 Hello, good evening everyone. Thank you all for tuning in tonight for our panel discussion on elitism in the American theater. My name is at least Robinson I'm the founding artistic director of ambience theater company ambience is a very new emerging black lead theater company based in the twin cities. We have been alive and around and doing work for about two years, each a brand Lee and my like see say are both the two core members, along with myself. And so I'm just grateful that you all have tuned in tonight. The conversation we have will have tonight will be very focused on experiences of these artists. And I think that's something that's crucially important one of the reasons why I established ambience was because I wanted to see more opportunities for people like myself. In the event that I did. I didn't know anything about producing I just winked it and it turned out well in that case, you know when I think about like the seeds that are planted that have grown up into all the theater companies that are culturally specific that are in this country like theater move like the number of theater. We have a legacy in this country that should be celebrated and I put to the side, and that is why we have this conversation tonight. So without before we get into the conversation I would love for our panelists to please introduce themselves. Thank you all for being a part of this. Thank you. Please, I'll jump in. I'll just go start. Hi. Hello everybody. Hello, my name is over so paying. I am performing artists with a theater productions and the co artistic director of this company based in Los Angeles, the land of the Tongva. So I just wanted to some land acknowledgement there as well. It's important for us to know the originals people where we stand on in terms of the land. I am a theater artist at work with refugees and immigrants. Tita has been around for over 20 years and just phenomenal to be able to share what the experiences that I have and to see these young emerging artists as well coming into the forefront so I will leave it at that. I'll jump in. What's my name. My name is Simon, the bonsai and I use she her hers and I'm currently the melon playwright in residence at theater move which is based in St. Paul. And we are on the historical lands of the Dakota and Nishinaabe people. And what else you want to know about me, nothing other than I'm excited for this conversation. I'll kick it to issue. Peace everybody my name is issue brand Lee I am the director of performance and beyond theater company. I am a multidisciplinary artist I've been in the Twin Cities theater making scene poet scenes as I was about 14 years old. I'm excited to have this conversation I think that it's going to really be able to plant some seeds in the BIPOC theater making community that haven't been able to be planted yet so great for to be here. So long everybody my name is Malik see say he him is. I am the associate artistic director of ambiance to the company. I'm also playwright and theater maker who grew up grew and developed in the Twin Cities but now I reside in Los Angeles. Very blessed to be a part of this panel along with many other brilliant artists but also just to have a very important necessary conversation about something that I feel is long overdue. And so now we're here now we're having planting one seed of many that should be planted and I look forward to seeing how our conversation unfolds. Thank you all so much. So the first question I want to ask is how do we define elitism specifically in your own terms in your own words. What is it to you and how has it shown up throughout your career. And anybody can hop in you know I don't want to pick on nobody. I'm going to always be doing like a little analogies because that's how I talk I talk and like analogies. So elitism to me is the same 10 people at the at the table and other folks wanting to be able to sit at that table. But those folks saying well you haven't been through this or you haven't had this experience or just work a little harder and maybe we'll pull up a seat elitism to me is not ever allowing other folks to sit at that table. But telling people it's come serve us come serve us. No you can't see here but it's okay for you to come and serve us and so I think it's important that we learn how to create space around the table for folks coming into theater and folks that have been around. Cultivating the art scene and letting them know come eat with me we're in community and just creating more more space. If that makes any sense. Yeah. That's my definition of elitism. Well that makes perfect sense each exactly what you're saying thank you. Yeah, definitely for me that that power right like this that's the same like very few people having so much power, and then also like, I think sometimes when you don't have formal training in theater making in theater as a playwright or as a director whatever people do tend to look down on you as if the histories that you come from and with all of the cultural knowledge and memory knowledge that you come with from your your people your culture, your community doesn't matter and I think that's. That's so sad because we were we're so rich with all of this knowledge and skills and we continually fight to, like you said he say, have a place at the table, not just to come and serve but to like be decision makers and to like really shape what things look like when we present it to the community or even make work with community right, which is why I love to it so much because they make work for and with and it's by community. And you don't have to be formally trained, which is great. Yeah, going off of that I think. The realism to me is also creating a sort of sort of status quo or a claiming of the dominant or the superior culture over what is the multifaceted interdisciplinary as well as the the multiplicity of different cultures and acknowledgement of those individuals and as well as that work that's implied on theater and it is quite unfortunate when, you know, there's higher powers are a smaller group that holds so much of the power when there is so much power in the roots of our cultures and the roots of our creation and Iliadism to me is a strip away from things that could change our disciplines change our change our spaces for the better and keeping what is consistent around that dominant culture. And so, I think when we when we talk about realism we must ask ourselves like, is that such a thing. And how do we dismantle that to create space. I agree with everything everyone saying I think when when you pose the question I was thinking about what what is not elitism and to me, what's not elitism is to be welcome to be open to be respectful. And that's the kind of practice that as a theater maker as an artist that I have learned to create and learn to offer, because I come in with a certain amount of knowledge in terms of theater but when we work with communities, refugees and organizations that we work with, they as Moosa say have have the knowledge and, and their stories are beautiful and important but how do we merge that in a way that's equitable in a way that is full of diversity in a way that is open and I think that's that's I think that's the hard part for most elitist organizations they don't see that you don't see how the fact that you got to be open you got to reach out and really go out to the community it's not just you know, here's the door and come in for that one moment you know you open the doors and you got to ask and see how it does this work I mean it's a conversation. So that's my thoughts on on on that question so Well, at least I want to kick it back to you because when you post this question on your Facebook page. I want to say last month or was it like a month and a half ago. wasn't far away was like pretty recent but what what made you want to pop that question up that something happened or was it just Everything happening For me, I think a lot of it came from a desire to well like like I was saying like when I started on Beyonce, you know, I was at a point in my career where I was getting a lot of gigs as a stage and And I had no issues and no problems with that like I'm this type of person where I'm so dedicated to theater if I'm involved in a production that feeds my soul. I don't care if I am only sweeping the floor and muffin it you know like I don't mind that But I felt so limited in a lot of spaces and I realized I had more leadership abilities that I could implement into these spaces and they weren't being utilized. And so when I went off and I did a reading at Pangea like it was just I just rolled the dice like that's literally how it was and so I was working with people who didn't have theater experience necessarily I had people who did have some theater experience. Maybe they have performance experience in other areas of their lives but not theater specifically. And so I wanted to have this conversation. To be able to like I said celebrate all of these other things that represent our histories represent our ways of knowing that represents, you know, our forms of storytelling like classical theater doesn't have to be taught, you know, by just the Greeks in Shakespeare that's not the only Those those texts are not the only text written in poetic or prose form like that there's so much more to the world, you know and that's what I love to celebrate because we as people who are black and brown we're not the minority in the world like we are the majority of the people in the world. So it's so frustrating to live in a Western culture that teaches you that you got to know about European history before you know about yourself. And this goes behind, you know, just theater this is the way racism functions in this country. You know, and so that's why this conversation is important to me as well is to really get at the ways in which racism continue to function in all aspects of our lives and how it gets into the work that we create, because even artists that are black and brown, you know, have, you know, I perpetuate the elitism on myself sometimes, you know, I feel like I got to go to grad school and I'm not saying that graduate schools are bad thing I can thrive in academic spaces. I know this about myself. But at the same time, all of those stories I got from my mom, from my dad, all of my own lived experience, all of that is all a canon of work that can uplift that can educate and really shake some things up the way we see and understand the world and I love being able to do stuff that's outside of the box. So, yes, thank you. I feel so calm now. And what you're saying that resonates with me is the fact that we are valuing our, our, our lived experiences, we are valuing the process in which we create work. We are valuing our stories, you know, because as you said we, you know, I mean, I have to be honest, I, I come from, I mean, I went to school for theater, I was, you know, trained in, you know, Western theater, Western European theater mindset, you know, I had very small glimpses of just Asian American theater, I did some Asian American plays, but they were very limited. And so that's, that's for me. From what I hear from you is like how do we continue to develop and cultivate and expand and support more of this, this value within our communities. And it's hard, it's hard, it's not easy because again, within the field, sometimes you're going to be the only one. Also, you may be the only one as the performer and then you know the performer is like the you're on stage or the actor but hey, there's other other jobs and roles within the theater field I mean you were mentioning about how I love how you're saying about, well, I go all in with all the productions and I work in maybe in the technical field we don't have enough. Where are the community, the artists of color that are in the technical field right lighting designers and so I'm just saying that that it kind of starts with us kind of almost like we're in a space for looking around like am I the only one here, and they found me the only one and what the heck you know can I bring in other brothers and sisters and friends to come in and be a part of it or to say hey I can do it, if I can do it hopefully, you know the next generation or other folks can do so that's kind of where for me it rolls and I've been fortunate enough to come from a background where I grew up in a community called Kalihi and I grew up in Hawaii and Kalihi was basically the rough and it was the hood, it was the hood, it was the rough and tough neighborhood of my community and my high school was known for a lot of new folks that were coming in what they call fresh off the boat, a lot of Filipinos, a lot of Laotians, Southeast Asians, Chinese, Japanese and so we didn't have theater but my entry into theater was this company called T-Shirt Theater and they really gave me this opportunity to just tell your story, just write a story and my first performance I remember was I wrote a poem about my family's escape from Laos and that poem then was the first time that I got to see that piece and then we put it on its feet and I got to perform it and got to share it with the rest of my school and that was so empowering and powerful and that stayed with me and so I kept on continuing to realize that hey I have a place in this theater and of course sadly I discovered as I went to college and as I came here to the mainland, the continent, totally different because you see elitism, you see racism very clearly and so that's been a little bit of my journey. So yeah, what do you all have to say? Ishe, Malik, Young Ones, bring it on, bring it on. I just want to say, I just want to say yes, yes, yes, that was my entry to theater. Shout out to Crystal Spring at Black Box at Washburn High School teaching Black Box Social Justice Theater because oh my God, okay. I would have never thought that I could be doing this work without just the opportunity to say how I feel to express myself and I think that we have to remember that in everything that we do as we're introducing folks that don't have the technical training, right? It doesn't matter. It does not matter. It comes, especially for black and brown folk, it comes from literally telling our narratives and our stories that we are able to even exist in spaces that we don't belong in, that a play that was not written for us, it's because we have a real deep passion and love for theater because we understand how impactful it can be on a person's life. You know, just the representation of Cinderella at Children's Theater, right? Seeing a black woman play Cinderella. What? On stage? What? You know what I'm saying? That's changing, that's changing my mind as a young black girl. Seeing that and it's so much more impactful than film or any other media because it is happening live in front of me after, you know, if Able, I can go and shake her hand and say, oh my goodness, like this is so exciting, you know, to see you up there, like how did you get there? And it's just being able to tell your narrative will literally, literally, literally, literally like save your life. Theater saved my life. I'm sorry, I get so passionate. I'm in the same boat with you. Yeah, like theater was something that saved my life. You know, when I looked at theater at one point and when I was a younger kid, I often looked at Broadway. I often looked at Avenue Q, I often looked at Annie and, you know, but then when we stripped that a little bit away, what I ended up learning over time was that theater isn't just a device specific to Broadway or, you know, a theater company was like, it also can mean grassroots, it can mean the bare bottom, it could mean we are taking these, you know, these stories and we're putting it together through different mediums to not just a stage script, it could be poetry, it could be improv, it could be dance, you know, it could be rap. I learned theater through that lens and when I realized that I learned that theater could be accessible, it could become something that we rely on as a tool to express ourselves, escape from this like reality that we need so much resources to create what we have, we scrapped it together, we worked together to get those things together and that's the theater I come from, that's the theater I've developed and grew out of. And, you know, I'm in the same headspaces at least when it comes to, you know, schooling and the way we learn about it, you know, I'm in a master's program right now, but even in the same sense, I still ask the same questions as though I would ask, before I even got into undergrad, before I even got into master's program like how is this theater, how is this piece, how is this work utilized to change the communities in which I'm impacting, how is it impacting these groups, these communities, and through that is accessibility, through that is, you know, providing theater that's not on a $20 to $50 ticket but something that people can go to to touch closer than just this like this way in which American theater has grown to become. So, I do think like with, with a lot of these, these necessities also comes the simple fact that we are expressing ourselves on these stages, and there's easy ways to do that. So, yeah. I hear that. One of the things just to kind of what I'm hearing mainly to is just the fact that, you know, theater, a lot of times for us is not entertainment. It has a real, real purpose in healing us emotionally healing us spiritually, and allowing us to embody, you know, the things that we need to embody in order to be healed and to be better. You know, one of the things that I can't ever say his last name so I feel bad, but resume who wrote my grandmother says like a lot of times in that book he references, the fact that when you experience trauma, you have to be able to release the, the action that you needed to in the moment that it happened. And that's why people have trauma because it gets stuck. They can't get it out. And so, you know, getting on stage like each day you know I was a part of a up and coming social justice theater program at Central High School, and then I went on to be a summer Institute kid at Penumbra and so it's like that work saved my life because it allowed me to process the things in my body that I was even aware was affecting me negatively. So yeah, where Boko is joining us is good to see you. So cool. Thank you all so much for that so far already like I'm fired up now. I want to, I think one of the things that we are kind of talking about a little bit is like being overlooked and undervalued as an artist and as like the types of creation that we come from because you know everybody wants to make it big when I say everybody people, you know, epitomize making it big on Broadway, as opposed to, you know, what does it mean to be a community lead theater that does work with immigrants or does work with people who have been sex trafficked or things like that. You know, when in your career have you felt overlooked or undervalued, either in your own practice as a person, or just your ideology around what theater can be and how your creative process rolls out. I'll throw my head in there because I was thinking about this and so I've learned that process over product is much better. Because again, what we're talking about is like, you know, obviously it's great to have that big production and that product with everything and yes that is wonderful. But the process in which we create the work we develop the work we write the work whether it be with ourselves as writers or with community alongside community that journey in creating the work with ensemble for for me. I think that with other artists of color and community far outweighs the production, because the impact on the participants is much more transformative, because the work that like theater does because we paid the way for voices from the southeast Asian refugee immigrant communities and it's also very when we work in that way we're also working with issues that are relevant that are eminence, you know within those communities and you know and that's why to me it's really really powerful to hear that. And I would have to say I think I never really. I would say I was overlooked because I'm allow one of the first law American actors who was in a program. I was this Southeast Asian guy who was even within the Asian American, you know, labeling and we're going to go to the labeling to in terms of when we talk about by pocket stuff right, but just how I wasn't being represented. A lot of the Asian American plays that had been developed are already were available were mostly East Asian Chinese they were about Chinese Americans they were about Japanese Americans they're about Korean Americans. They were about Chinese Southeast Asian so I had to pave the way for Southeast and Southeast Asian voice for allow voice to be there and the first play that I worked on that really dove into kind of exploring that and I had been trained again being trained kind of, you know, Shakespeare the canon and all this stuff and I like well what about what about the stories that I have what about the refugee stories that I have, you know, and so that's kind of where we developed a play called refugee nation, a play that we work with law communities we went to Minnesota and interviewed the elders and community members I, I talked with other people, other die a lot lotion diaspora it within the US. And out of that we shaped this play and we got to tour it. And, you know, moves was one of the people who got to see the play back then and moves was actually in her younger days, what was just kind of kind of gleaning into what is this, you know, theater making and so I became, you know, kind of like a leader and a man and like a leader and a mentor. So, but, but I had to understand that for myself that look, I have to create and start owning the own work and value my own work. You know, forget what other people say, what is important to me. Yeah, and let's start with that and let's see what comes out of that so what what what what matters to me. I love that so much. Hey worry vocals. I'm glad that you're here. It's good to see you. Hi everyone. My name is more vocal. I am a third year student at the University of Minnesota Guthrie program studying acting. I am a my pronouns are he him and I am a performance creator I act I write I direct I kind of dabble here and there because I always need to keep busy. But just to kind of like touch on like the subject brought up at hand I think I'm like, I think as a black theater artist you're always going to be overlooked. It's something that you have to like learn early coming into it. You know, there's sometimes like I even make the joke myself I'm like the amount of therapy I would have like needed if I was a black person studying stand would have probably been less than studying theater sometimes, because like, I mean, it's like a hard truth and it's hard humor. But it's just like, you have these two options whether it's to like surmount the challenge like brought up in front of you. Or like either like fall in line with like what is given and like I've been in like both aspects as a student and like even in rehearsal room practices, but like one of the craziest things that like came to my mind is like especially in school. Well in school like there have been many times where like I have this kind of joke where I say every year I make a professor cry. Because I'm like that's not true or they're like this is why and I'm like, actually white people did not start with this. It's like I've forced myself to kind of like decolonize my education, because at the end of the day we also have to acknowledge that the American theater that we are content that we are standing on is like a theater that started from colonization, and was built on the backs of making artists out of the lives of people of color from minstrel shows to red face with a lot of indigenous lives to like, of course, the different kinds of eyeliner that use for many Asian characters like we have to acknowledge how like people of color are sorry BIPOC people, we've kind of laid the groundwork for culture of the US and like we see those parallels like today and we're still struggling with those issues of like appropriation and like this is why you can't say this word or like this kind of respectability and like it's like sorry if you hear a dog we have a puppy here, but like it's just like that. You always like are with that challenge of like I know coming into this like I'm they don't expect to see, like for instance a black man like me of my size being six one and big like be soft or like go for more vulnerable roles. It's just like a politics that like you learn to either fight against or like go with really and depends on what party you belong to. I don't know how much worry book I agree wholeheartedly with a lot of things that you said. This is a really hard question for me. I definitely feel undervalued in the Twin Cities theater making community. I wholeheartedly believe that if it was not for at least Robinson and Malik see say that I would have left the theater making community in the Twin Cities. I want to get emotional on your day. I went to Columbia College Chicago after being a part of the Twin Cities theater community for a very long time. And I didn't care what role I was playing I just wanted to be a part and I wanted to learn. And I was making it known to everybody that this is what I wanted to do. And I didn't know necessarily. And I didn't know necessarily how I was going to make it happen. And so I was taking whatever gig was thrown at me at whatever price, even though I knew that I needed to make a living. And most of the time picked up whatever job I needed to pick up in order to make sure that I can still be available in those spaces without having to worry about feeding myself because I wasn't getting paid. What I was worth at the time. I left to go to Columbia College Chicago because many of my mentors told me that I must get a theater education and must get a theater training in order to be a part of these conversations. I came back pregnant and I asked the people that have been creating with here in the Twin Cities. How do I do this as a mother. Give it up basically is what I got back give it up, or go back to school, figure it out through school. I didn't get any real answers or solutions. Right. So I gave it up. And I got a job at US Bank. And I got a phone call from at least saying hey, I'm putting on a show for readings and I wanted to know if you had any plays that she wanted to put on and it was in that moment. Right. While I was eight months pregnant, sitting across from at least and being like, yeah, yeah, let's do this right. Let's, like, let's do theater together and let's make it feasible it wasn't until I did the garden where I'm beyond theater in and I was directing with my son on my hip, where I really felt like somebody didn't give up on me and somebody really seen that that I needed to be doing this work. And so it is only through I'm beyond theater company that I show up still in the Twin Cities theater community and and yeah, yeah, thank you. Don't have me on here. Thank you for being vulnerable with us like that and sharing that testimony and being who you are, and just know you how loves you are and how appreciated you are and I know you know we, I know you know we, you know we appreciate you and we love you. And there's always value in this space, always, no matter what. Yeah, no, anyway. Well, yeah. I think also like a sorry just to add on to like each a thank you so much first of all for sharing such a vulnerable like part of your like yourself like to the space like I highly like respect that because not many people no matter the age or where how much training or how bougie they are could do that so thank you. And I think like even your story is a testament to like, we have to acknowledge also within the theater and like overlooking people we still can't sit here and not overlook like the mistreatment of black women in the American theater and like a lot of like women of color into American theater as well in proportion to there are like white feminine counterparts. It's something we see with writing it's something we see with like staging and archetypes as well like we celebrate this and it's the same thing with musicals like there, there are black women who write a lot of like black women X people who write who do this who do that who do that but yet they're left behind on the table. And it's like the only reason like they may even hire like that one black person or this one other person of colors because like oh hey, because you're here you're meant to like solve this decades long issue of racism for us right and you're like, I just got here. And it's even as a student you see it because like it's at the blueprint of our education like, I can't say here and not say I've not only had to be a student, but I've had to be a teacher at the same time. And a lot of like BIPOC people who are going through like undergrad and college or like theater summer camps like go through that same thing where you're like teaching a teacher but also teaching your company and then brings the question like, do theater artists of color have that opportunity to actually sit down and consume education the same as our white counterparts. It's like, how do we change the scope of the educational training coming forward to the future. Because if you keep saying oh all these programs are the future theater like you see it even in auditioning for programs at unified there were times I felt like neat for schools, because I was black, I could sing I could do it and like, compared to all the other white boys were doing the same auditions as me. And it begs the question just like when does like what why do we have to always start with separating technique and identity and marrying both without like starting with just that like unified fixture going forward. And that's just something I wanted to like touch on. That was absolutely phenomenal. And I'm really glad that you spoke to the ways that we can reimagine in the training process of getting people prepared for professional careers and theater. That's a whole separate conversation in itself so thank you. Thank you. I also just want to acknowledge just real quick the the theater makers who aren't necessarily people who are part of theater that may not necessarily be say director acting thinking about the administrators thinking about those in tech. I've also had experiences in the administration where I was often overlooked or under mainly undervalued and overlooked. I was a part of a larger theater for several years at one point and I had to lead a lot of spearhead and organize a lot of the the huger auditions and I remember a lot often being exhausted tired, feel like I deserve to get paid more feel like I need to have more help assistance but knowing the fire that I am inside me I said I'll power through I'll do this I'll do this work. And it wasn't until we had like staff meetings or emails of acknowledgement where in those times where I thought I would get that appraisal. That's nothing but silence, nothing but I'm ignoring. And that's when a I realized that like the validation of large tears are are something that I don't need. Or I feel like when give me an equal amount of appreciation, but also just that there's other, you know, administrators out there, other POC tech crew out there that still get treated in the same way get treated with the same undervalued. And I just want to say that if when we're when we're thinking about American theater, we're also thinking about the hierarchical systems that still are in play, that's still our structure to canonize the artistic process, the directors and actors but neglect all who are behind the scenes and so, you know, when I think about undervalued man, I think about all those, especially in this time now pandemic with so much constraint from being able to do that work, you know, anymore, almost indefinitely at this moment. I mean, I want, I want us to have better acknowledgement of POCs in these positions, better acknowledgement of the hard work we put in the many emails the many, the many things that we have to organize to maintain the larger image of what that theater is and really, you know, to have a thorough clarity and thorough thankfulness of those people in line as well. So, I love it because it is one of those things where you know you learn ensemble when you're on stage but ensemble is the whole company, you know, all the way to the person cleaning the toilets, you know, because if any pieces out of place is not a welcoming space, you know, the actors can't do what they got to do. The audience don't want to be there like everybody is essential everybody's necessary everybody should be celebrated, you know, and I, as somebody who has been backstage, you know, I've had wonderful interactions with actors backstage and I was like, I was just a butler and it's like, girl, I'm here, I'm a just like you. Chill out. You know, so it's, yes, I really love that you speak to that. Do you have like, do you want to add anything to like being feeling overlooked or undervalued in your career at any point, or just more to what we've been talking about. Yeah, so I think I'm the only one on this panel who has zero formal training in theater. Yeah, I don't know what theater terms. I don't know how many theaters are out there in the world. But so what what happens to me often is that I would go into a theater space and I'll be around a lot of like establish directors or like actors and all these people. And they will look at me and be like who are you. And I would honestly in my mind go who are you like literally who I don't know. You're a blank slate to me. Which gives me like the sort of freedom of like meeting people, you know, like how they are meeting me, like what's the energy and so and I'm fortunate because so much of my learnings come from people from the community who are like sharing resources with me sharing knowledge, giving me opportunities because I come from a spoken word background. I'm actually a poet. And the first person who really gave me a chance was Reginald Edmond, who was a many voices fellow, or was it Jerome fellow at the playwright center, and he started playwrights of color collective. And so he invited me into this into the group, knowing I have no theater experience, but he was like, you might get sick of poetry so why don't you explore theater. And I was like, okay, and it worked out great for me so I'm not complaining. But that's the thing like this like credentials. I don't think it's, it's bad like having a degree in theater is it's not bad it's great like whatever. But it becomes a problem when it's, it's like the only thing that's used to measure someone's knowledge or ability. And I might get in trouble for sharing this but a friend of mine applied for a job at a theater to do some sort of like artistic directing work or something like that. And didn't get the job because they didn't have the MFA or the be whatever right I don't know I don't know acronyms. And in our discussion, we were like, but, but you know what the founding director doesn't have a degree either. Like homie was just a hippie back in the day that like to perform and started a company. Um, so I don't know I won't name names. I mean, I will just say for one, just because I have been paying attention. I think I saw you at giant steps speak a while ago. And that's when I started really paying attention to your career and the work that you've been doing. And so for me you're a you're truly a testament of how to get around and lead it some because you don't have all of this quote unquote formal training. You know that you're the melon fellow like this stuff like that that really inspires me to keep moving forward, even though we are dealing with all these different things and we are running into, you know, these forms of elitism in our careers because it's not impossible to make whatever you want to have, you know, even if you don't have the degree or this that are the third or you're not connected to 20 other people who do this over there, you know, like, it just, it gets to be. Yeah, anyway, I don't care for that. I don't care for that either because how he gonna start a whole theater company with nothing and then sell somebody else and all you got to have or whatever and it's like, anyway, I think I think what you're talking about also as I'm as I'm thinking about this is, I mean, again, theaters, sometimes, you know, it's hard to survive as a theater if you have a space because I mean the overhead and all that stuff and so you have to obviously think out of the box. And that's why certain theater companies is just like, well, we don't have a space but we're going to find a way to still, you know, as an ensemble work together so you definitely have to be almost malleable and kind of be passionate and I think what I heard from what I'm just saying is this how, you know, there, there, there are various different paths, I guess, towards, you know, one's career and experience is just what Moose is talking about it's just more experience I'm just going out there and getting experience I may not go the educational route in terms of getting those degrees. That's just another way and I mean both are great pads to success it all depends on, you know, where you land and how you choose to, you know, go about it. I think the other thing was from what Ishe was saying how I think regionally every region is different man every theater like the, the, the, the ecology of theater in one region like here in LA. I don't do much work I'm sorry to say as much as I want to do theater here I don't do much work here. All the work that I have done mostly is outside of California. I work in Hawaii I work in Minnesota. I've taken tours to Alaska, because the work here in LA isn't sadly, I mean there is theater here but it's not a kind of theater that that is welcoming is very elitist actually to be honest. And then also the industry is very film based. And so it's all, you know, I'm an actor coming to LA and every, you know, if that is what you're going for then it's not. I mean, I learned that that's what I learned is like well, it's not going to be for me, I'm just going to go a different route and I did children's theater, I actually actually performed at the children's theater in Minneapolis. You know, and then open doors for me doing doing theater there so it's just one of those things where everyone's journey is different. You know, but I think for us in these in this conversation to recognize look the the elitism that is around us and how do we write address it how do we, you know, find a way to sustain ourselves. You know, because I mean I in Minnesota I mean I'm going to be, I'm going to say in Minnesota I think there are more opportunities in terms of funding and resources, at least from what I what I know, in terms of that is different from California I've got competition up the yin yang with just so because the state is big and funding is different, you know, and so I appreciate, you know, just the challenges that we have to go through in terms of regions so I appreciate that I just I'm sorry. I just wanted to say that we do have a lot of resources and we do have a lot of opportunity but what happens when only five people right, not literally five people but only five people get those same amount of resources and opportunities. You know, and you have Minnesota small you've worked with these people and you're like well how did you get there and they're like, don't worry about it go to theater school and you're like wait, but I don't have time to go to theater school so how did you don't worry about it go to theater school. It's like it doesn't matter how many resources and opportunities are here. If I'm not being taught how to. I didn't even know that I had to apply for grants until I sat down with Tish Jones and I spoke with at least, you know I'm saying I spoke with Ashanti forward and these are these are people that are not even a part of, you know, like at least in what Ashanti is but you know Tish is a part of the poetry community and so it's like what dammit how do you write a grant then where do I find the grants you know like am I supposed to how many how many hours in a day or a week. Does it take to write it was so many logistical questions I had that I did not receive until after I gave birth to my son after I had my son and and the people that were providing it to me. Were not the people I was serving at this elitist table, you know for most of my career. And so it's like it's frustrating it's so frustrating, because it's like y'all see me showing up y'all see me hungry. I write the play, you know I'm saying like, I will perform until I am exhausted down to my last bone, you know, like, what more do I need to show y'all they don't matter if I go to get the fucking theater or not. I want this. I can't live without this, you know. Yeah, we have to we have to stop hiring you to do the work, but not showing you how to get it for yourself. You know, it's just, it's perpetuating elitism, you know. I'm sure you are actually you already bringing us into the next question because I was going to ask about gay keeping and I know you and I have had a lot of conversations about gay keeping around knowledge. And just like the fact that people want to kind of keep some of the resources a secret like people don't know like it's like it's, it's amazing how much money actually does exist here that people just don't know about. Because it's just, I don't know why they don't know what people are hiding it or like you saying, you know, hiring youth to do all this work and like getting these grants to, you know, work with you. But then, you know, the ones who are serious and who want to have a career in this later, not not giving them the professional professional development in order to make a viable career. A lot of it has to be you learn it on your own or you just do some or maybe you got one or two people who tell you, but like you said, all the people you expected to mentor you to show you how to make this a life. You know, some of them didn't do that, you know, and so I do want to touch on gay keeping in terms of like, not just resources but knowledge and just the ways in which, you know, people kind of try to feel like they have to be the only one it has to just be me. I'm the only one that gets these resources, you know. So yeah, I would love to, you know, move into that part of the conversation and, you know, talk about examples of gay keeping that you all have experience or notice. Yes. Yeah, I want to speak a little bit to that. I do definitely think like knowledge of theater is actually really resourceful very useful from the expansion in details of like what goes into play all the way to simplicity of like, what is stage direction what is upstage downstage stage right stage left. I always find that like the more knowledge that I gained through theater the more I want to distribute it to those who don't know about it. And so for a little bit, I was a director mainly a facilitator of devised pieces. And what I come to learn a lot about those pieces, whether it's youth or my peers or folks that are older than me my elders. I've come to learn that there is there is a spectrum of knowledge. You know, there's people that know so much and there's people that don't know even know the bare necessities what like a proscenium is and like, you know, a moat and like stuff like that. And so I found that what makes theater more fulfilling for me is being able to to share that knowledge because I feel like, for me to keep that knowledge, or to talk down to a youth like what you know what downstage right means. Yeah, you know that that that creates and re perpetuates the idea of that elitism in spaces and instead of me being a sumptive of them knowing this theater knowledge. I, I break myself down, and I go from the beginning and I say, Okay, we're going to do this. Who knows what this means. Raise your hand. I'm going to explain to everybody what this means, because at the end of the day. When we're in theater. I think of theater as changing someone's life impacting someone. Not necessarily about like the intentional. Creation of something based on everybody who knows theater. I think about it as this is a performance that communities want to see. So how do we work together to create this performance. And so I've come to realize that a lot of that distribution creates more awareness and also more knowledge you share with everybody. And to suppress that information almost makes you no different than the oppressor and makes you no different than that elitist. You know, creator that that always assumes a that you should know and create a space of knowledge because also from the perspective of the theater maker who may not may contain all the knowledge. People in those spaces that know a lot of things that you don't know either, you know, that they will teach you that they'll inform you about in ways that you didn't see coming. And you come in thinking you know all these things but then it's a whole different experience when you're talking about the topic at hand, or the people who are coming to this space and the intentions of why you're doing this performance for that audience. So I definitely think distributing knowledge is is a necessity in order to build that that clarity and acknowledgement of voices that don't really connect to that as much. I actually, first off, thank you for your words and thank you for the information they brought into this space. I would like to touch on gatekeeping in the way that I mean personally if I'm going to be very raw and blunt here about gatekeeping how I view it I think gatekeeping is frankly stupid. Because it has not gotten us anywhere. It hasn't moved us forward it hasn't propelled us in any shape or form. And the definition of insanity is struggling in the same spot over and over and over and not finding a way to break out of that. And a lot of gatekeeping also comes from I think the theatrical economy. We think about it like this on Broadway New York is home to so many diverse residents so many people. But at the end of the day, the shows are curated for white baby bloomer audiences you know the ones who came up starting Steppenwolf that like 70s 80s era. The thing is the theater community, like right now to has not moved from when the first regional theaters were established and like, even going back to when we talked about overlooking. At the end of the day, they fund black theaters lower than they fund a lot of like bigger elitist white theaters, you see it every year when they announced the grant list, and all the like BIPOC theaters are at the bottom and the base of the money provided. So if the fee like the more I think it's important for us to look at the past reflect on it and see the mistakes we made so that way we can propel our future of tomorrow. It's kind of like how I even write play sometimes I do like go back to like one a lot of black white players to but then I take that white aesthetic and flip it on its head for what my generation will look at in terms of like maybe like, how would it feel to have a video and more digital plays, how to feel to even like, going from how we even market marketing has changed to the thing is a lot of people the theater doesn't want to change. Hollywood has been constantly changing every year there's a new thing that comes back to change and constantly does this. But theater constantly stays in this high class society. So it's not even like at the end that we can't even look on the theater and be like, I wonder why we're not getting that much money. Maybe that's because your target audience is suffering too. And until we learn to leave the value of the white American dollar in proportion to like the BIPOC persons dollar and like the value of that money. And at the end of the day, it's the same thing like if 200 people gave $1 or if 200 people gave $10 each. That's $2,000 already raised and changing it and maybe trying to do more instead of like only calling in people of color for, hey, we're doing this black play and people only come say this market there. Or we're doing this, we're, oh, we're doing Miss Saigon again, to show that we're this and like actually care about people which it's a, let me not get in trouble here but we all know how we, y'all we know. We only call for Asian people or it's like, hey, we're doing Hamilton, but it's like $500 a ticket. So go to Disney Plus, which is like, oh this amount that's expensive. And even with shows and streaming and like marketing is just something that like theater, if we are going to say theater is for all we need to go back and stand by it. We can't just do Shakespeare plays but then charge people like thousands of dollars to come see it. When back in the day, it was actually the people who are the peasants and the nobodies that were actually coming to see it. Hmm. It's just, how do we gatekeep the right traditions and the right things. Instead of gatekeeping our mistakes and saying no no no, this is right. This is how we keep going. It's like how we announced our town for the first show to come forward for the Broadway season with Dustin Hoffman. After the George Floyd protests, we see you at American Theater. Our town. And why because there is a whole audience that they're reaching out to instead of focusing on the millennials and the youth of today. It's just this proportion that is like easy to fix but people's pride does not want to change and fix it. It's like once you learn the same thing as the white man, like you feel there is that like status update that goes towards that person rather than a person who does a different practice of like stuff. There are not enough black players and not enough Asian players when there's a plethora of people writing. No one's funding them. No one's publishing them enough. People aren't going to give back. And now we're seeing the trend of playwrights in Hollywood coming back and giving back from Katori Hall to Jeremy O'Harris. It's something that even the bigger theater should look at. It's something like, from my project, Niger's Alive, we raised a scholarship for a black girl coming in to my program next year, something that I think my school should follow suit with as well. And so it's just like why keep, why do we, instead of like trying and going, instead of asking people of color, what can we do to be better? What can we do to be better? And we've told you in like 800 different ways, 800 different grants, 800 different thesis statements, languages, like at this point it's like go Google translate it and do it. And it's not just the thing of like we don't know any better anymore because it's like, if me at my 20 year old age can do such a small impact and have a scholarship fund dedicated to a black female theater artist, what is your excuse as an organization that has been here for more than 50 years? Yeah. That's what I wanted to add. Well, what do you think is their reason? What do you think is making them hesitant? Like what is the? Hmm, I don't want to say it because it's a bad word. But, am I free to curse on here? You can curse. Okay, well, some bullshit. Personally speaking, I'm sorry, but it is and it's like the notion of we don't have enough funding. First off, who are you going to to fund your stuff? When it starts at the top with funding, you need to look at your theater board of directors and look at how many voices of color are here? How many women are here? How many, and then it's the thing of, there's been this trend when it's like they say, oh, we want more women directors, but it's only white women being hired. So it's then like one there's already a problem of like feminism versus womanism and we're just hearing now and more from more contemporary black female like feminist today. So it's like, that thing of who is funding it and what do they want to see? And so yeah. So I got a question. What if you don't want to be a part of white theater? Because I have no interest in being a part of white theater as a black woman. As a black queer theater maker, I have no desire. I don't have any desire. So I really want to know what what happens to my career then. You sell produce and you find the money yourself, right? I've done that for my my second play, the Hmong friendship play. We got $45,000 from the State Arts Board. And I think something important for people to understand about Minnesota funding is in November 2008, the people of Minnesota voted to increase our taxes so that we would get more funding towards clean water land and to fund the arts, right? So before then we were, there was only like $7 million that was being doled out to, you know, institutions and to like little organizations here and there and to artists grants. And then with this, this legacy amendment, there's like $30 million each year or something like that. I mean, yeah, the people like the Guthrie, which I refer to them as the IKEA with the new direction. They, they still get tons of more, they get tons more money than say, Pangea, you know. And it's still competitive, even with like the individual grants that you can get as an artist who is self producing. It's still very little, but the competition is still a lot. The wonderful thing is that there are more grant programs than before. So maybe you're competing with like 200 people for the thing, but at least there's eight other grant programs you can still apply to. And grants, they're not, they're not sustainable, obviously. But hey, it's better to spend five hours writing the thing to potentially get $45,000. So you don't have to pay out of pocket. And then you can pay people in your community more accurately, right? Like that's like, why would you want to perpetuate, you know, we have to operate from a place of abundance. Yeah. Maybe that's, you know, like the bullshit, they just don't want to operate from a place of abundance. It's always like this. What's the opposite of abundance? It's a scarcity. It's scarcity or lack. Yeah. And that's what gatekeeping has been for me. It has been literally like, oh no, just do just do the contractor work. We only got $50 to pay you. You know, you need to eat for like a week, but that's okay. We only got $50. And that's it, right? Because the most of the money that we got to fund this program or this art idea or project, you know, you don't have enough credibility to get paid more. Yeah, we see you do this other show, but it's okay. We only got this much money for you. And what I'm learning is self-advocacy, right? And I'm learning to say, you know what, that's not going to work for me because I have a child to be, you know, but I had to go out and find that language. Yes. Right. After being a part of a community for eight years, I had to go find that language. And I think that that gatekeeping, it has to be eradicated. It has to go. Yeah, I agree with you. And also what you're saying is, and what Moose is saying also is that as BIPOC artists, you have to build other skill sets. You can't just be, I mean, and, hey, you can be the greatest actor in the world. You can be the greatest writer in the world. But we know that just to do that one thing, it takes many different ways to do it. And so learning to grant right learning to network and be connected with other networks that are in alliance with what you're doing. You know, alternate routes, network of ensemble theaters, Latin X commons, black theater commons, you know, national performance network, these are certain networks, and that may have opportunities, you know, to open that up for you. I think that's really what's been a learning process in terms of as an artist, you know, like, I, unfortunately, I can't just stick to one thing I have to learn to, to, you know, understand grant writing I have to learn to network and be connected with others, and support each other. I mean, that's really what it is and cultivate our communities so that they value the arts, so that we value ourselves. I mean, and what you say you're talking about is business skills right it's just like, hey, I can't work that way I'm going to have to you know what this is how much I value myself. And these are my rates. And then you decide if you want to work with me or not I mean that's really advocating for yourself and learning, you know, that hey I have all these experiences go I mean I have the degree but I have other things and so I'm just wonderful to hear and you know and then it's, you're learning along the way, so I really appreciate that hearing that you know and moves is the same thing saying look I do what I do, and I just do what I can you know and that's where I learned so we're learning. I've been, you know, fortunate enough to just be with a theater company that does connect nationally with these organizations and these other orgs that that expand my network and so that's what for me has been very, very helpful. As we talk about gatekeeping and stuff and hey I'm not saying that it's all easy peasy because all these organizations as much as I rattled them in, they all have issues of their own in terms of elitism as well. I mean, so, you know, we just you work within the systems and hopefully as you continue, there may be up, you know, opportunities and doors but but the more you kind of like to me it's like fishing you can fish with it just just you can go fishing with just with a pole or you can throw a big net. You know and for me I'm like I'm throwing that big net out there and then just kind of gathering and seeing what I have so those are some analogies I have in terms of yeah once career. I absolutely agree with that point of cultivating community, because I feel like doing that teaches you a new different way of defining equity toward that community you're cultivating and also providing a clear sense of how you give those resources. One beautiful thing I was appreciative of was being a part of red eyes. New Works Festival, and through that our cohort gets an opportunity to work with our own teams and create these pieces these short like 1015 minute pieces, and they give us funding for that. I could have used that as an opportunity to be like okay I'm getting this funding who is for me. I'm just how these people for free and we're going to get it going, but what I also felt like was an opportunity to open my mind to a possible system I can recreate for myself. So, not only providing an opportunity for artists but also using this is funding to distribute to these artists as a tool to recreate in itself this like cultivation of a new structure system that we could follow through. And definitely, I've learned from those other artists that it's fuel them to really rethink and reimagine the way they collaborate and create spaces but also feel like that's just in general cultivating community is really just teaching yourself how to create your own boundaries and also push away from the same type of systems that continue to diminish that continue to abuse and not give you any good conversation for in return so. I had another point I lost it but I really like tack on to like you say yeah so really important question about like, if I don't want to practice white theater what do I do I think also a thing about inclusion that we always failed to understand is that like, inclusion is like recognizing the differences every person has and trying to pay attention to that. Because we say inclusion is like for instance, the debate of like a lot of like six women and trans women and like, oh well, you have puberty stuff like says girls in school I'm going to relate this back to theater I promise you like you have puberty like teaching girls and cis girls in school but you don't have like puberty teaching my kids exploring like the gender identity is all these questions blah blah blah and so it's like also inclusion in the theater. We have to recognize like also, there is a difference in like how BIPOC people are paid, who has more respect when or where. And especially like a challenge to the white theaters to I think it's like, maybe broadening their database really thinking about okay I want to direct 12th night it doesn't mean like you have to pick another like white director for this or you don't have to pick the same Asian director like the same time you do. Oh, I want to do lyric it's like how I we have to redefine how we view the term nonprofit. If not all Americans are profiting off of that. It's like knowing you have this money and resource and being like actually, instead of trying to spend money on trying to get the rights to this really expensive show. Why don't I fund something in my community, and have a festival of different shows. It's kind of like redistribution of power and redistribution of economics like there's a sit like again also it goes down to the American government system how there's a place of checks and balances right but yet we failed to observe checks and balances for all look at the capital last, the no pun intended the shit that went down at the capital last week. I'm so sorry, but I'm just come back to my point I think it's just like a lot of like redistribution and reallocation of funds. It's like how you calculate how much time you're spending chasing one thing when you can create 300 three different other things. That was my point that was beautiful. I also just have a special appreciation for ambiance. Because I feel like what we're both was speaking to over speaking to we should speak into kind of points to a lot of the intentions that we had begun was this not only creating this space for black families but also to provide a different vision of how we see theater, you know. And so I think that was in particular when we come when it comes to audience that we envisioning was super strong because when we think about American theater. When we think about the ways of the audience of American theater kind of goes to what we were saying earlier is that it feels like it's a it's, it's glorified, and it's painted with this idea that only the those who can afford it can be there. And when you point it to that it's usually always going to end up being a predominantly white, all white audience or predominantly white and rich audience and so it was really, really important to pay attention to what at least was doing because she was envisioning that to say, we will provide we'll provide spaces for us right now we we're, we put the marketing, we put the attention toward those who now we look at us but those who don't often come to theater spaces to see theater and when that happened. I'm especially thinking about the garden in 2019. We had packed houses of just all black people. In my experience of theater I am never seen. And that was brand new that was brand new but also connected to that conversation about how do we envision our audience. How do we cultivate that community going back to that cultivating that community so that we're providing a new system for ourselves and not following the same that we suppose or we should assume we rely on so theater culture to like, it's like, like, I think we should really ask that question. Why is it that there are some black that black people that like some of us like as people called we see theater and go. That's why people stuff. Why is it that like black people like a lot of people call it like come into theater spaces just wanting to see a show that is about us yet it's like, should I be here. Like, how do I there is like this innate. I think like we have to acknowledge that the fact like a lot of theater culture and a lot of the theater community doesn't no matter how freaking liberal we may swear we may be is also built on racism. Like half of the American half of America as a country itself, and also how we have to acknowledge that find a way to move past that and also look at the effects of colonialism on the American theater. And we have to stop saying like BIPOC shows are only risks, or this risky new take. If I already if as a black person if I'm already living my life scared of being like in danger. Are I consumed and you're telling me my identity is constantly a risk to you, I'm constantly harmful to your organization, just using that word on like even describing a lot of like black women's art Oh this risky new take on this or this risky new approach for our education thing like you have to stop like if you continue to call one group of people the villain you're never going to be able to move past in your story. Absolutely. I know for like the Laos community, they don't go to certain theater spaces or theater because they don't recognize that form of theater. We come with our very own rich history of what theater looks like and how it's been practiced over the centuries right. We go to see a show at the country we're like, oh, first of all that's a joke we don't go see a show at the country. It looks like it's too phallic we're not doing it we're Buddhist. No, but they don't recognize that that that form so they don't they don't feel welcome they don't feel. Yeah, I don't know any other thoughts, but that you're right I mean there is I mean knowing what we know there is a history of, I mean the question of what is theater to within that community. What is theater to you and I would have to say also throwing in besides colonialism capitalism. I mean it's the we're talking about it's it's, you know, when you think of theater is it a luxury. You know, I mean, and if it is then how if you are a person you know if you are middle class lower class. I mean, I'm not even thinking about theater man I'm just thinking about putting, you know, food on the table and paying for rent and raising my kids. So those are some of the factors that you know come into play and, you know, so yeah that's for me it's that's why I'm like having to understand the audience and understand like where they come from is important and really getting to know your community and I think that's where how you know we do it we always do the outreach and the artwork and the work to to to share what we're creating within our community. I think it's when when elitism comes in when there are organizations that just want, you know, just to just to almost like pander to that specific community and say come come over you know come over to our theater and this is what it's supposed to be like. Theater storytelling man he goes back to, I mean it's ritual it goes back to what we've all been talking about we have such a rich history and rich culture of storytelling. If you go back to the basics of it that's what theater is someone telling a story to a group of people. And so if that is the case and that's I mean you know, I mean, that's the bare basics of theater it's just come to the point where as where your vocal had mentioned about you know well America is built on you know this and I mean we can yeah. Even go further on that and you know we are you know doing what we can to kind of represent to kind of be out there and to really shift and change. You know, the way that people see theater, because I'm part of American theater we're all part of American theater what aspect of that theater scene is that's that's the question right and where is the value. You know that's been giving the support that's been giving to this aspect of American theater. I just want to add that I, I want to just add that being like my fine my foundational practice in theater is storytelling. And that it wasn't just all like all white people and just me or all you know I'm saying like Latinx Hispanic people and just me or all black people and just me or all, you know, I was in a classroom full of people that was coming from different you know cultural backgrounds that spoke multiple languages is it wasn't just me I didn't just see me I seen a melting pot of different students you know I wasn't just speaking my story I was hearing other stories. And as and now being a older person directing. I see the value in just opening my first rehearsal process is having people talk about themselves in their life. You don't really get that in traditional theater environments, right, you don't really, you don't really have the director asking, Well, how do you feel about that. You know, like, tell me what you experience while doing this right and I learned that just by being in a community of stories, right. That we're also just not my own and having a basic respect for that really like helps me as I move forward in these very like structured, you know spaces and he's very like, Oh well this is how we do it here space. It helps me stay grounded and who I am and say, I'll be here for your accolades that's okay, but when I leave here. And people are coming right through I'm beyond theater and they're doing a rehearsal with with me. They're going to be able to leave and say that was a that was a fulfilling experience, you know, and shout out to at least because oh my goodness, yes, we had a we had an audience full of black people, and they were able to snap and be like, yep, yep, and, and feel and laugh and express something that audiences aren't able to do. And in white theater, right, they're supposed to just be quiet and just watch and laugh. Antithetical to white theater because go back to Shakespeare and whenever he would perform his plays, they weren't quiet. The actors were talking to people like y'all just OD as hell about. But just, but just making sure that we were doing theater that felt like home right that that felt like ours that wasn't tied to whiteness, even if there was white people and we probably had like what one or two white people in the audience. They wouldn't even make them feel no type way about being there. Right, because theater is inclusive without removing people's identity. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. And yeah, I don't know if we went on this one question for way too long and when it's other questions, but yeah. And even like a point you bring up to like a lot of BIPOC cultures did theater outside. And I think I never I always like question to with like a lot of people that do outdoor shows and theaters. And for me was like, why haven't you thought about producing like a bunch of like different culturally selective shows. Because at the end of the day to like for instance a lot of people think that the main language of America is English. America does not have an official language, people. And if you see this fact, you can Google it and like I won't be wrong, and it'll be embarrassing for whoever tried to argue with me. And it's just like, if you see that there are these diverse languages these diverse cultures like representative of all of like your country, a thing that could have even been practiced outdoors like, even with COVID like in distance shows. There could be outdoor shows going on right now. There's a lot of intense with heaters and still done something in the winter as well. And like, still like it. It's just like there's just this one view. And everyone is like a lot of theater to like, eat fall like the same or still or a stately in like form of writing there's a beginning there's a middle there's an end. Whereas and it's like, if you keep falling just that that linear line, and you're looking at that linear focus that has been what you've been taught from all these events, all these audition rooms all this trauma you've been through. And you don't try to broaden past that like, eventually, theater may possibly die as an American art form dare I say, because you're going down a road trying to go forward but meanwhile all your thoughts and all of your mistakes and things pulling you back. And it's like, I saw this really cute video one time because when I first started my role to theater when I came to America to school, I couldn't go to Broadway obviously because I was in school but like I would just watch like Broadway clips online and say constantly said this really cool thing about like, no, like with technique it's like knowing technique and it's something I've just started doing, especially my black life to like knowing technique, knowing your personal identity, and then knowing how to bring that round around and sell yourself as a product, which is still also based off of both Sam and all that stuff and like the bourgeoisie and yeah. Absolutely love the movement of this conversation. I mean I'm over here supposed to be moderating me all just and you know, gone on with it you know so I'm super super grateful we're on our last five minutes for tonight and so I want to wrap up with, you know, how are you personally dismantling elitism in your own practices and like how what other ideas you have moving forward. I know we've already touched on it a little bit, and just different points in our conversation, you know I know for myself personally like Malik was saying like, to me audiences is huge, you know, like I personally got tired. When I was a young person, you know, performing for Saint Paul public schools, I got tired of performing my trauma in front of all these white teachers, you know and then having them be like but I'm in this classroom and so I don't agree with you and it's like but this is like in a lot of students in your classroom have had this experience I've had, you know, and so for me it was important to cultivate that space where black folks came to theater and saw theater and interacted with us because of the healing that can happen in those spaces. You know, and to feel like I'm sharing my story with people who care about you know who are not just oh that was wonderful even though I'm over here telling you some really painful and heart wrenched things about my life, or even if it's my joy and just you trying to characterize it, I mean caricature my joy and like who I am as a human being so that's how I want to continue moving forward is making sure that the work that I do is always connected to the people who I value and who value me, and it's not just about how many people in the audience are trying to make you know, make myself look like I'm not I want to I want to steer away from caring too much about the accolades, because I'm noticing how people view me differently with some of the accolades I've done and I'm grateful for all the opportunities I ain't trying to say I don't know more about the accolades, but I am trying to say is that, you know, what's most important to me about theater is, is it healing me is a healing the people around me, and is it healing the audiences, because we are walking in generations and generations of pain and trauma in history in this country that has not been dealt with, which is why we saw them foods at Capitol because you know them as the police anyway because how they getting in the first place anyway. I didn't mean to take up that much time, but I do want I still want us to be able to, you know, have our last moment of check it up and check it out and talking about like how we moving forward will continue to dismantle elitism in our own practice. Anyone can start. Thank you again so much. For me I just, I want to, and I have been and continue to encourage and invest in supporting artists of color. That's, you know, that's, that's it. So, thank you. Thank you. I'm going to try and make this short learning actually like with my education, I'm constantly being a student in and out of the theater room, like, for instance, I went to a football game y'all I have no idea about football but from that football game I was inspired about playing to play about NCAA athletes and how they treat young black boys and black girls. You know what I mean, and it's stuff like that or even with like school like not being afraid to like affect everybody so quick to be a teacher but nobody wants to be a student, especially in my call out culture now, especially with my age and I'm like can you shut up and listen before you attack like and so for me it's just like constantly learning but also like constantly challenging my learning and no one like. No, I don't think that's like how my life and go I could still get a career even if I don't have 10 million followers on Instagram, or just because Oh maybe I don't like. August Wilson is not the only black play right. If August Wilson is a theater companies only black best friend, you're part of the problem. Okay. It's true and if Miss icon is your only like any best friend who are part of the problem sorry somebody had to tell you, it was me a well um and so yeah it's just that thing of like constantly knowing that like I'm never going to sit here and be like, there's not enough black play right. Okay, girl, but that's just my thoughts. Thank you. Right because it's not just August Wilson's also learning hands very, you know, Alice Childress. I sure am on. Dominique Marie so I'm thinking I'm just throwing them out I mean there's so many, you know, and there's so many stories told, and so many more to tell, and I think for me, what I'm hoping to do to annihilate or remove elitism. I'm just continuing to acknowledge those stories, acknowledge the stories that are belittled forgotten silenced. I want to be a part of spaces that acknowledge and uplift those voices uplift those new stories and provide nuance to theater spaces that lack a lot of it. Because in the end, what was going to help grow and was going to help expand the theater is by seeing those stories. And that's what's going to bring our communities together that's what's going to expand our community within this this theater realm. And also create create nuance. I think that's just the part and that I think too much theater is done too frequently too often for absolutely no reason and teaches nothing, you know, in comparison to these, these missing stories that are often put on the the back burner to to tell yet again. It's the story yet another again another Shakespearean, you know show. I want to see more like voices on those stages, but I also want to be a part of and witness those new spaces being created as well so I think I can go. Oh gosh, this I love this group this group is so great like I think we should meet more often and I will, I will pay your side. Let's see so something that I've done and will continue to do is I like to as much as I can eliminate barriers for people so I know that grant proposal writing or like even just identifying grants which is even being able to understand and navigate grant is a huge obstacle for a lot of our artists in our communities right. So what I do is I just I help artists right grant proposals and I help them with project ideation and all this other stuff and, and to help people find funding so I'm going to continue to do that. Because there's there's abundance there's a lot out there, we just need to go and get it. Because we deserve it. It's like also a lot of people ask the same question whenever a guest artist comes like, how do I make it how do I make it and they always say like, create your own work. Like, and also a thing like I think that's also kind of rebellious is like being confident in my like black identity because like I also came to America at 14 I'm an international student and it's like, being confident and like that is enough in itself and it doesn't have to change. Rather, I can just add on more tools rather than seeing like, I have to change for whiteness because that's how I'll get ahead. It's just like something that I do in my part, because at the end of the day, it is like, it's funny how like when a black when the personal color comes into a room and it's confident we're deemed the villain. But when a white person does it they're seen as the savior and Messiah of the world. And so I think like that's just something that I continuously try to do, because I think like being black and happy and black joy and like POC and BIPOC joy is an act of rebellion in itself. I see myself through the eyes of white America. That's how I continue as an artist in this country by doing what my children need and doing what is going to help them prevail and survive and live. I'm going to always create for black and brown folk to remind them that we do not need, we do not need the affirmation of white theater to be doing what we do, we do not need the credentials or the accolades of white theater to do what we do. Because we live and we breathe and us existing and us expressing is is a testimony and it and it's going to impact people on every day. And so, yeah, I thank y'all so much for having me on this panel. I love each and every one of y'all and we are doing the necessary work, even when it is tough because it is tough and so much gratitude to each and every one of you. Thank y'all so much. This is a wonderful conversation and I definitely we do need to get together again and just continue with the with this work. I also want to thank everyone who tuned in to listen to our conversation tonight. You are so appreciated. I hope you have a wonderful evening and next time.