 Good evening. How are you? I am good. Can you see me? I am good. Good. Good. I am good. How about you talk? Right now. Alright. Good evening. How are you? Examples of women sharing. What does they do sharing? How do you do that? There's no way to give you a lot to know anymore. Or no. Do you have the same time? It's by itself a little thing. You write a name, you have to do it completely for it. The inner for everybody? Yes, everybody. That's it. What's really that? Indeed, my understanding of life, relationships, death. I've already changed. I mean the theory as a platform, the difference on that. It's a very special living. The Lincoln Center, the Vigagari, the participants who speak for so many others, but who just happen to be here and happen to happen. We think very, very highly of the work of the institution, you know, like the Royal Court, the International Program. And somehow in a way also, what we think of our work, one of the few places that's opened the interest in voices from around the world. The interest in young artists. And also a place that actually gives space and gives opportunities. And I think the Lincoln Center, the Vigagari, the one organizational site, but also the concept of it. Or dreams, or quite specific, or whoever the end or others come up with. So it is quite an incredible betting average they have. If you look at the people who participated, the artists over that time, also really truly the network, the international network it created. And it really communicates that America is an open place. A place that is interested in voices from around the world. We just had pinballed voices here where we also participate. We attend playwrights and Paul Austin, Salman Rushdie created the festival because they felt very strongly as a tunnel vision. We do not hear enough from what's going on. And every musician, we just heard jazz, every musician listens to music from all around the world. Young musicians and what they do is important for your local practice. But you have to sing or be engaged globally. And this is what this extraordinary director's lab does. So we are very honored for all of you to come and to also get a little insight. We always feel it's a bit under the water. We don't hear nothing about it. I don't feel it has really gotten the real recognition it truly deserves. So many people also who come here or others are going to say, Yeah, I was at the Lincoln Center's director's lab. Yeah, I know, and Kitanyu. Okay, how did that happen? And I don't know the numbers most probably. And we'll say something about our staggering of how many lives have been touched, influenced, and how many artistic collaborations came out of it. So again, our highest respect. Thank you for coming. And so for us in the audience, also for the livestream audience we have here. We now really hopefully will get a little insight into that fancy, beautiful Lincoln Center theater car. We're going to open the hood and look a little bit inside. What's really happening there? What are they doing? What has done? And really this is a conversation among friends. We don't really know also what they will say. So it's really to inform us what the center is all about. And I know the new lab is coming up in June or July? August. In August. And good luck with that and congratulations. But that's it for me now. And I think we're going to start. This is the very first collaboration. The format will be, we will have some video tributes because not everybody could come here in person. It is a global initiative. And of course we weren't able to fly in people. So we have people here in the room but also some here on the video. And after that right away we go into some kind of a town hall discussion and we can ask questions, remarks, comments and maybe talk about whatever we will touch on. So we are all very curious to see what we will get from the videos and what you all have to say. Thank you very much and let's start. So our first speaker is going to be Mia Anderson and we're going to, you have your programs. We're going to have a speaker and then we're going to have a video from somewhere around the world and then we're going to have the B speaker. That's how. We're going to have a video so you can follow it alphabetically on your programs. So Mia, you're up first. Hello, my name is Mia. I was part of the 2015 director's lab and the theme was difficult plays. So the play that I had chose was The Owl Answers. A play I had been thinking about four years and I had gotten it out of this book. I bought it at some used bookstore which is always dangerous to go into. But it had a list of all the black plays from like 1800s on. And so The Owl Answers was always one of those plays that I found really intriguing and then I felt like I didn't know what was going on at the same time. And so the experience at the lab for me was a very, very positive one. It was definitely borderline exhaustive because we had like 10 hour days. So every morning I was just, you know, getting my emergency seat and making sure I had the energy to keep going to the end. But in that, in the director's lab I got a chance to talk to Adrian Kennedy which was quite a highlight. I met some really other incredible, you'll hear from them is like Neil Chaudre and Eva Mann was part of my class. And I really got a chance to see other people's ideas that really informed my ideas. And then also I write as well. And that fabulous, fabulous listserv which is like the well that just keeps on giving. Through that well I was actually able to get through a writing residency. Well then I wrote my first solo play which was like had its first showing last year. So that all came through the director's lab. So I always say the director's lab is a gift that just keeps on giving. So I am very, and then of course I'm an Ann who is just amazing. So the whole experience that I'm really, if I'm a positive and really took my, I felt my career and shifted it. It took it to another place. So yeah, thank you. Thank you, man. We'll follow this with a video from Lebanon, from Beirut, Sahar Asaf. Lebanon, this is Sahar Asaf. I'm an actress and a director and also an assistant professor of theater at the American University of Beirut. I was a member of Latham Center Director's Lab in 2014. And to put it briefly, because two minutes are not really enough to talk about this experience. But really to put it briefly, I remember writing to Ankitanio after returning home after the three intensive weeks saying that this perhaps was equivalent to my last has been doing theater studies. It was that overwhelming. Perhaps the most amazing and precious different questions for me from my participation at the American Center was collaborating with my family that we've reached in like five minutes, who is the portraitistic director of the faction of Songburn in the Mountain. Rachel invited me at the beginning of 2016 to play the director role of an Arab woman who speaks by Dari von Rakanami, a solo show that she was directing for the solo show Festival of the Faction. And it was a fascinating experience for both Rachel and I that we decided to continue collaborating. So a few months later, I invited Rachel to be here. It's also 2016 too. Go directly with me, keep it clear. We were putting at the Theater Initiative at the UB. We were putting the play to celebrate at least 150th anniversary and change to 400th death anniversary. So Rachel and Mark, like a partner at the Faction, came together and we converted the play which was referred to by Ankitanio's critique as a gift to the Dari von Rakanami Theater. It was another successful collaboration. And it was also a trigger for me to think about a sister lab for directed lab in the Mediterranean region. There's a huge room for a cap form to bring directors together, directors from the Mediterranean but also from the world to the region to explore the culture and artistic traditions that we have. So last year I write to Ankitanio saying that I'm coming to Toronto in June to participate in directed lab story. And I said that I'm happy to pass by New York if her time allows for a meeting to discuss this idea. So the magic in Carmen, and I can tell you a lot about the magic that happens because of Lincoln Center's lab and writes back to me within few hours, I think, and she says, I'm unveiled. So we had a meeting with few other Lebanese practitioners. We started a conversation that we also continued in Toronto and also in New York until we decided that we're going to start by having a retreat for some Mediterranean alumni of the lab. So that happened in January 2018 this year. We held a retreat for directed lab in the Mediterranean at the American University of Baywood where we had participating directors from Lebanon, from Jordan, from Athens, from Spain, from Italy. The summer arts was joined by a type of friend from Brazil. Rachel was also there from London and her son from New York. And the participating directors in the retreat decided that we're going to launch other directed lab in the Mediterranean summer of 2019 in Baywood, Lebanon. So this is that mutation for all of you Americans out there in the audience tonight to come to Baywood in 2019. We will tell you more about it. A website will be launched very soon. I did not, I've seen it in my two minute time, but this is just really a brief testimony of how overwhelming the experience was, how rewarding it was, one of the best experiences I have throughout my theatre career. Thank you, I'm Kazanin, for starting this lab and thank you for your open mind and for support. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Hal Brooks. Hi everybody. Hal Brooks 2001. That's a long time ago. And at that time I had, I'd been out of the theatre world for about four years and I called a friend of mine, Diane Paulus, who had been part of the lab I believe at some point, or at least knew of the lab. And I said, you know, how do I get back into the world of theatre? I've taken four years away. And she said, well, I recommend Lincoln Center Theatre Director's Lab. And sure enough, I look online. I guess at that point there was something online about applications and the application was due the next day. So I quickly perused the application and the theme that year was style. And what I remember is that you had to, you know, write about three different plays. And one of the plays that I wrote about that I thought had a particular style that I'd want to work on was Valparaiso by Don DeLillo. And Don DeLillo was my favorite novelist and the first play I ever directed was a play of his called The Day Room. So I applied with that in mind and, you know, I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't really know what the lab was, but a month later I got an email. So there were emails at that point saying congratulations and welcome to the Lincoln Center Theatre Director's Lab. You will be workshopping the play of Valparaiso. And then a few days later I get a call from Annie and she says, oh, I bumped into DeLillo's agent. You expect a call from him this week. And I said, that's not going to happen. He's a reclusive novelist. That's not going to happen. He's going to call. So a week later I'm having lunch with Don DeLillo, which was pretty amazing for me. And then that at the lab itself was a three-week lab. And I think a week we spent working on Valparaiso and there were a bunch of other plays that were being workshopped. And DeLillo came. He was really interested. He was into it. We were playing. It was to play about a man who has lost his identity, which I suppose I had prior to being taken into the lab. A series of interviews. So we were working with a bunch of different interview techniques. And DeLillo was present the whole time. And out of that I was very enthused and knew that I needed to get this play produced. So I brought it to some friends of mine who ran a theater company called the Rude Mechanicals of New York. We had a reading in October of 2001 just after September 11th. And this was a play also about pretty horrible things happening on an airplane. So we were literally down at about a few blocks from ground zero having a reading of DeLillo's play. And that's where I met Wilino, who was sort of his DeLillo scout at the moment. And then within a year that play received a production. And it put me in a different place as a director as to the whole lab. The whole lab experience was kind of amazing. It was a boot camp. As those of you who have participated in it know, it was 100 people or so from all over the country, international. And everybody had their own different aesthetic. And that was I think the most incredible thing was you got to talk to people who approached theater in a completely different way than you did. But I just want to thank you, Annie. You have been there all the time. Every time I have a play I call her and she comes and she sees it. And you're an incredible resource to all directors across the world. Thank you. Okay. And our next video is Neil, who is beaming in live. Where is he? In Bangalore? Yeah, Bangalore. My name is Neil Chaudhury. And I'm a playwright and director of The Time Code Like A Tree, which is a theater group based in New Delhi, India. I had a great pleasure to be invited to the Lincoln Center director's lab in 2015 and 2016. In 2015 I was part of a group of 56 directors, part of what I'm called the Sudoku puzzle. And I was really fortunate to be in a wonderful group of seven other directors. And we worked on a beautiful Syrian text called Trump and Days. And some of the members of that group continue to be friends and in touch. In 2016 I had the very rare opportunity to work on a play that I consider certainly one of the best plays written in India over the last 15 years. A money-poory play called Today. And the playwright, Swar, was also invited to New York. And the two of us worked with a wonderfully reflective and intuitive group of actors to, well at some level, realize some of the questions and directions we wanted to move the text in over three weeks. And that second experience at the lab is one that I will treasure for many, many years. And it would not have been possible certainly without the support of Anne and her team. And finally, one of the most exciting things to have come out of the lab for me is an international collective that I'm a part of called Pluto, which includes five other directors from Argentina, Brazil, Germany, France and Uruguay. We hoped rather to be able to create work together collaboratively. And really the spirit of that desire and the spirit of that intention really comes from our time at the lab and recognizing each other, affinities and contradictions. And I think that's what makes the Lincoln Center Lab such a wonderful place. And thank you for having me there twice. Hello. I am Dr. Cheryl Luckett. I am a theater director, a professor and an acting teacher and a member of the director's lab of 2014. We were talking about the audience and the audience was super important. And during that time, we got to hear from a lot of really, really, really interesting creative folks like Bartlett Cher, Bill Irwin, one in particular, The Dog and Pony Show from Washington, D.C. I hope I'm saying their company's name right. It was amazing. They did some interactive audience work with the lab members. And I stayed in touch with them, Rachel Grossman, and I ended up in Washington, D.C., workshopping something with them as well. But I think the most exciting thing that the lab did for me was make me get to my purpose in this time a little bit quicker. I am super interested in acting methodology and directing methodologies rooted in a black American cultural aesthetic and afrocentricity. And when I was attending the lab, it was so cool to be in a room with, you know, 70 folks from around the globe and to find things that were familiar to us and to also talk about the differences. And something that had already been on my mind before I attended the lab was where are the black voices in acting methodologies and directing methodologies. And so I attended a workshop at the lab by Hope Azeda, an amazing artist from Rwanda. And she started to do things in her workshop that were familiar to me as a black American person, but also different. But what I loved about it is that I felt like it was some kind of diasporic cultural connection in what she was doing. And I decided at that moment that I need to put the other research I was doing aside and to work on a, I guess what is now a movement, a book called Black Acting Methods Critical Approaches that came out in the fall of 2016 with a whole bunch of other amazing scholars and endorsed by Ann Bogard and Kenny Leon and Ann Cattonio has been super supportive of that. And we are about to have a national symposium talking about black acting methodologies. And so if it wasn't for the lab and the workshop with Hope Azeda, I don't think the book would have been out here as quick as it is and all of the movement that's happening around it. And it was just a great inspiring moment to be a part of the director's lab. Thank y'all. I'm Ernest Fugaroa and I attended the Lincoln Center Theatre Director's Lab in this fourth year. Ann was on a panel the year that Ann and the lab celebrated his fifth year anniversary. It would not be an overstatement to say that the lab literally changed my life. The year that I attended the lab I was Associate Artistic Director of the Sacramento Theatre Company, but I was also the literary manager and the casting director, so I was literally burned out. Then I went to the lab and I met the most amazing group of directors and designers and actors. Many would become lifelong friends. I was inspired and rejuvenated. But the thing I remember most about those three weeks is something that Ann kept telling us almost every day and every night. And that was, you are the future of the American Theatre. By the way, did I tell you you're the future of the American Theatre? Oh, and don't forget, you are the future of the American Theatre. Well the lab ended and I went back to Sacramento and within three days the Artistic Director took me out to lunch and told me that he had taken another job and was getting the theatre. And that my job was being terminated and I was leaving as well. And all I could think of while I was staring at my salad was, so what? I'm the future of the American Theatre. Well within two years I returned to my home in Los Angeles and connected with four of the alumni from Lincoln Center Theatre Director's Lab, and we together launched what has now become Directors Lab West. It was 19 years ago. As the only remaining founding member of Directors Lab West, which has been hosted many years now by the Pasadena Playhouse and supported by the stage directors and choreographers society, I am proud to have given back to the over 600 national and international directors who have gone through our program. Just to know that Directors Lab West has inspired and rejuvenated people like the three weeks did to me in New York, it vigorates me in planning for our 20th anniversary in 2019. So from the entire steering committee of Directors Lab West, Jenny Miller, Shoei Adams, Dan Wayne, and myself, we want to say congratulations to Anantutanio Andre Bishop and all the members of both labs, and to say that it is really true. We are the future of the American Theatre. Thanks. Yes, it's on, it's on. Well, hi, I'm regent from a garage, but back in the day, I used to be RJ, because I was a little boy when I got into the lab. I'm just so, I'm so proud to be in this room, and I'm so proud of one of my moms in the theater, and one of the queens of the theater, who saw in a really nappy-headed, dreadlocked kid who dreamt of the theater and gave me a platform. And that platform has changed the course of my life because a lot of people don't know this, but during the time I was in the lab, I was actually homeless. I was in a shelter, and I would go to the lab and be able to dream and have this amazing escape, and then it would lead me to go and read plays and learn, and it took me to meeting my heroes, who became my mentors like George C. Wolfe and Woody King Jr. and Kenny Leon, and all these great artists who have literally mentored me become my hammers and chisels in my journey. And it literally is the lab that changed my life because I had established a relationship with here through the lab, and they reviewed one of my works, and the New York Times said I was one of the most talented young directors in New York, blah, blah, blah. And that led to agents, led to daytime television, led to all my children, led to The View, led to Broadway, Yale University, and continued, continued, continued to shape who I became, Associate Artistic Director of the Lark, Associate Artistic Director of Syracuse Stage, Artistic Director of New Freedom Theater, the oldest black theater in the nation. And so from that homeless shelter going to the lab and being around all these artists, it really changed the course of my life. And I am so proud because it helped me to know that I am an artist and activist. That is the center of my work that I could write. I had a wonderful conversation with Miss Julie Tamark when she was doing The Lion King. She brought in the puppets and she sat with me for a second and she said, you know, we can write and direct. We are multitudes. Like Whitman says, we are multitudes. And so I held on to that. And here we are, you know, all these years later, and I'm about to open my off-Broadway show as a writer-director at the Sheen Center, the story of the Little Rock Nine that's going to be running throughout the summer. And I still think about that time, had I not had that opportunity in the lab, had I not had and support and prayers and lifting me up on my shoulders, I would not be standing here. And I say to all the artists around the world who are watching who are in dire straits financially or don't know if they can direct, it is possible if someone gives you the platform to rise and to know that you're not alone. I think that's something as in the lab we said, you know, we're often icebergs directors. We're alone in the room. We have the stage marriage of the actors. But we're really not. And so I thank you, Ann. I thank you, Lincoln Center Lab because it has been the beginning of the yellow brick road of dreams for this little boy who jumped up being a director. Thank you. Okay, and from Switzerland, Eva Mann. I'm a theater director, translated dramaturg, working mostly in Switzerland. And I was a member of the Lincoln Center Director's Lab in 2014 and 2015. Here are two examples of ways in which it really changed the way I function as a director. So the first thing was they connected me with fellow professionals that shared my values and that encouraged me to do work I really believe in as opposed to work that happens to be in or en vogue in my specific geographic location. That would especially mean using community theater as a way to discuss societal issues. It also connected me with Washington of Wanda from Kenya with whom I am now working on our second production. The first was a piece of forum theater called My Dresses, My Choice, which we worked on in Kenya and performed in Madara, which is an area of Nairobi. It was about this unholy allegiance between toxic masculinity, religious opinions, and cultural discomfort that leads to bullying of women based on their choice of clothing. The really interesting outcome of this was that the audience at President Madara that found the most important person in this conflict is the bystander because he really has the chance to step in and say, hey guys, why are you doing this? Stop it now. We are now working on a play called Favorite Fear, which we'll use documentary material and video from both Kenya and Switzerland, and we'll explore how fear is a cherished part of our identity and whether our fear is more culturally based for more of an expression of our own individual personality. We didn't get to see her face. Okay, Maria. Hi, my name is Maria Maylif, and I have the special privilege of being part of the lab for the first three years of the lab before I got kicked out. So I just wanted to add to what everybody was saying, and there was just two things that I was thinking about. And one thing is that I'm being part of the inaugural lab, and I had just moved to New York also when that happened, and it built a community that I'm very much still in touch with. And making theater and making art, you know, it's really important to have colleagues who will come, who will show up, who will tell you not to do your bag of tricks, who will encourage you and have things to say. So that is something that I don't even realize how important it is to me. The other anecdote is that, having always been a really optimistic person, the second year of the lab, Annie invited us to propose a project that we'd like to work on, and I knew this play that I loved that had 76 characters, and it took place underwater, so I was like, I'm just going to send her that. And she called me and she said, how are you going to do that? And it was a lesson that I think about every day, a really important lesson that I think about every day. And I did do it. It looked like it took place underwater. It was beautiful production with really important collaborators, and I will always be grateful for that reminder to dream, dream big and make it happen. So thank you, Annie. We have a tape from Mexico, Lilian. My name is Lilian and I am from Mexico. And I had the opportunity to attend the Lincoln Center Theater Directors' lab in 2015 and 2016. The first year that I was there, we worked on a difficult to direct place, and I remember that there were around 50 directors coming from all over the world, so they split the directors into groups, and each group worked with one single play. So as a result of this exercise, at the end of the program, we have a different version of the one single play that we were working on. And I think that is a very, very interesting exercise. And also it gave me the opportunity to see the working process of the other directors which you do not have the chance to see very often. You are the director in the room so you don't really have the chance to see other directors doing their job. So that was an amazing opportunity as a director. I never expected to meet so many people from so many different cultures and so many different ways of doing theater. And I had the chance to make a work run that I had actually visited in the home office. On 2016, we worked on new plays, and we had the playwright in the room with us making adjustments to the plays as we were working on them. That year was very different from the previous year because there were only six directors attending the lab. And at the end of the program, you had the opportunity to make a showcase of your work. After the lab, I kept in touch with some of the playwrights, some of the actors and some of the directors, and we had talked about working together. I am very soon starting to direct one of the plays that was presented in the lab. I will be also working with one of the playwrights co-writing a bilingual play. You actually keep working with the people that you meet in the lab. For me, that means in a theater director's lab can be explained in one word, generosity. I think it is a very generous idea to create a program where directors from all over the world can come and get together and share their ideas and their experience and their processes. Also, it is a very generous program because it doesn't end when the summer ends. It has continuity and it becomes a very growing community of people that is always there for you to help you. It's because of programs like this that I have the opportunity to grow as a director and also as an educator because it gave me an experience that I can share with my students. So, I am very, very proud to be a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab. Thank you very much. Okay, this is already moving. Elise. Hi, I'm Elise Singer and I was a member of the inaugural 1995 lab and the 1996 lab. I'm also a third-year Ph.D. student in theater and performance here at the CUNY Graduate Center. I have both hats on right now. I want to talk a little bit about some of the things so people who are in more recent labs might not know about where the lab started. The very first year of the lab, there were 100 of us and I think it was all mostly New York. We were mostly New York. Some like Los Angeles was exotic. A lot of us knew each other because I think that the first group I think here, like Tiny Mythic, had sent out a mailer. Everything was done by mail and fax and there was no email. I actually was one of the people who helped launch the listserv after the first year. But I wanted to share a project that we did that happened between the... Because the first year, we only thought it was a one-shot deal. We thought it was going to be this one-time event and that was going to be it. And the first year, some of the most extraordinary artists from all over the world came to talk to us and it was actually almost like the setup we have here where you guys are all listening and we'd have somebody who was talking what ended up happening after several days of that. Sometimes we would get up and maybe we'd do biomechanics or we would do something but mostly we were sitting and listening. And after about a week or so, people started to move into this little second room next door and there started to be a little bit of rumbling. There was a little grumbling and rumbling of saying, we want to work. We want to do stuff. We want to do things together. We don't want to just sit and listen. And that energy percolated and actually started to form a bond between us, which was unusual because I think at that time, directors were more in competition with each other. We were all going up for the same jobs or we were all, you know, but sort of in those rumblings in the hall of we want to do something together, we want to get up off our feet, we started to form these bonds. And actually a couple months later, I met somebody named Alan Bushman who had this giant space up on 91st Street and he said, oh, I want to do some theater work. And I said, oh, well, I know about a hundred directors who might want to do something. And so we did a festival of check off plays that happened over a weekend and 30 or 40 directors participated in that. And we ended up over the course of that summer, or that spring and then into the summer, 86 directors participated in these labs that had different themes and we did women in the avant-garde and Schrinberg and check off. And this was also, this was directors producing other directors and supporting each other and doing each other's lights and doing each other's, you know, jumping in and helping. And there was like $200 for the whole 86 plays combined and it was an amazing experience and some incredible collaborations and other theater companies actually evolved out of that a lot of people, Jack Cummings, Transport Group, a lot of people, that was the first time that they ever worked in New York. So one of the gifts that the lab actually gave me was as a producer and as a producer also of large scale events and to not be afraid of that and to not be, and to be supportive of my fellow directors and realizing that we can all give to each other and that's actually one of the ways that we really learn. So thank you, Anne. Thank you. And our last video is Evan Toronto, among other places. I'm Chichos and I am a Lincoln Lab alum from 2009 and 2010. First off, let me give a huge congratulations to Anne and the Lincoln Center for over 20 years providing the most tremendous outlet in space for international directors to come together and collaborate and exchange ideas and methodologies and network and create in a way that I think is unparalleled in the world. I myself did not know, coming there almost 10 years ago, how it would rather alter the landscape of my life professionally and personally. I met people there that I still to this day call my very good friends and we have continued to collaborate and create work around the world together. I also love the lab so much that I decided to create my own version in Toronto, along with two fellow alums, Esther Chun and Elif as a cause for you that we called Directors Lab North and we are now in our eight years so without a doubt, the lab has influenced my life in ways that I never thought it would and the Lincoln Center created something so magical and special there and I think the ripple effect that has had around the world artistically and personally is something that can't be measured and I'm really happy being part of this secret society of labbies and I wish I could be there to celebrate with you but huge congratulations and thank you for your dedication and the consent to us Directors Bye. Okay and our final in house is Jay. Hi my name is Jay Stern and I'm in the lab in 2009 and 2010 and everyone's pretty much said everything that can be said I mean it's an incredible life changing experience for most of us who've done the lab but the thing that was really most transforming for me which is something that has been mentioned as well is this idea of collaboration we had two different themes in 2009 and 2010 but the focus that Anne was really thinking about was about collaboration between directors and I had pitched a really family story that I've been working on and researched for years and traveled a lot via all kinds of years spent on this project I had pitched and accepted it and then assigned a Russian director I never met with before in my life to work on it with me and develop my family history and that experience of doing that and learning to communicate with someone with a completely different background and approach to theater to work on something passionate and personal together that was just one experience we had and again really international group who were really fascinated with the idea of we all have different training different techniques, different approaches to what theater is in our lives in our communities and that conversation that began in the lab a bunch of us wanted to keep going and actually a group called the World Wide Lab sort of spun out of that experience in 2009 and 2010 and thanks to Anne we worked at Watermill for a week and formed a group that has presented and worked in Rome, in Greece in Brooklyn in Taipei and now in Thunder Bay, Ontario this year we're going to be working with indigenous actors to sort of tell their stories but with full collaboration this idea of really opening up the process to how directors can work together and we have an open door policy we sit in on each other's rehearsals that kind of support group was unimaginable I think for most of us until that experience in the lab in Alabama and a state park in two weeks to see in any Lebe's CCC project which began in the lab and again in our World Wide Lab that is now being taken up and done done out there so it ripples out and continues tremendously and I think American Theater which we are the future of is much better off for the lab than we would have ever been without it Thank you all for summing everything up so fast I appreciate it it's a different I wanted to thank Frank who is sitting where right there for giving us this opportunity because as I was saying in the green room we're a very private place and we've never had any publicity I mean we've had articles written about us but we don't film we take a lovely picture at the beginning of the year but we try and work in a way that allows us to do things that we fail at or do things that we can't do or try things that embarrass ourselves and I think we've been very successful with that over the years so this is the first time that anyone's ever filmed us or there's any record of us or listening to all of your comments is amazing because I do stand touch with people and I hear things but to hear this together I'm very grateful for you for giving us this opportunity briefly but I definitely I'm using this opportunity to go on the record with a few things I'm grateful to all of my directors who called in from all over the world we tried Mongolia didn't have an internet connection so that didn't work out when this lab began I want to just thank a few people who made it possible I proposed doing something with playwrights couldn't quite figure this out then we decided maybe we would do something with directors so the first person I want to thank is Andre Bishop who is the person who said I don't know who said this oh there are only 100 directors in America we'll do one lab and that'll be it 25 years later 5 spin off labs wrong but he was the one who believed in it and started it and without a penny of funding said do it so it began really with joining him was our executive producer Bernard Gersten who in his typical way was like what is this lab going with our at that point development director who I'll talk about in a second had he to raise some money for the lab now in its fourth year to a foundation that was spending down we were I wasn't even there they were looking to ask for something like $30,000 and in the back of the cab on the way over he said oh screw it let's ask him for $1,000,000 and they gave us $1,000,000 and that kept us going for 25 years so I owe him for that that was typical of Bernie and my last thank you really on the staff list goes to the development department of Lincoln Center Theater had he my colleague Neil brilliant and Leah Madry who's sitting over there in the corner with the hearings who just go to the mat for me that is all I can say I mean I had an application no idea why out of the blue three months ago from Cameroon who has heard of the lab in Cameroon how the hell am I going to get this person they're coming and I don't know how it all happened but they're coming and that is the attitude that I feel the support that I feel from all of you here so thank you for that I'm glad you're here our original brainstorming committee because this is not something that I developed myself the question of what to do how to do something with directors how it would work what form it would take was way beyond the capacity of any one individual so here are some of the people who used to come up to Lincoln Center sit in the patron room eat cookies and discuss the first lab assistant Howard Solomon a very good playwright John Conklin the designer Chris Durang, Nevella Nelson who is also in the first acting company Joanne Acolytus, Chris Durang Laurie Anderson, Reggie Montgomery Lois Smith, Graziella Danielle Garland Wright, Richard Ayer Tina Packer, Tony Kushner Tina Ramirez all of these people's ideas bled into what became that first director's lab and I also have to thank all of my wonderful lab assistants over these years who are the mainstay of the director's lab here's Kerry Kendalorow who's my current lab assistant but you all will remember Kate Marvin, Jill McLean Aimee Conant, Brian Roth Howard Solomon I mean they made it work so I cannot finish this evening without thinking them and then the literally hundreds of artists who have always eagerly without hesitation come into the lab to share their thoughts and methods with you for a small honorarium which Dan Solomon used to always describe as oh dinner for two at a two star restaurant from Bart Cher who was actually in the first lab Lev Dodin, Robert Wilson Simon McBurnie, Tony Servillo Tony Servillo was directing servant of two masters at the Rose Theater what a nightmare and a tech okay and I bring the lab up in the freight elevator with Dionne Warwick and we go into the theater and he's in a wig and he's on stage directing this Goldoni play and with a translator following and he says director director and he comes off the stage with the translator following and everyone else is waiting and he only has you know days of tech or something and he just goes into this tirade about Giorgio Strayler and you must know Giorgio Strayler and I know in a Italian you know what he's talking about he completely ran away from his translator she could not keep up with him and everyone's saying like Tony go back on stage but this is finally I had to say thank you we must leave now and go back in the freight elevator with Dionne Warwick he was typically enthusiastic Jubilee Tamar did come in after the Minneapolis tryout of Lion King and we solved the hyena problem do you remember that the lab said I don't feel the hyenas are sympathetic enough in Lion King so she redid some hyena things so I feel we contributed to to the Lion King um Peter Schumann of bread and puppets Shizhen Shen, Michael and Dachi I finally talked somebody into buying him a plane ticket and they were very glad they did after the English patient patient was released I just admitted the 2018 lab 32 countries 12 states two of my directors aren't funded yet India and Lebanon one stateless Kuwaiti without a passport anybody know anybody in the US embassy in Kuwait city I want to know about it I have a 2015 lab director I sent into exile because he directed Tamber Lane by Christopher Marlow a play the secret service of his country thought he had written and insulted their national icon he is in a refugee camp in Germany right now and I am trying to get him a job and I once had a lab and I will and I once had a lab director out of jail in Bulawayo Zimbabwe because he wrote an epic poem about Zimbabwe which did not mention the ancestors of Mukabi so I went through the ambassador of Cameroon whose aide gave me the cell phone of the aide of the ambassador in Zimbabwe her name and I will never forget it I've never met her in person was Sharon Dean and she got in her car and drove up to Bulawayo from Harare and the next thing I know is Jill McLean saying my god sticks is out he popped up on Facebook I got him out of jail so I don't have too much to say I try and put all the material you have given me in you directors into some kind of very intense format and then I try and get out of the way and you could see the extraordinary lengths you have all extended it to we're all connected on one great listserv if anyone isn't on it email labassistantanlct.org and we'll put you on it you can also get it in digest form but that's where we put everything from activities to questions to housing I have just asking Carrie today I've got directors right now coming in this summer this August from Mexico the Philippines, Peru Seattle and Chicago who need to pace to sleep in August anybody can help out email labassistant and to end this in Chicago to see the production of 2066 by Roberto Bologna that Bob Falls did and I sat at the table at the opening night with the council general from Chile and I was telling him about the directors and he said I'm going to send Chilean directors so many directors not coming from South America and Central America he has sent me nine Chilean directors like I can't have nine Chileans in the lab with the most I mean every day there were applications from Chile coming in I mean this guy Roberto was amazing and then I got a call about two weeks ago from a guy saying so Roberto said just call Ann and my dream is to write a musical on Broadway and he said you could help me and I said well I don't know anything about musicals so he came up he's written a musical here it is I said don't bring it I can't do anything with it and he said yes you'll do something with it so if anybody is interested in having this promotional copy of One Silent Shout Seeds from War and Love a rock opera by Jaime Rosas please come and take it well thank you very much someone once said you're a really great journalist someone into jail and someone out of jail so you did both so you must also be a very very good director of directors maybe before we go and right away into a tunnel just say again what did you feel was missing why did you really do it and perhaps a little bit about the mechanics how many days and how the weeks are broken down well I don't want to say too much because I think you've seen examples of it it's different every year it's five weeks no sometimes it's three weeks sometimes it's five weeks sometimes it's production sometimes it isn't it just sort of depends on what's going on I think it really depends on what the directors submit and what the room availability is at Lincoln Center so there's no model it's created Frank and I were having a talk today about why I don't want to talk so much because it really isn't about me we also could have if you had a revolve on this stage like we have at Lincoln Center we could have revolved and you guys could have been on the panel I'm not saying a random thing I wanted you to be on the panel but everyone is special and everyone brings something in which then becomes what we do so it isn't like it is a sudoku puzzle I'm putting it together but it's different every year and the people in it are different every year so also the themes come out of application you look at it and get inspired from what arrives in here and I get inspired by the listserv which is why I'm pushing the listserv because what people are talking about what seems to be interesting to them you know that's what's on people's minds in the profession so we try and tap into that if we can that's a very valuable source so maybe we use that method and tap into what you were thinking and also to reinforce and did say we could have invited so many more all of you who are here but I said our time is limited we can't do too much and so I apologize for that but still many of you are here in the room maybe you have questions or comments so let us know we have Selma here and Yuchanda will bring a mic not only to hear you better but also as you're recording it share your experience maybe a little bit more light on the audience and it's declared Lincoln Center Theater Director's Lab Town Hall yes I know we just mentioned the listserv but I really you know I know we've all had bad experiences with listservs and I do recommend the digest version but it's been over 18 years since I had anything to do with the director's lab if it weren't for the listserv I don't know if I would know that the lab was still in existence and through the listserv I had a piece picked for a festival at Black Mountain College in Asheville and I was able to know that Monica Gross was living in Asheville and she served as like my local coordinator I could send packages of props and costumes to her she helped me find talent to perform my piece she gave me a place to stay for a few nights and she even videotaped the project and so all of that you know sort of became a little collaboration that could have never happened without the listserv come on maybe about sorry I was going to keep quiet but I'm Cappy I was part of the 2000 and 2001 lab and I was one of the founders of Directors Lab West with Ernie and we started the lab the first year that I came to Lincoln Center's Lab and I remember getting back to what so many people felt was the wasteland of LA and it took me two months to sort of tell people who I was now because there was such a cracking open that I couldn't quite describe or grasp what it meant at the time but it had so many ramifications over the years the listserv has saved my life multiple times I finally did move to New York to go to grad school and was five days out from getting here and being homeless and living in a cardboard box in Central Park when a lab alum offered up her apartment so I had a place to stay but it's been the community and the fearlessness of bouncing ideas off of each other that has been so important and that I keep returning to I kept producing the lab for 15 years before leaving LA and I can't thank Ann enough for just changing my world that's one thing I would say is the LA lab is the first to spin off because I think the LA needed the lab the most back and I dared you to do it I mean theater really was a sort of second tier art form in Los Angeles and boy was it successful took a while to find the right venue for it and Pasadena is the perfect place for it to be everybody who ran theaters all over the west coast was very supportive they would come to Pasadena to speak and participate and now there's this major theater movement in Los Angeles and the lab is really focusing on young theater companies everybody's coming up to Pasadena it's been an ideal place Chicago spun off after that director's lab north we have a director's lab in Melbourne we tried to start a director's lab in Russia which got off to a very promising start only they only got the money 48 hours before it began so nobody could actually go I've learned a few things about Russia over the years and now we have this amazing new lab in the Mediterranean which I think is going to be quite interesting to try and define the Mediterranean artistically and not politically our first job you can all join in is to think of plays set in the Mediterranean Mamma Mia, Pierre Gint the various Greek plays but that would be something I would have never anticipated but came organically out of people meeting each other etc so again these are not my ideas these are just ideas that came from a bunch of LA directors saying oh now we have to go home it's like start something there Frank I think we're probably in good shape here I don't know is there any more comments a number of people in the audience who are not labbies I'm happy to say I participated in the lab in 2017 which was a really inspiring and contentious lab because we were talking about political theater and the obligation of the artists to engage with the world and current events in an immediate way and something fascinating about that lab was to see you talk about the listserv and what people are interested in discussing and a lot of artists in America were interested in discussing the current political climate and race in America but it was fascinating to see European directors really interested in questions of immigration and questions of national identity a lot of artists from Asia thinking about questions of authoritarianism and freedom of expression, questions from Africa and from the Middle East kind of authoritarian governments and public health and it was amazing to kind of get out of especially coming from a New York background the real providionalism of American theater and thinking about what are the international questions that we as directors should be asking and how can we transcend borders and that was quite eye-opening to see what questions are the same what questions are different and how can we help each other answer those questions because of our perspectives as insider-outsiders so that was quite grateful for that perspective So has there been, from Lincoln attempt to say there's a Lincoln Center director's lab theater group that works in New York is there there are I don't make a point of keeping track of everything I mean I simply can't anymore but there are so many groups of people who either have become friends or have started working together some multi national, different nationalities some within the city I mean I once had seven African-American women directors all from the Midwest why don't you start a theater together these kinds of things just happen as a result of the numbers involved and the thing that I try and do is just to encourage them to act to do something but I have no way of taking account of it this has actually been pretty great to listen to this because some of it I knew but not all of it and I think if we multiply this times the probably 1800 directors who've been part of the lab over the course of the last 25 years it's pretty remarkable I mean we do have multi-national industries we have film production which is multi-national we have music which is a collaboration between people from many countries really only in the theater that we're provincial that we work within our own country so it seemed an obvious and easy way to begin to figure that out and that was definitely figured out by the lab members themselves and then maybe the last question to you or to all of you I mean we are now over a year into the drum administration or regime do you feel there's something changing do you feel this in the air different activities different themes I think theater does change radically over time and I try and just and that's again why the listserv is useful and my connections to people I just try and stay tuned to what seems to be interesting to people and as you can hear from these different discussions I mean different testimonies it really has changed over the years and you know I don't make that I'm not in a position to have a knowledge to make predictions but I think I've seen so many changes in the past I mean we survived 9-11 we did this amazing lab on style the year before the summer before 9-11 which was an incredibly interesting style of theater I had gone to see Richard Maxwell play and I realized oh this is a style of theater a style of acting, a style of directing a style of production and looking back over other styles historically why Stanislavski didn't like Salvini for example different styles clashing I created a whole lab around that question using some base texts about style mostly by Michel Sandini but then I used Thornton Wilder as a sort of central figure courtesy of this wonderful Wilder estate that was really behind what a smart idea for the Wilder estate to say let's make Thornton Wilder the focus of 75 good young directors that'll get a lot of productions going in the future and Wilder of course you know when the matchmaker moves into musical theater all the Asian techniques in the short plays I mean our town skin of our teeth is based on Finnegan's Wake I mean there's the Alsestia it is a Greek trilogy I mean he really is trying on styles like crazy and that was the year that you were working with Dillolo I asked people to submit plays that were stylized stylized in certain ways and we did workshops of those plays and then after that lab closed 9-11 happened and that whole thing just seemed ridiculous I mean everyone who was I remember somebody was teaching at NYU and they said all the painters are going into medicine and all of the you know all of the lawyers are becoming actors I mean everyone's realizing this is life is short we have to do what we love and so the following year doing something like a style lab just seemed insane so I admitted a lab I simply took a rule or divided into hadn't met anyone yet had the people on the left side of the ruler suggest a play they wanted to direct under an hour and the people on the other side of the ruler produced the plays on the other side of the ruler so you produced Jay's play and you know you produced Hal's play etc. am I thinking only being that many of the directors will become artistic directors who need to understand and support other people's work and we rented here and we put on 28 plays because it was just like let's hire some actors and get back to work and stop thinking let's just do so you have that ability to to go with the times depending on larger forces beyond your control thank you Frank for having us and thank you for this celebration well thank you all for coming and taking the time and thank you all for listening and to our views and our really tremendous respect for all of you for participating and continuing as a work as a style of life or to be engaged in theater but also you know for Ann and for Lincoln Center theater also to continue this tremendously successful I think but also important in influential project and we really wish there would be so many many many more like this so it's a fantastic enterprise and I hope we all will live up to a standard you set with that and so good luck with everything that lies in front of all of you and in continuation for the new lab and thank you all for coming thank you we're going to have a little reception here in the room and then whoever wants to there's an archive part an archive part an archive part an archive part an archive part