 or Audrey to see your schedule. But it's cool. Okay, so this is Watch Me Work. I'm SLP, we're here. It's a, jeez, what day is it? Anybody? It's Wednesday, April 8th. Wednesday, April 8th. Wednesday, April 8th, thanks. Has anybody, is anybody new to Watch Me Work or has everybody, does everybody know what we're doing? You're new to Watch Me Work? Okay, some people are new. Okay, I'm gonna really fast tell you what we do. So you'll know what we do, and you'll know what we don't do. Okay, so I'm Susan Lloyd Parks. I've been doing Watch Me Work for 11 years, mostly in the lobby of the public theater and in other places all around the world. We do it live, mostly with the live audience in the lobby of the public theater, the public theater big up. And thank you to them for making it possible for all these years. Recently, a couple of years ago, HowlRound came on and has been helping us live stream and during this coronavirus thing, I thought, wouldn't it be fun to do it five days a week? And so here we are. So thank you to HowlRound and thank you to the public theater for helping this happen in such a glorious and expansive way involving hundreds and hundreds of people five days a week. So it's very cool. Okay, so Watch Me Work is a play, it's a show and we create it together. The first 20 minutes of the show we do, we create the dialogue, the action together, sorry, by creating the action together. That's my timer here. We work on our work relatively silently for 20 minutes. And then after that in the time remaining in about 40 minutes, sometimes we have time to go over, I take questions from you about your creative process. So Watch Me Work, the me in the title is you. I take questions from you about your creative process. So I'm not gonna sit here and talk about my work. I'm gonna talk about your work because it's so fun. And we're your squad here, gather here. We're here to encourage you and help you start working, get working, keep working, enjoy your work, all those good things. So, and Audrey is gonna help us tell us something. Yeah, Audrey's gonna tell us something. Thanks, Audrey. Hey, so if you wanna ask a question during the questions portion and you're inside of the Zoom, what you need to do is click raise your hand. There should be a participant tab at the bottom of your screen. If you're on a laptop, likely at the top if you're on an iPad is in my experience. And I'll see a little blue hand pop up on your face and I will call on you and unmute you when it's time to speak. If you are watching the stream on HowlRound.tv we will also accept questions via social media, the public social media channels, our Instagram and our Twitter. We will also accept questions at the Watch Me Work Twitter which is at Watch Me Work SLP with the hashtag HowlRound H-O-W-L-R-O-U-N-D. And that's all. Matt, great, awesome sauce. So we're gonna start with 20 minutes of work, any kind of work you want and then we'll do a lot of talking about your work and your creative process. Let us begin. All right, all right. So that was the action part of the show and now we're gonna do the dialogue part where you all will ask me questions about your creative process and your work. Anybody got a question? Do you know how to ask questions? You do, someone knows. Yeah, so we've got Nancy. I'm gonna unmute you, Nancy. Go for it. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can't see you. You're mysterious. Oh, really? Is it all right? Oh, that's fine. It's a new computer and I'm, thanks. So I have two questions and I can always ask in another time. I've been coming on a lot. Thank you so much. I have a political, I have an incident that's part of my life map, something that happened to me that is very political, that can be expounded upon and it's a metaphor for a lots of kind of feminist issues. And I don't wanna be polemic and I don't know, I'm thinking of a play and I don't know how to use it and build a story around this, very serious. It's almost, I mean, it's just, it's kind of symbolically beautiful type of awful thing and how to tell the story. I was thinking, do I just write a story and then put that in as an aspect of a character's life or is it their pursuit? Could it be the pursuit for some kind of social justice? Am I making sense? Yes, you are. Without, you know, we don't need to sort of get into the specifics of the event since it's something that's personal to you, correct? It's something that happened to you. Well, it's somebody that I grew up around. It happened to her and to a lot of other women like her. Okay, okay, so it's right. So something happened to somebody and you want to sort of, it seems to be wanting to be the centerpiece of something that you're writing, probably a play. Is that correct? Yes, yes. Right, right, right. So I mean, you could have the action, the thing, the incident right in the play as part of the main action of the play. I don't think, yeah, I'm sort of confused as to what the... Okay, well, the incident, it's an incident. It has to do with somebody that I was raised by just without getting too specific. So, but who she was was not so different from other people. Other people, her story. And obviously there was an effect on me being, an artist and sensitive. And so I don't want to tell a childhood story except by maybe a flashback, but it's... So just say you have a character that you were raised by who was sold into slavery, okay? I'm just making shit up right now. Okay, so this person, the writer was raised by was sold into slavery and raised her and now she wants to write a play involving what happened to this person in her life, right? You could very much, you could very effectively, I think use the incident of someone being sold into slavery as a centerpiece, that's what's happening in your play. That could be something that's happening to the character. What I'm saying is you're allowed to do that. I know, but it's, that happened a very long time ago. And I mean, I, huh. I'm just using that as an example of what's gonna happen. Yeah, it's something that what happened to the character in question could easily be happening to one of the characters in your play. Yes, you could write a play about something that happened and had a profound effect on somebody. That could be the action of the play. Right, so the character, the present day character reflects on this every so often. Or you could set it in the past and have it happen, say it happened in the sixties or the fifties or the twenties and you could have it, you could set the play in the twenties or the sixties or the fifties or the whatever. Sure, you can have it happen. Yeah, you can have it happen, actually happening, not as a flashback, but as something that's actually happening. That's interesting, because I was getting very stuck on this idea of a journalist going to research something and why was she so interested in this aspect of injustice? And of course, because it was something that she witnessed growing up and happening to other people. And I thought, oh, that's so a journalist looking back. I like the idea of going back there. I don't know if I could stay there the whole time if my, I don't know, but that's interesting too because I've never seen these characters before, you know. Right, kind of fun. It would make it more fun for me because I make documentaries and I don't really, I want it to be, I want it to feel very theatrical. Thank you, thank you very much. Give it a try, give it a try. Sort of start fleshing out the characters and the action and then check back in and tell us how you're doing. I will, thank you. Okay, I have to, before we go, Audrey, I mean, before we go on to the next person, Audrey, I have to give a shout out to someone I've seen on my screen, Stan Eriki. Stan, my friend from 100 years ago in London, oh my gosh. It's great to see you. I have not seen this guy in like a thousand years. God bless you and your family. It is a joy to see you. Wow, see, I mean, there are many things that are difficult about these times but a great thing is that we get to see each other. And so many of you I've never seen. And Stan, I haven't seen you in like 80 years. So, hi, okay, we'll talk later. Okay, okay, we got to get emails. Okay, okay, Audrey, our next question. Back to work, back to work. That's so cool, that's so cool. All right, our next question is going to be from Jean. Jean, are you? Jean? Yeah. Yeah, hi, thank you so much. Hi, Jean. And wow, Susan, I'm such a huge fan and this is an honor. And I have to say we're not for COVID-19. I would not have taken part. So it's crazy. But so my question is I'm well into a draft of a play. It's been many drafts and I've done workshops and readings. And each time I've been getting very good notes and I'm working with the director and she gave me very detailed notes and everything sort of feels like it's going in a good direction. I'm just wondering when you feel like it can tip over into, I mean, I still feel like it's the play that I want to be writing. And so I continue to rewrite and continue to rewrite. I guess my question is, do you do a million drafts and do you let yourself go off into a lot of different directions or do you stay in the direction that you're going with with the play or do you mix it up and do a little bit of both? And I hope this question makes sense. No, it completely makes sense. Julian Christopher, did you have a question like that? Am I having deja vu? Did we talk about something like this? Maybe? No, I guess. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Yeah, so Jean, is it Jean or Jeannie? Jeannie, Jeannie, Jeannie, yeah. Jeannie, it's really, it's great that you've written a play and you've written a beautiful play. You're having this awesome workshop. You're getting feedback from probably smart people who want you to succeed, right? And want your play to succeed. That's all good, good, good, good, good. And sometimes in those situations, we do have the feeling like, eh, is this the play that I'm writing? You know what I mean? Or have I gone off into another weird direction? So answer your question about do I do a lot of drafts? I do a lot of drafts, but I don't really show my play, I don't workshop my plays a lot in the traditional sense. Like hop or, you know, go to a theater, get lots of feedback and then go to another situation, get lots of feedback. I don't really do that. I sort of do, or I don't do it that way. I do workshops in my, you know, in my head. So I'm giving myself feedback or I might give it to one close trusted dramaturg, producer, person and get feedback from them. But I don't open it up too much because sometimes for me, when I open it up, it gets hard to, you know, it's like, ah, 20 different ideas, right? So if you're feeling like, it's okay to try different things, but I would, do you feel like you've opened it up too much to people? Well, I feel like in my situation as, you know, somebody who's trying to get a play produced that, you know, I kind of have to take the opportunities that come to me. And most of those opportunities come with a built-in, we're going to give you feedback. And so sometimes it's easy to switch it off, but other times like my body hurts, if that makes sense. Yeah, you're saying your body hurts because the feedback is, does not really. It's been not, it just doesn't, it's just like not understood, they're not understanding what I'm doing or wanting something else that, you know. Okay. Well, that's very good then. So you're what Hemingway called your built-in shockproof shit detector is working. Usually, usually. It sounds like it's working. It sounds, Janie, it sounds like it's working. If people are giving you notes and you're like, oh, those feel good. And then people are giving you notes and you feel like, ah, ah, ah, ah. Then it is, your sensors are working, right? Which is great. Which means that you can probably feel fairly comfortable in, well, number one, when you're taking notes, when they give you notes, what are you doing? When they're talking to you or sometimes at you, what are you physically doing? I'm usually writing them down. Great. And if there's a note that just doesn't ring, ring true or helpful, like the writing stops, there's a flower. Right, right, right, right, right. I would say, and are you visible to them? Are you like in your presence or in their virtual presence? Great. I would suggest, write it all down. Give yourself an activity. You can't see my hand, you know. There you are, with your notebook. And they're giving you notes and you're writing them down, right? That means that physically, you're really, and you know, oh, I don't like that note, I'm writing it down anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that note, I'm writing it down. Okay, to give yourself something to do while you're taking their notes. And then you sleep on it, you think on it, you reflect on it and circle the ones that work and just draw lines through the notes you think are stupid. Okay. And it's great. It's a wonderful opportunity to have a workshop, to open yourself up, but just remember to just be mindful. Just be mindful. It's okay that you're trying different things. That play might have to try lots of different avenues. It's okay. It doesn't mean that you're going down the wrong road just because you choose a different road from the road you started out. But do check in with yourself as much as you can. Does that make any sense? That's like a great question. But just keep checking in with yourself. Don't do a note right away, you know? Somebody says, here's a note. Give me a rewrite tomorrow. Whoa, slow it down, slow it down, okay? Okay, okay. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming, Stingy. All right, up next, we have Sina. Go right. Hey, thank you. So, Susie, Lori, I had a question about kind of like finding inspiration when we're feeling blocked. Thank you. The play I'm working on, I started with writing samples for a festival to get a reading. And it was like two scenes I'd written. And a director from the festival reached out to me and we had coffee and talked about stuff. And she said at the time, which was a while ago, that I should read All My Sons, or sorry, Death of the Salesman, because it's not like, I'm not trying to compare my play to that, but I feel like thematically like deals with like business and fathers and sons and like the American dream and stuff. And since then I've been like writing bits and pieces of it and feeling like I'm writing from like the heart of the thing and from like what people want. And now I'm not like blocked, but I do feel like I'm like writing to fill pages maybe and that it's getting away from like, it doesn't feel like I'm writing from the heart of the thing, but like kind of more peripherally, I guess. And I'm wondering if that's, if like going back and reading a play that like might be similar is something you would think is useful. So it kind of reinvigorate myself, I guess. So did you read this, which is Death of a Salesman or Father All My Sons? Death of a Salesman, sorry. Okay, okay. No, no, no, it's okay. So did you, so they said, they suggested read Death of a Salesman. You went back and read Death of a Salesman? No, I probably will at some time. I've been acting school, I'm in a grad acting program, but I've tried to read it before and like the memory play thing, like I just, it's a little much for me. Ah, yeah, I know. But it's a great play. So your play doesn't have that element in it though. No, it's very linear in terms of time. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. There's a time skip. Sure, sure. Like linear. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. So now you're writing along and you're writing to fill pages. Do you know, do you have an outline? I suppose I do, but it's not- I'm looking up in the sky. Is it up there? It kind of is, because it's not seen to seen. It's three acts is what I've- Okay, okay. The other thing is I've kind of set myself with a three act thing and I'm wondering if that's actually becoming a little restrictive. But it's three acts and I did that because it was kind of like the arc of like the main character like coming home, loss of the patriarch dies and him having to like kind of take a role, his role in the family. Right, okay. Okay, okay. That's as outlined as I have it. And I guess there is, for some scenes I have things where I'm like, okay, this by the end of this scene, I think this needs to happen to get me to the next scene. You don't like outlines? Yeah, it feels like math. You don't like math? Not really, no. Why not? You don't like counting? You don't like, I mean, math is, you know, ones and zeros. Here we are. I guess. What in math? Cause you had a bad experience with math. Okay, so. I have a bad experience with outlining. Oh, oh. Yeah, cause I've done it before. I think maybe because I start feeling like, feeling like it restricts the possibility of like, what could happen if I just sit people down in a room and know what they're getting at. Like what's like the event kind of. Right, right, right. This is a tough question. Maybe it's not answering. No, no, it's, it's actually, it's, I might be tough for you. It's kind of easy for me. Try outlining. Again. Try it. Just, you know, I mean, look, if you, if you outlining, meaning you don't have to use Roman numerals, right? You don't have to like do a detailed outline where every beat is articulated, right? But if you were, if you were trying it the way you're trying it, like, let me just see what happens. And you hit a wall, right? And then you're having difficulty. You could switch it up and try something, try, try and test it too. I mean, if I said, hey, you're building a dog house and look, what are you using to hammer that nail? And well, I'm using a highlighter because I had a heart. I had a lousy experience with a hammer once. I'm like, okay, well, you know, it could be a hard question or maybe go back to trying the hammer again and maybe try a different technique. So maybe outlining for you means walking around your beautiful yard and where are you, Virginia? I forget. Virginia, okay. So you're walking around your yard and you're saying, okay, scene one is this and then scene two is that and then maybe you're dancing it out. Maybe you're just dancing around your yard telling yourself the story. Maybe that's outlining. You see what I mean? Outlining is just like God, you know what I'm saying? It's a word that we use that means a lot of things. Okay? It's not just the guy with the white beard on the, what do you call it? The dome of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, right? That would be so fucking boring. Excuse my language. Outlining is like, it's just a roadmap. You're making for yourself, right? It's just if you've ever gone spelunking, caving and the diving down into the earth's center, you have often a yellow rope. I've done this before. You have a yellow rope that we hold onto, right? Because then we know kind of how to get to the center, the place where we're going and we know how to get out. So it's just a tool. It's like shoes. It's like, you know, Kleenex. It's like your face mask. I don't want to wear a face mask. Fuck, put on your fucking face mask. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. You know, try it. Right. Just expand your ideas of outlining. Have fun with it. Because ultimately when we watch your play, you're going to be telling us a story, right? So practice telling us your story. Okay. Okay. And just like, I don't know, have you ever like been in a relationship or anything? Yeah. Okay, great. So just you've been in a relationship. It doesn't necessarily like cut off all the possibilities of cool things happening, right? Just because you've chosen an SO, right? A significant other. Sometimes making a choice actually expands the possibilities of wonderful things because we can relax. We're not on Tinder every night. Like who gonna swipe left, right? We're actually chilling with somebody and we're in quarantine with a close friend. I don't know. I went way off the path here. No, that's really, it's actually really helpful, that imagery. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. I guess my one question is, I mean, you said like imagine and have fun with it. So I wanna ask like, so does out can outlining be as simple as like, as like you said, this is what this scene is, like a one sentence, this is what happens in this scene. Yeah. Yeah, guess what? Outlining can be that. Outlining, you can get yourself some really tiny cards. Look, here's my my census card. Okay, I gotta fill it out. But you can, but you can fold, you know, it can be really small or even smaller. Look, it can be this small. This can be your cards or even smaller, you know? There, your scene can fit on. In this scene, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that's all you get to write. Next card, you know? Right, it's gonna be this size, right? So, you know, I gotta fill that out. But anyway, do you see what I'm saying? One sentence outline, sure, that's great. Yeah, cool. Okay, thank you so much. You're welcome so much. Thank you, thank you. As you can tell, I love outlining, guys. Yeah, I love outlining. Yeah, outlines are great. All right, Jada, you are up next. Can you hear me? Yeah. Oh, hi, hi guys. Hi, Ms. Parks, how are you? You can't hear me? I can hear you, I mute myself while you're talking. Oh, okay, all right. Thank you so much for doing this. I have like a little bit of this question. I'm an actress and I'm having, I'm a beginner writer. I study acting for the last couple of years. I'm a graduate of HB and Esper Studios. And I can never find anything that I wanted to do in regards of like monologues or just doing roles. So these characters just kept coming inside of me, like just living and breathing in me. And I'm like, dude, leave me alone. I'm an actress. I don't want to write, but literally constantly keep niching at me. So I started writing my own monologues for myself. And very good, it's coming out naturally. And I just have so many experiences that I want to put down on paper. What suggestion would you have for me in regards to just finding a program or school or some training, some formal training in regards of like structure and art? Because I definitely don't have an issue with writing, but I just think that just to feel totally secure to say, this is mine, to stand by, the structure of it is in alignment with writing is. Sure, sure. Did you understand? I know it was a lie. I was a little nervous because I literally didn't think you was going to call on me. So I was just telling you. No, I was like, maybe I'll act it tomorrow. Maybe I'll act it one day. So it caught me off guard. See you today, Jada. Here we are. No, I mean, it's a great question. Congratulations on wanting to write and starting writing and having fun with it. The question- And your big inspiration to me, I love your writing. Well, thank you. Thank you. The tricky thing about asking me about going to a program, a writing program is that I didn't go to a writing program. So, you know what I mean? I just learned to write just by writing. But I know that a lot of people do value writing programs and there are a lot of really cool writing programs out there. So, I mean, these days you can, depending on where you live and all that, you HB, so maybe you live in New York, I don't know, but Harlem. Harlem, okay. Well, there are a lot of wonderful writing programs in the city. There's the Gotham Writers Workshop, I think it's called and stuff, but with this going on, you could probably be very happy taking a writing class online, you know? I don't know any, I mean, I teach at NYU, but you know, we're just doing online right now. Everybody's doing online. There's some great writing classes that you can teach online. I mean, that you can take online. I would just check out some online writing classes. Have you done, you've probably done some research. Yeah, I've done some research, but I don't want to sound arrogant. I really do think I'm good. In terms of the character just coming out of me, it's just, this flows out so naturally. I hear the questions and I hear people here talking about writer's blockages. I think it comes from all of my experiences. Like I'm writing from my gut. I'm writing from people that I know, my childhood, every single thing. And oftentimes when I'm really trying to focus on acting, like I wake up, I hear a character. I want to train, I hear a character. I'm in the bathroom, I hear a character. Like constantly. I'm like, you know what? Just let me start writing and just writing some things down. But let me just do it in a formal way like I did acting. When I wanted to act, I just graduated. I went to Esper. I went to the actor's studio. I went to all these places to understand character, analyzing the script. And that's why I fell in the love of characters and understanding people, that the subtext of what the words are actually really saying. I hear you. I hear you. So back to your question, if you're looking for a program, I think that if you want a program, there are programs right now that are online that you could take and they probably be a lot of fun. And even if you are good and great, there's always something to learn, especially if you want to learn things like structure. If you want to have a community, they probably have writers, groups there that you could read your work to every week or something like that. That could be really great. You could do that online. It would be great to sort of, you probably have a really delicious acting community and you probably would be well-served by developing a community of writers who could share feedback and stuff like that. But there are a lot of writing programs out there, especially these days. Thank you so much. I appreciate this so much. It means a lot to me that you took the time out to do this. It really means a lot because I was literally going crazy in this house when I stumbled upon this. I'm like, oh my God, this is so dope. Thank you, and I wish you guys all safe. Thanks, Jada. All right, the next person we have is Kimia. Kimia, are you all ready? Hey. Hi, how are you? Thanks for doing this. My question is, I think sort of simple, but I know in your plays, you work really well with spacing of the characters in your dialogue. Do you think that it's more effective to when you're writing to put beat or to put the character's name and then put the lines, like if they're not saying anything and you want it to be like a dramatic pause. I know some directors, I think they say, well, like kind of ignore the beat sort of pauses, but in fact, which do you think is better? Oh, well, I mean, I sort of make it look on the page, however I want, you know, so. All right, you know, I just, you know, if I think it should be a, if I wanted to write the word beat, I'd write the word beat. If I wanted to write the word pause, I'd write the word pause. Harold Pinter, great writer, Harold Pinter, I think uses pause a lot. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, to great effect. I've created these six call spells, which are sort of my own creation that I just started doing because I liked the way they looked on the page and they created an interesting vibe in the room, but that's just something that's good for my work. I don't suggest that anybody follow that. I think there beat, pause is perfectly fine. If a director wants to ignore the beat or the pause, fine, let her ignore the beat or the pause. She might have a better idea. She might not. And when she don't, then you can go, hey, all right. I wrote a pause there for a reason. You know, I mean, some directors, they love to say, the first thing I do when I pick up a script is I cross out all the same direction. It's like, okay. If that's what you need to feel good, right. So I would just write beat or pause, if that works for you. But we can't safeguard it from some director doing what she or he, they want to do with it, especially if they're doing it in the country or a town that you're never going to visit, you know. Right. Let it go. That's the hardest thing. Yeah, but have fun writing, you know what I mean? Yeah. I'm writing it, right? Okay. That's the main thing, right? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Kenya. Thank you so much. All right, we've got about six minutes left just to flag and the next person we've got is Rebecca. Rebecca, are you unmuted? Yeah, I think so. Hi. So my question, I'm now I'm scared because of outlining, but thanks, thank you so much for this opportunity. I've made a huge stride in my artistic practice just in the last week in terms of being able to write every single day. And my question is I just started writing on the page since last Wednesday, since I joined the first one here and this play is just happening. And I've gotten to a point, I got it to a point today where the words were coming, but my brain was saying, I don't like this, but it was coming. So I just let it keep flowing. What do you do if you hit a point in your writing where it seems like it wants to go in a direction, but your other side of your brain is saying, I don't know if I like this. I hope that makes sense. It does, it does make sense. I often wonder what, where that, I don't like this voice comes from. I don't like this, you know what I mean? Is it, and I was thinking about say, is it the snarky part of ourselves that we most often direct toward others? I don't like her. Look at what she wearing. Who does she think she is being with Dyson making a game, whatever. You know what I mean? The shit that we spew either audibly or inaudibly on a daily basis to who you name it, right? So that's the shit comes home to roost. And there we are. It's backed up in our own head, vomiting onto into our beautiful thing that we're making. Cause we've got something good going and the shit that we ordinarily say for those people out there, it's gonna try to piss in the beautiful thing that you're creating, right? So if somebody were to come up to you and go, who do you think you are? Wearing that gray sweater? You're having a gray sweater on. You know what I mean? What would you, I mean, it's like some, it's either in New York, I live in New York. Okay, where do you live, Rebecca? I usually live in New York. I'm quarantined in Alabama right now, but. Okay. Well, okay, okay. Well, there are probably crazy people maybe in Alabama also, you know. And so if some crazy person walked up and you go, who do you think you are? Walking down the street, right? You probably just keep walking, right? We try to engage sometimes. Sometimes I try to engage. I tell, well, excuse me, ma'am. I have a right to be, you know, wrong. Just keep walking. It's just like, ooh, talk to the hand, but you don't have to hold your hand up, Rebecca. It's some crazy bitch that's talking to you, trying to throw you off your game. Don't engage. Okay. Keep walking. Like, I don't know. You see what I mean? Yeah. That's all it is. That's the crazy bitch side of yourself. Excuse me, I'm not calling you a name. That's the crazy side of yourself. That is just vomiting up into your pretty nice, gorgeous shit that you've been making since Wednesday. And who are they to tell you that you shouldn't be writing? What? Right? And we all have that part of ourselves. Oh yeah. And they just sit around with the judgy part, right? Okay. So you can talk, you can, you know, you can just keep walking. You can confront them and turn and yell at them, but that would be kind of like yelling at a, at a, you know, a challenged, an emotionally challenged person who confronted you on the street. The best thing to do is just keep walking. That makes sense. Right? Don't give them any energy. Don't engage with them. Don't try to convince them that you're doing something that you've always wanted to do. Now I'm curious, does that also apply? Like, I feel like these two characters that have been coming to me, they, they have a life experience that I don't have. And I'm just curious if like I engage in that part yet, or if I, if I just keep writing and then at the end, maybe it just exists, it just exists to exist and that is what it is. Or do I engage in that conversation too? So you said, hold on, you said you have these two characters you have, say that again, they have a life experience that I don't have. So the, so far these characters are speaking to me, one of them is struggling with addiction and it's not a life experience that I share. So I feel like that other judgmental part of me is saying, like, do I have a right to even, do you have a right to even, do you have a right? Let me tell you something. So there's a song called Angel from Montgomery and the lyrics are, the lyrics are, I am an old woman named after my mother, right? So the writer of that great song, whose name is John Prine died yesterday. And he was, he was 70 something, but he's great writer and he died yesterday because he got the virus and he died. There was an interview where someone asked him years ago, you're a man, yo. I mean, you know, right? He identifies the man, he's a dude. You wrote a song that said, I am an old woman named after my mother and that's how his song started. And he said, they said, why did you even think to do that? What, who told you that you could do that? And he said, no one ever told me I couldn't. And I was like, that's beautiful. We got so many rules in our heads about you're only supposed to write about the, we got a lot of rules. We got a lot of rules because a lot of us, sometimes just go and write whatever the fuck with no respect for the experience of the people that we're writing about. So the rule comes into place to keep those of us who are not specific, sensitive, who don't have any skin in the game from just writing stuff, right? So those rules are in place for a reason, but the problem is when some of us with open hearts and honest feelings want to write about someone's experience who isn't exactly like our own, top dog underdog, two men in a room. I'm not a man. I don't identify as a man. I wrote it. No one told me I wasn't allowed to do that. People have since told me that I shouldn't have done it because I wasn't allowed to, but I already did it. But we have to remember those rules are in place for a reason, but if we come to the work with an open heart and a deep respect for the life story that is not specifically our own, then I believe that that deep respect, through that deep respect and that deep reverence and the work that we engage in in the creative process, we can earn the right to tell that story, okay? And we earn it by doing it. You don't have to sit around now, Rebecca, for the next three weeks trying to earn the right to do it. You earn it by doing the work and being open and honest about what you don't know, what you do know, what you'd like to know. Just do the work. You see what I mean? So again, but think of John Prine today. The song is called Angel from Montgomery. And it's amazing when you hear it, you think, a man wrote that. It's a stunning song. I am an old woman named after my mother. No one told him he wasn't allowed to write that, right? You wrote a lot of other great songs too, bless his heart. Thank you. It's so hot, well, I'll just tell the little bitch to shut up. That's right, there you go. Don't give her too much energy though, she's an energy vampire, remember that. Okay, don't give too much energy. Thank you, Rebecca. Thanks, Rebecca. All right, it's 6.03. Okay, we should go, we should do it again tomorrow. We should do it again tomorrow, we'll be here. We'll be here. So just a quick reminder, you go to publictheater.org to sign up by 3 p.m. each day and I email out the link between 3 and 4.30 and we'll see you then.