 Welcome to TCG's 26th National Conference and welcome to Washington, DC. This is our first plenary session of the conference, but we have been extremely busy this week. And so I want to tell you a little something about what we've been up to. First of all, our grantees have been meeting for networking and professional development opportunities since Sunday. And yesterday, we held two pre-conferences. We had a global pre-conference which brought together 125 attendees from 25 countries for really powerful conversations about exile, migration, and global collaboration. Yes? Our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Institute convened two cohorts of theaters at the National Endowment for the Arts where our inaugural cohort shared a vision developed over the last three years for racial equity with our newly launched cohort and where we discussed the role of LGBTQ theaters and allies in ending hate crimes and discriminatory legislation. Those conversations continue today during the launch at the Intersections Arc. And I wanted to acknowledge that the Latinx group has created an installation piece, and it will be in the building, so I encourage all of us to visit. It expressed solidarity with the lives lost in Orlando, and I'd encourage all of us to go to that wonderful piece and leave something behind. Today we also brought more than 200 theater people to Capitol Hill for meetings with legislators and witnessed some powerful advocacy at work. A small group of theater people slipped away to try and see the sit-in protest on the House floor for gun control legislation. So we hear that just when it looked like they'd never get in, a guard said that if they could assemble a group of 20 or more people, she'd bring them up. And so they did what theater people do best. They rallied a group of strangers into a community, and the sergeant of arms brought them to witness the last 35 minutes of the sit-in. Yeah. And that included John Lewis's closing remarks where he said, we got in trouble, we got in the way. Good trouble, necessary trouble. By sitting in, we were really standing up. Yeah. So this brings me to a confession. When we chose theater nation as the theme of this conference, there was a lot we didn't know. We knew we'd be in our nation's capital during an election year. We knew we wanted to question our definitions of nation and citizen and ask if our theater movement could model a more inclusive, equitable union. We knew that 40 years after our first national conference, we had a lot to celebrate. But there was a lot we didn't know. We didn't know that this election year would be marked by a frightening rise of xenophobia and Islamophobia, where a nation would be defined by the building of walls and turning away of refugees. We didn't know that trans and gender non-conforming people would face dehumanizing legislation that puts them at the risk of violence when all they want to do is use the bathroom. We didn't know that the sacred space of a gay bar, on a night when queer people of color had gathered to celebrate life, would become a place of grief. We didn't know that the epidemic of violence against women would be revealed in a culture of silence in our own theater community. So we're all carrying wounds from the past year, and for many here tonight, those wounds have struck terribly close to home. But we also carry something else. We carry the compassion of costume shops in Orlando, stitching together angel wings to protect families who would bring hate to the funerals. We carry the truth of those fighting against cultural appropriation, showing us authentic beauty instead of red face or crypt face, and leading us beyond Orientalism. We carry the courage of theater people posting all gender signs on bathrooms, taking theater to the streets to protest state violence against communities of color, opening the sanctuary theater to immigrant communities. And we carry the fire of those who said, not in our house. In a time where our hate seeks out the places where we gather to celebrate life and love, places like black churches and gay bars, to commit acts of violence, we carry the faith that theater can be a radical act, radical in the sense of going to the roots of things, to the heart of the questions democracy has always asked, can we share this world in peace? Can we spread its bounty equitably? Can we bear its pain together? Can we ever truly become one from many? So those are some of the questions we're going to be asking over the next three days, which should be more than enough time to answer them. It will be intense, but it will also be joyful and celebratory. We have three days with over 1,100 amazing human beings to exchange knowledge, build relationships, share new models, dine around and dance, and experience the wonderful theater city that is Washington, D.C. So to help us do just that, I'd like to welcome our host committee chairs, Chris Jennings and Megan Pressman. Hey, we are here to welcome you to D.C. with so many sights to see from the monuments with the best side of all, the congressional sit-in for gun control. We are a city that is the central home for our country's debates. We're also an international community that houses many embassies for countries from around the world. But this is not just a political center, it is also a major arts community. The National Center for Arts Research started a new arts vibrancy index in the past two years, and for two years running, the greater D.C. area has been ranked number one in terms of most vibrant arts major region in the country. And the many of us who live and work here, I don't think are surprised. In fact, I know there's at least 150 of those folks in this room and to show how vibrant that community is. Would you all raise your hands? Oh my goodness, yes. Yeah. That's great. About 25 of those folks are board and staff of bully Mimeth. Hi guys. We're also home to over 95 theater companies in this greater D.C. area. More than 50 of whom participated in the inaugural Women's Voices Theater Festival this fall, all producing world premiere plays by women. So on behalf of that great community and a tireless host committee, we welcome you. We had a whopping, and I believe record, 52 people serving as volunteers of the host committee in D.C., representing 21 organizations. We forged our way through with some rounds of margaritas. Not as many as we liked. No, but a few. And our goal as a committee was to welcome you all to the city, to recruit local attendees, volunteers, students, advocates, to fundraise, to showcase the D.C. theater community, to showcase our city, and to hopefully show you a fabulous time. That took a ton of work, and it was a big group, so we'd like to ask all of them to please stand so we can acknowledge their hard work over the past six plus months. Host committee? Host committee, everybody. Yeah. There's a lot of you. Come on, come on. There we go. Thank you. Thank you all. In particular, I just want to shout out a few names of the folks who led committees within the host committee and did some extra heavy lifting on their own, and that includes Amy Austin, Meredith Berkes, Edgar Dobie, Jenna Duncan, Debbie Ellinghouse, Derek Goldman, Kate Langstorf, Abel Lopez, Rachel Grossman, and Jojo Roof. Thank you sincerely. I truly hope that after this weekend you'll all be as equally convinced that this is the most vibrant art scene in the nation. Not that it's a competition, this is about everybody. As Teresa said, we're gathered over the next three days under the theme theater nation. I was lucky enough, the first TCG conference I went to was 20 years ago when August Wilson gave that amazing speech. And as Lin-Manuel Miranda said, I got to be in the room where it happens as a student, graduate student, watching theater giants that I admired in a room discussing and debating the issues that affected our community and our country. Last year I went to Cleveland, and I got to see students and fellows who I got to work with and was honored to equally invite into a room and see them now assuming roles as artistic and managing leaders in our country. For those of you particularly on Twitter who are keeping a Hamilton reference scorecard over the next three days, that now is one. We get this one moment to come together as a community every year and to remind ourselves why we're fighting to make payroll every week. And we may be a theater nation, but we are also a family, a multi-generational family of various leaders. And we are so proud to invite you, our family, into our home. Together, my family, let's over the next several days let's talk how to grapple with Ferguson, how to eliminate Yellow Face, how to prevent dividing walls being built, and most of all let's mourn our brothers and sisters that were lost in Orlando. So it is truly an honor and a privilege on behalf of this great community and our host committee to welcome you all to our home and to hope that you enjoy wonderful few days in Washington, D.C. And some margaritas. Thank you. Thank you, Chris and Megan, who also happened to be members of the TCG board. In addition to the work of the host committee, this conference wouldn't be possible without the support of our conference sponsors. I am going to name all of our sponsors right now. I'm going to ask you to hold your applause until I'm finished. But this is, we're just profoundly grateful to all who have supported this conference. Bank of America. D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Disney Creative. Weisberg Foundation. Theatermania Ovation Ticks. Ruth Easton Fund. Edgerton Foundation. Intrinsic Impact. Patron Technology. The Kayfritz Foundation. Sher Foundation. The Sherry and Lesbiller Family Foundation. National Endowment for the Arts. Ridgewell's Catering. August Wine Group. Chronicle of Philanthropy. Scott B. Schreiber. Craig Pascal and Victor Schargai. Lynn Deering. John Haughey. Abby Lowell. Anita Antonucci. And Andrew R. Amerman. And now we can express our love for them. Thank you. Now it's my pleasure to welcome one of the great leaders of our field who seems to be under the impression she's retiring. I have no doubt that even in retirement from the National Performance Network, MK Wegman will remain a force in our national field. Yeah, you can clap for MK. Most especially in her two homes of Sati Noguchi, Georgia, and New Orleans, Louisiana. And it's to honor a fellow resident of the Crescent City that we welcome MK to the stage to present our Visionary Leadership Award. Come on up, MK. Don't start me to talk or I'll tell everything I know. I first heard those words from John O'Neill at a reading of Volume 1 of the Junebug-Jabbo-Jones series of plays in the Marengo Street commune in New Orleans in 1979. As a co-founder of the Free Southern Theater, the Cultural Arm of the Civil Rights Movement, a field director of SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and a national field program director with the Committee for Racial Justice, John O'Neill had a vision for theater as an organizing tool, as a strategy to use great art to support oppressed people in their struggles for justice. At the demise of the Free Southern Theater, Junebug Productions emerged, founded by John O'Neill. The Junebug-Jabbo-Jones plays became the core artistic source of how that vision manifested over the last 35-plus years. Anchored in New Orleans, this work has reached global communities. I use the word communities and not just audiences, because the vision is to contribute to a movement for justice. The stories come from people and are given back to people in performance, a complete circle. John O'Neill has written 18 plays and he performed in most of them as well. Touring these plays was a lifeblood, a means of support for Junebug Productions' work, but that only scratches the surface of his visionary leadership. John was an active collaborator and commissioner of other artists' work. A traveling Jewish theater, roadside theater, pre-Gonus and carpet-backed theater are just some of the companies with whom John co-created and performed and who were enlisted in movement building. Under John's leadership, at least three major national projects were developed, organized and presented by Junebug Productions. A valediction without mourning, the second line and burial of the Free Southern Theater in the 1980s. In the 1990s, the Echo Environmental Justice Festival, a five-year project was commissioned and presented nine new performance works each created through partnerships between communities from across the United States, artistic companies from across the United States and Louisiana activist organizations. And after 2005 in partnership with Alternate Roots, the Katrina Project, an ensemble of Gulf Coast artists who devised a touring work that connected to the New Orleans diaspora, including those 100,000 people who have still not been able to return home in the reach of that touring production. John also brought his leadership to serve the field including Alternate Roots and the American Festival Project, as well as committees, panels and task forces too numerable to name. He always stepped up when asked. Many of us have a vision. John O'Neill's vision lives on in the legacy of his work, in his plays, in the organizations he founded and led, and the communities that have been touched by him. I am honored to present the TCG Visionary Leader Award to the men I have been listening to for the last 35 years. John O'Neill. This one? Yeah, I don't know these things from each other. I, thank you. Thank you for being here and for participating in all the hard work that you've had to do to make this evening happen. And let us all make a commitment to keep on working harder and getting stronger. Thank you very much. You've been such a good friend to me and to TCG over the years. Now we're about to take a moment to honor a seminal moment in conference history, one that Chris Jennings just referenced. 20 years ago, August Wilson stood on the TCG national conference stage and delivered his remarks, the ground on which I stand. It was a powerful cry for full creative autonomy for black artists and equitable funding for black theaters, prompting a follow-up debate with Robert Bruce Dean that was moderated by none other than our plenary speaker this evening, Anna Devere Smith. But before we honor that moment, I want to acknowledge that 20 years before that, there were several remarks on the very first conference stage back in 1976. He spoke of the power of theater and his people's struggle for liberation against oppression and poverty. That speaker's name was John O'Neill. And he was accused of separatism in the New York Times article by none other than Robert Bruce Dean. So where does our ground stand now? Before we ask that question, we wanted to share with you an audio excerpt from August's address those 20 years ago, the very first TCG national conference that I ever attended. I speak about economics and privilege and if you will look at one significant fact that affects us all in the American theater is that of the 66 Lord theaters, there is one that can possibly be considered black. From this one could falsely assume that there aren't a sufficient number of blacks working in American theater to sustain and support more theaters. If you do not know I will tell you. Black theater is alive. It is vibrant. It is vital. It just isn't funded. Black theater doesn't share in the economics that would allow it to support its artists and supply them meaningful avenues to develop their talent and broadcast and disseminate ideas crucial to its growth. The economics are reserved as privilege to the overwhelming abundance of institutions that preserve, promote and perpetrate white culture. This is not a complaint. This is an advertisement. Since the funding sources both public and private do not publicly carry avowed missions of exclusion and segregated support this is obviously a glaring case of oversight. Or perhaps we the proponents of black theater have not made our presence or our needs known. I hope here tonight to correct both of those oversights and assumptions. I do not have the time in the short talk to re-enerate the long and distinguished history of black theater often accomplished amid adverse and hostile conditions but I would like to take the time to mark a few high points. There are and have always been two distinct and parallel traditions in black art. There is art that is conceived and designed to entertain white society and art that feeds the spirit and celebrates the life of black America by designing its strategies for survival and prosperity. An important part of black theater that is often ignored but is seminal to its tradition is its origins on the slave plantations of the south. Summon to the big house to entertain the slave owner and his guests. The slave began a tradition of theater as entertainment for whites that reached its pinnacle in the heyday of the Harlem Renaissance. This entertainment for whites consisted of whatever the slave imagined or knew that his master wanted to see and hear. This tradition has its present life counterpart in the crossover artist that slanted material consumption. The second tradition occurred when the African in the confines of the slave quarters sought to invest his spirit with the strength of his ancestors by conceiving in his art in his song and dance a world in which he was the spiritual center and his existence was a manifest act of the creator from whom life flowed. He could then create an art and furnish him with a spiritual temperament necessary for his survival as property and a dehumanizing status that was attendant to that. I stand myself in my art squarely on the self defining ground of the slave quarters and I found the ground to be hallowed and made fertile by the blood and bones of the men and women who can only be described as warriors on the cultural battlefield that affirmed their self worth as there is no idea that cannot be contained by black life these men and women found themselves to be sufficient and secure in their art and in their instructions. So where does our ground stand now? Is black theater in the work of all theaters of color more equitably funded than 20 years ago? Do black artists and all artists of color have full creative autonomy to tell their stories authentically? Do those stories reach the communities who need them for their survival? Questions like this were explored in a recent series of articles in American theater where we asked a diverse group of theater people to respond to Wilson's essay and their own take on the ground beneath us now. We'll also hear from current legacy leaders of color theaters of color as part of our Ground at 20 arc here at the conference and I strongly encourage you to attend at least one of these sessions to bear witness to these essential voices. There's an insert with more information in your packets. And now it is my great pleasure to welcome the moderator of that famous debate between Wilson and Bruce Dean and one of the greatest artists of our theater field through works like Fires in the Mirror and Twilight Los Angeles she has created a new kind of theater and a new kind of gifts as an actor with a willingness to engage difficult social issues all grounded in a compassionate curiosity for the hundreds of interviewees whose stories have seated her work. She has received the National Humanities Medal, two Tony nominations two OBE awards a MacArthur Fellowship and was a runner up for the Pulitzer Prize. She is university professor at New York University where she also directs the institute of arts and civic dialogue. Please join me in welcoming Anna Devere Smith to the stage. Thank you so very much and thank you Teresa, thank you Devin Berkshire, Hannah, Fenlon, Natalie, Stringer, Gus Shullenberg for all the work you've done to get me here and thank you Stephanie Schneider in my office for pushing everything along. It is I don't have a word for it I don't want to say intimidating I don't want to make myself seem real small because I think about that thing that Golden Maier said don't be humble, you're not that great but it is true that it is awesome to have spent some time looking back, reading back thinking back to the Wilson-Bruisin debate and also to be here with John O'Neill. John I don't know if you remember that when I was a student at ACT and I needed to go to New York and I lived by the diary of the Free Southern Theatre I took a bus across country in order to stop and meet you and you remember when we took that drive from New Orleans to Florida and it changed my life and it informs the work that I have been doing for decades. I have to thank you too. Okay, so they asked me to speak for 45 minutes. End of summer 1996 I had stepped off the campaign trail which is where I spent a lot of that summer, the summer and fall of 1996 during research for my play House Arrest commissioned by the Rina Stage I think Stephen Richard is here tonight and maybe Doug is too The American Press the relationship of the press to the presidency I was traveling on both President Clinton's campaign Plane and Bob Dole's I even traveled with the young Republicans on a train into San Diego where their convention was I got home to San Francisco had a brief break and into my road weary suitcase I threw Jack Kerowicz alcohol saturated prose Big Sur I was bound there for rest and reinvigoration along the truly dramatic California coast I tossed in some at a James CDs a copy of Boys on the Bus which I was carrying everywhere to read so I could better understand the press culture it remained chronically unread till the end of my journey I had a small New Testament I had stopped off in the campaign trail more than once during that summer to visit where churches had been burned to the ground in the south and Elijah C. Weaver Pentecostal preacher whose church had been bound 300 pounds with one black eye one blue eye and one brown eye and one white eye and he made so many biblical references that I didn't understand when we had our breakfast one morning in a backwoods diner somehow in the midst of this packing I got a message this was before text before the proliferation of email from Don Shirley columnist and critic at the Los Angeles Times he wanted to know my opinion of the debate I was so ensconced in presidential campaigns that I thought he was talking about Lincoln Douglas and I was sort of out of it in terms of theater I was out of the real world of theater and of course what he was talking about is what we now call ground I read both we've had the advantage of hearing some of it today and as I sort of sniffed around people were very shocked at Wilson's passion maybe they were shocked because of his stature in the theater it seemed like he'd be happy or content very decorated Pulitzer's, Tony's Bruce Dean proposed at Wilson's passionate critique in fact came as a result of his not getting a Tony award at that very year I will propose that August Wilson's discontent was less about his own situation and more about the situation of his race Bruce Dean was among those critics and scholars in the 90's who cautioned us against or flat out denounced victim art which is what he thought the speech was I returned the call from the side of the road somewhere around Salinas I said to you I said that I was calling about his request he seemed very surprised that I called back so soon he said thank you for calling back so soon I said sure but I can't talk to you about that debate because I haven't spoken to either Mr. Wilson or Mr. Bruce Dean long pause while I was in Big Sur I got an idea I thought about one of my favorite recorded human interactions a rap on race Margaret Mead the anthropologist had invited James Baldwin to have a long recorded conversation about race they'd never met before they talked for hours and hours I had bought a six record when there were records set but vinyl's coming back a six record set at the American Museum of Natural History it was a long exciting talking sharing of ideas sort of broke into full-fledged verbal battle everyone so while also staring at the fantastic rock arch at Fiverr Beach in Big Sur I thought about that exchange and I thought wow maybe maybe we could do something with Bruce Dean and with Wilson that would be like that I'm going to just read a little teeny tiny bit of it and you know we think a lot about gender now so I'm going to go back and forth just briefly between Baldwin and Mead Mead has a much deeper voice well I'm just sorry so when I'm like that I'm her and Baldwin's voice kind of skips like skipping across a lake we can't talk about spiritual status that's him so we start with Mead what I'm trying to consider is whether it is an inevitable difference in the spiritual status unless we talk about power I'm talking about power I'm talking about that South African minor on whom the entire life of the western world is based well I'm just sorry because it isn't only based on that South African minor it's based on minors in this country and minors in Britain that are around the world it's the same principle it isn't the same principle as long as you're going to continually make it racial I'm not being racial you are being racial it's being dragged through the minds long before anybody discovered me that's right but you know we're not having a rational conversation at this point what I feel is this we agree that we're both Americans we agree in the sense of responsibility for the present and the future you have approached this present moment by one route and I have approached it by another in the terms you represent a course of victimization and suffering and exploitation everything in the world we can take any number and I represent the group now wait a minute if you just use skin color I represent the group that were in the ascendancy were the conquerors had the power on the land here we both are now furthermore is it necessary for you to narrow history and I still think this is the phrase and express only despair or bitterness while I express hope and is this intrinsic to our position at the moment or can we both of us out of such a different past and a contemporary different experience because you in your own country wherever you go are likely to meet with insult and indignity danger yeah whereas wherever I go on the whole if they hadn't heard me say I was in favor of marijuana I am greeted on the whole with kindness so now given that fact can we both nevertheless stand shoulder to shoulder a continent or ocean away working for the same future now I think this is the real problem so I thought about that when I was on the beach rap on race I always wanted to see a modern rap on race that happened in the 70s kind of putting together the pieces of what had happened after the civil rights movement in the 60s and I couldn't any white people really then or now who would speak as truthfully as candidly and as relentlessly openly as Margaret Mead both Mead and Baldwin were in pursuit of not one individual truth but an American truth okay so I thought you know I gotta get Wilson and Bruce Dean together Wilson has that fire of Baldwin Bruce Dean has the candor of Mead back in Washington I'm living in the home of a Democrat and a Republican congressman in the kitchen there is a little sticker that says the road to hell is paved with Republicans and then in magic marker was written except for Amo Amo Houghton being the Republican congressman from the fourth floor of this extraordinary home with which Priscilla very curious Priscilla learned during my stay had slaves and their owners during the 19th century from the fourth floor of this extraordinary home I called August Wilson and I said if you and Robert Bruce Dean actually debated your ideas in person no would you do that if I could arrange it yeah if you'll moderate it then I called Robert Bruce Dean asked the same question got the same answer including yeah if you'll moderate it for the purpose of history let me tell you that my idea was to have that conversation in a very nice conference room at New York University where I was in residence that fall and leave from Stanford that idea fell through I'll tell you off the record sometimes why I needed a plan B how could those three monologs go down as a debate in the theater we know the difference between dialogue and dialogue so I called John Sullivan who was president of TCG at the time the debate after all had started at a TCG conference he was very excited about this idea he called me back maybe about a week later and suggested we do it at Town Hall Town Hall that seemed like a much bigger event than I had in mind but if the staff of TCG felt that the idea warranted such attention set about researching both men in a frenzy somewhere close to the event itself someone told me to call the person in charge of PR I will note not it it was an outside firm it wasn't TCG a lot of excitement on the other end of the phone I was told that people were already betting that Wilson would take the fight ringside uh-oh in my introductory remarks I had alluded to that conversation between James Baldwin and Margaret Mead their six hour conversation but on that stage at Town Hall neither gentleman had much of a disposition or appetite to engage in conversation during the intermission staffers descended upon me as if I myself were in a boxing ring about to be eaten alive with insistent notes to help me pick it up and make the event as the timer indicated that the end was coming I asked each gentleman if they had learned anything from each other Bruce Dean said that he had learned that August Wilson was really a teddy bear Wilson responded that he was make no mistake about it a lion those brief last words are reported in the New York Times Lonnie Guinear scholar a legal scholar then at Penn now at Harvard had come to town to see the event I met very few people in the academy who are as generous and open as Lonnie Guinear she called me on the phone the next morning and she said I want to help you she said I really should have assembled Bruce Dean and Wilson in a room alone or with just a few people just like that Margaret Mead James Baldwin conversation you talked about what could have been or what I, Pollyanna Mead Hopeaholic Mead Hope was going to be a deep dive into different ideas about art and theater was not even the boxing match people thought it would be I think the two gentlemen said all they had to say in print in short in my mind the on stage debate between Wilson and Bruce Dean moderated by Smith was a disaster spectators why would we as a community allow ourselves to be spectators at that event and it has a lot to do with how it was how it was how it was presented to us I want to talk to you a little bit about spectators and audiences some of you are kind of young so I'm not going to assume that you know about my work I've been traveling around America with a tape recorder my grandfather said when I was a kid if you say a word often enough it becomes you and so I've been trying to become America word for word if there's any psychiatrist in this audience you would probably say that my search for American character is a healing strategy to help me heal from what happened to me growing up in Baltimore in de facto segregation segregation hit me in a way that caused me to question the degree to which survival required me to lose my own empathic imagination Martin Buber I vow we can either have I it relationships in which we turn persons into things or we can have I thou relationships where we struggle with what I call that inevitable broad jump towards the other the tape recorder has given me the necessary distance to come close to strangers I tape record people usually about controversial events and principle on both sides of the controversy but in reality not always and then I learned what I have recorded word for word I try to put myself in other people's shoes I try to put myself in other people's words the way you might think about putting yourself in other people's shoes which should be part of our art here in the theater so I'm writing a new play called notes from the field of time and education and I want to tell you about something that is maybe happening in your towns and something that you know Molly wrote to me Molly are you here yet Lorena Molly Smith wrote to me and told me about the activism in the air and Teresa has just talked to us about being radical so this is an opportunity for theaters to reach out into communities so if you didn't know the United States Department of Justice came up with some statistics revealing that black brown and Native American poor children are disciplined more harshly and expelled and suspended from school much more frequently than their middle class brothers and sisters these suspensions and expulsions often result in residencies in juvenile hall as California Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Kantil Saka Ue says if you're not in school you're in trouble so I've been traveling in four geographic areas northern California to stock in a bankrupt city further up the coast to the Urock Indian reservation near the Oregon border Philadelphia Baltimore most recently South Carolina, Charleston along the corridor of shame so called because of the state of their public schools I have done 240 interviews Daniel who pre-interviews people for me he's done 50 a lot of people we've talked to and I got very excited as I did these interviews and met these people that we just might be on the verge of a new civil rights movement Sheryl Ann Eiffel who's the president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund said that where that civil rights movement will happen at the intersection of education and law enforcement she calls for an investment in education and a fairness in law enforcement that will be as large and as grand as the interstate highway system imagine that didn't always have it but we as Americans know how to make big investments and I'm particularly excited about the possibility of a new civil rights movement especially because of John O'Neill's work and the journal of the Free Southern Theater I long to think of a way that theater could walk side by side with the movement so I'm going to give you a little bit from that work that is still in progress because I want to propose to you that we could and we do need a civil rights movement right now so first of all how many of you know about the story of Freddie Gray applaud if you do so in my hometown Baltimore, Maryland a young man named Freddie Gray on a bike was beaten by police and I know that there have been a series of trials and in fact today officer Goodson the driver of the van who had been charged with depraved heart murder involuntary manslaughter second degree assault misconduct in office was acquitted we're three trials in as I moved around my city now broken frayed I met a young man named Alan Bullock last year you recall there were riots in Baltimore and you know we video but we get videoed and one of the videos that was taken by the press was of a young man named Alan Bullock tearing up a police car bail was $500,000 for him he did go to trial got 12 years they took it down to six months but I want to share with you first Alan Bullock because I think he's a kind of ethnographer of his community and what goes on for young kids of color and police officers and this is in his lawyer's office this is Alan Bullock now by the way one of the things that was a part of that the story about Freddie Gray is that he had made eye contact with police officers and this is what started the interaction Alan Bullock call this big stick word for word from my interview I don't even look the police way it's not even me if they look at me I turn my head if I look back, if I look back I'm not going to mob you, so always do it because if you look at the police so hard or so straight I see how he was Freddie Gray in a way like around this neighborhood if the neighborhood police know you in a neighborhood they don't care about none of that they're going to do something to you they don't care what neighborhood you're going to be a quiet neighborhood or anything if they know you from being bad not even being bad being in an area hanging with somebody that they know it's bad they're going to rash you and when they rash you why are you looking at me like that they will ask you why are you looking at me like that in a smart way jump out that car pulling a stick all that and I had the police ask me why am I walking in the street I say something back they get out the car so I get back on the curb there's no need for you to get out of your car if a man talk to me you can see why I'm walking across the street they don't even say excuse me sir come here none of that but you just ask me why am I crossing the street it's not laid outside it's not none of that so what are you there's a whole lot of police out here just being police being what they do be smart as I always say you be smart you got something on you don't even pay the police no mind don't even draw no attention but even if you don't got nothing on you I still don't expect for you to draw no attention to the police the police they don't care about none of that they don't care even if you don't got nothing on you why look at the police if you ain't got no problem with the police why mug the police I don't pay the police no mind I don't pay the police out here no mind they mug me all day I don't care about none of that you're family life in these streets four times I think they beat me like four times four times I think I remember four times it's nothing you can do to protect yourself for the police have run your mouth and then if you really run your mouth they're gonna do something to you and then if they chase you and they catch you and they can't find nothing on you oh they're gonna make it worth a while they're gonna beat you straight like that it don't matter it don't matter if they black or white at this point this ain't no black or white situation I ain't trying to hear that I seen plenty of black officers and I'm black do it to black people I see plenty of white officers do I see them through it together they say no racist thing it's a hate thing what's the point you beat me locking me up if you can't find nothing on me why cuz I made you run come on now you train for that hood police be hating just hateful people like hateful people like they can see you have a couple of dollars in your hand no drugs no nothing just a couple of dollars and they think you're doing wrong what is it with you I work you don't know me I work and yet you pulled me over ask me where's this money come from you ain't got no right to ask where my money come from you ain't got no right to check me you feel me you ain't got no want no nothing put your hands on me period but hey they do it and I'm gonna stand up here and fuss with you about none of that because I know you to police and you got a big stick so so hey a lot of the people a lot of the people making a difference in these communities saving lives are doing so with very little very very little on Indian reservations in Latino neighborhoods and black neighborhoods and many of them of the blacks and Latinos or Christians Native Americans have their own spirituality and so a lot of times among those interviews when towards the end I would say to folks well what would Jesus think they always had credible stuff to say but I started thinking and I let some of that cat out of the back what would Baldwin think so we go back to a rap on race again this is not any interview that I took you this is this is this is word for word from a section in a rap on race Margaret Mead and James Baldwin Ellen Ginsburg somebody said Ellen Ginsburg said don't call a copper pig column a friend column a friend act like a friend I know a lot more about cops than that and I don't care how well the cops educated I know with their rollers in my life and I will not accept it I don't like being a subject nation and I like being corralled and if I have to turn into a monster trying to change it that is a risk that my soul will have to take I'm not being objective we're talking about time present and time past talking about history being present according to the West I have no history I've had to rest my identity are the jaws of the West we did on that famous day in Washington when Martin Luther King gave the I have a dream I was there do you know the answer we got two weeks later ten days later do you know the answer we got out of that enormous petition do you know the answer the Republic gave us my phone rang one Sunday morning and a core worker was telling me she could barely talk the four black girls had been bombed into eternity in a Sunday school in Birmingham that was the answer the Republic gave us we are the Republic clues you clues me to clues me to we're responsible I'm responsible I didn't stop and tried to stop it doesn't matter what one tries God knows you know I'm not the least interested in carrying on the nightmare but if I pretend that it did not happen that I was not there then then then then I cannot live I was really terrible was really terrible I mean the burnings of armies has been enough but was really terrible is the face of act that you cannot trust your countrymen you cannot trust them because the assumptions by which they live are analytical to any hope that you may have to live and a terrible omen when you see an American flag on somebody's car and realize that's your enemy you his countryman you his brother in principle is your flag too but it is like that that's what I mean by history being present I don't mean I'm not talking about going back nobody nobody can anyway we're responsible I don't mean we have a bill to pay back but if I've offended you have to come to you and say I'm sorry and if I don't do that I cannot live if I've offended you I've come to you and say I'm sorry please forgive me and if I can't do that then I cut myself off from all like all life or air luckily I'm not 15 because if I were in the world would I achieve any respect for human life or any sense of history and history is a concept that existed almost no that is my I'm trying to say this that if I were young I would find myself with no models and that's very crucial situation because what we've done our generation the world we've created if I'm 15 I feel hopeless too so you see what we're gonna try to what we're gonna try to face what I try to get it is I read a little book and I was in Istanbul the way it's supposed to be and it was poetry in things written by little black children Mexican Puerto Rican children land of the free home of the brave and the teacher had made a compilation of all the poems these kids wrote and he respected them he dealt with them as if they were is in fact all children are in fact all human beings are some kind of a miracle and so something wonderful happened one boy wrote a poem 16 years old who was in prison it ended four lines I never forget walk on water walk on a leaf hardest of all this walk in grief over me they're very tiny books only 30 pages long so what I'm trying to get at is a hope this tremendous national moral global waste the question is how can it be arrested it's enormous question look you and I we've become whatever we become curtain will come down eventually but what should we do about the children we are responsible in defiles responsible anything at all we are responsible for the future of this world and you know I don't think that guilt helps us I hope that the the Wilson you know extraordinary essay didn't just fill some of us with guilt because guilt is not active so you know Baldwin's asking for an apology you've been bringing up the name of John Lewis today I'm talking about the civil rights movement so I think the last thing I want to do for you is to look at something about that last civil rights movement and an action that has happened as a result and I want to thank Derek Goldman and said Cynthia Schneider for helping me when I was working on this at Georgetown John Lewis this called brother on our way on this trip that we've been taken for the past 13 years member of the Congress I've been going back every year since 1965 to commemorate the anniversary of blood of Sunday it took place on March 7 1965 we usually stop in Birmingham for a day and then we go to Montgomery for a day and then we go to Selma but on this trip to Montgomery we stop at first Baptist Church which is church was passed by Reverend Ralph Abernathy as the same church where I met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Reverend Abernathy in the spring of 1950 young police officer the chief came to the church to speak on behalf of the mayor it was not available and he gave a very moving speech to the artist the church was full black white Latino members of Congress staffers children family members children and grandchildren in he said what happened in Montgomery 52 years ago during a freedom ride when you arrived was not right said the police department in short they're latter angry mob to come and beat you and it said congressman I'm sorry for want to apologize this is not the Montgomery that we want Montgomery to be this is not the police department I want to be the chief on before any officers are hired he said to go to training they have to study the life of Rosa Parks they have to study the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. they have to know the historic sites of the movement they have to know what happened in Birmingham and what happened in Montgomery and what happened in Selma he said I want you to forgive us he said to show the respect that I have for you and a movement I want to take off my badge and give it to you the church was so quiet no one said a word and I stood up to set the badge and a store crime everybody in a church store crying it was not a dry eye in the church I said officer chief I cannot accept your badge I am not worthy to set your badge don't you need it he said congressman I could get another one I want you to have my badge and I took it and I'm never ever gonna forget it and I'm gonna hold on forever but he hugged me and I hugged him I cried some more you had Democrats and Republicans in a church crying young black officer young black deputy assistant was sitting down he cried so much like a baby really couldn't even stand it was the first time that any police chief in any city that I visit or where I was arrested in a six days ever apologize or where I was beaten it's a moment of grace it's a moment of reconciliation and the chief was very young he wasn't even born 52 years ago but he was apologized and asked it to be forgiven on behalf of his associates his colleagues at a pass it's a moment of grace it means that the suffering and the pain is so many people have suffered have been redeemed but for this young man to come up he hugged me and it fell so liberating and so free and at the same time I felt like I am not worthy you know it's amazing grace you know the line in there save a wretch like me in a sense it said we all fall in short we all just trying to make it we all such and like Dr. King say we're out to redeem the soul of America we first have to redeem ourselves but this message this act of grace or badge says to me hold on never give up never give in never lose faith keep the faith but even in a city like Montgomery I say it take raw courage to go to go to go with the spirit to go with his soul to go with his heart he's a very he's a he's a very very interested in man I think about calling up saying hello to him how you doing only time something like this happened before before was a member and Rock Hill South Carolina beat me in my seatmate on May 9th 1961 he came in office his son had been encouraging his father to seek out the people he had wrong he came in office Mr. Lewis I'm one of the people who beat you on May 9th 1961 want to apologize will you forgive me I said I forgive you set the apology he hugged me son hugged me he stole crime his son stole crime and I've seen that guy four times since that time he called me brother I call him brother ground ground as Wilson speech is now called ground the ground on which I stand I see it referred to sometimes is the ground on which we stand August Wilson was a race man as we blacks who fight for the race are called he proudly carried the bloodstained banner of black struggle from the point of view of his eye some of you were moved others motivated others outraged others frightened others perplexed others full of guilt in 1996 and today when you heard mr. Wilson's magnificent voice you stood in relationship to August Wilson's ground those of you who were moved are moved must move like I said Molly Smith and others were on the hill today congressman sat in many of you I suspect more than in 1996 are ready to be active and activist with your art so action a move meant calls for many movers shakers and seekers all that we can attract our ground seems to me to be very complex we all meet here with different histories different banners of struggle we meet at different junctures in our histories we are a map with some intersecting points and many straying lines in search of a connection most of us want to board the train towards progress equity self-fulfillment helping fulfill the lives of others towards protecting all living things and towards love I've now visited the island of Gore and Senegal the holding pens where many Africans were held before being put in the bowels of slave ships and sent to this country but before my forefathers got here native Americans were on this ground many of them too were transported from their homelands to other places the trail of tears a national disgrace some right now live on fractured lands among fractured lives and disrupted joys sometimes a beautiful surroundings sometimes not their youth have statistics tell us an epidemic of suicide despair and depression I was welcomed to the river on the urock reservation in northern California I found myself saturated by their history their dances their modern struggle against poverty drug addiction alcoholism we share the ground with those who believe California is Mexico those who came in a variety of migrations from Asia a variety of migrations from Europe throughout American history running from genocides or poverty or dogmas we would not have imagined the profound otherness of the ground on which Muslims stand we would not have imagined that 20 years ago gender and sexuality are in a greater seismic shift than they were then our ground is complex also because 20 years have passed Wilson Brewstein was before 9-11 the iPhone Google Maps Pandora soul cycle high school students primarily Latino staging walkouts in Los Angeles Houston and other cities boycotting schools and businesses in support of immigration rights and quality inequality blackish Shonda Rhimes mainstreaming of the Ted conference Ted X the proliferation of places and journals that gather free content in charge a lot of money for you to go a sitting United States president who visited the first sitting United States president did it visited a federal penitentiary Obama the first United States president visited an Indian reservation Obama Jeremy Lynn became the first American born NBA player to be of Chinese Taiwanese descent the Minutemen project with its civilians took it upon themselves to sit down at the Mexican American border in the version in their version of a neighborhood watch to keep people from crossing the border the West Wing television show reality television the term white privilege moved from primarily academic circles to mainstream parlance rashes of violence reach the peak that is sweeping us now Orlando which happened just shy of one year of the more Memorial of the Massacre at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston first black president expectation of a potential first woman president Caitlyn Jenner black lives matter Donald Trump okay and you can start that set I'm mentioning it for the second time Hamilton imagine a conversation with Manuel Miranda Wilson and Bruce Dean what would Wilson or Bruce Dean think of a Latino playing Alexander Hamilton translating a white man's book or a black man playing Aaron Burr I have for you in conclusion a modest proposal theaters are convening places communities need them our country needs them the world needs them but some communities as we know and have and and obviously TCG knows in the way that they have characterized this gathering some communities do not have these experiences for these facilities in their schools or inside buildings of theaters many of us in this room are concerned and even horrified about the growing gap between rich and poor in this country many of us want to do something about inequality but let's look at ourselves let's look at the American theater the Divos Institute of Arts Management University of Maryland released a report many of you know it some say it's controversial but I found some very valuable information that I did not have here's some statistics the highest reported compensation for leaders in mainstream theater is six hundred and five thousand three hundred and sixty one dollars the median is three hundred and eighty eight thousand eight hundred and twelve dollars the lowest paid is three hundred and sixteen thousand one hundred and thirty four dollars the highest reported compensation for a Latino theater is eighty eight thousand five hundred and thirty nine dollars the median is fifty one thousand two hundred and ninety eight dollars the lowest is nine thousand nine hundred and seventy dollars the highest compensation in African-American theater is one hundred and ten thousand dollars the median is sixty two thousand six hundred and ninety two dollars and the lowest is twenty nine thousand four hundred and eight dollars there was one black theater when Wilson spoke in Lord I now here there are none what shall we do about our problematic statistics who is welcome in leadership roles what kinds of theaters are welcome in communities there's a study on gender parity that is being presented breakdown of leadership in Lord artistic leaders 54 white men five men of color 14 white women one woman of color executive leaders 46 white men no men of color 28 white women no women of color the good news is that Lord has acknowledged that this is a major problem and has launched an initiative to address it our situation needs a different and new economics how can we say in our mission statements and our grant applications that we support and perpetuate the best in humans and still live with this kind of inequality in our art form we can no longer assume that people are willing to starve to be in the theater we lose them to other professions in the entertainment industry we lose talent equity needs to do better by actors and everybody else Teresa calls for a radical theater perhaps we should combine our forces here's my dream invest in some large facilities in which diverse groups of people with diverse missions can share administrative core costs share the rent share the responsibility for making a healthy endowment share the development plan share and crisscross audiences and by diverse you know I think those who call themselves white privileged and should come to and I don't think that the work has to all be about social justice I would like to see that I'd like to see such a theater dedicated to activism but I'm not a snob I'm not an elitist about popular entertainment I myself just played Hawke woman's past life on DC legends of tomorrow artistic experimentation artistic innovation in this theater that I see economic innovation leadership innovation developing skills for new leaders and new artists would be just great revealing more about the grounds on which we each and all stand we find ourselves in the midst of an economic security and moral crisis in the arts we cannot save the world we cannot teach reading and math through dance or drama but we can prick and instigate the growth of a public moral imagination develop develop a spirit of hospitality of radical hospitality Derrida gives the best definition let us say yes to who or what turns up before any determination before any anticipation before any identification whether or not it has to do with a foreigner an immigrant and invited guest or an unexpected visitor whether or not the new arrival is the citizen of another country a human animal or divine creature a living or dead thing male or female develop a radical hospitality towards one another towards all of us in our wonderful profession toward the global public on whose ground we stand thank you thank you Anna so much I just and the rap on raise your experience in the post ground on which I stand conversation sharing some of your recent profound work and thought on inequality in our country and our theater community and you also reminded us again about the importance of this multi-generational room that we're in that John O'Neill was such a big influence in your life and work and you know you have influenced so many people here and also just showing us what it means to be responsible for the future of the world it's a great thing to take forward as we go through this conference and we're gonna have a great opportunity to write this minute to go and celebrate together at arena stage and that'll be a great opportunity to reflect on some of what we just heard so I'm gonna give you some details about that first I have just something to get you thinking about a future plenary session we have Ambassador Samantha Power speaking here on Saturday at our closing plenary with Oscar Eustace and Kwame Kwe-Arma and we know that they would like to have some advanced questions for that session if you have some questions you'd like to have them address they must be submitted by Friday at 12 noon so think about that I also want to invite you when we get to the party we have a number of grantees and young leaders here who I think it's very important for you to meet and specifically I'm gonna reference the spotlight on program and right now if we could have do we have lights up I'd like the spotlight on participants from rising leaders of color the Fox Fellowship and leadership you programs to stand if you are able and if not raise your hands there's one more person that I especially encourage you to talk to at the party someone that we already miss very much he's a great leader a trusted partner and a dear friend Kevin E. Moore left TCG to join actors theater of Louisville just a month or so ago and he's going to continue to make a very huge impact on our field and on every life his great heart touches yes we also understand that he an artistic director Les Waters may engage in a serious battle of the beards if you know Kevin and you know Les that will make sense to you but Kevin for everything you've given TCG and the field thank you from the bottom of our hearts this should really be a toast so let's get to the party you can take the K Street exit by the gift shop for buses that will be running on loop from here to arena stage and that will be happening the rest of the night or you can just cab or Uber so with that thank you very much for being here and let's go party