 Hi. How are you? My name is Ryan Haddad and I am a writer-performer. I do autobiographical performance work and my show titled Hi Are You Single was done in the public theaters under the Radar Festival, which is why Andrew Kircher, who helped curate the incoming series, thought that I would be good at moderating panels because he said that I was charming and funny. So I'm going to try to do that for you tonight. I'm here with Noelle Elaine from The Bushwick Star. He's the artistic director and I'm here with Moises Kaufman, artistic director of the Tectonic Theater Project and director on your own as well. So let's join each other in a conversation of how did you make that? Geared mostly towards how did you make the two companies that you are the artistic directors of, but certainly if you want to talk about your art in other capacities, I'm not going to stop you. So let's begin with just a short description of your companies individually and what led you to the creation of those institutions. So let's start with Noelle with the Bushwick Star and we're going to use the microphones so that yes, great. I think, great. Hi, I'm Noelle Elaine. I'm the artistic director of the Bushwick Star Theater in Brooklyn. We are a black box theater that presents new work by New York City performing artists in theater, dance, music, performance, and everything in between. I fell into doing this by accident. I was an actor and I was part of a theater company from my undergrad. I went to Skidmore College and after being in New York for about four years and doing work with that company and doing work with other people and whatnot, I went back to school. I went to Juilliard to study acting and over that period of time the company kind of did a few things, but then people started to move on with their lives in different directions. But we had acquired this loft in Bushwick where we became a live work space for the company. So it had been converted somewhat into a black box theater, but people lived there, which turned out to be a saving grace for me in going into my fourth year at Juilliard. I had a housing crisis and needed a place to live and Sue Kessler, who is my partner running the space and now additionally John Delgadio sitting right over there. You know, I should put my glasses on before I start pointing at people. That's cute, right? Sue told me, oh, there's a space available if you want to live at the star, which we were calling it at the time and it's on Star Street. And I was like, I don't want to live. I don't want to move in there. It's got mess, you know. But I was having a crisis moment, so it was convenient to find a place to sleep and put my stuff. So I did that and then very quickly started to think about this space and its possibilities and to make a very long story short. I just realized, you know, the company had kind of come to an end and I was going to be graduating from school again and I just, it felt like a very blank slate moment and I had a lot of interest in trying to create a new creative community and this seemed like a way of doing that. So Sue and I started talking about that and it was, we had some grand ideas, but at the end of the day it was just about like putting it out there and seeing who wanted to use it and see what kind of, we've had ideas about salons or concerts or things, you know, it was pretty open. And then over time it's evolved into what it is now where we have a season of work each year that we present. Our model is kind of always evolving somewhere between presenting and co-producing. So that's my answer. So turning that on was the greatest success of my day today. Oh my goodness. So then we can do that for you. I can go now. So I started Tectonic Theater Project in 1991 and I started it because I was very unhappy with the work that I was seeing around me and I come from Venezuela, from Caracas and when it was growing up we had a really wonderful international theater festival. So I grew up seeing the work of Peter Brooke and Joseph Grotowski and Pina Bausch and that was my earliest experiences were with that kind of work, which were experimental theater companies that were really pushing the boundaries of what could happen on stage. I was so ingrained in that world that the first time I saw a realistic play I thought, this is so avant-garde. There is a sink on stage and water comes out of the faucet. And I often think that I must have had the same experience that the Russians had when they saw the seagull for the first time. That sense of, oh this is a new theatrical vocabulary and what are its possibilities. By the time I got to New York, 90% of what I was seeing was realism and naturalism and I was very bored by that. At the time when TV and film were doing that so well what was the theatrical vocabulary is that we could continue to develop in this stage. So this line of questioning led me to create tectonic theater project and tectonic means the art and science of structure as in architecture, architectonic, tectonic plates. And the name came out of the desire to do a real formal exploration of what could happen on stage and trying to stay away from realism and naturalism and realize and exploring what is the conversation that happens between the audience and the stage especially when it regards to narrative. We're very very invested in narrative and we're very very invested in exploring new theatrical vocabularies and new theatrical forms and trying to continue to redefine what that relationship is. The company just turned 25 years old and we're still schlepping all of our stuff around so that never changes and that's it. Do you, it's an ensemble company and you create you're constantly creating generating work. Do you always do one project at a time or are you circulating lots of different ideas and then whenever one is ready okay that's the time to. Yeah the latter I think right now we have five projects in development so you know it depends on which one comes through fruition first. And when how do those ideas come to the ensemble is it something where you say oh this is an issue that I want to tackle or this is a story I want to tell or is there a different way. It varies. It's interesting that we're having this conversation today because today's the 19th anniversary of the day that Matthew Shepard was attacked. And that was an event that really immediately led me to go to the company and say let's go to Laramie and talk to people. So that you know sometimes something happens that captures your imagination. Currently we're about to open a new play called Uncommon Sense which is about life in the autism spectrum. And that was two company members who had a personal experience with autism and they wanted to explore it so they took to the rehearsal room and they created this piece. So it varies. It happens in many different ways how we choose what we do next. And know how have you as the company has evolved you say now you have a season and it's between presenting and co-producing. So what has that evolution been like and as you've sort of taken on the responsibility of we're going to have a season now what do you look for when you're putting things into your slots. What was the first part of the question? You're saying that it's evolved over the time since 2010. So what does that relationship look like with each artist. I mean I guess the rule is it's always different because each I think at a certain point when we were evolving we were trying to really you know formalize things and say this is the form this is how we're going to work with people and then we very quickly learned that we threw that out the window every time because every artist has different needs depending on where they're at and every project has different needs. So the rule now is kind of to sit down with people and say where are we at what do we what do we need to do how can we help this project specifically. But there are some like guidelines I mean we offer everything that we have to each of our season artists that means you know lots of time in the space for rehearsal we have a summer residency period of course the performances we don't have any kind of like you know minimum or anything that they have to pay it's like okay this is all yours. And we kind of started there from the very beginning when we didn't have any money we thought well that's time and space are valuable things and we have you know lights and sound and all that we can provide all that. And then as time has gone on and we've grown and our staff has grown we now you know give fees that we pay artists per project so we have like a certain amount of money that we can just put towards the project. Our staff has grown so we can help out in many different ways in terms of a fundraising plan and then just our production team helping the space and all these kinds of you know nuts and bolts things. But putting together a season it's a funny thing because I find like one of the most exciting things about programming is the intuitive nature of it and that's always fun for me to feel like I'm making a discovery a personal discovery when I'm seeing something or we don't really produce pieces we ask artists whose work overall we're really excited by what they want to make for you know at the start so finding work that's really speaking to me is really an exciting discovery. But when we do you look at the season you're looking for diversity in all ways and trying to strive towards that and that has to do with the artists and season has to do the type of work through you know different disciplines and that's become I think more and more of a focus as we move forward and start really becoming I think more educated about how you how you do that and how you foster you know a diverse institution that produces diverse work and going from being kind of like a couple of form well I'm say former artists but like you know reformers who are running a spaced saying how we how we how we're running an organization that has some kind of integrity and credibility. Sure you both are artists in your own right certainly but now also have taken on this hat of being an administrator of being a leader of these two major organizations in New York City and internationally in your case I mean Laramie Project has done everywhere everywhere and so what have you found to be as with the administrative hat on the biggest challenge for you that you have faced as an artistic director and how did you sort of surmount that challenge? The biggest challenge? I mean that's what I said but if you want to modify you're certainly welcome to do that. I think that I mean be perfectly honest I think the biggest challenge is also been one of the most rewarding parts of doing this which is we are in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood and have been from from day one um and when we started I didn't really know what any I didn't even really know that word and now I feel like um I have been my uh it's been education for me over the past 10 years learning how you work with um your community how an art institution works with this community how you build relationships and it's been a humbling experience and a really good one for me to go through it's and difficult at times or challenging on a personal level so I think that that's the most the biggest challenge. So I don't know I have been fortunate enough that I uh I have always partnered with really good executive directors and I trust that they will deal with the administrative part because I'm terrible at that I don't have that part of my brain I didn't go to I didn't go when God was giving that part of the brain I was I was late so I have but but the thing that that I find interesting about running a theater company and the administrative part of it is that I always try to have the work lead the the all of that everything else and it's a little bit with knowledge saying is you start with what is the work what does the work need one of the biggest the best experiences that I've ever had in development work was when we went to the Sundance theater lab and the reason for that was that they they had this form and the form was that you work three days a week you work Monday Wednesday Friday and then you take off every other day and they do it for a pragmatic reason because we're sharing casts so the same cast that is in my place and somebody else's play but what happens to you as a playwright director and as a company is that you work one day and then you have to you have you're forced to take the other day off and then you work and what happens is that in those days off is when the best work gets made right because your subconscious is working because you have time you know it's not the most financially savvy format right because you're paying people you know they can do it because of what they do but you know if I went to a commercial producer today or to any producer and said we're going to do a workshop of a new play and it's going to be three days a week and the other days we're going to be writing in our minds they would not be very eager to give me money for that but but what that taught me was that that often the models and the forms that are the rigor that are what's being used in the in the culture at large are not useful right so whenever I'm developing a new play I really try and start from what's useful is it useful to have half a day of video and sound work and then bring the actors in the afternoon is it useful to work with a writer for two days in a room without any actors and that you know how do we do it instead as opposed to trying to fit pre-existing models of development what I find most helpful you know Andrew Schneider right do you know his work he's fantastic and you know if I was working with him it would be a complete do you guys know Andrew Schneider he wrote a piece called I I am no I am nowhere or I am now here and he was really really wonderful and but he he needed to be in the room with all of the elements of the stage to create the piece it wasn't did you present it is that what you're cracking out who's saying you are am I cracking up there's no control over my face was I making a face yes he he developed some of it at the start but we didn't present it no but he's he's developed he's designing the show that we're working on right so I don't know so when you ask about how difficult is the administrative part I don't do it so I don't know but but I think that what is important more and more and more and more especially there are so many new theater companies that are really finding ways of working together lots of young theater companies yes and I think that's a very it's a it's a very exciting moment in American theater because you know the 70s 80s and 90s there were a bunch of theater companies and then the idea of a theater company as a way to produce work kind of fell off and now there's a new resurgence of that and there's a real excitement that that you're seeing it in the work you know less and less works are taking place in living rooms you know but I think I was actually making smiling because I was thinking of the I was having a conversation with someone recently about this this idea like where ideas come from and this friend of mine was saying someone they knew was saying that they have they have moments where they don't have any thoughts in their head and she was like I don't think that's a thing and I was like I I actually think I I go I need I go into that state and I need to because I could be sitting there trying to rack my brain figuring what to do about something but if I take a moment which is so rare these days I feel like to to pause and just look out the window nine times out of ten that's when I'm like I know what to do you know about the problem or whatever it is it comes out of nowhere and that's a freedom we don't offer ourselves and I think it's a very scary thing to stop and kind of just let yourself sit and I think there are two things about about that one is you know Mike Nichols used to say that when he was in pre-production for a film he would only work half a day because the other half a day his subconscious was doing the work so that's how much he believed in it that he put it in his contract at pre-production days we're only half day so the other half day he could dream uh and the other thing is other half day he could dream that's fabulous that's right uh and the other day I was in the shower and and we were late for uh for a for a thing and uh my husband knocked on the door on the shower and said we're late we're late get out then five minutes go by he comes back get out get out we're late finally he knocks on the door says stop writing and get out of the shower and um so yeah all right I think that's a good point at which to open questions up to the audience I know that there is a young theater company in the front row but I don't want to put you on the spot anybody have questions we have an individual with the microphone sure one moment we're going to wait for the microphone just because you can hear me we're live streaming that's the reason you hear me now mm-hmm I have a question for Mr. Kaufman I understand you work internationally and can you tell us a little bit about the differences you experience working in other countries other than America it depends but in in Europe for example there are much more ready to work the way that the theater companies are working they understand the process goes first and then kind of administration informs you know go second I think that it's interesting right I always think that in America this idea that the most important newspaper in America the most important section of arts on Sunday New York Times is called art and leisure right it's one word art and leisure right or art and entertainment and I think that you know in Europe in Latin America there's a different perception of what is the relationship with the stage and between the stage and the audiences and what can we expect from our theater artists so I think that that's still I mean I think as I said the new theater companies there's a new a new there's something in the air now that is very exciting about what can happen on stage and what can we do and what conversations can we have hi so you just mentioned the stages relationships of the audience which actually is what I had brewing in my head ever since both of you mentioned sort of inclusivity and including diverse experiences in your work and in the and in the artist you program how do you extend that same inclusivity and diversity to your audience like I know you're talking about feeling that like the theater itself is gentrifying a neighborhood like you're in Bushwick one of the most like diverse neighborhoods in New York City how do you how do you look for audiences who aren't looking for you yeah it's been a really amazing process over the past you know five eight years to figure some of that out and we're still learning but I think the biggest lesson I've learned over that period of time is that it's it's predominantly about forming trusting relationships first and giving opportunities to see work second I mean if there had to be an order that if you just say we're offering tickets to see this show you know or whatever it may be even if it's in Spanish even if it's free even if it's for kids in the neighborhood it's not necessarily gonna guarantee that anyone shows up people show up when you build a relationship with them where they feel like they have a relationship to your your space or your company or whatever it may be and I think in the past few years we've really besides our after school program where we're just you know forming relationships with the kids because we're spending so much you know months with them we're we're learning about ways that we can continue to build relationships in the neighborhood that have a kind of more form a stronger bond and that's often through the artists we're working with and through the work that they're making and as and a big part of it in the past few years has been our staff growth so that we also have the capacity to to do that work because it is quite a bit of work to get out there meet people be you know doing ongoing communication and and investigating opportunities and like that's that's you need the capacity to be able to do that so you have to figure out what that job is how can we start to do that most effectively and then and then you just um and then talking to people and listening you know what what are people looking for what what are the types of things that we do that match up with that how can we continue to grow to to further serve our media community and where we are hi we actually are all currently in a production of the Laramie project that goes up in the end of October and so this is all a surreal magical moment um I'm actually playing you so this is even weirder um but uh I'm so fortunate hi uh my question is sort of just like with everything that's been happening since the Laramie project and apparently and in recent events do you ever find because you also you you said how um you find what's useful and with your projects do you ever find and just are sitting there and think about the Laramie project and are just sort of of daunted and just thinking about how scary and relevant everything still is it seems like after the tenure mark after 10 years later after everything like do you ever think about that well it's bittersweet right I mean obviously I am uh thrilled that the conversation is continuing and that the place serves as a catalyst for that and I'm also really depressed that it is still so often performed right because it means that this conversation has not evolved as much as we wanted to evolve right today Jeff Sessions passed another idiotic thing right about religious freedoms right I always you know I think they're really good playwrights they always find the most incredible ways of calling things poetically what they're not I mean they have this incredible ability anyway but um so yeah so I think but having said that I think that the play although it deals with with the hate crime at its heart it is really about a community trying to come to terms with its way of thinking and I think that in that sense it transcends any one issue you know it was Matthew Shepherd killed because he was gay 1000 percent of course but he was also killed because he was a feminine and the definition of masculinity of the two men who killed him couldn't accept that right he was also killed because they thought he was a rich white kid and they were you know trying to rob somebody and so it is about of course him being gay but it's also about gender identity it's also about class it's also about religion it's also about all of the fault lines that are dividing our culture so the days when I get too depressed about how relevant it still is that's what I tell myself thank you where are you doing the play what a venue other questions okay I have one what would you tell the person who was just starting out what would you tell your younger self looking back I would say stay really really close to whatever it is that that launched in you the dream of doing this because as you get older and as more of the business part of it comes in you tend to lose touch with that every time that I've made a decision based on career I've made the wrong decision and every time I've made a decision based on what was it that I wanted to see on stage you know I would like to believe that I've made the right decision even when it failed I think I spent a long time making a lot of decisions when I was younger based on things based on fear basically the things I was afraid of failing at and there was a certain point in my life after I first moved to New York where I kind of like made the decision to stop thinking that way and that's when I started to like basically I feel like discover who I actually was so I would say don't hide from the things that are you know scary terrifying to you we will all fail like numerous times but you have to do that in order to figure out what it is you're meant to do in some capacity more oh there has to be me these are Titans people great for more says um what what sparked the idea moment work for you to basically pioneer that type of theater because I find it extremely interesting and explain it for the people who don't yes moment work is the the kind of process that we use a tectonic to make work and over the last 15 years we've been codifying it and we're about to come up with a book the random house is publishing called moment work which is our process and so we I always thought of tectonic as a laboratory right and the big question for the laboratory was how do you continue to explore you know what is theatrical and what can happen on stage and as I said before I was really disappointed with realism and naturalism Oscar Wilde said this hilarious thing he said that that when Shakespeare has Hamlet say that the purpose of art is to hold a mirror to reality Shakespeare is only saying that as proof of his madness so that Hamlet is so mad that he believes that realism is a good idea right um but so to me um when we started working we started to create exercises to ask that question what is theatrical how does the theater communicate what you know and what we began to find was that when we talk about dramaturgy we are always talking about uh dramatic dramaturgy meaning character plot development action all of these things that the playwright deals with right but we were interested in creating a theatrical dramaturgy meaning how do the elements of the stage begin to participate in a theatrical conversation right so for example Tom Stoppert tells the story of a production he saw of The Tempest and it took place at a theater like the Delacorte which was a theater that was outdoors and upstage of the theater of the stage was a lake and upstage of the lake was a forest and at one moment in the play Prospero um says farewell to Ariel and Shakespeare writes ariel exits two words ariel exits in this production the character playing Ariel started running towards the lake full speed and when she got to the lake she started running on the lake so the stage designer had put this put these things on the lake not visible to the audience where Ariel could walk on water and then when she got to the other side she ran into the forest and when she disappeared from view fireworks erupted so all of us so all of a sudden Ariel exits becomes a a a theatrical story about this character that can walk on water and becomes fire and they found a theatrical way of articulating the the what the spiritual nature of Ariel right and to me that that way of using theater to construct sophisticated storytelling is really exciting um Robert LaPage did this piece there were seven generations of people and um the the great grandmother the first person was a survivor of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and she had this wedding kimono that she wasn't getting to use because the atomic explosion had deformed her um so there's this wedding kimono and somehow in in all of the part all of the acts of the play the wedding kimono makes an appearance and the last of the seven hours of this play is the great grandson of her who is studying buto and uh he's doing this dance and he's in his underwear and he takes the wedding kimono and he puts it on and he stands with the wedding kimono and the wedding kimono was so long that it covered his fingers and the collar was so tall that it almost went above his head so he looked at himself as himself in the mirror and he turned around and when he finished making that turn inside the kimono was the grandmother and then he turned around and inside the kimono his mother and he turned around and inside the kimono was him again so you know as a playwright I can write three pages about how objects have the ability to carry the DNA of our spiritual life blah blah blah right but he managed in one single gesture to articulate a very sophisticated idea theatrically so moment work is that the series of exercises that we created to profoundly understand what is a vocabulary of the stage how do you create theatrical storytelling and um you know I often say that if you're studying to paint you don't spend two years thinking about the painting and then coming to you you're you start with the with the brush and with the paint colors and with the canvas and so moment work is a way to do that theatrically so we come into the rehearsal room with an idea and then we allow the idea to class with the theatrical elements so that these theatrical elements begin to talk about the idea does that make sense yes so that's how that came about thank you somebody said that talking about theater is like dancing about architecture no sometimes that feels that way doesn't it now I'm thinking about like 17 different images at one time because of everything you just said go on could you both say something that you've learned about leadership what did Melanie say just about an hour ago she had such a great quote is it Melanie who said it was invitation things about invitation maybe it wasn't her who said it someone said um that uh and I really and I resonated with me that a great leader is concerned with being right but is much more concerned with but also concerned with being wrong yeah even more concerned with when they are are wrong and in discovering how they are wrong and learning from that I thought that was hit the nail on there for those who didn't want it was Jacob Padron of the Soul Project who was just being quoted that's right and you I don't know I think that I would say two things uh the question I often ask myself is do I want to be right or do I want to get what I want and you know so I don't need to be right and when I say get what I want that I mean get I mean lead us in the direction that I want to lead us and that's a really good thing do you want to be right or do you want to get what you want so that's one and then the other thing is I don't think that there's any one style of leadership that works or doesn't work I know a director friend of mine who's a tyrant tyrant radical you know really but he gets magnificent work from the actors you know I am exactly the opposite I want to create a room that people want to join right um and I want to have a room that people that inspires people and that nurtures people but I think that over over my life I've seen um that you know that there's not only one way to do it this is sort of like a half question that's forming my head but I was very um I was very much interested in in what at Moises you were talking about at the Sundance Festival which is like this weird not necessarily commercially viable way of like being forced to have these days off but like in these days off um in any projects where you're sort of able to daydream where you sort of do the writing when your husband's you know when you're in the shower and you're writing in there uh could both of you share if if something comes to mind something that would be considered a day off but in a way where you are engaging with the world in not a work sort of way that is sort of unlocked something in something that you're working on does that make sense I was I if uh I was wondering if you would share with us a recent moment where like on this day off sort of moment you're engaging with the world in a way in which it'll unlock something it's I'm just sort of curious I was working on my play 33 variations and I was at Sundance and uh I was stuck with a scene that wasn't working and I took and I and I and it was the end of the day so I just lie in the rehearsal room floor and I fell asleep and I dreamt a scene and the scene that I dreamt ended up being in the play like just exactly like that I ended up just placing the scene in the play and to me what what what there's proof that what we're talking about is not just how inspiration comes from your no it's not that it's this uh sometimes the scientist explained this to me he says if you say oh I have that word in the tip of my tongue but I can't think of it right let me talk about something else and then it'll come to me right and then you talk about something else and then the word comes to you so what's happening in your brain at that moment right what's happening in your brain is that part of your brain is still looking for the word part of your brain is still retrieving the word while you're doing other things and then that part of the brain that is retrieving the word finds it and brings it to the foreground so we know you know we know a lot about the subconscious so we know that there are things that are happening that we don't know that are happening so the question becomes how do you allow yourself the time to do it one big exercise that I do is when I'm writing a new play and I'm stuck if I if I go to sleep please know that sleep is becoming a recurring event right a recurring theme like before I go to sleep at night I'm like okay I need the solution for this I need to I need to come up with a solution for how to do this and I go to sleep and invariably the next morning I don't have the solution it doesn't happen magically like that but something has shifted and a new window is open where before there wasn't a window so I guess for me the question becomes how do you continue to have a conversation with all the other systems that are at work yeah I got I was just I mean recently I was John and I were talking about this earlier like it's been a really busy couple of weeks um so I feel like I haven't had that I like at that point we were needing some more of some more sleep I feel like sleep is like my present to myself these days you know it's like Christmas every time I go to bed you know but um and I feel like if I'm thinking about like moments of quiet moments I've had lately I feel like it is there like these moments of just existing and like how much of a gift that is to like stand like find yourself like maybe like there was a full moon the other night you know like just like look at the moon and be like I'm not thinking about anything I'm just looking at that the moon and and just feeling the air isn't that nice you know I'm not on my to-do list you know um but uh and I feel like the moments I mean I feel like for me lately um the moments come actually from talking to people that I more and more my discovery process comes from verbalizing just like can't don't know what it is until I start talking it out and all of a sudden I just said what I what I was looking for um and I don't know it's a similar process but I don't know exactly what that is I think there are a lot of playwrights who refuse to talk about the plays they're writing I find that I write my best plays when I'm sitting at dinner having a drink because I talk I speak about it and you're right you know the other thing David Lynch wrote a book called the fish catching the big fish catching the big fish and it's a really good book that talks about meditation and how the bigger fish residing the lower parts of your consciousness and meditation is a really good way to get down there it's sort of follow up how do you I feel like how do you feel the different times when you can take a moment for yourself and not focus on your work how do you differentiate between laziness and taking a break for yourself or just recognizing the time you need versus the time you need to like power through necessity and exhaustion when you need to stop like you know that you know there's that moment and then when you know something has to be achieved in a certain amount of time and you're focused on getting that done that focus that pushes you forward I don't I mean I can't remember the last time I felt bored or or like I was being lazy and in fact one thing I learned I feel like over the past you know number of years is that taking a break for yourself and allowing yourself to you know burning out is a real thing and if you don't take care of yourself on some sort of regular basis whether it be like little moments in the day or just taking a vacation at some point in the year to recharge though you're not you're not forming a long-term strategy you know I don't I don't function well if I if I'm too exhausted so I I just learned that about myself and I just know how to try to you know keep myself in the best condition possible to get work done yeah I think you know who was it that said that all an artist needs is a good idea and a deadline what he said how do you balance your work as an individual artist with the work that you're doing for your companies at large badly okay yeah not much I mean I don't I only work as an actor once in a while now when it's it's not completely irresponsible to make that decision and take that time away and and when and I think also when hopefully that and like a project or they want to do both magically line up so we did a show last year now and then I get the privilege of an artist asking me to be in something that they're doing at the star which is always a weird negotiation just in terms of like two two hats um but that show is now happening again in at the end of january so it's going to be one of those balancing acts uh no porto okay and miles from Mary but I'm not in miles okay okay um so um but that feels like oh I want to do this like this is a great opportunity and a great show and something we made at the star but it's taken a lot of there were years where I was like kind of slowly making the difficult um pros you know the difficult decisions about phasing out looking for work as an actor taking work as an actor said there was a point where it's like I'm not going out of town anymore I can't do that and then there was a point where I was just like they were doing this project and I can't take anything that conflicts with that and that just became more and more um common so I have like a kind of hope that in the back of my head that maybe we'll get we'll grow to a point where I'll be able to like have more freedom to take on projects of my owner as an actor but who knows I think it's interesting right because in the arts world we always start our lives in any art form in a mindset of scarcity right oh I don't have a job oh I don't you know where am I gonna get my next job where you know and there's a moment where hopefully it transitions and you do begin to get more jobs and you do begin and your life begins to get more into the realm you want and then you have to change your mindset from scarcity to abundance and then you have to start making very strategic decisions right so okay I've been offered to direct this play but I'm still working on the new play that it's about to come to fruition so which one do I take and um so those are the questions so it's so thinking long-term and strategically becomes imperative and I think this actually relates a little bit to your question before about advice um I never imagined I'd be doing what I'm doing now I always was just I thought I'd come to New York and try to be you know make a career as an actor and that path turned out to be more difficult than I wanted it to be and then this other thing came up and I started doing that and that seemed to be offering much more abundance in terms of like the success we were having and the direction it was going and I never I think part of me for a long time was thinking that's not what I'm that's not me that's not what I do until I realized that I really I should invest in this this is something that's working out and and so I think and people talk about this a lot that in this day and age it is good to have a you know to know to not to find yourself as one thing you're you could be a writer a director a performer a administrator you can you know or maybe just a couple of those things but like you can do different things and and and figure out which one um you know works for you I think it's it's really important in the in working the arts right now um maybe always maybe it always was and and then it's been amazing to me how that work has now you know helped lead to opportunities for me as as as a performer that I didn't I don't know if they would have been there otherwise so to follow the green lights as they say cliche to follow the green lights yeah like like traffic lights I think we're at time so thank you to Noel and Moises