 in the story circle. I need you to be really clear about that and not raise your hand. Everybody else who's gonna be participating, I need you to raise your hand just so that I can get a visual, get a sense. It'll be one hour. The story circle. It'll be one hour. Got it? Okay, great. Okay, so this is what we're gonna do. I'm gonna lead you through the process. Can we come closer so that we can lead, go through that process. And actually, let's just go ahead and start bringing it up. We have a few chairs into the space. A number of chairs that are here already. You just kind of gather around to share your personal story. Not necessarily a story of someone you knew, but like from your own, from this place, from your own experience, because that's how we learn. It's an opportunity for you to tell that story from that space and for us to learn. So it's talking and it's listening to really very important things, most important parts of it. There's the talking portion. There's the listening portion. And there's some things that happen in between, right? We put emphasis on the listening being essential and probably more important than the talking portion. Why is that? Because we're in a debate-oriented society. We're always locked and loaded. And so it's important for us to listen as much as we talk. So I'm gonna lead you through a few of those things. And I'm gonna share this because there's so many people. I'm gonna share this mic. It's a lot of people who know and are in the room and I wanna honor that. And so if we can go through a bit at a time, kind of steps in story circle processes, one important one I'll share and I'll start is sitting in a circle. It's really important, right? And part of that, you wanna be able to connect to people and to see people. There's power in life. It would be no cross talk. So, as Stephanie said, it's really about listening. So if somebody says something I really disagree with, I can't get on. I gotta wait till the circle comes around and then tell a counter story or a story that somehow answers my problem. When we do story circles, we establish the Vegas room very often. Because story circles sometimes bring up stories that are confidential or that only need to be shared within that group. So we always make sure that people feel safe and that they feel that the story circle is a safe and confidential space. So we call that the Vegas room. What happens in the story circle stays in the story circle. Be present in the space and be respectful of other people's stories. Silence is good. It's okay if you take a few breaths in between stories. Listening is essential in one of the great yields that you get from the process. It's about stories, not necessarily about your opinions, which is sometimes a really hard thing to do if you start to hear a story that brings up your opinions about something. It's hard to remind yourself to stay in story as opposed to start pontificating on your opinions about that story. So staying in story. My students love to sit in the circle and I need to remember to help them do that. It's a very empowering place and they're hungry for it. Every story is valid. Stories have a beginning and a middle and an end. If you have anything to say, I don't know what I would like. Don't sit during the circle trying to think of what story you're going to tell. Trust that the circle is going to let you know when your time comes and if it hasn't, you can pass and it can come back to you. In order to give everyone the same, everyone has the same amount of time to tell their story and keep time for each other so that we can or each story can't have the same value as far as time within the space. Any other things? Listening means not thinking about what you're going to say when the person is done while listening to it. Now, we've given you some parameters for that and we admittedly this is moving a little bit quicker than typically we would have taken from this. We are going to break up into four circles, isn't it? Five circles. Five circles we're going to break into. And they need to be even circles so we need to do a count off. Yeah, one, two, three, four, five, a count off. Ready? One, two, three, four, five, one, two. If you are one, raise your hand. If you're one, can we come over here to this corner with Dudley? Dudley's this dapper gentleman right here in blue shirt, cowboy boots, walking off to the side. If you're two, raise your hand high. So you're going to go with this lovely young lady right here with the fly kicks. They're red, striped. There we go. Where do you want to go to? She's going to this corner over here. If you are three, raise your hand. Circle looks like it could use a couple of points. So as you come in, we want to make sure we're all hearts and minds are clear on this. We're going to do three minutes each. Yes? You already have somebody identified in that group that can help you if you have any questions. You might want to do a quick review if anybody has questions right off the top. That means we're going to go for, we're going to do a report back. So three minutes each. I'm going to float. I'll check in with you to make sure that you're okay. We're going to check about a half hour later. Okay, and then we're going to do another round. We'll do a report back. Okay, you're at the very beginning and I'm going to repeat it. For some of you, you have a different connection to FST. You may be an FST member, you may be related to an FST founder, you may be different intersections or your connection to FST may have been this weekend. We want a reflection. It's very big. We might go 30 second mornings. The prompt is to tell a story about it just grows out of your reflection of your experience directly with the FST Southern Theater or all the different ways that FST has manifested itself. And you don't have to worry about what the story is because the whole idea of the circle is that that time gets you, you know, you're super important. You just pass until the end. Maybe you don't get the impression that you have to use it. Right. And if you want to use your three minutes to be Southern, you can do that. Of course, you can do that. So, you can also use each other. You're on a boom. Okay. Oh, you're on a boom. We'd like to start. So, a story that's been verbal enough for you is that you've been here. You've been high-teasing with her and I worked with Marlon. What I'd like to share is that this boulevard was placed in the boulevard that was actually allowed to go shopping, becoming stores along this boulevard, trying clothes, you know, in other places in the middle of the street or other places we could try to pose on. Three Southern Theater was about five blocks down on the road. I was graduating high school and I was, you know, it was like here and there. And we had acting and high school drama clubs and so forth. And I was always inquisitive about how one of these people, you know, right now I know them. I knew where the building was and it was a part of me that was so proud of just knowing, you know, that there were people in my community, and it wasn't on television. You know, it was people in my community that I could reach out and I could touch and I could watch them and go and see them. So, I was just out of high school and then I had some friends that were acting in high school and we started going to some of the different places and so forth. But for me, it was a sense of pride, you know, as a young boy right out of high school knowing that this is theater, we're going to theater, you know. So, I guess that's my story as far as what I would like to share since pride and knowing that part of me was a big deal. You know, it was just a big deal for the African-Americans to know, you know, you know, you know, it wasn't television. I'd like to tell a story about memories that were, uh, I got involved in being at the conference. John, you know, he was the most important person who thought about what I do as an educator. He was literally the president on two college campuses. He started at the theater. He thought of me as like the visual artist because he wasn't a professor on campus. He was a German art teacher who had a studio who taught art history and art, studio art. And he had a place that anybody who was interested in art because he wanted to be really promoted, he would go by his house and get the key where he would open the art studio for you going anytime, day or night. So in the literacy project, he was a graphics designer and he used to go to the studio and I used to go to the studio and others. So something that I also did that I think that John did, they didn't think about it that much because it was dance and I always think that dancer from very early age, that was just as much part of my life as the art, visual art. So I had, in anticipation of dance being an important part of the theater, I identified students on campus to be my dance group. And so I would practice with them. And so one time, a couple of times, I went from my practice to the studio and I had my leotards. So the graphic designer painted a picture of me with my leotards and I had really bad pictures in our bedroom and nobody really sees them. But by being here and talking with Maria who performed and sort of ways that we might be able to collaborate in the future, it made me think about that part of what I had envisioned, dance being an integral part of the theater. And I see that it's happening already with Junebug and the Urban Bush Women are collaborating. And so I just, I was glad to have those memories again. And Maria was talking about Pearl Primus and Catherine Dunham who were pioneers of African American dance. And I told her, I said, well, you know, Pearl Primus was Nancy Hodges and she, you know, loved it, so was I. And Catherine Dunham, I had a relationship with both of them. And so that was really the story I wanted to keep in mind to share. Sure. This is probably my first, I'm Bob Martin from Kentucky. This is probably my first direct experience with the Free Southern Theater and I just felt, I didn't exactly know what I was going to receive. I just really felt I needed to be here this weekend to receive and to be open and to learn, to learn where the work that I'm called to do as a theater artist who believes in social change and transformation and to know that, I mean, people have said things like the shoulders would stand on. I kind of have a problem with that metaphor. I don't know that I want to stand on people's shoulder that sounds a little painful but definitely the foundation has been built more comfortable for me by this amazing group of people here. And I'm also feeling just part of that connection is just understanding the connection between where I'm at in the mountains of Kentucky and the theater that's happened there in connection with the theater that's happened in the Gulf Coast and the Delta and the Junebug Jack story that's the Apple Shop roadside and Junebug Free Southern Theater have collaborated on just that river and the water from the mountains to the Gulf has been going off for thousands of years and those stories following that river. So I think I say that just because I'm following intuition to be here to be present, to listen, to pay homage, to learn and then to find collaborators from these groups of folks of all different generations so that when I do move forward, I move forward with more foundation for myself. So my story I guess is just about listening to that intuition and being called to be here and I think I'm in the right place at the right time. My name is Francesca Casey. I moved here in 2009 and I moved here for an AmeriCorps job as a part-time garden I was a full-time garden teacher for AmeriCorps I had studied theater but I had studied in a very traditional sort of school where the only thing that we had learned was the commercial value of idea of success in a theater sort of career. So I felt pretty jaded by my training and didn't really see, I thought it was a waste of time so when I moved to New Orleans I thought I'm just going to focus on teaching just going to focus on environmental work that I'm very interested in and literally the first weekend I was there I met Rebecca Juanze with Art Spa and she told me about a June Love Story Circle workshop and when she told me about it, I remember we were sitting on a porch together because we were both in the same America program she was telling me about it and I couldn't imagine that that was actually real that was actually happening and I think that I was at such a crossroads with the way that I created work and how I wanted to do theater and that she was basically telling me that what I was looking for was happening the following Thursday. So then those ideas of just focusing on my job went out the window and I ended up doing this June Love workshop with GeoGo and a lot of the people that started that ended up being part of lockdown and that a lot of the stories that we shared in that project were about people living on in lockdown and that experience was really transformational for me and that now the theater work that I do is such a huge part of who I am and who I am in New Orleans and that had a lot to do with being in that space. I'm here in Annapolis and I was working as a producer at DTW Dance Theater Workshop in New York and being an activist with artists and feeling like the work was very disconnected from reality and I got kind of urged to attend the funeral on the free Southern Theater and I had no idea what I was going to but once I got there I knew that that was what I was looking for and also that theater could be so connected to other things in a way that it wasn't in a way that I was doing and I remember at the funeral that somebody was telling a story about the casket and people brought their momentum and their stories and put it in the casket and I was so impressed by that and then somebody said to me, would you mind watching the casket for a few minutes while we all go off and somebody will come back for it. It was me and Rudy Lerner, also from New York and they didn't come back and we were sitting there in the park and they kept saying and the legacy of the free Southern Theater and we were these two like this before. And I don't know if something about that moment with the casket, I mean more than a moment, it's about a moment with the casket, it just really pushed me off the edge and then I went back home and I just left New York and I moved to Amplot, where I then got to direct a project that John O'Neill and I had at the New York Festival project. So sometimes it's good to sit quietly while the casket. Well that's what happened to the casket, it just was there. Somebody got it finally. I'm Jerry Stroud, again, I'm a theater artist and I guess my story would be about coming from way outside and being well connected. I'm an impatient artist and a classically trained actor, director had began to believe that the power of theater would come from ensemble and that a group of people working together over time would make work that would be different. And that does happen that I became impatient with and in the late 90's because I was doing one of her other plays and I was already working in story trying to find things I was afraid to interview people. I met Joe Carson and Joe Carson was a playwright a co-founder with John Robert Roots and she began to teach me and she began to teach me and we ended up working together by the day. But through her I learned about FST I learned about John. They were legendary to me. I read every single one. And I'm in rural Pennsylvania I'm a white guy, a white theater company just being inspired by what was happening what had happened. And began to work more began to work more in the deep south began to do story circles and learn through Joe and through the reading. Finally I met John for the first time and it was like meeting a rock star. I was at a conference that I was presenting at Brown that Eric N had put together and John was there and he was doing a story circle. And 90 people showed up and John was looking around so he called me over. I'd never met him and I'd say, hi I'm Jerry Schrupp. He said, yeah I know where you are can you take half the group? And it was like, oh my god. And since then we've gotten to know each other a bit better our lives have intersected in several wonderful ways. But for me this is a place of genius that's changed my life and it has allowed me to learn how to help other communities tell their story own their story change their situation and I've been able to do it in many places around the country. So that's my intersection via Joe Carson and John O'Neill. If you don't know Joe you do. My name is Ezra Lowry I grew up in New Jersey went to school in Vermont and now I'm here and I graduated in June. I guess I first heard of 370 a very recently just last fall reading Jane Cohen Cruz's local act and and that book actually sent me on a little bit of a journey introduced me to the Los Angeles Poverty Department when I worked with them in San Francisco and came to New Orleans I'm planning on actually moving to New York in December I came to New Orleans to open doors here and to be able to lead a double or four life between New York and to learn more of the histories of democracy and and so this is one of my first direct interaction with the prison and theater and it's been really I knew as soon as I heard about this conference that I had to find my way I figured out how to attend this because I want to make work in a similar vein and understand how to pursue the dream of democracy in America through making theater and collaborating with people and I feel that I need to understand the history of that work and learn from people who are coming for to take that foundation and work with that so it's been really amazing to meet here and to hear from people who are part of that and who have been taught by recent theater and it's just incredible because I've been volunteering I remember going for different paths and just like all of these sort of names of people that I've like, oh my god I've read about this so yeah I'm excited I'm John Studer I was in the sixties I was an author and I was in Mississippi in 1964 and in 1966 I went into the Peace Corps and I got a college role in the Peace Corps in Somalia after a company until 1968 and I came home on the night of the opening of the Democratic Convention in Chicago two years away in my first International American Black or White screen TV screen, watching the police ride in Chicago and I got really discouraged about the country and where it was going and what kind of role it played and my experience in Somalia had gotten me really into the cross-cultural communications and issues and I learned the arts so I ended up spending most of my career running small or working for small and multicultural arts organizations and in 1988 in 1986 I was part of the Folk Arts Center in New York City and we were part of the Festival for the Statue of Liberty in Somalia. We had four stages of government happenings for four days until the 4th of July dozens of traditional dance and music and theater companies from all over the world and then we moved to New York, my wife and I and then John and John O'Neill and the American Festival Project which I just heard of I got hired by Cornell to coordinate having come off to one big festival I got hired and for me it was it brought together these these strands of social justice cross-cultural engagement and the arts in one place in a way that I never expected and it didn't mean to build this brand's existing it was when I was doing that project I realized, oh my god, this is what this is what my life is about I didn't know it and then just meeting these extraordinary people whose lives whose theater whose work came out of their own lives the lives of their community was really transformed so and I had not been back I've been doing this thing for a while so when I found out it was a program I had to come out here and reconnect the folks that I already knew and made a video it was kind of wonderful that's why I'm here sometimes I'm Paige Hurton I work for Fulton and Rims out of Atlanta I'm a finance manager so I don't really have I haven't done theater in my whole life they put me in here I've got a very new connection to Free 7 Theater I think for me it's this whole weekend it's just been I grew up in the front I spent most of my life here I moved away about 10 years ago I think it's it's just like this other full layer of history part of the development of the city and I've always felt like I grew up in the suburbs but I've always felt this really special connection to Portland to the music of the Fulton here and I feel like I have this full other layer of knowing the struggles that went into where the scene brought to me the art that was made it's just been really transformative the way that I see a place that buildings that I've seen my whole life in the street the really important things that happen here it's also great to be in a place where there's lots of feelings come up my questions and things like that to be here with my antiviral group to kind of give me a context to give me a safe place to kind of talk about that and to be really open and honest about some of the questions that I have so it's just been wonderful and I'm glad that I didn't have a I can't say that I had a real work related need to be here but I'm glad that I resolved my way and made it happen it's been really special my first encounter with the 370 theater was right after Hurricane Katrina I'm a teacher at a time when Katrina happened I had just started graduate school in English up in Boston but once the storm hit the only thing I really wanted to do was to move back home but we couldn't move home for many reasons partially because our parents' households were torn apart it was just a traumatic time so we weren't going to be able to move back home so my only way of dealing with that that problem of not being able to be here full time was to try to get involved in what I knew best was just teaching and trying to help the schools all the New Orleans public schools which was refired after the storm including my sister and I knew that there was somebody big upsets and disruptions going on in the school system and I wanted to get involved so I went to a writing workshop that Kalamu Yassalam was holding at Douglas High School in the 9th Ward and when I walked in the room I had heard about Kalamu it was an English major I was studying poetry and writing from my home city my whole life so I went to the workshop mostly to see Kalamu because I'd heard about him and I wanted to know more about him and when I got to the room I wanted to tell who he was because I was looking for the big wig I was looking for the who's the person at the front who's important but it was people sitting in a circle it was students and adults teachers all sitting in the circle sharing their writing and also giving feedback to each other and I finally figured out which one was Kalamu it literally took a while and I just became obsessed with that mode of teaching and the mode of writing being in a community of writers where you can be 16 or you can be 65 in a world renowned poet and you're all going to sit in a circle they use a workshop method that's grounded in the story circle and also in the present theater writers workshop Black Art South so I just started hanging around and following Kalamu and Jim as a partner at Student Center as much as possible I started getting my parents and my in-laws to buy me tickets home and rebuild their houses but I would also sneak in a couple days and my dad was high and the watch was teaching and it just profoundly changed my life and now I work with them and I guess it led me to do a lot of research and to learn the history of where that work came from I've written a lot about it so I'm Caroline Samson I'm a senior in Tulane and I don't know how I got so lucky but I've always known about June Bug and Free Southern Theater it's all because of my family I blame the Wegmans over there but it's just what I've known and I'm really lucky to have that privilege of knowing about Free Southern Theater and it's just always been in the back of my head but in the past two years it's definitely changed my trajectory and I started researching community-based arts and focusing on the words and that's definitely a part of what I chose to come to Tulane I'm only a senior now so I can only reflect on my time here so far but I just know that it's worth talking about still and this weekend has helped remind me about that I can sit in on the set and look through the archives for as many hours as I want but being here has helped reinvigorate that experience and that enlightenment on what else there is to look at and trace their influence and legacy and I'm so excited to get back later today tomorrow and just start reflecting on the weekend I mean from start to finish from my start as an intern at Junebub to my next steps wherever it may be I just know that this will ground me in all my future work I'm so confident in that and so excited for this I'm at that point where I get to do whatever I want in theory that's what people tell me what are you doing next year and easy answers I don't know but I know that this will help decide that and this will play a huge part wherever I am so I'm so grateful for all of you just being part of this experience it's really gonna impact me in the long run I'm Catherine Jean Cricut 9 that's my southern John calls me Cricut I I came into the world with one fist and a revolutionary fist and the other hand making a jazz hand and I knew that I wanted to do the arts and I knew that I wanted to be involved in I thought politics that's what I equated social justice with at the time and I think I instinctively knew that politicians were great actors and it took me a long time to find people and groups that were doing both and fortunately I did find it and I started working with Teatro Campesino a while back and through my research with them every time I looked them up I'd see something about free southern theater so eventually I said I'd really like to research sort of compare and contrast do they know each other were they working together were they aware of each other and through that I met John and I like to tell a story on him that he I said can I phone interview you and he said yes 7 a.m. and I said Norlean's time I was in Arizona at the time and he said Norlean's time and I said okay well that's 5 a.m. you know in Arizona it's hot of coffee so I woke up at 4 30 a.m. so that by 5 a.m. I would be ready for this interview I think we talked for like 2 hours and in the tape of the interview you can hear me saying well the sun just came up so I guess it's time to start the day and then it just unfolded from there and so my relationship to FST is very much connected to my relationship with John and it's just brought me to so many amazing things and so many amazing people and I got to bring him out to Arizona State where I did my PhD and I've gotten to repeatedly come back here so I also love that it's kind of like I have a through line of different relationships with it in different parts of my life and now I get to teach it because I have my PhD and I get to teach my innocent victims and and I just have to share that I found out on my 30th birthday that John and I had the same birthday he was turning something the same day and so now every day when I celebrate my birthday my first thought is I have to call John and I don't even care anymore who's calling me for my birthday and I told him and I really believe this I said well my soul must have picked this day so that I could follow in your footsteps and I feel very proud of that I'm Kate Grover I am an intern with Jean Bug and I got my first connections with FST were through being a two lane student I was in a class with Catherine she was my professor for two semesters last year and that's when I was a sophomore and I first I first learned about Kalamu and his work and then I was in a class where we went to McMain High School and it was a kind of disruption of the kind of paternalistic service learning method that two lane has and he actually really tried to learn the environment and having a class that was part McMain students part two lane students but everyone was on this equal level and so we got to read about organizing in New Orleans we got to read about Free Southern Theater and we had John and Neil come into class and we had Wendy and Neil come in and speak to us and Miss Doty and it was just this really amazing amazing experience to have that I don't think I really had in the moment and so this weekend has been just so amazing because it kind of has made me realize how lucky I was to have that experience I got involved to Choomba through the class and Stephanie and Keoko come in and talked to us as well and I was really lucky to kind of be exposed to the theater world and what it means to use arts as a form of political organizing because I come from an English and American Studies background so it's a completely different way of thinking about those kind of things but I just I feel so lucky now and it's kind of a mixture of sadness for not taking advantage of what I had then but also knowing that I have this opportunity now and it's just a really amazing weekend How are you? I'm okay well FSD is great I was brought into it through Keoko she approached me she just shot one of the films I made at some conference and then she approached me about documenting John because you know they wanted to get some stuff because they were having difficulty finding footage of John and things like that so we filmed John for maybe five hours one day in the CDC like I don't know if you guys are here yesterday but the performances and the interview all that was over the course of maybe five to eight hours so when she was telling me about John I was like this guy is clearly a legend throughout the nation in the world especially in New Orleans and that was how I was introduced into FST and through that we went to Atlanta and Dr. Derby and Mr. Bob let us graciously in their house and we interviewed her so that's coming soon and through that we had a relationship of baby awesome relationships yeah FST is okay in my book and Junebug my name is Bob Banks I'm an actor I owe much of my education concerning FST and a lot of the other organizations however before I went into the military I was also a career military person in the military I had never been further south in Cincinnati so I had heard a lot of things about the south my parents were from both from Georgia I had never been there and I only knew the things I had read about like legends not necessarily favorable ones there was a mystique connected with that when I went overseas I started talking about the core and sneak and all those kinds of organizations I was surprised I hadn't heard about any of that when I lived in Ohio but the Europeans in particular were very inquisitive about things like that they were very frank and approaching me and very candid about a lot of those things and that piqued my interest in it and I thought the first time I heard the term Southern Theater I thought well how important could that be besides having reasonable admission so I really was not into it at all but I was intrigued by the southern experience and I wanted to see what that was all about and see if I could separate some of the fact from what I heard and I found out that a lot of the factual parts of it some of it was horrifying to know that there were many people especially people who didn't look like me who were interested and had things to contribute to the whole program I like that because I always felt that we were shouldn't be ever a one color one mindset world and I was happy that other folks shared in it that also piqued my interest and so I thought okay I'll take it back I spent a lot of time in a German society and officially and unofficially and I found out that they had a lot of the same interests that impressed me and then years later after I retired from military I met my wife and that whole education began so today I'm fairly well educated about what happened as an actor I got to work with a lot of people I knew I knew Gil Moses and that was all a great surprise to find out that there were other people interested in all that so this weekend for me has not only been one of support for my life's interest but also to people fill my own we could just take a moment of silence and on the circle and remember something from each person a new story we could have costs right now or people could promise on each other stories we're having to wrap up quickly and Stephanie could just come over to say somebody needs to report back and I guess maybe we could talk a little bit about what kind of stroke us I'm not sure what a report that's going to be about but first somebody could be brave enough to often do it and second maybe we could just talk about things that kind of struck us what we want to do is we can tell people stories though because this was a same circle but if there are things that struck people about different kinds of stories something that struck me was that I guess the problem was related to sort of entry points everyone has an entry point to an entry part well, yeah, I mean no one had the idea of a recenter theater so I guess what struck me is that a lot of what came up was that entry point was a moment of surprise of saying I can't believe people have been doing things the way that I have been haunting things to be done or the way that I have done things in a different way and this you know, it's amazing that this work is out there for the idea of coming to it and being changed by it but yeah, that idea of those entry points in that moment of realization or of gradual realization but this conference being at that time of getting attention to the recenter theater to make attention to its value I noticed a lot of themes and stories of connection of feeling isolated or alone or not even realizing something that was in you and then discovering through three southern theater that this is what you've always been looking for or that you're not alone it strikes me that we're honored to have one of the original founders and then these youngins sitting here and just kind of their so beautifully expressed gratitude to have this in their life and just knowing that this work will just continue to go on and the deep gratitude I felt in there I also love the idea that we all come from so many different places because even though the free southern theater was rooted in the black belt south it clearly influenced everyone now whether you've intersected with it recently or many years ago but we've also taken that to wherever we've ended up or wherever you're coming from for this weekend and that's incredible to have an organization that just started in such a small place to have reached all parts so that's powerful I was thinking in terms of astrophysics and when you came up with the idea that maybe we should do a theater and the legs stopped moving reflecting on that stuff that that created over time a specific gravity, a huge gravity that each of us were somewhere in the universe getting attracted we didn't even know to this place right now in the way that that happens in astrophysics I don't want to call it a black hole but let's call it a singularity of idea that draws in from all over in a variety of ways it's a powerful power when the idea has that much weight and power so I just got the oh, please what I'm thinking of is that when something is maybe rooted in one culture but there's love there and positivity in terms of love and not hate in one culture then it can continue that thread can at any point be shared when it can grow and so we say well it's just certain people doing something then it shouldn't be it means that you're excluding somebody else or something like that that wasn't the way it was I think that and so that the idea of the root it just had that soil was from one year because the weight was rooted and the idea was trying to fix something that would be beneficial to people and so it was it wasn't just ingrow it wasn't exclusive but it was targeted so that was what it would be so Stephanie is really trying to do this so many rich stories in this and this is why it's so important for us to be able to sit in this way and share and to learn from each other and now we get a chance to kind of share some of the things that bubbled up in each one of the groups and so if I can bring a mic to you and I hope that that's not going to provide feedback back there but I'm going to give it a shot if it does I'm going to look it back on this side okay is it okay if I start with you okay let me come over there we are sharing through some of the things that come up in the story yeah so we share some of the things that bubbled up back to this group maybe y'all can think about that let's y'all think about it for a sec hi everybody just real quick one thing that we all kind of reflected on the power of the process and the ways that it really is kind of a great equalizer and the instantly I use the phrase undone that you're sort of instantly undone by the process and it forces you to be fully and authentically present in large part well because you're asked to tell stories and not opinions, ideas, dissertations but in large part because of the discipline of the instruction to not plan what you're going to say but to truly listen and the selflessness that that requires and then for me sort of terror that that induces but how authentically present it forces you to be immediately and how somebody mentioned how teachers with all kinds of things about building trust and building a community to develop ensemble work that you can throw all that out do a story circle and you can create work from there because it meant something and that's what brought everyone back here to whether you realize or not that's part of why y'all are sitting here and he also talks about where you're going to go for each other to be here even if you're graduating whether in academia or in your institution or just in your beliefs I think it has a lasting impact and just I sat here with deep gratitude for all that has been done and all that I hope I can do to continue this life with you yeah and just yeah yeah the image is brought up of a gravitational singularity where there is this this entity where this idea that's all pretty sudden in theater that at one point or other people were either a part of collaborating to create or came into the realization of its existence and that moment for many of us in this circle is a moment of wow I can't believe this exists this resonates with me in a way that I never expected something to and then also the idea that we're all taking that forward that that has influenced us I think something that this sort of circle is an understanding in our minds and our bodies of history and the intentional ways that our history as black women as black people as people like in this state has been covered over and the implications of what that means for us who are doing this work that is so grounded in history and our stories and it really came out in the stories of it and in the power of us telling our stories of our experiences trying to actually uncover that history with super power I can't go over there to figure it out and a lot of our entry points to the story circle methodology and a lot of us here were new folks to like probably in the last 5 years and then other things that arose were we had some stories and some original stories here and so we were kind of in awe of those moments and John O'Neill came up a lot and also the intersection of being able to have everyone participate in your story circles and how that can bring folks together Thank you so what we did was we moved backwards in our schedule and we started with circles as a way of reflections we're going to move forward and there's a panel a group of people that sit down and actually talk and this is actually a perfect segue into the importance of stories in our work so it's really nice when you're all in a place that you didn't expect to be when you had to improvise but that's the power of being an artist we improvise a lot so we're going to go ahead and we're going to move back can I get your assistance just with a few chairs over here we don't need a whole lot and we're going to open up the space around here you can make it one big semi circle or I can be close to the way that we had gathered before it's rolling but you've just got to keep working you've just got to keep playing you just working by yourself Sanadio Meals are donated a thousand dollars to Juva Production it's been a former board member former board treasurer former staff member former staff member of Juba, just they are from the very beginning of new blood productions and we're really grateful for her contributions to the organization. And there's more work that she's doing that will really talk about this idea of documentation so there's a really exciting project that she's been working on for a very long time and I would like to talk a little bit about it. So my name is Theresa Whalen and 30 years ago last month my husband Michael Walton and partner, 0-2, began a partnership with John O'Neill and Jimbo Productions in which we have supported Jimbo and John in a variety of ways over all the years. Mostly we were finding partners across the United States and internationally for upwards of over 700 different cities and towns, colleges, universities to bring John's plays and productions of Jimbo Productions to their audiences. This work also included Jimbo's participation in the American Festival Project. The first American Festival Project was in 1989 and I'm pleased to say that John Pseuder from Imigran for now who coordinated that particular project has here with us. Thanks John. We also helped to plan John's and Jimbo's residency activities and build many study guides that can be benefited by this work. I also serve along with Ike on and off as we were called as managing director to come in and work with John and Jimbo. I was the executive producer on seven of the productions of his plays. In 1997 we took on a project called the Color Line which carried out long-term residency, some of which lasted four to seven years in seven different cities around the United States. This has been a hugely important partnership in our work, both Michael's and mine and also in our personal lives. One simply can't partner with John and not be challenged, be changed, and grow and come out with the other yet being better. I really have a great honor to announce the results of our latest endeavor. For the last three years, John and I have been working on a publication along with TCG, theater communications group, of the publication of his plays. The book is to be called The Collected Plays. For me, TCG was kind enough since it's not quite out there to give us a lovely look at. It's by the beloved John Scott. He did this gorgeous Pennsylvania character of Jimbo General Johns. The order lights for this book. We hear that it actually will finally be out in March of this coming year and quite a challenge because John, I think, over the time I've known him has had many upwards of 37 different computers and has no idea where any of those computers are. And for him to do it, he would not want to find the play on those computers. So it's been a real group effort to dig into boxes and underbaths and in holds to find the scripts of all those plays and finally get them entered electronically in a way that TCG wasn't going to pull their hair out over and having them just dump on their lap. So my role was to try also in thousands of boxes to put together the history of the production and to remember all of the incredible artists and collaborators that helped bring these productions to life. The plays that will be included in this book are come under sort of two sections. The first one you'll get you're invited as the Jimbo General Johns plays. Don't start with me talking or I'll tell you everything I know saying some of the life and writings of Jimbo General Johns. You can't judge a book by looking at the cover. Tell the midnight hour. Ain't no use in going long. Trying to find my way back home. Like poison ivy indigo variations. And then under this second section that we're referred to as the collaborations. June Love Jack. Wonderful collaboration that June Love did with Vauxite Theatre. Promise of a love song co-written with Ron Short with the text by Resolved Bologna for her bonus theatre and a collaboration this time between her bonus theatre Puerto Rican Theatre based in the Bronx, Rhoadsite Theatre and June Love and Crossing the Broken Bridge a collaboration between John and Naomi Newman of the Traveling Jewish Theatre. All of these plays, there are nine of them, will be in this collection. One of the most important about all of these years probably can't actually be held inside the cover between the covers of the Los Angeles. It truly has to do with the influence and effect of not only these plays, but hundreds and thousands of story circles and workshops and residency activities that are happening this work across the entire United States and international level. And the effect that this has on the students, young people, college students, adults across all of the cities, colleges, universities. These plays have been produced in 49 of the 50 states Alaska is the looser for this case and many international companies. What I think is so exciting is recently while doing this research I have been reaching out to quite a few of the people that have John's plays and their residency work in the different places around the United States. What is fascinating is that even though sometimes it's 10 and 15 and 20 years have gone by what's happened is the influence of the story circle method the different forms of workshop the different style and method of creating theater or community to tell that community story by state alive in these communities often being carried forward by the students who learn the technique long after the professors that learned it too are gone. The students actually carry it forward and are teaching their teachers what is important. I think we all heard that in some of the story circles today and the young people there with us in this community. So finally what I'd like to say is I think that the influence of this work of John's plays and of the work that's been done to me is somewhat like the light you see which are the stars. We're really not trying to stand the effect of it until many, many years later when we see what it really has done in our performance as it started simply for workshops, simply in our theaters and churches and our community members. I'd now like to mention someone that's not with us who is Steve Kent who directed eight of the plays during this collection and he has written forward to this work and he has specifically asked that Linda Paris Bailey share this with you. I'm Linda Paris Bailey and Steve Kent, my brother from another mother has asked me to read this board so those of you who know Steve picture me. I'm Steve. So this is the forward to the collected plays of John and Linda. Maybe these young people can sit me down by Steve and Kent. John and I have worked together for almost three decades. For each of us it's our longest creative relationship. It began in our roots meeting in Tennessee where I saw John perform an early version of Don't Start on the Pick the Bench in a camera dining room. It hasn't really ended yet. What drew this great black man who lived in New Orleans and this gay white guy from Los Angeles together is simply that we shared a world view and a commitment to theater as a tool for progressive social change. We also shared a belief that the creative process should be available to everyone. We have lived together and created in the cities where the pieces were set, New Orleans, Chicago's, San Antonio, Oakland, and San Francisco. We have learned from each other, surprised each other, frustrated each other, and fought passionately. But our friendship was never at stake. We were bonded by the work we knew we had to do. We did it best together. Our creative relationship was a mutual mystery. There was a sequence in a documentary on our work by George King in which I am explaining to John some character work I wanted him to do. He got it and ran with it. Later when I viewed the film, I couldn't imagine how John knew what I wanted him to do from what I saw myself demonstrating to him. We always felt that the activities of the fictitious Junebug had to be consistent with actual history. And don't start me to talk yet. The penultimate story is said when Junebug is 19 in 1950 and the last... I'm sorry. Story is contemporary. The piece we were working on was about the 60s in the Civil Rights Movement. We know Junebug was involved in the movement. But what was Junebug doing in the 50s? It was a wonderful surprise to us when it became obvious that he had been a medic in the Korean War. This involvement in that war and the issues about black people and the military industrial conflicts during World War II, Korea and Vietnam gave us the core of the therapies. Ain't no use of going home. We also felt that the characters should be consistent with each other. The large Tatum family from which Junebug's best friend Poe comes are mentioned in volume 1 and figure strongly in volume 2 as to the white, olive arcs, the written film. We wanted our audience to feel that these stories were true and true. We were very open to each other. He was the writer and actor. I was a drama director and director. But who came up with what it was but who came up with what is impossible to trace. I know neither of us cared about that as long as the work was progressing well. Sometimes to get the pieces to where we wanted them to be would take years. We are not fast food. There were some basic tenets. It all had to be cheap. It all had to be portable. It had to be accessible. It had to be honest. It was based on stories of the people. It was transformational in its nature. By this we mean that the conventions of the piece make objects to change their meaning. A ladder into a jail or a church or a locker. A plank into a porch or a table. A handkerchief into a book or a piece of intimate clothing. Direct use of the power of the audience's imagination. For example, John played junebug who played many parts. Sometimes as many as thirty in a single piece. We wanted the craft to be essentially invisible. Mostly it had to be really good. If our theater was sloppy, people would probably think that our politics were too. Our country is not good to artists. We are suspect. As we get rich. So we grow to ignore our second break status. After all, we are not the point when our work is. And learn to live and work on very little. We have to subsidize ourselves. It may be said that we have to have jobs in order to do our work. There are fewer and fewer of us still keeping on, keeping on. It is simply too hard for most people. I am full of nostalgia for the passing of the alternative small ensemble theater movement in the U.S. I remember the feeling of solidarity and support and shared vision we used to experience as part of the movements. Civil rights, anti-war, women's and gay rights. But I am not responding. Finally there seems to be stirring. There is something happening again. Maybe our experiences will be useful to those coming up. We all would love to pass on for the time. As I sometimes hear maybe these young people can sit and be down. So a wonderful backdrop for a discussion. Absolutely. Hi, I'm Karen Adness. I'm the director of the arts and democracy project. And we're going to have about a 20 minute conversation about the story. And then we're going to be half-loshed. So don't worry. We'll talk about it soon. But first we're going to get some rich food for thought. I first got to know the three southern theater when I attended the funeral. And it was a very transformative experience for me. And it basically made me leave New York and come to talk to Apple Shop. Where I became the director of the American Festival project. And I had created an invention that was part of. And I'd like to think what a great revelation for me this weekend is that loving disagreements, lively discussion is a great tradition that I'm a part of. And we get quite a bit of that in our group as well. So we also have a lot of stories. And what I'm going to do here is just help us learn a little bit more about stories as part of your work. I think something we probably a lot of us discovered in the stories with us today is how deep you can go so quickly through a short story. And I think something that I'm really interested in is how that depth of feeling, and you feel it in your body the relationship between that and the sense that you can make change. How story gives you agency and gives you a sense of being a part of something bigger than yourself that can help you imagine how change can happen. And that's the feeling that I often take with me from a story circle. So I'd just like to hear from all of you just in terms of your own work the role the story has played as you'd like to tell it now and make these short so that we can hit. I've worked with these guys a long time. So that way we can have a discussion about the staff's thoughts. That really kind of with Riverside Theater. All of the work that John and I did over the past three decades was about one thing, people power. It's the center of everything we did, people power. That's what brought the discipline to what we were about. What we always focused on was audiences. Who's in the house is the first question we always asked. And if it weren't the right people in the house, then we messed up and we set it out to change that next time we're in that community or in the next community we went to. So it's about audiences who's in the house. And from that central idea of people power we developed our aesthetic and our content. So one of the premises of our work was that we believed in the inherent genius of every cultural community. So think about that. You believe in the inherent genius of every cultural community that you're entering into well that's going to change your perspective. Another principle that we quickly came to directly out of the Free Southern Theater and all kinds of organizing is that then with the problem gotta be the genitive base of the solution. So it's the people with the problem that gotta find the solution. We can help them but they have the knowledge. So that became the important principle for all of our work. And then when it came to content it was all about finding stories that were counter-Americans. So all the knowledge the spirit of the emotion we knew was in the community. All we've tried to do with that play is spring it up so that that could all reveal itself. So we were trying to help communities uncover the knowledge from spirit and emotion that they already had. So that became an important principle for what shaped our content. So when we started to contemplate that we had to think, oh I'm so interested in this and I'm so interested in that we thought about what might the community need what could we contribute and what kind of outcome did we want the experience to have. So that was what shaped the content and what shaped our form and why we collaborated for so long and so well together we were both into open participatory calling response form. That's a form throughout the South it's a form in black churches and white churches and it's an open open place for spirit intelligence, emotion and command. So we were all about participation and of course that led to story circles and all sorts of other things and then we worked a lot to try to achieve scale because we were small we were small core people's theater so then we began to advise anyways to have the community come in and help us make plays on a much grander scale than we could do just now. Hi. So again, I'm not Stephen Kent. I'm Linda Paris, baby. In stereo. I think I want to talk about story as our mission talks about story and carpet bags since 1969 has been engaged in revealing hidden stories. I think in our story circle today we talked a lot about these stories are not heard that our history is not there and our focus very often has been revealing those stories whether they are historical or contemporary around issues that are of interest to our communities and that's a plural kind of thing because we're a touring company and we create work in our community and we create work with other communities. We have already since our origins created original material exclusively so collecting stories researching stories working with communities in story has always been a part of our process. We also work with some very often as an accompaniment to the story and the richness of music in the African American community we were known for a long time for Octopol of Sinai and that combination of using story and song and building community through using story and song and zippering in different messages like it was done in the civil rights movement so that that is a part of our background of history and story the story circle the process that we we were using and that's Juba and Roadside and various people were kind of articulating and using has been a part of our values and a value system of what we believe and how we work in communities so that has been a very important part but finally I think what I want to emphasize is where we are in terms of our story sharing and story process now back in about 2008 we began we were introduced to the idea of digital storytelling and as a part of our ongoing work with story we determined that this digital process was helpful in us engaging with communities and putting the power of story back in the hands of community for those of you who don't know what a digital story is it is a two to three minute short film except that it doesn't use them it's digitally produced so that you have what we call three trains running which means you have a story you have a visual image track so the story track the image track and you'll excuse this one the sound for those of you who don't know where that comes from talk to your actors so we've been using this digital storytelling process and training different communities different groups of people to empower them to use this technology we've also used it in our own work and accompanying the work that we're doing particularly now when we're doing work with veterans and trauma victims of war and we're using that process to help them share their stories so in nine to three minutes I'd just like to share that we don't see that work as separate from the work that we do with the live theater we don't see it as separate from our mission at all and it has been a very powerful tool for us to use and to train other communities to use it's really great to be here with each of you separately we don't have to make a choice between being and being together because we're not alone when we can't be together right? but the power that comes from stories comes through stories is that is the power of our collective struggle to make the world a better place to be for ourselves and everybody else and that we who are challenged to be at work in the arts field and we have to remember it is a field as we it takes a lot of work so and we can't do it by ourselves although we sometimes have to do our part of it alone and so I tend to be a little bit more than a little bit uncomfortable thinking at this gathering when I become the focus of something that I don't think I did about something whether we recognize each other in the doing of not we have got something we there's not a one of these people here in this room on this panel whose contributions without those contributions we couldn't have it would have been I can't say it would have been impossible for any one of us to have done what we collectively have done we will roll forward into the future so understanding your responsibility of this collective and we are we are just a small portion of the people who have done this work required to be present and contributed as we go forward there's millions billions, quite billions of stories in each of us I remember my granddaddy living next door Poppaw I remember Poppaw he got the height for Poppaw I don't know what I assisted in me you got it all and Poppaw was was called to preach he was one of the preachers who could go to the seminar and didn't go get the lesson from somebody else he was called when he was working in fields he grew up he got to Southern Illinois met this keeper woman named Myrtle Thaw and she became my grandmother because of him with him or something I don't know what they did but there was a bunch of children in the cage and Poppaw the first one of his 10 children and I'm the grandchild I don't remember but there were three in the army at the time a younger sister and O'Neill family is a fruitful bunch they produce and so Poppaw engaged me to be his help oil many of his projects and one day we were working on a roof of my mom's henhouse in the back yard I was learning about asking questions about Southern Indiana he got exasperated and looked at me and said he ain't got nothing to say but God says don't spend and waste your breath saying don't spend time and waste your breath I didn't know exactly how to receive that and process it I'm still puzzling myself hopefully he said that to me that day and so I'm still reading you know we just had a little bit of time left so maybe the last section of this so yeah so here we are with that issue of time one of those things that this is and we never have enough time for it I'm going to ask permission from you if we can do something and adjust it a little bit there are some people who are going to go on a tour for pride at the end of this we're supposed to schedule to end at one o'clock and the bus comes at 1.30 for those that are going on their tour other people will be here and be able to stay is it okay to take maybe another 10 minutes I believe 20 minutes I'm going to ask people that are going on tour to go to the live first is that okay with you I was like can we make that happen between ourselves okay I'm going to take an extra 10 you have a question? yeah so that's my question I'm curious about again this connection between the power of story and what you were saying about people creating a framework where people can create solutions to their own problems and the wisdom that you find from storytelling and John I think I heard you say about metaphor stories but I think that's why people tell stories that contradict each other or tell different versions of history or a story that shows silence is another story how in your own work you've done a story which is very democratic about putting all the stories and how do you go from that to organizing for progressive change or how do those two fit into each other I've got the money so I'll take a crack at it first I think in visual storytelling we talk a lot about point of view so every story every play every book that you read is told from a vantage point and I think you have to look at your value system and I think you have to look at the experience of the community and establish the point of view of the organization of the community and once you have that in place then you begin to shape you know the story in the way that it seems to serve most as John would say you tell the story for the good of people as opposed to the the lie but it's value based and I think that we cannot be afraid to have an opinion and very often it's counter to the prevailing point of view but hey that's us who wants it now I'm talking about the first hurdle was to get everybody into the room so really things are so segregated more it seems now particularly along race and class models then even when we were doing this work a couple of decades ago so the really the first challenge we had was how do you get different points of view into the room so that you can have a context of ideas this is a big challenge for us particularly say so I talked about how we shaped our content to a meme we thought they needed to be a recounting of the history of poor working class white and black people and what kept them from seeing their common interests so we decided to make a musical drama called you by Jack so we used story circles to develop a play our own personal stories to write the songs so we finally got a play but then the question became how are you going to get black and white poor people working class people middle class people in to see the professional theater they don't go to the professional theater it's 8 out of every 10 people from the wealth it's 15% in this country so how are we going to get these working class middle class poor people in that became a big challenge the way we solved that was we wouldn't go into a community unless the community agreed to pull together an ecumenical plot so that was people from all the different churches across lines of race and class they'd get in the music a couple of months ahead and rehearse it and then we'd stage in the play so folks came together because there was a big national play coming and they loved to sing and they wanted to be in the spotlight but from that all kinds of conversations about race and class and all the churches had to show up to see what the people were doing all the young people came because there was a new sound being created in the community in every community so segregated that people had an often sound across those lines so a new music was being made so from bringing the people together then we could have the kind of hard conversations that Karen's talking about but those conversations were acted in story circles and one of the chief things of story circles we developed you may hate the story that you've got to respect the story so no cross so we were intentionally trying to bring people on opposite ends together in a circle to discuss what was happening in their community and of course the play framed all that gave a kind of permission so you could say the play was act one act two was the community hearing their own voices often opposing voices and the thing about the story so it was very egalitarian as you all know and that's what enabled the harder conversations to happen now they couldn't end with one source of a community having to spend they were really to deal with this this sort of racing class going to have to commit to years of doing that but we have a whole methodology that helps cope with that I'm teaching a playwriting a class in playwriting and it's an interesting experience of UMass and and the kids who come to the class as I just started and accept them would ask them to tell about theater what they think why they want the right plays what kind of plays they want to write so they start talking about TV things as, you know, TV and the whole idea of theater it's like someplace else or something like that it's very frustrating you know as TV and its core is a sales meeting based on advertising principles of advertising and so forth you know you can count on it two minutes into the first scene there's going to be a conflict exposed and the rest is you know, it's just going to roll right out in two thirty second thirty second bites little bites like that and I get serious but it's you know to shape the way they are seeing the world you know it's very frustrating to old fashioned people like me you know I get it when I start filming because I'm so mad they're doing it but I don't get mad and shouting screaming won't be much good they're doing stuff to read that wasn't wrong I ask them to make reports on it they come clearly not having random stuff and try to push it that way through the the report they're coming to make so it's something strange is going on in the world and I we got to figure out ways to do it and if any of you are thinking about please tell me and let me read it just myself what might work but it's a I'm sure by the Free Southern Theater Institute and the idea of passing on what was learned in the digital story but how do you take what we see was so powerful in the past and make it meaningful now to people in the sort of young people in the Free Southern Theater Institute the folks, the young people about the digital storytelling so I think it would be interesting to hear how this is moving forward your comments on that how you see young people using this work and your hope for witnessing people use it the other thing I've seen with Free Southern Theater Institute is a support system for people maybe the way Free Southern Theater was I know American Festival Project went on for 10 years and we all challenged and supported each other so where is that happening now the places that people are challenging and supporting each other I mean I see the alternate routes I see it in the Free I see it in the Urban Bushing Institute where are some of those other places I can talk about what's happening with us I think we see it in the Center and the use of work that's going on there with young adults and teens I think I see that the Institute that we just did in Minneapolis with Directors of Color and forming Institutes for Directors of Color I think that we have to kind of understand that all want to share our own stories it doesn't matter what age we are and if they're not listening to the stories of young people then what are we doing and I think that the way that young people are sharing the story and the technology that they're using and we're I think we're being a little critical about not understanding what that technology is can do, it can be I think we know that the value of personal connection is what we're after the value of valuing human beings and their stories and their desire for change is really doesn't have an image doesn't have an age attached I used to argue with some folks at the Islander Center about the youth program when I was running the youth program young people should be working at Islander Center in kind of shaping things and I was like did she guys tell me that the guys who were in the street were like 15 and 16 and 17 years old so why have they become suddenly ignorant so I think we have to value what other people burn and look at these things in a very different way keeping the core value of interaction and personal connection and the way that forms movements and struggle so rugside is doing a very practical thing putting all of our work from the past 37 years on the web platform rugside.org and everything is going into creative commons and so we're essentially going to give everything away for those coming along however they want to use it so this came from a conversation years ago with John's and my friend John Holden at San Francisco Mine Troop and she was trying to figure out how to pass on the legacy of the Mine Troop so she thought I'll try to train up some young people but one time she tried that she realized she had too many things she wanted to do to just fall over and train and she kept interceding so we tried the same thing wasn't going to work because it's going to have to be reinvented whatever we've done together it's going to have to be reinvented in an entirely new way so what we're trying to believe is footprints if you will of where we went and it's going to be up to the young people to figure out where those footprints are going to be the chief question I'm interested in right now with young people of all ages etc. is what's the nature of the present historical moment what's the nature of the present historical moment I feel like we're sweet walking so I'm going to hand this to the multiple generations of June to close us out and send this off to food this is great, isn't it all three generations or more so Kiyoko is the leader of the education award that's going on in the Free Southern Theater Institute and she was introduced to us by Dan Cornfield Dan who is a young woman at New Orleans and we met and we decided we couldn't look back thank you Jay it's really amazing to be here with everyone and to see how things come full circle but I don't know if I would say the leader of the education I'm just going to repeat things that I work and do and just share that I think what's really exciting about working with stories is that the form and the aesthetic I think can change over time and one thing I was really struck by was when Jerome on Friday said that this idea of theater is a prescribed notion but that we live in a very theatrical city and performance in theater and so what I've tried to do I think John and I have tried to do with the Free Southern Theater Institute is use stories as a jumping off point but those stories find their ways into different forms yesterday we saw quests perform share some poems and so we've seen these stories take the form of spoken word and poetry we've seen stories work their way into dance and another thing that's really been inspiring to me is a conversation we had with Doris Thurby in March where she talked a lot about this idea that the theater could be an umbrella for different forms of performance and are including visual or other forms of art so I think that's what we try to do is figure out what different people's assets are what they're they're inspired by what their desires are and rather than trying to create artists of one kind we try to build on what their interests are, what their strengths are and like Linda was saying I think everybody has a story they want to share everybody wants to be heard so we try to nurture that sphere and through stories we pushed a little over time and we went and let everybody have a chance to get some lunch before they have to leave but so a lot of you are staying and a lot of you who are taking the bus if you could they could go first and learn and then I'm going to pass this on to it says TV but I want to thank everybody on the panel and I want to thank June Bowen for bringing us all together it's been an addiction that we never leave without shaking each other's hands and thank you for being inside this space and giving thanks for another day and being here and so we're going to say this little line of mine as we go out and I'm asking you everybody as you eat because we've been here, we've struggled together we've asked questions we've talked we're going to continue to talk this conversation is going to happen again in the way that we thought it would it will happen again so this little line