 It is evening at this point, I think, that we would say that five o'clock, yeah. Hi, I'm Sunaz, one of the co-curators of the Prelude Festival, and I'm really excited to welcome you to one of our works and process showings. Works and process are excerpts from productions that are new or in development. In this specific grouping, we're very excited to present work by the absolutely wonderful Kate Benson and Jessica Almacy and company Dupali Gupta and Nada Muse. There will be a brief transition in between and we ask that you stay for the duration of the performances and presentations. And then please do stay after for a brief and always fascinating, moderated talk back with the artists. Thank you again. There's another one of these at seven o'clock. There's another one at eight o'clock, and then there's a closing night party at the Museum of Sex. So it's going to be a good night, and I can't wait, we're going to kick it off, yeah? Okay, cool. I'm directing the play, and we've assembled this group of actors, but we're not going to cast them. So you're going to cast them, and we're going to lead up to Chan. So you're going to draw a number out of the bucket, you're going to announce that number out loud to the room, and then tell that person who they're playing, and then they're going to play. Nobody on stage right now knows what role they're about to play. Would you pick a number, please? Don't open it yet. Is it only one? Yes, one. Okay, so this is who's going to play the driver. Could you read the number out loud? Uh, the number? It is. Oh, we're only three. This is who's going to play the navigator. Number one. Anybody want to play? Volunteer? This is who's going to play now. Wait. Thank you. This is who's going to play right. Who's going to play straight? Dude. Great. Anybody else? Yes, thank you. Who's going to play left? Would someone read the last number? That's right. That's who's going to play percent. Spoiled the surprise. Thank you. This was the year 2000. Rare to find what we'd ever moved in. Not now, but then. Everybody ate donuts before. Remember? Fuck. I'll take one. I'll take one. I want to... And they are on the move. Can I at least change the music? No. Driver decides who's the rules. Stupid rule. We should all decide. When you drive, you could decide. You just told me I couldn't drive. Driving is not operating the jukebox. You have points on your license. You aren't going to drive today. The driver gets the music because the driver has to concentrate. Drives. That's it. So... I can't listen to that shit anymore. Oh my god, just go see me. We'll be there in an hour. I'll take the next exit. What's the number? The next one. The next exit. Nineteen. Eighteen. The next one's nineteen. The next one's eighteen. Take it. Take the exit. Nineteen? It's supposed to be eighteen. Wait, wait. Take it or not? Take eighteen. So the next, next exit. Wait a minute. Take the exit toward... Hey, hey, my job. Don't... Yes, but my job is to make sure that we... Which exit? Eighteen. Eighteen. Take it. Thank you. Get it together, please. It's together. My shit is together. We're designed... Who was the last one with a single? I was. Then it's your turn. We should all have singles all the time. Four rooms. Seven rooms. What's the difference? A union contract. None of us have one. So we have to share. I should be an union. You can't use that part of your internet. Yeah. You're being a stupid catch-22. You can't get a contract if you're not a union. And you can't join a union without a union contract. It's all a fucking great fucking game. I was in the union. It's not a great... We'd have our own rooms. That seems great. We wouldn't be here at all. We can't afford a union. We can't raise enough money to turn a profit with union people. Union people are too expensive. Obviously we need them. Yes, they need more money. If they don't have to buy seven rooms every night. Yes, but really? Movies like cars? Tops? Keep each other company? We're all together all the time. Anything? What do you want? Seven separate cars? Two? And internet? You gave me a lot. Do you want one? Are you secretly management? I'm a person who's run this contract before I signed it. Having a great time. I don't mind sharing and rotating a single. It's great. Before. I thought once you were in, you were in. Hey, what's next? We're on this road for a while. And then it's exit 181. We're going to route 23. What happened? Did you get kicked out? How did you? How can a person get kicked out? Well, you have to keep paying your dues, following rules. I wanted to do some other stuff. I mean, all we want right now is to join. It's never a burden to me that you could get kicked out. Now it's a whole new set of problems to worry about. It's a Jesus. You have to work so hard to get in. Not really. And then you couldn't even stand. And now you're here. Oh, for someone you're too. I need that. Swim back into this. Underpaid? Underspected? I was really psyched when I got this gig. I still am. So many people wanted this job. And you have it. There are people who wanted to be here and then not. Because they weren't up to it. So I think that's the whole thing. It's not that simple as ready and not ready. I mean, you can be ready to work and not find the right job. And not be right for that particular job. Too tall or too short or whatever. And then you don't get the job. I do want to think every time I don't get a job, it's because I'm not good enough. I mean, Jesus. To get this job, all you need to be able to do is read. Fuck you. You have to show up. And not smell too weird. And say the words in order. And then the job is yours if they give it to you. I think it's a little more complicated than that. And so do you. None of you watched auditions. I did. I know who you need out to get this job. Each one of you. So believe me when I tell you, you're lucky to be here. And also you're here because you're good at what you do. And also you're here because we thought you'd be ready to do this. And also ready for the job. But on a job like this, it's harder than it sounds to show up. Not smell weird. And say the words in order. I mean, you don't have to try. We need your best efforts out there. Not your bullshit. Like they could tell. What are the first things most of these people have ever seen? So you want to give them some substandard not trying bullshit? Is that it? You know? You're all? Never. I got jobs I shouldn't have. I got screwed when I shouldn't have gotten screwed. Nothing works so neatly. Nothing in the world works according to your new reasons. So just tell the music. This is the first job I've had in a long time. Because I start that kind of attacks every time I left the house. You're unstable is what you're saying? That's some stupid, duper, stigmo bullshit. Have you ever had a panic attack? No. Because I'm tough. No, just lucky. I don't let shit get me down. You have to take care of your own head. A panic attack is not punishment for not taking care of such a... How? How long do I stay on this road? Two more months. Look at all those pawn shops. People fucked up. Fucking up. Finding themselves in emergencies. Selling that stun gun. What does a person need a stun gun? Anything they needed it. Now they're selling it. Because what? They're so desperate. How does that happen? The world is full of loose wheels. I don't have panic attacks because I was raised to think ahead. Really? To live within my resources. Build a sturdy life for myself. How did you land up here? What are you talking about? This is great. The open road. Adventure. Circus. See the world. Turn left at the traffic light. This one? Yeah, this one coming up. And I can treat it like a vacation because I worked my ass off and assaulted away a bunch of money so that when I needed to get out of town, I got myself this job. And here I am. Out of town. Hey, vacation. No crisis waiting for me around the corner. The van turns left. Rather the size of the room. It's panic pee. Anxiety pee. Panic pee. Definitely. Go right down. Peeing in the woods. Valleys. Fields. Deserts. Rivers. Swimming pools. Right now. All over the world. Get back in the van. Let's go. The left is back in the van. Are you okay to drive? I'm fine. Cool car collected, see? The van continues on its way. Just leave me by the side of the goddamn road after you nearly get us killed. It wasn't our fault. That person, whoever it was, smashed us and clicked us here. It happened. Are you sure it wasn't a deer? It wasn't a deer. Deer don't leap into the size of the car. I don't know what deer is, dude. I'm a city person. I don't know if deer is in the city. The deer are taking over. They don't care about city, not city. That's just the stupid human idea about where is better. Do you know how that places for food? There are no deer in the city. I've never seen a deer in the city. Doesn't mean they're not there. It's only on this road for two miles or so. Thanks. Just because you don't see deer, doesn't mean they're not there. Actually, yes, that's exactly what that means. If I don't see deer, then there aren't any deer. Unless you're performing some sort of deer blindness. You think you know everything that goes on, but you don't. No one does. But you really don't. Got a tweezer? The world is full of hiding places and deer are better hiding. Eyebrows, ears if I squint. I really need a tweezer. Don't squint. What's the next turn? Coming up, right here, turn left. Right or left? Left, turn left. Like I said, turn left, right ear. Left. Can't you just say now, turn left, now? Look, just now, turn right. Turn right now. Turning right. And then we're looking for Old Mill Road. 4952 Old Mill Road. This is 154 Old Mill Road, so I guess we stopped this for a while. Are you sure it isn't the typo of the address? We're looking for the minaret. No, the minuet on Old Mill Road. It'll probably be one of those old movie theaters, like the Odeon, like two times ago. Really? Oh, great, I love an old theater. The Odeon had mice. A mouse ran across my foot when I was getting breast. All theaters have mice. The theaters are like mouse heaven. Well then they'd be dead if it was not dead. So many people even eat in hungry snacks and tracking in all kinds of goodness in the pile of fat break and junky corners. Every theater is like a giant mouse mess. That's what I would name a theater at night. Are we in the right place? Are we going the right way? Someone tell me what to do. Just stay on Old Mill Road. I mean, this just looks like fast food sprawl. Sprawl. Sprawly. It's just sprawl. This isn't where anyone lives, though. I'm checking the address. Why don't we just stop and ask for directions or something? We're not waffles. No, we're just not where we should be, so how is that different from laws? We're walking right in the road. We just have to. Waffle house, I fucking love waffle house. A whole empire of sweet, cheap, delicious pecan waffles. I mean, I like waffles. Their waffles have tiny squares. Not tiny belgium squares. Which I like, but... They have some funk, but the food is clean. Waffles, why don't you go wrong? Belgium waffles hold the better better, like a whole lake of butter in one square. See, that's where you're wrong. Waffle house waffles are perfect. Do people eat veggies down here? What do they do for rubbish? Oprah, are you sure about this address? Vegetables are too expensive. Unless they're potatoes, I love potatoes. Potatoes make the world go round. Or corn, corn syrup, popcorn, corn chips. Junk. Yeah. Farms. They're farms. People grow their own. Liberandia. Chili's, McDonald's, Ruby's, Subway, Ruby Tuesday's, T-G-I-F, Burger King, RV's, Wendy's, Denny's, Papa John's. World means farm. What you can see from the road is nothing. When we get there, we have to load in before dinner, at least a little of the trailer, so we only have an hour in the morning to set up. Oh, I want us to sleep. So sleep. Not sitting up, letting down. Under the covers. Listening to the music that I like. Not this stupid bullshit. You drive, you pick the music. Final drive. I'm the driver. This is bullshit. Getting close. 3,000, whatever was the last address. Shakespeare country. Cows. Strip malls. Pawn shops. These people want some Shakespeare. What's the name of the place? The presenters are feeding us. God damn it. It's going to be greasy pizza. Why do they think they know how to make pizza down there? Because they do. They make pizza. And for the record, everyone down here, all the places that are hosting us, are doing the best they can, with the 25 cents they have to have an art program. The last place we work, the school board, spent the arts budget on Bible. So take a paycheck. Be cool pizza. Be quick to play. I didn't say cool. I said greasy. I just think a little quiet. You don't know anything about how people live around here. What they have to put up with. How many people are out of work or are struggling to learn anything in a shitty, underfunded school that doesn't want to talk about Darwin. You don't know anything about struggle, or poverty, or what it's like to not be able to buy fancy cheese. You never lived anywhere that didn't have fancy cheese. And bookstores. And art museums. You take every advantage you have for granted and then look down your god damn nose at anyone that lives in a place that couldn't provide. When those people who live in those places, they're fucking heroes. We're just surviving one more day. And then 20 of them got together and formed an arts council in a field, in a county, in the middle of this, and hired you to come down here and get paid to dress up and put on a play is a fucking miracle. So shut up about your greasy pizza problems and be a human being. Everyone knows what to do. I need to run for public office no matter what the polls are saying. I'll do something foolish and then false it. I think you may not know about me. You hear something you may not know about me. I'm a born disciple. I'm a natural devotee. I would give up playing God if I found one. Born disciple. Natural devotee. Eventual heretic. Are there any ex angsty teenagers in the house? Former hormonal egomaniacs. What happened to you? And did it ever go away? I look in the mirror and I'm finally older. Too old to be a prodigy. Sometimes I feel like I'm a genius in disguise. I should see a doctor about that. I look in the mirror and I miss my own face. My old face. The face I used to see. Am I being weird? Am I being weirder than normal? Content warning. I look in the mirror. You asked me. I told you. You told me. I know who I am. I was impressed. What an achievement. I told you. I know who I am. I'm a good liar. You told me you don't trust actors. I'm an actor. You're different. Yes, I'm different. I decided to become different. For you. Yeah. You. You know who you are. Don't worry. They won't. I redacted your name. In January 2017, I sent name redacted an email with an attachment. Subject line. Hey, name redacted. Instapolly. Body of the email. I hope you had a good trip down to DC. Slash. I'm glad we got to see each other last night. Slash. I'm glad we met. Maybe a strange song to send to you, but that's also kind of why I'm sending it. It's definitely about sex, but also God. If you investigate me, you should know there is melancholy in my lyrics. You might find more songs about sex, and it's all actually all about Emily Dickinson. Looking forward to your work. D. The attachment was a song. I'm singing of you. I'm dreaming of you. I'm dreaming of you. To take a moment to introduce some terms that may prove useful to us, I'll start with mania. What is mania? An overly elevated state. Technically speaking, heightened overall activation with enhanced effective expression. Activation and expression overly elevated. Feeling fizzy like a seltzer. What is a manic episode? A manic episode includes an extended period of persistently intense mood. In order to qualify, that period must be marked by at least three of these symptoms. Inflated self-esteem. Intensified theatric speech. Ecstatic racing of thoughts. Decreased need for sleep. Pacing. An inability to sit still. Excessive risk taken. These answers are tributaries to another river of asking. What is bipolar disorder? A manic episode predicates a bipolar one diagnosis. What is bipolar one disorder? A bipolar spectrum disorder. Where do I fall in the spectrum? And what pushed me? Did I trip or something? In March 2017, I was diagnosed with bipolar one disorder after the onset of my first manic episode. That's the fact we can latch on to. When you imagine your suicide and if you've never imagined your suicide, congratulations. Anyway, when the rest of you imagine your suicide, what does it look like? How does it happen? One of my earliest influences was Richie Tenenbaum who didn't succeed in his attempt and isn't a real person. Richie Tenenbaum is a character played by Luke Wilson in the film The Royal Tenenbombs written and directed by Wes Anderson and released in 2001 when I was 11. In the film, Richie Tenenbaum slits his wrists while looking at himself in the mirror while needle in the hay by Elliot Smith who stabbed himself in the heart is playing in the background. He doesn't succeed in his attempt and it's a fictional event. Richie Tenenbaum's suicide is a constant hypothetical ever-present as is mine. Is yours? Let the sound come visit Iowa so boring. If you summon me, I will arrive. I'll cast a spell smiling face. Until my stomach forgot the hunger I wore eyeliner. I enjoyed being terrified. It's like a walking archive. A talking library. A stalking machine. What is the relationship between personal transformation and revenge? If I had a child I would tell them I wouldn't depend on me. If I had a child I would warn them in the morning I'm temporary. And so is as you know it it will all be long gone My favorite emoji right now is the blue butterfly. What's yours? The laughing goats. Are you open to a radical suggestion? Open, ready. Call me on the phone and say hi. In November 2016 I watched the election on a projector in a basement. In December I quit smoking. I met name redacted in January 2017. In February I went to visit name redacted in Iowa. I returned in March. April. I don't know what happened in May 2017. June, July, August. In September 2017 I wondered privately whether recovery was an option. October, November, December, January, February. In March 2018 I turned 28 on the 28th. It was my golden birthday. In September 2018 my therapist said I seemed good. I agreed. I wrote these words in September 2019. As of October 2019 my public position on this matter is that I am doing well and I'm a credit to my disorder. Come visit Iowa so boring. If you summon me I will arrive. I'll cast a spell. Smiley face. From the old English spell story, fable, myth from the proto Germanic. I can tell you this in the dark. From the proto-Germanic Spella to say aloud to recite I will change my life for you and I will change why and keep fucking me like you love don't have to say just fuck me like you love and I will change where and I will change why and keep fucking me love don't have to say if you're home, raise your free sons and our other children and financial matters the only thing that I know is my place in the world. I was in a school in the library saying that philosophy began way before you two centuries ago. I was so surprised to discover with these early philosophers wronged by the nature of women to make up the ultimate reality was a cosmic strike between others apart and cold wet and dry, male and... I don't even know what I don't know I don't think I know much everything we go with our evil our old things so starved we just suppose men be unfundered and you will if my tool is to have any meaning is so that you are in liberty to examine these questions together with the other men it is impossible if you do not examine them my life is not worth living your life that's good too fuck you girl baby grew feathers and turned into a swan expertise I told you but please let me introduce you to my good friend Plato I'm sure expertise your reputation precedes you and I've come to be enlightened by your reason you are a swan of my dream to get you started ponder my notion that the unexamined life is not worth living and that I know that I know to deal with human beings to associate with men in general that's my choice of life I know full well that if I can tolerate her spirit attach myself to every human being master founded his own academy 1887 BC for meeting women to study with men some women rose high in the academy ranks and even dressed like the men Plato and the other directors of academy were marked for opening the doors to women but they insisted that women could be anything men would be including men though with one caveat women would never be as good as men there is no special faculty of administration in the state which a woman has because she is a woman rich a man has by virtue of his sex but the gifts of nature are like diffused in both all the pursuits of men are the pursuits of women also but in all of them a woman is inferior to a man in 367 BC a 17 year old orphan boy with slender calves, small eyes and a lot of clothes and rings enrolled in Plato's academy his name was Iris Cato he eventually left the academy and married a high born embryologist whose name was Pigeon a name derived from the small the skin flesh from a python that Apollo slayed so Aristotle and Piquius traveled the lesbos an island rich in marine and plant life here it means for his taxonomy a way of being the best nature and the only way to study its purpose was to begin with its biology P.C. P.T.S. is taught to have worked alongside Aristotle she picked the beach for creatures belly part of child warm Mediterranean sun on her back sand on her calves, a bed of octopus and crab on her shoulder Aristotle concluded and wrote from these surveys that the female is as it were a mutilated man a degenerate irrational and passive needing the guidance of men the bloody claws of menses were further evidence of their festivity the active sperm were needed to form a full human being one sex needs the other in an isometrical dynamic that exists not for convenience of harmony states so this was its natural that's correct Aristotle also held that some men that they were fit to be slaves and he had a number of slaves on the dominant stage sure did and anyone who disagreed with his ideas he argued must not be thinking and so more like untrained boxers or children with lists he said lazy people don't forget the most important part oh right what does it take to be a philosopher a profound mind time and space quiet and trees sparkling things and bracelets aesthetic harmony who is going to do all the work the growing the harvesting the annual husbandry the wine making robots it takes time and space to think it takes time and space for intellectual masturbation Aristotle's ideas on women's inferiority influenced western thought for the next 22 centuries take out your text number two quills and choose one of the following essay questions a correct answer is necessary to obtain your degree of philosophy here at Oxford University you must answer this question carefully and without bias you have 12 hours for the test extra sheet of veilu I'll leave a carving knife on my desk the sheet are out of bag ready? yes sir nature intends women that doesn't make sense question two whether women's nature is as intelligent as man's have included a wife as a philosopher telling me that someone says mom or a girlfriend we are testing your capacity for recent not your levels of sympathy sympathy I think therefore I am the mind and body are totally distant that means even if we assume that women's bodies are weak it doesn't follow that their minds are too in fact they could be just as wise man which means they should attend universities not to put words in your mouth what do you say about them? nature are equal what about women and civil society? oops forgot about them philosophy is concerned only with what's essential which reminds me, it's time for my daily massage Eleanor meet me in my chambers the novel argues the aim of civil society is to ensure our freedom specifically the freedom to do so when women can't do philosophy and so they can't be citizens duh, in my chapter on democracy I say one may assert with perfect propriety that women have not by nature an equal right with men and thus it cannot be that both sexes should rule alike much less that men should be ruled by women and why? I continue and men and women cannot rule alike without great hurt to peace what of this? enough so those are the final words of your political tea one of my hero's first sense of playing the most influential finger of the Enlightenment can't who says our minds can't but help see the world the way they do and we can't be sure whether the way we see things is actually how they are so what is the way we can't help but see women women's philosophy is not too easy but too sense even if a woman excels in arduous learning and painstaking thinking they will exterminate the merits of their sex men shouldn't become more perfect as women have a long slumber who can't know anything for certain oh how cute yet the epistemic uncertainty gives me a theoretical idea it's entirely rational for a man to rule around but not a woman you can't be certain who the father of the baby is and as we all know if a man is uncertain he is the father of the baby and so he has the care for the baby oh knowledge more properly than do men men often care no more than necessary about knowledge but some above troublesome and laborious cares are more detached and therefore more capable of contemplating the good and beautiful philosophy, Gretchen is done roasting the schnittle burst I warned well said victim Stein this is why any time a woman walks into the conference room while I am speaking in the late 15th century you probably have a super keen on joining a club maybe I could get an academic post work towards staying here that sort of thing so I have a reason to think that we are not equal to if not superior oh what is that awful noise he is more peaceful unfolding whose principle is the more indeterminate but man is like an animal his reason pokes the three probably arboreal and its have it around to pop you up because man is superior to women and whenever he takes up whether that's deep thought or reason or imagination or merely the use of the senses and hands in my recent book the meaning of disgust by Colin McGinn argue that the fear is from a fear of death some objects like diamonds impart an idea of eternity love jewelry so because of a relatively high level of bodily so the plan in relation to men to please men to be useful to them to win their love and respect to help raise them as children care for them as adults and add to but the discoveries of the scientists so far they go learn some supported traditional reviews so much so now we're just going to do a quick shift and we're bringing on Nick our moderator who I'm going to let you just take it off from here in about two minutes we're going to have a very brief co-show conversation with the lead artists these wonderful pieces that you just saw so stick around if you can and if you can now's the time so we only have like ten minutes so we're going to get rolling and we're going to be very excited for our other artists to join us my name is Nick I'm very honored to be sharing the stage with these artists I am a set designer and director and courtesy director of the assembly and someone who studies for his doctorate on the third floor of this building I'd love for you all and my pronouns are he, him I'd love for you all to go down and say your names, pronouns and what you did I'm Jessica I'll may see my pronouns are she, her, hers I directed and hung out in Kate Benson's play Hi I'm Kate Benson I wrote Where Are We Going which was the first piece in this and then I also read all of the words into the actors ears because I am a tormenter I'm Deepali Gupta she, her, hers and I'm the creator of I Love You Stranger Hi I'm Sofia Mieva and the founder of Not Amuse Theater and she, her, her and yeah we presented the philosophy piece thank you all very much so I'd love to start by asking each of you where you are in the process and then we can get into the details so this this is a play that we have done one developmental workshop in reading we have some former castmates in the house which is excellent we've heard the whole thing and worked on the whole thing for a week and then we just worked on this little piece for the couple of weeks to get ready for this and that's it it's brand new mine has been in gestation for a few years and one former another and then for the past few months we've been developing it with Ars Nova and their Makers Lab and before that sort of the first generation the first draft was generated in the civilians R&D group taking it from like sort of writer's group to writer's group this was the first time that I brought other people into the making room with me Catherine Brookman and Star Busby are the other performers that I worked with and having them in the room developing the material was critical and then Arie Rodriguez is the director I worked with and Michael Costagliola Costagliola was on sound for us I just wanted to say their names so this is very fresh for us this is pretty quickly the first draft of it Regan Penaluna who is in the audience over there he's the writer so that's from her book that's coming out next year and Susu that's a Subaru's next to her it's been a my co-writer for a Medusa project about woman mythology that we've been doing for a couple years now and so we just had this surprise and light love for this piece of Regan and so we wanted to work on it and bring it to stage so this is our first draft and collaboration together I'm excited to ask each of you if you had unlimited resources and this could become anything in the world is there something that comes to mind either in terms of the process or what it would be like in performance how would you go, say if you lived in Germany just kidding okay so this play started as a secret hidden text of what it's like to live in a representative democracy and the entire text has no gender pronouns and so theoretically anybody could play any part and when we got together in the room in Vermont at Northern Stage we discovered, or I discovered that what I was really proposing was anyone can sound like Kate Benson but I think that that is not still not a terrible exercise so I hope people might disagree but that's their right because representative democracy so what I would love is for six weeks eight hours a day rigor so that the actors could be supported in their efforts to really learn all eight parts so that they would have eight lives in their minds eight Kate Benzens that's a fun kaleidoscope in their minds and be able to perform any of the parts at any time I don't know if that's possible which is part of why it would be very exciting because there's a lot of support I also don't know perhaps this was legible all of the, most of the play no, half of the play takes place in a passenger van and the other half takes place in a Ramada in hotel room and so I would love that to at least be able to contemplate whether we need the realism of that set whether there should be a carcass of a passenger van that suddenly magically turns into a hotel room my literary agent was talking to me about it and she was like yes I mean the grill on the front of the car could become the radiator in the room which I'm not sure the last time I've been in a hotel room with a radiator but I really love that idea so it's if unlimited funds I would want to be able to build the van and build the room and then throw it away if it didn't work that's a dream my dream is also to have a huge spreadsheet of like every person and slash actor that we love and have them be paid well to cycle in and like get to be a part of the play so it's never concretely cast everyone gets to be in it so if we continue with in-ear then theoretically anyone could step in and one of the beautiful things that happened about getting ready for this is that it was very difficult to get all eight actors in the room at the same time yeah like 16 hours of rehearsal and it was just really random special guests come in and step in for one day of rehearsal for which we have infinite those infinite gratitude for our friends and colleagues who were willing to do that but it did enlighten us that if we keep going with the in-ear technology in which some you know they're responding to what they hear that you could have a hundred people on a list and they could just sign up for the performances they wished to attend which would be a really exciting radical experiment with this play I would love a lot of design elements fabulous costumes but also I think this is something that I have seen I think just in the audience after slave played in the lobby there were audience engagement people who were there to speak to the audience about their questions, their concerns what they were feeling and I think given the content of my piece that's a service that I really want to provide to my audience and I wish I could provide to all of you if you have anything to talk through I'm not your person but um no but and I think just like having the financial compensation for making the theater be equivalent to the emotional labor involved as well as the time and the mental energy yeah I will take everybody in the bus too and put them in a farm where we can be fed and we work and we don't worry about New York and New York schedule it's been also very challenging for us to work to get to today though fortunately the ensemble today, the cast of today were in Philadelphia two weeks ago so I got them there they were in Philadelphia and we like we worked for we had a couple rehearsal and then once we go back in New York it was really complicated to get together in the room to rehearse so yeah residencies outside of the city that can be supported and support the life also of everybody for two weeks, months well that will be beautiful because for me I'll come from a physical theater with a mask work to produce that result and that expectation on stage it's a lot of work a lot of physical work and it's a very demanding work so it's really hard to work with a number of though we try and my cast I find it fantastic for being game and playful and hardworking and talented and but we always want more and we want to research more how to subvert the text especially with a text like that how to take the time to play with it about this piece sorry as I said with Susu over there and Reagan maybe this will come it's on our play but since we started to work it was hard to be like ok we stop and this is the version we're going to show because it's an amazing material and I'm also learning a lot through that history so there's huge things to uncover, to digest and then to play with and this is also time that's it so we have to wrap up soon I'm going to ask you one more question because we've got to turn this space over to the next performance and this is a brutal question to ask you to be succinct about but I'm going to ask you to do it anyway for all of your works you're asking really big questions that register on a social level a societal level what does the theater what does the theater offer you as a forum for that kind of questioning and actually with Nupali's case I'm curious about what song offers you yeah I'll start, I think song offers me a psychic landscape that I don't access in text, I think it offers the audience a landscape that and a type of attention that can be paid for physical attention and I think similarly in making this piece about disorder and mental illness I think it's important that I put my body on stage and my body on the line and that there is a danger to that but that to me is different than reading a book of poetry by a woman who is writing about her medication which is valid and I love those books of poetry and I enjoy part of a lineage of writing about disease but for me the only way I can talk about this is with my body I am mostly interested in subverting what we think we know and cracking the egg of consciousness so that we can approach each other with more wonder and less certainty very succinct Sophie with the grotesque form I intend to make people laugh try to keep digging deeper into what is the mechanism of power and play with that denounce them, subvert them to maybe be able to bring everybody to love together just some kind of let go let's not take each other too seriously and yeah, big words thank you so please give these artists a round of applause thank you all for being here I know that you can be silly and playful in the lobby and that would be very appreciated and talk, catch up with all these artists there's another at 7 o'clock but if we can just have everyone clear out before that that would be wonderful and there's a closing night party at the museum of sex at 10 p.m. y'all good to meet you