 We have two Segal talks here at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center in Midtown at the Great Graduate Center CUNY. And my name is Frank Henschkorn. I'm running these talks for four months. I spoke daily, every day of the week, with over 90 sessions to 150 artists from 50 countries. And we had a look at what this pandemic, the situation we are in, is how it's affecting us, what it is doing to us and why we have to continue. But also what we have to change in the ways we do things and to find forms that now work as rights at. And we always use the motto new times need new forms of theater and if there's ever a new time something where we feel things cannot go on as they were but they have to be a change and we have to be part of it. It is now and it is important to listen to the voice of artists and now in the fall we open it up also to producers, curators, thinkers, academics, philosophers, community organizers. And, but all of them also most of the time we feel have a strong artistic side. And with us today we have a truly significant worker in the big vineyard of theater Tom Walker yesterday talks that he I'm a worker in the vineyard. And the is with us is Harlem native Shadia Lothcott, and she's the chief executive officer the CEO of the Historic National Black Theater, and it was the nation's first revenue generating black arts complex, and the longest round theater by a woman of color she's the leader of the legendary Dr Barbara and tear and many, many, many people do know about her and adore her work and have been deeply affected by it she was the champion of African American arts and culture. And so she's carrying on a great, a great family tradition. Shadia serves as the chair of the Coalition of the years of color. There are 52 theaters across New York City and a very, very important organization who's a significance I hope everybody realizes even more. And now was hounded by Ossie Davis and Ruby D in 2004 and kind of later than one even expects and it was there to combat the systematic inequities in the field and to ensure that theaters of colors are funded and have wide ways to work. More recently, she co leads a culture at three a daily call of over 300 cultural leaders from across New York City. She is on the task for the governor to revive the New York arts and. And she is truly very deeply involved she's also the inner twice on the national board for the arts in changing America and her work has been published in many, many places you can look it up on the CB and the CB put up in here and also she has produced a highly clip musical a time to love and currently it is in partnership and in development with the great Apollo theater so Shadia thank you for taking the time to join us. Thanks for having me Frank. I feel bad for our viewers that they had to sit through that long introduction of the things that I just do because I guess we all just do so much but it's wonderful to be here. Thank you. Yes, and we also have many international listeners who do not know as much about it as perhaps New Yorkers do or we do. And so where are you at the moment. I am in Harlem. New York City. In my coat. What are they called co workspace which is also my home. Yeah, there was your son and your family or Austrian husband as you said then. And, and so how are you doing. You know that question has become such a loaded question in these times. And I try to lean into really feeling like how am I feel like in this moment. I am good, slightly tired and overwhelmed. And the tired is more of a like a soul fatigue, but, but I'm good and I'm here and I am. And I am, I feel very privileged to be here. So that's how I am. How are you. Well, you know, it's, it's, it's the same. It's a marathon in a way. We are running and, and sometimes one feels so one doesn't move along one doesn't do enough. Always something is missing away something doesn't get done. And, and I miss, I miss people in the room I miss hearing people's voices seeing them the energy they bring it's very hard for me I'm a team worker also, you know, to do things on one's own and it's like a cheddar of, you know, an opening night or I know it's the fall this is when everything is supposed to be opening. I think that's another bit of the heaviness. And when you say it's a marathon, I like to say it's a sprinting marathon so yeah, it's true yeah because also we do a lot even though I feel I don't get anything done compared to normally. So tell us a bit about your daily work what, how does it look like you are you're running one of the great important institutions in New York National Black Theater. How does your day look like. Well, um, so I, we always laugh at the end of the day, some of me and my team on our last meeting, we just like to capture how many zooms we've been on in a day. Yesterday at the end of my day, I had, I had had 13 zoom calls. And so, and today, I believe this is my third or my fourth and it's, you know, noon Eastern Standard Time. My day is a mixture of creative administrative and social disruption right. So, National Black Theater, which is located in Harlem is in the midst of a huge transformation as we redeveloping our property so there's a part of my day that's like, you know, a lot of real estate and design and just really centered around the development. There's a part of my day that very much is dealing with the evolution of our programming like I said it's the fall. So we just launched our 52nd season with a micro commission series called unbossed and unbought reclaiming our vote really looking at the legacy of Shirley Chisholm and black women and their bull, their voice tied to the power of our vote. And so we commissioned seven incredibly amazing multi disciplinary self identified black women, and they have created new work around this subject matter. So kind of in the weeds of all of that and the rest of our season. And then the other part of me is that every day at 3pm. I find myself here. I'm living with Lucy sex in from New Yorkers for culture and art and Taryn sacramon from the Queens Theater culture at three which is a daily call that brings nonprofit art leaders from around New York to one place every day to share questions concerns how we're navigating this time to lean on each other as resources and to find sustainable ways to move forward so my day is a mixed bag of lots of different things. Yeah, yeah. And so then then you have also the kids with you you know that's quite quite a quite incredible incredible time so what's on the minds of the people who are with you on the calls what's what what do you guys talk about. Well, the beautiful thing about culture at three is this completely Democrat, completely democratic space. So we literally talk about whatever is on the minds of folks in the moment so you know it's everything from federal advocacy around save our stages and help, helping to inform what that bill looks like from the from a federal government standpoint, all the way down to how to fill out a forgiveness application for PPP. We have different working groups that really encompass the deep work that the call ties to champion so we have an anti racism working group but communications race communications working group or reopening working group, all the way through to state a city and advocacy so it kind of always shifts and changes right now. A hot topic or rent parties, you know, this real need to look at how people are affording the rent of their organizations they can't be in them they can't activate them but their rent is due. And some for some organizations that's the difference of being in business and not being in business. So we're, you know, the late of late the calls have been about finding creative ways to fundraise. And I would say also, there's a lot of new legislation being introduced to the city council around supporting the arts. Performing arts in particular we were the, you know, first to close last to reopen with the expectation that we would still create programming all the way through it's been a really obviously challenging road so looking at policy to help, to support our industries and ways that you know our city council and our local governments can be helpful. You know helping to create a way forward for us to do our work. Yeah, so that's kind of some of the stuff we talked about. I also like the legendary rent parties and that quite the impression of people people invited friends to come over for drink in their apartment so the theaters are doing it. Yeah, events, people come over zoom so you know you get a DJ and or several DJs, you engage your community and other people can host the zoom rent parties on their platforms. And really it's a time for artists to express themselves to listen to music to have a drink, and to donate towards a lot of very meaningful and needy organizations that are trying to find a way forward to sustain themselves through this uncertain time. That's the one thing that like gives me so much energy in these very long days of how we're leaning into each other how we're listening differently, and how we're showing up to support each other. I feel like that is always the spirit of the artist but it may not be the implementation of our industry, and seeing that gap close through coven has been really inspiring. Yeah, maybe at the end you let us know, you know, on the website where one maybe where one where they are listed or one can find it and perhaps people might want to join. Your work also as you discussed in the day also has the kind of the organizing part or political part to it. And often it is overlooked. Do you feel we are in a moment where this has to be taken more serious than before? 100%. I could like, you know, MBT has always been a civic minded organization we believe in the power of transformative narratives to affect policy and cultural shifts and change we know that what we do is a superpower right to be able to tell people stories really is a gateway to help shift and change people's hearts and minds. So we have always known that as an artist. What I didn't fully ever understand is the degree by which partnership with our local and state and federal government is crucial in the blueprint of our own sustainability. And no one knows our needs better than us right so artists have to be at the table, regardless of crisis or not and I never until this moment understood how imperative our voices at the table. And the table is not a table that like we readily want to be at you know like there's but so many hours in the day that table is not necessarily a table we're always openly invited to but our voice as we shape the way and the values and the environment the ecosystem by which we live needs artists and so I kind of started taking on all of this by accident. I showed up like everyone else scared, uncertain, and what I began to see as we all navigated COVID and all of the uprisings together is that the artist voice is more important than ever. And that the powers that be whatever that is whatever those systems are are not informed are not clearly informed by the work we actually do. So the perception of the work that we do is very different than many of our organizations and our institutions and theaters and that we can't expect our government to show up for us if we are not showing up to lead and direct them in the in the direction of our needs and once and. And so I kind of stepped into something and I can't shake it if you will you know I can't quit it because it's just so so so very important and it's very crucial at this time specifically. Yeah, I remember I once are graffiti and it said you know art speaks but what does it say, and what does art have to has to say in the moment. Well, what does art have to say in any moment right art is the articulation of the heartbeat of a people and of a time right for me I'm a very visual person. I went to school for I went to school for so many things that like I just they didn't stick. And finally I'm majored in art history at NYU, and for the first time the world made sense. So, you know, that's the gift of the artist to make sense of the craziness of our time to be able to translate it in a way that people can feel seen, heard, and ultimately much more sacred in the in the space that they occupy so for me the artist role right now is to be able to digest and translate these times and to offer us something that we ourselves did not know we even needed, but is the medicine of how we recover and move forward. You know, in BT is kind of shifted into a space of, you know, our pedagogy is steeped in a healing modality for a person who lost her for a moment at least I artist. Oh, am I back. Yeah. And so that's built into our programming, but really now in this moment Frank, what we've pivoted towards is how to be better active listeners and deeper listeners because we find a lot of our activism or our activism. It comes from a space of listening, and now more than ever, because these are unprecedented times, the listening is informing the art in a profound way. So yeah, how are you experiencing that at the Mark Segal Center. Well, we are, our building is closed, the greatest center, you know, where we do our events normally we do during the semesters one event a week. Whether it's the readings that discussion symposia or talks, you know, so academics that we bridge academia professionally though it's closed, and she was barricaded until a month ago with wood and it looked like though no looters get in. And there was a funny graffiti I saw in New York it said no looting except equity companies, you know, we're loud. So that is not legal. So anyway, so I don't know so it's it's hard for us and we define so we started the these Segal talks as a way to also understand create meaning and hear from all places around the world also globally. And it's like one of the only professional that is to these talks but like theater, how it has been experienced this time of Corona in an archiving way like archiving the moment. And it's hard and we do not really know where it will go we lost our funding, and we are small place and, you know, and they are more significant artists are starving now and companies so we are not for good reasons at the center you know we're not developing and we are thinking where should we go now so we'd like to get your advice and talk to you maybe a bit at the end so it's, it's hard you're listening as you say, is it towards community or is it towards artists or is it towards audiences that new listening to take place. So it's really a great question. I think for black people specifically our intersectionality is our humanity. And like so many indigenous African cultures, there is no difference between like spirit religion culture. And so I would just say the deep listening is in all of those places because all of those places to our to us, our community National Black Theater is a community theater with a capital C, and our audience really is our artists, our physical audience. It is our artists. And so, and it's this ecosystem that continues to feed each other. So I would say, like, our investments are being made deeply into artists, particularly during this period of time so like, we're doubling down on all of our residency programs to create more opportunity and more pipelines to disrupt, you know the standard practice narratives and the standard practice stories told in the field so more than diversifying the field. I'm less interested in diversifying the field as I am in disrupt disrupting the field from a space of racial justice and equity. So we're doubling down there because we know our artists are the hardest hit by this, you know, it's one thing to yes, we have brick and mortar, but we know that the ecosystem by which artists exist and are able to create this this kind of this the trauma of this affects them in a very specific and unique way. That is much more invisible than us that have platforms in this way right so we are we're listening deeply to the needs of our artists community. And then, you know, National Black Theater in so many ways, because we're community with a capital C, a part of our work is service right we see ourselves are sacred duty as art makers as service workers for Harlem community. And then to your point Frank, if there are silver linings to this moment that we're in, you know, we do our talks as well we do our shows, we have a 99 seat black box theater, but now, when we do one of our artists talks or now when we do our commissions, thousands of people from around the world get to view it. And so we're looking at accessibility in a different way and the concerns of a global community, an intersectional community in a very nuanced way and that part has been very exciting for the theater specifically we two are still closed. We're also transitioning out of our space so for us, our audience in our community is is one and we're listening deeply to all of it really. And the field right that's the advocacy piece, coalitions of theaters of color, you know, 52 organizations across all five boroughs, those, those spaces and those communities that those theaters and cultural spaces serve have been literally the hardest hit by COVID in a city that has been the hardest hit in the country by COVID. So there is a very unique specific and timely need that our communities uniquely have right now and we're listening to that too. Yeah. Yeah. So the black lives matter and George white killings do you feel something changed, or is it a continuation of early ones was there perhaps a bit more exposed or do you feel from looking back at the work of an Asian black theater so your mother's working do you feel this is a moment that is different. That's a good question I don't know if it's different. History repeats itself. This year is very similar to 1968 the year my mom founded the National Black Theater there was a pandemic. There was a uprisings racial uprisings there was, you know, many assassinations of beloved leaders. And so I don't know if it's different. I think though, in this moment in time, there's always new opportunities to listen differently. And I can see some of that happening. I feel with these moments being so defined as catalytic, because much of the conversation, our conversations that have happened for generations so I'm always listening for what's new, what's the shift. And in BT is one of those spaces right like, while this is a moment of reckoning for our country, and a new generation is introduced to the movement of black lives. You know, I'm inspired by the diversity of folks in the streets, chanting black lives matter. And yet I, I also wonder, where is the investment in black lives. And black lives must map living the live the lived experience of black lives must be as important, if not more or the most important than the memorial memorializing of lives we've lost that the lives we've lost is tragic and traumatic, but it can't be a destination and and in BT's opportunity and challenge is to invite people in to building institutions and arts that are reflective of the quality of our lives mattering as opposed to the dismantling and the calling out of systems that must change. And so, for me, that feels new, and that feels inspired and must stay at the forefront. I'm also very concerned in this moment that people see it as a moment, a moment and not a continuation of a movement we stand on the shoulders of so many people that have created the pathway for us to be able to have these conversations and again we have a sacred obligation to be able to move the conversation through actionable steps forward. So what are we going to do, not just what are we going to say. And so, for me, those are the things I'm looking at for it to be different. I'm looking for, you know, entrenched conversations around sharing power, not just racial equity. I think that our lives mattering is the floor it's not the ceiling and there's too many conversations around the floor. And I want for my people, my community, my theater, I want for artists, I want for America and the world to understand that all of our humanity is intertwined with one another. And if there's any community that is not well, none of us can be well. And these protests and these rebellions will continue, you know, day in and day out, if we don't have a reckoning around our shared humanity. So, yeah. So, you're developing other seven pieces, you know, you talked about six pieces or six pieces. Yeah, so tell us a bit how is that reflected in the work or what are you look is it does it has a different political tone in it or what are you detecting is there or tell us a bit about maybe also the artists involved to what's So, you can go to our website to see all of the different commissions we've released three so far. Lady Dane was our first commission she did an incredible spoken word dance piece around the history of suffragettes and how black women in specifically were used and removed from the from that movement. So she in her in her commission I want to say is course correcting through her lived experience. The black woman's experience the black woman's embodied embodiment of where we are and how we got here. She says in that piece voting as harm reduction right vote harm reduction which I love right this idea that the vote is essential. It's not going to change everything overnight it's not going to make, you know, the, the, the trauma and the terror of our country go away. It isn't a sav but it is an important step in harm reduction and so that was the first commission which is an incredibly beautiful piece. You can see it on our website and our YouTube channel. And then, every week we're releasing a new video leading up to the election in guzzy who shared this platform with our director Jonathan McCrory months ago at one of the seagull talk. She's a commissioned artist and her take on it I don't want to say too much about it because we haven't released it, but hers is really a check in on black women. She's just like, how are we doing, you know, she's concerned and her piece about the soul of our people. And if we're not, if we're not looking at our mental and spiritual health, how can we show up for the movement if we can't even show up for ourselves so it's a check in, you know, and that's her take on civic engagement can't be civically engaged if you're not if you're disengaged with yourself so yeah they're all very different, but they're all very powerful and speak again to the intersectionality of the experience of black folks in this country, and the diaspora. And I will say that, you know, we partnered with Michelle Obama's when we all vote. So, again, that's kind of the pedagogy of the National Black Theater right, it is asking artists to be unapologetic, and use radical imagination to create the future where black people exist now, right. And we don't ask them to be political, we don't ask them to have an agenda, we ask them to create from a soul filled place, and you know the space that is the National Black Theater we always say songs the white gaze, and that for some people is a journey to even get there. But create and what National Black Theater does because of what our mission, and our commitment to community is, is we tease out the social impact social justice themes of what is on the minds and hearts of our artists, and turn it into a conversation between artists who my mother referred to as liberators, and an audience that are untapped activists, so that they can have a conversation and actively engage be active citizens in their own community so that's what the series really is to do. Again, we don't put that on the artists, we partner with civic organizations, and we create that dialogue. And in this day and age we offer it up on these digital platforms so Yeah, it's free. Yeah, it's free, which is completely unsustainable and I think that that's something that gets lost in the pivot. People like you know artists pivot so well I'm like yeah but we keep continue pivoting and pivoting and pivoting until we pivot off of a clip. So yes, our series is free. There is no paywall, but I do want to say shooting this work in the way that so many of us have to do now is as expensive as producing shows with no real kind of clear destination for how to create revenue and as much as we do this because this is a part of like the zeitgeist of how we live and what's important to us, it is also unsustainable so some of the work that I do on the governor's task force is to really help folks along with the other members help folks to understand that art and organ institutions need a roadmap forward. We know we make things look wonderfully easy and creative, but this is a hard road and some uncertainty that we will be able to reopen is important for people to be able to survive this moment. Yeah, yeah. Do you have my sound on I hear a little double feet at the moment if you, but maybe it's just me. So, the way you produce your work now at the moment. Is it a new way of producing or do you feel we have always worked it out do you feel something new is coming up in the way you put these things together. Is that different. So I always say that there's a blueprint the blueprint hasn't changed right our mission our values, the kind of artists that we are committed to. It hasn't shifted so much, but our approach absolutely has in a lot of glorious ways and a lot of ways that are, you know, really challenging, I think the glorious part of it is that we're looking at accessibility in a much more nuanced entrenched way, which I think as an industry is is imperative, and specifically for our organization is something we've always championed but really doing that in a different way. I would say the opportunity in this moment to be a 50 year old startup 52 year old startup. There's a lot of alchemy for so many of our organizations between the uprisings and between cove it to really look at the building blocks of our organizations from a space of anti racism, all the way through, like, making sure that there's a digital component to our programming. That said, you know, programming that's dynamic and has the same artistic rigor for a platform that isn't so familiar to us we're learning on the, you know, day to day on the job of how to make dynamic work on this platform. That's been a challenge, but it's also had a lot of opportunities because like I said before, our audience is now global in a way that it wasn't prior to cove it. It's, it's an incredible changes or we are experiencing it we sometimes have listeners from 25 countries, you know, five or 10,000 people on one talk. It's and was not imaginable even for us. And before and I would like to applaud you, you know, as you said as a 99 seat theater with, you know, that has to fight for survive the work you guys do. The research, the experiments compared to the big Broadway theaters where New York is normally identified with, you know, in the American and the world, you know, it is also the dominating, you know, system of commercial theater where it is about to make an industry that made billions, you know, and they are not doing the work you're doing now they're not supporting in the way you were doing it now. And it does show now, you know, we're theater and it really is on the heart of it or the soul and in your contribution is is often such such significance and Yeah, I wonder the 52 theaters of the alliance you also, you know, had Wilson Wilson. Can I just say something to that too. And, and what I hope for this moment, the kind of work that National Black Theater does and what we value is transformative experiences. And if there's any kind of lesson to be able to feed out to the field is that being committed to transformative, because that's what art does it is a catalytic form of energy sharing. So, to be in the business of transformation is way more sustainable than the transactional business of theater. And if anything can be like relayed, it is that if we are not here to transform our spaces to transform our communities, and to constantly be digging deep within ourselves to figure out the nuance of sustainability the nuance of healing, the nuance of our responsibility as the voices and the stewards of our planets because we know transformative has changed the world. And if you can't hear it and see it you can't be it so we, as artists and institutions and legacy holders have that absolute call to action in this moment to support the ecosystem that is our humanity to be more just to be sustainable, and at the end of the day to be more connected. And that's transformation and I hope that gets imparted in all of what we're traversing. Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's a very important reminder and the statement that this is a transformational moment. It's a chance. It's hard but that ultimately also art or real art or the effect of art can be that more energy will shine up and put in and transform and make us, you know, comfortable with the times we live in and give meaning and also anticipate a bit. The future that's coming and say it's will be fine. It is good. You know, it's a failure. I often say it a great writer and thinker also taught the great center from the Caribbean. It's a failure of imagination, the racism that people cannot imagine living next door, you know, to people from around the world that people cannot imagine, you know, having, you know, gay, lesbian couples in their school, whatever a teacher like this gets, and he say, No, it's, you know, just listen to look at their story. It's not, you know, and so that's, there is a significant power and I think it has to be addressed. It's a big call and it might also go wrong as experiments, but we have to try it. We have to do this is the time. I agree. Yeah, and that there is all of this, you know, you cannot have catalytic shifts without disruption. So let us find a new way to look at the disruption of the this moment, you know, when people like but it's so uncomfortable. And the other used to always say have a love affair with discomfort, because on the other side of discomfort is the birth of, you know, new possibilities, you can't create a diamond without incredible amount of friction, right. We need to lean into the moment we have we have to stop trying to reach back to something that was normal or reach back to something that was familiar. There's no going back. This, there is no, you know, there was no sustainability there might have been discomfort, but comfort is also very dangerous. There's no innovation in comfort. And so this moment is like a big bang, and there's only a way forward and that and so the leaning in to like this is going to be uncomfortable. This is not asking me to show up in my in my privilege or my comfort ability. This is asking me, can I have a love affair with this discomfort. Can I not only digest, but interrogate what's being placed in front of me, and it's through the questioning that we will come to some kind of answers and solutions, but those aren't like, we did not we've never achieved anything without great risk, great failure and great friction. And so really just re contextualizing this moment as much as we can through the pain and the heartache and the real experiences that we're living through, which are not to be kind of marginalized or made small of these are trying times that require all of us, like the fullness of us to show up. But the fullness of us has to show up the good the bad and the uncomfortable and stay committed to getting to the other side together. And those 52 years of color that collision you're also so deeply involved with some close how, how, how dangerous is the moment for this for these theaters. This dangerous moment for all theaters to be very honest. I think that I try not to traffic in the trauma story of will they close they're going to close because that often gets taken as the headline, and I don't feel like anything is built on fear, which is what we're seeing played out in our country right now. But the, and the truth of the matter is, this is a extremely trying time. And in particular for the CTC, they're BIPOC cultural spaces, most of which that are theaters. So you're already dealing with a population that has systemically been marginalized and left out of the, the mainstream of pathways of, of revenue of development, you know, these are some of the some of the smaller institutions in our five boroughs so by proxy of all of those things are the most can be some of the most fragile institutions. And so this is really hard. I will also say, you know, so much about theaters of color differently than predominantly PWT organizations predominantly white theaters is that built into our mission is a connectivity to community. So so many of our CTC theaters are actually human service organizations, you know, they're the, they are the connectivity of student to, to school they are the connectivity of a bilingual house where a parent only speaks Spanish, and the child speaks English, but the art form brings them together. We are a sustainable web of community within our specific locations. And so our work is more needed in some regards than ever. And yet there's less resources. It was a huge win and I do want to shout the city council of New York out in the city of New York out, you know, New York City this last budget season where people were were not aware New York City was facing a $9 billion gap in its budget and experience deep cuts across the boards, you know the activism and the advocacy of this moment and this movement for coalitions of theaters of color which is a city council initiative. You know, council member Jimmy von Braemer and majority leader Lori combo went to the map for these theaters. Great work. We gave him an award from this legal center and he was so brave in the in the conversations around funding for coalitions of theaters of color. And you know, thankfully, we were one of the only cultural initiatives that didn't receive a cut because that what Jimmy and what Lori combo and Jimmy van Braemer acutely knew with the rest of the council was this is not the time to, you know, to to to cut communities that are the most affected by the virus and are doing some of the most important work in our communities so yeah. You did if I may ask you I mean you did mention your mother a couple of time but time also when she founded the nbt so tell us a bit about her tell her what what. Why did she do it how did she inspire you and tell us a bit about her. There's not enough time in the day. But my mom, Dr Barbara and tear was a maverick visionary black woman who was unstoppable. She was a classically trained dancer who hurt her knee very early on in her very successful career and found theater as a result. She was kind of a former mother of the black arts movement. She started something called group theater workshop which turned into the Negro ensemble company with Robert hooks and Douglas Turner Ward. And that was during the 60s her her her sister her older sister who was one of her best friends was a one was a black panther and one of the architects of the panthers free breakfast program. And so her life literally collided within the family structure art and activism and in 19 in the mid 1960s. She began to understand that the work of the black artists in particular had a deeper and more specific calling which is the foundation of the black arts movement. And so in 1968 after the founding of the NEC. She knew acutely that representation was important, but it representation wasn't transformation. And so in 1968, you know, after that incredibly incredible calling of Dr King's last speech that was so exacerbated that says invest and build black institutions. She moved her whole family up to Harlem, and she founded the National Black Theater, a little known fact about my mom when she first went to college she was 15 years old, and she was a biology major a big part of the way she thought about the world and you have said this a few times Frank is as this incredible experiment. And it's okay to fail an experiment as long as you really put your hypothesis out and do everything to prove what is and what's not and for her, she wanted to imbue black culture with a dignity that didn't exist on this continent. And so so much of the work that she developed, which was a unique way of working blackly was formulated by tracing our ancestry back to Africa, and under and being able to infuse in her art form. The majesty of who we actually are, as opposed to the story that we learn about ourselves in school. And so she called her first company of actors liberators, and she was setting out to to extinguish the oppressive story, not in our country, right, wasn't white dominated focus, but to extinguish the conversation of oppression within ourselves because if each of us could be liberated souls then whatever it is that we set our mind to, we can build the future now for the liberation of black people and so that's what she was acutely focused on building the future now for the liberation of black people and she used theater as a vehicle by which to do it, but she wasn't limited to that she was amazing. Not a good cook though. Not a good cook so yeah you can do can do everything you have to focus your energies on on on what to do so what do you think, would she do what you do now which is something different, would she what what do you think she would go for in a moment like this is the elections coming up with the black life movement with the, the theaters you know in such a danger and all of it. I don't think she would do what I do. She was way more visionary in a lot of ways, and before her time. You know what I will say is, you know when I took over as the CEO of MBT when she passed away in 2008 I struggled because she had such big shoes to fill and you know she saw the world very specifically and that the call to action was very specific. One of that kept in BT in a very specific space that one could perceive as small because she was just disinterested in the white gaze the white lens she was disinterested by playing by the rules of a game that was built to keep folks like us marginalized and without power and so she built a Mecca. And that Mecca for, I would say 3540 years was in a bubble that all it did was pour all of its resources into healing black folks through the arts right for me. Another was my best friend so I could see where she wanted to go. And I could also see where the vision from a public facing standpoint was limited, based on her experience of the world and the hurt and the trauma that she was constantly trying to process. And so when she passed away, you know one of her dear friends was Maya Angelou, and Maya wrote the eulogy one of the eulogies for her funeral. And it was really this incredibly beautiful piece that said like Barbara and tear. Like her no one could do it no one should try and here I am like her daughter, you know, vituring into this space and so for the first five years I would say of my tenure at in BT I struggled because I was not my mother, and I wasn't even a good version, I was never a good actress so I wasn't even a good version of acting like her. And it wasn't until Auntie Maya passed away I revisited her words, and they were actually the key to my own liberation that instead of this imposter syndrome that I was trying so hard to fulfill that there was that each of us could have acute unique gifts that will change and can change the world. And so I started to look at my role at in BT as just that. My mom did what she did she built what she built, and no one can do it better than her but what can I do, what can Jonathan McCrory do, what can we uniquely bring to the legacy of in BT. For us, that was translating the work into a brand translating the work into a national stage by which we can be in service to more artists and more community based on the absolute building blocks and blueprints that Dr. Tier built so we we look very different but we're very much the same, we are rooted in the same things in BT has always been rooted in, but we're a little bit taller if you will because we stand on the shoulders of such mighty ancestors, Dr. Tier being obviously first and foremost so. Yeah, and, and I will say lastly to that point, you know, one of my mother's dearest friends and, and who she dance for one of her first dance companies was Alvin Ali and so, you know, Alvin and my mother struggled as founders with the same kind of thing so close to the work the work was so sacred, and sometimes it takes the next generation to be able to honor what these maverick visionaries have created, and from a different purview be able to amplify it. And so that's what I hope I can and do bring to the next chapter of in BT 2.0 just an amplification of all the incredible liberators and Dr. Tier mission and vision and work. And now you are changing, as you said, the building the structure. What what would be also something if you say if you could do and you had more resources there's something we say this is actually I feel that's what is needed that's what I do in a smaller way but in the bigger one is there something that you have in mind. I think the frontier that my mother was always transfixed by and through this experience of COVID is essential is the innovation of technology. So in BT behind the scenes is really investing in new media technologies, new ways to tell our stories, you know, with virtual reality and augmented reality. People think, oh, that's a computer thing or that's not real. The truth of the matter is, you know, reality is perception and, you know, we are so deeply committed to the liberation of black people and the healing of our communities that we know through innovative technologies. We can strike that vibration of soul we can turn it up even louder. And so for me where I see in BT moving into the future really is looking at new media in a way that brings the innovation of technology to the forefront my mother always wanted to create a three dimensional hemispheric theater that takes visitors on the journey of the African story brought here to America from our perspective and so I'm really looking at those kind of investments now. How to tell our stories more impact fully and how to transcend this mechanism into something that transforms our lives. So that is quite inspiring and I think also of significance, you know, the virtual reality dome projections and it's interesting also Ralph Pena was the my theater is that I'm, I'm investing a lot to have my small theater kind of a virtual TV so that I can do anything I want, or we want my community, because he says now we have, you know, listeners and viewers from around the world but we still want to do theater but I think that thing he feels he has to invest in as many also that we have to go in the parks and the streets we have to go outside and also then bring people back inside to create technology so really, as something is happening something already has changed and we are slowly maybe coming to terms with it you know we are trying to do and I in the summer of 2022 or three week New York International Festival of the Arts there was one a very very big one Marley Segal put together and Joe Malillo worked with him at the time and I think we try to create something at the Avignon Festival the big one was founded after World War two and 47 when there was really a long time or the city not having open theaters not having freedom of speech and so the big idea is, you know, to invite all theaters, you know, to participate some of it curators or all the theaters of color you work with in all the five boroughs but also to go to the parks and parking lots, lots of site specific work. I want you to invite also you know to to be part of it you know and to to think of that how can we celebrate life again and the change and and the arts and perhaps in a different way I think it's wrong. It's not something that we know that Broadway theaters are asking for subsidies that they can go on, you know, charts, you know, $150 $200 for I love it and it's great work and fantastic actors and it's performed so much and that the city is actually identified with theater and the arts through Broadway. And also it has been perhaps more as you said the transactional part of it in the part of the sugar industry you know the sugar drinks instead of the good tea, you know you can also there both strings and I think we have to have to find ways to transform this and so I would like you to to to be part of it in the very beginning of it and we also hope that some international people will help but what you what you talk about I think is so so significant and we have to, you know, include, include the city the audience and look new at our community and also learn from what you said you know I've said you said to our communities have always been at the center and it is true it's a very big difference than the theater where people are looked at as you know ticket buyers like politicians and people are voters companies and they are customers, you know, well, the theater of color looks always have done that we are a place of community. And that is sustainability right looking at the world through a holistic lens, where there is no separation. That is the seat of all of our humanity and so, you know, in these moments where we can find more deeply human ways to connect. And that's why technology can be important because even though there is this barrier, I think that there are really innovative ways to to to dive deeper in our into our community with what the situation that we are being handed and so I hope that that's what comes out of this. So much of this pace as you've said is a marathon. What I really am in meditation with constantly is how to make this moment that has in almost every way sought to dehumanize us through the, you know, through the lens of racial justice but also through these very confined boxes that don't actually even acknowledge our full humanity. How do we infuse that you know is it, you know I make at the end of every week, my staff call we do favorite frames we start every staff meeting. What's the favorite frames of the week so we can frame the goodness, you know, on Wednesdays now at culture at three it's wellness Wednesday and we implore everybody to share the mechanisms by which they tap into their own humanity, and you know wellness we start culture at three on Wednesdays with a piece of art to remind us why we do what we do. And so I am very fascinated by the festival you've described and I'm very much wanting to center, you know, our humanity in all of the conversations we're having because that's how we'll get through it. Everything else is unsustainable really and truly this pace is unsustainable. What's being asked of us is unsustainable. And if we do not have moments woven in to our obligation that affirm who we are as holistic human beings with spirit and ritual and love. We don't have anything truly. I think this is a really significant reminder and not perhaps as obvious, you know, to us that it's also our body connected it our own lives, our own well being is essential. You know, in the way like in the airplanes when they say you know you put the mask on and you put it all your kid, you know. So you also we have to take care of ourselves in order to also you know function and this is something significant that also art in a way teaches us hopefully and and also, you know, from the laundromat project that we talked to, you know, and came he said, you know, we always were running and doing this, and we didn't even ask how are you people who work with us. How could that be and they say what's the big change also we say how are you. Yeah, how do you feel and that's also we have to ask ourselves, you know, so that is a big change next to I think yeah much stronger political agenda to awareness of the arts and the place of it and and that we have to, you know, as your mother would say, you know, to be part of the liberators in a way in a radical revolutionary way and. And I think there is a lot, you know, to really learn from that also what what you guys do. They're slowly coming to an end what inspires you at the moment what you read what you listen to what artists you look up to what do you think these guys this has answer or this helps me to go through what you. I think three things, one, no, no one person has ever been a bigger inspiration or a challenge to my growth than my three major son, the lonely is so this three year old boy teaches me things he's a three going on 13. He constantly teaches me how to be more empathetic more patient, more flexible. So, him. Also, I would say, you know, every second Thursday of the month in BT does a talk series called the download. Download is an opportunity for Jonathan myself, Nia and Chelsea kind of the creative heartbeat of in BT to have real time conversations about what's happening in community and I learned so much from the three of them, and I'm so inspired by what comes out of our downloads. And the last person I would say that I am truly and constantly inspired by literally are like the universe of black women, but in particular. Her championing pleasure activism and looking at pleasure as a most important part of our activism is something that I'm constantly referring to and informing how I articulate the importance of a holistic approach to our work and our activism. Also, in that same vein the nap ministry on Instagram, also like a profit profitizing around the importance of rest as an act of resilience. And so I'm looking in those areas to constantly be inspired and to interrogate my own practice and how to be able to show up more fully for the work that I do in the community Yeah, that's that's that's quite so I have to look we have to look that up and check it in and again really congratulation you know on all you do and with your team and your community. Yeah, this is the most significant contribution not only to the live in Harlem New York and America, but I think as you say in a global view holistic view to to mankind, and it is of important that's what also theater people do there so generous and concerned, you know, as you say to have less hurting or the idea which guides us should be less suffering, you know, that should be a big thing what if politicians and everyone you know what, what is of importance now so really you have all our respect and really thank you for sharing as zoom call number four I cannot believe it you know and that you up to 13 that's the most I've I've heard you so you're such a hard worker and it takes so much discipline and you do it so graciously and, but it is really of significance and importance and it stands in the symbolic way in imaginary way but also in a real way for so much more you know what, what you do and what you are what your theater that's why I hope we stay connected. And, and again newly, thank you when there's a lot to think about and a lot to learn from, and for sharing your experience and your life and also your memories. And, yeah, that is quite, quite something that in that strange way that virus time and all of that brings us in some way closer and together and you listen and know a bit more about about each other tomorrow we have Saviana Stanescu she's a playwright from Romania, who also taught it and where you were you went playwriting and working playwright and I was back also in Romania where she tries to investigate the transformative power of the revolutionary power also she said of theater and the arts which of course is not easy. Also in a place like this is all the complications are we going to hear a little update from her next week we're going to have Florian Maltzaker he's a German curator and wrote a book about games and as you would say to kind of play to the fun there's you know how maybe theater and performance you know have to be in the way a bit more looked at also as instructions or based on games and participatory events as interesting talk and then Milo Rao will come back and Katja and Carmen they created a book why theater. So in that they talked to many, many theater artists why do we have to do this a great book, I think it's part of the winner festival program also what that is so he they're going to talk and for our festival and where we also would like to invite we also try to put bring these people then together that they hopefully come here and maybe Florian will bring some of his crew or people he talks about you know to create something in neighborhoods all over as you say that's of the significance of the 52 theater college there and all five boroughs of New York City and if you look at the amount of money spent per head in Manhattan on culture as little as it is compared how it is in Queens or state and the Bronx. It's shocking how different that is and if there is a great audience it is there so I think this is also something we really have to change be open about and work for and enjoy and make a difference so I hope you all will be able to listen in tomorrow next week and thank you again thanks to howl around for hosting us. We are forgetting up before 9am in LA and Andy from the Segal Center and and of course our listeners for taking our time and to listen but as Shade said, listening is now what perhaps we all need to do and to do some real real listening so thank you for sharing and thank you for listening and stay all safe.