this afternoon it was kind of figuring out how do I want to talk about this because I don't I think Dominique just said it best that it's I'm just being an artist so I don't operate from this model of oh is it going to be risky or who's going to come and I shouldn't be in this field in my opinion I think that's where the 70% number of people playwrights I think that's really what it means is that we think of the audience basically as people it's very hard to sit down and go okay I'm going to write for acts because the story interests me and then you hope, as Dominique said you hope that if you put it out that you're not such a unique freakish creature that not a million people on the planet there won't be anybody else that can feel the same way but you're not thinking at least there's more yours in the show yeah it's a playwright the riskiest part is hitting send is hitting send and sending it out to anybody because it rejects I think that but just yeah rejection on many different levels it's not just like not getting rid of it it's also something different if you're a producing artist like some of us, our work house does that we're made up of artists, my company's too we don't rely on audience tickets really at all anymore we want to do whatever is our vision right now that's what gets done and then like Dominique said very well we try to then help an audience who is interested in out there comp but the money is not the driving force and I'll tell you my students coming up they're all coming to be saying we want to make our own work we have to worry about making theater like economic I want to have a thriving art world and make my money some other way so money doesn't even enter into it though theater, nature people local home was here and that was what they were talking about that's what they did they all did jobs I think the real question we have in common is to say how can whoever is in the business of funding not being an arts organization how can they direct audiences to the work these artists are making instead of each of us feeling so isolated and fighting to get a dime every year a dime natural act something that's become so horrible and an audience who is no longer at least in Minnesota I don't know where it's in California but kids no longer at arts in school they just slow down of younger audiences because they don't get arts education in schools it's a huge issue so that's what we need for all of us in the room is how can we get to the money so we can continue doing what we do I'm interested in what you said about and you said the same thing about we make it and then we try and help people find it just talk about it a lot honestly if you're divorcing the economics and a corporate structure from your theater but those two things are not in connection like Domi said it has nothing to do with it it doesn't enter my mind you make the art and then you spread the word you stand like the town crier you get all your friends to spread the word and now with social media it's so easy I was producing in the 80s really it's amazing now and then people come or they don't or they don't the ones that want to come come and it's like Wartowski said I don't want more than 40 people in his audience I want a thousand people I want a thousand people I don't have coming to our theaters I think that we need to say that I think we don't have enough people coming to our theaters and that's a huge issue that's what we have in common I've thought for a long time that my self definition for artistic director at least in the kind of theater that I'm running is the key job is to bring involved audiences and talented artists into the same room and so when we talk about audience development and marketing that is my job and I don't have to use those terms but finding the art and it makes total sense for me to create new work I need to do that because then you need other people who will say we will try to help you find an audience bring an audience to your work and some of us and if we can identify with some audience and some artists and bring them together that's what we try to do over and over but some of you shouldn't be bothered by that some of you are saying they are self producing that's insane I mean it's wonderful but most playwrights wouldn't have the patience or the will multiple layers of creativity to even think of people but it's out of necessity too it's because this lady over here isn't getting her work produced so the only place you can see to get her artistic expression is to be collective and to do that all the time and as a director I have to do that too as well as all the other people that work in the collective I do and I just think it's interesting that we're trying to have the same conversation but we're all working in different models the generative artists are saying I don't want to even think about audience Collectives are saying we have to think about audience because we have to think about everything and then theatres are saying audience it's your job to make it I think in the end we've got to have people we all agree that we need people the question is what our strategies are to go connect to our audience in some way or another I'm proposing that my strategy is leave the theatre, make theatre an act not a space and leave the theatre and get out there and be with people and you've got automatically an audience can you make income from that here's a ton of money as we're talking I'm listening in about who we want in the audiences and I think a lot of maybe it's my own lens but when I read the reports and there seems to be at least in the reports a drive for inclusion and I guess it's for me I'm really interested in what a lot of you are saying I want like-minded individuals to be my audience and I think sometimes I want to say that I want people who think just like me in my audience and I'm not really interested and including the rest of the community once we narrow down that focus on who you really want in the audience that it probably would make the thing easier but when you're trying to get butts in seats so then you decide you're going to open up the spread we've got to reach this ticket goal so now I've got to go out and recruit more people because we want to bring them to theater well if that's not who you really want to receive the work then I think that's probably where you miss what I'm trying to say is that I love you all saying that I want a thousand people to see it that's really great but do you want a thousand like-minded individuals to see the work or do you just want a thousand people but what you do if you write if you wrote that specific piece for everybody but that thing's like here no that responds to it I love seeing work from people that I don't understand I love going to international festival where I see shows in multiple languages that I don't understand I think the brothers that they said that they think about the audience while they're writing the piece so how far do you think do you think about them when you're writing but are you thinking about how you're marketing you know what I'm saying that's why this afternoon I think we got into a weird thing because from a certain perspective any kind of segmentation is marked from a certain perspective from a writer perspective that's just thinking well I'm writing this basically thinking of myself like you know like I'm writing it humanity you know you know and I like I like you know Artown is one of my favorite plays Mahabharata is one of my favorite plays like I don't understand people that don't go see everything so that's my trouble as a marketer I don't get it I don't know how to tell people come see this it's going to be just as good as other desert cities in fact it's going to be a lot better though it's not you don't need to go see you know but what's that Virginia Woolf like 400 different versions of Virginia Woolf it's another couple drinking and having a fight you don't need to go see that all the time but people who are not couples and don't drink and don't have fights all the time also enjoy that play and I think they'll all also enjoy new work worthy to go see it the new work being niche work niche that's my philosophy because I think that happens with new work a lot is we assume it has to be for a specific audience and honestly I'm not writing for a specific audience I'm writing for the world so that I can talk to the world I don't think niche work is part of that way but Hamlet's for everybody and not just Danish people frankly why don't we always be Danish people I think the difference is because at some point in your life you've had some experience with Hamlet even if you've never read it you kind of know what it's about and you get that but when there's a new play you know what do I do with this and I think we all have to be honest about that's the part where you can either freak it all up or really do a great job with it and what is this play how are we talking about it what's the playwright trying to say who did the playwright write this for and I think what happens is there's not a large enough conversation about the play itself before people say okay yes you know you wrote this we're going to produce this Christina yeah market that there needs to be larger conversations about the work and what the playwright is trying to say who the audience is and I think that again time, money, resources sometimes stop us from doing a lot of that hard work if I may I think this is a perfect transition point because all of the things that you're talking about lead directly into a question I have written down on my notebook I would love to hear with all of these larger rich topics in mind specific instances that you have had as artists where you felt like you had an especially connected experience with your audience can you think of a moment that you can describe to us now when something happened between you and your audience whether you is an individual artist or you is a company that makes you feel especially connected to them and if so what was it and why did you feel so connected to them so so captain each curve is guys and with the audience being handed they have scrolls that they open up and there's a monologue for them they're directed to read it and the actors sit on stage and listen to this monologue that the audience is reading as a group and the audience is performing for the actors and the play ends and every night here's the beautiful moment the first night we never did it until the audience was there except for with the choreographer and the director and the stage manager reading so the first night there's an audience they're reading and it's continued on a second page and the beauty of sitting on stage as an actor and hearing them read this and seeing that light flutter of that page as a group being turned at that same moment that was when I found there was this amazing connection between the audience and us I mean it was a performance it was the tables were turned the audience didn't know that the tables would be turned but they were turned inside out everyone's expectations of what theater was this theater was happening in the seats did you hear anything from the audiences later who had participated in that event or that moment in the show well sure I mean of course you did but I'm just interested in what did they say to you about their experience of that well ask them it was awesome it was it's such a the show is such an adventure in something and I don't totally know how the creative team pulled this off but as an audience member I felt like there was some permission given a challenge given early of just like you figure it out you stay keep up come on you're like let's go that I was just like oh I'm not going to get this wrong I'm not equipping the end this is for me to devour and so then it felt like we had been prepared for this moment and then there's a part in the monologue that has pause as a stage direction and I'm like I know this is a stage direction but in like five people in my audience did it and they were like pause but it was fine like there was more and it too it felt like at the end of this wonderful can happen like oh this is what's going to happen now this is the way right way to release this experience and it was a bad experience yeah I don't know how to answer that question because every show is like that for us because we're in impossible places together so we're always connected there's always a strange environment and we're asking them to do something and they're trying to figure it out and there's always a conversation at the end so it's like with everything they have to choose one because it's everything I would agree I don't know how to answer the question I don't know how you can qualify it that's our job my job as an actor every night is to connect with the audience and hope that they connect back whether we're creating new work or we're doing Hamlet or whatever it is it's the same as the question of risk we don't feel like we're taking a risk because we know our point of view I always feel like I'm connecting with the audience and it sucks when there's one night when you're like fuck they're just not with you but that's why we do it to search moment by moment night by night for that connection and the beauty of it is that connection is theirs they can go as far this way into it as they want or they can come to you and go I wasn't but your job is to defend defend it defend what you're doing so they are connected in some way and then it's their choice to be to go in or not we rarely have issues with an audience not connecting I mean some people come they don't like it that's fine that's good but mostly our job is to make sure that people are into the room are invited into an event that would create for them and it's ours to share that's not a problem the problem is not having enough people to come and see it to see the world that's I think what we have in common problem you have a lot of performers in the circle right now I think performers that actually is what we do it's a different question and for writers I'm in such a state of frozen terror I'm not sure what's going on I couldn't tell you what was that occasionally back to what Adidia and I were saying she was saying a little differently occasionally if it's a real genre play and there's some kind of thriller element and they're actually getting to the point of like don't look in the necklace don't look like I can hear people muttering like that's very, that's just fun because they're having a good time this reminds me of a moment I saw Lizzie Lune Hamlin years ago and I was watching and I was enjoying the show but on a very intellectual like oh well that's how they handled that that's a really interesting kind of way and towards the end I hear maybe I brought 5, 6, 7 year old ladies behind me and they started to go crazy like no she's going to drink it she's going to drink it and I was like they don't know how this ends I'm not sure how they got to there they don't know how this ends and it just turned the play around and we were like and so I was half watching them and half with my ears glued to these ladies who were going crazy and I was like oh ladies you are so fucked this is going to go so badly for you because they were just devastating that they didn't think it was going to be a tragedy and it turned the play around for me it's one of the best experiences in the theater I had been enjoying the play on a different level and it just turned it back into the visceral thing it should have been and the new play can be like that every time I'm like this is new to you I feel like it's really interesting to talk about the live experience what that is and what it has become in theater with the the proscenium and the wall and I think that we have nurtured passive audience we have now we are trying to do things to engage them outside of just having a dynamic performance that is actually communicating and so I think there is a big question of like how are we creating how are we performing theater and beyond like okay there might be a dance party or food or beyond that it's just the performance itself does it have that engagement and how do we without saying okay we're going to throw something at you they're active I see it, I watch my audiences and they come in and they're like okay what do you have for me rather than like I can't wait to see that and then I feel also I've been in performances where it wouldn't matter if I was in the audience or not without me and I could walk around I could start turning lights off and they would still just keep it doesn't feel live and I think that's there needs to be a rock concert, any kind of live music there's always that feeling of that this is happening right now and only for me and I feel like that's sometimes why people aren't going to the theater because we're still doing some theaters some performances are with that we're over here it's TV why don't I just sit at home and watch this because I can at least have a drink and be in my pajamas and smoke out I wonder if that's cultural too because I know when my play for Little Girls was done at Stepping Stone every time I would go to the show there was always a call and respond between the audience and the performers that they were just constantly interacting with the kids on stage so it wasn't it was never a quiet experience I want to call out the children's theater because you have them when they're not jaded as you're talking you feel like that's a real learned experience we're at the theater now so we're going to sit and buy it in this dark room because that's not how any of our shows are I mean especially a room full of kids it's interesting because when we have our school shows which is mostly kids and a couple of teachers for a group of 20 kids or whatever those shows are so alive and so exciting and when they come and evening shows with its parents and it's more of a ratio of adults to kids it's a much quieter room but they're encouraged to I mean we just did a panto for a holiday show and it's great with a group of kids because they are interacting constantly and so I really do think it's a learned behavior and it's almost like we worked so hard then as adults to get people to say oh no we can break the law here you can participate and if you don't know you can do that we're all sitting in a room and just afraid I think to get involved you have to be given permission and are engaged and talk back and answer the questions and don't stay quiet because you're not supposed to talk to the actors and that's what I was trying to thank you for saying that just going back to the point that's what I'm trying to say do you want people who are going to yell back actually while you're performing or do you want people to sit back and have the type of experience in your audience and that's just what I'm saying like who is it that you want in your arts do you want traditional theatergoers who are going to sit there wait for you to perform do they breathe with you or do you want somebody when when you open that door and the horror movies bitch don't do that is that what you want in your audience so if you do then there are ways to go find them just tell them hey you can do that and again I talked about earlier it's how you open up the door for them and the experience and sometimes like something as simple as don't tell people to turn off their cell phones when they get into the theater if you tell someone don't take pictures turn off your cell phones make sure it's muted I know what type of theater experience I'm going to have tell me don't have my cell phone on but I want you to engage and interact for some people having their cell phone on allows them to be more present and I know that sounds stupid but for some people that's okay or if you say hey you can bring your food into the theater again maybe now I'm going to have a different experience so going back to who is it that you really want in your audience then what are you doing to make sure that they feel comfortable in your space not only are you telling them that I'm doing this thing here how you interact with me I'm going to let you decide how you're going to interact with me I'm going to do my thing up here and you can tell me how you want to interact that I think that's the disconnect I feel sometimes when I go into theater is that I feel like this experience is saying that you want me to experience this in a specific way but there's been nothing done on this side of the proscenium to encourage me to do that and so that's why I feel like sometimes we're not getting those audiences down Kira can you talk about your I would be curious to hear you talk about this from the perspective of the work that you guys do well the audience is such a different model but this notion of barriers they're all removed so the audience is the place happens here and the audience is also part of it all the time because the lights are on so that as you watch the play you're also watching the audience and I think that that's a subtle thing but a really profound thing because it creates a kind of instant sense of community I'm also thinking about though but when you go into prisons and such we talk about children's theater as an audience it isn't necessarily know the rules and etiquette and I know it's really I've gone to see 10,000 things shows at Dorothy Day and other places and I find the audience is so engaged well they're very engaged and I think the difference is you know there's traditional theater going on this is a non-traditional theater going on and in the non-traditional audience they're meeting the play for its story and they're experiencing it through the lens of their own lived experience which is very different than a traditional theater going on just most who've all been to the theater and who it might be who is judging it against all the hamlets they've seen before here the story becomes essential in 10,000 things so it's actually quite profound you begin to see how the story shifts through the lens so the story for example in a women's prison it's going to be very different than in you know a human or a homeless shelter or a Nathan and I have performed in 10,000 so they can really speak to that but it's an incredible one there's a dynamic difference between being in a women's prison and doing El Camp Yellow and doing even the open book and sometimes we crave that naughty or more like children that they just react they're about to kiss kiss them or whatever it is the laughter is real the laughter is like it's not like oh that was an amusing bit it's like holy shit they just did that it's amazing it's really once you've worked for an audience like that it does feel very very hard to be and in contrast our audiences tend to be more arts savvy people go and see performance and want like a bigger hit whatever you want to call that when we have to we have to give them permission we say please use your cell phones and turn them on and track because we want that everybody all the way throughout as they're walking through whatever it is and we ask them to yeah shout whatever you want to say go ahead and just going to take longer but go you know so we actually have to undo we undo what the because people often come saying being passive and we want them active so we have to teach them how to act but you know I was at the Guthrie just saw Tristan and me assault and when you're in an experience like that that is a company that is actively asking they're literally looking at the audience they're asking the audience again and again and again to stay with me stay with me stay with me so that's exactly right I think you know but you have to work partner with the traditional audience to make them feel as if they're part of and it is regional and it is class and it's all class we can tell them okay go in you can look around turn things up like that I also think it's a little bit the responsibility of the play and or the production to set up what it's going to be in the first I swear to yeah like I feel like if you're going to smoke a lot and swear a lot and be kind of naked do it in the first two minutes or they're on board and then you do your other things that you're going to do too but there's no reason not to do it in the first literally if they're smoking in a show in Minnesota because they might walk out we should always hide up in the first two minutes that way if you're going to walk out and the rest of you we're good we're good but we can hang down I do think it's a responsibility of the play also to tell you what it's going to be I think this is how to watch I have a question for those of you who think about are there things the producer however big or small can do to help jump start rather than lock everybody up in a room to see what are the things that the producer can do to jump start that engagement so that the audience is ready to be like the kid who just goes yeah what are the things have you ever had an experience where someone has helped do this stuff or you've helped generate stuff letting drinks and food into the room for this place to do God's trilogy we had the loosest audience they were so I mean okay alcohol yeah but not all of them were drinking alcohol but they had a drink we had some tea we had samosas and margaritas which I realized that's not Indian but whatever and everyone was just sort of relaxed and I mean I grant you the place also tell you to relax a lot the place or the place and the place they turned into a cabaret style thing because of the stand up but something about like when I was being an audience member there I had some food and I had something to drink was very relaxed in the space make the theater free when you come in we have a poster with us and tell us what you think like we are actively trying to hear from you there's a television monitor with people talking on it and say talk you have a sense the concessions are allowed in the theater and we used to joke about it but it becomes a mantra whatever concession you want to make while you are in this theater make it we are willing to make certain concessions you know jack for 40, 30 something years hates curtain speeches because he wants people to get into the action of the play and just be there so I feel like those are those types of things like just center of space and tell people I think it's important that we don't wait until people get to see the plays to say it's okay to be crazy because if I know that in advance that I could just be my crazy self then I will wear my crazy jeans and I will feel more comfortable in this environment and you know act in that way but I think it's important that audience members know before they get there kind of what to expect but not what to expect and to be able to feel a certain amount of freedom I remember when I first got to grad school and started seeing a tremendous amount of Broadway plays I always felt this I was like oh my goodness what am I supposed to do how am I supposed to dress, what am I supposed to wear and then after a while it's just like you know what screw it I'm going get on these jeans but people need to know that they can be comfortable and it doesn't matter who's on stage I'm a very vocal, loud theater goer no sometimes my friend takes me to theater with me but I am but I think I know that as a former actor I know that actors enjoy hearing from the audience and sometimes I just can't be quiet about what I'm seeing so I think it's important to let people know that yes you can come into this place you can dress how you want to dress, you can be yourself you can be as loud as you want to be and let's have a good time how do you do that, you tell them you tell people, you say what the subject matter is about I think with that thing as you say before you get there I mean just wondering you send them an email or you tell them on social media have you played around with explicitly saying I need to wear jeans not so much I might after today but just like a zombie we did we gave them a discount along with that if you wear that you get there's some part of it also like the place that you're, I keep hearing I talk about the room we enter or the space we enter if I'm entering a car we're golden half naked and giving me you know fish tacos I'm gonna feel like I can relax you know you know but that's also about trusting a company and trusting a brand but what I'm saying is when I go to see Cabaret at whatever that thing is downtown the experience of it is like ooh I'm sitting up so high I paid so much X amount of dollars to go see it or I go to any place anywhere where the seats are red and the room is blue and the room and I'm looking next to it and everyone's kind of white and everyone's kind of got a SUV I mean this is where class and place where art is taking place matters so I think part of the conversation because I think you're clustered in a way you know how do you just communicate that part of it is I don't worry about how you communicate it I definitely don't worry about how you communicate it I worry about how I definitely don't worry about how you communicate it because even if I've never been to a movie company show before I walk into whatever space you're in you're choosing spaces really consciously you're choosing spaces really consciously where your work is happening I go see your shows at Mixed Blood or at the Southern you are telling me I am being told I do think and I'm not going to pull this down to the road that I pulled this off this morning but I just think that part of the challenge that we say about having 2200 seats or 1500 seats to sell a night is 500 seats a night God knows 190 there is a when we are I'm taking us out I'm going to move out of the Twin Cities when new buildings are being built a tiny company has a new space you're just not saying I'm building a new theater that prevents people from coming in you're saying I'm choosing a space at the Southern that will include the people I want you're talking about your second space you're not saying I'm going to make sure that there's red curtains that have a tassel on them because you're actually inviting people in a different kind of way and you're really you've brought playwrights you've brought artists into that conversation resident companies it couldn't be more thoughtful in terms of how you're getting there about how you invite people I think there's actually something to say I wasn't trying to see it on the spot but we have history some of it, do you use images what are the pictures we use of what the people look like because people do learn over time you can go to Broadway and Jeans because you go once and it's okay and you're going to go again what are the images that we as we think about developing audiences are what are the images that all that stuff I guess has resonance so that you get people in there ready to and I think it was a little thing that's different for our subscribers is that like we're nomadic so even though we're at the Pantages for Cabaret which is a venue that suits that show really well we're at the lab theater for our town it's different so they follow us from place to place and they know what to expect from us the challenge for us is to make sure that all of these new people that we encounter along the way we wrap them into the fold and say okay this is how we do business and this is what our expectations of however high or low they are and here's all you need to do to actively participate in that one of the things I'm very new to Las Vegas I've been there only two months now the biggest thing is customer service how are we talking to people how much are we saying thank you for the things that they're doing for us because like everybody we have so many things that we can be doing with our time so I'm actively communicating with people all the time saying thank you for doing this and thank you for everything but I think it's just talking to people about what's okay and showing them what's okay what they see it then they know and then they act accordingly I hate to say act accordingly but they understand what's accepted from a traditional for traditional point of view though I think I'm really challenged by the whole movement for that participation piece of the spectrum and when I see the stats or I see the studies or I just experience our culture there's a lot of truth to that and I don't know how to crack it or how to serve it and I think that I don't want to jettison being who we are or who we perform for I want to add to is my ambition but I think in order to add to there has to be this other dimension of what happens before and after has to be more thoughtful too which is part of what you're trying to get to and I think we can prepare our audience but I also think that but I can't do what you mentioned this morning where he as the artistic director stays and facilitates every portion of the discussion I'm going to do that I'd love to in theory but I'm not and he was very honest and this is that he needed to learn who his audience was because he was new to town and I suspect over time it will not be him it's not him anymore but there's a commitment to doing that discussion I think it's definitely worth apparently testing where they try to set it up so that the audience talks to each other rather than through the artist after the facilitator that fascinates me James Williams told me about signature theater in New York where they'll just set up a circle of chairs in the lobby and if audience people want to stay and talk to each other and they don't circle they do that the walker doesn't the walker doesn't I think the experience is really real right now and we're looking for ways to also people are getting smaller instead of bigger I think that's exciting I know a lot of artists now making work in their living rooms we're very curated I just can't pay my staff on that it's a totally different model I think it's cool there was a time when everyone wanted to get bigger and bigger and build bigger and bigger places people are craving community they're craving connection and it results in differences in living rooms I agree I think connecting which we're all talking about the hard part and then money comes your bottom line when you're bigger too money is your bottom line that's what it means I would like to come back to that audience engagement so you asked a long time ago about other questions we would ask want to know from audiences and one thing is because of the finding that people who had the chance to have a conversation with friends or what about all of the people who come to theater alone so your boyfriend I would posit maybe not just because you were the one who was making the effort to get him to the theater but also because if he has to go alone and doesn't have somebody to talk about it afterwards where's the meaning in that so how do we provide and I think it's valid to go see the other by yourself I mean I don't think it has to be a group activity but then how do we allow for community to form around that activity so you know these ideas about a circle of chairs that's all interesting and maybe one question is how would you like to talk about a piece afterwards do you want to do it in a with a serious argument a facilitated conversation or would you like to talk about it to think about it write all of those different things one of the things that I found exciting here is that artists have started writing responses to works they're seeing as opposed to critics and so Dominic Orlando Rachel J. Aske Charles Campbell a number of folks in the community have been using the walker other places to publish this work that I see really that's the work that I find really interesting to read and allows me to think about my own experience of the work and their experience and to have a bounce internally about that work and I don't know if the general public is aware of those is it an inside but so much more interesting than criticism building upon what you were saying a moment ago I think people are trying different things from the formal sort of talk back to talk amongst yourselves to circles in the lobby in the South Coast where I occasionally put questions on various columns in the lobby and if you're interested in talking about that question after the show you go and congregate there I was going to show that too many years ago with the magic and pretty regularly once or twice a week they would tell us we're going to give you drinks after the show if you just go up and stand there for 15 minutes and talk to people that was a really great way to get any actor to come out and hang out and talk to the audience which was another way of doing it I've almost always when I go to the theater and one of those things is happening I have no idea what's happening until I got to the theater and he announced it and what way and so I'm like well I wish I could know but now I have to run out of here and get dinner or I'm planning that you know why don't we use that as a way of can we use it a way of reaching out to a kind of audience that wants to respond maybe in that way so your boyfriend who maybe would be more enticed to go to have drinks or maybe I don't think they do this in Chicago they say the whole cast is going out to this bar across the street and join us like if it's that night maybe you can go to that one but we need to tell them before you walk in that evening because for the last 35 years we stood in the lobby after the show and you agreed the audience I think every one of us has a different way to do it we've talked about class differences but I think that I believe there's also a generational difference as to how we use in process theater and it may not be right but one of our takeaways from the intrinsic impact worked that we were participating in tell me if it's a real takeaway or legitimate but we felt we learned that the audience that I'm coming from the boomer-esque audience we tend to really prepare for our artistic experience we build toward the cultural event and our audience tends to start with the cultural event and they go from there and it's a big difference as to how that experience is used and both how it's entered and what people need out of it and I think again it's a part of the challenge of us some of us that want to serve the spectrum is well how do we serve both those different styles when we learned from our younger audience they didn't want to do that they didn't want to learn too much about and they also didn't want to stay in the room and talk to us they wanted to go somewhere with their friends and talk about us and so we facilitate that we facilitate that with our work we invite other people to host a conversation and we do it for other people because we are genuinely curious and the Walker does this they make it well known they have a bar at the back of the stage they still don't even like being in the theater personally I would just want to go somewhere else relax, not even think about the space and just get into it because that's where we really want to have that conversation about what we just saw without the confines another question I have about audiences it was dancing around almost but as this assumption that it's young audiences when our experience is older audiences are much more open to new work that is experimental in particular I think because of their best experience and that they are at a point where they are no longer deciding what the other is about but are open to younger people in general and that's always so to make assumptions about the audience's new work it always seems like I'm very interested of course I am in the young audiences and don't get me wrong but to say it's about how it's also about really serving an older audience as being adventurous this may or may not you're conservative I wish Bedlam is here I think what's happened with the young audiences thing because that struck me is that it's not that young audiences I think young audiences are attracted to new work but I think that they have been a lot of my friends that don't make theater don't go to the theater because what's happening on stage doesn't care about them that's how they feel I feel like this isn't relevant to me because I'm not going to go and I think that's it it's not that they're not adventurous what's finding what they're somehow going to or what's finding its way up on the stage in front of them isn't relevant to them that's why I wish Bedlam was here they do that so well Bedlam Theater is just a theater you have to know about they bring in the happy and young people and they do it we also people would do arts and education what you're really doing is you're trying to help you're trying to open access points that make it understanding one of the things one thing about when you talk about it is that if you tell them too much about the play then you ruin that moment that's one of the wonderful things about meeting plays that are in the canon is that you don't know so much that you actually understand what's going to happen specific to us here one of the challenges around getting audiences in general audiences to new work is getting old in snows for seven months that's another hurdle that we have to get over and I think some of the exciting work too though and I had the opportunity to work on the play that for us here at Mixed Blood we've been taking our show into schools as opposed to saying hey young people we have this great anti-bullying gun violence I was shooting me in the head that was I didn't mean I didn't mean I didn't mean take the last 10 seconds but we have this play by anti-bullying gun violence and oh my gosh I wouldn't want to go see that as a student I wouldn't want to go and travel to a theater but when we go when we drop it right there in their school they're pissed off all the way until they get into the room they're chatting with their friends oh my gosh the show is going to suck and then they sit and they see it and they have a great experience and then that you know it's been facilitated by some government officials from Hennepin County and they tell you everything about the play like I've been sitting in the room and the connections that they make you know maybe that's just my own fault but they're making more connections than I am right and I've been sitting in the room so it's about well that's the other challenge and this is a new play right so what do we take it to them right we're always saying like hey we can't get audiences to come to our but don't we just go to them and we say hey where are you guys you're in your community center okay we just built this set that can travel but we'll just pop it right now we'll pop it right down and do it so I mean that's part of the model and mood and I've never seen a show that you guys do but I care now that you guys are selective about your space so really that's another thing that we can't always ask people to come to our buildings with bad parking downtown in shoddy sections of you know a shoddy section city you know yeah so maybe we just need to do a better job of making mobile theater and getting it out to them especially when the weather's bad back to to that spectrum question that you had because I thought that that furthest thing on the risk is about having the audience create the which there's been a lot of conversation about like through through social media where the audience is actually involved in the creation of the work so it has to do not with yeah it's like crowd sourcing and that they're controlling how that experience ends like multiple I don't even know the video just as a little bit of context where that really came from as we were having conversations with Alan and getting him preparing him to do that research we were asking a question that I think he was trying to answer in that piece which was who are these people who want to come to a reading of a play or a workshop rather than just even if it's brief why would they want to spend their two hours doing that instead of seeing a full production with sets and costumes and people memorizing lines like why do they choose to do that right and his the idea that he's working from is that there's some added satisfaction that it's a slim number but that some certain slim number of our audience really gets from knowing that that interchange that they have with the playwright afterwards is actually going to in some way affect the how that play will wind up actually looking like so there's some people really do enjoy that and he's positing that beyond sort of risk seeking is this thing of like I was actually in the room before it was fully baked and my response had something to do with how that cake you know looked and tasted like six months later there's some companies like they have they have mostly they have workshops constantly and their workshops are always packed people do follow the pieces in terms of production if they do go to and it may also speak to the issue I just thought of this as why that traditional older audience is better with risk because they may have the time on their hands right some of them may have the time to actually take advantage of those things when theaters offer them whereas they have the they have the discretionary income or they can take the right if you have to take time off from work to go do that you can't do that right and so and that's what the other things that Alan found is that propensity for enjoying work of all types increases if you replay this right I mean the more you're kind of versed in the thing the more you're able to absorb different parts of it so that was a part of what it meant but I think that participatory thing is also a place oh I'm just going to say I think also just older people interested about the timeline of history what was happening when people were coming of age in the 60s and other things it was a different time period where it was more liberal thinking than people coming of age in the 80s and you know in the 90s even and so I think that there's something historically about that generation and then even what Kelly was saying about aesthetically people who were exposed to work that was happening at that period of time it was more experimental work than what is happening those that do I think about my mother and I think about adventurous theater goers I also think it depends on who we're talking about as our audience I mean we've talked a lot about artists coming to our own work and you know I mean that's great and we all love to participate in everything but if we're talking about audience engagement are we talking about people who aren't in the theater or two I mean that's you know thinking about how we engage our board members they love to come to things that are the readings of shows that we're working on because it's a whole different world for them you know theater making is sexy and interesting and different so that's a way to engage audiences that are not you know of our types I'm curious about because you know of building audiences and to me I would love to talk about how a media covers theater or how we spread the word of theater because I think that's the idea of criticism or how it's written in the paper which is still the way that people look for we still don't have a comprehensive place to go with all the theaters happening today where I can go to and you know to me it's like those are all if there was a stronger foundation and structure that would enable people just information about what is going on and theaters are also we are very protective of our the data you know our emails and our audiences and you know sharing that and but more importantly I think you brought up other artists writing about Mary and writing about art and how do we make that the more popular way and looking at what do people people are still looking at the paper though and those are the same theaters I see a lot of the times are being reviewed and reviewed and the writing quality of it and the comprehension of it and where are we reaching say we want to reach young people what are they're looking at are we there are we present at the baseball games are we present and I think there's a bigger issue that it keeps becoming feeling like this elitist thing because the coverage of it is I don't know I don't get to hear a lot of things and I'm a theater person so to me there is that idea of how do we get more people to see to know about things than to see to come out of their houses and come to see things so one of the things that the city that I find a lot of people talk to me about this issue not just in theater but in all art forms that there isn't a comprehensive way in which anyone whether they're outside or inside the Twin Cities region can go to one place to go to online to get the download of what's happening on and that's actually a challenge that I've been trying to work towards and it's very difficult because it's about curating what's in there I mean other cities have things like Time Out which also has provides criticism but we don't have the density in this region of art delivery that the same New Yorker and LA does so it's actually a business model that's really challenging so there's a structural issue there and then of course in terms of the critics themselves you know that they're covering every single art form of just theater so they don't necessarily have even have a theater background if they're covering it Minnesota Theater Alliance has on their website a comprehensive list of all the things that are happening in the cities I mean Minnesota Playlist has what's showing you know I mean also Minnesota Theater Alliance also has this audience exchange program I mean these things are there of course they're it's a membership so you have to buy into it and things like that and the publicity around it is is low I sit here as a board member saying I'm trying to do a better job of it but there are these things in place I think you know hey it's Minnesota we're all busy theater makers so we are buried in our own works sometimes it's hard to put our heads out of our turtle shell sometimes but there is a lot of stuff that's happening I think we all do it's great that we get an opportunity to spend six hours together here and I wish a representative of the Minnesota Theater Alliance outside of myself and Randy now could speak to some of these things but there are there I just think we have to seek it out but I think maybe you're talking about an audience you're talking about from the audience Minnesota the city the tourism whoever that is needs to put money in and not me run the theater you're running a theater you're absolutely right you're absolutely right you're right I actually want to talk to you about that but you also I think said something really important which is that people have to be you also have to move everywhere there are collective databases it's because people have taken a leap that says my customer is here in fact it isn't my audience it's a bunch of people and so one of the things is that you just start you stop thinking about someone else has to do the calendaring work but the thing that says we're going to understand that we are all actually talking to some of the same people or could be comes from within well Tori and I are both running shared databases these exist in cities around the country well you're establishing one in the Bay Area we've run it for five years we've got 1.8 million people in it and they are 100 organizations have merged their audience with their own databases from the opera to really really little companies and you know when you break down that this is mine and you open it up it becomes a really powerful way to reach but we need to wrap this up because we haven't catch a plane so I'm really really in various planes heading in different directions Mark should tell you about how you can stay connected through conversations so it is our hope that this would not be the final word because honestly again all we have is questions right now and I feel like I've just learned a lot absorbed a lot of exciting stuff just listening for a few hours today and we would like to keep this conversation going so on Monday we're going to have our last of these meetings and then sometime by the end of next week everyone who is here will receive an email from me and it will give you the link to a private page on TDS Magazine which I edit just for people who participated in these conversations and there is a system in place where we can continue to talk to each other and you have to have the password to get in so it's going to feel hopefully like we're not throwing it out to all 7 billion people on the earth who clearly want to read this kind of thing the idea is that there are still ideas that you want to think through things that you didn't say today that you think oh I wish I'd said that or on Sunday or Monday you're like oh I wish I'd said that please come to this site and we want to try to start inviting we want to just keep it going because again there's just no answer to these questions really there's just only better ways of asking them and we have to just keep asking and asking and refining and refining and it would be great to have all of your voices continue on I'm going to consent to survey audiences and talk to them you guys are the only ones who can get to them so thanks to all of you for spending so much time on this today and to Jeremy and everyone at the Playwright Center for hosting us thank you thank you