 What are you doing up? It's 4 a.m. I'm beating my fish. You can't smoke in here It's a study break you said you quit I'll quit after this one Why isn't the smoke detector going off? broken That's not safe I'm sure we'll be okay Remember when you started that fire you've reminded me daily Not daily It was a long time ago You had a chemistry set and you made me hold the beaker you wanted to play you got it for your birthday. I Got it for Christmas. No, it was your birthday because it was in yellow wrapping paper with pink and green and white balloons on it That was for birthday. If it was for Christmas, it would have been great Christmas pick wrapping would change every year. I love that set We played as scientists and assistant. I Was assistant you called me Igor. I Never called you Igor, but it was fun and You said we were gonna make a bomb and you told me it was a pretend bomb I was just messing around You said you were gonna blow up the school. What I Never would say you did say that Make me sound like a Columbine psycho or something you did say that didn't mean it Every time we played there was a mission like one time we saved a sick dog Never saved a sick dog. We invented stuff and one time you made a fake arm and it could move That was awesome. I remember that and the volcano exploded all over the laundry room on the clean clothes That was funny. Mom was mad But you laughed We were laughing and we were laughing so hard and then mom came down and was mad And then you started crying and she blamed me, but you were laughing too. I didn't know what I was doing as usual Sometimes I would look at you and think this is all just one big act like You get to have the tooth fairy and Santa and the Easter Bunny forever And if I ever told you the truth mom would get mad at me Like I was corrupting you, but how could you say so? What? innocent What do you mean? It must be nice to be a kid your whole life And then you burned to me didn't burn you you made me hold the beaker Wanted to you begged to you said I got to your job It was a mistake. No kid beat you up and you wanted to bomb the whole school And you made me hold the test to me up because of you I was fucking defending you If it wasn't me it was going to be you Funny how you remember everything but that That's how I know my memory is right It was unscrewed somebody unscrewed it Ram turn it off because you're smoking. You're gonna start out of fire Not smoking. He's gonna start another fire. You're gonna start another fire Damn You're gonna start another fire You're gonna start a fire and back for your help second-hand smoke is even deadly are okay. Okay. You're right. All right You're right. So shut the fuck up You're right. I'm the big asshole. You're the poor suffering victim. I didn't want to hold the beaker You made me you wanted to be a Igor There I quit We end. Thank you, Dan No, no, no. Thank you, Teddy So I would love to invite Jeremy To join us. Hello Oh So that was a scene a relatively newer scene from the importance of being By Jeremy Jay Camps. He's joining us right now Um, we've been working on this play with a spectrum theater ensemble for a while Do you want to talk about how you got to know us and and how you developed this piece? Sure, and um, thank you Teddy and Dan for doing such a great job as always this this um I think my spectrum I started in 2015 or 2016 in the summer And came and did a little bit of work together for the um devised piece that everyone did But then coming out of that Clay um had the vision for us to develop a play with seven members of the ensemble So over the course of about a year I would come for three days at a time Um, I live I lived in brooklyn at the time and we would do workshops. We'd play we tell stories We'd go on tangents lots and lots of tangents We um This this page is actually didn't come till pretty deep into the process at that point I think the first day that I brought some pages They were sort of loosely inspired by things that we that we'd been that come up in our time together But none of those pages are in the script at all. So it really kind of grew over time and little by little um, we found the play and um, and then had a really amazing reading at the end of it, uh, which was I think two years ago now a year and a half ago and then another reading I got just over a year ago And so in that time Now since I don't go up as regularly um the It's just been the readings But in even in those pockets The conversations I've had with you two and clay And anyone who's seen the reading has helped me continue to sort of hone and develop the script And like you said this being one of the um newer scenes coming out of the last reading focusing on The relationship with the brother who's because really it's a play about siblings two brothers and a sister um, and uh So yeah, so this was a play that a scene that we thought was maybe lacking to get to see these two um a little more in depth and know a little bit about their history. So Here it is and it was so great to to hear it and continue to develop this play together Absolutely Dan did you have any thoughts about the process or questions for Jeremy? Well, when I read the script I was intrigued but actually the scene brings down I was talking about this yesterday with Teddy a sort of a darker side to nile. I mean nile, um Graham Because usually in the first couple of uh drafts to me he came across as a little too innocent to Too much of a cardboard. Of course that's because I when I see things on paper It hasn't been fully developed yet But in this scene you really get to see a different side of Graham that no one really ever get seen before Can you maybe go a little depth into that one that one scene? Yeah, you mean into into the thinking behind that scene? Yes. Yeah Well, I think I think part of it is because you know, I'm sitting here today watching the two of you and um In some of the parts the characters have been interchangeable But you two have been with these parts from the beginning only you two all the way through And so I was really seeing Seeing, you know, the great thing about this art form is that it's collaborative and so um, I really was feeling like Already like giving it away sooner than usual because we've we've worked together so much So some of it came from actually what you just said there Dan you've mentioned um, you know adding some more dimensions to to Graham and um and then I think This idea of um of not being innocent Ted scenes a Niall sees him as innocent, right at face glance, but um part of Niall's Uh struggle is that he doesn't fully see his brother and so um and and As long as he only sees his brother as the one who got him beat up or Like the one in the way of his life, um, they can't have a real relationship. They they're actually not going to know love as opposed to Them just both accepting and understanding each other fully So it was a it was a scene to I mean this is kind of an ensemble play. It is throughout three siblings But there are a few other characters that are pretty primary And so um, this was something as some of the plays are hard to write because you have limited real estate But I noticed I cut some scenes that I liked but actually weren't telling the story of the brothers and the siblings So that's why I put that in absolutely And I noticed Niall's given a little more of a maybe not much of a sympathetic But more of a realistic approach rather than just him trying to be trying to be sarcastic to keep his true feelings inside Yeah, absolutely. I mean and also to speak to Niall I think another conversation Dan and I had recently since we have been with these characters so long Is sometimes it is hard to separate You know, because they're all an amalgamation of the company and the conversations So there are pieces of us in every every character But it is it is interesting when you've been with one for so long not to I identified Niall sometimes when I talk about him I talk about it in the eye form and and um, and then I have to take ownership of his flaws And I do think this scene is exciting because in the context of the play you realize The parents are not present Niall's trying to plan a wedding and go through grad school while managing a non-verbal Teenage girl and a very verbal 20 something brother and And I think something that clay who directed this pointed out to me recently while we were working on it is um That I didn't even come to mind is that he can only study and work on his grad school stuff at night because he has to be with these people all day and it did make me feel for him a bit more because He definitely has a lot of growth to do From this scene to the rest of the play And uh Yeah, that's I saw I saw sorry I started this is one of the tangents that started I have a question for you two. Yeah. Is that okay? Yeah. Um, so usually when I write, um When I hear the word I have hear the word remember come out of a character's voice I'm like, oh great all the action is happening offstage It's not active and this one, but I but I I wanted to Um, I wanted this one that felt like the memory was active Um, and I'm wondering just if that came through for you What what it was like to play something now Graham and Niall Talking about Graham and Niall some some years ago. What challenge was that to make that active? Did it did it feel like to what degree it it still helped us see them as growing? um forward moving humans in the world I I think real quick before I pass it off to dan. Um, just to almost continue my point. We've been with them for So long For me as an actor It was kind of easy to be able to think of history with these characters because I have history with these characters um uh and For me it's active because I think this is like, you know, like any play um Any story we're putting on stage. I think there's always this piece of the ingredients that that that are um Some things about to change or something has never happened before and this is what this is you're witnessing it and um this seems seems to kind of like, uh Explore a darker moment in these siblings lives and and but it's something that I think Niall has to kind of deal with On a regular basis if Graham's schedule gets flummoxed or if he gets up or is it perturbed in some way It you know, they have to have this conversation and it seems that In my impression of it that Graham does bring this up a lot because it affects him and in the examples that Niall gives so it's like, um This is I think in some ways the baseline of these characters relationship that needs to change by the end of the play um, so for me, it's very active because It's informative of their relationship Compared to in the earlier scenes where you see Graham being delightful and Niall is is not warm To put it kindly I'd say um, Dan Do you have any thoughts on that? Well, it's true actually what he's been pointing out because I have been with Graham for so long that it kind of starts to wear Into you, but one of the things I've also discovered during the scene is sort of the Difference between him and me that I have to emulate because keep in mind I grew up with a family who's always been around for me I had a father who always worked and then came back home whenever I need to a mom that gave up a career to stay home with me and do siblings that Helped me give the tools to what I need, but it also made me think of the bustling time I had with them. So I've kind of sort of tried to emulate that But still may understand the difference between Graham and I which is we really didn't have the parents around for us So it kind of made made it a really hard scene to do But it kind of gave me a side of Graham Graham and Niall's relationship that I felt like needed to be talk about Whether it's in the early script is not really touched upon and I feel like this I don't know how to explain this but I feel like it's one of those memory bits where he feels like he's kind of not suffering from PTSD But kind of feeling the ghost of the past sort of haunt that particular memory of him And that mark is sort of like the mark of king Yeah, absolutely. Um, I think I just want to since we only have a few more minutes Um, uh, Jeremy, I wanted to get your thoughts on the neurodiversity new play festival. You helped us organize this Um, you know, what do you think of the work we are trying to do this year given everything? We've made a lot of adjustments um With covet and social distancing um What are your hopes for the future of this festival and like what were the challenges and opportunities this time around? Um Well, I think the the you know, I think that clay's vision and the vision of the ensemble has been as always um really empowering and affirming and the kind of sort of um Initiative and people and work I want to be around so um, it's been great to get to be a part of it and um, my role specifically was focused on um drawing in some other playwrights um to write some of the short plays and um You know to me whenever whenever there's collaboration Uh, it's an opportunity to kind of mix it with some people who maybe maybe you don't I don't know as well and um maybe people who this is an opportunity and and so um you know, I've looked at where This need of uh creating voice and um a space for uh neurodiverse stories is really exciting and to be able to tell the multi-layered diverse um textured depth of stories so that it doesn't become singular. I think when um, I uh, Jummonda Ngozi Adichie says it best in a TED talk and other other places where she talks about the danger of a single story when we only have one story of a neurodiverse person that becomes reductive and can be in a danger akin to erasure or silence or no story and so this is to me a push to do that and a push to sort of to also collaborate across many lines of difference while also um paradoxically centering neurodiversity without um without reducing the The emotional truths and human condition of all characters, whether they be on the spectrum or otherwise Yep, absolutely to add on that and actually actually I was telling Teddy this the other day I think of art in the way of black up. I on the top you have the plays about certain topic from a certain other grouping like uh neuro typical neuro atypical But the thing that has to be important is the filling which has to work together with the crust to make the pie a delicious thing If that filling is empty or worthless It's gonna all fall apart. So I feel like that's what we're trying to do here Absolutely. I think of it with neurodiversity Which is neither neurodivergent exclusive or neuro typical exclusive. It's both of them together Which as clay likes to say Means basically if you're willing and and and and passionate by theater Join us like you're you're you fall you fit the criteria if and um And I think just to some of your points another thing we often say is because it's a challenge when we're dealing with some of these Uh topics and trying to bring more inclusion into theater Um that we sometimes we have to show the world as it is not as it should be We know as the world as it should be and we'd like to tell this and I think let's go to your your point Jeremy about not you know avoiding a reductive narrative is that like um, I think our focus in our company is is supporting adults and um, what happens a lot with uh disability is uh, people are not allowed to be seen as adults and treated as adults and um, I mean to bring it back to this play I think that's part of now's issue is not recognizing that his family's growing up and he can grow up with them or he can get left behind um and uh So, uh, I think it is This is the first step to building into the american canon more understanding of neurodiversity My last rambling point. I think I'd make about it is that I I think what spectrum theater has taught me and working on this plan particularly has taught me is that in reality truth is a big rock. It's a big big rock and If you're on one side of it, you can say it's sunny and that's absolutely true But if you're on the other side of the rock and you're in the shade and you say it's in shadows That's absolutely true and so one way to combat One perspective and if you have a neurodiverse community It feels like you're all holding hands and looking at the rock from every single side And it takes a little bit more time and more understanding and a little patience But you get to see the whole picture in a much different way. Um, I know I came into this with this Feeling of being altruistic or like I'm an artist and I'm gonna help people And I know that being in a neurodiverse group It's helped me in more ways than I could possibly explain in growth as a person and In just feeling fulfilled in life So I know for me as like associate artistic director of spectrum theater ensemble. It was frustrating that we had to kind of And understandably and safely, you know social distance and we had to kind of cancel We had these big plans for this festival with workshops I was just joking with clay like we kind of were missing out on the adult summer camp. We had planned to and And we had to kind of adjust With everything but our plans for the future are to Bring this full force And do a festival You know once it's safe With everyone together spreading awareness in the community and most importantly and jeremy Perhaps you could speak to this one of our goals is to build into the american canon neurodiver neurodivergent voices And actually publish the work we're working on Uh, I could you could you speak maybe like I think like you were saying about the reductive nature of storytelling Could you speak to the strategy that we might be going about and doing that or? Any kind of steps that we need to take to infuse this Into the wider culture if that makes sense Yeah, um It's a good question. I think that my my first thought is Keep going more right like making this building this into an institution this summer plan and and Look to being able to look 10 years from now Look back and see all the the contributors as artists and writers I think that will take you to the place of it I think what I'm hearing you say is when we use the word publish it like how do you like leave a mark? How do you? claim space So I think it's that I also think it's um I think it's also work to be done with with Advocates advocacy. It's not just making art but advocacy with other institutions that already exist to be able to see beyond what to to extend their imagination and some of that can happen by getting them to participate in this events like this spectrum theater ensemble productions or to attend them but some of that also happens in um You know Compelling them to to look at their own work. It's not just spectrum theater ensemble Of which it's incumbent upon to tell neurodiverse stories um, it's spectrum theater ensemble. Hopefully will propel other um Theater all forms of stories to look at how how they're representing neurodiversity um And I would even take that further into um, you know, looking at we're living in a world where We have to talk about things in intersectionate sectionality. So how are we telling stories that are uh racially diverse um That is a reckoning that has come to the fore after 400 years and um and in addition, uh different sort of abilities and um Sexuality gender like you can go All the things that make us human I think when you have a group like spectrum theater ensemble, we are compelling everyone to Encompass and look at our full humanity whether that is in your mission. If that's not in your mission explicitly um Maybe needs to be there. Maybe needs to be there for for um This this word intersection is intersectionality is a real gift to be able to have the language for how these things come together and so Yeah, so more more art more advocacy Is my answer. Well, actually and that's a beautiful segue and I'd love uh day. I'm not to throw you for a loop But could you really briefly? Uh, tell me about what sensory friendly programming is. That's another thing that we advocate for We do a lot of all of our shows Have at least a couple productions that are adjusted Or at least and I know cuckoo's nest all of them at least had some uh indicators and Uh, I'm uh sensory overload warnings. Uh, so could you could you just give me like an overview of what sensory friendly means? gladly So for years the theater community have been doing something called sensory friendly theater, but that's mostly Aimed the kid shows mainly they modify production take out anything that might be too loud too bright But what we try to do in spectrum theater ensemble and I also do this work down at trinity rep Is we try to create a space where it's like a before same performance only with a few combinations So we create a trigger list of things that come up ahead such as a rough lighting cues abrupt sounds abrupt any sounds or movements And for those moments with really intense sound cues on each side of the stage depending on which space We're in spectrum theater ensemble. There's a red light that goes off 15 seconds before that actually happens We also do a sensory friendly plus performance, which is the same as the original sensory friendly only modify for families People who may not be able to handle other things that could sensory mess them up Absolutely, that stuff isn't the word i'm looking for just like sort of Throw them off. Yeah. Yeah, and uh, I know with the sensory friendly plus We um, you have a little bit more time for people to meet their seats There's a table off to the side with some stimming activities The actors come through for a costume A parade so that people can see them first and and not have any major surprises um But I do know another issue with sensory friendly is how do institutions codify or have A checklist to really see how they're doing with sensory friendly And so another thing that we are trying to get off the ground and we have um Some exciting prospects in the future is our nice program. Uh, and this is a mouthful. So bear with me It's neurodiverse inclusive certified entertainment on the first try Um, and that is headed by our managing director troi battle. Um, who's been getting a lot of help from gavin petty and they're Basically creating a system by which we can consult Give a grading system and help institutions like theaters um any place where there's entertainment amusement parks even museums and so I think uh, Jeremy this was going to something you were saying before is how can institutions look at themselves um The nice program is meant to be something that we can teach People in the area to then teach other people in the area. Um, we're hoping it's I apologize for this metaphor But we're hoping it spreads like wildfire And that we can uh help a myriad of institutions become more Inviting to everybody um, and I think Uh, I really appreciate this conversation Um, this has been a really lovely time. Jeremy. It's always great to see you. Um, I we just have a couple more minutes Um, so I do I did want to say Uh, thank you for joining us. Uh, if you're watching right now Uh, if you can if you are able, please donate to us. We are Uh, hoping to keep doing the work and keep on inviting more voices to the table Um Thank you for taking a chance on us. We will always take a chance on you and we will always be having open doors Um up soon. We have a another original work by michael john carly called pierroters magic radio, which I have to get ready for um That's at 3 30 The this this festival is continuing on until six tonight and we have another day tomorrow I'm very excited. Uh, so yes, please go to our facebook page Or go to our website st ensemble dot org And donate if you are able and um, if you please reach out to us if you uh, you know Want to collaborate we're always looking for friends. We're looking for contributors. Um, there's Multiple ways you can help artistically financially Using your skills your time your advocacy And I know one thing this group has taught me is Examining your self biases. It's okay to be wrong is one thing st e has taught me. It's okay to Approach something incorrectly with the best of intentions So long as you're willing to adjust and listen to the community you're affecting Um, we're going through a seismic shift in our culture and in theater as well And I think now is the best time to make sure that Is to build long tables and to make sure everyone has a seat at it. There's no reason Inclusion is inclusion is inclusion if you're working through inclusion. There's no exclusion. That's That's it. I You know, we've heard these conversations of people fearing being left out I've learned st is proof to me that If if you're willing to work at it, everyone has a place Uh, so jeremy, thank you for joining us Dan, it's always a pleasure Uh, like I think you to our interpreter And we will be back In just about 14 minutes. Bye everybody. Thank you