 Hi, everyone. Don't be shy to scoot in. Don't be shy to scoot in. Just saying. Hola a todos, buenas tardes. First, before I get started, I just want to draw your attention to the program. There is a QR code with live captions if you need those. So please feel free to scan the QR code with your camera on your phone and you will be able to see live captions on there. I am Jacqueline Flores and I am the LTC producer. Bienvenidos to the 2022 LTC Comedy Carnaval. It's been a long time coming. I'm so happy to see all of your faces today and your torsos. Thank you for joining us to celebrate the incredible talent we have lined up for the next three days. And thank you to Mika and Tony and the entire staff at Suthathra for hosting us. For those that don't know what the LTC stands for, it stands for the Latinx Theater Commons. We are commons, which means we are a digital virtual and public square. By being part of this event, you are a member of the commons. If you post on our Facebook page, read a piece about Latinx Theater on HowlRound, you are a member of the commons. Anyone with anything to say or do related with Latinx Theater that chooses to use our public square is a member of the commons. There are no do's, there is no acceptance process. If you're here, you're in the commons and we are so happy you are here. Yeah, a commons is a resource owned by no one that benefits everyone. In a commons, we all manage these resources. In the LTC, our resources are managed by a steering and advisory committee. The LTC uses a horizontal rather than vertical power structure. Our programming is decided and curated by a steering committee of 38 people with a little help along the way from myself. The steering committee is made up of volunteers who believe in the mission of the LTC and help continue to push it forward. The LTC also has an advisory committee made up of 34 members. The advisory committee is for those who have served on the LTC steering committee before and whom I'm grateful to lean on for guidance and advice. If you are part of the LTC steering or advisory committees, can you please stand? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all of your work and commitment to the LTC. If this is your first convening with the LTC or you want to learn more about what we do and how, please go up to any of those people that just stood up and introduce yourself and start a conversation. If you're here this weekend and you think to yourself, hey, I want to be a part of this and make decisions. Join us or better yet, if you're here this weekend and you see things that could be improved, even better, we'd love to have you on the steering committee. I know you've been waiting a long time to gather again and I'm so grateful to be in conversation with you all together. But I do want to take a moment to remind us that the pandemic is not over. Please continue to wear your masks and distance yourself while eating or drinking if you're not able to be outside. There's also some helpful pins that you can choose to tell others what you're comfortable with with social and physical interaction. So let's please be respectful of those. Yeah, I can't believe we're here at Opening Ceremonies for Comedy Carnival. Some of you were there in the 2015 Carnival and even the last one in 2018. Advisory Committee member Lisa Portes was a champion of both of those events. She couldn't be here with us today, so she sent a little greeting for all of you all the way from Chicago. Hola, hola, amores. My name is Lisa Portes and I'm one of the co-founding members of the Latinx Theater Commons and the champion of the inaugural 2015 Carnival of new Latinx work as well as Carnival 2018. And I am so excited for you all to spend the next three days at the 2022 Comedy Carnival there in Denver. Oh my God, I wish I could be there. I'm so sad not to be there, but my daughter graduates high school today. And as my mother said, your child only graduates high school once, honey, so you got to be there. So I am here and thrilled for her and also have a major case of phones not being there with you all. I want to share with you a few words about the importance and the impact of the LTC's field-facing events and specifically the Carnival. Carnival 2015 featured 12 incredible Latinx writers and through our work and the El Fuego Initiative, which provided micro grants to theaters around the country who raised their hand and said, I want to produce one of those plays. We managed to get 10 of those 12 writers full productions across the country between 2016 and 2019. Pausa pausa for aplausa, that's incredible. And in 2018, we featured six writers, two of which had world premiere productions of the plays that were featured at Carnival 2018 in the 2019-20 season prior to the COVID shutdown. Those were Alexis Shears, our dear-dead drug lord, and Noah Diaz's Richard Jane and Dick and Sally. And who knows what else would have happened had COVID come along and who knows what's still to come. The Carnival 2018 also featured designers, 12 incredible designers pulled together by Christopher Acibo and Regina Garcia. 12 designers worked together on the six plays and have been, I'm sure they were working like mad before and have been working like mad since. You're going to see three of those designers actually, Yote Nuevo tonight, Efron Delgadillo Jr. on sets, Pablo Santiago Brandwein on lights, and David Molina on sound and music. And the music is fantastic, as are of course the sets, lights and sound. But it was just a thrilling opportunity to work with all of the designers at Carnival 2018. And listen, I'm all about like, let's get the jobs, let's get folks jobs, let's get folks work scene. And it is events like this that allow us to come together, to get to know one another, to see one another's work, for Latinx and non-Latinx theater decision makers from around the country to come together and see what we're up to and produce the work. That's why we do this. And that is what changes the American theater. So with that, I want to say you're in the hands of amazing leaders, Amelia Acosta-Powell and Jacqueline Flores. You're going to see work by incredible comedians, artists, comedian artists. I hope you laugh, I hope you sing, I hope you dance, I hope you party. But mainly I hope you laugh and celebrate Latinx joy in this moment as we come out of COVID and continue the battle forward. And with that, I hand you over to the inimitable, Amelia Acosta-Powell. Hello, everyone. Bienvenidos al comedy Carnaval. I'm Amelia Acosta-Powell. I am a member of the Latinx Theater Commons Steering Committee and I'm the event champion for this convening. Thank you to Lisa for the introduction. My first LTC event was the 2015 Carnaval, of which Lisa was the wonderful champion. And I had been to a lot of other new play festivals, but I had never felt welcome at those. And I felt so welcomed at the LTC Carnaval. So it's an honor to have an opportunity to continue that tradition. And I hope everyone here today feels as welcome at Comedy Carnaval as I got the pleasure to feel in 2015. At the most basic level, I was inspired to pitch the Comedy Carnaval because I just love comedy and it was selfish. Just a fact about me, my instinct in a fucked up situation is to make a joke. And when I pitched this event in 2018, I did not comprehend how fucked up our situation would be, but I'm glad we get to be here laughing about it. The inspiration also came from a lot of frustration with the dominant culture of American theater. I noticed that when Latine stories are programmed at primarily white institutions, the vast majority feature trauma porn narratives about immigration, narcotics trafficking, imprisonment, family separation, gang violence. At best, maybe this overemphasis on narratives of Latine oppression is a well-intentioned desire to foster dialogue about relevant issues. At worst, it feels like a calculated and deeply rooted strategy to propagate harmful two-dimensional stereotypes in order to justify and reinforce the status quo of white supremacy. Either way, I'm over it. And to be clear, because I know we have a lot of artists in the room and online of a lot of different disciplines, I am not against dramatic Latine plays. I just want more comedic Latine stories centering our joy and happiness and showing us as full humans. Absolutely, our communities are facing injustice and tragedy. Absolutely, we should address those problems. But humor is one of the most powerful tools that our communities have to tackle oppression. Laughter, we know, can soothe a broken heart, can unite coalitions across differences, and can scare the shit out of a bully. I used to think that my aforementioned tendency to undercut tension with a joke was a sign of immaturity, or a conflict aversion, or bad manners. And it might be. But I also have since come to believe that it is a fundamental survival instinct. We've all heard that laughter is the best medicine. We hear it so much, it's cliché. But not at Comedy Carameval. Here we are in the business of dispensing the medicine of laughter for our individual and our communal healing. With the programming of the Comedy Carameval, we aimed to explode historically confined definitions of Latinidad, of comedy, and of theater. Our request for proposals invited submissions not only of plays. I'm sorry, I'm now hearing it popping. Should I step back from this mic? Okay, thank you. Just a brief interlude for my self-esteem. Our request for proposals invited submissions of not only plays, but any comedic performance. I'm thrilled that our final lineup includes carpas, sketch comedy, stand-up solo performance, and even a short film, in addition to three-stage readings of plays. And the plays themselves range wildly from absurdism to a queer bilingual clown show, to family dramedy with puppets. The planning and execution of this event has been a true act of pleasure activism, and I hope that your attendance will be too. I hope the convening offers you what you need, whether that's relief or escape, or sustainable strategies for resilience and resistance. I hope you laugh. I hope it inspires you to use your platform to tell stories that celebrate systematically marginalized people, surviving, thriving, and having fun. And if you can't think of any of those stories, no problem, that is what Comedy Katnaval is for. And you have on your lanyard a zip drive that has not only the pieces that you're going to witness as part of the Katnaval, but also all of the finalists' work, and they are amazing. There are so many good works on here. I want to just say a few thank yous before I go. I want to thank the programming committee members, the selection committee members, the fantastic staff at Suthayathro, the HowlRound team. All of you have done so much to support this event, and I'm incredibly grateful. I specifically want to thank Mika, who is Suthayathro's managing director. She has, yeah! She's over there hiding on the stair. She has worked so hard. I'm such an incredible partner. I'm so grateful to Mika. And I, of course, want to thank Jacqueline Flores, the LTC producer. She was hired midstream of this event, which has been in the works for three and a half long ass years. And she just dove in. I'm so grateful to Jacqueline. She has been a voice of reason, a fierce advocate for the event, and a late night confidant when crises arose. And you've all been making theater over the last two years, so I don't have to tell you, a lot of crises arose. So just thank you so much, Jacqueline. Finally, I have the distinct pleasure of introducing Suthayathro's executive artistic director, Tony Garcia. I, yes! I started seeing theater at a very young age, but I never saw myself represented on stage until I saw Tony's production of Papi Mi and Cesar Chavez. And I know I'm in good company in the Denver community. There are so many Chicanes who have been welcomed at Suthayathro when they could not find themselves anywhere else on stage. This year is Suthayathro's 50th anniversary. 50! You guys! What, that is such an incredible achievement. Keeping any theater company running for 50 years is amazing. But keeping a culturally specific theater open for five decades through a global pandemic without a fraction of the funding support that dominant cultural organizations receive is heroic. Yeah. I am humbled for the LTC Katanaval, to be hosted by Suthayathro during this momentous year. Tony, thank you for your tremendous service and thank you for hosting us. Welcome. Hi, when I started this. How you doing? Thank you, Amelia. Thank you, Jacqueline. They're an incredible, incredible crew to work with, you know. And of course, Mika, coordinating this stuff and keeping me. We had a staff meeting the other day and people were going through and saying, I do everything. It's like I do nothing here. I don't ask me anything specific about what goes on here. I have no idea. I just go wherever Mika tells me to or I get ordered to, right? That's what happens when you get to a certain place. But this has been a great, a great group to work with. We've been part of the LTC for some time. I just wanted to say this. I keep thinking about the commons, right? You can actually be part of the commons. I mean, it just shows that extraordinary people can be part of the commons. Get it? Extraordinary commons. Jesus Christ, come on, you guys stay with me. So before we go into that, right, are you not extraordinary? Did I miss something there? And are you not part of the commons? All right, you're going to think about this at about three o'clock in the morning. You're just going to roll over and pee in your bed. But before we go to that, I think we need to do something that we always do and it's become more of a common for us to do this here, that to recognize that we sit in the land of the Cheyenne, the Rappahoe, and the Utes, this is our historical tradition. And for us, it's not only enough to say that these are the people who nurtured this land and preserved it and kept it here, but it also is the next step of us talking about how we actually rectify and make reparations for what took place. It's not enough to say we took your land, thank you for it, we're recognizing it, now we're moving on, that's bullshit. We understand that it's only the first step and we understand also as mestizos that we are part of that tradition and part of that history. The whole western half of the continent was part of the Uhtonawat Nation. That was the language they spoke. So we are united by language, we are united by blood, we are united by so many things and we are the future of this continent, these two continents there. So when we talk about recognizing our past, understanding that what we are doing is taking that next step for our future. So that's how I feel when I go to any places like talk to me about how great the land is and now tell me what you're going to do to make it necessarily better for the next generation. I wanted to offer you that. The other thing, I know it sounds like I'm serious and I'm not, and I am and I'm not, right? So the other thing is, we started this process in the beginning of the pandemic, right? The pandemic hit in the middle of it. And for somebody in my generation, in a lot of our generations, we lost so many people. The joke is, you don't have to laugh because you haven't laughed at anything else anyway, so we'll just keep it consistent. The joke is that I've been going to so many Velorias, right? In the churches, I've been in church more often than I have in the last 50 years and God's going, what the hell is up, right? He is confused about what's taking place but it's really a drag that that is happening and a lot of times people go, let's go and take a moment of silence. I would ask us to do something different than that, is that take a moment to say their names, to fill this space with their presence, with their spirit, and share it. So I'll step back a little bit and just shout it out as you feel comfortable with it and then we'll move to the next step. Is that cool with you? All right, let's do it. I'll start. Alvino Manzanarres. Trini Lopez. Thank you. Thank you. So the next thing is to just talk a little bit about su teatro. I don't know how familiar you are with them. Yes, we are 50 years old. We come out of the Teatro Chicano movement. We say that very proudly. We consider our community theater. It's really interesting when people say community theater because they kind of look down their noses. Well, then you guys do community theater. It's not as good as what we do. It's like, well, what's the difference between community theater and professional theaters? Do you get paid for it? Yeah, do you get paid enough to live off of it? No, nobody in Denver is doing that, right? Well, I got educated. It's like, I got a degree. They give those things out to anybody, right? So what's the difference? And I'll tell you what our difference is. Our work is for our community. It comes from our community. And that's the main focus of everything that we do. And in return, our community has built everything that we have. You might not know it. You're one of the first audiences to come in here to these brand new seats, right? And the way it happened was the son of one of our actors who's been with us for 40 years said, I'm clearing out this old movie house and they just have all these seats. They want me to throw them, but I want to get them over to you. This is in the middle of the pandemic. I was the only one who wasn't sick. So we rented a truck and we pulled them all in here, right? And we all, my staff, Steve and Arnold put them in together. And it was like, this is how things are done when you're connected to that community. We sit on a property here, every other property along the street line, right? Not every, but most are actually owned by developers, right? We are getting pushed out of our land as we acknowledge our land, our community. Westside was one of Denver's first Chicanovarios. I grew up in this neighborhood, right? As a matter of fact, Denver began where Ruby Hill is, which is about two miles down Santa Fe Drive, and it's part of the Santa Fe Trail, right? And that first thing, it was incorporated, the first town that was incorporated here was a place called Mexican Diggins. They called it Mexican Diggins because they were Mexicans digging there, right? And they were digging for gold. And it was before they made it Denver, so our history here is really, really deep, but it becomes smaller, their footprint becomes smaller and smaller and smaller. Denver's a cool place, but there's Denver and then there's White Denver, right? I always knew there were places I could go and places I couldn't go, right? And so what we did is we moved into this space, and we had our first space in Navadio, and that space was, it was an old school house in the worst neighborhood, in the poorest neighborhood, not the worst neighborhood, I live in that neighborhood. That's probably why it's the worst neighborhood. But we were there 21 years, and if anybody came in and it was a school house, we had a school room, I knocked down a wall, and we had, we'd bring in 100 people, 100 people a night, and then by the end of it, after 21 years, we had people coming in, 100 people every night for five days a week, and our neighbors said, do you mind moving? Because we like our parking spaces back, right? And we moved down here into a space that had been owned by numerous other white entities here, right? And it was supposed to be a community space, but there was always this thing of, well, you guys come in, we'll do the managing, and then you can visit. Well, they went into foreclosure, and the stupid Mexicans bought it for a song, right? And I'm gonna tell you something, this summer, and probably during the course of this role, we will pay off the mortgage on this building. And what that means is that this space will be here for the next generation, and the generation after that for you guys and your kids and the kids after that, and all of us, it will be part of our space. Or we could sell it for $3 million, and then I can go live in San Antonio and eat a lot of Mexican food, right? But I think we're probably gonna do the other thing here, as Mika wouldn't let me go that far. But so that's always been our vision and our relationship, and we were fortunate to be part of a national network and be know so many people across the country. We could talk more about our history. I just wanted to share a little bit of our background tonight. We're gonna have fun with the play called Chicano Sing the Blues, and it's a question, do Chicano sing the blues? Oh man, yeah, do we? I stand and we do things called Chicano Music Festival, and I'll come up here and I'll say, well, I'm just trying to figure out what Chicano music is. Yeah, do Chicano do the blues, yeah. We do all that stuff, right? And do we laugh at everything? Nobody is better at making fun of themselves than Latinos, right? Nobody is better at finding, even in the middle of a funeral, it was like, she looks so much better now, right? And you go, I'll tell you one funeral story. We sang it, this family's friend, one of the members of the theater, the other died suddenly, and we sang it, the thing, and the daughter came up to me, and afterwards she was so happy, but she was been crying, and she had all these muccals just rolling down her nose, right? And she said, oh Tony, I'm so glad you came here. She came to hug me, and all I could think about was what my shirt was gonna look like. And she went, that's right in the middle of this very sad moment, right? That's not unusual, we know sadness, we love sadness, we hear, and we go, that's so beautiful. This is our relationship breaking up, right? All our best love stories are about how jacked up our relationships are, right? So we live in that world. It's great to be able to welcome some of the best smart asses from around the country. And you are, and you know you are, you are always all the things you're being punished for. Now you do them on stage, and people give you money to do that. Thank you, you finally woke up. Muchísimas gracias. Beautiful big space, and we're not that many people, and I have a dream that we're gonna be able to make a big circle. I feel like it can go like this. Yeah? Are you up for it? Arnold, can we use one of our wireless mics? Is that okay? This is beautiful. Thank you, awesome. Okay, I know a bunch of you attended Abigail and Kevinís incredible new convener session. Thank you to them, shout out to them. Which means a bunch of y'all introduced yourself to each other, and you're just gonna do it again. So get excited, some people weren't there. If we can have this wireless mic turned on, then I would love for us to pass it around. If we can't, we're gonna shout out. Wait, I see an Arnold. An Arnold spotted in the wild. The red tape one? Oh, hello, hello. Yay, okay. We have, and itís gonna go quick, right? So, and itís low stakes. Whatís the worst that could happen? Youíll say the wrong name and then later youíll be like, ìYou guys, I donít know why I said that. Thatís not my name. Hereís the prompt. Your name or, you know, how you like to be called, where youíre here from or where youíre based, and just the punchline of a joke you like. So Iím gonna give you like 30 seconds right now. Hereís the idea. You think a punchlineís interesting. Youíre like, huh, what was the setup of that joke? Go talk to that person. Hear the rest of that joke. No, no, wait, wait, wait with the murmuring. I can see that some of you are panicking. Hereís an option for you. If it gets to you and you have not thought of a punchline to a joke, I have two invitations for you. Invitation number one. We canít prove itís not the punchline to a joke. Say anything. Number two option. If it gets to you and you canít think of anything, not even a fake one, go ahead and give us your name, where youíre based, and say as loud as you can, Iím panicking. Excellent options. You can give us the punchline to a joke. You can make up a punchline to a joke that does not yet exist, or you can tell us youíre panicking. All of that will be bonding. Abigail has the mic. Are you gonna start us off? It's fast, right? It's fast. Okay. Abigail Vega, Boston, Massachusetts. Iím panicking. Eric Sandvold, Denver, Colorado. What? And leave show business. It's Stephanie Effedul, Brooklyn, New York, and Iím panicking. Daniela Tomei, Brooklyn, New York. A fruity eggplant. Kimberly Gomez, Manhattan, New York, and oh, shit, talking muffin. You're right, say Anne Riley, New Jersey, and you got a drink named Melvin. Rolando Garza, Edinburgh, Texas. Se cayó y se quedó pegado. Francisco Garza, Edinburgh, Texas. No se vende en coca sin corbata. Ann Carol Pence, Lawrenceville, Georgia, 11-2. Jackie Segui, Lawrenceville, Georgia. Iím panicking. San Diego, San Diego, El Floreto. Vanessa Lopez, San Diego, California. You know we can't do that kind of math here. Paula Raúlco, San Diego. And then she sat on it. Debra Gallegos, Lakewood, Colorado. Eso sí que... Jacqueline Flores, Washington, D.C. Iím panicking. Mica Garcia de Benavides, Denver. There's no F in Strawberry. Diego Wariola, Denver, Colorado, and then... Adriana Gonzalez, Denver, Colorado. He had no body to go with. Amy Wagoner, Louisville, Kentucky. A career in theater. I'm Sorani Gutierrez. I'm coming from Dallas, Texas. And Nagnaut, who? Trevor Buffoni from Houston, Texas. You got paid to do this? Mica Espinoza from Phoenix, Arizona. It pays to learn a second language. Teresa Marrero from Dallas, Texas. And what? Katie Ventura from Los Angeles. We're like besties AF. Daniel Hakes, San Diego, Tijuana, and that's it. Richard Perez, Michigan. I nearly killed him. Alejandra Cisneros, Los Angeles, San Francisco. El huevito se hizo un huevón. Cristina Fernandez, Los Angeles. Anthony Aguilar, Los Angeles, San Francisco. What the fuck? Angelica Cabrera, Michoacán, Mexico. Que barbaridad! Adam Flores, San Luis, Missouri. So he looks at me and he spits it out in his hand and he says you got to keep your bait warm. Becca Morton, San Antonio, Texas. And he disappeared without a trace. Ilse Sacarias Rivera, Chicago, Illinois. I just fuck a lot. Hey, I'm Crystal Rosa. I'm from Philly. And I never thought I'd hear my abuela say that. Oh my God. I forget about Gonzales, Dallas, Texas. And you're not ugly. You're just not your own type. Vanessa Luron from San Diego, California. And I'm not afraid of it anymore. Tessa Douglas, New Jersey. And that was for Pittsburgh. Claylish Cold Iron, Boulder, Colorado. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. Carmen Eamon from San Diego. And a dancing cookie. Victoria Vesepeda from San Diego. And now I have to change my sheets. Benito Vasquez from Houston, Texas. You don't believe me? Google it. Tiso Diaz, Long Island City. Ay, wey, me pisas el Juanete. Maricela Treviño-Ortha from Austin, Texas. It's butt. Sonia Fernandez from Tacoma Park, Maryland. Moo. Michelle Apriña-Levy from Oakland, California. You're going to eat me, just like the book says. Anthony Rodriguez, Atlanta, Georgia. They keep falling through the holes in his hand. Jelani Guegas, Brooklyn, New York. Porque somos dos ways. Adrienne Dawes, Fable, Arkansas. Because they're ugly and they stink. Tomás Salas, Austin, Texas. Como me huele. Paul Del Bosque, Austin, Texas. Rudy Pebbles, Vato. Osvaldo Sandoval León, Hamilton, New York. And I'm panicking. Sonia Alvarez, Los Angeles. Ketchup. Frana Storga from San Francisco. Te lo vendieron? Nico Kimzen, Petaluma, California. No, his name is Kevin. Kevin Becerra, lifelong victim of Nico Kimzen. Boston, Massachusetts. In his sleeveless. Alejandra Luna from Phoenix, Arizona. Angel Garcia from Arlington, Texas. I don't remember having corn earlier. Ash Para, Houston, Texas. ¿Quién somos nosotros para juzgar? Alida Holgingan from Tucson, Arizona. They're driving me nuts. Norma Medina, Dallas, Texas. Vagina Fleet Trap. Giancarlo Yunen, Los Angeles. Y la sacaron de la fila. Real Vargas Alaniz, Yoku Territory, California. En Frijoladas, Mijo. I couldn't be able to beat that. Amelia Costa Powell, Louisville, Kentucky. Techo de Meno. Monica Oliveira from Cleveland, Ohio. Mice as well and the appetizers. Sebastian Edoz Vargas from Lima, Peru. Living in Connecticut and I'm actually packing. Alissa Gomez, Washington Heights, New York. Sacamoco, Sacacaca. Santiago Iacinti coming from New York. Ni se te ocurra ni pensarlo. Gina Sandidias from Costa Rica. By way of Fresno, California. And Stella. Mil taortis from Tucson, Arizona. That's what he said. Daphne C. Craig coming from Los Angeles. And I'm panicking. Alex Alfaro from Los Angeles. Look at the bright side, at least there's no hair on it. Mari Mersaburgos, Denver, Colorado. Vostamal. Sergio Vodoy, El Paso, Texas. Kalina Gallardo, Denver, Colorado slash El Paso, Texas. Mixed nuts. Okay, one more. Nothing like starting your first LTC event with interrupting the circle, right? Vijay Mathew, Boston, Massachusetts. Thank you all, that was awesome. I'm going to ask several of you for those jokes. While we're in this circle, if people are comfortable to stay up for a few more minutes, yeah? Okay, if you're not, of course, feel free to sit. Do whatever you need throughout the carnival. Feel comfortable. Now that you know people's names and their punchline, I just want to help give us a little more sense of who's in the circle. So if you, if this is your first LTC event, can you raise your hand? Whoo! If this is your somewhere between second and fifth LTC event, if you've been with the LTC since the very beginning, raise your hand. I skipped a step. If you've been to more than five, but you weren't at the beginning. I think the 13 is what I was thinking of. I mean, I worked at arena stage, I have to say. I have to say Washington. Great. If this is your first time in Denver, Colorado, raise your hand. If you've been to Colorado before, but never lived here, if you are from Denver, Colorado, and if you aren't from Denver, Colorado, but you live here now, if you consider yourself funny, if you consider yourself an artist, a gatekeeper, whatever context. What I mean is, at this event, over the next three days, you're going to have the opportunity to meet a lot of awesome artists. You're going to hear a lot of, or see, see, hear, experience a lot of cool works of art. You're going to learn of even more works than the ones that you actually experience. And if you have any opportunity to hire people, to program work, to recommend people to other people who hire people, to hand people money, or however else you create space and opportunities and lift people up and celebrate them, you are a gatekeeper. Gate opener. Thank you. Gate opener. Okay, let me ask that one again, now that we have a shared definition here. If you consider yourself a gate opener, have a work that is being featured in the comedy Carnaval. Put your hands up and then add to that if you have a work on this zip drive that people can take a look at. If you have worked or currently work at su teatro, if you identify as part of the Latinx, Latinx, et cetera, communities, if your favorite kind of laugh is an evil laugh, your hand went up immediately, is a laugh so hard you start crying, that you're trying not to laugh and snot comes out your nose. What am I missing? There's so many kinds of laughs, I could do that all day, but any major category? Oh, laugh when you laugh so hard you pee? Favorite? Give you a sense of that, mapping. If you are from the west coast, the south, which means it's west of the Midwest, but east of the west coast. If you are from Texas and you already haven't raised your hands, like North Dakotans, Montanans, Idahoans. If you make some broad categories here, because I don't want to put anyone on the spot, so I appreciate the ongoing feedback on the limitations of my prompts though, so keep it coming. If you identify yourself as early career, anyone who identifies yourself as mid-career, anyone identify as a veteran of the field, anyone retired? All to keep finding these intersections, right? Because there's so many, that's my absolute favorite thing about every LTC event. We have people from all over, oh my gosh, and as I'm saying that, I just realized I said all these regions of the United States. People who are here, who are not from the United States. We have so many people from so many different places, so many life experiences. It's an opportunity to make friends, to meet new colleagues, to learn about new artists who you can work with in the future. Keep finding those different points of connection or disconnection? Build bridges? And I'm so, so grateful that each and every one of you is here. I hope that you have a lot of fun. I hope that you all stay safe and be careful, as just highlighting, as Jacqueline said, the pandemic is not over, and we have a bunch of the performers from the pieces in our stuff, and if we give them COVID, then we won't have our shows, so that would just suck. So let's not. I just want to give a really quick overview of what you can expect. Make sure that you've got the info that you need. After this, we're headed out back into the lobby. We're going to have a fun snack break. I can't tell you how many amazing, Latina-owned Denver local companies are providing awesome treats for us over the course of the next three days. Yeah. Then 4 p.m., we have the reading of Escobar Cepo by Frankie Gonzalez. That's back in this room. And then after that, those who are heading to Quixote Nuevo at the Denver Center, there will be shuttle buses taking us down there. Or you don't have to ride the shuttle bus. You could get there another way if you want. They're having a pre-show event. There's going to be food and things, and that show is at 7.30. And that's the rest of today. If you don't have a ticket, Jacqueline Flores will give you a ticket. I know, I just snuck one. Yeah. The shuttle buses are not bringing people back depending where you're staying. If you're at the West End that we recommended, you're actually closer to just be there once you're at the Denver Center. But if you need help out finding where you need to go after the Denver Center, those of us who have identified ourselves are here to help you. Anyone else? Questions? Awesome. Let's go have a fun snack break.