 back here to Segal Talks at the Martini Segal Theatre Center at the Greta Center CUNY in New York City at the City University and it's another day again on planet Earth and it's a bit cloudy today in New York and the outlook still is very very grim. We have over four million confirmed infections the time says it's 13 to 14 times higher so mostly there are 40 50 million people with the virus at the moment it's a catastrophe in New York a million jobs lost still everything closed when it comes to theater and the arts people out of jobs musicians technicians light people dramaturgs and there's no help that little unemployment help that this government has put out for a lot of people might run out in 10 days the memorandum on eviction might run out in 10 days so people will lose their homes insurance it's going to be a disaster at harvest heats are rising and and we are really experiencing in the moment where we do not really know where we are in except that we know we are in a catastrophe movie which we haven't seen and we don't know how it will end or as someone from spider women's theater said because this is a creational myth and we are in and hopefully we make the right decision or Bruno Latour who said this is the general rehearsal more will come if it's climate change if we screw this up we are lost so we have to use this opportunity and we at the Segal always believe that we need to listen to artists not only if it comes to the field of art and theater but also in general artists on the right side of justice the right side of progressive justice of the complex struggle for freedom and liberties and we really should listen to them and their insights are of significance and they anticipate the future and they really are in the present as Chacons here the great French philosopher said who actually will join us next Monday and so with us today we have two workers in the vineyard some theater and great ones significant ones people who as I said they are organically politically in their work and we will talk about this first of all I want to say hi to Adelaide Rosen from Amsterdam Adelaide thank you for joining hello Frank I'm so weird yeah and below there on the screen this is Melanie Joseph the great Melanie from the Foundry Theater so let me tell you a few things about Adelaide before we start is a Dutch theater practitioner actor drama teacher and a writer and in her theater and film production she engages with controversial subjects as honor killings domestic violins sexuality in Islamic cultures and her mother's Alzheimer's disease and she has been writing a trilogy and directing of Muslim immigrants and she created a method in which theater practitioners are adapted by local residents some kind of radical hosting or radical and I think it's a great idea and people took notice of that she also got from the league of her professional women in theater the international award a very big award given out every four years I think of five and and so this is a very big very big deal and she also was named this year Harper's Bazaar's Women of the Year audience award which is the super big deal stuff that does not happen normally for people who do such work in the theater world so can you imagine how good it must be to to to get something and with us the great Melanie Joseph for all of those who do not know but we do have international listeners she's a theater maker and the founding artistic producer of the Foundry Theater and for over 25 years she has made groundbreaking significant work socially engaged art for what she did here and she's the editor and contributing writer to a moment of the clock of the world where she looked back and the work of the Foundry Theater a fantastic book by Haymarket so please do look it up if you want to know what theater can do in this city how it can create for a community and she got many awards the Doris Duke artist prize little tele award as Kerbal artist prize and she has been honored with two obits and already one is a big deal but two is a something of real significance and she really is at the forefront and always has been of contemporary theater here in New York and in America and therefore of the world so Adelheid and Melanie excuse me for for for the long introduction as I always say it's all that we say it's all about listening and then I talk and talk my name by the way is Frank Frank Engel from The Seagull and so Adelheid would be tough to know where you are it looks like a New York apartment but where are you and what time is it I'm in my Adelheid in in the center of Amsterdam and it's six o'clock five minutes more five minutes after six o'clock in the afternoon after six o'clock so what neighborhood is it and so you have an apartment and an Adelheid is it connected or no the Adelheid is next to my office it's over there I'm artistic leader of a theater company and the theater company is mostly women for 95 percent and women from all different cultures and backgrounds a lot also from Muslim countries but tell us a bit about your theater company well first I'm very grateful to be their artistic leader I I tell them that I think weekly on a weekly basis because I think to be an artistic leader is a is a huge joy because you you can analyze yourself a lot you get a lot of gifts by looking the other artists in the eyes and see if you were rude or wrong or too quick or not patient and the feedback of that is you learn so much because leading is a beautiful thing a beautiful thing to learn I think it's it's it's amazing to yeah to really find out to in the end so that you can really lead with your heart not with your ego but really with your heart so that you can find the artistic choices like in the spontaneity of your first thought so they remember me so so they remember yeah they remember me a lot about the first light they remind you remind me right yeah right that's it Melanie good yeah but I think you've done it for over 30 years what how did how did it happen what where were you when the corona crisis hit did it how was that in amsterdam and in all of this experience this is a good story well we were happily we were we were actually uh like nervously laughing because the evening before our prime minister said on television we have a lockdown we haven't in holland it's called an intelligent lockdown so also you have like a an own responsibility so if you have to go somewhere you can go somewhere so so that is a nice space actually and the evening before I was rehearsing for a huge performance I was going to make in December in the main hall theater it's called the doulas of the city of Amsterdam it's a bit like you know it's yeah I brought some so we were laying with 40 women like this which was that we were rehearsing what I call a women line and and this is what we did with 40 people embracing each other and with the choreographer Emil Grego so we were through the rehearsing space and the hand over here and the hand here and the hand here and embracing each other and the next morning it was like lockdown nobody got ill happily but that was so strange so we we were from the embrace to distance this is a radical radical change so how severe was the lockdown and how long did it last? March, April, May, the first of June we 30 people could enter theater spaces and the first of July 100 people could enter theater spaces but still with one and a half meter distance so you did shows you already presented work no no no I was teaching on the theater school on the actor school and the school had very very almost cruel rules for the for the students happily I had we had enormous good weather but I got my class 20 students and the school said well here they are and I was outside we couldn't enter the building so because the weather was so beautiful I teached on the on the museum square where there's grass trees so we had shadow so I worked outside for a month then for two weeks for two weeks two weeks and after that it started raining wow Melanie um and when you I want to add I want to add something Frank to your question is that the piece that Adelheid was is working on that was supposed to go up in December no longer can has 80 people in it so since there's only a hundred people allowed in the theater but she already had 80 people before any lights or any you know what I mean so incredible just and a major 80 80 performers on a on a but a Melanie when when when uh you're heard or we were you know communicating what many other things you've been such a great supporter of our series made many great suggestions how great was the Karl Henkert wax talk I don't know if you were had time I didn't get to listen because I had another call but it's but I will of course I heard I heard it was fantastic yeah so when you heard about Adelheid you said yes I'd love to I actually you said we had another possibility says no I want to be with Adelheid what do you think about her how do you how do you both connect you mean uh well first I think that both of us um owe a great debt to Gideon Lester yeah we do we love him and especially because he brought us together yeah and he nagged both of us to meet and both of us were kind of like no no you were I wasn't okay because I okay fair enough I owe you know always someone is saying oh you have to meet so and so you have to meet so and so and sometimes I you know it's a lot and I'm always a bit nervous because I don't know what the expectation is so I went and we both sat there with Gideon and we were both kind of quiet I thought you too because you were quiet in the beginning you didn't know what to say so then Gideon asked us a question asked Adelheid to talk about her work in a similar way as you are right now and so she began to talk about the things that she was doing and I'm like oh okay wait a minute I I recognize this and but of course I'm always nervous that somebody's doing it disrespectfully because it's a very delicate nuanced approach when you're working with community when you're working with communities and and there's so much care that's required and there's so much so many stairs so many steps to understand let alone take in terms of the delicacy of these developments and so I would interrupt her and ask her some quest oh you did that did you do this and she was like not only had she done the thing that I thought was important but she had another idea about how to do it which was fantastic so it was like this kind of I could feel my whole body moving forward and forward and I think Adelheid if I'm correct by the end we were laughing I'm pretty sure we laugh a lot she and I that's important to have a joy in the work at Betty Shamia said yesterday but maybe Adelheid tell us a bit and you jump in whenever you you can this idea of the not politics but the political the idea of community and that method as you kind of developed tell us a bit and share because we're all looking for forms so how can theater be of of of use how can it be meaningful and everybody now really for good reasons we need to connect to communities something you have done and you have spirit if you could tell us a little bit what you're doing what you learned and why and why I think why is also really important like what is your mission well let's say I went to art school I was raised what I call by my mother what I call in the military regime I had no fantasy of if I ever could escape that I called it a jail I was used to it so I didn't know the difference I only felt it sometimes when I visited friends but I never thought I would end up in art school there was a teacher on high school who I'm grateful to until this day who knocked on the door of my parents parents one night and of course I couldn't hear it but a week later he called me after school and gave me some flyer material of art schools and dance schools and well I think I threw them away like I can never take this home and after my high school but it was a light after my high school I started to study French because my mother still had me let's say in her control and when I went to the when I started to be a student then I was on my bike every day to the university and I saw the art school so the second light was that I thought well maybe maybe I can enter and well and so step by step I did auditions and I was accepted I didn't tell my parents so the first year I was hiding it it was like a secret and when I entered the high school it was like the jail broke open so I was not educated with artists I was not educated with examples um I had my curiosity and I felt like a playing child I couldn't believe I really couldn't believe that you could play with everything in classrooms that teachers were like having a dialogue with you were asking how you feel I mean like how you feel how your how is your heart how is your what do you need you know like do you need space and time and an embrace I couldn't believe it so the four years and in art school were for me like you have really heaven and I think from how I was raised and that is still what I do in my work now I see the whole world actually as a quite small place I know it's huge but like all the people in the world fit for me on what I call a schoolyard and everybody for me has to be on that schoolyard that is what is so important for me that's like a daily fight everybody every human being belongs on the schoolyard and of course then you can on the schoolyard disagree or whatever you you know you make groups or you make churches or you have different cultures or different languages or whatever you do but there's one schoolyard so completely unconsciously I started to look for people who were pushed away minor groups or also or bigger groups but when people were looked at like you are you do not really belong here in my opinion you don't have the right religion or education or look like or body or whatever and that was my constant inspiration of like really there's a human being who doesn't belong on our schoolyard so and and there started my creation so every time I brought people together even yeah well for example there's also how I came to the honor revenge I interviewed 10 men who killed a daughter a niece or a daughter of the neighbors and the delicate thing about that is that a lot of journalists in the country so you have to very you have to be very strong in those interviews and also on television because the first question they they they ask you is like oh okay so Adelaide you understand the killers and you understand or support yeah yeah yeah yeah right it you're on the side of the killers that is what they try to to put in your mouth yes and what I wanted to do of course is to know their their life story how they became the killer the killer of for example their sister so I wanted to look in the eyes of those men and ask them like do you think you were born to be the killer of your sister and so I wrote a piece about I wrote a piece about this and I directed a piece about that to to put the two stories on the line so my heart my heart is always it's it's it's and it's even I'm even not it's it's it's not my heart is not disappointed or my heart is not frustrated it's every time it's like it's passionate and also like well and also naive and also with that surprising curious question like are you serious you know is there a human being who's not allowed on the schoolyard but we have only one schoolyard so that's always the start of my you know Adelaide there's a practice I'm sure it's there too but here that's grown up through the social justice movements called transformative justice it's an alternative approach to to the people who have been people who have committed crimes and the people upon whom the crimes have been committed and there's an organization in the in the Bay Area I think it's called 5G five generations that was formed by a group of people who had been sexually abused as children and they formed 5G to address the pedophiles not as monsters like how do we deal with these these people that exist it's not like they were looking for a way to permit that kind of crime at all but but to kill them to lock them away to to ignore them in a certain way in the in the transformative justice process you're just it's just going to be a constant cycle of you know crime lock up throw away the key next one a child this you know so it's interesting to me that within that theatrical within your curiosity which again I think these are organic questions yeah because those people those how do you you know how do you open your heart to hear the process of that do you feel like your piece was able to contain what you received the size of what you received yeah I had one I had one it started it came there and that was that made me very happy it started I had I was guest in a talk show on television and for example they added a woman who was from a right wing party who worked on the department of refugees and asylum and I didn't know she was a guest oh my god oh my god oh my god yeah that was so and she of course wanted all the migrants from muslim countries and they you know that whole polarization and to put the shadow on what we call the the new dutch people actually and I was whoa I had to stay so quiet inside and so connected to my heart and only tell her all the time this is wrong what you are doing you are using this piece how do you say that's to manipulate your piece you are she was using your piece yeah yeah yeah and did she see it no of course not of course no no she was really using it so I thought oh I have to discipline myself and not go in the debate and you know because of course television it was like you know the talk show of the day at eight o'clock so I thought like oh man I have to protect the muslim community and and I had to repeat every time only the sentence in my heart you know the beauty of being with them the beauty of living with them the beauty of that they were opening up their life story in jail the beauty of the ministry of justice to let me in the beauty of the families the families who let me in their houses and and so that I could mourn with their you know their their daughters who were dead and I you know I stick to that path of walking through that interview but I was like afterwards I was like I was knocked out how were there all of the audiences in Amsterdam to the work oh yeah that was beautiful that was beautiful that was beautiful that was beautiful the we went also with with the piece to new York we played it in in St. Anne's and there happened something very very very sad thing because the mic the microphone of Yousef and that was really the how do you say the the hat actor the the central the central character yeah the central character and it broke three times behind each other and then he walked off the stage and he committed suicide one year later he jumped off the building of the theater school yeah there was so when it was so sad it was so sad and it was so amazing that he that he took this part that he he wanted so he was so passionate to play that part and after New York we went to Jordan to play it on a festival in Jordan in Amman and that was actually very brave of that festival in Amman because in Jordan you have the highest numbers of honor killings so that was like wow and we played it three times and then Yousef was so soft and elegant and he played it so firmly and then a psychiatrist who is related to killing to to how you say what was a suicide that he explained later to me and the family that that actually after a depression that actually when you become very smooth and vital and vibrant that you already took the decision of the suicide in your incredible what in what a deep deep engagement in people's lives and in scenes that are so so extension heartbreaking tell us a bit how do you connect to the community normally a theater traditionally you are is a building and they put up flyers and buy ads on facebook and as they come to us and pay money and you're an audience member i looked at ticket ticket buyer what do you do what do you think of your community and how do you connect to them to the communities i work with you mean where you are centered in yeah for you where your theater is but also the communities you work with how do you work with the community well how do you do that many different ways how about it goes this way how about what may i frank such a broad question may i ask because i would like to know what is it the idea of the peace first or the community first what makes you want to make a peace with x community even talk about the 80 person piece for example why did you want to make that piece tell what that piece is and why you wanted to make it and then how do you contact those people maybe it's that light i was talking about for me the the the community feels like can be everywhere in holland can be in in every city in every district or neighborhood in every street in every house in but you identify specific communities for specific pieces i don't mean they all live here or they all look the same but for example you made a piece about honor killing so of course you're going to be connected to the muslim community you made the uh you're making this doula piece so you're commute so you're communicating with all these doulas all over the so that's a community of people what comes first the idea or knowing the community and then wanting to make that piece the when my heart when my heart is calling it's something on the bike or when i do the dishes or under the shower it's it feels very natural it's like it's not something i choose it's something which is there okay and it identifies the community that you're going to reach out to sometimes i know the community sometimes i don't sometimes it's i read it in the newspaper okay something sometimes it's i'm getting angry you're like sorry i beg your pardon yeah you know and then i remember the name or i write down the name and i start looking for the name and um oh it does start with you each time i'm just double checking this okay so then how do you reach out from there what is the process of reaching out to strange people you've never met before i jump on my bike or i take the the the subway or the tram and the what what frank already mentioned in the beginning the adoption that is the adoption method is something i do that now for 15 years i think so i i i really i park my bike and i and i'm shy and i learn all my actors to stay connected to that shy feeling and not walk over that not building an imago not building yourself but be as vulnerable as you are that's part of the methods be as shy as you are be a stuttering as you are and really um and and then ring a bell and ask for a tea if you can come in and sit on the couch and share your life story and then ask if you can stay and overnight frank isn't that amazing that is amazing that's a community outreach yes right like that's what you call outreach i mean when we did when we did um open house which was the show that we had to do in people's living rooms right right right like you have to ask there's so many stages to it you know what i mean like you're gonna be rehearsing in their house you're going to ask them to participate in erin's piece we asked them to participate in the show you have to make site visits to the we made we have to make site visits to the living rooms to see if actually we can do it there like the interaction was so amazing actually that it's so beautiful isn't it so beautiful i mean we didn't sleep over i wish we had but this is new york i'm not sure i don't know frank i i i different yeah it's a little bit different here but or it's a lot different from amsterdam that said it's still a huge request to us to sleep there but it's also a huge request to say we want to make our show in your living room and we want you to be in it yeah yeah but that is what we share no yes that is what we have together and that is what we didn't know and that fabulous geedian knew yes yes yes because i never i i never met on this planet somebody who did that well it was really i wish that my colleagues that were part of it with me we're sitting here right now because we met some extraordinary people oh my god sunder one i was working then with sunder ganglani and he met this woman who was a near i think she was a near eastern archaeologist and she lived in an apartment on fifth avenue with her husband on fifth avenue i'd never been in an apartment on fifth avenue it was my first time ever and um and her she was brilliant and inquisitive and oh my god she was amazing and that was the apartment we let the new york times come to review the show in her apartment like that was the other thing like anyway i mean we did the show in their homes i mean i think you should talk a little bit more about this adoption process because it's a much longer engagement for the actors and then what happened after i don't it's important for people to know that this is a very we have very different practices of what we do that is the same so maybe talk a little about what the adoption is and then the piece that grows out of it the first one yeah i start for example the the last i did of this p well i first made this piece for the first time and i didn't know i would let's say repeat it but then what you can call the structure of it or the blueprint of it um but take us to the first one um it what was the piece about that you ultimately made okay it started um also by you know uh what you just asked me and what frank asked me too like i read something about the neighborhoods and the districts and i thought okay when the queen of holland or the mayor of amsterdam is receiving international guests they go every time uh to let's say um four or five uh places in the city who are beautiful musia the kennel boats or you know and i thought and why never to a neighborhood in amsterdam east so i wrote a letter i'm always starting with that i wrote a letter to the mayor of amsterdam and said like well when there are children are born all the family is coming bring presents and i don't know how you call that in english but it's like the first visit to celebrate the baby and then the baby will become part of that family and that community around it and i said we have like so like 12 neighborhoods and nobody ever went there to celebrate and make them a part of the city of amsterdam on a day they were there but they are never shown to international guests so what will that neighborhood feel you know when the when there are important guests coming and we only stay in that fucking little little city center so from so and of course i got a letter back which was saying like nothing and you know and that too bad we're still gonna stay in the city yeah and from that idea i thought okay i i take the the what what amsterdam is calling the most uh let's say the the highest criminal criminal criminal numbers and the most poor neighborhoods and like it's very far away you know like nobody dares to go there and that is how i that is slow term here and this is slow term here so i but how did you meet the people in those neighborhoods please like literally we go with i go with my research team on the bike we go there we go with the tram and then we say okay you take that street i take that street and at the end of the day we meet and then you start ringing bells does anybody close the door on your face yeah yeah which is actually uh nice exactly which is very nice because the first time you you because then you start to study uh that is the beauty of of being mirrored because because of your fear and your shock you ran to your bike that is what i did then i was at my bike and then i thought yeah well it was just a no let's try again you know and at the third time the man said well okay come in you know like that so it's so and also a no which stays a no it's like beautiful right so then i i throw a postcard uh in the mailbox to thank them for saying no which is like a dialogue absolutely absolutely and that is so beautiful of this whole so that yeah this whole structure so then i asked i asked all my actors which are 10 because the performance itself takes five hours and as a public you go from one house to the other but you see in that performance as a public you see only two houses so you see two big scenes of an hour in two houses so you could go to to to this show like five times because it's five times a different route you follow and the actors are living for two weeks in the houses of the local citizens become part of their family or the household and from that's what i call that it's it's a kind of love crash can you say crash yeah it's a kind of love crash you know it's two life scenarios who are you know like also start to whoo did you say love as in love crash yeah okay is that possible yeah for you everything is possible i believe it's possible if you think it's possible in the in the love crash and then um hang on pause pausa pausa were there any non love crashes in these in these occupations in the yeah you have you'll have moments or sometimes days of uh the two are not understanding each other or gets irritated but i visit uh together with my team with my artistic team we visit them very shortly every day so uh we when there is like a a complication or the dialogue is not smooth or irritation then we open that up in a dialogue and we talk what's going on or what is the judgmental stuff in your brain and what is your protection to keep very pure in the moment uh with the other and i did it i did this huge thing seven times also two times in mexico one in a criminal area in the middle uh of mexico city in the in the neighborhood tipito and i did one in juarez which unbelievable juarez in the neighborhood of the feminicidios the women killing uh that is next to the american city help me uh the san antonio san diego san diego what's on the other side of what is i don't even know i'm canadian hold on um oh my god how can i forget what is um hang on el paso yeah so the performances take place also in the houses of the people and you have the material comes out of interviews with the family and you structure it or is it improvised no they prefer it comes out of the occupation of actors in those houses yeah and how does it what do people see yeah frank i use no i don't interview the family i interview like in like also when you make theater uh through improvisation so for example frank you are the local citizen and i'm actor yeah somebody else of our team is interviewing us about our relationship of the two weeks i lived with you yeah we make a text out of that interview so we learn the text together and we play it together and does the does the actor and the citizen adjust the text yeah okay yeah they participate critically in the development of the text yeah great completely great and first i make first i direct the scene with the written text um how we made it how we wrote it and after a week of playing they are free to improvise with the text but first i i really as a director i really want them to know and to be very sure what is the dramaturgy uh what is uh you know the yeah what is the story uh on which moment where is the aggression where's the shadow side where's the bump you know every where's the tenderness so that they really know how to play it and then they can go ahead frank sorry the community was like a muslim family or there were families from uh so what what what give us an idea how do you select them just is it because people live there on that street they happen or do you have a theme no no i don't have a theme it's it's the area uh it's two kilometers by two kilometers that's the area where we play in also all churches who are in that area we ask to open up so that uh when people walk from one house to the other so they so that are the scenes in in in the houses that's for one hour but also you see little scenes on your way through the area natural scenes or staged that's all no that's all directed okay and sometimes it is like uh an open text for example of well the for example uh in that first show there was a a muslim mother which said i can do it i can do this performance or i can do this show but at four o'clock i have to pick up my girl from school so i made that picking up the girl from the school i made it part of the performance and then i asked the teacher for example to talk to the public uh for like three minutes and also and i also rehearse with her to tell about what is like uh what is special about this school but frank there is there is or correct me if i'm wrong adelheid it's not just a random it's not like oh i'm gonna go to this coat two kilometers and do it here there's an idea behind why that two kilometers so the first one had to do with bringing citizen bringing people from amsterdam to neighborhoods they don't normally go to right because you know because the mayor wouldn't bring his people there so fuck the mayor i'm going to bring people there yeah okay so that's the first one the one you did in in what is was in a was chosen by the artistic director no no it was chosen with uh by my mexican partner that's what i thought yeah yeah can you tell so he chose to do it in a particular neighborhood in that was uh where there were a lot of killings in what is please say what this neighborhood was again that was about the it's what what is called the femenisidios and that is the the killing that was like worldwide in the in the in the rank of one two three where women were killed in one city so it is a particular there's something that to be explored yeah yeah and then that is frank you were right about the theme so gwaris for example was about the theme and the last uh i did in in in holland was in the city of utrecht that was in asylum center that was for the first time that i worked together with with like an organization like a building with refugees and that was for me like new because then i wanted so all the actors were living in the asylum center which was a huge job to get that done forehead totally yeah totally do you feel adelheid that that what you invented or what you found this method of working is that something in that covid time we live in where we rethink our theaters every theater in the world is thinking what are we doing is it something that could work as a practical solution also for small but but also do you think is that what every theater should be doing during covid you meet is that yeah during the time where we don't have cannot play in big houses you know so what you did there in small performances in in apartments is a possibility as a form do you think are you thinking about doing this in the time and now of that virus and covid as performances yeah because that that's that's very nice that you are coming up with this because olah mafalani she's a director originally from syria and she's a friend of mine and she said to me two weeks ago i didn't think of it yet actually but you did and she did and she said like hey you actually like you have a covid proof performance already there this this grid this blueprint this structure but it wouldn't be here it wouldn't be a natural structure for here people would be way too afraid who knows how many people come to the apartment to the show uh there uh the maximum is 120 per day oh so you have differences but how many coming at the same time five people or 10 people or uh well that is we have uh 12 in 20 in 10 houses and then we also have 12 um guy young boys from the street uh sometimes also um uh the criminal the criminal ones who walk with uh i don't know how you call that we have uh something around your ankle ankle if it's an electronic uh cuff or whatever yeah and i like them very very much and yeah they are wonderful guys uh and they are uh and they are also very happy because they have also debts do you say debts or they have to pay money because debt debt just thinking yeah debt and so when they work in the performance they can pay that back uh and they drive the public so i make beautiful choreographies with them because they have to drive five hours if you know they what they're working very hard so they pick up uh public here and they bring it to there and they pick up there and they bring it to here and they drive like crazy and that is also something i love that the public is uh in the first instance a bit shocked you know because they see like it's it's it's also a sound they they drive with 12 and they enter the street and then they line up and then the public in Holland was the was the also the first time very honest because they said oh i was so judgmental i grabbed my my back i grabbed my phone i felt like oh this beautiful performance i'm in in the neighborhood and now there they are they're gonna kill me and then they were so gentle and sweet and in in in in Juarez Daniel Jiménez Cacho remember this name the Mexican actor and director Daniel Jiménez Cacho sometimes you have like miracles and that is also why why i will be grateful to Gideon for meeting you you know that you meet someone who feels like soul family and you cannot imagine it's true that what happened between us that also happened with Daniel in Mexico i did a workshop i gave the workshop about this show and he was translating me and i and i do not speak yeah i 25 words Spanish but the whole flow of the man so after an hour of teaching i was teaching and he was translating i said to him man you know like whispering very quickly man you're my brother how do you know me so well it's you know i felt it and with him i had this beautiful co-producer this beautiful man who you know dive wasn't in we were together the artistic team and on a day he said also i he's so funny he's so intelligent and so funny and he was grabbing on his okay he says all right today will be the day today we go to the motorcycles because i know you need 12 motor guys to drive the public and i only know a criminal group but that's in Mexico something different than in Holland so prepare lady and he took me there he took me everywhere and they did so i had for the first time as an artist conversations with the head of that criminal group and then i started to deal you know it was really dealing also with the with the father that was also so beautiful a handicapped son of a mafia father wanted to be part of the performance and the father was handling drugs and it was in his house because the guy was handicapped and he was in the bed and sometimes in a wheelchair and the public uh was so the father we had to the dialogue with the father and we had to reschedule our performance because the father was saying well between 11 and uh 130 i do business here on the but you know on the on the street walk or on the sidewalk so nobody after that yeah after two yeah yeah you're more you can come so and i and i we i had to make a deal with that was one moment i really shivered that i i made also with those guys but they were older and they were driving on yeah on on bikes they were like huge motor bikes and i was working uh and trying to make the lineup so sometimes you are shouting no because it's like they are very far away and sometimes they are joking or not hearing me and i had to make the lines up for the the motor so i was like guys listen you know like how you direct yeah and then on a certain moment one guy came up to me the boss i think that's low i was like oh no daniel in the neighborhood oh my god and he was complaining about my behavior you know about raising my voice and of course and then i thought oh man of course that is like uh he's like the chief and he has to stay the chief um so i said okay um can we do uh one let's make one uh you say not appointment one rule between us so i'm you tell me every time so you may really be strict or shout back so when i when i enter your territory when when wherever i enter your how do you say that yeah territory is okay uh territory is fine yeah then you have a code word for me and then i use that same code word for you so you are the chief of the territory of the motorcycles and i am the chief of the art because we have to work together so we both have our territories and he agreed and then he walked back but daniel it sounds like i think joe papp when he did his first shakespeare in the park performances had to negotiate with gangs or were holding the territory in the parks and actually gave them jobs as you know people who were ushers or for security and it helped to change or something so there is a and now the central park of course you know looks so so very different it was the very very beginning of a turnaround next to these five women who said we have to change new york and city parks um so adelheid um what what do you believe that your theater can do what what your art your intervention from your experience of 30 years what did it do what happened and what do you think it can do it's what you said yesterday what did i say sweetheart you said you give people space to have their voice yeah um on a very late moment in my life i understood the metaphor of the fairy tale of is it cinderella who goes to the to the bowl and the other one it's called duron roche with the sleeping beauty the sleeping beauty that somebody is kissing you awake or pushing you it's like the apple you know the prince is pushing the coffin where she's in and then what your your breath is coming back and he's kissing her awake and i think in every human being there is such a beauty there's such a grace there's such a tenderness and when we keep on going on with all that rules and not being living on one schoolyard and we are pushing people aside then it's like the start of eating that apple and on a certain moment it's frozen and on a certain moment you're maybe still alive but uh you cannot breathe well you you shiver you you are neglected you are feel you you you experience yourself as 10 percent of your vital being and i think my work is what i mentioned many times in interviews it's like kissing awake we kiss awake each other or we are awakening each other with a kiss the whole adoption method is about that the whole artwork is about oh the apple is out and the and giving the voice back and then at once i see citizens and citizens only with beautiful talented beings not so difficult to see actually beautiful strong persons who are like only because they are called minor people or whatever they are called it's to cry it's ready to cry it's incredible that we live that way i have it every time i it's like we have this you know we have this we could make this and we cannot see the beauty of another person you cannot accept another person on that schoolyard you want to make your own schoolyard you even want to call it a not human being you even want to skip it out of the race of being human for me it's it's uh well i made a performance with that that was also like a i made a performance with my old teacher he's also an actor and he's a writer also and he he was his he was for me teacher in art school writing songs george is his name george he was married for 45 years and after his after uncle also a friend of mine died there was this beautiful process in george really tender process that he also connected with the love in his heart for boys and then he started and he was like 72 70 or 72 and he started to call or by internet making appointments with the escort service and inviting boys at his at his house at his house for me that was like i tell it so slowly i had to do that in holland too i tell it so slowly because i was amazed by the beauty of it i was amazed by i i knew sure for so long i knew his love for ang i know them i knew them together so long and then that a life is in transition and that sure was for me like such an adult spirit that he could step into this new landscape and then i said to him and that is melanie and frank how it goes i was drinking coffee with him and then after this story i i i said to shores okay you are receiving a visit every week that's new in your life in that same period i went to my mother every week to pay her a visit because she had Alzheimer and lived in an how do you say that in a care home and then i said to shores let's start rehearsing because this is the change of my life and this is the change in your life yeah for sure you mean you're like young man because boys you know of course is a different age oh oh oh sorry oh sorry yeah young man young man here um but yeah so it is really to open up to to see reality how it is to find truth and melanie we're becoming closer to the end what do you see in the theater of adelheid where you say this is a solution this is a form this is something we have to take very serious because it's radically different going at someone's door ringing the doorbells i cannot live with you can i make a show can i make a depending on dialogue that happens within you the artist it's the most opposite of a revival of a broadband music what you can think about you know so so but so what do you see in her work and what do you think can can be learned from it fuck what a question i mean you know i don't really think very much about i don't believe in models like for one person to invent a model and another person to use that model i especially as an artist i i'm always um i don't believe in model modeling artistic projects or people are going to steal from each other anyway um that's normal but um what i see i guess is permission is the sort of endless stream of invitation to to do what you think can't be done but you have like i and i also think i mean you you you're probably gonna hate this tell me no frank is not gonna love this maybe but i think it's also um leading your process with love um i actually think i'm at my best when i lead with love i'm at my worst when i've forgotten that that's what's leading um my my work in any event and i think that holding on to that is a difficult thing there are many things there are many fears there are you know there are many things that put out you know that make a glottal stop in that stream and um i feel if anything can be learned from adelaide's work it's to continue to begin with this with love when she says i think my work is a kissing awake she is you know like right there that's what i mean like she kisses people awake she doesn't shake them awake you know um and so i think that and i feel that in my body i feel that or i i don't know whether it comes from me or from her or from i don't know where it comes from but i feel it and uh i feel inspired when i talk to her and other friend other people a handful a very few handful of other people i know that that is um and it's not just love for the theater it's not love of theater or making theater that's normal i mean love of the of other and how does that generate your work and how does that generate your ideas and how does that generate your career as an artist and so i mean i feel to cry to say this because um well yeah i feel it this time is so difficult you know um and complicated and frightening and chaotic and unknown and and so to be able to you know when john lewis died i got really quiet because i thought that's a person who led with love from who trained himself to do so from the time he was 17 and i i want to be able to do that and i feel sometimes quite challenged to keep that continuing so that's why i feel to cry sometimes but um i guess i mean i it's even how i closed the book you know like i didn't know how to end the foundry book okay like are you kidding first of all how can i even explain that i ended the foundry you know like you know i mean i don't know forever if i'll be able to fully make the words that that articulate that but the only thing i could say as a as a close to the book is that everything we did in some way was led by love and i think that everyone who would ever worked at the foundry would probably say oh yeah okay maybe do you know at the but i don't think everyone would anyone would say no way so yeah so i feel that i feel like that's uh if anything can be learned it's somebody's capacity to hold that love spigot open even when that scary drug lord is coming toward you for the first thought to be oh of course you're angry as opposed to going to the fear place that's a creative gesture to me you know what i mean that that that lends itself to creativity and doesn't stop it yeah but that but that was actually also the space uh where i met you in uh i i really met you in there because you are for me like an older sister you know you are the senior in this and i'm not too senior no but i and no but that but yeah but no i know i know no but i mean it from my heart it was like you were like an old indian so actually yeah you were like an indian i mean native america you mean or indian uh yeah you mean an indigenous person yeah okay yeah yeah you were you were and you you were you were you were saying in the beginning of this session you were saying like i maybe i was a bit grumpy and but actually that was my fascination right away the fascination was your strength the fascination was your autonomy of to be uh well i don't know for me that what was a um a beer yeah for me that's beauty i mean it okay i mean so that comes to me but i want to let's stay with the work don't don't don't don't you know let's stay on the work please so i think that um you have to take this compliment i i know it's difficult that's part of the life work okay yeah okay um thank you thank you thank you i mean i think frank what i feel i wish i there's so many things that i wish i could talk to the whole world about today like the whole world i wish i've always said this i wish i can have a conversation with the whole entire world about how we make this world you know and um and i think that these are these are really i love was it who who spoke from five spider woman it was miguel and um and her sister both of them so whoever said that we are in a creation miss i couldn't agree more i feel really inspired by thinking of that and so i think that how we think about theater i mean i guess for me in a certain way it's how do we think about love first and how do we think about um how do we think about relations first and how especially in this country now okay and how do we think about how are we approaching um how are we approaching the change that's been asked of us in in in you know how because for me that's how you know what theater to make not what we're going to do during covet not what theater we're going to do during covet but what questions what wondering we can present and and and offer each other during covet and i think the one serious question is how are we going you know we haven't i'm very concerned about what's to come financially because we've had help up to you know we've had help we're in lots of countries that doesn't happen so we've had some help and i think we don't even have any idea how scary it's going to be financially in the coming year and so i do think we have to start thinking about how to be practical with how to make a living and how to pay the rent and how to send our kids to school and how to buy the groceries and i don't i don't know that that's necessarily going to be from theater and which doesn't mean theater is dying theater will always rebound if we didn't do it for a year or a year and a half it's not going to kill the theater but what we do have to i think to figure out is how we're going to live you know like how are we going to how are we going to financially live and so i think we could all get jobs like what are the jobs we could do in the meantime while we make things on zoom while we write the next projects while we while we while we so i'm i know a lot of my colleagues and i think it's also easier for me to say because i retired the foundry and so i'm in a position of thinking what is theater in a whole new way and how am i and how am i enlivened in it to it for it you know what is the next incarnation of my body in that space so i was already there you know so it sort of i was already prepared in a certain way to think about okay what's next or not even what's coming what's coming for me in in the theater what would i want to go see what would i want to make what what i want to invite people to so i also think i'll say one more thing this creation myth time is so full i mean let's think about it right now i mean in this country we have cove it we have black we have the leg launch manner yes we have me too well we had me too already but i'm that was already present and had its crest about a year ago but still right now the crests are the coven and we have an election coming up oh yeah maybe the most important election in the history of the united states of america okay so these are huge huge tidal waves of consideration so how we make theater the subject matter of our theater we don't even fucking know where our theater gonna walk tomorrow you know so thinking about what we make what is consequential in the subject matter of what we make i'm cross-eyed every time i sit down to write apart from the fact that i have like really bad coven brain so i can't really focus but every time i sit down to write even for a small bit of time i think i'm not ready to speak about this yet i'm not ready even to ask these questions i don't even know what the fucking question is you know so i that's why i think what you're doing frank is so fucking important because it is the way to keep all of us available to each other in this moment as opposed to okay this is how we're gonna make theater for the next six months and this is how and many people are thinking about this and there's lots of theater online and there's there's lots of things and i think everybody has to worry about how they're not going to lose their audience and look i made theater for 25 years i never had a season i never had a subscription and i always had an audience so you know and you never know when i was going to do a piece but people came you know it was always a you know a miracle but they freaking came so and there were years where i didn't do a play at all in new york city and still then the next year i did something and they came yeah well i think that this terror of how are we going to keep our audience engaged i'm not really down for that they'll you know i think if you put stuff up and they want to i don't know we don't know what the theater is going to do next or what it's going to be about and i only i say the atheist prayer you know the atheist prayer is frank the atheist prayer is this oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please so i say the atheist prayer fairly regularly that we can be that we can fill ourselves with love and even in the rage of this moment it's hard but i think it's the only thing that will lead creativity in a way that we we can add something to making the world you know absolutely beautiful set you want to be happening frank what do you want to be happening in what or what have you heard is happening in covid that you think holds a theatrical rhythm in this mean time time because you've interviewed so many people yeah right yeah it's true i mean it's week 17 times five you know that's a i hope you can take some time off by the way anyway like what have you heard as like oh that's great that that's happening i'm so glad that's happening i mean the fundamental thing is in a way also what do you say i think that people question what am i'm doing people really everybody we always did before but there's something different there's a different quality of questioning as a different quality of seriousness there's a different quality of urgency i think and it's also about our lives people understand we are in the way we are animals we can die we all know it but now we really can with the wrong handshake i mean that's what our taylor max said you know my friends five eights and now a handshake killed them a friend of him died so you know we do not know 14 15 times more might be infected they may not 50 million people it would be in the us and it's also becoming obvious that perhaps a vaccination might not be good enough if people lose immunity it looks like it might we don't know what will happen and and so we have to see what's essential and i think a man on these thoughts that what is the love is in a way love is the answer you know love is just something that we have to think about for ourselves ourselves we have to change authentic change saying this is what i hear through from many many like karl hankirk rock said if we don't change now we don't make change in our lives in our communities in our cities in our countries what did all these people die for you know what why did this all happen and and and so i think uh why theater is so beautiful and great it does reflect what's going on and what people think about so there will be modifications changes new forms and perhaps that's not the important thing because it always has done that but i think what is important is that theater in itself as a very ancient art that came before movies came before tv it's the original as karl also said you know so that it has magical power as adelheid said or what you say you know that to heal us to connect us and that creation almost spider woman talked about yeah we could say there is a country there's the plague it has a mad king people have not enough to eat yeah how many stories do we know they were tell like this but there were stories but now we're in it and but what we do is important is of significance and those stories we heard have some meaning and i know there's perhaps the big changes in our world also that you know the famous david burn song stop making sense now perhaps it is time to start making sense jenny bass that's a great musician from that band band the savages her radio program is called stop making sense you know apple music ratio no we have to make sense and we have to create meaning we have to you know include the atheist prayer because that's what we do and i think uh um yes i think what i hear it is that's why adelheid's world is important include communities to represent the world as it is and perhaps call people to action it's about your life about the audience it's no longer about the master artist that he's so great and shines you know so that perhaps artists take themselves out a little bit like adelheid does okay i'm more the traffic cops come here cops come here you come here you do this it is important that people's life change remedy protocols work the excerpts the exports of every day they are of importance and if this reflects a new world that people are in this center what they think the experience heiner muller was a great german playwright said he realized one day i wrote all these kind of bright plays about the social realism in our east germany but everybody in the audience knew more than us we were just theater wow we were theater people in the dark rooms and we wanted to make our career totally totally totally they knew more about what are we what are we trying to say them i mean i know you know oh my god i know and i also think you know i think it's so interesting may i say i think it's so divine what you're saying in a certain way right now because i think that the other thing that is it is being included in the kind of decentering of the great artist is also a change in the whole idea of great leaders one leader one person you know like you know i was committed to shared leadership for the foundry's life and i failed and failed and failed but that's okay i failed upwards you know what i mean because and one of the main reasons i closed down the foundry is because i was the only one leading it and i knew that was wrong for what it was do you know because i could feel and i really can feel now the shared leader i mean their shared leadership is proliferating a little bit around the theater now but i think the whole idea of leadership slash power is in question now yeah and it's related to artists descent you know the ego of the artist not not being murdered but decentering itself without losing its creative inhibition do you know what i mean and oh my goodness you know i have to say one of the greatest things that happened to me in the life of the foundry was when we were you know it was always trying to bring artists and social justice communities together and there was there's so much in those particular two communities there's a lot of disconnect in language and understanding of what one another does there's not animosity but disconnect and so when we when we were doing fury and pins and needles we rehearsed for nine months with this community with fury and one of the members of fury her name is synthia butz i'm still really good friends with her now um she said when we were having a meeting with all the whole company she said i don't think any of us knew until now that making art is really hard and can i tell you guys i thought i could have died and gone to heaven at that moment just to be recognized not personally but the practice of art making as something difficult and rigorous by people who who are not so sure that what we do matters do you know what i mean it to for them to have been engaged in the practice of it and be able to look at us and say you're not a bunch of fairy queens dancing you know what i mean that to me that was like one of the great triumphs you know and on top of it it was a great though it's one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen as the great one of the great things i've seen in new york i also happen to sit next to harry bella fonta when i saw it by the way but oh wow musical idea that came out of a writing workshop in a union and someone had a great reception even a Broadway run i think in the 30s to restore the beauty of it the respect and also the simplicity of it and but the hard hard hard work that was behind it yeah it wasn't incredible i love that show i love that show so much i couldn't get enough of it no so i think yeah we are really in a time where we have to think what to do and to put connect to the people in the same way perhaps as politicians just see people as voters and and the commercial companies see people as customers to buy things maybe also in theater he says so no they are ticket holders or ticket buyers and in a way to say what adelheid said you know see a person they are people these are people yeah and um and hans haker the german artist and i saw that the new museum me what for one of his project he traced people who came to the opening of his show in new york and said where do you live and wrote it down and then he went around and took photos and then he made a art wall you know saying where do they all come from but how do they are in very beginning in a way had their lives you know they they were the ones who came to my show you know so that idea that your life you know so it's a radical thing in one of the many models as malanie of course pointed out and solutions but i think adelheid really found something that by the way next that it's also a great model one can think about and modify and they always disruptive inventions one could say like the iphone was a disruptive invention and then the google phone adapted it or maybe adelheid made it a disruptive one and but you can adopt it that's also that's great and fine so but um but it is you know a time to you know really honor that new way and if theater represents that now people are in the center of it that's a good thing if this if philosophically this the emancipated spectator what else here are we going to have on monday what he wrote that's exciting you're going to have renziere on on monday yeah yeah he's uh if we just did a sound check today with him and to say you know this is something do we don't be really think a little bit we know a little bit better in the theater than the person don't we really also think we are a bit better at okay we know something more and he said no that's his great book on the uh uh schoolmaster who doesn't know more than the the the pupil he said you know so much wrong in the world comes if we think we are better than someone else this is the root of a lot of evil as adelheid said uh on the school year so yeah you don't belong here you know now everybody belongs and that great mayor yeah map of palermo who was on our show he said people ask him how many foreigners and image do we have how many foreigners do we have in palermo and he says none and people say what do you mean all the people coming in he says not everybody who is in palermo it's out of the city i don't know what your question implies you know he was the one who went on the boat he the salvini the prime minister in italy said nobody gets in more into italy so he went to his office photocopied invitations from the city went on a refugee boat gave everybody the permission to come in and they and the italian prime minister said i'm going to send the military to palermo i'm going to siege go to siege on the city he said okay do it fine with me put me to jail you know so and he's the guy who said i saw pina bausha's play on palermo i don't know if you know where wall came down he said this was the most beautiful thing in my life i understood art is important they are openings theaters they are you know revitalizing something on that island we hadn't done they connect and he says our place is a theater in itself there is a theater of a city of a theater and a theater of the city is of significance so things are taking change and and i think this is something we have to keep in mind beyond the idea yes it's good for the economy and this i said our theater is something much more significant than deep and ancient it will always be there it will come back but hopefully we find a re-engagement that we don't do it as artists who else will you know we don't find new forms meaningful from swells we have to engage and that's why it is important to really really think is why i am interested to hear from from the artists and it's still as melanie said the moment of confusion and there are no recipes but everybody is reflecting deeply and is reflecting seriously and this says yes this is our lives maybe were wrong before if you're all they almost all the sudden confronted with your mortality which we always are but we say if one day i die no we are gonna die we know that it's clear you know so this has become something changed and i hope that um yeah we will also find ways in new york that we have a theater for the city and the city is connected to theater because it celebrates why we enjoy life there's joy in it and love and that we communicate that right yeah i love you frank thank you so much for doing this no that's important how great it is to hear from adelheid uh to about her work yeah in a way you don't talk in a way of a show when you have to sell it or you're an opening or the interview where spinny cut down to really say why does she do it what's you know what's keeping her motor running you know we know a little bit more and and it can inspire us or melanie your your your work and what you did over decades in new york and failed and tried again and did beautiful things and always looking and connecting people i'm seeing a little bit of a tiny bit more than a lot a couple of minutes i guess but no no i'm just trying to say something say something yeah maybe it's maybe um maybe i do not want to make you shy frank as i didn't want to make melanie shy um minutes ago but the it is what melanie is saying it is very very important what you are doing and uh what i maybe do in my work and what i feel also shy knife now to do with you it's like um let's take a moment for you in the center well we'll uh we actually want that because you know just even in what you just went through just to quote all of the people you've spoken to studied know about to me that's like i can't get enough of that but also and but also it feels like maybe that's in the first instance uh that's the same with the local citizens or the adoption in the first instance it feels uncomfortable and we jump over it and the thing is like the real connection between the actors and the citizens and the locals and everybody and also the public is to to really my heart is inviting you to repeat the beautiful words of melanie to you is like come near because you did it because you facilitated it and you did it five times a week i even didn't know for seventeen weeks well thank you it really means a lot to me as it is as melanie would say it's a lot of work there was a great german comedian card valentine the time of life he would say art is beautiful but it's a lot of work and last you know we also have to thank you and howl around because this shit is free to watch we're never gonna have to pay for it we're never you know all of the i've visited so many of the thank god it's there because i couldn't be with you at noon so i can go and see carl hancock rucksus talk i can go i've been to visit i've visited so many of the talks that people have done and it feels so much of a relief in a certain way to find other sisters and brothers in this moment do you know what i mean and it's an incredible library of this moment yeah and thank you one yeah well that's wonderful yes thank you both for contributing it and making it um what it is i see myself also a little bit as a as a melanie or as adelaide kind of a traffic cop yes here you come to 12 next no two months we can't i need someone someone can but that's how it is and that's how it is as you all say and it's not glamorous frank i think moments also like this really make it make it worth it what adelaide is a closing statement and i think melanie already gave a very very serious one but what do you think what do you say to young artists what do you say to the young adelaide rosen who might just come out of art school after those four years and covet would happen and what do what do we keep in mind and also melanie you of course say something good what is of essence what what should we be thinking about let the distance be your nearest friend because what we have to do now is the distance is you cannot shake hands but shake hands is also the thing you are used to now in the distance you have to honor with your eyes so you really have to take moments on the street when you walk and i already gave my class so that are young actors um to make like 25 very small performances about come near just come to me as one sentence in the life uh on a distance with somebody you do not know in the street and make a very small artwork of that meeting so have in september when i start teaching every every student will have 25 very small artworks which is a reflection in a form they may choose themselves um but really take that long moment of inviting and to do that with your eyes and your breath is much more tender than where we are used to with this or even with this so take that distance as intimacy make of the distance a new intimacy oh what a great idea oh nice i guess what i would say to the kids is that they have a world to make you know and they and i can't wait to follow them into this new world i can't wait to see what they're going to make beautiful of this crazy fucking time that we're in i can't wait to hear how they interpret the possibility of i how they interpret the changes that are going to be made it's not even they must be made they are already being made it's an organic part of the energetics of this time change is going to happen it isn't to say that there won't be all kinds of fascist resistance to it and all kinds of ways that are going to try to kill it but you can't kill life you can't kill that you can't kill life that you don't know how to recognize and those fascists don't know what this is like that woman doesn't see your show and goes on tv and says what a thread it is that's okay it's good she didn't come and see the show you could keep making it let the tv do whatever it does you just keep making your shows and they'll do what they so i can't wait to see what the the the next generations are going to make of this creation moment yeah that's great and as someone said they can cut flowers but spring is coming right so you can cut them away but hopefully there's something bigger and stronger and it has been so thank you both this was truly a quite a quite a conversation and between you guys and thanks for including me and having me with it and our respect to the work which you put your life in you dedicated your life to in countless hours and years and decades and decades and i think people often do not realize how much really really is behind the next to the energy and love and and time it is also an incredible dedication and relentlessness and believe a deep deep belief that it matters and really it does and so really thank you and also you found ways that now perhaps are some answers to questions now everybody has you know and when we can't be in the 2000 seat houses what do we do but perhaps it was never so great in the 2000 seat houses and we go back and learn something as i said next monday we have the great jaquons here who will talk to us what he feels what he said what does a philosopher really think that's exciting man who also is close to the arts what does he really think about the time the great morgan jeaness and we talked about her and she's going to come on tuesday she worked with joe palp very early on in the public theater she has been part of the landscape of new york's theater supported so many artists what does she think what does she see and she has been right with so many things so this will be important uh heli minardi from indonesia performance artists will be with us and talk about the work she does but also the community she is creating in indonesia and dima mikaela matap and lebanon she will talk about her work about creating theater in a country that the moment is experiencing a most difficult time that's collapsing it's really most difficult it survived civil wars kind of got back and now and now it's collapsing yeah so uh so complicated and to close it off we have richard schekner with us who will give us a little bit an overview again of what he thinks and he prepared a special issue or in his theater magazine the great tdr and and then i think most probably for august i'm listening to melanie and i'm also listening to the artists who say don't overproduce don't do too much take time to think and if i don't do it if we don't do it how can we do really well and also honey if you took some serious time off coming back to this line of questioning will be different yeah that's true a lot will happen just everything is everything could happen on a thursday this yeah you know for us at universities normally would be just a spring semester incredible what happened since march incredible yeah so long this is unbelievable how long this will be going on so really thank you thank you both as melanie said thank you to a hull round for hosting us this is important for vj and sia to be with us every day and for you the audience members for taking the time we in a way also are in the center it is about you who listens it's really not just about our life she knows what she's doing she doesn't need to talk in that sense you know of course it's good to connect but it's also for you to hear what you think and how can that be part of your life how can you ring the doorbell of someone in your building and stay over or invite someone over hosting it's so beautiful it's so beautiful transfer artistic methods as an inspiration to our own lives as a drama truly how great would that be and how much change will be experienced so thank you for listening taking the time there is so much out there it means a lot and and to the seagull team andi and sang yang and i hope some of you will turn in and you know on uh monday and as melanie said you can always go back and listen on howl around to that it's free it's open pa j did some excerpts we might continuous of 30 artists who talk they created something we might do a little book who knows but um it is really to to be listened to it's a live conversation normally interviews people send answers up front and questions up front and three hours will be condensed in a five minute talk or you know this is open it's real and and it's trying to capture something and i think today we did so thank you and adelaide i took a while to get you and but i'm glad uh we didn't give up 15 miles 16 i forget but oh frank it was horrible i was so busy i was so busy i i oh man important work and i'm going things happen when they happen so bye bye and thank you melanie thank you for joining thank you for being here and supporting us but also for everything you did bye bye good bye everybody bye bye thank you