 The theaterartsgild.com has like a now playing kind of calendar, but essentially I think right now there is Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf going on at the Omaha Community Playhouse, and there's a possibility of like rush tickets for that, but from the box office on the day of the show. Also, calendargirls at Snap, which is walking distance from the element actually, that has its tag night out, and what that is, it's the theaterartsgild scholarship night. So a donation to tag will admit you to watch calendargirls down there. And let's see, I think we're seeing about possibly spam a lot, it has preview that night, but of course they have to give the tickets to the donors first, so we're going to see if there might be a couple of, you know, straggler tickets that we could have here. Let's see, so yeah, that's Thursday. And also, you know, the PlaySlam box is down there, like I said, you know, one, single submissions, the number of copies that you need for readers face down. And let's see, and then also about tomorrow, Kevin had just some points. Yeah, tomorrow is one of those days where the dinner time, it's kind of one of those long days. I think we have you scheduled to go over to the Jawsland Museum, and there's some dinner over there, and so I don't know if they have arranged a stop back at the hotel or not. So you might want to just think ahead a little bit in terms of bringing stuff into the evening to see the evening show. But there'll be tomorrow's reception at the Jawsland is for a lot of the people who have donated money to help all of us be here. So it's a great time to kind of sick all of you onto them to let them know if you feel comfortable, please let them know how your experience is going and what you think of this week, because it's a great time for them to actually hear what their donations are helping to achieve. So and it's a it's a fun little party that happens beforehand too. Pretty good play after a year too. Yeah, yeah, I think it's all right. Also, as you guys know, unfortunately, with the Playlabs, we have to stack them three deep in order to fit them all. But each year, somebody usually a player usually points is the point person to create a method of sharing that with all that. So we do have a Dropbox setup. Matt started and he and I are the editors on it. So if you want to participate, email me the most current version of the script that you would like to share from this year. And we'll put it on there and then you guys will have access to download and read as you like. So yeah, so if you want to participate, send it to me. That'll be like your approval. And then I'm going to include all of your actual emails when I kind of send the information out. So you guys can have each other's emails that way. And if you want me to hide it, let me know and I'll hide it too. So yeah, I think that kind of sums it up. So we've got our panel today is meeting our design wing. So I'll go ahead and hand it over to Eliza Ben who will be moderating today. Take it away, guys. Well, hello. Let's just dive right in. I thought that it would be nice to start. We were chatting a little bit last night discussing what we would talk about today. We had a pre-conversation conversation. And we talked a little bit about how sometimes it's a little bit tricky explaining what exactly the design wing is to the folks here at the conference. So let's dive in. I don't think we necessarily need to do bios or anything like that because you all have the big book, nice glossy pages. You can look in there. But if it does come up organically, of course, please say what your Metier is. But yeah, what is the design wing? Break it down. So I think the most important thing that we're here to do is just to be a part of the community and to dive in and talk to people about their plays, about their readings, about obviously about the main stage plays that we're all working on and we'll have visual responses to later in the week. But just to become a part of the group and a part of the discussions in all the different readings. I think it's really important for us and for playwrights, I believe, because it's not a thing that usually we get the opportunity to do and I know a lot of us are really interested in being a part of works from the beginning and we usually get brought on so late in the process that we don't get to have these kind of conversations where it's not specifically about our discipline and it's these broader, more just gut instinct visual responses. We don't get to have these conversations even amongst ourselves often. And I think that's something that's really important for this design wing. Yeah, I think when we hear and meeting you guys, seeing you face to face to hear about your story and to know about you individually, it really gives us another depth of the story that you create. Even though I heard some people disagree with it, but for me it's very important to know the creator and I hope for you guys it's important to know who we are too. Well, hard to top that one. But I think what we really want to do is, like they said before, get in on the ground floor and really help you as playwrights and directors find the tone of your play, which is something I learned this week, and really help be collaborators and creators. It's always exciting for us to work on new works because then our voices are heard just as much as yours and it makes your guys' lives a lot easier, I think. I would agree with everything that's been said so far. I think also there's a danger within ourselves as designers and also within the theater community at large to think of designers as technicians and not as creators, whereas really I think there is a conversation to be had on the creative level that designers love, love, love to participate in. That I think is something that I would think that we as a community can work on. I'll just add that I think it's really great to have the designers here and talk with the playwrights and with the directors. It voices a change in how we're producing and how we're looking at work and how we create work in a more holistically collaborative environment. So I'm just thrilled and I've been loving having the conversations with the playwrights and with the directors and just being able to have what is a more primary conversation as opposed to a solve-the-problem kind of conversation. I just can't speak highly enough about this process here at the Great Plains and what that's bringing to how we produce theater and moving forward. Great. And I think it would be apropos to mention Justin Townsend was one of the... Yeah, so absolutely. I think what Eliza says is great is Justin Townsend and Kevin Lawler really sort of put this process together four years ago or so and really recognizing the fact that this needs to be a part of how we work and push forward in the future. I'm interested that a number of you sort of touched on this idea of the primary conversation and responding in like a visual or even an emotional way and getting in at the ground floor. Can you tell me a little bit more, talk a little bit more, even just specifically like different projects where that's been a particularly fruitful conversation at the start? Or is that not usually the case? This week it's the case, which is amazing and I think that's something that I want to try to pull into my life more. And there's times, I do think though, unfortunately, there was like the, they talked about the playwright and the director being in a relationship earlier this week and to me sometimes the designer is like the tag along best friend or the third wheel sometimes and it comes in a little bit late and sometimes those conversations are already underway and it's kind of hard to backpedal, you're going to lose time or lose momentum if you backpedal. So it's just important for us to, I believe, as like a scenic designer to come in with strong visual responses that even if the conversations have already started that hopefully you can spark even more and build on top of that. I think also that the art form that we're all involved in is such a collaborative effort once we get into the theater and what I think is helpful often is the earlier we can be involved in the process, the earlier we can be involved in the creative side of a piece, the more fruitful the ultimate result is because again it is, it's a collaborative effort and the more brains in the room that are working together and fighting together and sort of figuring it out I think that it becomes a more complicated and exciting piece. Yeah, I personally come from a collective creation background and so a lot of the most, in terms of specific times where being a designer in on the ground level as it were of a project, some of the most valuable collaborations that I've been a part of have been when I've been in the room from the get-go so that we can talk the entire ensemble including a playwright can talk about the kernel of the piece and how it can grow into the fully fledged performance that it is to the point where I can come in with not just visual responses to the ideas but also concrete elements and we can play with those and move back and forth and see how a space can generate an idea that can generate text that can generate lighting that can generate a plot that can move all the way through that in a seamless way not seamless collective creation is very difficult but that idea that there is a conversation back and forth so that it isn't, yeah. Was there a particular show that you're thinking of from this collective that you worked with where? Yeah, there was a show called Fathom this was with my theater company called Sabouge Theater this was a while ago but we created this show called Fathom and we based it off of the combination of a playwright's short story about a mother whose son discovered he could breathe underwater and put that and then took also from The Fatal Shore which is a big historical book about transportation off to Tasmania and Australia and sort of merged those two tails so that it was a whole arc that's more complicated than I can properly describe in the time of this panel but in terms of my collaboration with it I would bring in set elements to start working with levels and how that can interact with the actors and we crafted a whole underwater how to basically see somebody swimming underwater on stage that was I don't think could have been built without the back and forth of with the performers and with the playwright herself. It seems like there's a general consensus among the panel talking last night and talking today that designers generally want to be part of the process sooner as soon as possible from the get-go, at the spark, at the initiation what are some ways that you think playwrights and directors and maybe even artistic directors what are some ways that we can be better about bringing you in first and or are there ways that you can be better about getting in from the ground floor? I know that I actively seek out people though I can collaborate with two I'm friends with several other playwrights obviously and I'm making a lot of new ones and when they ask me will you read this and when I know they're creating something I'll actively ask them if they want me to read it and a lot of the times I know I'm not going to get this is something I'm doing because I want to be involved not necessarily because I know it's going to have a through line to a job and at times that's very difficult and I know that the model isn't really set up for that right now the new play development model you mean some of the producing models are not really set up for that and for us to be involved for so long and I guess it really is kind of at the moment it's up to us to seek it out and to be sought out I guess and I don't really have a solution I was lucky enough to join the new musical since last year it's opening this July but they have been decided they want me to be on board and since the very beginning when they write the first draft they brought me in they asked me to read it asked what was my responsive and every two months I would get a new draft and I just keep having new ideas and are we on the same track or are we going too far so it really depends on different productions and different situations I feel I feel like designers a lot of times open and creative across the spectrum but some people have styles just like directors have styles and a lot of playwrights like to work with certain directors and I think maybe not a solution but a through line could be if more playwrights that work with certain directors and those directors work with certain designers kind of build a family there and then whether that doesn't mean that I'm going to be your scenic designer or lighting designer but I can be a design consultant or animator and maybe that's five different scenic designers and you're just getting different point of views because some of my favorite parts of plays are reading the beautifully painted descriptions of the scenes and I think that could go even crazier and I wouldn't want people to hold back anything and I think they could go crazier if we started from the ground floor and by no means do I mean to suggest let us now solve the issues but sometimes I think we probably all kind of know deep down what the issues are and it's nice to sort of imagine or talk about some ways that we can actively pursue to change those challenges I think designers could also go to playwrights and be like I have a cool idea but I'm not going to write it so you need to write it and then let's make a play I think exactly what's going on here we're bringing the designers in having these readings and involving them in the readings is a really great first step and really great I mean it has a very solid foundation and model that I'd love to see expanded and worked on more universally across the country so I think the genesis of what's going on here is really important I also think that and this was touched on earlier in the week in one of these panels that more collaboration within universities among the different departments I think would help with it a lot because I go to school at NYU I'm going into my third year in the grad program and we have creative writing school that the design school doesn't talk to at all and I think that that's a I've said to many of you I think that it's a shame and I wish that more universities were more inclusive among the disciplines like I've got really lucky some of the people that I I actually seek out to read their new plays were former classmates of mine like a friend that just sent me a draft last night my friend Naftali sent me a draft of the play she's writing about Alaskan Fisherman and she's like I want to design eye on this because my visual sense is I'm having some trouble and that collaboration started in an academic setting where we got lucky enough to find each other and we have similar sensibilities so we it can start in an academic setting or it can start in rooms like this and it would be great if there were more rooms like this because this is one of the best experiences I've had in my theater career yay I'm curious too I mean we talked a little bit about I guess what sort of the different processes that you all bring to a particular piece for the nay saying playwright or director who's like I don't want to work with a designer I guess like I mean one of the it's actually one of the questions that we talked about last night but what does a designer bring to the process why should an artistic director think yes gosh Dharna I need to get a designer into the room at the get go what does that bring well I mean it brings conflict right like we come in with something new something different we have fresh eyes on it and we have our own ideas that we walk into the into a meeting a first meeting a design meeting with and or you know hopefully in the future into reading scripts just for playwrights for very early drafts and in the same way that when a director and a playwright sit down together and hash out what they both think they see and want out of their out of this script out of this play that they're bringing to company I think that we do the same thing and but we do it much later generally and yeah so I think that it's the same sort of interaction it's just it just happens later I think conflicts as a great word and it's really instead of a straight line with a director and a playwright now you have a triangle and three minds to bounce things off of and then when the playwright and the director start to argue which is great then you could be a mediator or someone to argue a third point with and then things things grow from that it's it's kind of boring when everyone's just like yeah that's great let's do that super boring super boring and it's also there's a point at least for me as a designer you come into a new work and it's you have all these ideas and you're kind of scared to say something because you're so far into it and you're I'm just the designer so you don't you don't want to step on anyone's toes and I think the communication wall needs to be broken down a little bit more and it's easier from the beginning yeah I just want to build on Joe's idea like I was working with Valerie on the the party play last year and then it was a brand new play and it's about a moving away party and was like can we like it's like when I suggest an idea to a playwright that's your babies and how can I can we just do a lot of boxes is that does that sound too cheap for you you know like like the playwright was very open with this idea but for at least for me I always have this you know this how do you say that afraid to offend you in some and the director sometimes to suggest the over the edge idea I don't know you should ever be afraid of offended you know if it's a good idea or the idea put it out I also think I think it's important that also with designers and how they're trained and how they approach work that it becomes more organic and a stronger process from the through through line and that's something that you know I know that I'm acutely interested in and working towards and really sort of open these conversations with with makers and writers and putting everyone together and really sort of opening communication lines and the collaborative efforts so to make for a stronger a stronger piece a stronger product I wonder if I don't necessarily know that we're addressing that training with with how we train designers as fully as we should be and how designers you know where they where they find their points of interaction so that's something that you know we're continually work on and try to make better and improve as well I think the reason I'm afraid of talking to playwright it's because there's nothing established it's so new there's not like I can talk to a director whatever I want and I know they would turn down my crazy ideas sometimes and then I'm not afraid to propose that because I know that's my job but I don't know what is my job to the playwrights you know I think well and we also as designers we sort of in the same way that playwrights and directors are sort of a couple and they're dating and you know that metaphor on the first day of this conference we as designers in exactly that same way so there is a strong relationship and it grows over the course of many shows with luck and hard work and so we're less afraid of I think getting into fights with our directors than we are with playwrights oh I think playwrights want that relationship to grow no I do too I mean not to speak on behalf of all playwrights but I would agree and I think also the an important thing to be made in terms of what a designer can bring to a process between a director and a playwright is that designers by nature and I you know people may disagree with me of this are visual thinkers like our responses upon hearing some sort of provocation is a visual thing which is I think immediately something that's ineffable you know that can't be put into words and so I think that kind of thinking brought into a process can only enrich it definitely so more conflict more over the edge ideas less I'm just the designer and throwing the hands up and more playwright designer chit chats interactions relationships as it might be in this love triangle paradigm that we've talked about let's open it up a little bit to the to the audience shall we one of the thoughts last night was what does does the audience have suggestions or questions for the for these designers here or anything that we've talked about today don't be shy the walk of shame well first guys very much. So I'm feeling in my own work and even a little bit how we try to structure the conference and my own theater work, my own design work, and my own playwriting work. Pressures coming from socioeconomic forces and even environmental forces that seem to be crushing a lot of the established structure of society right now. Coming into the theater, coming into my work, coming into all our work that are changing those long-standing traditional structures that we once fit into. So now we see a lot of talk and a lot of action actually about working deeper with the community to create work, works of theater, that whole area. So are you guys feeling these huge pressures of class, of economics, of environment, of all those things and the way that's changing the dynamics of how we produce theater? Are you feeling that in how you you're going about design, how you're looking at design, how you're looking at maybe because you guys are all kind of getting sort of getting started at what you might be thinking about where you want to go or new ideas about where you might want to go? I recently graduated from Virginia Tech, the MFA program there, and our directing program is a directing and public dialogue program. So we are all about that that's the world that we our academic studies were in was in a world of community building and community engagement with theater and so when I ended up at school it was a big revaluation of how I wanted to make theater and how I thought about theater on just a really very large scale for me and it has influenced a lot of what I'm doing and what I'm actively seeking out for theater and I think a lot of my desire to get in on the ground floor on in projects now and getting into new works is is based off of that kind of community engagement that is not necessarily taught everywhere certainly wasn't taught at my undergrad. I think it's a really exciting time for us that we that we are starting to see this change happening and we're we just have to try and navigate it now. I do think that economically speaking that there's a growing sense of hitting the bottom line and I think that that's deadly. What does that mean exactly? I think that so there are much they're older and much more established designers who are sort of able to throw their weight around and throw their name around and get what they need for a project and not have to worry about how much it costs or how much man hours it'll take and that we as young designers have to focus a lot on not overspending and not over designing a room so that we don't so that our producers are able to make it work monetarily and and I think that that just economically is a function of how the world of theatre is going and who is going to see our shows and how many people are going to see our shows. I would be curious to know what the producer designer dynamic is in this love paradigm that was talked about. I guess one of the big struggles I've seen recently is the with economics people are no longer it's harder to get people to come see shows unless you're throwing big names designers and big name actors which is economically very expensive and people are staying home they're watching you know they're watching the Netflix and things like that until you are producing a show that just everyone has to see no matter what and that's those are the kind of shows that I want to that I want to work on and and that's why I want to work on new works so that I can be a part of making a product that you just can't turn down with a with a good story and a good design and great acting and it has great meaning behind it and I think you can do things you can reuse you can recycle you can you can have concepts behind these shows that shouldn't don't need a cost you know millions of dollars and get people away from the TVs and back in the theater I also think that again touching on economics is that part of a contemporary struggle that we're having is getting in the same room with everyone in early design meetings that that theater companies are finding it more and more expensive and less and less easy to get everyone out to the theater to talk in person and we're finding ourselves in Skype meetings which are also awful you're just not you're not really a part of the room then you're just on a screen so I actually think designers probably make very good producers expound kit yeah I just think I think that I think that first off it's a real through line to how to making creative decisions and then also really working on on how and how to best tell the story and in using materials that that do cost money so design ultimately cost money and and so there's a real sense of how to spend and what you know how to prioritize and so I think that actually gives real good training for becoming a producer in that regard and I think what Chris was saying as well also Kevin addresses your point of that that the stronger the collaborative environment were from the from the very first step that this becomes a stronger financial picture as well because because you were you're not you can make decisions and make and make calls and come up with structures that that can reflect in the reality of what it costs to produce right very very thoroughly come on up in the spirit of collaboration you know if you want and I probably speak for a lot of the other main stage playwrights like if you have ideas and you want to you know show them to me or to us you know bring them our way I mean you know it doesn't have to be a Friday event or whatever that is in the schedule of like okay you know what I mean like and if you don't know something or you're like what the hell you know just share it and and I'm totally open and yeah that's what they're here to do yeah we'll meet with you later other questions offers one thing that seems interesting for like playwright director collaboration is that there's a lot of like early career playwright groups or early career sort of director fellowships there's actor groups like the bats in New York I mean is there an equivalent kind of young design group because it ends up being that those groups seem to collaborate but from those rooms I really never remember meeting designers and is that because your designers get jobs faster I'm actually I'm not sure about that all maybe that's completely not true but like is there a kind of young designer organization it's the design wing at the GPT well I mean I think in answer I there have been over the past few years an increasing number of that kind of thing there is for example there's one fellowship out at Oregon shakes that specifically for designers there's Lincoln Center directors lab has just started a few years home so what's that the helm and the Helmsley Lincoln Center directors lab started I think two years ago to start taking designers into the room with directors and making them a part of the collaboration on the on the PCs that they're created in that process so yeah they exist but I think that it's again going back to yes designers tend to get jobs fairly rapidly on a techno on a craft basis you know as an electrician or as a TD or whatever like we have that fallback as it were and so that's why the fellowships are not as available as they are for playwrights and directors we also as young designers tend to get a lot of work with more established designers assisting which is is sort of in its own way it's an internship you know you're in a room watching a great designer a great team work together and create really good pieces and you're able to learn from that yeah I actually think that I think that there's artistic directors and people running theater companies out in the audience that there could be greater support that the sport is getting there but there could be greater initiatives to create collectives and and opportunities and fellowships for designers and young designers to help to bring them in more fully into the producing circle so and you know designers often times are left are left as a freelancing on their own and it becomes very difficult sometimes to figure out where that next step is and how to and how to do that so support is support is good more questions yeah come on up the theme song is money by Pink Floyd I won't begin to sing it because that would be yeah I have nothing to say about money but in a world in a world without money I'm really I've been thinking a lot this week about rehearsal and like I'm like ooh I'm singing along with you guys up here and I'm wondering like what is the what is the rehearsal process what is your involvement in the rehearsal because we're talking a lot about early design meetings and I've had the opportunity of working with a few collectives who were the designers are principal members of the collective and they're at all the rehearsals and we're like you know can you make some like dessert cart that we can like hide a human body and or something like that they're like insane things then they come in like related that week with a cart that does that and so and or or like I was making a show with a lighting designer was our primary collaborator and I was like just like begging him to draft light in the room like during the rehearsals like like find stuff to throw light on like what is what is the what are the ideas that we should be experimenting with and I'm wondering if that's just like my own kind of crazy like impulses or if that's something that sounds appealing to you that's amazing okay because I think sometimes like sometimes when I have like it took me a little cajoling to get Andrew to start doing this but he but I think he wanted to watch I think he wanted to respect the process that we had I think he wanted to get to know like what we were making before he started making authorial decisions and why respect that well I appreciate that I want you know do you guys want to get in I think this was that this is what we were talking about earlier about sort of having the permission in terms of a traditional in terms of what one might conceive to be a traditional designer role you know I mean I think that I think that this entire panel would love to be in a rehearsal room bringing things in to interact with because I think that provides a valuable valuable feedback on the kinesthetic scale for the performers and the director as well as for anybody else in the room like I think everybody gains from from from a process like that that involves elements that are they're gonna be ultimately a part of play you know what I mean yeah would you go crazy and rehearsed like for three weeks watching this every night just watching it not not helping I think it's what you're saying is fantastic and and but also keeping in mind the idea of bringing in sketches and research and and items and the directors to not be scared to rip them off the walls and like this is crazy keep going I love it this is great this is great this sucks this sucks keep going like we don't want to just come in with your first idea and you to be like this is perfect yeah that's what I was gonna say is I think that the fear in that situation might be just that the idea of sketching something in really quickly in rehearsal and then that becomes the thing that that would be that would be terrible right because well then it couldn't evolve but but I think sketching something in can give you room to make something big and great and grand yeah and as a custom designer I love to go to rehearsal to see how the director maybe the play writes and the actor to really see the characters and often learn a lot from just watching them and then to learn more about that character sometimes I even was lucky enough to talk to the actors talk to the characters that make me learn a lot more and then I feel I'm more confident about my design and it's the character yeah and even and even before that in the writing process of coming in and bringing in sketches and I mean we're kind of we're tools so we can we can do research and then you don't have to and we can draw and then we can do things for you that we love to do and and then we feel like we're being useful and then maybe by the time before you're even casting you already have in mind and in your descriptions in your play you have this is what the set could look like or maybe you should look like but still leaving it open for us to be designers and you think the designers will come if we ask you to do this really because you did say you have other things to do well I think that you know we're living in a word in this discussion right now we're living in a world without money no I live in that world yeah maybe we would hope for like you're definitely going to be my designer oh I think I'm thinking in particular I'm part of an ensemble called half straddle and with our recent piece we had our design our sound designer we knew had to be an integral part of the of the whole operation so he came to far more rehearsals than he normally would have because he was like live mixing stuff and trying stuff out and it was totally annoying when it didn't work but it was also incredibly helpful when it didn't work because then we knew that that wasn't the right thing and the director could move on and it was as if I'm an actor in that ensemble I should say and it was really nice as an actor to sort of hear what was being built around and then to feel like there was some live interaction and my weird flute playing was a motivated thing moving on well I do you know I will say that it is a model in England to have the designers in the room for a great a much greater part of the rehearsal process and I had the great pleasure of talking with Paulie Constable who lit the curious incident of the dog in the night and she was in rehearsal every day from the beginning so if there is the money there for us to be there then definitely we want to be a part of it it's just it's it's a model that isn't really supported well in America I got the cue we're done thank you so much more conflict more everything thank you