 Hi Mark. Hi y'all. Happy Valentine's Day. So good morning, good morning to you and good morning to you all. So my name is Mark Valdes and this is Todd London. Hi and we're here at the art part theater conference, a conference for two people, us. And so just before we dive in, I just wanted to truly just kind of, well first of all say some thank yous. Thank you to you for this. Thank you to you. And we are here live at NYU Cooper Square. So just wanted to give a big thank you to Roberta Uno and the art changes team who are hosting us and were really kind and opening up their space to us. So thank you. Really, really big thank you to Hal Round. Yay! Hal Round. They provided us with the swag for our conference as well. Nice. And so thank you to Vijay Matthew and Jamie Galoon and Ramona. Who's the last? Ostrowski? So thank you. I just want to give a personal thanks to Karen Atlas who's hosting me while I'm in town. So thank you. And yeah. So anything that you want to add in terms of thank yous or anything? Not right now, but as we go. Yeah. So we're here. So what are we doing and what are we doing? And so why the art part? And I guess I would say so Todd and I get to be at a lot of different convenings and we get invited to be at different tables to either for grant panels or just field conversations or conferences. And often when we get together at these conferences we both notice that we will start a conversation that is talking about art and somehow that conversation turns into a conversation of survival of often around budget issues or fundraising or just things that are not working well in the field. And what may have started out as a conversation about art doesn't end up a conversation about art. And after that, you know, Todd and I will often, it's not a comment to see us just talking about art or talking about that. And so this idea kind of surfaced as we were having a conversation and we said well what if we take this private conversation and made it public? And just use this as an invitation to invite more conversations about art, about aesthetics, about practice and try to kind of center that in the conversations that we have as a field. And granted, we are not the field. We are just the two of us. And so the other thing that I just kind of want to bring up and I think it's important for us to just acknowledge that this conversation is happening just between Todd and I and it represents who we are and also present as everything that we're not. So kind of copping to middle-aged guys sitting here at a university in a really nice setting with access to this technology. But also people who are, we can only talk about all of this through our experiences and through who we are and how we were educated in our class and our own personal biographies. Which is to say that for everything that we are, there's a lot that we are not. And I think just kind of want to acknowledge that and the conversation that we're going to have is we'll kind of reflect all of those good, wonderful things and we'll also kind of not represent the things that we're not and that we can't speak to personally because our intention here is just to talk first voice for ourselves, for our experiences. However, our hope is that because we will not get everything that you all and other conversations can pick up and fill in all the things that we can't. And so collectively we can have a real representation of diversity and the vastness of who makes art and the field in America today. Which brings us to the May Day Challenge. The May Day Challenge, the art part, May Day Challenge. And this goes with what Mark is saying. We intended this conversation to be the start of many conversations. We bring with it our concern that survival issues and business issues and field infrastructure issues are so dominant in our general conversations that we don't get to talk about the thing that we love and what we do in the theater. And so our challenge is that you will join us before May Day, May 1st, by holding your own public or private conversation about art. And we will be trying that today and part of what we'll have to do is keep each other honest as we veer into why I hate theater critics or what's wrong with this theater or that, that we come back to this thing that we love to art in the very topics that we've laid out. So our challenge to you, you can sign up today on the art part at HowRound.com and we'll issue that challenge again. And you can do that over the next weeks to come as well to let us know that you're holding a conversation of your own. Yeah, join us. I hope you'll join us. And also just to be clear like those conversations about survival and budgets and all these fantastic conversations and we should have those conversations and we should have these conversations. So it's just, there's room for it all. So let's do it. Let's do it. So we needed to, as we're preparing for this, we needed to give it a structure. And so what we thought and kind of agreed on is that we would start off because it's Valentine's Day and I think it's safe to say that this conversation is grounded and comes from a place of love, from a place of deep care for what we do and the field that we're in and this medium that we've chosen which is live theater and performance. And so it comes from that. It comes from a place of love. And so we agreed and we thought like we should write a Valentine's Day card, send a Valentine's Day card to the field, to theater and that we will read those cards to you. Before we do that, I just want to lay out the day a little bit. Great. Can we do that? Okay. So we're going to start with this whole, the next half hour is devoted to art and love and we're going to start with our Valentine's. We'll then take a 20-minute break. We'll come back and talk about collective creation ensemble. We'll then take a break for lunch until one o'clock and we'll come back and talk about playwriting and the solo voice. And then we will come back at two o'clock, talk about civic engagement as art, the art or aesthetics of civic engagement. And then at three o'clock our final session we'll deal with legacy and lineage in theater. Did I do that? Perfect. Okay. Perfect. Oh, and also the invitation. So we're here in a room by ourselves with Vijay. And so it would help us if somebody is watching. And if you have questions or comments, send them along. And you can send them via tweet. You can send them via email, via Facebook to theartparthowlround.com. And on the HowlRound Facebook page. On the HowlRound Facebook page. And the HowlRound hashtag. HowlRound. So we will talk for 30 minutes and then we'll make some room after that to respond to comments or questions if you have any. So. Why don't you read your Valentine's Day card? Here we go. Okay. So my plan had been to just get a blank card and just write my feelings to journal. This is awkward. This is so awkward. And then I thought, I think what I wanted to do is find a card that expresses my sentiments. We'll probably unpack that as to why I don't want to review too many emotions. But here we go. So my love letter to you. Together, we've shared the good times, the difficult times, and everything in between. And we've come through it all as stronger partners, better friends, and more in love than ever. And that's what makes it all worthwhile. You'll never know how deeply I love you, want you, and need you. Happy Valentine's Day. That's so dear. Okay. I'm interested and want, need. Okay. But I'll do mine. So Mark and I had given ourselves this prompt ahead of time to get Valentine's Day cards. And I had demanded that we keep our messages in the cards short. And then I broke the rule a little bit because I decided I would write a poem. It's addressed to not-so-funny Valentine. And it's got this great unicorn in the back that you can't see, but it's quite lovely. So the card itself begins the poem. It says, loved you yesterday, love you still, always have, always will. Except those years in the 80s, you kind of sucked then and pissed me off. Every relationship has its ups and downs, I know. And you have to learn to fight with those you love, but man, our fights can get nasty. It's Valentine's Day, though, and we're speaking love. What do we talk about when we talk about that? How we met. How does anyone meet you? Dad's hats and mama's shoes, flashlight spots and dreams of flying. Lots of kids move on, but you hooked me, sweetheart. Kept me hooked. In the morning we sang together and the air changed. A woman slipped through a hole to the underground. And this time we sang in chorus, an opera for 10-year-olds. Cue the teachers. You sparked my heart, my flint, your steel. They tended the tinder, fanned my flicker to flame. Damned, besotted, unforgettable teachers, lackeys for love of you. Pouring oil on a kid's fire. I was your candle, then your wildfire. Late morning, early noon, when we felt everything and couldn't settle for a second in our seats, you required all that feeling. Feel everything you demanded. Suddenly we could be everything. Before we even knew who we were. Who needs to settle when you can play? You were the beloved. The intense freedom of dream. The beloved who loved back through applause, through the ecstasy of feeling everything altogether, through celebration. You haven't lost it, theater baby. You're still dreamy, except when you're not. Then the learning years. Greeks for justice or just retribution. Boat rights and tinkers making plays for God. Tragic and magic love before a queen. And centuries more, calling us, asking only that we sit together and breathe together. And again we sing. Then you did it, final straw. You pulled me shamelessly close so I could feel your breath in my ear, in my heart. And you whispered, every voice is a new voice. Listen. No one sings like anyone else. Everything a person is, is in her song. Describe it. Go. Sometimes my love, I hate the form you take. The walls you raise around a space that should be home but isn't. I hate when you get showy. I'll never forgive you for transplanting our garden in the market square. It's wrong and you know it. And who's running the show? Who are those people? Lose the song, you lose your way my darling. Yes, I admit to years of heartbreak. But the wondrous world keeps starting over and you are always in it. Brave new souls in a wrecked old world. I age and tire and you just get younger. What's your secret? What potions up your sorcerer's sleeve? You taught me this above all. Our arms entwine and make a circle that can't be broken. We dream of flying and so we fly. You are a bridge between us and nothing bridges me like love of you. Here is my heart then, still and always yours. Don't fuck it up. I'll hold yours with all the tenderness I have. Happy V-day theater my love. Oh my goodness. Okay now I'm going to go crawl in a hole. It's the thing, there's so much love. And it's the best love is complicated. It's never easy and you kind of have to work. What I loved about that was just that full range. Everything. So let me ask you about your Valentine. So why, when you say, it said something like, you'll never know how much I need and want you. Can you talk about the need? Yeah. I didn't grow up with theater. Like it wasn't a part of my upbringing. It wasn't a part of, it really just wasn't part of life. It wasn't part of our culture or community. You grew up in Texas. Yeah, early childhood in a small rural town up in West Texas. And when I found theater, I saw my first play as a kid in school. It just felt so, it felt like a home. It felt like everything, it was everything. It was just everything. Just that first play? It wasn't so much like the first play? Because there was something about the stories and the escape and the imagination. So for me, there wasn't room to imagine something different. So especially in a small town, like you kind of know what life looks like because it's all around you and the many generations of variations of a life. And so suddenly I could imagine, there was room and space and invitation to imagine something that wasn't that. And so a queer kid in rural Texas, suddenly like that was a lifeline. And so the need and the want is, it's not an exaggeration. It's awkward to be talking so, it's an odd thing to just admit that. Without it sounding like really trite and stupid, but I need it. It completes me. Sure. Well, I think the example of a life lived in service to it as you have as a director as part of Cornerstone, as a long-term executive director of the Orchard Van Sambel theaters, the life service is, it detrivializes it. Do you know what I mean? It's like, it may sound trite to say, I need you, I want you, but then to have lived it is proof, right? I mean, it's interesting for me, first of all, to think about this notion of love of the art of theater, it does go back to sort of origin stories. Doesn't it? It has to, in a way, like how we met, you know, it and how we started. And it's so different for me because my mother was a singer. She was a nightclub singer. My father had come back from a horrific experience cleaning out concentration camps after the war as a medic, a young kid, 19, 20 years old, and gone to the Pasadena Playhouse to take acting classes, do you know? And even though he didn't pursue that, he sold cars and then sold advertising for guys who sold cars, I grew up seeing my mother on stage and grew up with the sort of mythology of my father's Pasadena Playhouse experience. And so when I started taking drama classes in Chicago and doing musicals and going to this amazing summer camp, musical theater camp that I went to, it was absolutely, you know, liturgy. It was the synagogue or the church. It was my family, literally my family. And because my mother was a better singer than she was mother, there was all this kind of like psychological attachment to that as well, that enterprise. So it is, it's interesting for you. It was like a way out. For me, it was like almost immersive in some sense. I think about some of the things that you were writing about, like the times when you were just really angry. And I feel like relationships, like that's just relationships, right? Like there's times where it's like, you just have to work to stay in it. You know, you've made a commitment and you're going to stick it out and you just kind of have to do that. And I think about, you know, Kiara wrote that piece about... Kiara Hooties? Yeah, Hooties, who wrote that piece about how theater breaks her heart. And I remember reading that and finding like there was something so familiar about that feeling. And so when you kind of talked about that anger and that heartbreak, it was really connected with me. And this idea that I'm giving you my heart. I'm giving you this thing and treat it well. Like treat it right and... Well, I do think that that, in a way, when I think about it, and I think we are talking about art so I don't want to get too lost in my complaints. But there is a way in which, you know, heartbreak is the right word. Kiara uses that in her keynote speech that became an essay on HowlRound or no, in American Theater, in American Theater Magazine. And it's almost because the thing that you idealize, the thing that you love, the thing that you devote yourself to is betrays you, you know? And so even the anger is steeped in the love, right? And I think that's what I wanted to get. It was just like, it's love. It's just part of being in love. And I just kind of feel like, for me, it's like this lover who is way out of my league. And so part of it for me... What does that mean? What do you aspire to that? I wanted it so badly. Oh, as a kid in West Texas. Yeah, and even now. I feel like I've spent so much of my life trying to get theater to fall in love with me. My love for the theater is like, wholehearted. I'm the hookline sinker, like, you got me. And I don't always feel like it's reciprocating. I feel like I'm so deeply in love with this feel, this art that sometimes likes me, you know? And I will take it. I don't know if it's like a totally... I'll be your spaniel. Completely. Yeah, exactly. It's that. And it's like that. Like, I get it. Like, I get that. Sure. If all you can spare is like the 10 minutes or whatever, you know, like, I'll take it. That's enough. Yeah. So let's talk about actual work that moved you in that way. So you talked about seeing a play, but there are other things, you know? So, like, there's the in love, right? There's the infatuation, there's the crush. But then at a certain point, it gets real. And it needs to be nourished, right? So what are the things that made it real for you, the things you saw or did, and what has kept it nourished? I think performance. I think seeing... I think the thing that just feeds it are seeing amazing works of art. Like? You know, one of the most important moments, kind of like where I just... I had to be a part of this, was I was in Dallas. Most everything that I had seen was plays, Chestnuts, Shakespeare, a couple of new plays, but really just kind of a straightforward play theater in regional theaters, a couple of little things. And then I saw an Eric N. Play. And it blew my mind. Was this at Frontera? No, this was at the Undermain Theater. It was a play called Beginner that he wrote for the ensemble. And there was, you know, it's Eric N. What does that mean? It's like a highly poetic, beautiful images, amazing language. I don't always know what's going on, and that's okay. It was fine. I didn't need to know because I felt something that just, that was right. Like I felt something that would just... I was just on this journey. And it was a way of, you know, it was... It did not feel like a play. It was this kind of theater that I just had not seen. And it was this thing where... You know, I keep going back to that, like it was an ensemble. It was a particular kind of image, kind of poetic narrative that was fantasy and dream and completely real. And I go back to that a lot, actually, of just like, oh, it can be something like that. Yeah. Yeah. What about for you? What nourishes your love? That's so fascinating. Well, just on this, because I associate you so much with ensemble work. And yes, you just said it was an ensemble. But also, Eric N is such a particular playwright and such a writerly writer as well. You know, it's funny because partly I was afraid, as we were doing this, that I would forget things because it's hard for me to find examples sometimes. But also, I feel that in some ways it's a betrayal to single out individual things because there's just like so many. And even like recently, I mean, you know, so there are the things that were key along the way and they're really different. I mean, there's like seeing the older kids do South Pacific and West Side Story, do you know? There's then seeing, for the first time, the performance group as the Worcester group is branching off from them and working with them for a summer. There's the sort of discovery of playwright voices and then contemporary playwrights. I mean, I remember, because it's so pivotal for me, reading the first part of Angels in America, Millennium Approaches, in TypeScript. And the first time that it was like, oh my God, someone who is my contemporary has written a masterpiece and I'm holding this in my hand before it was produced. You know, recently it's like, I saw, I mean, we're here in New York, Heidi Shrex, what the Constitution means to me, Jeremy O'Harris is a slave play, both at New York Theatre Workshop. Amazing, extraordinary and very different things. You know, I'm married to a playwright, Karen Hartman, and I've been up at Yale where her play Good Faith is, and there's something about living with someone's work over time. It's like you sort of live in every choice because you know what that choice costs, you know it in relation to the work that came before it. So I feel like surrounded, you know, it's like we live in a time that August Wilson wrote the Century Cycle. We live in the days of Anna Devere Smith, you know, we live in the days of the Double Edge Theatre, which everyone should know, do you know? And then, you know, for me, so this is like the big blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but it is, it's like this profusion of activity over the course of my life, including work I never saw live, like Joe Chacon and the Open Theatre. I never saw them live, and yet in some ways, and I guess we'll talk about lineage, it's as important to me as anything I saw. You know, as you were talking, I was just thinking about like, so I live in California, I travel a lot, but home is California, and I think about just like being a kid in Texas, and like here you can feed your love so easily, you know, and I think about like what, you know, when you don't, like when I was a kid I had scripts or I had the occasional performance, and, but how you just have to work harder when you just can't like, like literally hear like hundreds of choices. Right, but those scripts are like talismanic, aren't they? Oh my goodness. I still remember the Samuel French, the Samuel French plays, you know, even from the 30s and 40s, you know. And I would look at the back, I like to see that set design, you know, because like they would give you the drawings and the prop lists, and I would, and I would make sure like, oh that's not how I imagined it, or oh that's how, so when this happens, and I would like cross reference between those. That's amazing. I love that. Yeah, I still have those scripts too, it's like I've carried them through life. And then the names, excuse me, and this for me because I was a kid actor, you know I would look up who was the name of the person who played that, and that person would be like, ancestor, do you know? Like Brandon DeWilda, do you know? It's like who? But yes, he had played this role in that thing, or you know, the original Tony in West Side Story, or you know, whatever it, and suddenly you're part of this family tree. It's crazy. We have a response up here. First May Day Challenge, do you want to read that? Yes, hey, Bloonsburg Theater Ensemble, this is from Laurie McCants. Hi Laurie. Hi Laurie. Has already scheduled a retreat to discuss future programming based on our, Todd please publish your poem. Dreams and Desires. Yes. So that should grant, should grant the opportunity. So I'll read the whole thing. I just read it. Yay, BTE has already scheduled a retreat to discuss future programming based on our own artistic dreams and desires. So that should grant an opportunity, a rise, that's a, So that should a grant opportunity, a rise, that's a love match. We can apply with true enthusiasm and hope rather than twisting our plans and creating potential black holes in our budgets trying to fit a funder's initiative. Awesome. P.S. Todd, please publish your poem and howl around. Nice. Yes. That's such a, it's such a beautiful thing because, oh, this is, is that from my wife? Okay. Karen Hartman comments. She quotes, no one sings like anyone else. Yes. Thank you both so much. That's sweet. I love you honey. Oh, that thing about like, leading with love in artistic planning. Yeah. So again, I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of like what theaters don't do. But what a beautiful thing that Bloomsburg is talking about. It's like that you put on the table all the things you desire and want and need rather than, okay, what's this slot or what's this potential funding opportunity? Totally. And that you live in that. I mean, that's been the challenge, right? It's like, how do you live in the love that you feel? And how do you like, how do you select projects that you're going to work on? That's a really big question. I mean, I try to, I try to and in the best of times in the best of days to do those projects that I really care about. Like I have been very fortunate that it's been rare that I've had to do a project that I didn't want to do or felt I had to do. So that's been part of the nourishment of this love of like I actually get to work at companies that I have deep respect and love for. On plays and stories and projects that I really care about. And that allows the relationship to grow. How about for you? Have you ever directed an Eric N. play? I have. What was that? We commissioned, and when I was at Cornerstone, we commissioned a Christmas play called Mary Shelley's Santa Claus. Wow. And it was, instead of the creature, they make Santa Claus. And it really is just a gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous piece that is one of my favorites. Wow. And you directed it? I directed it. Going back to the source. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not in a curatorial position right now. And I wasn't for many years. I was at New Drama for 18 years and never curated anything. And then as you know, when I was at the University of Washington School of Drama, that was a very sort of collective curatorial process. But there were sort of things I loved that I wanted. And sometimes it was people. So I brought you in. You chose Perestroika, which was something that I loved as well. But mostly it was the people. And I think that's an important thing to me because we're talking about projects and plays and so on. But I also think that theater, because it allows us to be so intimate with each other and to work so deeply one-on-one that the choice of the people you surround yourself with, and I know this is kind of a natural segue to our next segment about company, that's part of the love too. I mean, it's the people. Yes. Yes. I mean, I think that's what's kept me in those moments where I feel like theater didn't love me back. There were enough individuals who you just make connections with who you hold on to, hold on to you, and keep you there. That's great. We're out of time on the first segment. So this is good. And this is our opener. We're learning as we go here. We hope to, we're trying to put ourselves through an experience too. Somebody on my Facebook page called it Durational Dialogic Devotional Duet or something like that. So we're going to come back in 20 minutes at 11 and we're going to really focus in on ensemble work, group work. And thank you for joining us or thank you for soon joining us. Yeah. Bye. Bye.