 Into theater artists from New York from the US and around the world to here. What's on their mind what they are thinking? How they experience this unprecedented Moment where we are all inside a catastrophe movie. It's a creational myth with a Mad king and the plague in the country people out of jobs people not having enough to eat and What's gonna happen and what decisions are we gonna make we as people for ourselves as theater makers in us? Members of the society and artists always we feel have answers They have always been on the right side of social justice on the right side of the complex struggle for liberties and for freedom and We have to listen to them always but perhaps never was a more important time to listen to artists and adjust to the politicians to the virologist Economist what theater people theater artists have to say is of essence It's of importance of what life is all about. We should listen very Very careful as we all know the designs around us are not good There's a resurgence of the virus Florida, Texas, California all the numbers are up again The summer did not bring any relief and no therapy or no vaccination is inside so We are in a place of uncertainty and our lives are in danger They're wrong handshake could kill us or even getting the COVID as we know we might get serious lung damage Hard damage, we don't know what long trauma effects are so that has never been in my lifetimes and in many lifetimes such a Such a such a complicated serious and dangerous situation all theaters are closed still in the US the big ones, but there are Initiatives outside the big cities and we will hear a bit about it today And of course theater artists have been hit hard as all artists musicians out of jobs out of gigs and It's a disastrous time. So we need to support artists We have to be there for them But we also need to listen to them what they have to say because they are not just victims. They are also this they are Intelligent human beings who perhaps perceive the present much stronger than we do they anticipate The future so much of their work has been dealing with Environmental problems problems in our society in politics and we should have listened to them This is not just a story for a play Entertainment it really has a meaning behind it and now it becomes clear that we have to Understand that better yesterday. We had Chuck once here the great French philosopher and I'm not sure if I completely did him justice, but his idea of radical equality of Equality of intelligence of listening to each other to find ways to share The space at the table disenfranchised members were demanding to be part of Society how significant this is and actually that they also don't need our help or salvation All we have to do is listen and also they will come up with their own answers as The Black Lives Matter movement so many others are doing now With us today, we have a member of the New York theater community who we think of is How would one say like a statue of liberty is like a landmark and it's the great Morgan Jeanette So who has been since her early work in life with the theater with the New York theater starting with the Public and going back to Joe Pap. She is an educator and activist she worked in the literary office as an associate producer at the public and New York theater workshop and LATC So was she an associate artistic director and she is overall a dramaturg as someone who defines her work bigger or in different contexts and just the show itself the Production itself say what are the connections? What are the social impact where they start to impact? Why do we do this show for whom? What is it? Good for she has been a creative Consultant at many agencies Abrams and hell Merrill. She has helped so so many young artists when they started out The Taylor Macs or George Fox's of the one many many others when they are not where they were now It was Morgan Who was there for them and everybody in the theater respects her loves her and her concerns are also our concerns and She got an OB for long-term support of playwrights. She has the LMDA lessing award after Godfrey if I am lessing this significant maybe first genre torque on planet earth and And now she also works with double edge leader as a creative consultant and is involved in La Mama and in Project she calls in this distant globe a creation distracted And so something you will talk to us about so as I always say is I say it's all about listening And then I talk and talk and talk forgive me Morgan thank you for joining us. It's great to have you with us It's perhaps the last week of these kind of talks after four months We take a little break and rethink so it's an important moment So where are you? I? Am in the up at double edge in the artistic director's home Stacy Klein's home I have been here working on this project Which is called I'm gonna talk about it more later six feet apart all together which is live theater and What's interesting about being here is that double edge has been very much about Social justice community art and and the intersections between all of that In terms of the work they do here on the farm They do a summer spectacle every year the work that they've done in other theaters touring around they had a tour Just interrupted by COVID of Leonor and Alejandro about Leonor Carrington The great surrealist artist who lived in Mexico after she fled Europe during the Second World War So that was interrupted and it was kind of the idea of yes What do we do when things shut down? And I think what I love about Them and some of the other people that I've worked with and we'll talk about Is that they tend to put the word how in front of a phrase right? So can we do it? It's not so much can we do it? But how Can we do it and also what is it that we are doing very much what you talked about like? I'm glad you talked about it because you really set up a lot of the things that I deeply believe in In terms of dramaturgy and I always like to say that I don't like nouns so much I know Gertrude Stein talked about embracing the noun I like to embrace the verb or the active sentence So I like to say I've committed many acts of dramaturgy and haven't been arrested yet Though might happen in the future. So and the whole thing that the dramaturgical approach to Everything is a dramaturgical approach. How do things work? Why do they work? Who do they work for right all those questions that you ask of a play You really ask in life and in the world in politics and social structures Like right now that we're in the biggest piece of theater You know, um, I always quibbled with susan santag a little bit when she was talking, you know against illness Being a metaphor that it wasn't a metaphor And I do think that and I understand why she said that because it was a time where people were being blamed Kind of for their own cancer, you know for that somehow it was some sort of psychological Detriment on their part that made them ill and I agree with her that that's very dangerous territory But when you talk about a plague, which actually is not necessarily the original term doesn't necessarily mean an illness It means an attack. It means an attack of some kind So if you talk about a plague and what's being revealed in that plague and the revelation of that which is an apocalypse Uh, an apocalypse is a revelation of apocalypse is an uncovering Uh scholars say that it comes from ulysses when he tore off calypso's road He yet pocalypso himself and freed himself and was able to swim Up to the surface But the whole idea of the revelation that any apocalypse brings is Really interesting to me because I think what's happening now Is that we are being revealed to ourselves in very deep ways and I have to say first that We're very lucky. We're sitting here. We're on zoom. We're talking about, you know esoteric, you know aesthetics and you know ethics to a certain point, but there's so many people who are In dire straits and who will be in dire straits? What's going to happen in fall with people who are jobless people who might be evicted people who are ill or families are ill Whole communities that are so vulnerable But also those communities many of them have already been incredibly vulnerable So I think in a way that this time reminds me of two lines one of them Which I think is really reflective of our time Which is from george c wolf's the colored museum, which I had the great pleasure and honor to work with Where it starts out with miss pat who's uh stewardess flying a plane celebrity slave ship the plane over history And she's pointing to various aspects of history and at one point she flies over the great depression And she says oh, there's the great depression now everyone gets to live the way we've been Living so the whole thing of what we are being affected by in our kind of middle-class western world going Many many people have been living with for a long time So that's one thing and the other Thing is like you said but a lot of people say, you know, you seem really like optimistic or happy and it's like no I'm never optimistic. I'm an incredible pessimist. But one thing is I may be optimistically defiant What uh, a tony calls a pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will Which he says he stole from some german philosopher, but I bet he said it much more succinctly Uh, and the other thing but the other line that always stays with me Is larry kramer who I also had the great pleasure to work with several times in his play the normal heart Where basically ned weak says and this was very much the way larry felt and I think in some ways It's what bonded larry and I to each other because I felt very similarly because of various things in my past And just the way I grew up in the world where he says everybody's walking around as if we're at peace And I'm the only one who seems to know we're at war Right So the whole idea is that this is history. This is human history These little windows that we have where we're all in the bubble and comfortable and feel safe and whatever I always feel they're false and when they happen I don't trust them and when something like this happens. I somewhat go. Oh, yes There is the world There there it is. That's people and now What are we going to do about it? And how can we do things within it and about it? And how can we tango with it and maybe not always get dipped and dropped? And how do we work with the tides of history? Like I once said to larry when he was going to address a crowd was a very very moving moment Um That uh, he felt how am I going to give this crowd any kind of hope? It was a bad night said well, you know, you always we always think that we have to have progress We have to move forward. We have to move forward But sometimes the greatest triumph you can have is not being completely swept away And that's about holding ground And holding ground you can hold ground so much better if you hold ground in a community And that's why the whole thing with theater Well, I love being here at this point because it really is Regrounding and understanding that theater has always been in one way or another Even broad the most commercial Broadway show has been about Being at the center of a community Being the the nucleus that people want to come around and orbit around or be Comments and just you know kind of paying a little visit for a second All right, you know by so the whole idea of theater being the low cut locus point of a community Being this center. It's you know, the universal laws of the universe and of Physics the nucleus the center of gravity the soul of the sun the solar system So I think and I I think I'm still very romantic about the theater I do go back to not only greek but a lot of indigenous cultures Which saw the theater still very much connected to a performance of community a performance of Just pulling in that greek word word again though it comes up in so many cultures the idea of and feels Asmos that you bring the deity down. It's not prayers going up, right? My prayers go up, right? It's it's the idea of bringing the deity spirits down so that you're possessed And you see rituals that actually do this in Haiti and other, you know places in africa where you are Possessed not only the shame and sense shamanistic center, but the community that is participating in the in the Ritual are possessed by the deity by the spirit and one of my favorite So translations is that Enthusiasmos is really the root of enthusiasm So you don't say i'm enthusiastic about something but you're enthusiastic in a much deeper way It's just like oh, this makes me excited. It's like oh, I am for you know, I I'm strengthened I'm fulfilled I I can stand in the place where I am and feel pride and power within that and then I can open up To the community and the community Will share in that so that in all the ancient roots of theater for me still apply no matter what the form is Even zoom I've seen zoom experiences where I kind of go. Whoa This actually it's not just people saying. Oh, well, we can't do something So we're just going to do a reading with our heads Which is fine because that also makes communities a lot of theaters that can't be live Will do zoom performances or zoom this what you've been doing is a community That's that is like more than anything. I think is no matter who talks or what they talk about it is Creating and enlarging this nucleus of ideas and thoughts that has a gravitational pull and that can also You know have an impact on the people who listen on what people think about the more we think about the more we feel And the more we see again going back to original words theater Tron meant the seeing place and a zelda fitch handler said and reminded all of us when the new arena Stage opened up some years ago The seeing place does not only mean what you are looking at But how it is reflecting into seeing back into yourself as an individual and as a community As a society whether you're talking about the Athens. Should we really have a court system? Which is what the orastia really is about, you know, or You know, whatever it is that we're seeing back into ourselves So I think the form like a lot of people are going. Oh my god zoom and all this I said, no that's a form and some people have done amazing things with zoom I mean, I think richard nelson when he's done these new plays with the apple family Those are two of my favorite plays because they absolutely live In the situation that they're in which all those plays did, you know, they were bound to they were, you know Written to open on elections. Nobody knew what was going to happen richard was writing them up to the very first performance But these these last ones, you know, which incorporates cobit which incorporates zoom which is Absolutely present in the context in which it in in some ways. I think they're my favorites because they're so immediate And also there's something very powerful of people looking directly at you right breaking the fourth wall We have like space and time and glass and everything in between us But we're looking at each other and like, uh, I felt I taught a lot of classes from spring and summer You know on zoom on zoom But you know, I would have a student in china Who would get up at six in the morning to come to the seven o'clock evening class, you know And people were were were coming from all over the country and all over the world and joining and you see these readings Which I love where they put the actor's names and then they say Where they're, you know, where they're located and all of a sudden time and space is just collapsed um So there's something interesting in that in terms of what we Learned from this time about ourselves about a society about that word that's been thrown around so much What is essential the essential workers? Which are often the most vulnerable workers and the least cared for workers in the society otherwise, right? So what is essential? I think is so fascinating to look at right now But I think going back to that central idea that it is about Reflecting to a community and giving a community a locus point around which they can gather And if they can gather around it in some way physically still that becomes really really exciting So that's uh, yeah, so that's why i'm happy to be here Well, really thank you Thank you. Thank you for for for being with us and for sharing this is a That is uh, also Of significance or what you say where were you when when it when it started when did you become aware of the corona? I was in new york city and actually interestingly enough I went to one of the last live performances in new york city before everything got shut down which was The audience sitting in a ball pit at taylor max the fray Not only were we like, you know Somewhat near even though we were distant, you know, they tried to just over we're ready trying to distance the audience It was the last I think it was actually the last show that performed and the balls the plastic balls were disinfected So they were probably even cleaner than the seats were but that's where I was I was in new york city. Yeah I was in new york city and teaching and I'd go to the foundry office melanie's office To teach because she had better wi-fi than I did at home And I also just liked walking like just getting out Like felt very daring and very revolutionary to get out and be masked and avoid everybody but walk five blocks To the foundry office, you know, so I thought well, that's essential I have to go to the store and I have to you know Do those things and I have to go teach that is essential And then you you stayed in your apartment for Months a couple of weeks. Yeah. Yeah, so I mainly Yeah for for months. Well, I didn't because I started joining the demonstrations that that happened So you went out and demonstrated. Yeah, not I didn't go to as many as I wanted to because I was a little worried I had a cough which ended up being like bronchial and not I got tested. So, you know, I didn't really go out much Until you know, I was fairly sure that I was okay I'd also been exposed to see friends who had lost a family member and I I sort of said I don't care you're in grief And I'm going to hug you and hold you with my mask on and facing away but You know, if the deities want to kill me because I'm feeling compassion for people in great loss Well, then go ahead and do that And then if you exist when I die I'm going to come up and smack you around so But that's you know Goes back to defiance Um, you know, people say do you have optimism? Do you have hope and I say no, not really But I have a lot of defiance So you'll put your life at risk to go to the demonstrations Yeah, yeah, yeah you know Though the demonstrators I have to say most of the demonstrators were masked who was not masked was the police And there's this great streamer that I love called oh robin who like has some amazing videos I would watch when I couldn't go out. I would watch his his live streams and he just somehow got Incredible footage of a lot of demonstrations And what he was starting to do which was really funny. He go up to the police and go put your mask on Why aren't you wearing your mask? Put your mask on put your mask on You know, it's like yeah, it's like they're saying, you know in new york state This is the law and here's the supposedly, you know The people you're forcing the law breaking the law and in other ways so Yeah Did not help But that was theater that was a theatrical event That was a theatrical event And it was a theatrical event in the boal way of spect actors, right? Because everyone who was there was participating as a spect actor. They were participating in the play of of defines And in the play of Calling out and in the play of putting a spotlight on Another virus another kind of plague within the society And I think that's the whole thing. It's like what are all these other plagues are so interesting You know now we were talking about Shakespeare and also the Greeks and kamu suddenly is really popular and you think about our toe You know in theater as the plague and how much that you know seems to you know To resonate, you know and and like Naomi Wallace's one fleece spared is you know being revived It's interesting in terms of you know, looking at this and but looking at it not Literally, but again, sorry Susan Sontag as a metaphor Yeah as a metaphor Something real Yeah, I think I won't see a yesterday talked about the 68 demonstrations in france where Being marked theories would say they have no leader. This is can be supported. This is and he said Presence changed The police and the theory comes later Yes, people went out there and they had a short presence and they said like artists People on the street are imagining a better life. They want to have a new perspective They think what they see does not work And they demand to be you know at the table. They demand a fair share They demand living conditions that access to education health and the arts, of course as we think that And that that it is actually the president does those things that really change and it means something might already have changed because They they they come in in your more lifetime of working for the theater In this very moment, what what do you think what do you think of of theater but Well, it's interesting because I'd already Start to have a lot of thoughts about theater and what I saw was a kind of habit of theater and uh show business theater and the marketplace of theater and the why Do we do theater? I felt people Didn't know why they were doing theater They were doing theater out of habit. They were doing theater Out of ego they were doing theater For a lot of reasons that I was kind of thinking I don't know Theater is not so interesting to me anymore I was so immersed and excited about the theater when I first came to new york in the mid 70s And then I was lucky enough to fall into like I always say I'm a little kitchen dog In my in my career and a kitchen dog as you open up the back door To take out the trash and you leave the door a jar and you come in and there's a little stray dog in your kitchen And it kind of looks like benji and it needs a bath and it's hungry and it wags its tail and licks your hand and you say Oh cute little dog come on in the house and 10 years later. You can't get it out of your best chair, right? And it's just part of the family So I've been very lucky in terms of the doors that happen to be open that I snuck into So the public theater, huh? When was that moment? When did you snuck in what happened? That moment with the public theater Or in general when you came to the theater you said how you got into the door. What was that moment? Well I a couple of things when I was about eight years old. I went to see shakespeare at Live shakespeare at the sylvan theater outdoors in washington dc The sylvan theater was at the base of the washington monument and the woman who started it Oh, I'm so sorry. I don't remember her name had actually been inspired by joe pape And it had been advised by joe pape into how to make a summer outdoor theater for shakespeare So it was wonderful and we saw a mid-summer night stream Which I thought was fabulous and they had puck climb the fir tree at the end with the spotlight on it And it was just magical and shakespeare and language and just I was entranced with theater Um, and there was a funny story that the next year they did a winter's tale which made me really mad I hissed to my parents. Why are there so many shepherds? And I didn't like the clown and I just wanted to get back to the story And then I got really mad about the ending and I said what her mining. She wasn't a statue She was like, where was she for 16 years knitting? Uh, and I tried to talk about that to my parents and I remember leaning back in the back seat of the car Thinking they can't have this discussion with me like baby dramaturge, right? They can't have this discussion with me. That can't be my parents. It turned out They weren't really my parents, which was really bad But then years later bill kahne the great bill kahne the writer and jesuit priest Who had started the boston shakespeare festival? I told him the story and he just laughed and he said no No, no, he said when her mining got all this horrible news her husband and the loss of her children and just Everything in the world turning upside down. She literally had Went into a catatonic state and polina for 16 years Everyone takes her out of bed and feeds her and puts her in the chair when she looks out of the countryside You know and tries to talk to her But she's basically been catatonic and then when she hears her husband and she hears her daughter She comes out of that state and I said, where were you when I was nine? so um Shakespeare was one of my first loves as the whole thing When you know coming being falling into the public theater and joe papp and the love of shakespeare in fact in this Distracted globe is from a hamlet Quote where he says a last poor, you know memory, you know last poor ghost remembering the s while memory holds the seat in this Distracted globe In which it's a pun about the theater, but it's also his mind and it's also the world Right, so it's just that whole thing about this distracted globe Um, so that's kind of the name of my consultancy, which I came up with over 10 years ago uh But seems more appropriate than ever in terms of How do you find the center of gravity in the distracted globe, right? How do you re gravitate uh to the core That keeps the speck the planet from spinning out that's very much in terms of the The way I approach dramaturgy is what is at the core Like in terms of the Aristotelian elements. I always felt for me that Thought why the why of something was the most important. Why why are you doing this? Why is it being done to go back to your question about the theater? I wasn't seeing The why so much the why was oh, yes, we want audiences to come in. We want people to buy tickets It's something that I remember being uh at a panel with an adivir smith Where she talked about the difference between consumers and citizens and we talked about yeah That's very much in terms of like the difference between ticket buyers and audience and what it means, you know To be that audience that's listening. That's in the seeing place that's seeing into them You know, why do people go to the theater? Why do people do theater? What is the meaning of the theater and that wasn't a new question for me? I was already having that question but in a way the world sort of Made that question even more intense And so like what are we doing? Why are we doing it? Who are we doing it for? And how can we do it? is I think the question for everyone I mean, I think survival Is it good is going to be a bigger and bigger issue just survival and I think then Josh Fox who I work with who did the documentary on on fracking gas land cycle Uh is Has been working on a piece called the truth has changed Which looks at it looked at the whole thing about the truth cambridge analytical and facebook and a lot of it you know, we just swirled out from from there, but uh What are you know the questions he asks in the pieces like We have to think about you know, not getting the gun, but you know the spared bedroom Who do we put in the spared bedroom? How do we expand our community? You know, how do we open up our lives and our hearts to people that it's just going to get worse We haven't even we've seen the beginning of climate change refugees I mean syria the whole thing syria Really was climate change because of the drought for two years and the farmers begging for some sort of redress So how do we function with our communities? Even if it's a small community You know, how do we function inside that what what you know? What are our ethics and then how our ethics revealed in the aesthetics? And that's the thing about theater when I first came to new york in the mid 70s I really well first. I was interested in musicals. That was the other thing that I got into at an early age For a while. I was a singer then I had kind of Physical issues that I couldn't really sing I've started singing again a little bit Which is really exciting for me because I haven't really been singing for a long time um So I loved musicals and my father would we go to business trips in new york and would bring back the cast album for musicals Including things like subways are for sleeping I don't know if anyone remembers that musical But I just sing that that song where they get up get cross over get that, you know, they had a whole subway song I don't remember the plot, but I remember that song Kiss Me Kate Camelot and all these you know, I grew up with the musicals And then I performed like a lot of people did I performed musicals in high school Like that and thought that that's what I would do. I thought I would be a musical theater performer But that didn't pan out, but I wanted to have a life in the theater um I think partly because I felt the theater contained everything all the arts visual lighting costuming, you know Contained philosophy again going back to the source of shakespeare You know, he stole all his plots or borrowed all his plots everybody borrowed plots at that time, right? It would be a disaster now. He wouldn't have a career, uh, but uh But you know, and he was a terrific poet, but there were other really great poets around I always felt that shakespeare's ability whoever he was and I do think he was The you know the the son of a working bourgeois not not really Uh, love me. Yeah, you know that he you know that he wasn't had didn't come from the Iristocracy he didn't wasn't one of the Cambridge wits and like a whole Of course, and I always thought the proof that he really did exist was Robert Green's invective You know that called him that upstart crow, you know You know with the things he makes the shake scene, you know And I always thought that the fact that the other writers would rumpy about him actually meant that he was when he said he was Though I also think that he collaborated a lot more than people think I think when it was really fascinating this new edition of the henries Which say which say that he and marlo collaborated on the henry the sixes, which makes perfect sense You know in his whole relationship, you know, his rivalry or whatever their relationship was You know, he wrote five plays basically in response to marlo's plays Including tidus and andronicus, which I disagree with harrell bloom. I think it was satire And it works really well as a dark comedy, which is how taylor mac actually started his play you know That turned into just saying you know a sequel to tidus andronicus, you know What happens at the end and because he was going to do an adaptation and then he felt I don't want to have levinia's Mutilated body on the stage. I don't want to put those women's bodies on the stage and continue to do that Which moved me a lot. He said I think I'd rather do a sequel and I said, oh, what's how does it start? He says curtain risers. There's a pile of bodies on the stage and the maid arrives with a mop to clean up I said, wow, are you the maid? Yes, originally he was going to play and I said, what's what's your name? And he said gary Hmm, which I thought was hysterical um so yeah um, but that whole idea of uh communion How things react to other things? And the philosophy the philosophy at the core of shakespeare for me and at the core of most writers that I really love Uh is why? How do people navigate in the world there and how do people navigate in the lives there and how do people And I say this to to my students and this you see in in movements Like all the exciting movements that started with the black well started again in some ways with the black arts movement And in the six days and all that where people said no We are going to take the pen that writes our narrative very leddite We're going to take the pen that writes our narrative into our own hands We're going to control that narrative as much as possible as much as you can control a narrative life, right? Which is like anything could happen at any time you know truck could speed around this curve, you know and Smash into me as I'm walking me down to the theater, which they're always nervous about So anything could happen at any time, right and the whole idea of like having at least Control of the pen in your hand that can write your narrative or the brush That's able to paint your own portrait not someone else's reflection of you And this is where I know like people have in call out cat Culture Luigi Pirandello is in big trouble because at one point he was very pro-muscelini and the legend has he melted his Nobel Prize, you know down to help support the cause but I think it was only a year It was right before he died But and you can kind of if you look at must at Pirandello's background to kind of understand Like you wanted everything very like clear, you know, like all the trains are going to run on time and all this but what his theories are which despite of you know his rather unfortunate political mistake or Bracing is that his theories of mirror and mass Are really fascinating and very that especially, you know, what are the masks you put on to survive in the world? and then how you Look at your own face. You see your own face because you're mirrored back to yourself And what and who is that mirror, right? so if you look at Whole groups of people when they start out and their identity is like mirrored back to them things are taken The way that that that they're able to route themselves into their real core powerful identity and then they're mirrored back to themselves in a very Productive way in a very destructive way and often in oppressive ways And then they start to kind of say oh, this is my this is my face So when I look at my own mirror, I'm looking at the face that has been mirrored back to me And that's where you so you have to Shatter that mirror some people sometimes you have to have a mirror to look at yourself And sometimes you have to shatter the mirrors and I think what this time is doing is that it's shattering mirror Did it for you? Shatter your mirror. My mirror was already shattered My mirror was really already shattered. I don't know that it's had such a big impact on me It's episode saying there it is Oh, I was waiting for this to come I kind of sense that 2020 was going to be a rough year. I didn't sense that there was going to be a pandemic But it fell to me. We were heading towards something where we could no longer You know the tipping point You know that where this where it wouldn't hold where things would start to collapse Where it would be like what do they call metal fatigue in the society? um, I think the pandemic has you know Has speeded that up and in a way the pandemic is a shattering of the mirror In terms of looking at ourselves and saying, oh, who are we, you know The whole black lives matter movement. I mean that's been around since the you know 16 19 but uh You know what that is and what that reveals about us as individuals and what it reveals to us as a society and So it's it's it's a very hard time. I think it's going to get harder Uh for me, it's not even so much our theater is going to open. It's like will our society survive um, but I can't believe that uh That kentucky and senator and we're not even going to say his name mitch quoted martin luther king's incredible quote about the arc You know of justice You know I then saying but what he did say which i always say is that doesn't what which dr king said Is that doesn't happen on its own? We have to bend it We have to bend it. How do we bend it and we bend it with a core of our vision Our ethics our ideologies Our concern our compassion are you know what we form at the center What are core intentionalities are the communities we gather around us that are Strengthened and also challenge us but are strengthened by us so that there's a kind of dialogue that's going on And that those communities can get larger and larger and that You know what keeps them together is the core is the is the magnetic core of What the belief is and if that is because some sort of you know Radical empathy you were talking about radical movements radical empathy. You know the whole thing about like uh Was it radical geometry where you find that you know, no matter how separate the circles are if you Track their radius is at one point. They are all going to Inverge some of them way outside of those circles But what is the center of that circle? And if you say that is the new center of the circle Then what is the circle that embraces everyone's like? I love venda. I'm a sucker for venda diagrams because I say where is the sweet spot between people that don't seem to have Anything in common they will have something in common years ago the mayor of austin These things also flew out of my head, but I was so inspired by him was talking about this whole idea that What he was doing in austin was saying here were people who were just on extreme ends but then he found the radical center I don't think he used that word or the sweet spot Where they cared about their kids And that's where he started from you start from the sweet spot of what is shared, right? And I think that's what theater can do that theater can find that sweet spot So that people come and they don't all react in the same ways nor should they But they resonate to it and I love I love what's happening With science. I I think physics, you know, how physics enters in in biology So some of the things that they've discovered Like mirror neurons when they kind of discovered mirror neurons, you know by accident because the They were doing experiments on monkeys, which is sort of horrible But the scientists, you know, notice that the brain wave the monkey had been attached And he noticed that the brain wave for the monkey watching him eat a nut Was the same pretty similar as the brain waves of the monkey actually eating the nut himself So it was like the mirror neurons and empathy and that if there's like a metaphor for the theater That seems to be it. Um, and this whole thing that's actually a line Uh that uh, Matthew Glassman says one of the performers writers here at double edge says in his piece In six feet apart all together. Uh, he says our hearts are beating at the same time And that's the whole thing that they did this study that in the theater Your hearts the audience's hearts start to beat, you know in synchronicity, which is amazing. Yeah So for me, those things are to go back to the center to go back to the source To go back to what is really what what what brings us together what is shared not identically, right? But what is what is, you know, what resonates for us is what the theater can do So the whole thing in terms of like, why do you do it for whom do you do it? I mean, let's face it the theater Broadway. I can't go forward to go to Broadway shows My students can't afford to go to much theater So who's the theater for and what is it for? I mean, I my my whole interest in theater really moved much more to ensembles like I Came very much a support of the network of ensemble theaters and the national performance network, you know And also the national new plane network, you know the smaller theaters Who I you know might be the ones that end up surviving more because they do You know, they do know what it is to scrabble closer to the ground to survive And also I find that the the why of what they're doing and why they're doing it in their sense of community Tends to be stronger. It's like the the Mike Daisy piece. They did how theater failed America You know in terms of and the Todd London books the Ben Pesner and Todd London, you know book in terms of, you know Really looking at the landscape and what is it about and what the marketplace is Yeah, yeah So and I've been very lucky in my life. I I've really I probably wouldn't have stayed had places that weren't like this quite quite frankly I you know is that but I was very lucky to to be at the public with jpeg You know How did you meet them I met him because I met lin holst Who was the literary manager at the time and she went off to work for american playhouse for many years wonderful wonderful dramaturg Uh, she was the the the literary manager there and we actually met because collin dohurst Who was with ken the producer ken marcelay at the time was doing a show in cleveland And the former person Who lin used to work with mellony carville? who Was the great actor jack McGowan stepdaughter was working for ken marcelay So they were going off to to cleveland at thanksgiving and their son alex was off somewhere else But their young son cambell the great wonderful actor cambell scott Who's about 15 or 16 at the sun at the time was staying home at that flood farm it was called And so collin and ken said well, you know to Saying why don't you just ask some of your friends milley said to milley Ask some of your friends to come up for thanksgiving and spend the weekend and keep an eye on cambell Who's the sweetest kid ever? Who was like who had a little guest house next to the main house? So i'm uh, that's where I met lin holst and She was starting a wonderful series of the public called poets of the public which was during that time There's a jazz series, you know series and a poetry series and a film series and they had the latino festival There was all this stuff going on right at the public along with the mobile unit That was really happy when oscar really brought back the whole, you know public works In that way. I always thought it was one of the most important things the public did But uh, yeah, so she said uh, do you want to come enter? In the literary office So I said, yeah I would love to And that's how it started and then I was filing play reports because at that point there were thousands of scripts unsolicited scripts that came in every year and Yeah, so And all these readers would come actors directors writers would come take the scripts away And then write little reports half page reports what that was about what was good about it It was someone we should pay attention to what kind of letters should we write back, right? Should just be polite should we say not this play but please keep in touch should we you know, maybe engage in them So I would read all these reports as I was filing them because I'm really a speed reader And file it and bubble button file it and then people would say, oh, what was that playing? What did the reader think about it? And I sort of chirped up and you know, because I remembered reading and then Joe pap came by once when I was there at the filing cabinet And he said something to me and I just kind of quipped back to him I didn't realize you weren't supposed to you know, like quit back to Joe, you know Little dog, uh, and he got very surprised. He said, what are you talking to me? And I said a cat can talk to a king from That was like He said, oh, you need a bath a little dog and I'll feed you So that's really the way it started and Robert blocker Who I passed away very recently Uh, who was the associate literary manager dramaturg. He worked a lot with Desmak enough. He was uh, shakespeare dramaturg He really mentored me And that this was really before there were dramaturgical programs In fact, he had me read a script in front of him because I wanted to be a script reader I loved reading plays. I was so interested and I like fallen in love with sam shepherds work and beckett and all these plays I I'd gone to see uh The it wasn't the open theater. It was the winter project with joe chacon and his whole group and I was just into You know, all of this stuff. So he said, uh, he said, okay read a play and we'll see what you think about I said, great. I'll bring it home. I'll bring the report tomorrow and he said no No, no, no read it in front of me So I read it in front of him talking through and then there was just this moment where he got to the second act And there was a scene like the second scene or something in the second act and I said, oh, it falls apart here And he says yes, it does. He says, so what's wrong with that scene? I said, I actually don't think it's anything Is wrong with that scene I think that something needed to happen in this scene in the first act In order to set up this scene and if that happened in the first act Actually, this scene would work really well and I'll never forget Robert looked at me and he went Wow, he said, I think you might be a dramaturg and I'd never heard the word before and I always joke with my students I say it sounded like you used to shovel and got really dirty And uh, then he sort of said what it was it was about research It was about reading eventually it was about having dialogues with writers about their work, you know Also helping to you know dialogue potentially with directors and Also, you know working in and creating Projects with you know that all the different things that a dramaturg could do and that all the different things that you needed to know That you needed to know about design and not all dramaturgs think this way But I do is that you need to know about design you need to know about staging you need to know about the kinetics of the Stage you need to know that sometimes what's wrong is not the necessarily of the line but the light cue and the the level that the light is at and The you know that it's fading on a seven count and not a five count and that makes the difference Right that that dramaturg and so I really feel that dramaturg is something everybody participates in inside a theater project That you all have to be part participate in the dramaturg And I think the metaphor for that in our society is that we all have to participate in the dramaturgy of our society Yeah, how do we dramaturg our own lives our cities our communities our relationships, you know It's as much as you say mirror something and I remember I was holding a dramaturgy Sessions at the seattle center and that was one directorizing from the mint Father say well if the director is so stupid that he or she doesn't know what to do with the play And needs someone else like a dramaturg. I wouldn't hire the director you know, and uh, which is shocking, you know And it's thinking that European directors like peter stein and they don't have two or three Of the most significant dramaturgs. They wouldn't start working, you know, right, right Because their brain is fully given over to the theatricality and let's face it European directors tend to be more theatrical The great theatrical directors in this country, you know, whether you're talking about robert woodruff or joanne ecolitis You know and bogart kind of found a way to navigate it But the really peter sellers, right? You know all of these great theatrical directors that really use spectacle Spectacle aligned with thought right because I love that not just spectacle It's spectacle as a as a you know as a delivery system for thought as well and for emotion But you look at the great theatrical directors in this country. They don't do well It's true Because drama torch one or even two is a significant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Because you have that dialogue you think I'm thinking the image. I'm thinking the image. I'm thinking the image What does that image mean? You figure it out the way richard foreman is with actors like richard foreman works with really good actors because they take care of themselves You know if someone actor says, uh, you know richard says cross across this is the beat turn your head You know do this movement. This is your your choreography. This is how you fit into the mechanism You know the actor says what is my motivation rich will say that's not my job That's your job. You figure it out So, you know So you look at someone like david patrick kelly. He's a great great actor You know, and he does these richard foreman works and he knows what he's doing all the time. He has You know, he's activated. He has you know, he has an incentive. He has you know Knows what his motivation is Yeah, and uh someone like peanut boush who created the damage of my grind Well now does his own work but who she was the first say even in you know in her work This is wordless of intense theater. You know, she said how significant And that is and now we have of course objects on stage the light robots Plans and animals and all of it castellucci's work Yeah highly traumaturgical and Yes, under the material who works here and so many others. So you have been On the forefront of that. Do you feel You said not really but it already was smashed that that mirror of the surface But do you feel in this time? Of corona you realize something or is i'm gonna Devote more time to this or that this became clearer to me. Do you feel there has something has happened? um I actually don't Oddly enough because I feel it was already here I feel a virus a physical virus is just a manifestation You know, and that's very our toe. I guess, you know, that's what he talked about You know that the physical manifestation of a disease of a virus of a pandemic Is a manifestation of something else that's going on You know not Susan sontag, you know, not the psychological individual has made themselves sick that kind of thing But as a society we do make ourselves You know sick and you look at it. What's the thing? You know, it's our our dealings with animals You know that it could probably you know started, you know in a wet market Uh, you know, how we deal with animals all the diseases that come from animals And we haven't seen the beginning of it yet corona I think that's nothing To what's coming We really have to be prepared We have to be prepared To support each other. We have to be prepared to and I actually don't like the word love because people I think overuse it a lot But I do like the word love because I do, you know, the whole thing about again Shakespeare. Okay, Shakespeare Here's going back to Shakespeare. He puts I think one of the best definitions of love into the mouth of a essentially 13 year old girl Where juliet says, you know, my bounty is as boundless as the sea my love as deep the more I give the more I have for both are infinite and I remember reading uh silvi and bruno which is um Lewis carol book That's about these two kids that are that are looking for their father and they go through fairyland But there's a really moment at the beginning Sylvie's father gives her a locket and on one side it's blue and on the other side It's red and on the blue side. It says silvi will be loved On the red side itself silvi will love and she has to make a choice. Well, there's two lockets actually there's two lockets Sorry, I'm there. I just messed it up There's two lockets and she has to make a choice between them and I remember reading it as a kid going Well, I really like the color blue But I love that idea of the red that she will love somehow that felt more important to me Right that being loved is like right me But loving is like juliet. Oh loving right So she chooses the red one and then when she finds her father or whatever She says look at your locket and she looks at the locket and it's blue She's a way to have the wrong one and she turns it over and she has both lockets And I always was so impressed as a little girl by that Philosophy and that core again that core idea that's center of gravity and I think we have to find That in ourselves and what that means that to care and love is attention like love is your willingness to give attention unequivocal attention to something whether it's your work whether it's a person, you know your favorite anything Your attention that it is a it is a gravitational pull from your attention and The more that that's shared I think the strongest society comes and people in power and oppressive regimes and people who are miserable and people who have like I tell my students It's in the Sanskrit notion of unstable pride. I think practically everything that's wrong with you people can Be driven to unstable pride whether it's greed or fantasy or braggadociousness If your pride and you you know is stable just was nothing just who you are I once said to joe and he said don't you know who I am? I said well, mr. Pap I think you are who you are when you're naked in the desert alone in front of your god I can't believe I said I am I was about 23 And basically looked at me and said get out of my office And I went out of the office and everyone's there thinking the god morgan's being yelled at and I went I'm not fired And they kept saying to me I said well, what if he fires? What if he's had enough of you one day and fires you and I said well if he fires me for that Why would I want to work for him? So and I think Because I never had any sense of security at all ever since I was a very very little girl I never expected it And I think the expectations we have is what does us in But uh, it's exciting scene the how and what people are doing. Can can I talk about that a little bit? Where are we at? Yeah, we get we want to get closer. Maybe maybe just one or two So what would a joe pap too? Do you have a feeling what he would be in this crisis? What would you what would be your gas? Oh, he'd probably be organizing a testing site And having drives to give people, you know the requirements they need, you know and having You know sending theater into neighborhoods on the mobile unit You probably revive the mobile unit and find some way to socially distance, you know going back to uh the you know the uh The actual mobile units on the truck even maybe going back to the You know to the pageant wagons Where you see a scene you gather, you know in a place and you know keep distance From each other and have your mask and then the first scene of the first act would come by and then maybe the actors would You know then the second scene or whatever Of some sort of thing he'd find a way probably go back into the east side amphitheater He'd find a way to make the park work probably Yeah He'd find a way to make the park work But he'd you know, he'd have a testing he'd make the public theater a testing site that I have no doubt And he'd be what you know what the public theater is doing or was doing Uh, they were haven't for the demonstrators was wonderful you know There are aspects of oscar that that resonate with what joe and and that aspect of deciding There are aspects that don't definitely but there are aspects that do And that the signing you know the decision of the public and their fabulous staff To have the lobby open and to give water and to have the bathrooms open, you know To have like if you needed to come and you know be in the lobby and you know You could come do that and several theaters did that The New York Theater Workshop did that the flea did that several other theaters Yeah Um, so yeah, so I think that's what he would do And he would be gung-ho about all these things that are happening like up here at double edge So that's uh, yeah six feet apart altogether a little bit. It's not six feet under luckily It's six. No, it's not six feet under not yet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So tell us a little bit I mean, you also, you know as I as far as I know you You know so many things and in contact also across the country, you know, tell us a bit What's going on? What do you think this is of interest? This is something we could we should know. Well, there are there are Pittsfield, Massachusetts seems to be the hub right now and Massachusetts Has very it was a really interesting process in terms of yes, you can do theater, but these are the parameters This is what you have to do. This is how you have to handle the bathrooms Which is probably the trickiest situation You have to have exit and you know flow for the audience as well as being six feet apart and masked so, uh, the berkshire theater company is uh, is is is doing live theater At barrington stage is doing live theater and they're both in in in pittsfield or around pittsfield Let me just because Yeah, the berkshire theater group. Uh, kate maguire is the artistic director there So there they have a indoor theater, but they're not using that. They have a they're putting a Tent colonial theater. They have a tent there and starting in august They're going to do the one of the first equity approved things, which is god spell They know do a production of god spell and so they figured out a way to do that Um barrington stage Also, julie boyd there. They're doing like, uh, david kales wonderful piece a solo piece that another actor mark dold is doing henry clark Henry clark, Henry clark. Uh, so they're doing that and they have a whole series cycle of Performances also so does a berkshire theater group So and they figured out like one. I forget which one Like their seating capacity is usually 500, but now it's going to be 185 bread and puppet peter schumann, you know I'm gonna do their huge things that they have they're trying to figure out a way to continue that they're doing it Maybe 150 or so people can be Yeah, you know, and if you're outside, you know, it's much easier if you're in a tent But but a buntu in oakland, uh, so the so the oakland The oakland theater project, uh, is doing wasteland with this is solo show lisa ramirez Who's wonderful playwright and actress and dramaturk too is performing that and that's going to be drive-in theater So there's like driving movies that are happening But they're basically going to be in the parking lot of the theater and you have like a radio feed But you can watch and hear that way so the drive-in theater That's happening. Um The theater in El Paso, I think it's called theater cross borders And that that takes people on like on a hike 10 people at a time where there's kind of theatricality So in some ways that the aspects of what double edge is doing because when double edge, it's the three groups that go It's like I mean for us, right? It's like fefu you go to see, you know different Pieces in different orders, but you see all of them and your base is like 30 35 people are so And they're split into groups of like maybe 10 to 12 which keeps that social distancing and the actors are distanced from each other as well Mostly I mean we've now been pretty much quarantined together. I'm also Performing in it. Yeah, I'm singing which is very exciting for me. Not having been Also, this is for Taylor max, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was that's right. I was yeah, I was uh I was in Taylor max 24 hour. I was a dandy minion In his 24 hour concert and I'm working still Taylor max seems to always work on five projects at a time He's working on a musical Kind of look at Socrates's last hour after he's taken the ham walk Which is called the hang Which is us hanging with him, you know in his last hour And he's working with matt ray his fabulous composer and music director that we're kind of collaborating So it's not going to be sort of a music jazz piece But again, what makes it what I love about taylor is that taylor really Starts from the why What is it what for? You know, who is it for why are we doing this? What's the exploration? So his whole thing is like, well, why do you want to do this? He says the whole question of how can you be more In an immoral world Right, so that's the center of gravity And again the mirror of how we look at the questions that we're having and Depending on cobit. This was something that actually Here christin marting at here had had Commissioned gary originally before it kind of became this big commercial production So this is the piece that he's going to do it here and to replace that commission I'm very excited about it. So how it's going to be done How is the question right want to do it? So how is it going to be done? How do you have Hey, you know, you don't want to get close to socrates. You don't want to get close to each other, you know You're in disguise. Maybe your masks are masks that you're disguising yourself for being recognized At being at socrates is hey Yeah, there's all kinds of like how how do you, you know How do you solve, you know the issue? How do you make the It's you know, it's the ching. It's like obstacles great obstacles are great opportunity As long as you're healthy and not on the street and not The refugee and you know, as long as you're like one of the lucky ones and I think carl Touched on this a little bit when he was saying that he actually it was sort of Really making him think deeply and whatever um, but I do think for those who have Yeah, carl hankhawk rocks, uh who uh Who I introduced melanie joseph it introduced into me when I was at the public and had started what was then going to turn into Joe's pub. It was kind of a little festival We made a joes pub on the on the stage of the newman theater and she said you have to meet this guy Call hankhawk rocks. So that was the first time I met him and I'll never forget. I went carl hankhawk rocks It was such a great name to introduce Um, it was just extraordinary, but you know deeply moving and thoughtful what he said Brilliant and Yeah, so so yeah deeply moving deeply moving deeply feeling Wonderful wonderful writer, but you know what he said, you know also is that Those of us who have a luxury to do this To not worry about we're going to be evicted in two minutes and we do have food to eat And we're not worrying about our children. Then, you know, we're not sick Uh We you know, it's a luxury and it's also an obligation We have an obligation to ask these questions of ourselves You know I think we have an obligation And to be inventive, huh said what would all all those people have died for if we don't Exactly It's exactly We few we happy few right? Yeah, uh, maybe not so happy but Well, it's it's it's It's good to good good to hear from you. It reminds me of that old. I think it's the polish definition of optimism and pessimism the pessimist says Stinks cannot possibly get any worse and the optimist says yes, they can you know I love that. Yeah, the time To be a resilient optimist. Yes, actually this can get And we haven't seen and we have to react. So listen, I mean we could Um talk for much more time and uh also get an update From you maybe even whatever three months half a year But see how things are coming up anything you still want to share on the on the screen or Um No, I would you know This this piece of double-edged is phenomenal. I think it's inspirational. Unfortunately, it is so beyond sold out Um, but I think you know to go to the website see some of the articles and also just check out You know some of the the things that people are starting to do Around the country in terms of being inspired, you know, also great small works, which is a puppet company that My political the puppet the political puppet company. I'm involved with it start during occupies kind of uh, you know been Umbrella'd by does these uh puppet slams Like every there's one coming up a spaghetti dinner in august that's coming up And that's both live live puppet shows of people doing live puppet shows and also record in puppet shows So that's a whole we never know what's going to happen at any given time but that's kind of you know, again the community and So it's an outlet for everyone, but it's also the building of community the labyrinth the the theater company labyrinth that did a reading You know several weeks ago Uh, it was just a zoom reading but it was so moving, you know, just to have them read with each other and have that community So I think even the zoom readings A brave new world Did you know like a different act of hamlet with different directors and company members from all over the world? You know one act a week Which was really fun, you know the mamas doing things From from from their series, you know public joys pop You know a lot of things are happening what's things are happening. So it's good. It's good here from you It's good to get the update and it's you know, what important to keep in mind Really, um, what you said and for everybody who's working in the arts, but also in our lives, you know that this is a physical manifestation of something that has been wrong that has infected us and Maybe it's a way to see how do we get get get through this and that distancing perhaps is something that Have to bring us closer That was missing missing before and um, yeah So tomorrow we have with us heli and we nerdy from indonesia who's going to talk about And also she's putting together groups like you of art artists and How to support how to stay connected in the world? We're going to hear from libanon from dima mata It's going to be it's a tough tough tough time in beirut. It's collapsing After the hard time in civil war, there's kind of opening and right now it seems to be One of the places as you say, you know, we Have not seen what is really happening. I mean that well done on friday Richard shakner will be with us and and give us a his view of the world and talk a bit about His journal which he is putting together a covet thing where he has really Oh good, right or some around the world How they what they do think about so really morgan it was great to have you with us It is. Thank you. It's so important what you have done And it's also important what you are going to do and yeah, and it's it's shocking to hear that someone like you Teach that columbia university says i can't afford to go to see a Broadway show. I want to see Um, it's just shocking it shows what is really wrong Oh, yeah adjunct professors. Yeah, although columbia is better than most That is true. Yeah, but still in in general I mean we have music colleagues who say it's tough to get to find You know the I'm going to go to the concerts they would like to see so something is really wrong the access to the arts the access to health The access to education and things have And I hope be a little bit part of that change as you say to create a community and just by observing I think and bogus at that coding Physicists you observe something you notice. Yeah, also changes and but it is Called to action and as you said before it's this us. We have to be part of the change and be the change We want to see it and Are the touch bases that you do with all these people and what I love so much Especially frank is that it is international as international as it is because we tend to get really really provincial in this country You know and to hear from all these other artists from these other countries from what's going on and the other perspectives And to really broaden our our view of the world and ourselves is really really important and to have the consistency of that's been wonderful And hopefully symbolically it stands for something bigger that there is a listening to the world also here in america in new york and We we have to take into account. So really, thank you. Thanks for howl round Yes, that records them so I can see all the ones I missed And as thanks to our listeners It's a as you say it's a lot out there It means a lot to us that you take the time that you listen to the artist What they have to say is significant first also They need to know that people are interested and we have to support them But also what they have to say might change something Contributing authentic change What more said what carl said what osia said was so many said it can help us to maybe redefine the dramaturgy of our own lives And thanks to the seagull team andy and sun yang and I hope you will be able to Can I just sneak one more in for those of you around chatham new york? There's a fabulous performance space called ps 21 which is performance space for the 21st century That's starting to do in their band shell socially distant mainly concerts But that also have all kinds of plans for kind of little like walking tours and more theatrical events coming into the fall So they're also very being very creative about approaching this You heard it first here. I was not aware fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, we're the first year All the best for the double-edged work for the opening. Thank you Come and see it and And as peter schumann and says tribes and they're perhaps working in in nature Having your own space seems what's working. What has always worked. Genie barba talked about it to maybe this is a way to really think That is a way to do theater and and to do this theater. You want in the community you create and be part of Right, so thank you so much and morgan. Thank you frank. Thanks for asking