 Bonjour, Nin de Wayne de Magnaug. My relatives and colleagues, this is Tai de Faux, and I'm here in my apartment in Lenape Cohing in New York City, and I'm sitting with flowers next to me. I'm safe during this pandemic wearing my favorite t-shirt, a wampum necklace, and some socks today. I have long dark hair tied up in a bun with a yellow elastic band. Despite a heavy heart today, I'm smiling from ear to ear with tears of joy because I get to present this award today to my dear friend and colleague and mentor and teacher and elder and leader in the field of theater and the arts at large. A person who defies all boundaries and binaries that American theater has placed on theater makers. It is hard to know when I first met Daniel because I've been in various sometimes surprising and spontaneous spaces with him making connections, making theater, or we could have been ancestors past from another life kind of ago. And I'm sure Daniel gets that from a lot of people because when you meet him, one can instantaneously feel this light beam from Daniel, from his soul. This is my experience of Daniel from making work in a Hogan in the middle of Santa Fe, New Mexico, or facilitating on decolonizing at universities or making work with him with intergenerational queer folks in Texas after the tragic Orlando shootings. But one of my favorite moments with Daniel was when we were eating celery. Yes, celery, standing outside of a small theater on the lower east side of New York City, waiting to see a show tired from a long day of being in that hot, hot city in the middle of July. And I wasn't sure what the name of the piece is. We don't know one another until we know one another's story. And I wasn't sure if this was a rally to go to the show that started at 11 or if this was a larger life lesson. And obviously it was a larger life lesson because I believe Daniel meant that theater is everywhere. The narrative in the streets, in the mountains, in the water, and in each other. This is Daniel. These are only some of the generous gifts that I have time to name and so much more that you can encounter when you spend time with Daniel. When I was asked to present it to Daniel today, I could not think of anyone right now who is more deserving to be recognized for this award given the atrocities around the globe and especially here in Turtle Island. Dr. Daniel Banks is someone who brings radical hope to the world with him and to every room he works in, whether it's bringing friends together, ensemble members, or those who have just entered the conversation about theater making, healing, or liberation. This is how he does it all the way from grassroots institutions to larger theaters. And if you ever get the blessing to be in circle of Daniel, I guarantee you will feel that you have been brought here for how about Daniel and all of his director accomplishments or checked boxes and binaries and processes. He does it all and all at the same time and takes care of artists and people around him. This type of he all along continually to grow and learn and he's the most humble person you'll ever meet. He's not just at the top alone, but brings everyone with him because of his moral compass. Daniel is co-founder with his husband, Adam McKinney of DNA Works, an arts and service organization committed to dialogue and healing through the arts based in Fort Worth, Texas and currently working on Secret Share, which brings together intergenerational majority Q BIPOC meant to explore intimacy for Daniel. This life work started 38 plus years ago when he was in high school when he read the book. It was the thing that gave him hope at that time when he carried this book with him. It was the way Daniel is continually to honor his ancestors and whose lives were taken away too soon. Daniel is my hope for the future. An example of who we theaters, art institutions and leaders need to be looking towards to experience what he does and how he does it. He defies borders and labels with his concise, steadfast presence and magic in any room or barn theater. If you get a moment to speak with Daniel, consider yourself blessed in the presence of a true visionary in the field of theater. The Alan Schneider's Award is presented and designed to identify and assist exceptionally talented mid-career freelance directors who've achievements have been demonstrated through work in specific US regions or territories, but who may not be known more widely or recognized nationally. But Daniel defies this definition, defies the borders of this award and the walls of a boxed-in theater, all while working from within them for the majority of his career. It is with humbleness, gratitude and honor. I introduce you all to the winner. Oh my gosh. I just need a moment. I don't think anyone's ever spoken about me that way before. Thank you so much. To you as well. This is Daniel Banks speaking from Fort Worth, Texas, the land of the Kikapu, Wichita and Komanshi. I'm in my co-working space surrounded by books. I have a shaved head, a salt and pepper, goatee and the fluorescent lightings above shining on my forehead. I am humbled and deeply moved to receive the Alan Schneider Director Award. Thank you also, Tai, to you and Kate Freer for nominating me. I am here today because of the support of so many people. Emily Mann, the most generous of mentors, and Kathleen Kulebro, artistic director of amphibian stage productions here in Fort Worth, both of whom wrote letters of recommendation. Also the award panelists, the DNA works ensemble, and my other teachers and mentors, Monica Pena, Kwame Kweyarma, Rosemary Harris, Yuna Choudhury, Roberta Levitao, Ngugiwati Ango, and Marvin Simms. To the other finalists, it is an honor to be in your company. My profound appreciation goes to theater communication groups, which has been one of the most significant relationships in my professional theater life. I remember reading about Tadashi Suzuki in American Theater in 1986 and feeling a sense of relief and excitement because the magazine showed me that the theater community I craved was really out there. Thank you especially to Emilia Cachapero and Teresa Eyring for your years of patience, guidance, and kindness. And then creative partner Adam McKinney, my sister, parents, and grand and great parents, who grew up in the Washington Allen Schneider's productions. In these and many other ways, being here today is coming full circle, and the world is responding in protest. It is quite possible that by the time you hear these words, their meaning will have completely changed. But this exercise feels strangely familiar, speaking into the future. Because it is almost everything we do as theater people. So how do we speak into our current future and finally change it? I do create well-tell stories about people and families that do not neatly fit into boxes. Stories that form complicated identities, ability, gender, create our own worlds, give shape and contour to our own roles and identities. I hold community story circles as part of performances to balance artist and audience voices and create spaces for community members to learn more. A project that grew anizing a coalition of community organizations to prevent the demolition of the former Ku Klux Klan meeting hall built here in Fort Worth in 1924. We are working to transform it into an international center and museum for art and community healing. This will provide a peaceful gathering place for a divided city, transforming a monument to hate and violence into a symbol of healing and restorative justice. The project's leadership comes from the groups that were terrorized by the KKK here in the 1920s and the project returns resources to their communities. So on this day, during these times when everyone's life in the theater has shifted radically and the future is uncertain for so many people, I am considering the intersection of our theater work moving forward and our ability to create lasting change in society. I often hear in community story circles that people avoid the topic of racism because it feels too big as if nothing can be done. What we as a field need is a concrete model for change and implementable action plan. Imagine what would be possible if together every US theater institution of every size and affiliation committed to anti-racism on and off their stages. It is not so far-fetched. Many organizations and artists are already doing anti-racism work and with some in the past week releasing powerful statements and sharing resources. And look at the broad impact that Broadway Cares Equity Fights AIDS has had challenging stigmas, generating public support for people with HIV and AIDS, and raising over 300 million dollars in the past 31 years with the participation of theaters from across the country. Let us use this time while waiting for our doors and stages to reopen to engage every artist, staff, board, and audience member in anti-racism work by providing information, trainings, community dialogues, policy advocacy opportunities, and other programming. This commitment to end racism and racial violence were at the top of the agenda for all US theaters for the next five years. Think of what we can or would they reach? How many lives could be saved? Theater has done this throughout history impacting human rights movements and legislation in the US and abroad. This is doable. Politicians across the country are making pledges to root out racism. The mayor of Fort Worth recently revealed, striking a new tone, that she is also, quote, committed to continuing the work potential. And then I urge us as a field to commit to and spreading knowledge to eliminate racist US values and more. Thank you for this opportunity to follow in his. Hi everybody. Welcome to today's plenary. I just want to come on live to, first of all, congratulate Daniel Banks for winning the Schneider Award and for Ty's lovely remarks. I apologize for our technical difficulties. That whole video will be available. And please, please, please congratulate Daniel in the comments. His words were beautiful, wonderful, and I hope they will continue to be received by you. I'm going to move us forward and invite Adrienne to come on and give you all some remarks before you move into the space. Adrienne, we can't hear you. We still can't hear you. Do you want to try to unplug your headphones? Sorry about that. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can. Oh, great. Thank you. Again, my name is Adrienne. I'm TCG's deputy director and COO and my pronouns are he, him, and is. Daniel, congratulations. Thank you so much for all your hard work and that call for action. Before we get started, I want to honor the powerful remarks shared yesterday by Jamil Jude, Monique Holt, and Nicole Salter. What you shared needs to be watched and rewatched and watched again. Sam, please drop the link in the chat. And to all the folks on the Zoom call, please watch. As TCG's executive director, Teresa Eyring shared yesterday, TCG has reframed all of our programming through two criteria. One, does this session center Black Indigenous people of color? And two, does it actively work to dismantle white supremacy? If it doesn't, we're not doing it right now. We want to thank all the session leaders, artists, sponsors, and funders who have worked with us to collectively hold ourselves accountable to this reframe. You have shown nimbleness in shifting your sessions to meet these criteria and you have shown grace in canceling your sessions or postponing them to a later date. We know this hasn't been easy, but our BIPOC colleagues deserves no less from us and we know much, much more is needed. This month is also pride and as we center our BIPOC colleagues, it's critical remember the roots of pride are in a rebellion led in large part by trans women of color. It was the stonewall uprising that catalyzed our ongoing fight for LGBTQ rights and so we must name our ancestors Sylvia, Rivera, and Marsha P. Johnson, who reminded us that we can't have pride if we don't have liberation for all of us and we must act in immediate solidarity with the trans women of color today, especially black trans women who are facing an epidemic of violence. Now I'd like to speak directly to other gay cis men in this space. We cannot sit idly while our trans black while our black trans brothers and sisters are murdered and killed. The privileges we have right now are we have it because of their sacrifices and we must do better. In that spirit I want to name Ayanna Dior, a black trans woman who survived a brutal attack a few days ago and who needs her support. In the chat Sam will drop a link to show how we can send immediate support to Ayanna for her safety and recovery. This is what action looks like and we're going to take the time right now for you to click on that link and act and to crowdsource the names of other BIPOC, trans folks who may need our support and to share links to frontline organizations led by and working with trans communities of color. Please put those links now and let's take collective action together right now. I know that many of the white folks who joined the anti-racism session two days ago engage in a collective act of resource reallocation. We are asking you to do this again. If you don't have the resources to give at this time please share some of the links you're seeing in the chat on social media. If you're not in social media please email some of these links to your friends who may have resources. We often hear how can we help? How can we help? And this is the one of the many ways we can do that. Send resources right now to BIPOC and trans folks on the front lines. It's the least we can do. And while we're acting to meet the immediate needs of our BIPOC colleagues during this convening we want to be clear this work is not going to end when the conference does. This pandemic, this uprising, this convening, there are portals and we are not going back to the way things work for. And although, like many of our theaters, TCG is facing some difficult financial days ahead. We're also making radical shifts in our mission and programming to work toward a truly just and thriving theater ecology. And now it's my great joy to welcome our panelist, playwright Alicia Harris and director Whitney White to the stage. I know it's a screen but for today we'll call it a stage. I'm going to keep their introductions brief to maximize our time with them and say that Alicia Harris's play include is God is and what to send up when it goes down. A play pageant ritual response to anti-blackness which was produced by the movement theater company and directed by Whitney White. Whitney is also an actor and a musician and the recipient of the Susan Strowman directed award. The last thing I'll say is that I truly don't remember a play that has meant so much to so many people as what to send up when it goes down. We're honored and grateful by your presence today, Alicia and Whitney. Thank you. We are pleased and honored to be here. Thank you so much for having us. Hi, Whitney. Hi, Alicia. Thank you, Adrienne. Those words were beautiful and just thank you for taking the space that you just took to make space for black trans lives. It's beautiful. Yeah, we appreciate it. So Whitney. Hey, girl. I am so excited for the opportunity to sit down with Whitney because we are frequent collaborators. We've worked on what to send up and we're working on a few other wonderful things and but there's so much that we don't know about each other. So this opportunity to sit down and sincerely and honestly get to know a bit about each other's journeys and process is really thrilling, I think, to both of us, right? Yeah. So why don't we start with a check-in? Where are you? What are you doing? How are you moving through these moments, Whitney White? Thank you for that question, Alicia Harris. Gosh, you guys, this woman is the truth. She's everything. I am in Chicago. I am near my loved ones and family, which I'm so grateful for. I normally live in New York and it's been a really interesting time to be in the Midwest. There's so much about both areas that I think I take for granted and in this time so much is coming to light for all of us and it's very interesting to be in Chicago with my family during this time, but I'm grateful for it. In terms of how I'm feeling, I'm feeling concerned. I'm feeling tired, but I'm feeling hopeful. I'm thankful we get to share space together today and talk a little bit more and learn more about each other. What about you? I agree. So grateful for this treasured space. I am in the North Valley in Los Angeles area. I don't have family around, but I do have friends in the city. I'm feeling nurtured and supported from afar. What's interesting about this COVID time is that there are folks I have contact with that I wouldn't normally because there's something about this new virtual world that we're accessing. That's really neat. I'm moving through things with great intensity. There's a lot of adrenaline running through my body that I need to work out. And with anger, which I allow myself fully, and with hope. I'm moving through it, thinking a lot about the work as a bomb and also as a fuel. As much as the stressful things are keeping me up at night, I'm really grateful to get to channel them through the work as I always have and I understand you have. So I think we might segue into the work and talking a bit about what our journeys have been because we both are sort of multifaceted artists who have explored other forms and found our way to the theater. So why don't we talk about that? That's dope. I think that's really important to hear each other's histories. Alicia and I were trying to figure out what to talk about and what we wanted to ask each other and she was like, we don't know so that much about our backgrounds because while we have a lot of overlap and obviously a lot of areas in which we have community and we commune together and just things we agree about, the paths that we took to get to where we are really different. And for black artists out there watching this, it's important to hear it because I remember finally meeting black artists I wanted to be in dialogue with and hearing their backgrounds was incredibly liberating for me. So, you know, my gateway drug to the theater was singing. I was always singing in the choir, honey, singing in the church and I went to this white Catholic school on the north side and I wasn't Catholic. I was like one of two black students in the school and it was incredibly challenging. But my Catholic liturgical teacher heard me singing the Lion King one day and she was like, she kind of lost her mind and she petitioned the school for me to be able to sing in the church and everybody was mad because I was like this little black kid who wasn't Catholic and shout out to my liturgical music teacher because she really held it down and that was my entryway into all this and music still is such a big part of my work. And, you know, I thought I was going to be a singer but I couldn't give up like wine and chocolate so that didn't really work out. And then I got cast in my first play and another moment that kind of race was really a part of that I was cast in Oklahoma and I wanted to be the lead but I was told that Laurie couldn't be black and so I was Laurie's friend and I remember that super vividly that moment. And then I went to Northwestern and kept kind of dabbling in theater but again got I have a lot of love for the program but I also there was a lot of complicated things in that program in terms of the roles available to black actors and resources available to black actors and so I tried a political science degree and I was like you know what maybe theater is not for me. I should try and be a diplomat. I love people and I love talking and I should try and do live a more politically based life but I kept coming back to the theater and when I hit a wall with acting I luckily met an incredible mentor at Brown Trinity's MFA program. Brian Murtis and his wife Melissa Keefman and they really were the first ones who were like you really need to try and direct and at the time I had no idea that I could direct for some reason. I never I always wanted to be in control of my narrative stories but I had spent my life as a musical theater actor shucking and jiving as it were on stages because when you can dance and sing and you're a person of color people encourage you to do that. They don't necessarily encourage you to get in control of your own story and put that up there and these two people did and also Tyler Dabrowski is another colleague of mine who was instrumental in that transition and when I directed my first play it was like everything came together for me so it was a circular route and acting in theater I feel like it quit on me many times when people told me well you know you can play the best friend or the token role or the sassy role or the sexy wife or just the tropes the the sister mother or whore you know the tropes that black women are so often asked to play and still asked to play on stage and on camera it just I hit a wall and luckily found directing. That's beautiful I'm glad that you found directing and they're definitely parallels in our stories so I am a lifelong storyteller nerd in the room by herself with her dolls taking up a little too seriously telling stories that were a little too grown for my little self and I actually started out studying visual art and and I remember that I was studying visual art first I went to a community college shout out to community colleges then I went to the University of Southern Mississippi and I remember that I was sitting in class and they said you know the market is flooded you probably won't make a lot of money doing this and I was like well I want to do theater but my fear is that I won't make any money I won't be able to support myself so I may as well go do the thing I really want to do and I walked to the theater building and that that was like a significant moment in the journey so so I worked for a while at the school and then when I graduated undergrad I moved to Florida where I really got into spoken word wow and and I had studied acting at USM and I got frustrated like you with the commonly held perceptions narrow perceptions of how a black woman could exist on stage it was incredibly frustrating it was dehumanizing to take in these scenes that I was expected to be a part of it I just felt bound so I wrote my first real play that was performed at USM and it was so liberating and I knew that this was the path I wanted to follow I wanted to make these stories I wanted to occupy that space myself and so spoken word allowed me to to be the writer performer spoken word was wonderful because you didn't need any other collaborators you just needed like an open mic and so I was hardcore spoken word for a while which definitely shows up in my work today and then I went to grad school like Cal Arts and um and I learned some tremendous things met some amazing people though it was really challenging to be there and um and here I am just kind of a weirdo theater artist today and some of those things are oh I forgot that the music we both do music so I while I was exploring spoken word uh I also started making music I actually released CDs for my trunk I was serious I had a cardboard recording in my apartment that I built with sound absorbing home I could barely play guitar but I didn't let it stop me and so I still make music all the music for what to send up I made and love making music for theater and want to do a musical at some point um yeah so that's in the journey this and that like you and I found my way here um and really great first I love your experience with poetry because that is so I remember when I first read what to send up well really is God is Tabie McGar another director of color who I love so much you know sent me that script and just the sheer achievement and innovation and language that you achieved on both plays what to send up when it goes down and that is just so thrilling and it's like I don't have that poetic background so when I'm working with you it feels it just it's like a yin and a yang in a really cool way and it's amazing to hear that you have that background also come on CDs come on oh my god you never told me that that's so funny girl they are out here those CDs are floating around um so let's talk about you mentioned what to send up maybe it's useful for folks to hear especially in the space that we're in now but always because right because what to send up has existed for years now let's shout out the movement theater company for bringing us together on that production and then maybe I'll talk a little about my journey with it and then where you join the journey you can step in correct so what to send up was born um the idea for it was born when Trayvon Martin was killed um I was alone in grad school and I knew that I wanted to do something I didn't know what it was going to be but I knew that I had to respond using my art form to this death and I also it's funny that time was a lot like this time now I was alone isolated in the summer and the only access I had to other people was via my computer so I wrote this piece and when I mentioned that anger is useful the reason that it's been really useful to my journey and the reason I refuse to let anyone make me uh uh abandon my anger is that anger for me has allowed me to hop skip and jump over my fear and do things I wouldn't ordinarily have done so with what to send up I remember like making a promise allowed to myself you're gonna follow this work you're gonna do this work you're gonna make it happen and usually I would up to that point I kind of would make a play and get tired of it but I was like look we're doing this and we're gonna follow this for however long it takes so I was self-producing that early version of it rehearsing in a living room you know wherever we could find a spot directing though I am not a director but I was like I don't want to have to try and explain this to anyone so we took it some places mostly in in California I learned a lot and grew at each time but it was really tremendous when the movement theater company got a hold of that text and committed to doing that work and I remember we sat down and they said um think blue sky what is the what do you absolutely want what is your ideal for this piece it was so generous and it really helped it to become what it was I was able to deepen the writing just sit back and be a writer and not have to be raising funds and um it really birthed something new along with my collaboration with you what was your experience of encountering that piece well when I read the play I remember and it only happens it's a really rare thing but I don't know if anybody listening out there understands this or Alicia if you feel the same way every now and then you'll read a text for theatrical performance a script a play and when you read it it all of a sudden after a couple pages or sometimes after just a couple words it goes from an experience in the mind to an experience in the body even when you're reading it you start to have a physiological response maybe you get warmer maybe your mouth gets dry because you're anxious because you're having an emotional response maybe you have to stand up when you're reading it you know and I started having these physiological responses um and I knew then that it was something that I wanted to be a part of because if my body can get engaged in the work that quickly I know I can direct it and when I can't I can't and I remember reading the piece and after studying music for so long you know it's read like a score it read like the most complex beautiful Beethoven or whatever composer that is supposed to be the pinnacle of like musical composition in the Westworld which is always a white composer but it read like that kind of a thing with ins and outs and tempos and rhythms and movements and units and it was just the most complex black freeing thing and very similar to your response to Trevon Martin being killed I had it was like my last acting gig I ever did was at Chautauqua Theatre Company and I took an eight hour Amtrak up there and like on the course of that Amtrak the news of Sandra Bland hit and that was a that was a turning point for me her death and something that I I struggled with since and I had no outlet for it there was no outlet in my work for it there was no space in the theatrical world to express that and when I read that script all of a sudden I was like on that Amtrak train again and the scripts was it healed something in me from that summer that had never been healed before like I had a wound when that woman was killed when she had when that happened to her that never healed and what to send that when it goes down upon one read just my shoulders dropped a little bit lower and I'm like well I have to be a part of this because it's not only calling attention to something but it's doing something that most plays cannot do it's actually giving you a real tool to deal with trauma and that is almost unheard of it's not a just sit here and watch the story and eat your snacks and then you know lights up lights down it's a come be in the room and heal a little bit and if you don't want to be a part of that please leave and it was just the most radical thing I'd ever read you know I'm so honored by that Whitney and glad that the work resonated in that way and then it moved from like the writing of it was my healing and the the sort of crazed I'm going to direct it I'm going to raise the money was my healing there was something about it that made me feel useful and and again with the anger I sort of said to myself you know there's a lot of fear around creation there's fear when you leave never directed how am I going to do this how am I going to raise the money I said to myself this is your offering when you go to church and you give an offering you give the best you can so with what to send up I remember sort of saying to myself give the best offering you can and I'm glad that that offering meant something to you years later but you said something that I think like if you don't mind I want to poke at because I think especially for the black artist right now who are looking for ways to cope and looking for ways to work you said that you created this play in isolation and I remember when you sat me down when I got involved with the project you told me about that space you were in when you created it and I wonder if you could just talk to us about it because I find it incredibly inspiring um that even in isolation and oppression you can make something so just tell us about it it's so emotional to to think about that thank you for the invitation but I mean just sitting behind a computer feeling so um oppressed is the easy word but also kind of bound physically I think is the reason one of the reasons the work endeavors to just break out it's so physical and it's so by design something that that activates the bodies of the performers rigorously throughout from start to finish those those actors will tell you that's what it is and I think that that had to do with feeling like there was no place to put my aggression there was no place to put my fear there was no way to communalize my grief right I was in isolation so it was all about bringing people together and making them bear witness to the spectacle of these black folks feeling exactly how they feel about anti-blackness no hiding it no respectability politics I don't play those games let them bring their whole selves um and and really feel what they feel in the face of this tremendous trauma hopefully without being re-traumatizing right hopefully and the feedback I've gotten to my face is that the ritual works that it allows them to get something out and to be with people and feel held so um yeah and I think one of the things that we've spoken a little bit about um that I'd love to hear your thoughts on is like the way that what to send up isn't um it's the relationship to the work for those performing it right is not exactly what like I am calling for something different um and and calling for people to really put themselves through a ritual what was it like for you to kind of sink into understanding about that or or deal with that as a director well it was exciting because it's like because the structure of the play was so radically unique it called for a different directing process so your regular little scoot to do where you sit at the table and you talk about it and then you block scene by scene it's not going to work and I would argue that that might not really ever work or create work that reflects reality at all I don't know I'm kind of arriving at that but it was like we have to get up right away and we can't just get up and try and nail it and then rehearse the same thing every time like I was like we're gonna have to get up and try this we'll do what these experiments I call them or generative work is the term that um I like to use and we're gonna have to generate movement that activates the text and sometimes that movement's going to be very strenuous or dance or not realism like realism was useless to me because the reality that we are the reality that we are forced to live in as black people here is so surreal and so hyperreal every day you know I think many would argue that this period we're in it's like everyone now feels like what it's like to be us the stress and anxiety and lack of resources and realizing that your country is not going to save you now everybody knows like the cat is out of the bag y'all welcome to the table okay and so when we were doing what to send up I was like well reality doesn't exist so realism doesn't exist so those little realistic acting techniques that all of us spend years freaking learning it's not gonna work we're gonna have to do gesture and shape and dance and we're gonna have to really choreograph this in a way that makes the language feel viscerally alive and it was we had some dope days in those rehearsal rooms there were many things that failed you know and then there were many things that soared um and so just the the way it became almost a dance piece and just this hyper physical piece was it was thrilling it was like drinking adrenaline every day it's like you can shout here you can do a physical gesture here you can do a step line you can fucking oops sorry you can twerk I'm not supposed to swear I'm not supposed to swear you can twerk you know maybe twerking is the best way to activate the line and really what we built and what Alisha helped me learn because it is kind of like going to the school of Alisha Harris like when you direct in Alisha Harris but you kind of got to like go to like Alisha Harris college for a little bit and um and like what we realized was that our vocabulary to stage the play and find the scenes was everything that exists in black culture so you throw realism away and you look at black culture dance music poetry gesture west african traditions the griot and then all of that kind of became our ingredients in our gumbo pot and it was like this scene makes me feel resilient well twerk twerking makes me feel resilient I'm saying twerking a lot it's because I really miss it I feel resilient and I'm so grateful for you naming that come on Alisha I mean similarly I'm talking a lot but it's really important I feel to keep saying that this is a play that existed before we came to it and the movement elevated it in this incredible way but I think it's really unique for other people out there who are multi-hyphenates to maybe hear about that transition for you more of going from of changing how you're interacting with the piece and then of course aesthetics and all of that I mean people should just hear you talk about your performative aesthetics because they're radically either just radical you know and I just want to jump in to give you all the friendliest of 15s don't worry um 15 minutes before we open up to q&a if you still want to do that I'm already so loving your words so to the audience at home and we can take some water ask these beautiful beautiful artists and women black women in this moment and I urge you again to be careful about what labor you're doing when you ask these questions what labor you are putting on to these two oh don't worry we'll tell them we'll tell them no um but I wanted somebody was shouting out Interfest and I want to echo that because um Interfest is how the movement theater company um encountered what to send up and brought us together so shout to Interfest and Chris Myers and the others who were involved in that effort um so you were asking about my performative aesthetic yeah like you know talk to us about talk talk to the people talk to me about these aesthetics it's like because if you haven't encountered the piece the piece has literally so many types of performance styles it has song it has movement it has scenes it has facilitation and um I'd love for you to talk about what you think is just good theater like why that stuff is in there at all you know and I'm sure thank you dear so we'll start with the um the beginning of the piece for those who don't know it is an interactive moment um where we call the audience together and they're given a series of prompts and the prompts sort of escalate but they basically ask folks if you are have heard someone say something anti-black take a step forward so we're calling on the audience to participate and tell us without saying anything just a simple movement um that we've all heard people say something anti-black and to feel in that space what that means that the person next to you has been afraid to go to the doctor that the person next to you has had a gun pulled on them I've had friends express surprise because I have had police pull guns on me so for that prompt I step forward um and so there's no it immediately designates the space a no gas lighting space because people love to gaslight black folks and tell us that the things that we're seeing aren't really there we're making a mountain out of a molehill so that was another part of my offering was no no no we're not going to do that the first thing we're going to do is is examine this thing and say to each other um and it's it's a little tricky the way that I do it because I don't ask anyone you just step forward keep it super simple and say to each other this is a real problem that actually happens and if it's happened to you and you feel like self identifying you do that so that feels like a really impactful space and I wanted it to be something that the lay person would do um and and so far it has been so then we move into the more traditional um space where the audience has a seat and they're bearing witness to um this parody um and it's a parody of the kind of play that that many of us have seen that makes use of black bodies as a kind of furniture a something that white folks step on to in order to come into consciousness um that is my least favorite kind of narrative my least favorite kind of theater and I find it especially insidious when that sort of theater masquerades a social justice theater um so I'm very frustrated with it and I that piece has stayed pretty much intact since the beginning of the work and it's a play within a play called Fixing Miss and it's basically this maid um played by a black man a white woman being played by a black man who insists on her goodness and and the black folks who work for her just trying to maintain as they move through the repetition of their life with her um and that performance style we employed and and some of this was your some of this is in the text but you are such a master and looking at text and and infusing it with a kind of theatricality that lifts it which is what makes you such a tremendous one of the many things that makes you such a tremendous collaborate as far as I'm concerned is that it it moved into a kind of menstrual c-space right and we could see these black folks trapped in this this this design this thing that was designed by a white gaze and trying to escape it and we could see the toll of performing this again and again the play repeats itself definitely learned my lessons from Susan Laurie Park's rep and rev repetition and revision and you should read her essays if you have it but so the play just repeats itself it's sort of a spiral um and so that performance style is quite an abrupt shift from the beginning where it's just the people in a room answering responding to prompts and then we have a great number of these poetic riffs and um there's one figure who's talking she's just laying out all of these experiences and they're all mine by the way as just one woman's experience is mostly in academia with anti-blackness and as she does so she lays out um she drops yarn or paper paper um yeah paper um and it switched so many times in my life of the show um and for that performance so I don't know what would you go it's like poetic uh it's surrealism for sure it lives between worlds in a kind of liminal space as the entire play does and there's a lot of play on absurdity in theater especially but the accumulation of the paper which is like the accumulation of these assaults upon these black folks yeah okay I think you know I know we're supposed to go to these questions but there's something else you know I'd love to hear you talk about this because your work what does not when it goes down as such a seminal piece and it is social justice it is communal in this beautiful way but your work from is goddess to this and then the next play we're collaborating on is it it encompasses so much about communities and black lives and I think I think a lot of black artists we're feeling the heat right now to make social social justice work to make work that's really specific and it's like I want to keep encouraging black artists to bring their full selves to the world and you know choose when you want to protest the way you want and make the work you want and I think it's really inspiring that alongside with what to send up when it goes down you've written this incredible play on sugar land and and just talk about how you balance you know world building and just making the work you want to make you know sure so I'll actually talk a little bit about is goddess because I feel what you're saying we marginalized people cannot allow ourselves to be pigeonholed we can allow ourselves to be to feel forced to write just about our oppression and to always be sort of the symbols of the downtrodden black masses in our case and so is goddess does not mention race a single time it's it's it's a play about black people having their of course black experience but it's not about the black experience as much as some people want to believe that it is so I want to encourage creators who are listening make your work all of your work is the work all of your work is disruption unfortunately we've been so oppressed that anything you do any time that your name is spoken your name is called and and there's a beautiful narrative that you've created it disrupts the mythology that this country holds about black people so do not be afraid get free and write the things you want to write 1000 percent that is so exactly it like you said the phrase disrupt mythologies and I think while we come together on these pieces you know you're working on these new brilliant plays and I also like classics in this weird way I'm I'm test with them because every time I do a fucking classic I get to remind people I'm here and we're here because the mythology the highly disturbing and difficult thing about our industry which is the American theaters that it is based and predicated off of white western theatrical forms the insistence of kind of codifying these forms and teaching them in schools means that we're not there we yes yes we're not valuable there were no black people Shakespeare didn't know any black people they didn't exist there were no black people ever in antiquity and that's actually a lie and so I feel hyper hyper engaged with Shakespeare because I'm like actually I'm all up in here everywhere and everything he's talking about pertains to me and I claim it I'm going to claim it you know I love I just want to interject really quickly I love to think that for myself I will often say to myself everything belongs to Alicia so like with is goddess which uses westerns which uses ancient greek theater tropes I'm like I will go into the shop because everything is denied to me and I will take everything and put it into my purse it's all mine mine mine and I encourage all folks black folks take everything right um there's something that feels really um necessary about that and also uh it feels like a pushback it's like western culture has been shoved down our throats we've been taught unfortunately though I tried to disrupt it as an educator that the greek started theater every theater started within western theater did but every every culture has its theatrical beginnings and people need to acknowledge you know what I'm saying like can you imagine how much richer our field would be if we taught everyone started theater it's crazy and it's like that's why I'm always like make new work make your own stories and also get up in those classics if you want to like I love when people come at me about Shakespeare I'm like oh really did you know him were you there in 15 15 whatever oh you were there opening night oh okay I can't I can't make him with a black woman all right all right you know yeah so we are here to to shatter all of that and to encourage anyone listening and thinking about it take it it belongs to you right they can't have our mind I mean they have so much they have this control over our bodies do you know what I'm saying we can't walk in certain neighborhoods I'll be damned if I'm not going to write the thing I want to write yeah yeah yeah um I feel like we might be running short how are we doing let's talk to the people I don't see questions it might be yeah yeah but you still got some time and I do also want to offer like if y'all want to keep going look the people are ready the people will hear like please everybody give Alicia and Whitney some love in these comments on your live streams on YouTube in this webinar because I was on mute but I was squawking camera let me tell you answer some questions I'm happy to feed you some questions are you down for that Whitney yeah let's we'll start squawking I'm sure so yeah I'm gonna hide my video so the focus is on y'all but um here's the first question a simple one I think who from previous artists have in have most influenced your development say his name again I have his name is Brian Murtis he's a director at Brown Trinity rap band the first play of his that I saw was uh crime and punishment um um and what he did to the play my understanding of it is he injected every moment of that play with sensory rich experience what I mean by that is like everything you saw or heard on stage was made to trigger you either like someone made bacon during a speech about murder you know like black ink was all over like everything triggered a sense like so you could taste things in your mouth and you could feel things and it was again very triggering and in a really um existential way and that definitely uh that style of work of triggering because I'm triggered every day and I just have to as a black woman live with that right I can't shut down I can't stop working I just have to deal with triggers all the time and so the idea of directing in a way that is meant to trigger the audience that's not meant to make them comfortable and I'm not saying uh work that can't be funny because comedy is triggering triggers can be many things um that that has had a profound impact on my style of directing it's just injected with as much as you can so that the human body is going to have a response I will force a response out of you yeah that's tremendous thank you for sharing I'm gonna name two names the first is um Dr. Toni Morrison who I did not have the pleasure of knowing in person but I have encountered her work as as a child a little too young to be reading the bluest eyes there's such a thing as being too young but anyway uh when I encounter Dr. Morrison's work she to me is the pinnacle she is my I will never be that good but I want to be excellent I want to at least be reaching for that level of engagement that level of love for Black folks and insistence upon our right to be here and beauty and all things she was a master and then I also want to name my mentor at CalArts his name is Douglas Kearney he's a poet and librettist he's amazing you guys should google him you will see his visual poetry greatly influenced my work and my um my interest in the performance of language on the page and also he just encouraged me to jump move beyond my tropes my well-worn tropes you know you get good at the thing and it's cute you just keep doing it Doug was like no you have to like evolve yeah and among so many other lessons that I learned from him so shouts and love to Doug I'll hopefully I don't think he's watching but I'll send him love later and then one other artist Alicia mentioned I have to mention is Susan Laurier Parks because in the blood was my first play I was in a graduate school and in the blood y'all it get down with it get to know it it's it's quite the text so that text had a huge impact of my understanding of like presenting Blackness on stage because I had never seen that portrait of Blackness it was just it had no filter it had no like white people veneer it was just real aggressive and direct and I was like oh I can be direct okay yeah yeah yes Susan Laurier Parks fucking it was my play I would teach that to my students my damn all day and also her essays an equation for Black people on stage still resonates and speaks to some of the things we've spoken about in this conversation about the sort of narrow way of viewing Black bodies and trapping Black bodies on stage and then um her elements of style yeah more questions y'all come on bring it uh we got so many more don't worry um thank y'all for that answer uh the next one comes from our youtube stream what was the most moving or transformative part of the creative process on what to send up was there a moment of extreme clarity or purpose in that piece of creation was that the piece itself hmm I remember we had a day Alicia we had a day in rehearsal it was our last big full run and we all got to the benediction at the end and we all stopped and kind of all broke down in tears and there was a moment and this is when I have to shout out the incredible cast of actors I worked with on that production so good they brought so much of their humanity to it but there was a moment because look look look look look most of us the way we're trained to do theater is a very phony superficial way like acting training can be so superficial and we're learned to do these tricks and shit and we're not actually engaging in a way that costs us anything and that's why half the theater that you see especially proscenium-based theater is you don't feel anything because it doesn't cost anything and there was a day where it all got real and we all realized what we were doing like we knew it we felt it we felt the words Alicia's language forces a response out of you we felt the reality as black people that these people have been killed but there was a day when we all were just like are we going to be able to do this because we realized that there's no you cannot bullshit your way through Alicia's theater so it was a day in the room we just kind of had to all circle up and I was I was afraid I was afraid because the the majority of my life as a theater professional never allowed me to bring my fullest self or really speak my truth and for the first time in my professional career I had to speak my truth for that whole 90 minutes to two hours of that play and I was I was terrified for 10 plus 15 years I have been trained don't speak your truth do these little roles do this do that do that keep it together be calm use technique distance yourself and the work just made you walk in and so that was I I will carry that memory to the grave that that day I realized that theater should cost you something you should bring all of yourself to it listen I say that all the time thank you for sharing that I'm honored by that but I say that you know without people getting traumatized by the work that they're doing it should cost you something there should be some part of you that feels like I shouldn't be doing this you know what I mean it should feel a little just a little I don't want that easy theater that somebody's making that's just like shoulder shrug theater you know what I mean we've all seen it just like I just I did this because I could and not because I had to right um so for me the moments is uh are there there's so many but after what to send up when sometimes when folks discover that I'm the one who wrote it and I'm there and there are black people left in the room they start to tell their stories and I can just you can just feel or remember a gentleman sort of rambling about the time the police stopped him when he was on his way home you can just feel that something has uh erupted in their core and when people are just in tears and saying thank you I feel my most useful as a human being I feel like I'm so deeply seated in my purpose and like I'm so proud of past Alicia who let her anger lead her towards the creation of the space which has opened up so many doors and allowed me to meet so many folks and according to what I'm being told has been a tool that's that's useful not just pretty you're not not cute but like useful ugly and useful you know so thank you both for that wow I I'm screaming at shoulder shrug theater I felt that theater should cost you something also like wise words truly and I think you touched this a little bit in your conversation you mentioned some classics you mentioned the Greeks you mentioned you know the things um we got a question on zoom how should we be producing the classics in a way that opens them up to our communities but does not uphold white supremacy I have a thought about that because I set out to adapt Phil Octides and this is the new play Whitney and I are working on um and created my own play but I at first I started out trying to adapt it which is what a lot of companies will do though I have been I have been hired to do the black adaptation of a classic it's a problem um and but what I found was having I needed to change the assignment and it moved from trying to adapt that work to figuring out what play I wanted to write having read that work so I would say I wonder if it's about if that's the you need to shift the assignment right who says the classic has to be that maybe it is and I'm not saying we shouldn't engage with classics but I think this kind of rigorous sometimes when I as a writer am approached to like adapt a thing it feels like a kind of mental colonization it's like they feel like the the pinnacle again is it's always a white work that they want me to uphold again um so I wonder if that's useful what do you think Whitney I love that because the thing is I mean this is I I always get a little hesitant sharing this but this is how I feel is like so when you work on three sisters by saying the name you're upholding a history that has not included you and that's not that writer's fault because if you look at Anton Chekhov actually he was writing about a very specific ethnic group you know what I mean but whatever whatever call me we'll talk about that later but you know in even saying this is based on this you are affirming something that other people don't want you to be a part of it makes them uncomfortable they want us to do our little these plays and they get those right but I really like what Alicia said which is change the assignment maybe your task is to make a specific reimagining of a Chekhov but maybe there's just one line and three sisters and your piece comes from that one line it's like plays are not God and they're not the Bible they are just objects and for literature and text that's written by artists who are no longer with us they're just objects and when you're working on them you are a co-author of that work with that writer and I think once you let yourself go there the world is your oyster and your community is a part of the work so yeah I really agree with Alicia I think sometimes I do get obsessed with like doing the whole thing my way I'm so I'm like an Aries and I'm so like I'll get like I have to do every word of this play and shake every word because I want white audiences to hear every word and see us doing it because sometimes I'm like you need to you need to be reeducated you need to see this done a different way but I really if that feels oppressive I think what Alicia said is really dope like find your your version of it and that's your response and yeah and I think it's a mental thank you for that I think it's a mental exercise the way that we monumentalize and pedestalize classics is a problem right it's byproduct of white supremacy so if we're in this moment and we're talking about that we need to have the uncomfortable conversation about what it means to say to a community of color which I mentioned again because I've seen it so many times we're going to get you guys together and we're going to do a Shakespeare play like why you know and and I'm not and I don't mean to discuss it we shouldn't do Shakespeare right but I think we shouldn't take for granted that Shakespeare is is the pinnacle and is the best thing for that community right and I think that's what it is it gets tricky because people are like we're offering you people who are low something that's high and you get to rise to this high thing with us look at this favor we're doing you and you can just feel the like racism you know it's like and you feel stuck y'all you need to go learn about african theater you need to learn about indonesian theater chinese theater they have been doing it you know we're on the year 2000 boo they're like on 5000 they didn't have theater before the Greek it's like madness so it's like start yeah I really do have to shout out like balinese theater too because it's not it's like everything in a bag of chips and it will rock your world so it's like if you feel that doing a western classic is oppressive there's other classics and there's other ways go look at what other people on the earth have been doing you know sam how are we doing on times here yeah we're doing so good we technically have three minutes left but we can totally take some time go over it's entirely up to you we take two more one more two more oh yeah let's let's do two more let's do two more I do want to say shout out jayna call brooks that twerking reaction yes we are twerking behind our cameras everybody yes working is classic work all the good twerk listen I think this is actually this question coming from youtube builds off a bit of what you were talking about but maybe with contemporary work somebody shared I had the blessing of experiencing what to send up when it goes down and can I also aside we don't name the title often enough it is what to send up when it goes down they have the blessing of seeing that show during the a r t run I believe is what they're trying to say and also the new york run and it affected them deeply what was it like to adapt to larger spaces and parentheses wider audiences I'm a little bit waiting wait sorry that with that response to that question it was interesting y'all we live in a very large country and I think a lot of us and probably a lot of people even in this group what is this a zoom in this thing that we're doing right now might be new york-based artists and I think while in New York we're so blessed to be together communicate or be talking we're often talking to people that feel similarly to the way that we do and the second you go out and you start doing theater and communities where that's not the case it becomes very I just keep doing this thing it's like a stress ball like the air gets thicker because reality is we are living in a very very racist country even New York is but it's like when you go out and you start getting out there y'all and doing work and looking those audiences in the eye and speaking your truth it's an incredibly vulnerable thing and again I have to shout out to my actors who you know I'm a director and then after a while it's not all it's it's my cast who has to get up there and be the warriors so I think I I personally noticed a profound difference performing with the audiences in New York DC and Boston yeah I feel those differences I'm still learning how to articulate that but those differences were real and I'll just say um when you are presented with a threat the human mechanism does that or it fights back and so I could feel that happening at times um and then in in terms of adapting it for larger spaces what Alicia told me which is really dope is like we exist everywhere blackness exists everywhere we can take over any space we could take over a Broadway space we could take over the corner down there we could take over your mall you know and so it was very liberating to think that this play belongs everywhere it's not the kind of play that only has to be in this theater and like the risers have to be that way or else oh no no theater and you know with COVID we might need to be making more theater like that that can go everywhere in the everywhere um and that that's a kind of very noble quality of the play I think it's very unpretentious in that way right it's not oh no sorry our play only exists in a big Broadway house guess you can't come if you ain't got that hundred and fifty dollars no it can go everywhere great great I think I'll just let your um response stand so we have more time for the next one no everything you said it's just Alicia this you can everything you said was perfect thank you but if you have a response we have an abundance of time okay our relationship to time is scarce but somebody um in a session yesterday said time is our relative um so let us treat them as such and if if you have a response please feel free otherwise I do have another question uh essentially adapting to the space I didn't think was a it was tricky right um moving you know different floors could be a challenge where the dressing rooms were how to make that exit but the piece was created to uh work with minimal props very intentionally because I when I started out I was by myself right and so was was making trying to create a work that could go many places and where the greatest spectacle in the work was these bodies in motion so as long as we had these actors we were good to go so um it shifted I didn't get to see it in woolly in the big house of woolly mammoth but from what I saw the work still resonated beautifully it was fantastic at Howard and their teeny tiny black box it was wonderful um in other spaces it was it it worked I felt um in terms of the audience reactions they were different I think New York felt a little I don't know like front footed or how to describe them just a little more here and ready for it ready and I think that the responses that I experienced in DC um were uh a little more uh reserved or hesitant now I wasn't there for all of it so I can't speak to the entirety of the tour but I definitely felt like there was a little bit of this except for the young people you weren't there for this Whitney but we had some youth that came in um at the um the Duke Ellington High School for the Performing Arts that were a treasure these two um young black uh teenage girls were just a bucket of tears and they were with it and they loved the cast it was it was remarkable so all in all fantastic and grateful for it and learned a lot along the way thank you both um we'll take this last question from zoom and then we'll close out with Adrienne here in a second um can you share with us a bit about your what to send up online efforts in this moment um and if I can add just like what what are you what are you hoping to get out of moving this online Whitney do you want to talk about the love letters okay so we are working on the movement theater company is fantastic and I know I know they're in the house I see them posting um so with the movement Whitney and I have been working on these love letters for black people which is inspired by a prompt in the play when we ask the invite the audience to write love letters write some lovely words to black people living in an anti-black society and we read a few of them get read at the end of the piece but also on the tour they were collected and placed in the space um and it's been really lovely because people could look at them at the end of the experience black people could walk through and read them so we've moved that and there's an instagram page and I believe adidra and david are posting they're posting about it already um in the chat here um so that's one effort the other is that on my website um I've created a living memorial which has the names of folks who have died it is not complete it will never be complete because we don't know all the names of people who've been killed by anti-blackness um but it is something that I'm trying to keep a handle on so the names and faces are gathered and a little bit about these folks there's an opportunity for you to write to me and give me a name to add to this memorial wall you can also uh also love letters exist there so there are love letters posted some of them uh we took photographs from the tour and then some people have submitted um in the past few weeks and I've tried to get up on the site as soon as I can um and those are the digital efforts unless I'm missing anything quit me we've got a short film uh a video that's I didn't know if we were talking about that but go ahead the video you know I think I'll keep it brief but the amazing thing that alisha is doing with her work is she's looking for solutions it's not pain-borne we're also used to that we're used to that we're used to the slave narratives we're used to the black actor having to come out stage and wail and cry and be a object for abuse furniture as alisha said and alisha's actually trying to make work that is not just opening a scab it's trying to give you a balm for those scabs you already have um and the video is something that hopefully will do that and we look forward to sharing it with you guys yeah we'll put it up on our social media when it when it takes it thank you that is perfect because my next question for you before I transition over to adrian can you please both tell the people where to find you how do they find these resources what are your handles what's going on um I can be found on twitter at a harris 1361 on instagram a l e s h e a dot harris h a r r i s and uh on the website for the some of these digital resources are at bag of beans dot net and you'll just have to click through and find the page for what to send up i think you can finally yes you can find me on twitter uh yes i'm whitney white and um i have a little website look up whitney white there's another system named whitney white she's really fierce um but you'll just say whitney white director and it'll come up and um yeah i i hope to just be sharing more work with all of you soon yeah we're so honored to have gotten to be here with you all thank you for watching for listening um and for being in community with us take care of yourselves and thank you to the tcg you're an organization before i was making the theater i wanted to make i would get those magazines and just dream and hope that what i wanted to talk about would be in there one day and i'm incredibly grateful to tcg for making this space it's very very brave so thank you thank y'all for not being performative and really we see you we are watching yeah alisha and whitney thank you so much that was brilliant so inspired um and thank you so much for spending your afternoon with us um folks in this fall tcg books will be published in alisha's play is god is so stay tuned we're so honored to be working with you alisha um so thanks again a few quick things uh to remind folks uh we want to make sure that you all saw that we added a session this afternoon at 6 30 for bipoc at predominantly wide institutions please check out mighty mighty networks for the zoom link also please share at least one moment from alisha and whitney's conversation that was meaningful to you in the chat on zoom or comments on on youtube we want to make sure we hold a moment so to engage in this act of share gratitude and we'll definitely save these affirmations and also um just want to really thank our many supporters for making our work possible the doris duke chartle foundation the howard gillman foundation fisher tax associate in capacity interactive uh thank you for trusting and supporting us to be responsive and to reframe our work to send center our bipoc colleagues and theater makers folks until next time thank you so much for being with us and uh we'll see you again alisha and whitney much love thank you thank you thank you