 Am I on or good morning everybody? Oh, it's nice to see a full room. Thank you all for joining us this morning It's my pleasure to welcome you to this discussion, which will be moderated by Dr. Tiffany Anna Lopez, who is the director of theater at the Herberger Institute of the Arts in Arizona State University She's also dramaturg here at OSF. She's done new work world premieres and Shakespeare as well So we're really grateful that she's going to be leading our our chat today My name is Christopher Sebo and I've had the great pleasure. Thank you Thank you I've had the great pleasure to serve this organization for 12 seasons as the associate artistic director and since 2013 as the producer of the Latino prey play project I have some notes here. Let's see These writers on stage this morning in part represent the extraordinary breath of the American cannon And in that breath and scope grapple in their work to reconcile a shifting promise of our America And what it means to be equal and just in our country and the consequences of what happens when that declaration is empty or broken OSF audiences know Karen Zacharias from the wildly successful destiny of desire Yes, and next season will encounter her newest play And the 12th premiere of American revolutions the copper children next to Karen is Richard Montoya Yes Who along with the epic and pioneering? Clashers culture clash a group he co-founded Richard has the distinction of being the first writer produced by American revolutions American night the ballad of Juan Jose Mildred Ruiz sap as Yes, they know you. Yes As part of the extraordinary Universes who were the first ensemble in residence at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Has written two world premiere plays for OSF including party people and unison and Along with Octavio Solis are residents of the Rogue Valley Octavio Solis whose current world premiere opus Mother Road is currently playing on stage has the distinction of Being the only writer with the exception of William Shakespeare to have been produced in all Four theaters at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and finally Luis Alfaro my traveling partner on this artistic highway including a slight merge into the Latino play project is Among many things wreck recognized by the mark MacArthur Foundation as a genius also Also, yes, and you also is the first writer in residence at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Plays have been produced here including breakfast lunch and dinner, which was the first season that I was here as an associate artistic director and Mojada another extraordinary work, so oh my god What a privilege it is to call you my friends and to welcome you here to OSF and Thank you. Thank you for being here. Let's talk. All right Thank you so much Christopher. That was a amazing and powerful introduction I want to thank everyone for being here so early on a Sunday and Just to say here. We are creating a sense of a home space by gathering together Home I think is a really it's a term We often take for granted that we understand what it means I think about in my own life I left home at 15 and I very rarely finish the other part of that sense Which is where I found my sense of home my sense of home is often very complicated In our conversations yesterday in the room with the Latinx play project group of folks gathered today together We had such a powerful range of conversation in which It was a space that we discussed how complicated our histories can be and The sense of home came up of a sense of community came up that we don't have a unified sense of what that means Even though it is definitely something that pulses in Throughout as a thread throughout all of the work that we make Latinos have had a complex relationship to home because of our different Histories and I would say that's not just a history to Nationally what it means to find a sense of home in different Communities and nation spaces, but I think just our own personal histories of survival What we found within our families of origin But also what we find in our families of choosing and then as artists Where do we go where we really feel a sense of home? Do we have do we step into homes that have already been made do we remodel homes? Do we rebuild homes? Do we imagine it a new all of the artists on the panel here today? Home is a central theme in their work, but they also have been founders of different organizations and Initiatives and projects in which they've built a sense of home for others to step into Though our conversation that we're gonna launch in is really to start with thinking about in a very personal way What role does home play in your art? So I want to open that as the question and we'll just hear from each of the artists about the role of home plays in their work Karen, why don't you begin? The sense of home. I think is something that's been really important to me to create Family and trust everywhere. I go because in some ways. I don't know where I always belong And so trying to create that my great-grandmother was born in Uruguay and She was taken to Lebanon to marry a much older man. She was 13 She got married in Lebanon to a Lebanese man who supposedly for religious reasons And the Ottomans were coming in and so they moved to the Americas which for them was Mexico because she already spoke Spanish And they moved to Mexico where they had my grandfather and he was scandalous by marrying a Mexican mestizo woman And then they had my dad who then was interested in socialized medicine went to Denmark and married a Danish woman And then moved back to Mexico where we grew up You know being Mexicans and then the government started not liking his ideas and then we moved to the United States so the idea of where People belong is a very complicated thing and I've always been an outsider Wherever I've been and I used to hate that and now I love it because it gives me it gives me a Advantage point it gives me an ability to see different points of view and it also makes me want to create Family wherever I go and so that I think If You look at my work with young playwrights theater the Latinx theater commons It was all this sense of loneliness And wanting to connect with other people and so all of my plays are always about Connection because I know how it feels to always be the person who's different in any room No matter which country have been in other ways I've also known it's how to be the person who has something that can relate to everybody because I'm like Oh, I'm a rewind. Oh, I'm Lebanese. Oh, you know, I'm Mexicana. So, you know, so it's been that for me No wonder we're always at the fabric store I buy fabrics for no reason I I want to trade with you Get on the spice trail Great question. Dr. Lopez and So home and and trauma, right? We I think we're all owing and owning up to to that and You know seeing mother road and then Cambodia rock band back to back yesterday was a real powerful gut punch because we're We're all searching for where is our little Do you live in Cambodia do you live in the San Joaquin Valley? You know and and and even Between two knees. There's literal homes, you know and the work of culture clash when we looked at Chavez ravine the idea of the removal of homes in this case to make room for Dodger Stadium 10 years later And and the end that and being on the in cartel country with Shanzana Zain Composanto exploring the idea of safe houses and in homes that are Protected and safe that migrants Undocumented transgender a kid can can live for a couple of months in safety. That's usually with the Lutherans from Tucson or the Jesuits or the Sisters of Mercy and We were ushered To to several homes In not armored cars, but we had to have the tacit approval of the cartels of that particular area To sit in a home and talk with somebody whose idea of home is constantly shifting and dangerous So this idea of of home is A powerful one I remember at age nine my son mountain is nine. He was born here in Ashland during equity dinner at Nurse miller's like you need to be back for your run through don't you I go, how do I do that? And I made it back to the rehearsal hall for our first run through and Job on he said get back to your wife And I said well just after the first 15 minutes. I've got to see Steven Sapp was just telling me he couldn't leave you just can't leave productions here You know even if you have an understudy you just You got to see it through that's part of the gig right boots on and The work ethic here, right? But when I was nine I had an unusual sense That my dad was involved in and that at the height of the Chicano movement and involved in very very very dangerous serious things my Mother had this 22 a handgun that when my dad would when the phone would ring at a certain time She'd pick up the phone and either she'd be clutching the gun or it was nearby and we were six little Montoya kids gathered around There wasn't a sense like we knew we're not to touch the weapon But that that was that moment the brown braze and black braze were going down, you know, there was car loads coming from Oakland It was this thing was gonna happen or August 29th 1970 the Chicano moratorium and East LA where Ruben Salazar our most cherished LA Times colonists Had been shot to death And a bar my dad called my mom from that bar in that hour And my dad was trying to jot down a poem. It was like a war correspondence People ducking in for a beer and there were bombs and about four or five people died that day So if Neil Young sang about four dead in Ohio, we had we had our dead also, you know And my dad has a poet was out there chronicling all that and I remember worrying about him greatly like He's leaving in the Volkswagen bus. He may not come back. I had a sense My other brothers and sisters I think no less feeling but they were always outside. I was in my room Building tinker toys and Lincoln laws. I was I was starting my playwriting journey Yeah, but I was always alone in my room and I'd watch my dad Lee, you know And the other night I was gonna take the midnight Train out of Union Station LA to get to a film festival in San Francisco There's a train you can take in the night and be and I had to write and I love writing on the train and My son comes in my little man cave my little writing nook area, right? And he's nine and he has the same sense. He's like dad. Don't don't go Let's watch a movie tonight, and I just tell my wife I'm not going anywhere, you know, I'll have to fly tomorrow but he just wanted to get in that little couch and have that safety and watch that movie and He kind of has the same sense that sometimes we go away for a long time and he's always trying to to Make his home and make a safety My father and my mother came from Puerto Rico at very young ages From the mountainist Town of Lattes in Puerto Rico He was he was probably around 13 years old when he first came to the States He went to Florida to pick oranges is a migrant worker And then he went to Buffalo, New York where he also picked asparagus and all kinds of things Um Then he made his way down to New York City where some of his other siblings were kind of setting up shop and Around that same time my mother Arrives in New York and they meet there from the same town not knowing each other But meeting on the same block at the pool on the corner of Houston If you ever go to House and Street pit pool, that's where my parents and They didn't know each other. I can't believe I'm telling the story But anyway, they didn't know each other, but they there was something familiar about them and they fell in love and Life was talking about trauma life was very difficult at that time for a lot of The world let alone Small Latino communities throughout the country let alone Puerto Ricans coming to the Lower East side of Manhattan with no English language with no Money with no knowledge of what was waiting for them But they fall in love and because of the situations they they got together and my father one day brings his brother over and says hey, I want to introduce you to my girlfriend and It was my mother's brother, you know, and that was it was about They there were all these connections and of course it was complicated when my uncle found out what this is my sister, but So there's a little West Side Story thing going on in there You know So it was complicated, but the idea that the threads it was inevitable, right? The connections that even from that small town they were gonna come here And this is where they were gonna meet and his best friend just so happened to be my mother's brother and like just life, right and one of the things that my father always To this day like he went back to Puerto Rico because that's every Puerto Rican's dream, right? Especially we come from the island. It's like I'm going home so home has always been Puerto Rico and Even for us who I was born and raised in the lower East Side, so I'm a New Yorker But my father was like you're Puerto Rican my first language was Spanish So he raised us with this kind of yearning for home, right and home was always the island You know and that love and respect for everything we are all the people that came before us Even if I wasn't born there, that's where I'm from and He kept telling me that over and over again. He's like no matter where Puerto Rican We're Puerto Rican we Puerto Rican. He's my Puerto Rican flag. I was gonna leave it in the back But I was like, yeah, I'm gonna park my Puerto Rican flag right here. Anyway So the idea of home has always been complicated for me in particular because Home is Puerto Rico first and foremost, right? Even though I was not born there and it does and even when I go to Puerto Rico I'm part of the diaspora diaspora. I'm not really Puerto Rican. I'm New York and it's like this complicated conversation Then I'm a New Yorkan, but then I'm a New Yorker, which is something completely different Then I go from the lower side to the Bronx and now I'm a Bronx site I don't even know if that's a word, but I'm saying it right and There I met I think the person that became my home who is Steven South and I don't want to get soggy about it But that's where I think that I Understood what my mom and my dad were or how they were maneuvering in this world Okay, it was about maneuvering from Florida to Buffalo to New York to wherever it's back to Puerto Rico They've always maneuvered together, you know And it was like an understanding how their threads connect and I think that that's something that we've done And we've managed to maneuver our way all the way to Ashland, Oregon right and then calling Ashland home and Becoming a home owner for the first time in Ashland, Oregon, and it's like what does that mean? Okay, and loving this place as well, but then also understanding that because My life has always been about moving people's Also expecting that there will be another time that I will have to move Just because that's always been my reality or the reality of so many people in my life So kind of like I wonder how long I'll be at this home And I wonder where my next home will be and creating an ensemble that is a nomadic ensemble That bounces from home to home in every theater regional community theater every just always bouncing from home to home So home for me is wherever I stand If that makes any sense and the people that I write for are the voices that I hear on the journey Wow, that's well said Stop back to follow But it also it's it's really interesting how We're aged by the things that We remember And so no one looked confused when Richard brought up Lincoln Logs like we all know immediately what those are In fact, it was like For me You actually, you know playwrights are like actors We all lead an itinerant life We go where the work is where the work calls us So I have found that for me home is is my house. It's actually where I live That's where the writing happens. And so it's important for me to have a real strong base there Of operations where I can do everything where I can nest Or I can think where I can read where I can catch up with the world Or I can be quiet with my ghosts and work in my studio And that brings me to the studio that I have to have a writing room that is separate from the house That is uh, that is its own space I was very fortunate to have that in san francisco for 25 years And when we moved to ashland, it was one of the first things my wife said we have to have in On this property. We have to get your studio built So we broke ground almost within a month of our moving there and it's a special place for me Because that's where the writing happens. I ironically I still go to cafes to write That was always part of the deal is that is that we need the the hub above voices like like being around these To to focus our our our our visions But that's where it happens and And home is also important because we love to entertain We love to have artists come and writers come And hang out and exchange ideas to rap about anything under the sun or moon And because that's also Something that is very important to to us Our home is defined by the voices that that are in it And um, and so it's important for us to have artists in our in our home I've been very fortunate in that I've had numerous artistic homes Since I really became a serious playwright when I became serious about the craft I I I and and I can't say that there's ever been one Um And any theater that has produced three or more of my works are are consider me almost company members Uh, I had a long 30-year career history with south coast repertory And the and the people that have been there a long relationship with intersection for the arts and uh, Grandpa santo and and which is in san francisco, but I also had a home at the magic theater Um, and and at they're now defunct what very dear to my heart thick description Uh, all that well that's going on. I was still developing a relationship with this company So it was very important to me Uh, all these theaters are very important to me And even the theaters that produced my play just once just the one time I do my best to kind of embed myself in in their communities to know who the box office manager is To know who's working in marketing and research And and publicity to know the people who are the pit crew the ones that are working backstage To become on a first name basis with the literary staff with the uh associate directors in the company To get to know them because they're going to be family for at least four to five weeks And so I I do my best to try to nest Um to embed myself in in those communities Uh, and and therefore it's a little heartbreaking when I have to leave I just opened a play on friday and I left this company to its own devices On saturday morning, and it was I I'm still kind of broken hearted about that because I want to be there with them I I want to hang out with them. I want to share drinks with everybody. I want to I still want to give them notes And that's why they make us leave Exactly exactly So anyway, that's to me, you know, that's there's home is a fluctuating thing, right? Absolutely. Yes I'm a proud member of the black sheep family and um I was uh my born and raised in into a farm worker family in Delano, california And uh, so the idea of being a migrant artist has always been part of I think my journey of growing up as a Citizen and then just incorporating it into my art So, uh, I guess the most interesting thing about this idea of home for me was I had a 10 year stretch I was involved in the performance art world in poetry world before I came to theater And I had a 10 year stretch where I went to live in a different city in america for up to a year at a time and so hardford that was in hardford for a year and Houston, texas and usually in in towns that were Experiencing some sort of difficulty. So I usually do this thing I call an ofranda and offering So I'll be working on a play, but I'll also do some social social service project So I'll work a lot with people young kids mostly in our criminal detention centers things like that. And so In each one of these cities, you know, you don't have a car You kind of just start to feel your way around A year into it you start to meet everyone and you start to hang out in the spots where you hang out and so I'm very much a A public writer I think so this idea of having the space sounds really romantic to me But I really know my coffee shops in LA because um Because that's what I do, you know, so I live in a very uh, I like to keep things very simple because I like to go So I have like zero balance on all my credit cards and uh, I have don't have a tv I don't have a stereo. I just kind of keep it very very simple and then I go right? So that's just sort of my thing and I think this um Romantic idea I had when I first came to the theater was that you had a home somewhere You would go to a theater and they would that would be your theater and it's really not the reality So the magic theater is a home the goodman theater victory gardens theater There are so many wonderful theaters So I've had productions that I think of homes that are the places that you land in but they really are like um My dormitories in a way, right? And uh, and really the idea of home Is I think an idea in my head and I think it really comes from um Being uh in a farm worker family that we always moved that we always were On the trail, right? And um, so when I was young this really precocious obnoxious teenager I read a book by a woman named Dorothy Day called the long loneliness And uh, it was about this rich do you guys know the book this rich wealthy social life true story Who gave up all her all her money and uh started the catholic worker, uh soup kitchens Yeah, and so um, I was so Romanticized by it that I convinced my parents at 12 to let me go live with the at the catholic worker soup kitchen And my parents let me go Which which is a whole other trauma that I I need to be exploring but um So I went to live at the soup kitchen for a year and that really then changed me completely because it was um The space was internal so the space stopped being external it started being a space inside and I think that's really Changed the way I write so it changed the way I started to do work it changed the way I started to live in the world and uh And then I could go to prisons and I could go to um work with You know young incarcerated individuals and really have a sense that we could make home wherever we were at And um, so yeah, I I like this idea of the studio, but it feels scary You'll see it tonight You know no one sorry no one no one sings the word home I like paul simon and the simon garfunkel song home Uh, thank you. This is so such powerful stories. Uh, what's your process of making home through your work for yourself But also for others because you all have founded things and you have such a profound Sense of what home means for you, but I'm also wondering, you know, how do you make it for yourself? Because you're finding home in different spaces, but also how are you making it for others? Culture clash will turn 35 this may and we started in 1984 That doesn't buy you a cup of coffee in la but uh Around the 20 year mark. We realized that we had kept the group together longer than any of our parents' marriages at last like We are keeping this dysfunction together And we've learned to work in a way that herbert has a residency in san diego Salinas pops around but at least once twice three times a year. We do get together In an honest way And still fortunate enough to have people like lisa peterson in our life chrissa sebo designing and now directing um These things are very important that we get back to berkeley rep which has been a kind of a home And in the spring and the because I think the bay area needs a good dose of culture clash right now I'm happy to say the work has sharpened and The work has sharpened and and our sites are on um social justice lawyers Working to get children out of cages judges lawyers brave brave people working You know at ground zero We we had that one new york minute where we were kind of new york writers for for one second And what it was was we were retuning a frank lesser musical right guys and dolls And frank had written this wacky musical based on a bud schulberg Short story that appeared in playboy in 68 about this a miracle a fake miracle and a little mexican village So it was very much the frank lesser version of a village, you know And we were we were legitimately uh with joe lesser his his widow. She passed away last year A marvelous pistol of a woman from houston texas Little bitty thing that was just a firebrand of a lady. She she cracked the whip on us Because we'd be writing in frank's office every day And and there's pictures of frank on the wall and he's writing with cufflinks A bourbon tie And a sombrero he wrote this play wearing a sombrero every day So we tried to emulate this, you know Why are we going to pinks and buying hundred dollar shirts? It's like man went in room try to you know and uh It was a gas and it was you know, there we were on 44th street learning that avenues are long and streets are short and Getting to the rehearsal room and pages and joe lesser scolding us, you know knock that crap off, you know, we were trying to write Then I went out to bud schulberg's house on long island to his home There's a wonderful guy black listed and named names and was caught up We brought him back to la to honor him with the watts writers project no one had honored poor bud was Out there out to pasture, but I went to write with him out there And and he said I'll meet you in the studio in the morning And it was already after midnight. We were watching the holyfield boxing match London times was calling him spike lee was calling him. I mean this guy's phone was off the hook but and I said well what time what time do you want to start tomorrow, bud? I'm thinking 10 11 a.m And he's like be at the table at 7 a.m And it's an ungodly hour And no coffee in the house they had to go buy me coffee because can't start at 7 a.m And but I really appreciated his his blue collar work ethic of bud schulberg One day at the lesser office the air conditioning went down And joe said we're going to go over to julie stein's office. We're going to work in julie stein's office We're like three chicanos from my life. We're like, we can't wait to meet her, you know But through it all trying to keep this family together family It was home trying to keep the clash guys together Letting people off the plantation to go Letting them off the farm, you know to get energized and bring and bring new ideas back I have a one-year-old in the house now So my man cave is the baby cave and I thought that that's where I was going to be doing all this romantic writing And it's topsy-turvy time and the nine-year-old so just making space for them and that I can hold a baby and have the laptop open and Take a load off mom The mother load off mom and and my son's watching spongebob and so That sort of chaos I like and I think the reason we go out to cafes Even if you have a beautiful studio set up or writing in new york, you get to go out and brush up against humanity And bring that back because if not for me the trap of writing too much at home It's like i'm convalescing and I don't feel like i'm a part of the real world. I didn't put my shoes on You know i'm still writing in my underwear. No you got to get dressed put the boots on Get out the world and then and then at night I find the house is quiet and I can I can get To the home I can get to the laptop I can get to the home page And get a few good hours in beautiful I think that well We're called on off. We're often called on to be ambassadors for the theater To the community To the latino community To the to the to the diverse communities that are in that city And I know that that's often how we're not just there to do plays to have our plays done But to help bring those audiences To open the doors for those audiences to to come and be there And I understand that and i'm willing to work that but the contract works both ways as well That theater has to also meet me halfway and and help me Help them Because that's how that's how a home is built And so osf has been very good about getting school groups large school groups To come see the shows to reach out to the diverse communities in and around medford who can't afford tickets Who don't even know about the play and bring them in? I'll meet with those groups anytime whenever they want if when provided. I'm available to do that And I enjoy that and I've called on Other theaters that have brought me out for workshops or productions to arrange readings in bookstores To develop relationships with books or so I can do a reading of my book there for them Hartford stage did that and develop and because they're developing a relationship with the mark twain house Uh, and that worked beautifully also They they for the production of my play there He put the novel They also arranged for A curator to find the latino artists latinx artists of note Uh visual artists to come and have their paintings exhibited during the entire run of the play So they're there and they they came to a special performance That was at which they were all invited to attend for free And a reception was held for them So it was like developing those kinds of partnerships becomes important and it's a way for me to connect But I also have I understand as part of that relationship part of that active building home that I have to go out to Spanish language radio stations Where I embarrass myself constantly with my very very poor Spanish And tv stations and la prensa I I have to do that too because it's because I am often the one who has As as a playwright who is at the spear point of of their initiatives to try to diversify their companies and and their audiences And harford stage is already getting ahead of that their artistic director is Latina Melia ben susan their board president is latino from central america and speaks fluent spanish And it's just really impressive To see that start to happen across the country and I'm very and to me that's often what home means is how The how the the theater opens up its doors and windows not just to me, but to my community um well Universes will be 25 years next year We're baby clashers Little baby clashers um and uh We Trying to make home together is is a complicated thing just like you said and you At first when you come together you want it to be the thing that That you want to retain the way that was when we were that young and the way we were creating that work um And then you start seeing that because you're an ensemble and you're not an individual you There are other needs that don't match up with your needs and you have to start to realize oh my god We can't just all be in this house together all the time. We have to You know be wultane clan, you know and You need to go out and you need to be able to give each other the space and the the you know to say if you want to go and try to try your hand at something Go for it. If you want to quit quit maybe you'll decide to come back and uh At one point Steve and I like we had to come to grips because the company was Shifting and changing so quickly and so often that we were like what is this and and we said we decided we were like Well, as long as the two of us are kind of standing at the gate There'll be somebody to open the gate, you know one or two of us And the thing is it has to be an open gate for that company for these company members These people who have helped us build this because we did not do this in a vacuum We do not write in a vacuum The journey we have taken to today has not been alone um From our very first members to our current members, you know, we're We're um indebted as individual artists To their artistry and their needs and their ability To take space and also our ability now our permit giving ourselves permission To take space as well. We're now steve is directing and we're going out. We're like when do we Create space for ourselves and then come back home And say hey, I learned this or you know, I have this new toolbox. I have this new thing to play with Um, so we've always said it's an open gate. It's a more mostly we say it's a revolving door So you can kind of you can spin around in and whenever you're ready to jump out to one side or the other You can do that Or you can exit and you can always come back or you can stay and wait greet people on their way back in So that's how it's always been and we've never fired anyone from universes never um people Enter and exit and uh, we always say they were they were here for that season Maybe they'll come back for another season. You know, there are seasons of our lives that people come And we interact right now. We're all in this season together You know, that's why we're in this room together and when will the paths cross again? You know, you never know. Maybe in another state. Maybe you know at the next play, you know in the supermarket But that's kind of the way that we've had to Hold on to and let go of universes The members the family that is universes and bring them to different places. Sometimes a member will be right for a particular project sometimes They have kids and families and you know, they have to take care of the business So we we've had to be able to kind of let go and And let it breathe let it breathe and and create in different ways because at first we were all in new york Right, so it was like, okay, we're gonna meet at this cafe We're gonna meet at the Barnes and Nobles and we're gonna do this So we actually Barnes and Nobles was our home for a long long time And are we gonna meet in the lobby of the public theater because you know, that's where you get to see famous people Walk the streets, you know, which is what osf is and that's why we moved here, but by the way All the famous people that come here But that's what it was in New York It was so much easier to work that way and to really just be like, hey, I wrote a poem I wrote a song I did this let's sit in the van and let's drive around in the van and let's sing songs And you know, so we always said that the rehearsal room was our van because we didn't have a space Other than Pregones who was always there for us whenever we needed it And we created our own space So but the idea that we were together was easy and then when we start moving and people, you know Jamal now is in San Francisco in San Francisco and all how do you make how do you write together? So we made space on google Does that make sense? So we actually come together to write on Google ducks and on we do google hang and I'm not sponsored by google, but if google wants to sponsor us, you know, let me know But the idea is that you find a place where you can see each other typing Right and that became exciting for us to see to just sit and watch Ninja or Jamal papa or you know, you know to see asia making changes live Who her document and saying oh my god, what is she? and sometimes saying That's changing the entire direction of where we're going with this play, but then seeing it come to life Is exciting so you might take google docs for her granted But for an ensemble who's trying to write and then for designers who want to see what you're working on and for Directors who want to be like I need to see what's happening or want to have a little side comment saying You know, so what are you thinking here? You know, it's really become a very important tool for us, especially now because Only steven. I are in ashland everyone. We're all over all over right now and so That's kind of the way that we've been writing. Of course we call but we do a lot of facetime and google hanging and But the google doc to see the the actual document alive It's almost like being in the same room together and watching somebody's hand moving on that page You know It's not as good But it is the thing that we have and uh, so that's how we've been able to create space for ourselves Where we can still communicate even without talking where we just observe Somebody something spilling out of their head somewhere wherever they are into the system the ecosystem that is this Machine and coming out to me and just watching words and deletion deletions and you're just like the nerve It's exciting. So that's kind of how we do it right now. And who knows what else What's that look steven's giving you right now? What does that mean? What are you doing? He's like, don't tell no secrets What's that mean? What's that mean? I have bad cafe luck. I'm usually Typhoid mary's right next to me and then uh, the silver lake cows wives are having a wonderful writing day The F community got formed by two very strong things. Uh, when we moved from Mexico to the united states I was 10 years old We filled up our car with our my sister me our clothes and my dog and my parents and we just drove 3000 miles to boston my my father This is a time where our country liked to have immigrants come in and have Give them opportunities at universities etc like that So my father got an opportunity to study at a school in boston and we moved there But we left everything behind our parents, you know, our grandparents our primos or our house our furniture I mean, we only had our dog and you start realizing what how do you form home when you've lost? all of that And when we moved to boston, we'd never seen snow. We'd never seen squirrels people made fun of us I had an accent I came to school in fifth grade and I try to give everyone a Besito on the on the cheek and can I tell you the scandal that came out of that? and And so the cultural things that happened and what people called me after school I would go home. I could never think of what to say So I'd go home and write dialogues to kind of be prepared for the next day But then I started feeling like oh, why is this boy so mean to me? And I made up some story about his father, you know, so I got kind of lost in their and their back story but So writing playwriting actually became a tool for me to how to Navigate this new country and when you know, my family was so small We had nobody else with no one else to talk etc I started talking to these characters that I was inventing now I think the other part of it is that my father came here he Doctors in public health and he was working on public health at at the school and this disease showed up That was killing young gay men In san francisco and nobody knew what it was and my father was one of the first public health officials that Was on this and so the u.s. Government asked my dad to move to atlanta where the centers for disease control and our whole my whole high school years was the Was the band plays on like all those people from the band plays on were in our living room and we were the aids house On in our neighborhood like oh, they have condoms there and they talk about sex, but anyway Um But um, what was interesting to me is that people always think of you know, my father was not working on finding a cure What my father was working on was changing the culture so that a cure could be found and I think um I think that is where I realized I did not I was not great at math or you know science I like biology, but I wasn't great at math, but that's I became a writer Through that, but my goal was not to find a cure. I don't think theater Is a cure I found that my job was to help start shifting the culture So that cures could be found and my way of doing it was through theater and so very early on this idea of a community Work like how do you shift a country that won't even talk about homosexuality that won't even talk about drug use That won't even talk about poverty. How do you start talking about this? Not only in the united states, but in latin america So that there's a shift in the culture and that's that completely changed my whole outset of what it meant to build family and what it built to build community Because we kind of needed it to survive both my little four-person family that was alone But it was actually watching How a group of scientists from all over the world Could sit down and start making up a plan that would start changing people's minds And people's hearts and how that could actually save lives Um, and so that had a profound Impact on me. And so when I look around my whole work has been about that and people say, oh, you're Sometimes you're too cheerful or this is like that. I just want to I don't have any solutions I am not the cure. I am not the medicine. We all of us here are just part of the public health Of our culture and we're trying to shift it to include more and more people because the marginalized As you know hiv showed us are part of every race every class every family every continent And our stories of loneliness or feeling detached or wanting home or wanting to bond Are part of every person's story. And so what watching this the visit this that's happening in the country Um, I think our work is more important now Um than ever and I mean the work I started like I look at juliet carillo. She's home to me I look at you know the different uh, marita from arena. She's home to me All of these people are home to me because I had no home for a long time and a lot of people don't Either and it's it's all for home is just the community you build and there's a lot of different ways of doing Thank you So it's been so powerful to hear all of you talk about the themes in your work What motivates and inspires you what your vision and goal is and I want to um Have us go to another level kind of manifesto level right because a lot of ways were architects of Emotional building I love how you talked about the climate of the work Like that the work can't transform unless the climate is there right if you're inviting This is something that I think osf has really embraced and taken leadership on is How can you bring uh artists of color first gen voices? How do you transform that if a climate isn't built for the success right? How do you build a house on sand? You you can't do that. You have to have a vision for the foundation So I want to ask uh each of you to describe your utopian vision of artistic home Okay, so I'll start um Uh, so in In 1993 Steve and I built our utopian vision of an artistic home And it was in the south france. It's called the point community development corporation In there. We had business incubators. So different people from the community who wanted to try their hand at Doing something some of them were cutting hair. Some of them were Selling comic books or music or whatever it was And we had our own theater life from the edge theater there. We had a dance studio my El Grito dance studio and There were no rules The rule was that everybody could come and play And that we could create amazing Spaces for young people in our community To come and be there all day every day If they had a ticket if they didn't have a ticket They could come in Because it was their home as well Um, and we took this it was 12,000 square foot uh old abandoned bagel factory building We went to the landlord and we said to him. Hey, um, this thing has been abandoned for five years There's prostitution happening in the back of the building. There's drugs There are drugs being sold all around the building if you let us in for a year We can bring some programming. We can clean it We can and if we don't pay rent by the next year you can kick us out But we need at least one year to give this community a little piece of breath And he did max bowner may he rest in peace? And he gave us that moment in time free of rent Because it was abandoned there were no windows. There was nothing it was a husk You know and we went in there and we opened the door. That's all we did. We didn't have any money We were unemployed actually and we were like, all right now. Let's make something and uh We opened the door and there was one young man jason gamio Who came in he was probably nine was he nine years old about nine years old? Came from across the street like It's open And we were like, yeah for whatever that means. Yes, it's open And he would come in and he'd like help us. He'd hang out with us all day every day Just being there artists would come Sandra maria steves Came and did her read her poetry in the middle of an abandoned building For people to come and hear the words of our people reggie gains. They'll learn lander smith Danny hawk They would just come we weren't paying them They were just coming they knew that the building was open and they would come And they were like, well if you have if you ever get some change, you know, you could throw it my way But you know, if not, I'm here for the people And that's how we started like this. It was like a little Shangri-La in the south Bronx And there were no rules. No, nothing one day the the jm kaplan foundation. We invite this foundation and we're like, hey We want you to give us some money so that we can make the place like more real, right? And and of course like I was really young then naiva take goes a long way. I always say And so we bring the jm kaplan foundation in and we're like showing that look this is where the theater right there right there That's going to be a bathroom And over there this is going to be the theater and here's the dance studio and over here We want to do like a computer studio And over here we're going to do, you know, we're going to bring graffiti artists and they're going to have tax crews We're going to this is going to be their home right here. They're going to be there They're going to teach the community how to make art You know and the woman from the jm kaplan looked around she was like Like what are you crazy? And we were like it's look it's it can happen it can happen and uh We had it like we were just literally we knew exactly where everything needed to be and she says well the first thing You're going to need is some heating air conditioning units and some windows And that was uh, that was a second grant because the first grant was $5,000 from roi lichtenstein who never even stepped foot in the building But the idea that all you need is a husk An idea a bunch of hopeful people A community that will walk into an abandoned building a little nine-year-old child and afraid Saying i'm going to be here every day after school What do you want me to do and sometimes just sits there and does whatever brings his friends Artists who walk in and do the goddamn thing You know because it wasn't they weren't doing the the lower level artistry that they do They were bringing their hundred percent For free to those kids to the to the to the mamas and the papas from the block come come and listen sander maria speaking You know, so it was that that was utopia And we were there till 2000 And the reason We were for eight years. It wasn't utopia like there was we couldn't even we were managing it together It was run by four people not an executive director an artistic director managing all that shit No Okay It was not that it was a community run organization with four heads a four headed beast Okay, and then we also had a board because we were becoming a nonprofit Right, so three years later. We became a nonprofit in five years. We bought the building A building that we couldn't even pay for one year Okay in five years. It was ours. It belonged it was a nonprofit belongs to the Bronx And it was delivered complete With no Traditional leadership so to speak that Was my utopian world then People start telling the board Hey, you know, that's not really how things are run in the world You know, you need an executive director. You need a you need these rules And the organization shifts You know so for me It's when we take away the rules that we are so used to Living under or this is how it should be done. This is the way it should be, you know Why are you an ensemble? You can be an individual playwright. Yes, I can I have so much fun with these guys They have so much fun with me. I hope and we love to share this kind of space So for me that was utopia a utopia is a place where we can make art and music right outside in the street And nobody needs to pay for a ticket There was a young woman outside today asked if I don't have a ticket when I get in and I said yes I'm going to go outside. I'm going to go inside and make sure that that's cool. Thank you, Amritha And absolutely it is cool because that's the kind of world that I want to live in I do not want to live in a world where somebody is outside when Their family is inside And that's that's my utopia When Octavio said he goes around to all the departments and we I'm usually an HR for a long time Really getting to know those folks. Well I absolutely the rank and file and the work ethic, you know, I was mentioned yesterday that Um, actually before I say that what an interesting moment that mr. Acebo and mr. Alvaro Are in this shifting home moment, you know So I'm really I'm not worried about them. I'm just thinking about them. I'm excited about where that I know the home will be in all the different theaters that they're working in but You know where This weekend has been home for us. I think it's safe to say And then tonight VIP only you have to have a ticket But we'll be at Octavio's spread tonight Yeah Get to get to meet the billy goats And you share a cow with peter bratt. He told me yesterday. Well, half of it's in my meat locker now You are mexican tacos for everybody Sorry, the steaks are really good Tony Chaconi left berkeley rep and had his his send-off dinner was really remarkable and uh, they're in knob hill a lot of fun and crazy and But to hear Tony say, you know, I'm energized. There's not a problem I just someone else needs to come and take this but And he kind of walked us through the decades of what they tried so hard to build at berkeley rap And it was about creating a home in space for artists where profit margin was not Whether a play made money or not. Sure. We all Want butts and seats. We need that We depend on that. We've been sitting in the dark together for decades We don't make fun of subscribers anymore We commune and uh, we have built our own town hall with you, right? But to hear tachoni lay out You know, followed by Eustis followed by Kushner. I'm not name dropping. I just mentioned that each of them it's it's it's a social justice and and it borrows from uh Dare I say the the bad word right now, but um a socialist work ethic almost that That we could all come together and and share in something theater could be affordable The profit margin was removed out of it. You need a table You need a home, you know, both my parents were dedicated educators and so that what that meant really was we rented homes our entire life So we were renters I wanted to change that specifically for my son and daughter that that your home You know, we'll we'll give you that Tom joe deed at the end of our thing We'll we'll pass that on to you meho and all the artwork in the home and all the artwork that you love And hopefully you're appreciating and placing value On the artwork in the house and that the artist made it, you know, and you can't throw stuff at it um So utopia is a place where We can work not without deadlines and not without being in the real world with everyone else, but um It's hopefully a place that can be inclusive of a family in different versions of family and that um listen the clock is always ticking and um We need to feed our families and i'm i'm really about placing value on on each of us and giving artist value and writers and because we really hover around the poverty line so much of our life medical insurance all these things that are very important uh to us So the engine and the motor that is our home and getting kids to school and to daycare and feeding kids and I'm looking for that space where all that is is happening and Daddy's writing time is is respected. I'm not going to turn into Dalton Trumbo, but Who knocked on the bathroom door? But but you almost have to fight for that space, you know My wife can't call me at any hour in the day like with a honeydew list like because just because i'm home doesn't mean i'm Working around the house, you know These are my hours, you know And and she she's she's cool with that she works in the art world and and understands but every now and then it's just like This is on my mind And and so the utopian world allows us to come and go and have family And be a joyous space, you know I was a bachelor forever And uh quite well known in southern california Well, it's like working with all the theaters. We have lovers everywhere Getty villa pasadena playhouse south coast rip Mark taper farm. I am fucking them all Sorry, it's sunday. I'm so sorry I'm dressed like a rabbi even today Happy new year everybody. Happy new year And and so Creating creating home is going to allow for for all of that and and be a well in my bachelor years My my my lofts and apartments were very dark, you know, and I thought well, I've got to be like I got to be Raymond Chandler I got to be james elroy. I got to work in the dark I got to work in a dark space, you know And and now it's it's pinatas literally and Cocoa toys, you know, everything's everywhere. Everything is everything and I've got to find I've got to find a way to work, you know, within it Karen, what's your vision? So my my theater career did not start in the theater, but it started in the schools I I started an organization called young playwrights theater because of my connection to writing and my own journey So I started this little theater company where we went into schools to teach playwriting Um in the public schools in dc as a way of kids of connecting to their voices Etc and it was a way of getting work to all my actor friends that come in and read it to them and the transformation we saw Um in the children about how arts Connecting to the art how that made them improve in their in their Um studies etc made a deep impact to me So my utopia actually has very little to do with the theater and it has everything to do with the schools Um, it has to do I have three kids 13 15 17 I want them to go to a school that makes them find their voice In the world. I want them to go to a school where they don't fear being shot Um, I want them to go to a school where their teachers can afford to live in the same neighborhood and go to that And I it just I guess I might If if we have that with our schools and everything from there I think comes out of that. So I mean, yes I would love to you know work in my plays and theater and all of that But but because of where my work started in the community at there That's where I think the arts makes a huge difference and I think those become the future audience I mean, I just think it's something that kind of pays itself forward, but I I We have kids in cages right now like I mean, I think the idea that we um Always need to go back and remember who the next generation is and what are we doing to help them find their voice And what are we doing to protect them is something that um keeps me up at night And so I for me, it's all about public schools and valuing our teachers and valuing our students and And making them feel safe And so if the if our art can help in any way in that sense and if our advocacy can help in that I think all of that it'll it'll bleed everywhere else, but it's a very big utopia. That's my utopia Yeah, I totally agree with that But it's but it's very hard for me therefore to really Think of utopias now in this climate where somebody can just Load up an ar-15 and take it to El Paso of my hometown and and and remind people whose boss To stem the tide of immigration in a way that is in is is really a large gaping wound in my community at back home right now And uh, it's just really hard to conceive of that until we can be looked on looked upon as as True Americans in this country until we're not looked upon as aliens in our own land Until we can dispel that amnesia somehow that that we are immigrants When we were here first It's it's just it's just really hard for me to conceive of any kind of utopias We live in a dystopia right now It really feels like a dystopia this keep america great thing is just It's madness. It feels it's it's doublespeak. It's orwellian So it's really difficult for me to think about Utopias right now and and ideal homes An ideal home is one where i'm not afraid and where i'm not inspiring fear in other people Well, maybe going off of that riff. I would say that uh utopia starts to feel like a very personal private place When I first started You know i'm gonna age myself but in the 80s I started a lot of nonprofits And uh, I was rarely involved in social political work in la and that's really what brought me to art Art for me has always been the means to create social change So I really wanted to create art and be the artist that I was because I think I was trying to use it to change the world Right, so, um, I've always been sort of institutionalized in that way I spent 10 years at the mark day perform. I'm just finishing up 10 years here So, you know, I think I've always been inside of an institution, but um My training the little training that I've had as an artist has always been about um Failure that out of failure great great things happen And so I studied like many of us here with Irene fornez who really encouraged me to you know, walk through fire jump off the cliff And um and really what I think I'm doing in the second part of my life I know I've been doing that at least for the last 15 years is to subvert the systems that i'm in So I teach at a seven billion dollar university USC where we're plagued with scandal and um, and uh, so it's a wonderful place to be On one level because you can always subvert a system, right? And so everything I teach is contrary to What I'm told to teach in a way, right? I so we're really jumping off the cliff all the time I spent the last year working with young writers in east l. A and um, and it was really kind of a radical act We are going to write plays that are going to fail We are going to embrace failure as the ultimate form of experimentation We are going to create A very different kind of play We are going to go deep deep inside of ourselves and create a kind of artwork We haven't seen in the world so we're not going to buy into the systems But the systems are the way that we survive Right, so I need health insurance and and the university really provides that in exchange for that I bring the best of myself into The subversion world right and uh, and we jump off cliffs all the time So I really think that for me the big gigantic idea of a utopia is a place where all I do is experiment all the time If I have great plays Whatever good plays I've had whatever plays have gotten produced have been my biggest failures Right, so I know I'm on to something I know I'm on to an idea here in it I must fail in order to get to something interesting Right, and I think it's that I I'm not writing out there But I'm writing in here And I'm never alone because I'm always in community So I'm always writing through community and I'm always creating an in community and we fail together So that is very utopian for me Right this idea that we're all going to jump off the cliff the creative clip together And we're going to make something completely new and different. We're going to embrace language differently. We're going to Play against form. We're going to do all of that and somehow I feel that even in the darkest of moments and I have these very dark moments because I'm very Sensitive to what's going on in the world. I dig deeper deeper deeper inside myself to uh To fail miserably To move towards that little seedling of a great idea So I am Embracing the darkness because in times of great darkness And this was the one thing that my parents gave me as farm workers I used to say because we were very involved in the united farm works movement from delano, right? So my parents just to say we must bring to light that which is in the dark That was the only thing my parents really always said to me and they said we must bring to light that which is in the dark So, um, maybe my biggest disappointment to my parents was I came out as a queer man And then I said we must bring to light that was in the dark And they were like, uh And the second worst thing I did to them was I said i'm a poet we must bring to light that was in the dark and they went, uh So I have failed miserably And been greatly, greatly successful And you're in the lie brother um We have time for I want to create a space for you know, at least one question Um, uh a burning question. Um Let's jump in. I want to start if paul has the mic Paul you want to bring it up here? Thank you. Um, so my question touching on what octavio had said around the idea of being in this dystopia and Trying to be seen As americans as part of the fabric and and the things that make the culture that is exported out to the rest of the world beyond whiteness in and of itself um to me that feels almost limiting because Latinidad is so much bigger than just The few representations here Puerto ricania uruguaya mexicanos chicanos um When we talk about things like that especially within uh latinas we Realize that we are limiting ourselves because there's so much that is complex To bring to the stage like how do we talk about anti-black sentiment in latino community? How do we talk about The inherent caste system Developed from the spanish dawn systems for the californios How do we bring that complexity to the stage? and into our day-to-day discussions In a place like ashland that is white monocultured You know, you were talking about how you need to be surrounded by community in order to be able to reflect those voices But what do you do when those voices don't match anything that you know or say or do or experience? Because you're surrounded by white people um I Just stumbled upon this weekend I didn't even know that this was happening when I decided to come back up here and see between tunis and mother road because I didn't get a chance to see them earlier and for me everything that I keep coming back to is Who is this art actually for at the end of the day? we're writing as You know Chicanos and latinos and and we're doing all of this work and we're kind of eviscerating ourselves on stage For audiences that don't pick up the nuances for audiences that aren't listening to The quiet little tejano background sound when you make a stop in texas who Hear the words binchimigra, but they don't actually understand like how deeply ingrained in my life those words actually are And when I draw joy from that and when I draw excitement and I'm able to respond to that I know that the artist speaking to me And I know that I part of it is for me But it's also Trying to placate white sensibilities Because it's a majority white audience So Who is our art actually for? Where is our sense of home? When home is telling us that it's on fire and we can't go back to it When home is telling us that there should be a wall between where our hearts are and where our roots are when home doesn't exist For us because we are told we are not a part of it I mean, I just it's so beautiful what you're saying and it's it's popping so many things But there are so many thoughts and it's so big And so maybe if I can just simplify it a little bit for myself just because that's a lot to take in But I will say this when I started my career The The Chicano community was not the community to embrace me because I was a queer man So I started in the black community and then I moved into the asian community That's where my first six plays were done by asian-american actors And then they make good memories then my community joined ghanam vote, right? So Because of that experience the otherness that we're talking about right now I am very very conscious of a kind of shared humanity that the nuances that you're talking about are experienced in a lot of different ways Maybe that's why I keep reaching and doing mentorship work because for me The nuances that Another generation gets are not the same that I get but I know that there's a shared humanity that's going on I know that there's something that's happening between you and I in the electricity of the room And I have to believe that it goes beyond who I am In just one community so I'm many communities and rather than sort of like thin that out How do I just tell this very specific unique story that belongs only to me? Knowing that it's going to register in so many ways. Yes The music that little piece of music that little line, right? So I have I use now what in the play right? Who's going to know now? Well In my research just having come off off Broadway play There are 500,000 mexicans living in New York City. I didn't know that there are 3,500 that speak our indigenous language Even if one of those 3,500 show up to the theater, they're going to get something very different than everybody else I have to believe and I have to trust That my job has to be bigger than me. I have to build the ally ships I have to build Listen Can I just be so lovingly blunt? I have to extend myself To what is the majority audience here if I'm going to stay Inside of this thing and change it So I'm always I am at a large big fat large university trying to subvert it every single day I'd like a chance to respond to the charges Um Here at Sunday morning Nuremberg Be meti como tres cafecitos antes de que llegue. So I'm ready Your monologue was astounding And beautiful and what you've been thinking about is I've been sitting next to you at each show And for me the biggest gut punch for me the weekend because I look at the work as as as templates and And what Cambodian rock band is doing I was completely Gut punched with how quiet it is How nuanced it is how still it is How not a musical it's it's not you know, it's like it's not that jukebox thing You know and how they're making their points and it only makes me and I had to censure you my my I was devastated after Cambodian rock band and I think mother wrote out a lot to do with the two going into The torture chambers of of that camp right and we're all in there It reminded you a lot of the way that august wilson wrote, you know You you had to have that respectful distance from the work Inside that distance we can do our work get I think there's questions, you know in all of our work all the time like how we know that at the taper It's it's going to be 90 anglo and wealthy And cranky sometimes and liberal But in there we got to we got to get our our jabs in our in our punches in Working on a musical it's going to be very tricky because everyone wants a huge yet, right? I don't know if it's going to be a huge hit 1959 is a tricky year, but it's a very modern year part of what I'm saying We chicanos chicanos we were part of it. We were we were there. My dad just got off a minesweeper From the navy we were there. We we impacted rock and roll Not just one british invasion two british invasions chicano rockers from koima from san fernando You know we were there and so that's the flag i'm going to try to plant in there And make my point thusly And hopefully not lose myself in it to you know everyone you know the next hamilton or you know Because because a lot of this work can be very crowd-pleasing And um cambodia and rock band everything I saw this weekend was crowd-pleasing, but with a lot of thorns in it Like my chair is so comfortable with all these thorns Um Mother road actually has two protagonists It has martin Who i'm sure you understood related to and understood his journey and then there's also william And I knew when I was writing that that I was writing it largely for an audience That would be see it here And I know the audience here you have that's what I'm that's what home is about Who are you writing the place for that's the question you ask So I knew the audience coming in and And what i'm showing them is a two prong thing what i'm showing everyone. There's a two prong thing It's that martin is going to what he deserves what he's earned through his life through his struggles Uh as a direct descendant not only of his mother's legacy, but also tom jones But i'm also showing how that to the other audience a lot of them older white men How they have to pass the baton And history now belongs to the young and the brown And and to do it gracefully and to do without animus to Give their chair at the feast To somebody who deserves it put to for the next generation and I think every that's Something that I think and I hope All audiences are recognizing that it's done without That he starts at one place really wondering like what i'm giving my land to a mexican What am I doing to at the end recognizing that he has to That this is the right choice that he has to make If america is going to go to its next whole chapter And that's uh And so I can't just skew it for the latino audience um Because in almost every theater i've ever worked in I I have a responsibility to write to the audience that is going to be there And inviting other people to come and see it too But it's got I got to respond and respect the audience that is there Uh, especially and you know, I used to I used to also kind of In my in my younger years, I especially when I lived in san francisco used to disparage the those all Very old ladies who used to come and always be there at the shows or what? But they But But they They are the repository of The world theater they have seen When I was going to them at act. They saw samuel beckett's first production of waiting for godot They saw august wilson's work. They saw culture clash. They came to those shows And and and so you know you have to respect that audience you can't You can't not talk to that audience you have to invite them around the table so that they can have their Teaching moment as well Because i'm writing for a larger audience than just My culture now when mother road is done In el paso when it's done in san antonio. Oh my god the place gonna blow off the roof Uh right now kihote nuevo is running at harford stage. It has blown off the roof. It's really crazy and 90 percent of the people there have no clue what is being sung in spanish and being spoken in spanish They don't have but neither do the neither does the latino community that's there They don't understand what i'm saying because it's all chicano speak, you know and not only that it's a kind of a mixtape of chicano and English and spanish and Cervantes and shakespeare and me It's all just this crazy mixtape and yet Somehow they get it They get it because as my character my kihote says it's not command of the language that matters It's command of the heart And uh and so there that's the audience the audience that wants to see theater Those are the ones i'm ultimately writing for us A woman walking in a snow blizzard that was coming sideways to buy a ticket to our evening show And we're in the lobby eating like just watching her go fury ride fury And literally that the syracuse snow coming this way right And rick herb and i just look at you do we know one chicano that would do that So Can i can i just answer just say one quick thing it'll be really fast Along i i believe that we use the word privilege a lot right and we almost gift it to people nowadays You know we we tell our white audiences you guys are privileged you're privileged you're privileged you're privileged you're privileged and People begin to believe believe that and if you hand privilege over so quickly You lose privilege And you are no longer privileged if you're constantly giving the privilege away right So i've decided in my life that i'm gonna walk into rooms as if it's my room and you are my guest Okay, i'm gonna walk onto this stage with my power my privilege You know i'm not gonna be I i don't want to live in a world where I live in the drudge and the what do we call it the The the emotional pain and everything that we've been everything that our ancestors have struggled with i'ma bring that because that gives me privilege All of those journeys all of the things that we go through all the doors we've had to Bust open because culture everybody here has busted doors open People are still busting doors open for us We're but we're trying like so that gives us a sense of power And when i when i feel we bring our plays to the oregon shakespeare festival That is a place of privilege because i am Bringing you guys are worthy of observing this Amazing work Okay, so i just want to reverse it And in opposed to us being the servant You know I believe every time that our voices are heard in these spaces of power It's because it's our power that's being heard in that space You know, I don't care who is in the room I don't care we could that's why I say if we're out in the street. You can't control the passerby You don't know who's passing by and who's gonna take something with them or who's gonna leave something for you You have to be open and you have to know your privilege. You just sat up here stood I wish I wish you would have stood but you sat and you sat in all your privilege And I honor that and I respect that and the strength and power that you brought to that question because it is a sensitive question But you have that privilege and I want and I don't want to take your power away And this audience the osf audiences actually need to start believing That they are privileged To witness what we have to bring I'm going to make sure that we we're running, uh over I want to thank our panelists for uh, incredible vision and voice about home and expanding home Karen's copper children is coming And you'll get more of a sense of the definition of home and the work that she's making and I want to um Thank all of you for engaging in the work I really appreciate what was said in the final moments and I want to thank uh, christopher scevo and louise alfaro Living is very complex. We need each other. I'm always very with infinitely more complex and Then uh, what appears on the surface and this is a place to dive in deep And I just want to thank everyone for being here for the journey of the conversation Thank you