 I remember one day sitting in rehearsal and I was so grateful to myself, to my ancestors, to my grandmother, to my family, to my mom for making sure that I always showed up as myself. Because here I am sitting in this rehearsal room, being who I am and showing up 100% as Nicole, authentically Nicole. And that's what I want for my other Beatriz Das, theater workers, community, in matriarchy theater, you always get to show up as who you are and you will be cared for and you will be valued and you will be seen and you will be loved and there's a place for you. And we get to create what theater is. Nobody's gonna tell us what it is. We get to say what it is. You're listening to Building Our Own Tables, a podcast produced for HowlRound Theater Commons, a free and open platform for theater makers worldwide. I'm your host, Yura Sapi, and I'm the founder of various organizations and projects, including a 501C3 non-profit, a six-hectare farm and food sovereignty project, an LGBTQ plus healing and art space, and I've helped numerous creatives, leaders, and other founders unleash their excellence into the world through my programs, workshops, and coaching services. In this podcast, I'm showcasing the high-vibration solutions for you as a visionary leader to implement into your own practice and thrive. Stay tuned this season to hear from other founders who have built their own tables for their communities and for the world in this evolutionary time on earth. You are here for a reason and I am so honored and grateful to support you on your journey. So stay tuned and enjoy. Community Unlocks Abundance. We have gone through this in the podcast before. Bonus points if you can identify which episodes. In today's episode, I got to interview Nicole Limon and we discussed all kinds of leadership tips and strategies as usual, really centering around the opportunity that comes from what it means to build your community, what it means to support your community, support community to give and to receive from community and to operate from this community-centered way of leadership. Nicole is such an amazing example and role model in this way with her new theater company, Matriarchy Theater. Go ahead and enjoy this episode. We discussed the fundraising strategies and tips, the power of mantra meditation for you as a leader and founder, and the journey of finding your name for the project or organization you are creating and the journey overall of what it's like to really go from an idea to a manifestation of your idea into this 3D earthly realm. So I hope you enjoy this amazing episode. Before we get into this episode, go ahead and hit subscribe on this podcast. This is the best way to stay updated on new episodes and helps build a thriving planet where all beings experience joy and harmony with each other and mother earth. So go ahead and hit subscribe and keep this good energy flowing. Welcome to the podcast, Nicole. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for inviting me. I'm really excited to talk to you. Yes, me too. So my first question is, tell us about your superhero origin story. So what is the pivotal moment that led you to forge your own path and build your own table? Yeah, that's a great question. I think it was probably both a long and immediate process because I was raised with such unconditional love in my family. I knew my value. I knew I was loved. I knew I was cared for. As a young person, I felt like I was smart. I think when I got to college, there was this instant invisibleization of people who looked like me and walked through the world looking like me. And to me, that was a very kind of shock. I wasn't used to that sort of an experience. And that was in the theater department and not getting cast, not getting called back, just to do what I love, which is telling stories. And very quickly after that, I met a friend and we started our own little company. And it was called Movimiento Molcajete and it was a duo, two performers. And we started writing our own work and touring our own work. And we realized immediately that there was an audience for our stories. There was an audience for people who look like us that there was no lack of embracing of our stories. And I was probably in my early 20s at the time. And we did that for several years. We were able to sort of make a living just going to small communities, to community colleges, to tribal communities, to festivals and to art galleries, et cetera, being invited to share our work. We knew there was value, right? And that it was directly for our community. And I think that was a really important fast forward many years. I wanted to create a larger theater company to give that sort of an experience to other theater makers. And other people are just curious about the theater world or performing or storytelling. And so, matriarchy theater was kind of a kernel for many years before it became matriarchy in what, 2020, 2021. It was really just the having other people be seen too. That's, so I feel like that's the superpower is like, I see you and I want you to see yourself. That's the gift. I love that. I'm curious about having started in 2020, 2021 at this transformative moment for the planet and for humanity, also marking a future that's here and coming in terms of a lot of the ships that we have seen and are going to see for the planet, for humans on it and theater as a specific community of that really representing the human experience. So I'm curious about this time that you decided to come out and now how has that been and what are you reflecting on since that beginning? So like I said, it had been a kernel for a long time. And actually in 2016, I left my full-time gig, like my day job where I was making a living and taking care of my family and my children. But really just not, my soul was not happy. I had been there for almost 10 years and I left because I wanted to just focus on my art and my teaching. I was also teaching part-time at Sac State at the time. So working full-time job, teaching part-time, doing my theater and I just wanted to focus on building my art world and really reconnecting to that. And so my intention was to start matriarchy back then. I didn't have the name yet. I still just knew it was a theater ensemble or a collective or a company. I didn't know what it was gonna be, just something. And at that time, my dear friend and mentor and former professor Manuel Pickett asked me to help him kind of save and sustain his company, Diatro Espejo, which is celebrating 50 years next year. And he's just like, I need help. And I thought that was a really beautiful thing to reach out, to ask for help. And he asked me to direct the next main stage show. He's like, I'm tired. As leaders, we're often doing this by ourselves, even though we have a lot of people come to the table to collaborate on the show. Behind the scenes, it's often just us running it. So after conversations with him and other folks, I decided to really commit some time to that. So I said, kind of internally, I was like, okay, I'm gonna give this maybe five years to just help save this company. It had been a company that was a part of Sacramento State University on campus until 2012, when he retired, he then moved it out into the community. And so I helped to create 501c3. We founded a board. I was the first board president, recruiting people, outreaching, bridging the gap of generations between him and the people under me and just kind of coming under the generation and really working to sustain that and grow that while still wanting to start my company. I knew that there was so much value in Diatro Espejo and it was where I was sort of like born and raised as a teatrista and where I really learned about theater for social change and community care. And so it was just such a joy and such a passion to do that. And then at some point around 2020-21, when theater started going into these little, you know, podcasts in cubicles and in Zoom rooms and I did about, I think I directed about three or four Zoom plays, I think I just finally had some time to settle because Diatro Espejo had taken a break from being, you know, in a theater, we were still doing Zoom theater, but I had some time. And I think it was that time that at some point the name came to me. I never really knew what I wanted to name the theater company and one day I just was like, hmm, matricule theater. And so I remember immediately just doing a search, right? Checking it, Googling it, seeing, you know, is there already a matricule theater? Is there the dot-com available? Because I didn't want to step on anyone's toes and I would want to uplift their work, right? I was surprised that I was like, wow, there isn't one yet. Of course, there's lots of matriarchy projects and everything, which is like to me, it's community. So I immediately went and like got the domains, you know, and I remember the next day, during the pandemic, there were, you know, we had the racial uprising and I was supporting a lot of my students of color who were going through it and themselves becoming leaders and activists and creating organizations around social change and racial injustices and calibrating those injustices, right? Because of that, I had formed a beautiful collective, formed under my friend Nicole Manker called the Communities of Color Collective and it was primarily adjunct faculty from the university and we would meet every week on Zoom, every week for almost two years. And so the next day that I came up with the name, I remember meeting with them and I said, I have a name for my theater company and they were like, what is it? And I told them, and I just remember I still get a visceral feeling of their reaction to the name landing with such resonance and such power and those celebration emojis in the Zoom window. And I knew I had found the right thing because it wasn't just a name, but it was like such an intention, such a big intention. And so that really, I felt like it took that time of the colonel and then those years dedicated to Teatro Espejo for I think the universe and ancestors to give me the gift of matriarchy theater and then I can go forward with what my mission is. Yeah. That's so beautiful, yes. And I love everything I'm hearing, bridging this ancestral wisdom really of the power of a name, the power of receiving a divine kind of information coming through that just is a knowing of when it's the right time. When that information comes through for anybody who's listening who maybe is thinking about starting a project and you don't have the name yet, being able to kind of flow with that journey of getting the name and knowing what it is that you're doing and also meant to be doing. And then when it comes through really going ahead and taking the steps to follow this vision. And I love too the offering of community as a part of it this community group that you had been a part of in providing a space for others to share and a space for you to share and be heard. So I feel like that's also a really important thing to note for others who might be in this process to really have that community, have that space of people that you can go to and share and celebrate wins and also have that space to be supported. And then also the tips I'm hearing around too going forth and getting those domains and searching to see if it's something that legally and in this way that we operate other people have already been doing both for yes, the whole trademark and legal side of it but also the community side of it is that wanting to uplift what others have already been working on. So I just wanted to reflect back all this amazing wisdom, suggestions and experience that you've gone through to share with listeners. Yeah, thank you. It's nice to have that because sometimes we don't see it ourselves we're just in the doing. So in the sort of receiving that I appreciate that. Yeah, and definitely, there's a lot of questions that come through and I'm sure you still have questions I still have questions about things that we are doing. So it's always good to be able to find those spaces to ask. Yeah. Because you're listening to this podcast I'm going to assume that you care about the future of our planet and all beings who live here. You are a visionary leader who sees possibilities for our future that are beyond what others around you may be thinking and taking as the status quo. You have the ability to see another option and see a different way to do things than before. You're bridging ancestral practices with the modern and you know there's a reason you're here on this planet in this body with this voice in this moment. So I want to invite you to join our free network of visionaries an online platform and community forum cultivated by me, Yura Sapi to support other visionaries who are building their own tables. Join us and gain access to weekly self-care tips guided by the astrological occurrences that reflect in our socio-political day to day as well as resources to grant opportunities and business tools curated for you to thrive as a new Earth leader. Get access to my special meditations, teaching videos and giveaways for one-on-one coaching sessions, courses and more. So what are you waiting for? Join us on the network of visionaries and let's manifest our thriving planet. The link to join will be pasted in the show notes and I can't wait to meet you. So my next question, imagine if you are giving a pep talk to this younger version of yourself. What are the words of encouragement and wisdom that you would share? That's such an interesting question because I feel like part of me does that with my students, right? In retrospect, where we're able to see, like, we could have done X, Y, Z and been just okay. You know, it wasn't as scary as I had thought it was and so I really try to empower my students with those things. So for me, I think I would have told my younger self, particularly like maybe my college age self, is to speak up more. I think it was a process I had to have for my life because in my real life, when I'm not in my theater or my teaching, I'm pretty introverted and very much just sitting back and observing. I feel much more comfortable speaking maybe in front of 10,000 people than on a one-to-one. I've gotten much better with it, but I think that's what I would tell my younger self is to speak up more. You know, right now, for example, I tell my students, like, go talk to your professors. You know, there's people and they want to help you. They want to connect with you. I tell my son that too. Go talk to your teachers. Go make a connection. He sees how much of a difference it makes, even though it's scary for him to make the connection. So for me, it's just making connections and I think it's still a lesson that I'm learning, right? So I can tell people, do this, but still having to practice that for myself because I think one of the things that we do, I think as community folks, I feel like I'm always uplifting other people. Like, I love that. And then sometimes I'm like, oh, I can uplift myself too, right? I can open doors for myself as well. And so I think this last year, I was able to do that. And that was probably the older version of me telling the younger version of me, like, you can do this for you too, right? You're a part of the community. You're a part of the community that you're caring for. So yeah, speak up. Speak up. Yeah. Well, tell us more about what this last year has brought you. Yeah. I mean, abundance. So, and I would say probably from 2022 and 2023 we're just overwhelmingly abundant and joyous and just seeing things come to fruition and offerings coming in in a way that I hadn't really experienced before. In 2022, I actually, we finally staged our first full performance for Matriarchy Theater, a play called Quantum by Tara Moses. And it was a beautiful experience. And I would say that at that time, I had finally, you know, launched Matriarchy. And Matriarchy said, we're here. We've been born. Here's the name. And then I did a small go fund to me. And I hate asking for money. I'm not a good fundraiser. I just don't like doing it. And so I put it out there, you know, which was a huge ask for me was it's the speak up thing. And that we didn't do too well. It did pretty good. I mean, we had a little bit of donations and I was so grateful for that. And, but we didn't get anywhere near the ask that I was hoping for. And we still ended up getting that by other means. So at some point, the board of the after a special came to me and said, we would like to fund your first production for Matriarchy Theater. And so they gave me a lovely budget to put this show on. And I thought that wasn't me. I cried. I wasn't expecting that, you know, I wasn't expecting that. And I'd still gives me tears. I was able to do every single thing that you need to do for production. All my artists were paid. All the designers and creatives were paid. We rented the venue. We paid for the rights. We did publicity. Everything that you need under the sun, they even paid me like the other aspect who paid me to direct my show for my company, which, you know, that was not some, yeah, that was not something I was expecting. And it was, it was again, a gift that I did. I didn't, I didn't do things for theatrical to get things back like that, but it was just started and all of this abundance really started snowballing in such unexpected ways. I also started doing mantras just around welcoming those things and, you know, the abundance and the care and I'm cared for and the universe will do what's right for me as long as I'm putting good out into the world. And that was 2022. And then I also, as much as I don't like asking for money, I also am not really a big fan of writing grants because I want to spend that time making my art. Right. So, but I did. I finally applied for a grant and I received an NEA grant, which was huge. It was probably the first, yeah, it was probably the first grant I had applied for in years. And I got the grant and I have to give big props to the grant advisor I had talked to prior to applying. He gave me some really good advice. And then I was able to put that funds towards a project that we put on stage in 2023. And kind of a long story short in 2023 at some point, I did that thing where I took my own advice and spoke up for myself. A director put a call out for a dramaturg in the community. And her name is Dina Martinez. And she's such a trailblazer and such a beautiful human. And she's a director and an actor. And I immediately answered like, oh, I suggested somebody, you know, and I said, I can do it. But also there's this other person like I don't want, I don't like putting myself out there. But she immediately messaged me back and said, I want you as my dramaturg. Oh my God. You know, I've been doing dramaturgy for a long time, but never like quote unquote professionally or where I'm actually being credited for my work. And so her bringing me on board to do that opened a bunch of doors for me to continue doing dramaturgy, to continue doing my intimacy choreography work. And I told, I, she actually came to speak to my class the other day because I'm doing dramaturgy for her production of fade right now. And I told her, you know, I'm always opening doors for people. And I said, I want to thank you so much for opening doors for me because I'm usually not putting myself out for opportunities like that. I'm always just making sure that all my people have opportunities. And so I said, I'm so grateful for you at my ripe old age, giving me the chance to do that. And so, yeah, it's, you know, it's, and that's to me, that that's the community care. That's the community care. And it's also a testament to women, right? Having each other's backs. Yeah. Women of color having each other's backs. So it's been an amazing two years. Yes. I'm so happy for you. I love everything. All of this manifestation work. That's definitely something that I really resonate with and understand and just, you know, what you were saying about, you know, putting the go fund me out there and still getting everything you needed just in a different way. So I think that's a big part of, of manifestation of when you have a vision and you create a plan, being able to flow with what the universe gives you that actually can sometimes can sometimes be even more than you could have imagined than what you kind of planned for. And then I love the use of the mantra meditations. That's something also that I have gotten into and even gotten trained in now as a rotation teacher. Yeah. Nice. Meditation uses mantras in this way because so some of the science, if anybody is interested, it's called the reticular activating system. And basically it's this part of our brain that allows for a type of signal, a type of GPS coordinates input for us. Yeah. It's like when a dog gets a scent and then is able to kind of have that scent available and what it's able to be looking for and finding outside in the world. So in that same way, when we use mantras, when we use an affirmation, when we visualize something very specifically, we are calling that energy into our own. And therefore start to notice it when it's around us. So maybe it always was there. Maybe there was always someone who had information or who was the next step to something that you were looking for, but you never had the conversation about it. Or maybe you end up going to an event that just intuitively calls to you and you sit next to the person that exactly is needing, is giving you what you need. So that's the beauty and the work of this affirmations of this meditation of this kind of calling in and really focusing in our power as humans. Yeah. So I'm so happy for you and all of the amazing success you've had, the abundance, the shift into that perspective. And I also will say Tara Moses, amazing person. We've had her on the podcast. Oh, nice. Episode two. I totally will. I totally will. We did an interview or what do you call it? Instagram live with her. I think on opening night when we did her show. I love her. Yeah. And I've read all of her plays at our NPX. I've read every single one. They're just so great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I also would love to tap more into the conversation on fundraising. I think, yeah, let's like get into a little offering of tips because you have some information on grant writing and I can definitely share it on the individual giving. So the crowdfunding actually have an article that I wrote a couple of years ago interviewing the movement theater company and giving 10 tips for crowdfunding campaigns because actually the successful campaigns worked in a similar way that you ended up working with in terms of having people that were already organizations or people that were already kind of committed to the project before launching the crowdfunding campaign. And this actually functions a lot in the way that individual and fundraising strategies and departments work. This is from my learnings from graduate school and from working at the public theater actually. Yeah. Oh, nice. So there's basically strategy that goes on before you even go public about fundraising campaigns. So this is where also if you're able to secure a matching gift, so someone who is going to match a certain amount of donations, you're able to then actually bring that in into the crowdfunding space. And a lot of people are very motivated by the idea and the knowing that their donation will be worth double in terms of if they give this money will be matched. And so there's that tip. There's also letting people know about your crowdfunding campaign before you launch it so that you have people that are already going to donate in those first few days. I'm going to write these tips. They're such good tips. I'll add the link in the show notes as well. Yeah. There's so much strategy, so much support that you can have over individual giving and really all of these aspects of leadership. I think with this community aspect too for listeners to really open yourself up to receiving support, receiving wisdom as leaders, as founders, we are often called to do a lot, if not everything. So there's plenty of things that we can turn to people who have done these things, who have experienced, who have the wisdom and receive that. So now I'll pass it to you. And if you'd like to share some of the tips you got on grant writing. I mean, I would say, because I'm not a huge grant writer and I'm not, I would say that particular grant, the reason that I applied for it was because it was an individual artist grant and you got to just propose the project you wanted to. You didn't have to fit into a box, which for me is really challenging. I want organizations that I work with to organically create from the heart what they want not to try to check off boxes. And so that's what drew me to that particular grant. So I had an advising session and going in, I knew that I had two ideas in mind. And I knew that whether or not I got the grant, I was still going to do those projects. And I think that for me was like, you know, we either are going to get this support or we're not, but we're still going to forge forward and we're going to do the project. We're going to figure out how to do it. So I proposed two projects. And I spent most of the advising session talking about one particular project and the advisor was so generous with their time and advice. And that project was quantum, right? By Tara Moses. That was that. I think it was before I set up the GoFundMe. I don't remember. And I said, so I want to do this play. And the very end we're about, our advising session went on for a while because we were having such a great conversation. And then at the end, I said, oh, let me just tell you about my other idea. I propose the idea and he goes, that's the one apply for that. And I was like, okay. So he gave me, he talked to me for like maybe a minute and then he had to go because we had already been going over time. And I was like, okay. So I think one, it was a clear idea. Two, it was like such, from such an authentic place. And three, it was, I already knew I was going to do it regardless of whether or not I got external funding or this particular grant. And that ended up being my project, just to pinch the uterus play about health advocacy around women and women plus people with uteruses, reproductive care, you know, at outpatient appointments. And so yeah, so we got the grant for that. And again, I knew it was a project that I was going to do regardless because it didn't check off boxes for others. It was aligned with what we wanted to do with matriarchy theater. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. It also kind of reflects back to this manifesting speech I was talking about in terms of, you know, you have what you are wanting to do. And so with that core, you're able to attract the things that will help you by sticking to that, you know, that core thing of what you're looking to manifest. Yeah. And I love the tips of, you know, seeing if you're the right fit energetically, you can kind of almost know when you read a description, is this right for me? Are they looking for something else, you know, kind of almost scanning through if it's something that, you know, has some red flags or, you know, all kinds of things that you might want to be aware of when you're applying for a grant in terms of what do they require for the reporting. Similarly, the match, like a matching aspect to it where you need to be raising funds for it to be able to get that, which I think also ties to your second recommendation around really knowing that you're going to do a project and having other options out there that can actually, for a lot of grant opportunities, really support your application because whether they have a matching component to it that you do need to be able to, you know, have other funds coming in. So there's this aspect of saying, you know, these are the other ways that we're getting support for this. These are other partners that are already with us. These are the ways that we're going to do this. And so a lot of times grants and organizations and people want to support something that is being supported by others. And so kind of joining in on the community aspect of being able to co-produce something. So, yeah, I love those tips. And I really hope that it helps for people who are listening. Yeah, also, I really love that you were talking about, like, you know, scanning the grant to see if it's right for you. And I think one of the things I always say, my favorite thing about being an artist is that I get to be around other artists. So when we're scanning those, a lot of times I know that if we aren't the right fit that we're sending it to other people because there's enough for everybody. Like there's going to be times when I don't get the funding, but my friend or organizations that I love are getting the funding. And I feel like there's enough for everyone to go around. And so if it's not right for you, send it to the person you think it is, right? Because we're all working to do the same thing, which is bringing beautiful art into the world. Yeah. I love that. And that goes back to what you were saying, too, about the jobs that come around. It's beautiful. Yeah, actually, I have this network of visionaries free community forum that I've started where I can post all kinds of healing and teaching information about this type of work for leaders and founders and visionaries. And then also, there's a one for grant opportunities where I just post all kinds of grant opportunities. I used to have a newsletter, but this I found is a little bit easier for me to just kind of post it in there and then it's on there and anyone can see it, you know, the past straight, too. I always feel so loved when somebody sends me a link to a grant, even if it's like, even if I look at it and I'm like, oh, it's not for me. I just feel so loved when they're like, here, you might qualify for this. I'm like, thank you. I appreciate you thinking about me. Yeah, it's like good energy. It's like receiving that support, that prayer from another that you want to see. Yeah, that belief in faith in your work. Yeah. I have another question for you about your ideas and thoughts around the future of the theater industry as the theater industry evolves. What do you believe it's asking of us as creators and leaders? Your questions are so good. I mean, I think the theater world is such a big entity because the community is so important to me. I don't care to answer to the theater field or the theater world. I care to answer to my community, right? And theater is the means by which we get there. You know, the storytelling is the means by which we get there. I will say that as leaders, when I'm thinking about people who are part of our community, whether they're youth or younger people or older people, you know, they want us to be, for me, when I'm leading, I kind of usually start with like, I'm fallible. I will make mistakes. I don't have all the answers, but I know what my goal is and I know what my mission is and I know that I come with good heart to try to do this thing, you know, and you're welcome to come in and bring your energy, you know. So I think leading in a way where we're human and we show up as our authentic selves and that we're willing to, you know, apologize if we make a mistake and be that human person, but also try to hold ourselves up to a standard where it's not the regular thing that we're making a mistake, but that, you know, we don't have all the answers. I think that's one thing. And I think another thing as a leader is to get out of the way so that other people can lead, right? So I've said since I started Matriarchy is that I'm not building Matriarchy for me, right? I'm building it so I can give it away five, 10 years down the road. We've built this thing together. Now take it if you want it, right? It's just carving out a space that we get to collectively create. And so that we're leading together. Like I might be the person who kind of started the thing, but I can't continue it alone. What is even the point of that? We talk often about the notion of decolonization, right? And I also talk sometimes about a pre-colonized space, right? Where we are flattening the hierarchy. And that's something that I try to do within Matriarchy is we definitely have people who have roles as the director or the artistic director or the lead or whatever the case may be. But when it comes to the community care, we try to flatten the hierarchy while also having channels in place should, you know, we just did just a pinch and we had a wonderful artist, Bessie Zoldo come in and talk consent and boundaries and mental health advocacy and conflict resolution. And we had a chain of, you know, if you are having an issue and you haven't been able to talk it out one-on-one, you're going to go to this person. You know, if it's an issue with Nicole, you can go to the board. If you have an issue with the board, we don't have a board. We have a, we have a, we have Guiding Matriarch. You can go to a Guiding Matriarch. If not, then you can go talk to Bessie so that everybody feels truly cared for and that they have a voice. And so I think it's about, you know, getting out of the way of these notions of what is a leader. Just like I like to get out of the way with the notions of like, what is professional actor? What is a professional theater? My standards are not the standards of a PWI. Like I don't try to align to that. Professional is what we want it to be. What we want it to look like. And so as the theater world evolves, right? I don't think we answer to it. I think the theater world answers to us to a certain degree. Yeah. That's beautiful. Thank you so much. Right. I have one more question for you. So reflecting on your journey, what has been the most rewarding aspect of carving your own path and building your own table? Yeah. I would say, man, it's been a long journey. Yeah. But very, very intentional. I think one of the things when we are building our own tables or creating our own path, it's because we know that the other tables don't fit. Like I didn't even want to be at the other tables. You know what I mean? A lot of us aspire to the X, Y and the Z because that's what it looks like. I never really did. I just wanted to show up as myself. And so I said no to a lot of projects because they didn't align with my core and my heart. And I've had conversations with other theater makers where it's like they feel like their career suffered because of having to say no to things that they believed in. And I certainly feel like, yeah, I had an intention to show up a way that I wanted to show up. And so I had to say no to a lot of things. And I'm okay with that because I also have the other end of the spectrum where I have friends that say they're doing well in their career, but they had to kind of compromise who they were. And so they're in a place right now where they're really, really going up against a battle with a lot of just different things. And I think that we can all understand that. And I didn't want that to be my battle. I was like, that's not my battle. Why should I be battling that when I could be creating something beautiful? And so for me, the biggest reward, and I've really recognized this the last couple of years as I've been pushing forward with matriarchy and also in my freelance work as a director and a dramaturg and an intimacy choreographer, I remember one day sitting in rehearsal and I was so grateful to myself, to my ancestors, to my grandmother, to my family, to my mom for making sure that I always showed up as myself. Because here I am sitting in this rehearsal room, being who I am and showing up 100% as Nicole, authentically Nicole. It took me a really long time to get here and get in this room. But I'm me. And they're embracing me and accepting me and seeing me as me. And that is the biggest reward. And that's what I want for my other theater workers, community in matriarchy theater. You always get to show up as who you are and you will be cared for and you will be valued and you will be seen and you will be loved and there's a place for you. And we get to create what theater is. And nobody's going to tell us what it is. We get to say what it is. Yeah. Yes. Amazing. Thank you so much, Nicole. Yes, everyone, please go ahead and follow, subscribe, like, matriarchy theater. You can find them on Instagram, right? And thank you so much again for joining us today. It's been such a pleasure and honor. Thank you. It's been such an honor and I'm just really grateful for this time with you. Thank you so much, Yura. Have an idea for an exciting podcast essay or TV event the theater community needs to hear. Visit howlround.com and submit your idea to this digital commons.