 Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I have your attention please. Welcome to TCG's 24th annual national conference and welcome to San Diego. I'd like to ask everyone to please stand so that we can play our national anthem. Thank you to the Navy Band Southwest. I think we need them to play at all of our conferences in the future. What a response. Thank you all so much. There is no better way to begin a conference in San Diego than by acknowledging the huge role the military play in this community. When we first arrived for our site visit last year, we were told there were key aspects of San Diego we had to feature. The first, the incredible military community here. To that end, this Friday at 5 p.m., Blue Star theaters will host an excerpted performance of bass track, a multimedia performance based on the words of modern-day Marines and their families, and we hope you'll join us for that. A second key feature of San Diego Life to feature, the border with Mexico, which is just 20 minutes away. This conference is called Crossing Borders in part because yesterday about 100 theater people crossed the border into Tijuana for two pre-conferences, a meeting of the Diversity and Inclusion Institute and the International Artistic Collaboration Forum. We engaged with the rich cultural scene of Tijuana and fostered connections with Mexican artists, and we went to the border itself, to the wall of Friendship Park. We saw how the Tijuana wall was covered with visual art, with gardens, with memorials to the lost, and we watched a play on the beach where the walls run into the sea, and we felt the power of the arts to wear down or tear down the borders that divide us. To create the world imagined in TCG's vision statement of, a better world for theater and a better world because of theater. Let's use this short time together to reach across our many borders of difference towards that better world. That time together here would not be possible without the support of our wonderful conference sponsors. I'd like to name them and ask you to hold your applause until the end. The City of San Diego, the Edgerton Foundation, Fisher DAX Associates, Male Chimp, the National Endowment for the Arts, Patron Technology, San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, the Ruth Easton Fund, Tessitora Network, Wells Fargo, the Actors Fund, Paul-Marie Black, Ralph and Gail Bryan, Joanne Clark, Elaine Bennett Darwin, Leonard Hirsch, Linnell Lynch, Jay and Julie Sarno, Dr. Steve and Lynn Wheeler. Thank you to all of our sponsors. And I'd like to extend an additional note of gratitude to Linnell Lynch, President of the Board of La Jolla Playhouse who has really gone above and beyond making this conference possible. Linnell, wherever you are from all of us, thank you. Our time together would also not be possible without the tireless efforts of our San Diego host committee. Please join me in welcoming host committee members, Christopher Ashley and Delicia Turner-Sannenberg to the stage. Hello. On behalf of the local theater makers here in San Diego and the entire theater community and arts community, I want to welcome you to our beautiful home. And I also want to ask the members of the host committee, please stand. I want to give a special shout out to our chairs, first Donna Horrell and then Jessica Bird and Patrick Stewart. Thank you so much for your work. It's fitting that the theme this year is Crossing Borders because in San Diego not only do we share a border with Mexico, but we also cross borders all the time working with each other in our theater community. We don't fit into boxes. We collaborate with each other across budget sizes, across disciplines. And this leads to unique collaborations but also a sense of family. So welcome to our community and welcome to our family. And a big part of that is because of the generosity and the vision of this man, Christopher Ashley. I'd like to join Delicia and welcome you to San Diego to make you feel more at home. We've both worn black. There is a really deep sense of community in the people who make theater here in San Diego. There's actually no better example of that than Delicia who not only runs her own theater company but is also directed at La Jolla Playhouse and San Diego Rath and the Ion Theater and Moa Lalo and New Village Arts. She's been everywhere. We also share in San Diego and are really bonded by a common enemy, the beach. And I hope that in addition, I hope you get a chance to experience the beach. I also hope you get to experience some of the extraordinary theater here in San Diego. It's inventive, it's imaginative, and it's well worth your time. San Diego also has a really extraordinary philanthropic community. And there is no brighter or more shining example of that than the recipient of this year's Regional Fundor Award. And it is the city of San Diego. Through the Commission on Arts and Culture, the city of San Diego is in a really deep, ongoing and committed interaction with the arts makers in San Diego. Committed to new art happening here, committed to arts and education, and committed to that holy grail of all funding opportunities, general operating support. So it's my great pleasure to welcome Council Member Lori Zapp to the stage to accept the Regional Fundor Award for the city of San Diego. Oh, thank you so much. Well, a lot of people showed up. Well, on behalf of the mayor and the city council, I would like to also welcome you to our wonderful city and for choosing San Diego, I'm going to put this beautiful award right here, for choosing San Diego to host your annual conference. I also want to thank the La Jolla Playhouse as well for being so instrumental in hosting this conference and for contributing to our very vibrant arts and culture community here in San Diego. And just to let you know, I am the official drama mama of the San Diego City Council. Thank you. I have a high school daughter who lives, eats, breathes, music theater, and she's twirling around our house probably right now rehearsing, hoping to get the lead in the summer production of Grease next week. So keep your fingers crossed, she always goes for the lead. That's my life, right? You guys get it. Unfortunately, in recent years, our city is, you know, probably like many of yours has been faced with budget cuts that have affected our ability to, you know, foster growth in the arts and culture community. But I am proud to say that with a lot of hard work and proactive pushing and begging, we are increasing this coming year's budget. We're restoring a lot more funding to the arts and culture community, and I am absolutely thrilled about that. Thank you. So just in 2013, we had 72 organizations receiving funding from what you heard about the Arts and Culture Commission. And we realized, like many of you, that to have a great city, a truly great city, you have to have a great, thriving arts and culture community. In order to attract entrepreneurs and great companies, you have to have a great arts and culture community. Our beaches are great, but they don't do, they don't do it all. You have to have that for a truly great city. So our city council and this city council person, our mayor, we are all very, what's the right word here? We're committed, we're very committed to continuing to grow and foster the thriving arts and culture community right here in San Diego, like the Old Globe Theater, like the La Jolla Playhouse, like so many of the wonderful small theaters we have throughout San Diego. So thank you for coming here. I hope you get to experience them and spend a lot of money. We need to keep those budget cuts, you know, that budget growing so we can spend more money on arts and culture. Thank you very much. Thank you so much to Christopher and to Delicia and to Council Member Lori Zaff. Very exciting what's happening here in San Diego and the incredible support that this city lends to the arts. Our opening plenary to the mountaintop is inspired in part by the work of TCG's Diversity and Inclusion Initiative and our commitment to a theater field that doesn't replicate the injustices of our larger culture but models a new way forward. Let me give you a brief report on our progress. First up is Represent, our demographic profile and research tool. The primary goals of Represent are to allow theater people to authentically self-identify instead of checking a box, to provide robust real-time snapshots of the current diversity and equity of theater staff, boards, and artists and to empower shared language, goal-setting, and measurable progress field-wide. Represent is also a great example of how we think about diversity and equity in a broader context than just race, ethnicity, or gender. The eight areas of identity that we're initially studying with Represent exist in all of our diversity and inclusion work even when we're focused on one particular aspect of identity. If you'd like to learn more about Represent, I encourage you to attend our breakout session which is tomorrow at 10.45 a.m. We've also made progress with our Legacy Leaders of Color video project. After a competitive RFP, we chose Moped, the wonderful production company that we collaborated with on the IM Theater series. The video project will feature 10 in-depth looks at groundbreaking theater leaders of color including some who have passed. We have Moped with us at the conference shooting some B-rolls, so some of you may end up playing a cameo role in this B-roll. We've also continued work on our Literature Review which will provide critical thinking and historic resources about diversity and inclusion. And we'll also include reference materials to assist theaters in launching diversity and inclusion plans. One big part of the Literature Review is the Diversity and Inclusion Salon which is led by the amazing Jacqueline E. Lawton who was curated over, yes, please. Jackie has curated over 150 posts of testimonials, interviews, and essays providing a rich personal context to this work. Jackie is also curating a blog salon on the themes of this conference along with returning conference curator Karidad Spitsch which I encourage you to check out at TCGCircle.org. We've just launched our year-round SPARK leadership program building on our Young Leaders of Color program. SPARK will create a more diverse theater landscape by supporting the professional development of 10 exceptional leaders of color who aim to take on executive leadership positions in our field. We're also focusing on finding more impactful ways of supporting theaters of color. We've been convening leaders of these theaters to learn about their unique strengths and challenges so that we can create programs for capacity building and to raise field-wide awareness of the essential contribution of these theaters. And finally, the work of our Diversity and Inclusion Institute is really bearing fruit. Many of you heard institute members sharing their progress at last year's Fall Forum and since that time we've held two webinars and a pre-conference yesterday. We're always so inspired to hear examples of the concrete action steps and tangible progress these theaters are making and we're developing resources and best practices that we can share and disseminate field-wide. If you'd like to hear more about all of this, we'll be reporting out during Saturday 9 a.m.'s breakout session all hands on deck. I'd also like to acknowledge that there have been some very rich conversations today at our identity affinity groups and I want to encourage you all to join us at 12.30 p.m. on Saturday when we'll bring all of the affinity groups together for a check in with Carmen Morgan who is our wonderful Diversity and Inclusion partner. In the thick of a huge initiative like this, especially one that addresses such long-standing challenges for our field, it's easy to lose sight of where we're headed. That vision of a truly diverse, inclusive and equitable theater field and culture. The slow rate of progress can make us discouraged, frustrated, angry, burned out but when we remember that vision of a better world, we're inspired to return to the work and that's where this session to the mountaintop comes in. It is now my pleasure to introduce the moderator of our first plenary session, Sarah Bellamy. Sarah was recently named co-artistic director of Penumbra Theater and serves on the TCG board. She also recently co-founded the Twin Cities Theaters of Color Coalition and has presented Penumbra's race workshop to great acclaim at past conferences and for theaters across the country. Please join me in welcoming Sarah Bellamy to the stage. Hello to the mountaintop. With this title, we pay tribute to the vision and courage of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The speech he gave in Memphis to the sanitation workers is one of his most poignant and profound. In it, King said, God has allowed me to go up to the mountain and I've looked over and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. In a matter of hours, he would be dead, shot down at the Lorraine Motel by an assassin's bullet. In retrospect, we wonder, did he know? Did he feel the cool shadow of death behind him? I may not get there with you, he'd said. There was a remarkable sense of calm in Dr. King that night, a groundedness in his vision, his purpose. He had weighed his time on earth and saw where the people he led had tools to lead themselves. There was momentum. He had faith in others to take up the torch. My father always says, never underestimate the power of one good life. Short as his life was, in his 39 years, Dr. King became one of the most renowned world leaders. A great leader. Why? He served. He heard questions and dared to give answers, some quite inconvenient answers. He saw where there was hunger and found ways to feed. He witnessed injustice and took action toward equity. He didn't just talk about it, Dr. King put himself in harm's way, stood in the streets, arm in arm with the people who needed him the most, his people. He built allegiances that extend far beyond class and creed, beyond even common interest. He built a movement of people invested in fulfilling the potential of our own humanity. And that vision extended far beyond the span of his own human life. What would a leader like Dr. King think of where we stand today as a nation? Are we nearing the mountaintop? Do we have the metal to climb that steep and ever dangerous rock face so that we can finally stand ready to look over? And once we've done that, the hard work to get there, are we brave enough to look beyond what we already know towards something we may not recognize? Do we have the moral fortitude to see ourselves forward together? There are a great number of qualities that make Martin Luther King Jr. a great leader, but today I want to draw out three that I think resonate particularly with the themes of this conference. Leaders serve. They put people first. Their vision extends beyond themselves, even beyond the scope of their own lives. It is not about them. Leaders listen. They are humble in the face of collective wisdom. They take time to hear what individuals want for their communities. They address injustice by first making space for those most impacted to have voice. Leaders don't work alone. As brilliant as Dr. King was, he was one of thousands of people who sacrificed for the vision of an equitable future. From parents who sent their children to fill the jails in Birmingham, to the cab drivers who charged ten cents a ride the same as bus fare in Montgomery, everyone had a part to play. These are vital attributes of leaders who understand equity. We need those kinds of leaders today who get it on a fundamental blood and bones level. We need an army of people who believe that diversity and inclusion are vital benchmarks for the health and success of an organization, not because it will increase audiences or generate new income, but because at the end of the day, it's simply the right thing to do. Where is our courage? What is our vision? Us, this wonderful, wacky, brilliant, daring community of artists and arts lovers. How big do we dare to dream? In this opening session, I have the distinct pleasure of welcoming four leaders who are willing to share their vision with us. Each artist represents a different vantage point for a whole host of reasons. Let's listen as we imagine with them our way forward to the mountaintop. First speaker I'd like to introduce is Christopher Diaz, an OB award-winning playwright whose play The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is a Pulitzer Prize-winning finalist. He has been awarded the New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award and the inaugural Gail Maryfield Papp Fellowship from the Public Theater. He is a playwright in residence at Teatro Vista and a resident playwright at New Dramatists. Please join me in welcoming Christopher Diaz to the stage. That's for my son. Hey, Leo. And hi, Joanne. Hey, there's a lot of people here. Okay, there's many more things that I want to say that I'm going to actually say. I'm going to try to go quickly. I apologize if I go over my time. I will try not to start us off on the wrong foot. So a couple of years ago, I was at the conference in Los Angeles and I got pulled aside by Jack Ruler and from Mixed Blood in Minneapolis. I hope a lot of you know who Jack Ruler is. And you know when Jack Ruler pulls you aside, you go. And so Jack pulled me aside and he said, listen, I want to tell you about this thing we're about to do. We're going to stop charging people for tickets. And I sort of just looked at him and he said, he went on and he sort of told me what the plan was. He said, it's going to allow us to stop relying on ticket sales. It's going to allow us to reach the audiences we want to reach, to engage the communities we'd like to engage. And it's going to allow us to program exactly what we'd like to program and be who we'd like to be. And he said, the main thing I want to let you know is that it's a two-year program. We're planning this as a two-year program, but because you're an artist that we've worked with before, you should know that this is what's going to happen now on. And one of two things is going to be the result. Either it's going to work and we're never going to charge for tickets at Mixed Blood again, or it's not going to work. And Mixed Blood is going to close. So we talk a lot about risk in the theater. I know a lot of you talk about risk in the theater and usually when we're talking about that, it's not really all that risky. This was risky. And it's worked. That's the amazing thing. Several years later, Mixed Blood is alive and more than alive. It's thriving. It's one of my favorite theater companies in the country. You should take a look at the season they're doing next year. It's truly remarkable, particularly from the perspective of diversity and inclusion. And it's a program called Radical Hospitality and it's a success, partially because Jack Ruler is, and this is my favorite term for Jack Ruler, some people may have heard this before, Leo, cover your ears. Gangster is fuck. But partially because, and maybe this is the same thing as being that, Jack is able to identify the priorities, his own priorities and the priorities of his theater and then pursue them relentlessly. And if there's a way to define success in this business, and it's one of the things we were asked to do in this panel, I'd argue that that's what success is. It's the success that I'm pursuing. It's the success that I encourage young playwrights to pursue. It's the kind of success where you know what matters to you, you identify and articulate what matters to you, and then you work like hell to bring more of that into the world. So I've written this speech about 20 times, including this version, which I started at 11.30 this morning, scrapping the old one, and I kept at this point sliding into this temptation to go into the negatives. And if you haven't participated in this version, in a version of this conversation for the last 15 years or 20 years or 50 years, if some of you out there have, you may not know this, but this conversation often always devals into the negatives. There are a lot of negatives. I'm not going to tell those stories today. I do have a lot of good stories about them, though, so buy me a beer later. I'll be happy to tell you. But instead, in the spirit of mixed blood, in the spirit of radical hospitality, and in the spirit of one of the other questions we've been charged with answering, what would a truly equitable theater field look like? I'm going to focus on the good. I'm going to articulate a few of my priorities and show some love to folks who are working like hell to bring more of those things that matter to me and, more importantly, to them into the world. I should start by articulating that inclusion and diversity are priorities to me. You know, as Sarah mentioned earlier, but I don't want to take it as a given that every organization, every individual, even here, even standing with this crossing borders banner in front of us, I don't want to take it as a given that everybody prioritizes diversity or everybody prioritizes it equally. I'm a playwright, but I also have a degree in management from Brooklyn College. Michelle Preston is here soon. Janey, I think, is here. So I say that to say, I understand that there are business considerations to take home. I understand that for many of you, your priorities have to be your physical plant or your acting ensemble or donor cultivation. And I support that. And I also know that if I asked, who here supports parity and who here supports inclusion, every single hand would go up. But I do know that when you're planning, when it comes time to plan the future of your institution, some of you, many of you, most of you maybe, may not have prominent space for those values in the decision-making matrix. And I think that's fine. I think that's okay. It's not the first and foremost thing that comes to everybody's mind when they're planning. But I do also want to mention that I value truth in advertising. And I take mission statements very seriously. And perhaps that's tied back to my management training. And I think that if you or your institution claims in its mission statement that you do value diversity and then your work's not diverse, or if you and your mission statement claim to represent the demographics of your city and then your work doesn't match up to those numbers, I think we've got a problem. I call it a flaw. We call it an oversight. We call it an oversight. We're being positive in this conversation. But I'd like for, if any of that applies to you, I'd like to start pointing at these institutions that are doing these things and valuing these things well. And I'd ask that you take a look at a program like the American Revolutions Program at Oregon Shakes, which I'm fortunate to be commissioned by. They're trying to tell the story of sea changes in the United States of America. And they realized very early on that in order to tell that story, they needed to be diverse. Diversity is not the end result of what they're looking for, but diversity is a necessity to adequately tell their story. And so I would ask each of you to take a look closely at the stories you and your institution are claiming to tell and to see if you're employing the correct voices, the correct diversity, the correct multiplicity of voices in order to tell those stories. Now, if you're not quite doing that yet, you're in luck because there's never been a better time and a better opportunity to find those voices. I imagine that many of you, if not most of you, already know about the Kilroy's. If you don't, if you don't, you should. The Kilroy's is a group, a gang they call themselves of LA-based playwrights and Joy Meads, who have compiled a list of 300 underproduced plays by women. I'm not doing entirely their mission justice, but I'll just tell you all of these plays have been vouched for by various members of the theater community, many of whom I imagine are in this room as well. So the work is being, that legwork is being done for you already. If you need more women to help you tell that story, I guarantee you'll find more of them there. Many of them there. The Kilroy's.org. Similarly, the incomparable Karidad Svich, who was mentioned a few minutes ago, is teaming up with the incomparable Dominic D'Andrea and many other folks with NoPassport to create a program called NoPassport 3030, which is a national series of readings of new plays by writers of Latino descent. Many of these readings have already happened, but the plays are available on their website. The blurbs of the plays and character breakdowns are available on their website, nopassport.org slash 3030, I believe 3030. I believe is the URL there. You can get all the information you need there. Staying on the Latino front, we support, we'll be happy to hand you more information later on about Latino Theater Commons and the upcoming Encuentro. We have flyers, we have all kinds of good stuff. So if you're looking for more Latinos to help you tell your story, we will be happy to provide them for you. If you and your institution have what has come over the last few months to be known as a pipeline problem, there is no excuse to have a pipeline problem anymore. There are these... Go ahead. I have water. There's no excuse to have a problem anymore. There are these institutions and many, many others who are working to gather stockpile and provide the information to you. If this is the place where your institution currently is, if this is the work that you're currently doing and prioritizing, that's good. That's a beautiful thing. We want to encourage you to take your time and do it right. To the end, if you need to find the folks, find the folks. Inclusion is not a finish line. Inclusion is a process. Inclusion is like a marriage or raising a kid. Hi again, Joanne Elio. You have to decide that inclusion matters to you and that you want it to work and then you bust your ass to make sure that you're going to make it work. And like a marriage or raising a kid, there are hard parts and easy parts. Deciding to make all your tickets free but I'm going to leave you with some of the easy parts. Thank you for bearing with me. Here are some of the easiest ways to promote and support diversity. One, decide that you want your season to be awesome. Go ahead. This is what my good friends at one of my favorite theater companies that I have never been to but love dearly at Company One in Boston. Sarah, you are around here somewhere. I'm getting choked up. Company One's what got me. This is what they do. They do cool plays for a youngish audience, not for kids, youngish theater young. Theater young is like me, which is not really young at all. And when you're looking for cool plays for youngish audiences, you find Jackie civilly's Drury and you find Rajiv Joseph. I'm getting choked up just saying these people because these people are people whose work I love and people who I love. Aditi Kapil and Terrell McCraven. And these are people who make work with diverse casts, not just the casts of not just bringing the diversity themselves but their cast themselves are diverse. They even contain people who might be of mixed race, who might be diverse within themselves like my son who's half Puerto Rican and half Filipino like Bruno Mars. So that's one way to promote and support diversity. The second thing, not just the side that you want your season to be awesome, you be awesome. And this is another place where I'm going to cry. Be awesome and be a home. Be a home to your artists. Care about your artists, care about their stories, care about their families. Here, these are the two institutions that I always say when it comes to this, look at the LARC and look at new dramatists. These are institutions that don't set out to be, you can do it, they don't necessarily set out to be diverse, although the LARC has done amazing things with diversity, particularly led by another person who I love, dearly Andrea Tom and particularly working with exchange with Mexican playwrights. But these are places where writers of color, women writers, LGBTQ, LGBTQ writers, we feel at home because home is the priority for these institutions and yes, that matters for all writers, but it particularly matters for writers who come from some kind of minority, writers who don't get to feel at home everywhere they go, particularly not at every theater that we step into. If you welcome us into your home, we'll be your family forever. And I know I'm super long on time but I have to take this opportunity to say, please don't go, I know you've already left, but please don't go. And last, finally, and thank you again for bearing with me, if you want to promote and support diversity, please promote and support your artists. Talk to us. Ask us what we need, not just as artists but as people. Playwrights, and I'm coming from a playwright perspective right now, we need a lot of things. We have made a terrible career choice. We have no job security. We don't make a living wage. We have no real path to health insurance. And I know this doesn't sound like a problem that's particular to diversity in itself and it's nice, just something I wanted to say to you guys because we need those things. But it is something that I really wanted to mention to you in this context because it's a problem that's particular to people. It's a problem that's particular to humans. We all need these things to survive and thrive and continue to do the work that we do. And when I think about success, one of the things I was charged with doing here, I think about a day that we all get to do the work we do and we get to reap the benefits from having done that work. That, if there's a mountaintop in this conversation, is my vision of the mountaintop. And I know that we will never all be at the top of that mountain at the same time. It's a process. But as long as we can all find a way to jump on that path together, be making progress together, then we're in the middle of a process. And all of us together in that process. That's my idea of success. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Christopher. Next, I'd like to welcome Matika Wilbur to the stage. She is one of the Pacific Northwest's leading photographers and has exhibited in venues such as the Seattle Art Museum, the Royal British Columbia Museum of Fine Arts, and the Nantes Museum of Fine Arts in France. She has also embarked on a project to photograph citizens of all of the federally-recognized tribes in the United States called Project 562. Please join me in welcoming Matika Wilbur to the stage. It is such an honor to be here with you today. I feel incredibly humbled to have this opportunity. As we say in my language, my hands are raised to you. Before I get started, I'd like to acknowledge my elders in the room and thank you for allowing me to share. You know, I'm young and I have a lot to learn yet, so I hope you'll forgive me as I bumble through this. And I'd also like to acknowledge the Kumiai people, the ancestors of this land. We're grateful to be here. And my name is Matika Wilbur, I'm from the Swenomish and Tulalip tribe, and I'm here today to share stories from the silenced, to show you some of Native America's beauty and to encourage our collective consciousness to reimagine the way we see each other. Can we relearn to see as human beings? I wonder, does the photographic image actually affect our lives and the lives of those around us? And if it does, can we use that very same image to encourage and inspire one another? Can you recall the last image that you saw of a Native American in massive media? Does this work? I'm clicking. This is not it. Everybody close your eyes. We're going back. Way back. Way back. Keep your eyes closed. This is the question. Is this what you saw? Between 1990 and 2000, there were 5,868 blockbuster released films, 12 included American Indians, and all of them portrayed Indians as spiritual or in tune with nature. Ten of those films showed Indians as warrior-like. Ten is impoverished, desolate, and are beaten down by society. But representations of Indians as business people, teachers, photographers, doctors, lawyers, professional athletes and other contemporary jobs were largely absent from these films. What's interesting is how that misrepresentation manifests itself into our psyche. When these same images are shown to our young native minds, they report lower self-esteem and feel depressed about what they're able to become or want to become. Think of this. Mind it for me, dear. What's shocking is that when this very same image, when this very same experience happens with the white counterpart, there, they report having higher self-esteem. When society only sees us as these images represented, it means that our modern issues don't exist, nor do our modern efforts like schooling and economic development through sovereignty and nation-building. We have sophisticated tribal governments and communities, but how will we be able to be seen as modern, successful people if we are continually represented as the leathered and feathered vanishing race? For the last ten years, my work has been about counteracting those images and creating positive Indigenous role models from this century. My most recent Endeavour project, 562, is dedicated to photographing every Indigenous tribe in this nation. I set off on the journey about 19 months ago. I sold everything in my apartment and hopped in my war pony, and so far I've driven like nearly a hundred thousand miles. I've shot hundreds of roles of film. I visited with nearly 200 tribes. And in each community that I visit, I interview and photograph several people. I ask them questions about stereotypes and identity. What does it mean to be a real Indian? How do you feel about blood quantum? What efforts is your community taking to uphold sovereignty? And mostly, can you tell me your story, such as this one? This is Leon Grant. Leon is an Umaha Indian from Nebraska, and he grew up as a rancher on a small farm. When he was 17 years old, he decided that he wanted to pursue farming, so he left a note for his parents when they went to town and he set off toward Phoenix. He walked for 49 days and arrived in Phoenix with $19 in his pocket. He proceeded to put himself through community college, undergraduate, theology school and eventually law school. Leon devoted much of his career to helping Indian folks. He told me that in those days in the 50s Indians were still not valued citizens. And he thought that Native people would need or sleep if needed while in metropolitan areas. So he worked with Dr. Martin Luther King and established several American Indian centers across the country. Leon married a Navajo woman and is now living on a ranch in Navajo Nation. This is a photo of my cousin Anna Cook. Anna is 16 years old and she's Swinomish, Wallapai, have a Supai Cherokee, Chimawavi and her when she first became aware of race. And she talked about transitioning from Catholic private school to public school near the reservation we grew up on and she suddenly started crying. And she tries to find the words for explaining the segregation in her school. She talks about having to find a place to sit in the lunch room. Will she sit with the Indians? Will she sit alone with one of the friends? And she says you know what you get if you really want to know about racism all you have to do is visit our school. You'll see it. Isn't she beautiful? I just love this photo. This is my girl Desi Small Rodriguez. Her Cheyenne name is Muxiut. It means bear mint woman and she's a member of the northern Cheyenne tribe. And oh Desi is fierce. She's fierce. And she has a master's degree in sociology social stratification and inequality. And she's currently getting her Ph.D. in works as a senior policy analyst at the New Zealand Maori the Ministry of Maori Development. And one of the questions that I ask my participants is if there's any interesting details about their tribe that they would like to share perhaps something that isn't written down in the history book. And this is what Desi said. She said they call us the fighting Cheyenne because we fought for everything that we have here today. I've grown up knowing that we are here because 300 of our people made it back from Oklahoma. They escaped in the middle of winter after being forced into Indian territory. They were dying of famine and disease and so two of our chiefs Stollknife and Little Wolf decided that they were going to make a run for freedom. And if they died along the way to get home is this really amazing tale of survival of what a people would do to get back home. Only 300 made it. They were chased by the cavalry the entire time in the middle of winter for thousands of miles. And for me that is not history. That's my reality. That's a reality that our people still live with. It shapes your entire life knowing every day that my ancestors died for us to be here. I think it tells the strength of the Cheyenne people. This is John Trudeau. John is Santee Sue and a long time American Indian movement activist. He was the spokesperson for the Indian takeover of Alcatraz from 1969 to 1971 and he later served as chairman of AIM. And when I asked him how do we start a movement? What did you learn? What would you do differently? He said I wouldn't have encouraged the people of Alcatraz and the people of Logan so much. I would have encouraged the gratefulness and humility more. Something like native and grateful, native and thankful. Pride is not our word and we're not Indians. We're human beings and all of the tribes that you go to none of them will identify as Indian. They will identify as the name of their tribe and that name is the basis of our identity as humility. Raymond Matt is one of my heroes and I really didn't know it until I met him. I didn't know that the sacrifices he'd made had already impacted my life. You see, he was arrested 19 times for fishing on the Klamath River. He has all gold teeth and he belongs to the Yurok tribe and he was one of the first to challenge the US government for our fishing rights. He brought his case all the way and he told me about the turning point in that case of how they had laid out their set net and how the feds were there with their big guns and their reporters were there with the cameras and they were all waiting for them to go pick their net and he knew that if he went he'd be forcefully arrested again. So they were watching all of the commotion from the shore and finally his great-grandma said, and so she pulled out her canoe and paddled out there singing an honor song and she began picking the net and then came the feds with their guns demanding her to stop and then came the reporters with their cameras and then that image went on the cover of Time magazine and then they won their court case and you see my parents are commercial fishermen and that case law was used in the Judge Bolt decision of the fishing game in wildlife in Washington State so it really was a real honor to have the opportunity to thank Raymond Knox for his bravery. This is one of my favorite Cherokees of all time. Her name is Adrian Keane and she's a fierce educator Dr. Worcester and oh she just actually she finished her PhD she just got her PhD and I'd like to read you one of my favorite quotes from her blog post entitled Why Tonto Matters she's a blogger she said we are taught every day explicitly in classrooms and implicitly through messages from the media that our cultures are something of the past something that exists in negative contrast to western values and something that can be commodified and enjoyed by anyone with $20 to buy a cheap plastic headdress these stereotypical images like Johnny Depp's Tonto feed into the ongoing cycle and until we demand more our contemporary existence and therefore the real problems in Indian Country simply don't exist in the minds of the dominant culture how can we expect mainstream support for sovereignty self-determination nation-building tribally controlled education healthcare and jobs where 90% of the Americans only view native people as one-dimensional stereotypes that work past or even worse situated in their imaginations I argue that we can't and that to me is why Tonto matters this is the lovely Dr. Mary Evelyn Belgard from the Pueblo of Isleta and Okia Wenge Mary is a retired professor of Indian Education from the University of New Mexico Mary is very passionate about training teachers to work with an indigenous community and after a long conversation about the history of schools and governmentally engineered systems of education and assimilation she said when are we going to stop asking our children to choose between cultural education and western education I think we are ready to stop the assimilation process the time to change is now this is Windsor Nosey and he's the former chairman of the San Carlos Apache tribe and a great spiritual leader for the people and about two months ago and he took me to the prisoner of war camp that held the Apache people for nearly 50 years and that's where we took this photo and when I went there I was just overwhelmed by the same feeling that I got when I visited Auschwitz in Germany and Mr. Nosey wanted to have his picture taken here to remember the past the present and the future of the Apache people and remembrance of this hollow ground formerly known with this how do we recover what do I say when I talk about this and he said we have to remember that in the very beginning there were four blessed gifts to the world and those are the four colors of people if we go back to the ancient ways the people who are white black and yellow they are our relatives that's why in Apache there really is no word for another race cheeky meaning we are all relatives so when you go back to that very beginning you can remember harmony we knew that all that God has created on the earth has a spirit and when we all knew that we were in sequence together we were brothers and sisters and in the words of Mr. Kent Nürbur and the great author of neither nor dog he said I've yet to meet an Indian who didn't somewhere deep inside struggle with the anger and sadness at what has happened to our people and I've never met an honest and aware non-Indian person in America who doesn't somewhere deep inside struggle with guilt about what we as a culture have done to the people who inhabited this continent before us we can like each other feel pity for each other love each other but always somewhere beneath the surface of our personal encounters this cultural memory is rumbling a tragedy has taken place on this land and even though it did not take place on our watch we are its inheritors and the earth remembers we must all Indian and non-Indian come together the earth is our mother this land is our shared heritage our histories and fates are intertwined no matter where our ancestors were born and how they interacted with each other I think that in the human experience that's occurring right now we can celebrate each other for stepping forward to be seen and heard we have always been drawn to the artistic exploration of the human image the human voice our portraits our narratives our ubiquitous universal markers of our identity they reveal histories and places they implicate universal markers oops they implicate realities they draw us into each other's lives and experiences they profoundly mysteriously engage the imagination and our feelings and as a photographer I believe we humans present the most important motifs of all so today I honor creativity based on our connectedness on our being drawn to one another on our wanting more understanding more honor to transcend limiting standards and perceptions most of us yearn to experience the shock of beauty and revelation anew such a vital part of our enduring innocence and we are creating something extraordinary just coming together in this room talent and soul good intentions trauma tenacity positivity there is unprecedented convergence of peoples here there is hope here there is love here I'm astonished by what this project has come to represent the human synergy that has occurred from this experience has been breathtaking and before I leave you I'd like to feed your mind with these images and ideas of contemporary Indian identity Anishinaabe Pima Lummi beautiful culture bearing activists in the 1491 grandma grandpa aunties cousins presidents toluwa clinkett zuni and pachanga powerful persevering and thriving bahajoni peaches brandon and royalty musicians phd's elders fashionistas loving piutes soupis tolalups they encro entrepreneurs filmmakers scholars holy men fishermen superintendents fears veterans teachers husbands and wives and so it is with these stories and images that I share a medicine a new system of knowing a new way of thinking a new way of loving and appreciating and valuing and I hope that you will join me in changing the way that we see Native America Tiglitzi Thank you so much Matika It's beautiful Next I'd like to welcome Naomi Izuki playwright and current head of the MFA playwriting program at the University of California here in San Diego Her plays include 36 views Polaroid stories and language of angels and have been produced across the country and won many awards including a Pam Laura Pells Award a Rockefeller Foundation MAP grant and an NEA TCG Artist in Residence grant Please join me in welcoming Naomi Izuki to the stage So I'm not somebody who normally gives speeches that's not what I do and I certainly don't do it for such a large group what I am what I think of myself as is a problem solver As a playwright I have to figure out how to tell the story I'm trying to tell as a teacher I have to figure out how to help students who might be struggling and as a single mom I have to figure out what to do when my son wakes up with a fever and I don't have childcare lined up Every day of my life I have to be a problem solver If we want a more equitable inclusive and diverse theater I believe we need less rhetoric and more problem solving So in that spirit I'd like to identify what I perceive to be two of the biggest problems getting in the way of true equity diversity and inclusivity and I'd like to propose some possible solutions One of the biggest problems I think we can all agree is the shameful fact that there are still so many voices that are not being heard on our stages If we genuinely want a diverse and inclusive theater then we need to actively seek out artists from underserved and underrepresented communities and we need to produce their work and yes, it is as simple as that It's not enough to speak about inclusion and equity in grant applications and panel discussions Those principles of inclusion and equity need to translate into action I believe universities can provide a model for how to do just that Recently, the Big Ten Consortium under the leadership of Alan McVeigh at the University of Iowa came together to address the fact that there were not enough plays by women being produced in regional theaters and in universities These Big Ten schools also sought to address the fact that there were not enough roles being written for women They saw a problem and they decided to do something about it Together, they made a multi-year commitment to commission women playwrights to write plays where the majority of roles would be for women and then these same Big Ten schools committed to producing these plays in their seasons I was the first playwright they commissioned The play I wrote opens at the University of Michigan this fall and is slated for multiple productions over a two-year period Kirsten Greenwich is the second playwright they commissioned I look forward to seeing who the third, fourth, and fifth playwright will be in this groundbreaking initiative The point is simple If you see a problem, take action I want to give you another example of the way in which universities can be part of the solution I believe one of the biggest obstacles to a more inclusive and diverse theater is the one-size-fits-all model of production If we want a theater that is truly inclusive and diverse we need to figure out how to genuinely support all the different ways that artists create work Some projects require a deep engagement with community partners over long periods of time Some are multi-platform projects that require intensive and ongoing collaborations with designers in the room from the outset Some are radically reconceiving how audiences participate in the creative process These projects and many others do not lend themselves to a one-size-fits-all approach They do not lend themselves to a four-week rehearsal period in a few days of tech I believe universities may be able to offer solutions I'll give an example of what I mean When I taught at UC Santa Barbara I started something called a summer theater lab My idea was simple Invite a diverse group of artists to UCSB to work on projects with the students How the artists use their time at the lab was completely up to them It was completely artist-driven My only rule, I had only one rule was that whatever artists were working on that they include students not as gophers or assistants or god forbid, silent observers but as participating artists in their own right And so I invited people like Luis Alfaro Daniel Alexander Jones Che Yu Lisa Portes Jonathan Mosconi Ann Garcia Romero Les Waters Jessica Haggadorn Lisa D'Amour Sean San Jose and gave them what they asked me for whether it was bilingual actors or live band and if I served really good food and then if I just got out of the way amazing things would happen and they did in surprising and unpredictable ways Yes, plays were written and projects developed that went on to be produced regionally and off-broadway but for me, even more exciting there were all these students underserved and underrepresented communities in Fresno Pacoima Anaheim and San Jose talented kids who had never really done theater and now we're all of a sudden really really excited about theater Many of these young men and women found mentors and collaborators because of that summer theater lab and an extraordinary number of them went on to pursue theater including playwrights Chris Pena and Sharif Abu-Amde to name just a few If we are truly seeking to create a field that is more diverse and more inclusive I believe universities are a huge untapped resource My experience with the summer theater lab and at UC San Diego where I now teach have convinced me that universities are uniquely positioned to serve as laboratories for artists to create new work in a way that regional theaters can never be Universities have unparalleled resources we have spaces to rehearse we have state-of-the-art performance facilities we have housing for artists universities can be places where artists can create work in non-traditional ways over long periods of time where artists can work with visionary thinkers and other disciplines engineering and bioethics and where they can push the art form in new directions universities can also be places where artists have the opportunity to teach and learn from a genuinely diverse community of students who will, if we inspire and nurture them become the next generation of artists and audiences I would reach out to all of you in this room to think about ways in which universities can play a bigger role in making our field more inclusive and diverse The Big Ten initiative and the UC Santa Barbara Summer Theater Lab are just two models of what that might look like I realize that this is just a small part of a much larger conversation there are many problems to be solved but there are also many problem solvers among us people of action who are optimistic I want to end with something I tell my writing students and myself every day and that is this show, don't tell as writers we have all these great ideas but if those ideas aren't showing up on the page then it doesn't count it's an intention that is yet to be embodied if we want a theater that genuinely embodies the principles of diversity and inclusivity these principles need to inform every choice that we make every day in how we allocate resources how we program seasons how we support artists in the communities that they come from and how we recruit and train a younger generation we all know in our hearts what the mountaintop looks like we just need to find ways to create a theater so take action wherever you are in whatever way you can only when our actions match our words will true and lasting change happen thank you thank you Naomi next up is Peter Brocius the artistic director of children's theater company where he has commissioned workshop and directed countless world premieres since joining the company in 1997 he is the director of the Honolulu Theater for Youth and the improvisational theater project of the Mark Taper Forum he is the recipient of the Alan Schneider director award and honors from the L.A. Drama Critics Circle award and drama log please join me in welcoming Peter Brocius so I stand between you and the bar I just want to say it's an honor to be here with Sarah Naomi and Matica and Chris we are all storytellers and what I love about thinking about that is stories have power whose story we're telling matters have we told the story have we appropriated that story the point of view through which we tell the story matters and those who are left out of the story or whose story has never heard matters few things I've learned in my time as artistic director of children's theater and honestly as a father to my theater obsessed Gabe and my political activist Daria when we make theater for young people certain things are required of us we must engage fully with the present we must see reality as it actually is without self-deception or illusion because young people do see the truth and if you lie to them they will call you out trust me I know from experience every single day I see examples that young people are more fearless that they are less racist, less homophobic than any previous generation and it fills me with incredible hope they don't see borders the same way as other generations they see differences as mutable transient as opportunities for connection their world is connected and fluid those of us making theater for young people see every day the changing racial and ethnic composition of the classrooms and the inarguable future in the works of our cities and states disturbingly now prison builders say they can estimate the upcoming prison population by the test scores of fourth graders however when I look at these kids in their t-shirts and hijabs interacting in multitudinous languages and in the ease with which they increasingly navigate gender, race, ethnicity disability and religious differences we all see the potential for an extraordinary future where a white majority is increasingly a rarity in the school the city or even the state it's the world we live in but all too often don't see projected back to us in fact it's a world where according to US census data 85% of the national population growth over the last decade came from ethnic minority groups 50% of all births are now from racial and ethnic minorities 46% of the millennial generation already self-identify as multicultural 9 of the top 10 metro areas are at least 40% non-white and 2 of the 3 most popular states are already being called the minority majority which is just a simple way of saying the majority has shifted out of the hands of western Europeans to put it simply Anglo is now a niche market okay so we live in an America where the balance of power has already shifted but like Rome before the fall it's a time of its own end point make no mistake this is the demographic reality theaters need to be leaders in bringing us together in making sure that all of us are at the table the collision abrasion, co-learning the cognitive diversity that has always made this country vital is what this is about it's where our progress has come from and it's our greatest competitive advantage but can we honestly say that this is true of our own institutions I was at a conference once and I heard someone talk about how our theaters should strive to be more like the rainforest where wildly different plants grow and work side by side intertwined creating fertile, surprising thick and feckoned world a world of biodiversity that is yes a little chaotic yes problematic, yes messy but infinitely more beautiful and productive now speaking of rainforests we're in Minnesota alright we lead the nation in support for the arts because I think we're the only state give it up for Minnesota okay I think we're the only state in the United States with arts funding built into our state constitution yo okay which is his own story and takes a lot of work but it's worth it but while that should suggest progressiveness and abundance we are actually at the bottom in terms of the achievement and opportunity gap between whites and peoples of color while there have been significant improvements we have a bloody long way to go Minnesota's black students trail their Anglo peers by 30 percentage points in reading and 37 points in math there are similar gaps between Latino and white and native students the high school graduation rates for Hispanic and native communities in Minnesota among the lowest in the country and the lowest in the United States the playing field is not equal Robert Kennedy said each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve a lot of others or strikes out against injustice he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance standing up, being an active ally creating change through a series of ripples theater can be part of the solution because we are public institutions we receive public funds we have public responsibilities and in all the ways that we can move forward on issues of social equity and inclusion and one way I think that I'm a little biased is to make damn sure that young people are in your theater now look in the ideal world and I do love my job and the entire field of theater for young audiences wouldn't exist wouldn't be necessary because every one of you out there would be so engaged with this audience so committed to making sure that your theaters were being fed by challenged by and engaged with the dynamic presence of young people from every race and every culture that your marketing office wouldn't have to worry so much about subscription because that audience was born in your theater grew up in your theater and is never going to leave your theater because it's their home and if you did that hopefully you would create difficult powerful work that young people would flock to not pablum or fast food but feasts that last in the memory forever like some show did for so many of us at a young age that's why we're in this room we were all touched by some piece of theater at an early age and I think it's our responsibility to make sure that happens to the next generation and deeply with young people in our community we engage with the most diverse the most open, the most critical audience we can believe me not one of them will ever tell you that your work is interesting when they mean bad Peter Drucker noted culture eats strategy for breakfast so how are we changing the nature of our theaters so that we create a culture of curiosity of learning and a welcome of respect culture and institutions about those shared patterns that help us in making meaning of our environment without a change in culture inside the institutions the status quo will of course prevail as Beth Zemsky says one of my favorite quotes is also by Harry Green at the University of Chicago every system is exquisitely designed to produce the results it gets ouch so I want to talk a little bit about our journey to our path to the mountain top so at the beginning of this last season at CTC we actually went back to the drawing board and together created and began implementation of a new program focused on diversity and inclusion called Act 1 Act 1 is our cohesive platform for access diversity and inclusion in our audiences our programs, our staff and our board and three interdependent words guide all of our action for a commitment to our future where our theater is a home for all people all families and welcoming of our entire community ACT access, connect and transform because we truly believe that the theater can be a powerful force to illuminate connections create common bonds and to transform lives by building bridges to empathy understanding inclusion and opportunity we have to continually ask who's missing who's attending, who's not represented on our staff and our board who's not on our crew, on our stage who's not designing, directing, acting writing, writing grants who does not feel welcome and who does not even know we exist historically so many have been excluded from participating in theater due to the implications of racism, discrimination, bias and class privilege through Act 1 we've come at our work by embracing the truth whatever our intentions there are barriers it can be the cost of tickets it can be accessibility for those of varying ability a lack of welcome and a lack of work reflective of all communities all of these create further barriers both real and perceived as a national leader in the field of theater for young audiences and their communities we felt we had an urgent need to address past injustices and inequities on an institutional level through access for us means that we're going to identify and mitigate both the real and perceived barriers to participation for all underserved or marginalized population we're focused on four principal groups those who face economic challenge peoples of color those of varying physical ability and those of the LGBT community we wanted to connect and by connect we meant build ongoing long term sustainable partnerships that are based on humility learning and understanding that there's a tremendous exchange that we have to have in the past like many of us we would roll out connections to the community when we were doing a play of a specific ethnicity and then forget that community for four years for five years and it didn't work and we were greeted by that community when we came back with suspicion and hostility deservedly so we will not do that again we're making ongoing long term partnerships where people are invited to all of the things we do out of containing making sustained relationships and finally the idea of transformation we realize this work will not but be done until we've transformed we've partnered with our community organizations and our community has transformed you know have we created a culture of curiosity that confronts conscious and subconscious discrimination and exclusion and celebrates diversity in our work, our audiences and ourselves and we'll only measure success and the degree of our institution represents those who've been excluded and when we know our work's relevance to our community and we acknowledge this will take time and energy and investment we're committed to being an agent of change both internally and externally to transform both CTC and our community access and inclusion is creative problem solving on a daily basis just like making theater meaning these goals take company-wide participation, dedication time, hard work, commitment and money one of my great teachers was a man named Ron McKinley he was a leader and national fighter for diversity and inclusion who participated with us in our conversations and our work about this at the theater and in one of our long discussions we were talking and hammering out our different plans Ron leaned over and he said to me quietly if it isn't in the budget it's just talk if you wait for this to be funded or make it rely on funding it won't happen or worse it'll happen for however long the grant lasts and fade away invest and your allies will join you the early results for CTC have been promising you know we've created discussion in the staff and board and we've begun conversations that we've never had before and action makes it real some of the things that have been moving this year where we saw huge buy in in creating sensory friendly performances for young people and their families on the spectrum we had our entire staff trained by the autism society in Minnesota we saw in trying to build a new relationship with the Latino community through our Latino theater initiative by building these deep ongoing partnerships with these community based organizations and communities that we began to build respect and trust and it began to pay off we repurposed our hearing impaired system to allow simultaneous translation creating web presence and programs in a ticket hotline in Spanish but it's an ongoing challenge getting the entire theater to make this both an institutional and individual priority we don't move all at the same time or with the same force or investment in our last strategic plan we changed our model to ask how are we including diversity and inclusion in every goal in every department rather than by making it a separated goal to plan for the future to create extraordinary work to create increased revenue in new audiences is to be more diverse and thus more inclusive this isn't new work for us we have made so many mistakes over the years even while we try to be better at this we will continue to make them likely often but we've been blessed by artists staff and a board and a community that engages in serious dialogue issues that ask tough questions and challenge us to do better and move faster on achieving results I was just at a conference in Warsaw and got to hear one of my one of my great great friends the extraordinary Dutch theater director Elizabeth Koltop and she was talking about her work in the Syrian refugee camps and she talked about going up to this man who'd lost his wife and his children in a shelling and then another man who had lost his farm and when she said why would they agree to talk to her they said it's because you listen and that's our job as theater artists is to listen to listen to the stories that have not been told bring those stories to life not just on stage but in all the daily decisions that we make to let those stories be ripples that build to waves that cover the world when I think of the mountaintop I think of what we actually do every single day when it works out because when we make theater we do nothing less than model how the world should be and how it should function that is often a group of strangers different in age, class, race, gender come together in common pursuit of something of beauty something larger than any individual and through shared work and a shared vision creates something extraordinary that inspires others and at least for a moment creates community a community that laughs, cries and breathes together for me it's really simple I think that's how the world should work so just want to close with remembering the words of my dear friend Ron if it isn't in the budget it's just talk thank you Ron and thank all of you thank you Peter the lesson of the mountain is long first there are many mountains and we must commit to one we've got to know which one we're climbing there are many ways up no one way will work all of the time every one of us will have to slow down pause backtrack even as we make our way forward we'll need strength if it were easy there'd be a village already up there we'll need courage some of us are afraid of heights we'll need endurance there's no sprinting here this is an evolving dream and has always been a relay race we'll need provisions what resources do we already have what do we need to find or make we'll need champions and cheerleaders we must celebrate our achievements along the way even as we're reminded to push on and as we near the top I hope our long journey will have affirmed the power of compassion and empowered our ability to share there is less space at the top but there's a point even to that you can't ignore someone who is standing right beside you this vision this promised land is a collective dream our eyes will kaleidoscope into something more beautiful and dynamic than any one person could have imagined each time the lights come up on our stages our work closes spaces between people and the intimacy where there was a gulf if we can do it for a couple of hours on stage we can certainly extend it throughout the day maybe we can extend it a month even a whole year until eventually and inevitably it becomes a life path easy as breathing yet we must stay mindful in a world where we often have to remind ourselves to take a deep breath we'll need to consciously practice our path and bring others along too we must acknowledge where we are the challenges and the opportunities that's the climb we must build trust and listen to those voices we've silenced either through ignorance or simply by maintaining the status quo we're living through history and it's messy sometimes it's going to hurt and we'll make mistakes or be embarrassed or not know what to do but the great thing about theater people is collaboratively we know how to rely on other human beings to do what they do best we must reach beyond what's familiar and where we're safe into spaces where we're vulnerable and wherein we must rely on the kindness and compassion of others we must need each other and that that is where we really excel achieving true and lasting equity will require hard work from all sectors of our society the profound gift we have to give is our ability to help people recognize themselves in those who seem so very different where else can human empathy be called forward with such force with such audacity theater can engender transformational change in artists and audiences alike we must not be afraid to use it but to wield the power of theater means to accept responsibility for what you offer up to the world leaders serve they listen they don't work alone leaders are accountable and they know that they're always learning it's a hard challenge holding what is and what can be at the same time but we're an intrepid bunch and I think that we might be closer to the mountaintop than we know let this time here at the TCG annual conference give you space to reflect and to take inventory of where you are on the journey look around at who's nearby find what you have in common where what they do is exactly what you need and where your strength can help another along yes we need each of you to be leaders in your own communities to be brave tenacious inconvenient but mostly right now we need you to dream in your own communities because we're not there yet and where we're going can't be where we are we're going to end this session by presenting the Alan Schneider director award to a theater artist whose work has crossed many borders to present that award please welcome my fellow TCG board member and the artistic director of center stage Kwame Kwe Armagh thank you any more of those thank you very much I'll be quick Alan Schneider the award was designed to highlight and showcase and give focus to and celebrate someone of tremendous ability and this year's recipient is Jess that she was the first director I actually offered a gig to at center stage what did you do you did mammots and you did a American buffalo every season after that I've offered her and she simply refused me and she's refused me because she's too busy and she's too busy because her dramaturgical skills are so robust and her aesthetic is so fantastic and exciting that everybody wants you and so they should it gives me great pleasure to give you this please or Tommy give us some love thank you very much thank you Kwame thank you so much TCG particularly Emilia Cachapero and JP Smith I really am so grateful for this award I also want to thank the panel Timothy Douglas Molly Smith and Ed Herndine for asking me such tough questions they really allowed me to interrogate myself and the field and we don't always get to do that you know because it's head down working and the opportunity for a little self-assessment was very meaningful and it kind of came at a perfect time so there was a lot that I'm grateful for in terms of this process so I immigrated to this country when I was a high school student from South Africa apartheid year South Africa color township et cetera et cetera it was a rough transition the first play in high school and my life changed because I found instant community an instant fellowship and I never look back and one of the things that I have really grown to understand and value about this field is that it's all about relationships we cannot be in the American theater without them and I want to take this time to thank a lot of people I want to be a director and get to a moment like this on your own so if you wouldn't mind indulging me I'm just going to say some names the teachers at Trinity Rep Conservatory Brian McElaney particularly and Stephen Berenson for supporting my directing training with everything in them they were just so invested in my growth as an artist and a person that remains true today and enormous gratitude for them I'd also like to thank a number of artistic directors who have brought me back to their theaters repeatedly made offers for productions which showed innovation and respect who let me premiere complicated political plays or potentially upsetting reimagined classics or even plays written by white people which means that they thought that a person of color who is a director could maybe have the scope to understand humanity outside of their own little cultural world James Bundy Jennifer Keiger at Yale Rep Michael Masso, Peter Dubois Christopher Weigel at the Huntington Theater Bill Rouch at OSF Howard Shellwitz at William Mammoth Joe Hodge at Playmakers Rep Ed Herndy at CATF Kwame at Baltimore Center Stage Kurt Columbus at Trinity Rep Thank you gentlemen This award means so much because when you devote your life to the American not-for-profit theater we know that we're not doing it for a financial gain and if you're a director you're not really doing it for recognition either because most people don't even really know what we do including critics it's purely for the love of the game and we have a script to send out to people we don't have a way for people to get to know our work in the beginning I actually really don't even know how a person has become a professional director I don't know how it works I'm just glad that it did for me but I would like to thank the people who took risks in the beginning and gave me my career Loretta Greco when she ran the women's project in New York Oscar Eustis and Mandy Hackett at the Public Theater Kevin Moriarty at Dallas Theater Center where I'm currently taking Les Mis and then I'd also like to thank some people who have given me so many opportunities of late in terms of inviting me into their institutions in meaningful ways Phillip Hamburg at Sundance Institute who nominated me for this award and he's allowed me to travel all over the world with him making incredible theater and meeting incredible collaborators we've been all over East Africa I've been to Europe I've been back to the summer lab at Utah over and over and over again and that's because he's really invested in me I'd also like to thank my new boss Tony Takoni at Berkeley Rep some of us call the JV of Artistic Directors I'm so lucky I've been able to work all over the world I've been able to work in East Africa in Western Europe in Canada and all over this country and sometimes I have felt extremely marginalized in this country some days I've gotten up and I felt like what is the effing point I do not see myself I do not see the work that I want to do anywhere and it's been a constant struggle to get the things that I care about into the hearts and minds of artistic leaders but it usually happens because of these relationships because I can call somebody and have a conversation about what I think and what I'm thinking about or what I think should be on the stages or who I think should be considered in terms of playwrights and in terms of stories you know it's not it's no one ever promises a rose garden it's not easy it's not meant to be easy because we're very privileged people that we get to do this with our lives so I embrace the struggle but I want to say one thing and that is all over the world that I've been there is a unavoidable tsunami of migrants and diversity and change happening and the artistic leaders and the mayors of cities that are figuring out how to integrate this change are moving with a great deal of success into the 21st century there are those that are resisting or ignoring and it's currently and it will continue to be to their detriment so I just want to say something to some of the artistic leaders in this room board members future leaders change your ways do not be like the republican party and try to ignore us thereby fossilizing yourself and your institution there is the next generation of me trained and they are talented and they want in and the leaders who don't see us have been noted and written off I urge you to be the leader that the next generation of me thanks in their speech when they get this award thanks them for seeing beyond race beyond gender beyond class beyond access for being a fellow contemporary artist and leader in the 21st century my final thanks I would like to send to my friends and colleagues Donna Harrell Che You and Robert O'Hara for their support and friendship during this year of change and for guiding me through this field when it hasn't been easy so thank you all very much for your time congratulations congratulations to Lisa thank you Kwame thank you to all of the speakers in our to the mountaintop discussion thankfully our next destination is a little bit closer than the mountaintop it's our party at Balboa park at the Prado and by the way Balboa park is celebrating a big anniversary next year it's 100th anniversary which is a big deal for San Diego congratulations clap away there are shuttles they're waiting for you outside of the promenade east exit ready to take you to the park and TCG staff are stationed outside to assist you I also just want to mention while you're there make sure to go to the second floor of the Prado and meet our spotlight on grantees and young leaders of color and also come on and also remember that at 8 o'clock there's a special conference performance of Mercy Killers which is a one-man play starring Michael Milligan about the destructive personal impact of the American healthcare system it's at Old Globes Haddock's Hall which is walking distance walking distance from the Prado correct yes how many minutes three minutes from the Prado the performance is free for everyone but seating is very limited for service get there early and then tomorrow morning we'll see you again at 9 o'clock to hear from Jane McGonagall her session by the way is family friendly so children 12 and up are invited and you can sign your kids up at registration so that's it for tonight thank you very much let's party