 We figured I figured in the public theater agreed that it would be fun to do watch me work a lot during this time to create community we've been doing watch me work for 11 years mostly in the lobby of the public theater and So we thank the public theater for supporting this effort And we also think howl around for coming on in recent years and especially now To help us live stream and to help us create this online community so what we do with watch me work is we Work together and it can be any kind of work, you know, I'm a writer and a musician, but if you're a not know what seamstress or hairdresser or Choreographer, whatever you can do your thing and we do it together for 20 minutes And then we hang out and talk about your work and your creative process for the remaining 40 minutes until around 6 o'clock So if you have a question about your work in your creative process Audrey is going to tell you how to get in touch Tell them Audrey You got it So if you want to get in touch and you're inside of the zoom All you need to do is click on the raise your hand button in the participant tab Likely at the bottom of your screen on a laptop or the top if you're on an iPad or a tablet And if you're watching on howl around TV, you can actually ask us questions over social media You can tweet at us at at watch me work SLP with the hashtag howl around H-O-W-L-R-O-U-N-D or you can tweet or send an Instagram message to the public theater Which is at public theater and why and that's all It's all so I'm great, so it's it's 502. Let's get Started okay, here we go and ready Audrey and boom All right All right Here we are it is that was 21 it that was 20 live up that was 20 minutes and 20 minutes Working and now we're gonna have some conversation some dialogue Dialogue part of the play. Yeah, so anybody have a Question, okay, he's got a question. All right, Faye go for it Faye. Oh, hold on. I'm gonna click you again Hello Faye, are you there? Hi. Oh, thank you for all this my question is About how to like get into the emotion how to feel like what your characters are feeling especially when they're unpleasant feelings like I find myself avoiding Experiencing their emotions fully and I feel like I probably need to if I'm gonna be writing their lines Although I can watch and enjoy a play and hear it without necessarily feeling it fully so maybe I don't have to I'm not an actor anything so I'm not used to like like Healing everything really intensely. So I just wanted yours. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So you have some you're writing a play and you have some characters who are Feeling things and doing things That are not really things that you in your day-to-day would feel and do correct Yeah, and so I'm saying yes. I mean, I just want to make sure that I heard you correctly And you want to talk about how we can Get you into feeling some of those feelings that your characters are feeling especially if they're unpleasant. Yes Yeah, I imagine That we talked a little bit about what someone about this yesterday that your character. Oh, it was crystal your characters from New Jersey your characters are probably Feeling things that you actually do feel my guess There's a part of you That might well Because they're coming the characters are coming, you know out of you even if they're based on some historical figure You know or some real person they're kind of coming through you, right? you chose them to you chose to focus on them for a reason and They might be more they might be closer to you than you think You know if they they might be more related to you than you think we were talking about there is no iron team But there's a me an enemy and there might be Aspects of them that are Sorry, there's German going on my husband's talking to his family Durham to close door There might be aspects of them that are closer to you more familiar to you than you might be comfortable admitting So I would say embrace them You know walk around in their shoes relish them try on something new You know you ever go to a store and like try on an article of clothing that like you would never buy But it's fun and like see yourself in it And you don't have to be an actor to do this, you know, although actors are more experienced. Does that make any sense? Can't hear you unmute yourself. Can you unmute yourself? There you go. I was um, yeah So yes, it does make sense and yes, I have experienced some of these things I mean, I've experienced them so I'm much like so like the re-experiencing Is Not necessarily pleasant. I mean I can write the words But do I have to actually like feel it as a writer like do I need to experience the trauma that Character feels oh No, and I don't I say I I I do believe that um While Shakespeare may have wanted to avenge somebody he didn't actually go and kill somebody or if he did He didn't die doing it You know what I mean, you know So I think he he he went there to a certain extent he felt the feelings But he didn't actually have to experience the trauma Uh of his fool being hung or whatever, you know in lear. Um, I think we can as writers as artists we can approach Those situations, of course, we don't have to actually live them To write about them beautifully and brilliantly and meaningfully, you know So go there. I mean, you're not I don't you're not going to get stuck there Is what I'm trying to tell you fey, you know, if you do it if you do it, right You're gonna you're gonna you're gonna just move through it You're gonna write and you're gonna you're gonna catch and release, you know, you're gonna catch this feeling Experience it and then let it go, you know Okay, so you I don't think you're gonna get stuck there, you know, right? Go for it. Go for it. Definitely All right. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thanks fey. Thanks for joining. All right up next. We've got bob Bob are you with us? Hey bob people? I mean, hello Hey, Bob uh a question kind of related to that is If your approach is or would be different if you are writing characters Say in a genre like fantasy or or horror where they're not technically human like they're not real Whether the vampire or you know, they're they're not people you meet on the street not people like us I'm wondering if your approach if you ever work that way if your approach is different And what your thoughts would be and still trying to get a reality of character out of people, you know Or characters you want, you know human flesh and bone in that traditional sense, right? I would try I would try going about the same way I mean, I think of my favorite vampire. I mean movies mostly, you know, or my favorite superhero movies or my favorite You know, the Incredibles or whatever it is. Those folks aren't Typically human or maybe human at all like wolverine. I don't know. You know the x-men or whatever those folks aren't human really but uh They have a lot of attributes that we Consider to be human So I think a lot of those attributes can be employed and utilized to create well-rounded and interesting characters Does that make sense Bob? I mean, yeah, I mean Falls in love, you know, the the alien creature wants to go home, you know, I can't you know, I mean Just curious if say you are writing a character who for instance was immortal, you know, just say death was off the table Right, would you just as a hypothetical treat that character differently? Think about it differently or just go about it as someone who still has anxiety fears and desires just death isn't one of them Well, yeah, exactly That's exactly right. Death isn't one of them um Like maybe, you know a character we have a character who let's just say, you know A character these days who racial profiling isn't isn't going to be really something that's going to be going on, you know in a negative way Does that character have fears and anxieties and hang ups and Perhaps hypochondria and worried about his bank account and You know, but he doesn't wake up in the morning going shit if I walk out in the park I sit too close to a friend who looks the same skin colors me. I'm gonna be racially profiled No So just because something is off the table doesn't mean that other things aren't on the table as you so well already realized Yeah, so make them obsessed with other things that might seem interesting to you Great Yeah, thank you. And also the implications of what that thing being off the table means to them Do they know people who who are not immortal? And so do they kind of wonder gosh How, you know, how do I live my life my immortal life Surrounded by some friends who are immortal and have to worry about that How do I live my life where racial profiling negative racial profiling isn't part of my Day-to-day, but I have friends who have to deal with that just you know Think about it in terms of stuff that we actually Have to deal with every day Okay, thank you. Thank you. Good question. Thanks Bob Um, all right up next we've got Emma Go for Emma Hi, can you hear me? Yes Cool. Hi. Um, thank you so much. I I've been like coming in and out of this So I apologize in advance if someone has already asked this question um, and you've already answered it but My question is kind of around like doing the right thing in my writing because I feel like a lot of Responsibility to put something out into the world that like ideally is in line with my values and accomplishes something in terms of social justice and like making the world place I'm so afraid that Oh, no, can you still hear me? Yes, you froze for a minute, but I think you said better while you were frozen Okay, cool Yeah, I have like I have a lot of fears is especially around Like writing characters different for me because I'm afraid of misrepresenting someone in a harmful way Uh, and I had the same fears about writing just for my own experience because I've been in writing Circles where I've told a story and someone said like that's really interesting But I would not like put that out into the world because it could be very damaging to someone who might have had a similar experience but Had like experienced it differently Um And so I guess like my my main thing is I'm trying to write something that explores an ethical gray area That is coming from my own experience, but I'm really worried that in writing something That is not like safe. That is like I guess like provocative in some way or asking questions that it's asking the wrong questions or that it'll have Unintended consequences and that I will put something into the world that I didn't mean to Um, and so I guess I was just wondering if you have advice on navigating that You have a It's an interesting question. It's a great question. I'm a great thing to talk about number one I mean you have the police are very much in your uh consciousness You know, I'm just saying so you started your question by saying I'm sorry if I Ask a question that someone's already asked You know number one everybody should know it's okay. You can ask a question that somebody if you had asked bob's question We would talk about it. Okay, so but you're in a writer's group where if you write about somebody who's like not you Right, they're like uh-oh be careful You don't know enough to write about that person and if you write about someone who is you they're like Whoa, you know, you gotta if you put it out in the world that way you might Hurt someone even though it's from your own experience The police are very much in your head Yeah, very much um, and that that's like I I I I'm feeling for you Because that's really hard I would say, um, it's it's one thing to write about someone who's like not you that's one that's whole thing But let's just take you you're writing about your own experience your own thing How you was something that you might have gone through whatever and people like You can't say that Someone who maybe in Saskatchewan who went through the same thing might be hurt their feelings might be hurt. You might like ruin their day Look, um I would say Emma write it You know, um because it's coming from an honest place And and the thing is it's like for example like black people, you know one black person Shouldn't be thought of as speaking for all black people. They used to believe they used to they whoever they are people used to believe that I used to go on Uh, do interviews and stuff and people say what are black people think about? They what y'all are crazy You know, there's like connalisa writes and there's Oprah and you know, and there's all these other people in between but the idea that one should speak for the entirety is a is a An unfortunate equation that someone made up to limit what you have to say And so you can put disclaimers in there a character can say in the middle of your play or novel or whatever I'm not sure what you're writing. Hey, it was like this for me. It's not like that for everybody, you know They can have some some reality check kind of disclaimers in there if you want but to to to encourage you to shut down your story because it Your truth might hurt somebody's feelings is a tricky place to go So I would say go out there with it if you're gonna hurt somebody's feelings Hopefully they'll go to your play with a friend and they can talk about it afterwards Okay Not thank you about what you're writing about. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, because it's your story now. It's different if it's somebody else, you know, all that kind of that's a whole different conversation But if you're talking about your own self You know, I would want you to be able to feel like you couldn't write from your own experience You're not intentionally going out there to hurt anybody's feelings You're not intentionally going out there to write something to make somebody feel like shit Right, right. I mean, or you maybe you are I don't think so. I don't get that No, okay write it. Thank you and in the workshop process. Is it a play, Emma? Yeah So in the workshop process, you're gonna get start getting feedback, you know, and you're gonna learn how to maybe, you know Shape it and all that kind of stuff But don't stop writing just because it might be harmful to somebody in some audience at some point somewhere Yeah, you know Definitely, okay, so go yeah take some steps forward I would suggest Cool Thank you. Thank you. Thanks Emma. Good luck with your writing. Thanks Emma. Thank you Um up next we've got Marlene. Oh Oh, I hear you Hello Hey Marlene, how are you? I'm doing well. Thank you for taking another question and happy Friday. Happy Friday So I want to talk about short form and I so I really love short form and by short form. I mean something that's a pager less or Two minutes or less Performance wise because I find in my own work. Like there's kind of a wildness That comes with this constraint That I miss a little bit when I have to be in the rehearsal process for something that I've been with a long time And I know you did the 365 Please So I have a thing where I love doing this But I have a longevity issue In that if I set I'm like, I'm gonna do this one for one every day for 30 days And then about day five I'm like I don't know But I I love them and I'd like to do I really Want to do this commitment to see like how far I can push this In 30 days or 45 days or 40 days Whatever it is. So I wondered if you had any insight or advice about Basically sticking I I stick with other things, but somehow this short form too I've never been able to stick with I think in a way because when people read them They're like, oh great. We want more. Why don't you write a whole thing about this? And my response is always like no, this is it. This is what you get And then Maybe all of them as a whole will be something But you're you're saying two different things though, you're saying that I know that's also the hard part Right, so you're saying that you you know to to stick with something is difficult And then when people read it they like it and they encourage you and you say no, this is it So those are two actually separate things so Which do you want to do do you want to do A marathon thing or do you want to write? You don't it sounds like you don't want to write something. That's A whole bunch of plays centered around the thing. I'm not I'm not Sure what you want to accomplish Well, maybe that's the question Until I know what I want to accomplish. Just well, no, I mean, I mean just no See that that that see that's taking it to the man place Yeah, I didn't say take it to the man place. I just said get clear, you know Maybe you write them when you feel like writing them I mean, I'm a you know, I'm a long a long distance, you know Ultra marathoners. So I mean not right but my you know, I don't if I were a marathon I'd be a long distance ultra marathoner, but I'm not a marathon But um, you know write them when you feel like I mean, that's the thing You're saying you're saying this is all there is so why are you getting hung up about not doing 30 in a row? Yeah, I don't know. Thank you. Thank you. Just just write when you feel, you know If you feel like writing one today write one today If you don't feel like writing one tomorrow, that's okay Cool. Remember your own mantra. This is all there is Right and then you one on sunday You know It's it's tricky. You have to just write them when you feel like and that's I think it's going to be great because you love the short form You know, some people don't love the short form at all. So Right. Thank you very much Thank you, Marlene All right up next we've got Eric Eric, are you there? Hi Hi Hello, um, so it's like a weird question conversation kind of maybe um So like I do I write a lot of monologue specifically that sometimes borders on like spoken word um But I run I run into this issue a lot and I don't know if you've ever Written something similar to this where you write it and you're like, I really should be the one to say this But you're like Then you keep writing it or there's parts of it. We were like, no, like this is meant to be I I I see this on a stage and someone else is speaking this part and there's other people involved on the stage and there's a setting and there's somewhere for them to be and I don't know sometimes it's like do I need to get over this fear of speaking my own words or Do I need to format the piece differently so it doesn't feel like something that I can just jump right into Do you want to be on stage Eric? Like no I'm looking at you. No, you sure I'm trying to see your I like sometimes and I mean some pieces I have that I know specifically like that are more definitely spoken word Or a piece of poetry that I'm like, I definitely would want this to come from my mouth, but Most of the time I'm like, no, this belongs Over there and like I want to I want to watch it in a way And I want to like there's that part where you're like, I want to forget that I was a part of this and watch it Uh-huh That's your answer. I mean if you if you start out by going, oh, this would be fun to say and then Actually, I want to I'd rather watch other people say it. Yeah, I think that's I think that's it I think that's You know, there are definitely things that I write that I want to say And then I mean mostly like songs for my band. I write them for me and my band to perform but plays and Screenplays and teleplays and stuff I write for For actors and whatnot, you know, and I like in working with really great actors or even not so great actors You know, that's the thing where I'm sometimes like This whole piece has an emotion. That's really Important to me that it's like portrayed perfectly And I'm like while I would love to say these words, but then am I like just like being like, I'm a bad actor I don't want to say the words and it's like I'm it's like I would want someone else to do this So I know that I That emotion is Correct on on stage or it's given in a proper way Is there a place where you could do the initial first Reading or or perform it in a low key way? Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean it might be fun for you to In a low stakes venue You know what I mean even a format, you know, uh, if there's like Open mic, you know online if anybody's doing that You might have fun kind of doing it in a low stakes venue just to enjoy because it sounds like part of you would enjoy Being the mouthpiece In a in a in a low stakes environment where you could just have fun with it Yeah, and I think you should just listen to that because I hear part of you saying that you'd like to do that. So I give it a try and not so much worry that it wasn't you know The necessarily Broadway quality or whatever the high, you know High watermark is you know Actually, I never thought about like Something low stakes like that. So yeah, yeah, I mean even like if it's if you've written a like a 50 page play And you have a a two page monologue that you really like to perform, you know Have have fun with it. I think you really enjoy it. You seem like you would That would be a nice thing for you Yeah, but at least you try it, you know Yeah, I have a little bit of a follow-up is that one piece specifically that I'm working on is It feels very much like I saw something that I very much enjoyed a few summers ago and I've been working on that working on this since then And it was like a very intense like performance art piece and there's aspects of this that feel very performance art And it's some it's one of those genres that I feel can be tricky because you're like There's a there's a part of you that's like performance art is So deeply ingrained kind of in the artist themselves and how they're working And you don't want to step on that in a way kind of like is that Have you ever felt like you don't want to walk into a space? I feel like a performance art space feels kind of guarded in a way like the it's It's so it's it's so admirable what they do and not just actors acting on a stage in a play So I don't know if that's I feel I feel I would feel weird about presenting something and being like this is performance art and like not being I don't know. Maybe that's No, I think I mean I have a lot of respect for performance art and all different kinds of art making, you know And I know it sounds like you're not kind of just bulldozing your way in and saying I want to do this now You know, you have a lot of respect for the form. So I think you have respect for the form And you take steps forward because you want to Be part of that group. I think you're allowed to be part of that group Just like if someone wanted to write a musical or you wanted to have a band or you wanted to paint Yeah, whatever, you know, we're we're allowed to try Things outside we talked about comfort zone yesterday. We're allowed to try things outside of our comfort zone It's it's okay. It's we're allowed. So I think if you're if you're pursuing it You know, uh, you're making something beautiful and you're gonna give it a try respectfully You know, would you would you like talk to a performance artist and be like and Kind of gauge them or is that not well the well depends who they are Again, if it's like Emma's Friends, you know, like, oh, I don't know you you haven't put your time in a performance art So you're not allowed in here. I don't I don't know who you know, there are there are many different kinds of performance artists You know, if it's your if it's a friend who is supportive who wants you to succeed you know, then then sure and If you just want to Go and I mean look at a lot of performance art or maybe look at a lot of it online these days and kind of digest it then I don't think you have to have a performance artist give you permission per se. Yeah I don't think so And I already wrote my permission slip. So it's fine. There you go. There you go. You got your permission. So good I I think you're allowed to sure if you if you know performance artists that you respect and they respect you and Yeah, all that then great talk to them. Sure Okay, but but don't depend don't rely on them to give you permission to do something that you want to do Yeah Okay Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, sir. Good question. Thanks, Eric Um, all right, um up next we've got Maya Maya can you hear us? Oh, sorry, I clicked the button twice. There we go Hi I'm good. Um, so my question was Uh, I don't really want to I'm really not into one dimensional characters um, and I'm trying to I'm writing a play. I want the character development to be Deep in depth, you know, I wanted to to show that I put in the effort in creating these characters um, and the first thing that went to my mind was A scene in the wire where Omar goes to pick up Cheerios because the cereal ran out. He goes to pick up Cheerios, but he makes it very clear You know, you don't have honey nut And I felt like that was a very important thing because You don't want Omar to be looked at. Oh, he just robs other Other people out on the street. He also likes Honey Nut Cheerios. He also likes to take his grandmother to church on Sundays. That's what that's his thing I want to I want to do the same thing in a play But you only have about what nine ninety minutes in an average in an average play How can I Build a character develop how can I develop a character? With that much depth in such little time Yeah, detail good great question Details, um, you know, I mean you can you can have In plays you number one you can have as much time as you want You know, you put in T actually the form that you Quoted television is very strict with how much time you have You know in but acts breaks have to happen at certain times Episodes are certain lengths commercial breaks, you know, so You have to put in details and detail that detail took what? 10 seconds, right You have to put in you have to put in details in your characters and just because a play is 90 minutes or A two-minute play like Marlene is writing you can still put in details details don't have to be An hour's worth of details that Honey Nut Cheerios that's a 15 second detail right So just just putting your details. I mean that's that's what you're talking about, right? Yeah, I just don't want my details to be so in your face You know, I don't want my character to always have a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and you know in the scene I don't want it to be you know how Keenan and Kellen how he was always about the orange soda I don't want it to be I don't want it to be so in your face like that I wanted to be Yeah Well, um You got to digest some literature that does what you want to do, you know I mean we could you know You know what I mean, it's it's it's part of the craft You got you got a bone up on the craft So if you like things like the wire or whatever that are full of beautiful details that you like watch more of those shows or read more of Tennessee Williams or whatever it is that you you like. I mean study your craft. That's where it's going to come from we you know Anything can be a brilliant Detail care a detail that gives you some idea of the character or something heavy-handed. It's it's It depends on how the craftsperson uses it How it might be shaped during the table read, you know, sometimes first drafts don't always have those beautiful, you know Um It's a craft of writing people Right. It's just I don't I want it to be seen. I don't want it to be so obvious But I also want it to be seen and that's where that's the Yeah, yeah, I would say I would say start watching whatever you like You watch your tv shows and make lists of all the details that you love That are that are seen and not heavy-handed maybe or read your plays and make lists of all the details that you love And and start to see how other artists do that. You have to study the craft. That's what You know, that's what we do we Do this, you know So when we so when uh, what's his name who did the wire? I'm spacing on his name. Blah blah blah blah fat mr. Fabulous Yeah, no, uh, not eric oremire. Um Yeah, I can't remember his name. Mr. Wonderful. Uh, you know, I mean he's he you know, he also did um You know, he's a student of the craft. He's a craft person. He's an artist. He's worked at this diligently Um to get a detail like that that pops and maybe again, that wasn't in the first draft Maybe it's something that happened in the second draft or at the table read or whatever We don't know where it came from being on the outside of it But that's a craft question. You got to study the craft. We all have to right? This is what we're doing It's not coming to us just because like we want to be, you know, great writers. You know that right, Maya Yes, I do. Yeah, we got a week. So take a look at your favorite tv shows or novels or whatever And study them in your free time that you might have these days Okay, thank you so much. Sure. Thank you. David Simon And that's who it is We got Mr. Fabulous. Yeah Great writer. Yay. All right. Next up. We've got about seven minutes left and we're going to go to CIDA I'm sorry if I pronounced that wrong. Were you there? I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes Great. Oh, hi Uh, this is the first day I've joined. I'm so excited and I want to thank you for having this space um I am a theater maker and I so So it was a surprise when you said okay 20 minutes you can do whatever you you know, how do you work? So I also do embroidery. I do all kinds of stuff, but I'm writing right now um, I've written solo plays and I I'm also a voice and a movement teacher. So I'm writing a chapter for a book And so in those 20 minutes what I did is I was um, I need to turn in a second draft this week and so I was rereading and um, so in this chapter, I'm writing about voice and identity and um about undoing Structures I'm writing about decolonizing my own education I am I am the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants and most of my education has been in the us and in the uk and so I am going through this like a bit of a painful process of realizing that when I was encouraged to go away and become better by getting an education that it also meant uprooting myself from From from my people from that. I'm not better from my mother because she's a seamstress or I'm and I am now in academic academia. So As I write this chapter, um, I I'm seeing The the the thread in there is this um, I don't want to So and what I noticed that I I'd like to be able to undo is this translation. I realized that in Not just translation from Spanish to English, but a constant translation of myself Uh in my experience. Um, and I don't want to do that anymore and so it's interesting to do to be writing a chapter and and Even though, um, I have a great, um Editor and uh, it's all focused on undoing and decolonizing structures There's still kind of what you were saying a police in my head that is judging, uh I'm still finding myself translating and having to go back. Who am I writing this for? Um So I wanted to share that and see if you have thoughts in terms of because I don't think we translate ourselves just from in language, but that we translate We're constantly trying to figure out who this work is for and for me, it's so layered with um issues of identity and um race that sometimes I feel a little lost Who is your work first? Tell me how to pronounce your name. Is it Saita Saita. Okay. Saita. So who is your work for a great question? By the way, who is your work for? I mean this piece right here this piece is for This piece is for my my family and for my students of color And do you find yourself kind of hedging or holding back or not saying some things because you're talking with them through this piece Yeah, a little bit, but I'm doing it, but it's a little bit scary to um Yeah, it's it's it's strange. It's really strange because there's like you learn how to write things In a certain way, and then I feel like wait, this is not how we talk This is not if I really want my mom to understand this chapter if I really want um Students to not Translate themselves the way I felt I had to translate myself In 20 years ago when I was a student in theater programs or when I you know, um Yeah, so yeah Could you include lines like that in your piece? Yes Yeah, that's what I mean the the caveat the the disclaimer that we're talking to Emma about If I in italics, you know, if I really want if we're really wanting my mom to understand this piece, I would say this You see what I mean? Yeah, because you know, you have to think about what is my relationship with the police Yeah, you know what I'm saying Yeah, and and you know either you're like You know different people have different relationships with the police And those of us who have that double or triple or quadruple consciousness Are always having multiple conversations as we interact with the police And in your piece you can have multiple conversations um You know the publisher might need something your audience might need something else There's no reason why your piece can't include both or more than two things or you know multiple Multiple Voices if you will Yeah, you know There's a line in in my play the death of the last black man in the whole entire world a k the negro book of the dead That says it will be for us, but you will mention them from time to time Disclaimer Yeah Right just right in there. It's one of the frames in the play That the characters say over and over You know And that's how we speak. We just we have we have just multiple tongues multiple consciousnesses consciousnesses You know what I'm saying? Yeah, oh you can structure your piece on the page You know to incorporate all those Levels all those places where your mind has to go just to keep itself together And that is valid and that is good and you have permission Thank you, and that's and you have permission whether or not you're a poc or not or this you know It's not about like oh, I don't have permission because I'm not a you know woman from black, you know, what it's not about that If we're giving everybody permission once we start giving everybody permission Once we start saying hey, guess what? You're free And so are you and so are you and I don't care where you're from or who you are or who your Ancestors were or want or whatever That's a very powerful thing and it's also destabilizing because now I can't claim at all I have to give it away And there's something very powerful about that And I have a feeling that it's good I but I know for sure that it's Friday Do we say what what next week is gonna look like? I think we should Next week. So this is what we're gonna. We're gonna be we're gonna be exploring Various ways of being and one of the fun things We have a lot of people in the public theater family a lot of my friends colleagues Comrades people I love and people who are very excited about watch me work We're gonna invite them on the show So we're gonna basically we're gonna be having folks on the show who are going to talk a little bit about their work Just to smidge just to kind of get you up to speed on what they're doing And then they're going to Take questions from you. I'll still be here hanging out Couple days a week It's just going to be me and you just like this and a couple days a week I'm going to invite on one of my dear friends comrades compatriots to join us in this so you can get a variety of perspectives Um, not and not just mine. Although, you know, mine is so great. Yours is the best Mine is the best but you know, we have people who who want to share and I want you to hear from other people too So that's what we're going to be doing Starting next week and should we do we have announcements about who's gonna? Yeah, I can tell you a couple of them a couple. I'm going to keep to us, but we'll tell you later Um, so usually we're going to have guests Tuesday and Thursdays One other thing to say is that we're going to be going Monday to Thursday now with Friday's off because it's the summer basically And the public theater has Friday's off basically so basically Friday's off Okay That's right So um, but to kick us off we're actually going to have a Monday guest. It's going to be Oscar Eustace because he's so special He's so special And then on Tuesday, we're going to have young gene lee and then Thursday. I'll tell you about a little later. Yeah, great So so yeah next week. We're going to start off our special guests with uh, Oscar Eustace The artistic director of the public theater who loves this show and has been a big supporter all the way through He's going to come on on monday and hang out with us And then tuesday we're going to have young gene lee who i'm a big fan of and who is a big friend of mine We're going to hang out with young gene lee on tuesday and then Wednesday just going to be me and y'all Thursday is going to be someone special And me and y'all so uh, that's how we're going to kind of hop along and uh, hopefully it'll be fun And if it's not we'll stop doing it. That's right. I will just go back to this because this is fun, too We know this is fun All right, all right Oh, so sorry last reminder sign up by 3 p.m. Every single day eastern standard time same old as usual I'll send you a link between 3 and 4 30 p.m. On the day up great. Okay. We love you guys. Have a great weekend Love you. See you monday