 Started in just a minute. All right, I hope everybody had a great lunch. Those seem like really rich conversations that were happening. If you took notes, if you took handwritten notes, Olivia is gonna come around to collect them. So just raise your hand if you have them and they're ready to be taken. We'll do that for you. But, and if you typed your notes, again, email them to info at tyausa.org. So now we're gonna be looking ahead to the future. We spent the morning thinking about where we are as a field right now. And now we're gonna think big and expansive and forward-thinking to the future. So to get us started before we go to presentations, I'm gonna ask you to turn to somebody next to you. And based on the conversations you had at lunch, what are you excited about in terms of the future of TYA? How are you entering this next section of the conversation? And take another minute to wrap up your conversation. Okay, great, thank you. I'm gonna call you back to the full group. Call everybody back. No. Okay. So that's the headspace. That's the headspace we're gonna be in for the rest of this section of the afternoon, thinking about the future of our field and getting excited about where we're headed and how we can collaborate and partner in a deeper way. So as we were preparing for this day, which is entitled Envisioning the Future of Theater for Young Audiences, I did some looking back as a way to prep for where we were headed for this event. And I looked at the first issue of TYA Today Magazine, which, so TYA USA produces a magazine called TYA Today, which if you don't have a copy, we have a stack of them by the table, so you can take one home. We're about to launch an online platform of the magazine to make it more accessible to our national and international community. The first issue is published in 1985. And actually, Greg, I don't think I've mentioned this to you yet, that there's an article written in that issue by Anne, the late Anne Shaw, who was instrumental in professionalizing our industry in TYA USA, and she wrote of an event, the first event that TYA USA put on, which was at the World's Fair in Louisiana in 1984, that the NEA was beginning to take interest in professional theater for young audiences. And it's exciting to see how far we've come since that was written. The other interesting thing that I found in that article was that in reflecting on that first big event that our field held at the World's Fair, there was a presentation of leaders of the field reflecting on where the field was headed. Presentations about thinking ahead and thinking expansively about where we're going, presenting to their colleagues and inspiring them. And so that's what really drove the inspiration for this afternoon section. We asked six leaders in TYA to prepare presentations, to provoke conversation and thought about where we're headed as a field and to think beyond their roles at their organization or as an artist, what they do in their day to day to think bigger and further out in terms of where we're headed. And so I'm so excited for them to share those visions with you today as a way to spark conversation at our tables and hopefully generate what you would present here in your five minutes so that we can share all of those ideas at the tables after these presentations. So I'm gonna introduce Idris Goodwin, the producing artistic director of Stage One Family Theater to present first. Please welcome Idris. How we doing? Good. Yeah, yeah. So before I get into this, I just wanna first say that I have only been an artistic director of a TYA organization for a year. I've been writing plays for the TYA space, I don't know, roughly for about five years. I've been writing my whole life and I've been teaching for a very long time as well. But I just wanna acknowledge, there's so many of you in here who have been doing this work in this space for so long. And so it's not lost on me that I am standing on a foundation. And so I just wanna acknowledge all of you who built that foundation for me to stand on and give you my big, crazy ideas. So as I mentioned, I'm killing it already, right? So over the, so over this past year, I wrote a lot of plays and I'd say about half of them were for TYA theaters and the other half were for not TYA theaters, whatever. And so but in preparing this, I got a little stifled as I always do with what my PowerPoint should look like. But as I tend to often do, I always just look to hip hop because that was my first entree into the world of language and performance and dance. For me, that is the first form of theater that I participated in. Though my mother loves to tell people that I was actually the frankincense Wiseman in the New Calvary Baptist Church Jesus play. So I wanna start with, there's an image that I did not have enough time to include in this PowerPoint, but it's by the great photographer, Martha Cooper, who took, who has this great series of photographs in the Bronx in the early days of hip hop. And a lot of them are kids. A lot of them are young people in the Bronx of the late 60s, early 70s. And there's this photo that I'm obsessed with, which is in the background, you see a burning building, which was fairly common in that area at that time post-industrialization, urban decay, a lot of buildings on fire. So the building is burning in the background and then just below that, you see the backs of some older kids and adults looking at this burning building. And then directly in the foreground, you see a bunch of little kids playing basketball while this building burns up beside them. And so it makes me think about perspective and it makes me think about the same things are occurring, we're just reacting to it differently. And I wanted to know, I wanted to think about what it was they saw, how long did they look at the building? Did they even care? What was basketball an outlet or a way for them to process the enormousness of that act? Or were they so numb to the effects of urban decay at this point? So all of these kind of questions are what also drives me in this work because children see all but process it differently and I wanna know what is it that they're seeing? What is your reaction, your response to the thing that you saw? I love it. My favorite moment is when the lights go out and all the kids scream. It's a reminder of like how present they are and how open and ready they are to go on that journey. I liken that scream to when you're just over the edge on the roller coaster and you're about to go down. Whenever my stage manager tells me that our house of 400 to 500 kids were loud and raucous, I consider that a good day at the office. They don't hide salad in the dark, they are present, they are so present and they are quite literally the future. All right, let's see if I can do this, John. Boom. So I commissioned a good buddy of mine Carlos Contreras, who's an organizer in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He's also an amazing graffiti artist and he created these hand styles for me because I couldn't think of anything else to put in there. But I was like, yeah, well, I might as well make like some fly hand styles. But I'm gonna make them in the t-shirts too, so. So in our field, we often operate from a deficit mentality from a place of cant or limits. And so I wonder what would happen if we took stock in all of the resources and wealth that we have in front of us. If we considered for a minute, if we define wealth, not necessarily by money, but we looked at our own communities, our own backyards, all the different folks that exist in our spheres as our wealth. I contend that the future of TYA is directly in front of us, we deal with them every day. They're in our theater every day. And all of the future is basically just the results of the choices we make right now. So it's very much about right now. My sort of driving theme through all this is we're gonna determine this like today, like when we leave, we're all gonna all individually know what the future is gonna be for our own organizations, but for all of us as a collective. So I have three sort of main points, three sort of main thoughts, three little main darts to move through. First is filling the chasm, one theater for all ages. I realize it comes with the territory as a playwright who works in both spaces, but I'll tell you, I'm not terribly interested in conversations about how we're, you know, about the dichotomy so much. What I really wanna talk about is like what are the things that we have in common? What do we share with our bigger siblings? But more so like what are the common values that we have and the common challenges? And what can we do together to push and keep theater in the conversation as a whole? We don't necessarily have the luxury, nor does anyone outside our town of 500 really care too much. They just wanna know, can I bring my kid or can I not bring my kid? So what happens when we obliterate the chasm and become a better connected, more inclusive United Theater of America devoted to creating balanced seasons and conversation for everyone, one to 100, driven by the same core principles and mid, short and long-term objectives? How do we collectively rise as folks committed to the development of young people? There's great potential and intentional unity. If you know me, you know I filter everything through hip-hop metaphors. And one of the things I love about hip-hop is that no participant or artist of hip-hop will ever be bigger than the genre itself. The ones who attempt it usually fall off and become punchlines. Hip-hop will always be hip-hop's biggest artist. That's because it's scaffolded by established elements and principles. And no matter if you're a rapper from Miami or a dancer in LA or a teacher who uses rap in the classroom in Queens, they will all be able in some way, shape or form to tell you what hip-hop's primary elements and principles are. So here's my question, what are ours? What are we all about? What are our elements? And this kind of collective definition in unity is bound to have a significant impact. Innovation over preservation. What happens when we de-emphasize the venue and think about all the modes of presentation that can occur across the ever-growing landscape of engagement? What if our theaters all had glass walls and open doors? Were spaces where folks just hung out, made things and contributed to the culture of imagination and growth? I did plays in my church. My church had a theater. The Y has a theater. Schools have theaters. They're like theaters in all these buildings who are not necessarily theaters. There's a reason that they have those in there because there's just always the expectation that of course we do this. Of course we engage in this ritual. This is a ritual that makes us humans. So then, if theaters are everywhere, why aren't we in all of them? And what happens when we consider ourselves the intended residents of all of those spaces that exist in our own communities? How can our digital platforms not just tell people where to park and how much tickets cost but also extend or deepen the experience had after the show? And what about making space for other forms of performance and push on the definition of what a play is or what theater is? What about more community partnerships and buy-ins, investments, allowing people to see themselves on stage quite literally? Finance, how do we generate our own capital, keep our money within the family? For example, could TYA, USA commission and develop a work that it licenses to member theaters at a lower cost? What if it was inferred? What if works of the stage then become books? Susan's either like that one, Susan's either love that one. She's like, you better talk, you better preach. Anyway, yeah, I'm just saying, it's possible, right? How do we sustain ourselves? What can we do that our big siblings can? And how do we take full advantage of the demographics we have that we've been chosen to serve? We can't, what is that, we can write, oh yeah, here's what I'm trying to say. There's a great, bring it back to hip hop again. There's a great song by the Roots, any fans of Roots in the house, anybody? Okay, good. There's a great song that they have called where the chorus goes, never do what they do. We don't have to do what they do. For example, at my table, we were discussing criticism and the critics in the traditional model don't necessarily review our work, but I think about, well, there has to be some potential in all of these kids that come to see our show who are going to class, back to classrooms, back to English classes who are learning how to write essays. What does that look like? The best, not one of the, the best theater critic in Chicago, there's an amazing renaissance happening in theater criticism in Chicago. Last night I was having drinks with Deep Tran and for who writes for America Theater Magazine and Regina Victor who writes for Rescripted in Chicago. And we had a great conversation just about criticism and it was cool. I've never just hung out with critics before, ever, ever. We see each other and we just be like, respectfully though, it's a respectful hiss. But my favorite critic is a young lady named Ada Gray. Just Google Ada, yeah, yeah, you know what I'm talking about, Jackie. Ada Gray is the best. Ada Gray has been reviewing plays since she was like nine years old, four years old, four years old, obviously mom was helping then, but she's not what, like 14, something like that. Here she's acting now too, but writes the best reviews and I consider it a badge of honor that when she reviewed one of my plays. So, but how do we begin to cultivate these things ourselves, right? How do we build the system that we wanna exist in if the current system seems to marginalize us? How do we then put ourselves in the center of the circle, in the center of the conversation? A challenge, I want us to replace this word risk with opportunity. Finally, where is our Hamilton? Fostering love for the arts and genders love for humanity. A true American theater invests its full powers in expanding the definition of what an American story is. Unfortunately, hate is on the rise and because hate is on the rise, we've got to counteract it with the children. Hate is fed to the young and our survival as a species is predicated on us in better cooperation and understanding of one another. What is a 21st century theater that is squarely interested in creating work that normalizes, celebrates, and promotes cultural specificity and models civil discourse around complex issues look like? My crystal ball shows me a theater that stretches the definition of American story. It means that black, brown, indigenous, immigrant, resident, rural, intersectional, interfaith are all American stories. Stories of difference are American stories. Like the DJ of hip-hop blending genres on the turntable, creating new, fantastic, and sustainable hybrids. Before I got here, I had to get a root canal. Aside, I'm cool, y'all, good. You all have healed me, not okay. And without going into too much detail, basically the premise of the root canal is that we've gotta deal with the roots for the health of the body. We as an industry, we have to, before we can think externally about what we're not getting, we've gotta do the work internally so that when we are stewarded new opportunities and new resources, we take care of them the right way. So it's about us laying a foundation for some other 40-year-old chump to stand up here and talk about down the road. The future of TYA is fully committed. The future of TYA has to be fully committed to returning to the past, to the community around the fire being regaled with word and mask, shadow and song, one that is inviting and open and relevant to all people. Relevant to all people. Thanks, y'all. Thank you. I'm gonna invite Min Kang, a composer and playwright. I recently joined the board of TYA USA just last month and I have also had the privilege of serving on two task forces so far, the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Task Force as well as the Independent Artist, Individual Artist Task Force. So those are a couple of the perspectives that I'll be bringing to this conversation. I imagine a future for TYA as we all do where every kid who comes to the theater gets to see themselves reflected back to them on stage. And I'm also interested in how this affects us as artists, as theater makers, that it is about the children but it's also about taking care of our artists. This happens through casting, who and how we cast. This is Sheila Townsend, cast in the role of Heskia, the goddess of hearth and home, the voice of moral reason and a moral compass for my most recent TYA show, Gold, the Midas Musical. And here's what Sheila had to say about being in this show. Yay for representation. A large woman in a role that doesn't have a single fat joke or justification in the script for my size? What is this magic? This, when she emailed this to me, it really became clear to me the impact that she would be having on the young audiences and quite honestly the parents who were in the crowd who might, as Sheila self identifies, see themselves as a big girl or a big boy. And this happens anytime we decide to cast people who have traditionally been marginalized, oppressed, or bullied onto our stages and when we cast them wisely, bringing them to the center of the story and being aware of the power dynamics that are at play in our shows. Another way this happens is by commissioning and hiring playwrights, directors, divisors, all the amazing creative types who actually reflect the diversity of backgrounds that we like to proclaim in our visions and our mission statements. I am fortunate enough to be one of the few Asian-American playwrights working in the TYA field. I have had several of my shows produced, one of which was Inside Out and Back Again, which I jokingly refer to as Viet Cong Jr. And it follows the story of 10-year-old Ha and her family as they decide they have to flee Vietnam at the height of the Vietnam conflict and resettle in Alabama. Here's what one parent had to say about their experience. My daughter and I had a lot to talk about over lunch and I'll be thinking of this performance in the days and weeks to come. As an Asian-American playwright who often questioned my place in theater in general as well as in TYA, it is so impactful on me to hear this kind of feedback. I don't know if this parent was seeing something of their own history or story reflected back to them or if they were seeing a glimpse into another culture or another perspective, but to know that I helped and that these actors on stage who felt the responsibility of this play helped elicit this kind of conversation between parent and child around topics as complicated as the Vietnam conflict and the emotions that surround that, that is so meaningful to me. Another way that we can be influencing the children around us and with an EDI perspective is through our educational programs. I believe, I know everybody has an educational program, almost everybody, I believe that TYA specifically positioned well to have an educational program because there can be an ease of crossover from their main stage programs to their educational programs. And I believe firmly in the diversity of teaching artists' ability to reach students who look like them and are from cultures that they are from. I was lucky enough to be a guest artist at a TYA company recently and sit in on their young playwrights' group. And in this group of teens, one self-identified as non-binary and one self-identified as trans. And that was so touching to me to see, I don't know what their home, church, or school lives are like, but they had this TYA company investing in them, allowing them, giving them a safe space to express who they are and explore who they are through their writing. And when we think about TVY, a theater for the very young, and when we think about theater for children with autism and other special needs, I believe TYA is at the forefront of creating specifically individualized programming for these groups. And I wanna see more of that in the future. But as an artist, I do see a fundamental hurdle and it's been talked about this discrepancy between so-called mainstream adult audience focus theater and TYA. For an artist, it might feel like a hierarchy and it might look like this. It might present itself this way. It's oversimplified, I realized that. Bear with me on that. TYA right now for a lot of artists is just a starting place. Is just a stepping stool to get further, quote unquote, further. It is not seen as a valid marker of success in the general public and honestly among our theater colleagues. We have to keep justifying and explaining why we do what we do and why it's important. And this happens honestly because of where the funding is going. And that funding reinforces this hierarchy and that hierarchy reinforces where the funding is going. I put higher education on there because there are a lot of artists who also when they're starting out see that that is a valid destination path as well and I'm sure this diagram could be all sorts of mixed up. I would love to see us move towards the theater ecosystem that we always talk about in these conferences. But I do think that from an artist's perspective money is a big solution to this. And full disclosure for myself, I belong to that distinctly Bay Area demographic of an artist who has a spouse who works in the tech industry. So I am in a place of privilege and I recognize that and I hold that weight and that responsibility. I take that very seriously. Quite honestly that is why I joined the board. That is why I said yes to speaking today because I feel the responsibility to be as vocal and as visible as possible for my fellow artists out there. Specifically fellow queer and POC artists out there. And I have taken contracts that honestly pay modestly to less than modestly because the work was important. My colleagues out there and my queer and POC colleagues out there cannot afford to take those contracts. So what happens is they are absent from the TYA world. Not because they don't want to be there because they can't sustain themselves in it. That is a problem. And it affects me too even with my place of privilege because say I write a show like Inside Out and Back Again, that show can't get produced in a number of places in America just because the reality of a shortage of Asian American actors in particular regions. That is a problem. But imagine if TYA companies could provide a competitive wage, if TYA companies could fly in actors and house them and feed them and house playwrights and directors and other creatives so that we can bring these diverse stories out into the rest of the country. And imagine how amazing it would be if all of the theater companies that had a passion for a particular demographic group like young playwrights, teen playwrights or theater for the very young or theater for children with autism could actually pour money into those programs to make them sustainable. And this is not for a lack of desire from all of you. My experience at the TYA USA conference was amazing. I thank those who have been in leadership before me. I feel and I hear and I see your passion. And it's like we all gathered in Atlanta and said, let's get to work and we rolled up our sleeves but we just don't have all the tools or the tools that we have, we're using and they're breaking and they're worn out. We need the funding. If the funding is there, a more robustly diverse artist, a group of artists will be drawn to TYA as a final destination point for their careers, which will then create the work that children can see themselves reflected in as well as provide the teaching artists who can help young people feel empowered by the ways that they are unique. Thank you. Thank you, man. I'm gonna introduce Mary Rose Lloyd, the Senior Director of Artistic Programming from the New Victory and New 42nd Street. I'm short, so I'm gonna do a little of that. And I gotta follow you two great guys. Oh my God, how am I gonna do this? I wanna live in that world too. And I think a lot of what I'm gonna say is predicated on the dream that there will be the funding to do the things. But I wanted to just acknowledge who's in the room. We are artists, we are artistic directors, we're managing and executive directors, marketing and development and education directors, students, I believe, funders, journalists. So we're all sort of on the same team. And I therefore may or may not be preaching to the converted. But I hope that when I'm done, we'll all be worshiping in the same church. And it looks like it, so that's good. My name is Mary Rose Lloyd and I'm the Senior Director of Artistic Programming at the New Victory Theater. My great good colleague Lindsey spoke earlier today and told you a little bit about the New Victory. So I'm not gonna talk too much about who we are and what we do, but if you want to know more, come and see me and Lindsey and my contact information will be up at the end of the slides. And I'm happy to do it, favorite subject. But as Jonathan mentioned, we've all been asked to speak beyond our organizations and sort of where we think theater for young audiences is headed. I come at this as an experienced presenter of work for young people. But I do have roots in the Lord world from Playwrights Horizons to the Roundabout to Yale Rep. So I think I still know all y'all. Pretty sure I can speak the same language. But before I do go into the three points off a very long list of what I'm thinking about these days, I did want to address our commonality. And at first I thought I'm gonna say this and it's gonna sound so Pollyanna, but now that the speakers before me are saying some of the same things, I feel more comfortable in saying that we all care very deeply about the world that we live in. And we all presume to do good work on our stages. So I don't think it's that provocative to equate the world of theater for young audiences with a better, more peaceful world. As a matter of fact, I think that it's imperative as some of our research had shown earlier that that that is the case. Curatorial eye for TYA is no different than what I would expect from a bold, beautiful, beguiling, adult art theater experience. And I'm not talking about porn, I'm talking about adult art theater experience. That should be good. You know, when you work in theater for young audiences, you know, when you start to say adult theater, it goes there, especially if you're on 42nd Street like I am. But I'm here to advocate for all us theater makers to worship in the same church. So much of what I say, I believe, will be useful for both TYA and non-TYA practitioners. So let me see if I can do this too. Boo, as well. So yeah, again, there's a long list of things that we're all thinking about, but I just pulled three. You know the new victory. You saw this exact slide earlier. And something that the two speakers before me spoke about as well, building equal representation. For me, in examining our duty, privilege, to examine the inclusivity throughout your organization speaks to who's around the table, who's making the work, who's performing the work, what source material is it, and who are the audiences that we're reaching. These are all things that have been said earlier today, so I don't need to belabor it, but I do think that it's something that we are all in the position to do and not just talk about, making invitation to allow everyone to be around the table takes effort. It's not just something nice to say. And so we are thinking about ways of doing that in our own organization, but in general, I think if we don't do that, we're doing such a great disservice to the young people that were meant to be serving. Making advocacy a priority. I'll tell you that the original slide had Obama and a little girl in it, but I was told I couldn't use it because NEA wouldn't get you guys in trouble. I was wishful thinking. But by advocacy, I'm talking about, again, more responsibilities from you as leaders. So, you know, in other countries, and I know one of my other colleagues is going to talk about this, there's actual legislature around the right of a child to have access to quality theater experiences. It's like, you know, law. In order to make some of these changes in our society and in our communities, we are going to have to be the ones that advocate for this change. I don't want to beat funding into the ground. Everybody's talked about it, so you all know what I'm talking about, but you know, I quickly to say that there are, organizations that just won't even look to fund us at all because the work that we're doing is for young people and that that must be inferior in some way, which is so perplexing to me, and it goes back to the way that we look at children as individuals, intelligent individuals who have the right to quality arts experiences and to having the funding for us to be able to do them. In addition is elevating the conversation around the work so that the teachers who are working hard every day can have the language to go to their principals and help them understand what it is they're bringing their kids to see so that they can come because as many people have said, the kids don't have the agency to buy their own tickets. That also includes the parents. It also includes our colleagues who maybe who don't work in theater for young audiences and hoping that there will be an elevated level of conversation around the importance of this work, certainly based on a lot of what we've heard today. Yeah, you gotta double down on your purpose and the actions that I think there's so many, but to break it down into a couple, and this again has been said already, bringing the arts to the kids, they can't, all kids can't come to my theater on 42nd Street and Times Square, it's just not possible. So how else can we get to the kids where all the theaters are in the schools and in the community centers, but beyond bringing theater to the kids is having their voice in it. So when we're creating new work for young people, we are very purposefully asking kids to come to rehearsals and to give our artists feedback to weigh in on what's relevant to them, because even if you're making a classic adaptation, doesn't matter, as long as you're making it smartly and freshly and new and relevant to kids, then when they do see it, hopefully before they're 10, they will wanna come back. If they're going to shows that do not have them represented on stage and are not interesting or important to them, why would they wanna come back? So that's another topic around what we're showing kids in quality theater that is for a different talk, but that's what I'm talking about. And the other thing we talked about at my table was the call out to all big kid theater companies to be our advocates and to think about when or if they're putting TYA on their stages to give it as much weight and relevance as the other work in their season. I know a lot of theater companies who will present theater for young audiences in front of a set that's already happening, and so they have this much space and they get 45 minutes. And that's just not good enough. And wouldn't it be great in addition to Christmas Carol and whatever else needs to happen at Christmas time that part of their seasons include a piece that is for young audiences and their families, that would help us elevate the importance of the work that's happening, would elevate the artists as well, not to mention the funders and the critics so that we're all talking the same language we need you to help lift us up. I wanna say that I'm over time, but I wanna thank everybody for their enthusiasm today. I've had some great conversations and I'm really inspired by what I'm hearing today and I hope that we'll connect later on and talk a little bit more about this and I'd love to tell you more about the new victory and that happens, thank you. Okay, so I think what we're gonna do we're about halfway through. I mean, that's a lot to process and I know especially I'm sensitive to the people who've been at TCJ all week. This is just, you're on overload. So what I'm gonna ask you to do is everybody stand up, take a little stretch, find somebody you maybe have not talked to yet today and share one thing you're thinking about from those three presentations. One surprise, one wonder, one interesting idea that popped up for you and then we'll come back for the other three, yeah? Take another minute in these conversations. All right, I'm gonna keep us moving. I'm gonna ask you to find your way back to your seats. You will get to do this again. Thank you all, so a lot of bright eyes and lots of ideas and engagement. We're gonna keep this moving and we're gonna go to our second part of these presentations and I'm delighted to ask up Johamy Morales for the director of education from Seattle Children's Leader to present next. Hi, I'm making sure I don't hit the laptop here. First of all, thank you, TYA, USA and Jonathan and also the NEA for hosting this wonderful event for us to gather. I think for me, I was very, I'm very honored to be up here and have a little bit of this moment to have your ears and attention. And when Jonathan asked me to come and speak, at first I was like, oh my God, I don't know what I wanna say. Like, what do I have to say that's important and I struggled a little, I will be honest. I struggled and usually when I struggle with my art or what I have to say or what I need to write, I kinda have to go back to nature in many ways and kind of find myself a little bit there and so I feel like that's kind of where I found what I wanted to bring home to you guys today and so. So as a first generation Mexican American woman, leader and educator and artist, I am living and witnessing a climate of hate and violence against one another in this country. And I see us working with one another through distrust and fear. And I feel the true consequence that we are having on this planet due to our own selfish needs and unwillingness to come together and make a change. On top of that, I also see that we are having to prepare our children and our students for the next generation of violence and resilience of trauma in our schools and that's where they're supposed to be safe. And I hear responses to one another when we become defensive and we shift into the us versus them mentality and the consequence of that is that we don't listen to one another and the cycle continues and this is what our children are learning from us as adults. We are currently in the climax of this scary and troubling story and the Theater for Young Audiences community has a very unique and powerful position to impact the future of this story. And it starts in this room and it starts here with us. During this week's conversations through the TCG Education a pre-conference and also through the TCG National Conference, I've been thinking a lot about our youth and the possibility of the field and the world that we have right in front of us. And it makes me really think about the decisions that we're making in the room and how those decisions are actually being processed and actually implemented into our work and into our organizations. And when I speak about decisions, I mean about truly looking at how we're making decisions and how we are also making sure that we're including those voices that are not being heard in the room. And I'm really speaking towards the youth, which I think are the most vulnerable people in our society right now. And if we believe that theater is about building self-confidence and critical analysis and educating and empowering our youth, why not have them at the table with us making those decisions? Our work is for them and only for them that is the mission of all our organizations and the heart of why we do the work we do. And I've also been thinking a lot about the challenges that we face as individuals and the challenges that we have to come to and face as practitioners and not only just in our lives but also in our work environment and in our communities as well. And I think about how the individual, the workspace and our communities are all part of this larger ecosystem that we're all connected. And this is the ecosystem in our art form that our children are hearing and seeing and they're learning and they're being influenced by this work that we're doing. And so in the spirit of the heart of our missions which is our children, I invite you to reflect and ask yourself some of these questions and to take a moment that hopefully will inspire you to really start thinking about the next time you make a decision or you take a step or you move the organization in a specific direction. And so for me, I'm gonna share three specific things that I'm thinking about in terms of our ecosystem. Number one, it starts with the self ecosystem. It starts with ourselves. What are the elements that compose your ecosystem? How do you live your life? How do you create the art in a way that you live what you actually preach? How do those values permeate into your ecosystem? Everything starts with oneself and then it has a ripple effect to the outside world. And yes, we don't have the ability to control one another, but we do have the ability to control ourselves and how we show up into a space or the approach that we have with a problem or the response that we have to a challenge or a conflict that's in front of us. And so how do you provide yourself care for yourself as you would also care for another human being? How do you create a balance of work in life that works for you? I ask these questions because I strongly believe that our self ecosystem should be or at least attempt to be a reflection of what we teach every day and what we preach. Number two, the workplace ecosystem. The self ecosystem informs the workplace ecosystem. We all have the ability to impact the work culture in a positive or a negative way, big or small. And how do you create a collaborative workspace with your co-collaborators in that room? How do you create trust with one another so that you have space and room to have those difficult conversations every day? How do you nurture the workplace ecosystem that is an invigorating place to work every single day? Imagine that, an invigorating place to work at every day. Number three, the community ecosystem. By building a strong self and workplace ecosystem, you have a foundation that informs the way that you approach the ecosystem of other communities. You become more sensitive, you become more aware of those communities and their needs. You can ask and really think about how do you engage and truly listen to what is being said back from those communities that we are serving and that allows a back and forth of collaboration that is strong and builds upon that relationship. And how do we really get to know one another and each other's needs? As Peter Wolambin said once in the Hidden Life of Trees, a tree can only be as strong as the forest that surrounds it. A tree can only be as strong as the forest that surrounds it. That's something that we all know and yet we forget. So how can we ask and expect our children to care, respect and trust one another if we are not teaching by example? I envision a TYA, I envision, got excited, I can't wait, envision a TYA world where we start to attend to all of those ecosystems by building curiosity and challenging one another and with an open heart and empathy where we really start to take into consideration how do we bring more diversity, not only in what we see but also how we live and be accepting for one another and simultaneously be empowering our youth through knowledge. But we do live those things every day but we do forget those things in the midst of the weeds and how do we lift each other up from the weeds up to the clouds? I see a TYA world where we are not only holding each other accountable or us holding our students accountable but that our students are also holding us accountable for our actions or lack thereof. It is our obligation to create those nurturing environments and it is our obligation to challenge our children with difficult conversations on themes that they are having to deal with on an everyday basis. Or else how will they be ready to inhabit the world that we are leaving for them and that they have to leave tomorrow? It will take a village to germinate the world, the eye that we envision but like any movement for change it takes time and it will take a community to stand together. So I invite you all to be a part of this vision to create it with me and to help propel us into the new extraordinary possibilities of our new TYA ecosystem that includes our youth's voices loud and proud. Thank you. Thank you. And you gotta sneak preview. Ernie Nolan, Executive Artistic Director of National Children's Theater. Hey y'all. What I'm gonna do this afternoon is kind of pose a question to the group but in order to do that I wanted to follow my own personal process and sort of a personal journey into asking that question with you and in order to do that I need your help. So if you see by this slide right here if everyone would be kind enough to take out their cell phone and to the number 22333 text the phrase Ernie Nolan 353. I promise your numbers are not being sold to anybody. This is not a text to give Kempe that I've just made money for National Children's Theater but by doing that all of you will be able to be in direct conversation with me and at various points answer questions and we see the answers and the results to those questions. So again the number is 22333 and it is Ernie Nolan 353 and you should get a little like hey you're in. She got it, Lindsay got it. Awesome, Jonathan got it. Great, so let's test this out, shall we? Now what comes to mind when you hear the phrase cultural heritage? If you would text your response we'll be able to start to see it up here. The bubbles, pride, specificity, respect, background. Respect, background. They're coming boredom, whoa. Roots, important story, my story. History, ancestors, legacy. Blank, arts, food, clothing, all of us. America, bad public television. Legacy, white people, discreet. Okay cool, let's test it again one more time and we'll come back to all of these. What do you believe children have a right to? Love, joy, healthcare, art, our DNA. Lovely confusion, hope. Acceptance, power, healthcare, smile, safety, love. Great, safety, access. Schools without guns, great, everything. Clean air, education, body of the art, a childhood. Nourishment, awesome. So we're gonna come back to some of these phrases and hopefully reference them at the end. Oh, creative outlets, we're keeping going. Respect, hi art, great. Well, as I said, well, Jonathan said, I'm Ernie Nolan and I'm the executive artistic director of Nashville Children's Theater. Now I just became artistic director two years ago and it was getting a dream job for me but not without its pressures, like all jobs. First of all, I followed and succeeded. Very beloved artistic director, Scott Copeland, who really was the heart of Nashville Children's Theater and he passed away unexpectedly and then I showed up. And before showing up, another pressure that I just realized at this time and in place is I'm a white, gay, male, northerner entering the South and Nashville. How did I know my audience? How could I assume who and what I was speaking to that I could go in from a place and say, hey, I know you? But what I did know was that, and Steve started in on this earlier, thanks for the connection, Steve, that Nashville Children's Theater is one of the Junior League theaters that in the 1920s and 30s, the Junior League of America set out to begin these theaters across the country. As early as 1912 in Boston, and can you tell this at the side, the inner academic is now coming out of me, but in 1912, the first performance was recorded of the Junior League in Boston performing Aladdin and then New York and Chicago followed after that. And then in 1924, the Junior League main theater, its main cause, and voted. And at the time, there's this really great quote from Alice Gerstenberger playwright who said, from its inception for the Theater for Children was intended to rank credibly with those many little art theaters which have become a significant and vital part of the dramatic life of all countries today. Those executive few chosen as leaders must inform themselves as to what has been going on in the world in the history of drama for the last quarter of a century and link their theater credibility to the best of the day. The Junior League Children's Theater must stand for more than charity. For more than fun of play and self-expression, it has a spiritual obligation towards the grown-up audience of the future. So if we think about it, Children's Theater way back was really a part of this movement that was both social justice and social work, quite frankly. And so when I arrived in Nashville, I have here part of what is the mission or was the mission of Nashville Children's Theater that was recorded in 1931 on this very serious plaque that we have. And I just wanted to show the first couple of lines and it says the aims of the Children's Theater. It is the belief of the Children's Theater that a cultural heritage is the right of all children and that is the obligation of the community. And so it began to make, I started to ask again more questions. So whose cultural heritage? What cultural heritage? And who or what is the community? Years ago when I read Donna Walker-Coon's invitation to the party, I love how she starts the book because she begins to talk about when George C. Wolfe took over the public and he turned to his staff and pointed to a subway stop and said, that's what I want our audience to be. I want our audience to be this New York subway stop. So I went in search of what that would be in Nashville because I started to turn to the staff and I would be like, what's our subway stop? And no one could really answer that. So I went down a research spiral to discover my new hometown and so get those cell phones ready because I'm about to take you on my Nashville journey. Great, so how many people are said to be moving to Nashville and Middle Tennessee daily? Do you think it's A, 50, B, 75, C, 80 or D 100? Great, oh, the votes are still coming to the end. There's a lot of them. Hanging chats, hanging chats. Here we go, so it is not 50 people a day. It is not 75 people a day. It is not 80 people a day. It is 100 people a day that are moving to Nashville. So if you voted for 100, you are absolutely correct. In fact, right now the number fluctuates that to the direct city of Nashville right now, it's about 85 people. But if it's Middle Tennessee and the surrounding suburbs, 100 people are moving to Nashville a day. The face of the city is totally changing. In fact, native Nashvilleians call themselves unicorns because they are so few and far between. Now the foreign born population of Nashville more than blanked in size between 1990 and 2000. Is it A, double, B tripled, C quadrupled? If you answered B tripled, you are correct. That the foreign born population between that time period tripled. Now after English, the three most spoken languages in Nashville are A, Somali, Bernese, and Vietnamese. B, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Bernese. C, Spanish, Arabic, and Kurdish. Or D, Spanish, Kurdish, and Vietnamese. It's hypnotic, right? You just started watching it. So this is where I reveal all of these are languages that are spoken in Nashville currently, they're the most spoken languages. But the top three is C, Spanish, Arabic, and Kurdish. In fact, Nashville holds the largest Kurdish population in the United States currently. Yeah. And by what year will the black Hispanic and other non-Hispanic population of Nashville be larger than the Caucasian population? The race was off, somebody left the gate, even before I could say A, 2035, B, 2040, 2045, or D, 2050. And the answer is B, 2040. In the year 2040, the black Hispanic and other non-Hispanic population of Nashville will be larger than the Caucasian population. So there's my city, and like many of our cities, the faces of our cities are growing and changing. And while doing this research, I looked back at our mission statement from back from the late 20s and 1930s and figured there was a lot more that we could be saying and a lot more that the theater could be doing in the community. While we talked about the right of children in the beginning, there was beautiful language about handing imagination and adventure and other ideas that are great when working with young people. But I thought we needed to say more, and so I approached the board and said, I think we need to revise the mission statement. So we did. So our new mission statement is, believing the culturally curious child is the future, Nashville Children's Theater nurtures the next generation of global citizens by providing transformational theatrical experiences which reflect our evolving community in still profound empathy and foster personal discovery. Now, you'll notice that I don't say Nashville Children's Theater nurtures children that quite specifically, we went with the idea of global citizens and the next generation of global citizens, knowing the way that the face of our city is changing, knowing that our audiences to think about the future are the next people who are voting our leaders, who are deciding cultural policy, political policy. These are the people who were facing our major ideas too. So we felt it was really important to recognize that and recognize that we're part of a global community, but TYA has always been part of a global community. And I also think that if you look at it, TYA as a field has been part of global conversations for years, apart from some of our colleagues maybe in other art forms, it's because also while we are TYA USA, we are Assatej USA. So for those of you who don't know that an acronym or that organization, TYA USA is actually the American chapter of a global organization, Assatej, which is the International Association for Theater for Children and Young People, which was established in 1965 as an international alliance for professionals involved in theater for children and young people, and right now there are more than 100 centers globally. And what's interesting is if you look back at the root of that organization and compare it to what was going on previously with the Junior League, here again you talk about those ideas of rights for children and international rights. But this time more than just an ideal, like Mary Rose quoted, somebody's gonna say something, this time we're quoting UN and UNESCO policy. We're talking about doctrine and ideas that are out there that say children do have rights and that theater is one of those rights. Assatej recognizes the right of all children and young people to enrich through the arts and their own cultural traditions, especially theater culture, and later I just highlighted. To this end, Assatej endorses Article 31 of the 1989 United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child that affirms the right of children to leisure time and the enjoyment of the arts and cultural activities. Now, I'm fortunate enough to actually sit on the executive committee of Assatej right now, and what's great is I feel fortunate we all are part of being a part of Assatej, a part of global conversations, but there's nothing like being Facebook a message from someone like, hey, did you see this? Did you notice this policy that's going on that the rights of children are actually an international conversation right now, especially when it comes to culture? So if you were flipping through Facebook recently, you might have seen this article from the stage right now, that right now the South War Council has pledged that every child in that neighborhood who goes to school in that neighborhood will see theater every year. So more than 20,000 children a year because they believe theater is important and important a part of that borough's history that theater will be a part of every child's life. And so kind of riffing off of this, this is my long, early sort of way to ask the room at the end of the day, what rights can we ensure for our future global citizens and what can we do to make sure that theater and the arts are on the lives of all future global citizens. Thank you. I had to close this out. I'm gonna invite Jacqueline Russell from the artistic director of Chicago Children's Theater. Hi, thank you. I kind of like a redo now that we've had such a brilliant day. And well, anyway, just enjoying the conversation and the stimulation and I hope this inspires you a little bit more. Hi, I'm Jacqueline Russell and I'm the artistic director and co-founder of Chicago Children's Theater. And we've been around for about 15 years now and we are producing organization. We do a lot of new work and we also present and we've been getting a lot more into the touring and collaborating and co-producing world lately. And so here we go. I'm gonna talk a little bit about what I've been thinking about. So now what? Most of us wake up every morning and we see the news on our iPhones or computer screens and we monitor ourselves. Now what? It seems that every day terrible and depressing stories flash across our screens. We see images of children being neglected, harmed and threatened and traumatized. New medical studies tell us that children today have skyrocketing rates of severe depression, destructive perfectionism, anxiety and a dramatic decrease in interpersonal skills. The news these days for our youth is not very good. Recently, a college-aged apprentice working in our theater camp for children on the autism spectrum broke down in tears after hearing yet another terrible news story. She shared with me how hopeless and frightened she felt about our world. And I said to her, then you're in the right place at the right time to make a difference. This field of theater for young audiences is not just about making theater. It's not just about art. It is about the opportunity and the responsibility to use theater to teach and nurture the people who will eventually be tasked to take care of our world. TYA folks, we have the awesome and sacred job of choosing the stories to put before our young people and then say to them, hey, look at yourself here. Do you see it's going to be okay? Or look at your neighbor over there or listen to someone you have never thought of as feeling just like you. Someone who was once perhaps invisible to you is now made human before your very eyes. We want you to know that you are seen and we also want you to see others. But fulfilling the sacred task is as often the case is just not that easy, especially not now. Making work that addresses what is happening in our children's lives today can often be financially risky. It can also make parents uncomfortable to engage their children in material that might initially stir a bit of sadness, fear, or confusion. TYA companies face many of the same issues that other not-for-profit theaters in today's insecure economic landscape face. With philanthropy and granting organizations shrinking and or eliminating their grants for organizational operating expenses and production support, and with ticket sales stagnant or even declining, we must work harder to balance our budgets and our seasons with popular, more mainstream titles. And we're grateful for those very entertaining, popular cash cows. And additionally, we must still now offer more programs that skew to the younger child as we lose so many of the upper grade children to competing extracurricular activities and to larger regional big kid, as I learned today, big kid theaters, and touring theaters that have begun including more lucrative popular family fair in their seasons. Like their annual holiday show, most of these theaters have added the big named titled family show in order to balance their own budgets. So in this landscape, what is TYA facing? On the one hand, the undeniable mission to present work that will shape the lives and the future for the better. And on the other hand, more competition, tightening budgets and declining ticket sales that forces to lean into more commercial and sometimes less thought provoking work to keep our lights on. So again, I ask, now what? We cannot be cowed by any of these threats and abandon our core purpose. When I feel frightened and frustrated by the choices we have to make in order to balance mission with sustainability, it is easy to give up on producing the more risky and challenging work that is usually the most contemporary, relevant, and thought provoking. I then look to our greatest allies for inspiration and courage, the children's book authors. In a recent essay in Time Magazine called Why We Shouldn't Shield Children from Darkness, the award-winning author of Last Stop on Market Street, Matt De La Pena says, I learned that a major gatekeeper would not support our forthcoming picture book, Love, an exploration of love in a child's life unless we softened a certain illustration, shown here by Lauren Long. In a scene, a despondent young boy hides beneath a piano with his dog while his parents argue across the living room. There is an empty old-fashioned glass resting on top of the piano. The feedback our publisher received was that the moment was a little too heavy for children, and it might make parents uncomfortable. This discouraging news led me to really examine, maybe for the first time in my career, the purpose of my picture book manuscripts. What was I trying to accomplish with these stories? What thoughts and feelings did I hope to evoke in children? In this essay, Matt goes on to pose a question to one of his favorite authors, Kate De Camillo, who wrote, because of when Dixie and the miraculous journey of Edward Tulane. How honest can an author be with an auditorium full of elementary school kids? How honest should we be with our readers? Is the job of the writer for the very young to tell the truth or preserve innocence? De Camillo shared her response in another essay for Time Magazine called Why Children's Books Should Be a Little Sad. Dear Matt, when I turned the page and saw that child hiding under the piano, I was small and worried and afraid. I felt a wave of recognition. I felt seen. I was a kid who hid under the literal and metaphorical piano. I felt isolated by the secrets and fear in my household. For me as a kid to see that picture would have been such a relief. I would have known that I was not alone. I think our job is to trust our readers. I think our job is to see and let others be seen. I think our job is to love the world. So now what? I think that like Matt and Kate, we have to be brave. And to trust our audiences and not give in to that fear that we might make them uncomfortable at those times when the truth needs to be stared down. And it is up to us to see and provide relief to that child under the piano to inspire their classmates who after a field trip to see a play might be more open to giving an accepting smile or a helping hand to that frightened little soul. We have to keep up the fight against the bad messages in today's news. We the grownups have to power through these hard times and make the work that will ultimately empower and activate all of these young people to become their best and most resilient selves. And what are the kids saying? In her TED talk entitled what adults can learn from kids, 12 year old Adora's VTAC says, adults, you need to listen and learn from kids and trust and expect more from us. You must lend an ear because we are the leaders of tomorrow. It's interesting to note that perhaps, and I do agree with you, our most interesting and relevant critic in Chicago theater today is Ada Gray who happens to be 14 years old. She's been reviewing theater since she was four and I encourage you to check out her reviews online at Ada Gray reviews for you. Yes, we must pay attention to our children and be willing to learn from them too. And those of us in this room, we have to collaborate with one another. Commissioning and producing partnerships are essential for us to get new and complex work onto our stages. And how great would it be for the larger regional theaters who have traditionally looked at us as competitors or as lesser than to instead embrace and engage with us? Perhaps when they do venture into our world of family programming, they could bring us in as the experts from the field that we know, living and breathing it every day as we do. So what I'm proposing even in the face of the challenges is that we go for it. Let's commit today that we will work together to represent all of our children. Let's work even harder to inspire their curiosity and to care more for the world that depends on them. We will keep redefining and raising the bar for accessibility and inclusion. Let's be bold and encourage honest engagement and difficult dialogues and present our audiences a world that is complex, one that is both strange and familiar. Most importantly, we have to ensure that the children coming to our theaters today will be ready to take on and love the world they are all too soon to inherit from us. Thank you, Sik, so much for those ideas and filling us with so much to go into the rest of this day and thinking about the future. It's amazing how much the weather has changed over the course of this day. It feels like a matter where in the midst of the storm we have to find our way out together. So what I'm gonna ask just for a moment, we did a lot of reflecting together. Reflect for yourself for a second. On those six presentations, what are you thinking about? What are you most inspired by? And what would you add? What's your vision for our future? What has this sparked for you? Just take a second to think about that. So you're about to go into your second table group. If you look at your label, you have a different table. The facilitators are at the same tables, just to clarify, but everybody else will go to a different table this time. You have about an hour. And in these table groups, you're gonna do two things. Spend the first, and you can divide the time as you and your facilitator choose. But maybe begin by reflecting on the presentations that we just heard and what you might add to that conversation. Kind of fill the table with as many ideas as possible. And about halfway through, shift gears to action steps. What are we taking away from the morning and the afternoon that we can tangibly enact both in our communities together through new collaborations that might be forming and what we might wanna share with the folks who are not in the room, who've been watching on HowlRound. Shout out to our friends at HowlRound or who will be reading the report that the NEU will publish that Emma Halpern. Where are you, Emma? Who's helping us write? Emma are the American Theater, TYA, Correspondent and Co-Artistic Director of New York City Children's Theater, who's helping us capture everything from today. What do we want in that report? What do we wanna do in the future? How do we take the momentum of the day and move it forward? So that's your charge for the next hour. And then we'll come back together at 4.30 for a closing. Thank you. Should I look like I'm talking to everybody?