 who also if you know if you if you go out and join the protest on any given day the public theater lobby I believe is not correct Audrey is open in support two to six yep from two to six in support of the the justice justice our justice warriors and we also want to give thanks to howl round who help us and have been helping us for the past three years the public theater has been helping us for 11 years doing this show which is amazing and so we're really grateful today and do we know what we're doing here of course we know what we're doing we're here we're gonna do watch me work we work together on any kind of work you got anything and then we talk about your creative process your work in your creative process and if you want to have a question after our 20 minute work session I'll just gonna tell you how to get in touch go Audrey SLP yeah so if you are inside of the zoom all you need to do is click on the raise your hand button which is in the participant tab which is likely at the bottom of your screen on a laptop or the top of your screen on an iPad or a tablet and if you are watching on howl round TV you can actually tweet a question at us at watch me work SLP with the hashtag howl round H-O-W-L-R-O-U-N-D and you can also tweet at public theater and why or write into our Instagram messages and we'll get it there and I gotta say I love I'm I love seeing people in the lobby of the public theater but I especially love this version of watch me work because it has a mute function so that when I'm working I can be noisy which I'd like to be anyway so maybe some of y'all like to be noisy too we got 20 minutes here we go right yeah we're back all right so this is the part where we take questions from you yeah here we go we've got a question yeah all right Erica you are up first did you get the request to unmute there you go hey so thank you so much like everyone says but this has just been such a godsend for me just having an appointment every day it's amazing my question I guess is kind of related to the fact that this thing is already helping me but it's about shifting gears like I feel like it takes me so long to get into my work I'm working I do like advertising copywriting and like other kinds of PR like I have all these projects and I'm lucky enough to have some jobs at home so I'm trying not to complain but at the same time and I become resentful because I've gotten inside my novel that I've been working on forever and I want to be in there and then I feel like I'm being dragged out all the time and then it takes me forever to get back you know and so even like this 20 minutes has been great because I realize there's actually a lot you can do in 20 minutes but sometimes it feels like time just like goes away and so that I guess are there any tricks to getting inside it quick I guess you know I know there are other people I've heard are working on like five things and so that's really impressive I just even a couple of things I feel like my brain for shifting gears has gotten slower that's a great question Erica and you know those of us are working on multiple projects it's still it's still a shifting question how do we shift from one thing to another even if it's even if you're only working on say one project and your main job is to help guide your kid through their third grade math homework I mean I don't need to you know it's all important and it all needs to get done sometimes I mean that's why keep you said appointments work for you and maybe if you're you know you're doing advertising copy and you're in an office you know that's the time for that and then you're here and it's okay but say that right these days maybe you don't go to the office and you could have and I don't know what size your living space is but you can have maybe different places to do the work a lot of times in the morning I trick myself trick my I have a lot of little tricks I trick myself into doing things like if I'm needing I get up and I meditate so there's my meditation cushion it's like right there right and then I like have I have to I schedule my yoga practice which also happens in my living room we have a very very tiny apartment right so I my family will attest to this I walk over to my yoga mat and kind of stand there and I won't move until I unroll it and then I stand at the front of it and I have to do you know any so all these little tricks you can sit yourself down from timers are good because you can say I'll only do 20 minutes and then I'll get up and do some necessary tasks around the house or whatever and then do another 20 minutes and that 20 minutes can accumulate over the day you can do you know three 20 minute segments equals an hour that's a good chunk of time you know what I mean you can I don't know what time you know if you have family what time they get up in the morning or all that kind of stuff but early in the morning sometimes helps if you're night out late at night 20 minute segments is really cool right you can also do where are they I got all these things around my desk you can't see them what they are you know there you know these are magic they're not quailudes or whatever their earplugs you know right I have a very noisy Washington Square Park is right out there people you know peacefully protesting I put in my earplugs if I need to get my work done at certain times of the day when it's especially noisy that helps me also focus in the timer though is the best thing yeah I'm gonna get an actual one like that yes this yeah no your phone where's my phone this is a crack delivery system you wouldn't know it right but it really is it's a crack delivery system your phone is crack and it's got so many wonderful things on it right this only has one wonderful thing on it this is right I have many of these I can try so I have so many timers it's kind of sad I have so many of them because I like to use them so much all right that's awesome I feel like that's really helpful and like I said this has been the first you know the first step and really great and this has been a couple of months now so great thank you good good thank you Erica great question thanks Erica all right up next we have got Richard Richard are you there oh hold on I got to click one more time are you there I'm here hi Richard so thank you thank the community for the last two months three months so when we left off I had these two guys in a park I was right of block and leaving it for a few days and then I put these guys in a car and we took a road trip and it unleashed this flow this great this ease when I'm rereading it now it feels like Act 1 or Park 1 is the only connection between part one and part two is because I say it so it it feels like very disconnected and it feels like a lot of times when I see plays I only believe that Act 1 in Act 2 exists as a play because they say so so the question is how do you deal with the transition question mark it's different they're in a car in the second part in the first part they're in a park and it totally affects how they talk to each other how they receive each other so is there so this is a silly but not everything yeah if you sit in a car if you sit in the park right where is their car parked sorry that's okay where it can you see it I mean if you're sitting with them is it like a crosstown it's maybe at a house a block a half a block down can they see it uh-huh what color is the car by the way exactly blue like sky blue teal like the color of J. Julian Christopher's background does it have a name does the car have a name does the car have a name yes yeah you know I'm just I'm just curious is there a way to as they say in professional writing circles is the way to tee up the trip the road trip meaning you know tee up like it's a golf metaphor I know and I don't play golf but I my sister does but you know is it a way to set up the the action of the driving that happens in Act 2 oh you shoot I'm saying yes is there a way to set it up just one of the characters fondly talk about our driving experience he had with his niece or nephew when he took them 80 miles to go to the zoo where there was the only living sloth in this stage you know I mean I'm just making that shit up but you know what I'm saying and then we transitioned into oh there they are in a road trip do you see what I'm saying is there a way to set it up exactly so that it's connected to the desire of the characters because actually the first part is all about getting out in the second part they get out but you go you get out in where how do you get out what is it you get out because it's not a car it's my car it's the color is sky blue right I think the sound connected to me just just just lay it in there it's you know laid in the the fabric of the first act a little bit more and good for you for getting through you know sounds like you got to act too sounds like it's beautiful sounds very beautiful we'll share it sometime thank you thanks Richard thanks Richard all right Kendall you are up next are you there Kendall yeah hi hi first obviously thank you for this but also I want to thank you because yesterday someone asked you a question and you just recommended going to the park and eating ice cream so I use that as justification for eating two slices of carrot cake and I just told myself it's fine because Susan Laurie Parks told me to so thank you for that second so my friend and I are collaborating on a web series together and it's really easy to do because she's in Canada and I'm in New York right now and I was just this is the first time that she and I each have collaborated on writing I was wondering do you have any any advice or maybe something like you know something you've learned that you can pass on to a young artist who's collaborating for the first time you write writing with others right right writing with others writing with others can be a lot of fun because you know it's it's like if you get like tired or out of ideas or you're cranky one day then maybe they'll be able to come on let's go let's you know let's show up anyway let's just throw anything down in the paper and if your friend one day if they're tired or cranky or not in the mood you can encourage them right that's really super great so lean on your friend you know lean on each other carry the weight you know be ready to carry the weight I'm guessing that you have some kind of a hate to say it prenup kind of do you have a little contractee something like we're writing this together it's our you know do you have some kind of some kind of prenup thing going on like in writing like it's just something that she and I are like working on right now I think to like not go crazy yeah hopefully this is something we can like do sure do either you have a representation like an agent or anything I don't have one for writing no no okay okay I'm just you might want to just DIY prenup okay you know Paul McCartney you ever heard him you know he got married to a woman named Heather I Heather I forgot her last name okay she they didn't have a prenup you know then they got divorced like yeah you heard about that you know you just want to be poor Paul right I mean he's rich he can afford to lose it but but she got a she got a new pair of shoes she got a new pair of shoes right so I mean you guys are friends it'll make it easier yeah because you are friends and when you sell your brilliant piece of writing to you name it you know I'm saying right then you'll be like you know you have to think about that like we're writing this we're sharing it 50-50 gotcha that's you know we both sign it hurrah that's all you got to do okay lean on each other so that when you're you got your prenup now you don't mind going two days in a row you had all the ideas Kendall then the next day for two days your friend had all the ideas you won't be thinking oh gee you know or if some producer reads it wow this is great okay who's gonna do the rewrite well we both are we both did it together you know it hopefully it won't lessen the romantic element of it the joyous nature of it sure um and and maybe before after the end of every session you guys can go okay so maybe you you you game plan you strategize about those things you're gonna work on in your team state and come to the table with the next day sorry there's music now now there's somebody he only plays three chords this guy but they same three chords every day this dude four chords or whatever but he has a song in his heart and we love him that makes sense so maybe you go okay so what are we gonna you know so hey tomorrow you know think about character a and i'm gonna think about character r and we're gonna think about that great okay like that you guys can you know it's it's it's you're doubling your your power you know okay not sure have fun though and yeah don't yeah keep from going crazy and yes thank you so much thank you thanks Kendall um all right up next we've got Lynn are you there Lynn yes i am am i unmuted yeah me first of all thank you thank you thank you and thank you good to see you Lynn so good to see you so um some time ago when i i think when you told me to put something in a drawer and you know i put in the drawer and i really because of life and because of other things i mean i was um writing other stuff just to keep writing and you know a little bit of plays and this and that but i took out this thing i put in the drawer which means so much to me and so much time has passed i'm a different person my life is different and i still want to write this and you know what do you do with that i mean does that add to it because my my perception of what i wanted to say has changed right my characters are the same though but my perception of some of them has changed i right so you're you're have you yeah did you get to the end before you put in the drawer Lynn no no i knew what the end was but okay okay okay and do you still remember what that end you had in mind well absolutely yes yes yes okay so you know i mean your choices are this either say i'm a different person oh well and put it down and go oh well or i'm a different person or i'm the same person but just you know smarter wiser a better writer i'm going to go back and i'm going to look at this with with relatively fresh eyes and do a rewrite on it you know i mean because it's not like you want to write it's like you want to rewrite it you're in the rewrite stage let's just say and you want to go through it and you want to do a rewrite on it with fresh eyes can you rewrite something that isn't finished on the page what is it that you know what it is well i would say in this case yeah if you if you can say what you do is you take a piece of paper um eight and a half i love and not this says music on it but anyway eight and a half you write either write or type it out what the end is okay so this happens this happens this happens this happens and in the end this happens the end okay so now you've finished the draft okay yeah now you go back and you do your rewrite you see what i'm saying so you're not going to try to finish the end get to the end in the mode that you were in x number of years ago when you put it in the drawer because that's not possible right you it's possible you this happened and this happened this happened this happened in the end that happened the end great now i stick that on that's the last page you go to the front and you rewrite with this new fresh awesome superpower that you've generated in the past couple of months does that make sense yes okay and just one other quick question i was so moved by carol the other day when you spoke to her i love you for your empathy and i feel the same yeah thank you yeah thank you learn thank you learn thanks sweetheart thank you all right oh uh up next we've got julia um hi um wow um hi and i'm thank you so much for this i'm new i've been an actor for a long time and specializing in like new plays but i just started writing writing in the last two years and i got a commission to to write a kind of either a one character play or a one person show and it's about disappearance in its many forms of things like a grifter or a death or um anyway um the person that i was working with as a director and dramaturge um disappeared and um i'm working with somebody else now and i'm going through like all the stuff that i've written and a little bit of it is uh i have a little bit of the same question as just previously that i feel like some of my ideas have and priorities have shifted but i also was just looking through all these worknotes that i had from the first person that i was working with and wondering how valid it is to bring those in now that i'm working with someone else do you have a thought on that it also goes back to our first question you know did you have or from kindle you know did you have some kind of agreement with that person or no no i mean there's no there's no legal thing about it i just i guess i feel i feel a little lost in the project now uh huh uh huh i would say use what you got if it's old worknotes you know and they're interesting to you and they're valid to you and they make sense to you and they spark you i would say use them i would say also if they don't don't feel obligated to use them you know um try as much as you can like with lin you know i said to get to a kind of end because what you i don't what i it's tricky to okay i'm a new person i'm picking this up again i'm gonna start at the beginning you know see if you can get to some kind of end with it some kind of way get to a kind of finish line i find that very helpful because then you can you could you know pat yourself on the back i got to a finish line now i can look at the whole thing again do you see what i'm saying um so we don't get stuck in the i gotta get the first 10 pages right you know um that's what i that's what i would do okay i would just try to somehow get to the finish line okay um use the notes the old notes if they help yeah definitely yeah definitely and thank you i i can't this is so inspiring to me and everybody is everybody's so wise i mean everybody's questions are so wise it's really amazing thank you so much thank you thanks julia thanks julia um all right so we actually have a question from social media um it's this the political and social sphere of black lives matter has informed informed my current writing do you ever feel burnout or pressure from writing on racism how do you write about these things without it weighing you down and this is a question from twitter i'm not sure who from twitter right um well well um you know i'm i don't you're writing about racism you know i've been i've heard people say you know they've just discovered like who they discover who they are by writing you know i discovered who i am by just being you know when i was born you know what i'm saying um so the burden if it you call it that or the responsibility of being an african-american woman living in america i've been caring for my whole life and it requires a special kind of grace to carry the burden the burden of you know the or the responsibility if you say the responsibility of of being a of a race that isn't often respected and being of a gender that isn't as respected as it should be either you know so there you go that's the that's the ticket and no it's it's it's odd though it's it's not a burnout thing what you have to constantly do is remember what i remember anyway this is what i do i always remember that whatever i'm writing about i'm always writing about people i would not say i write about race i would not say i write about gender issues racial issues homelessness issues uh you know issues any issue i don't write about issues i write about people and writing about people and their desires is a source of constant you know joy and often anguish because my people are a lot of time in anguish but i i so i would suggest that it's for this twitter person that instead of focusing on the issue focus on the person right okay so we don't write about the issue we write about the person because at the end of the day that's who we're that's what we're talking about we're talking about people and i found that very helpful in my many years of being a writer many many many years okay i hope that's helpful i wish we could see you and talk to you here but hopefully that'll be helpful yeah come on by sometime um all right thank you so we've got about 11 minutes left and we've got devin has got a question go for it devin greetings from los angeles um it's been uh such an intense time as everyone knows uh in the last week i've two of my sons have been in skirmishes with the police and you know it's been very serious situation in my family and all around and you know as a playwright i'm on the i've written a play i started at this play 20 years ago it's based on some source material which is white i'm white i'm white female um and i'm about to cast this for a certain you know reading and i'm really troubled by the fact that it's entirely white it really troubles me now i can um it like i said there's source material that is white um it's based on paintings that are of white folk um so i um i've been giving this a lot of thought and i um i i have always loved colorblind casting you know like the best actor for the role to me is the is the best choice um but in this particular moment i'm i'm it's it's i just feel like i have a i'm just wondering if you would talk to me about that that's it's it's tricky um first of all i hope your sons are okay they are we talk about parenting a last week or something did we not devin did we talk about your kids who are old enough to go out anyway maybe not um but i'm i hope i'm glad your sons are okay i'm i'm were they were they out protesting or were they yeah they were uh my older son was arrested in the Bronx uh on the 5th of uh june and my younger son was in the um uh was in the skirmish in uh Pittsburgh where he's at school um and his his partner was hit with tear gas so he's been taking care of them right right but um and they're they're pretty much okay well they're traumatized and they uh you know they've you know i i just i you know it's just an evolution i think of consciousness you know to get get work to this and you know i grew up in a white county in a in a and and had a particular feeling about the police and then um you know but my sons have always been like uh that's not who the police are so i am grateful for this moment um this moment in so many ways um but yes thank you for asking yeah yeah because you know and they're good no i'm glad and so you have your play your your beautiful play that is about white folks to say you know it's or it has you know white folks in it it's about white folks in paintings i'm right i mean tell me if i'm yeah that's exactly right and you know there are a dozen characters and they play actors play paintings and then they play people in a tour so um that's that's the story um right so i mean you could cast it like you were have always i'm guessing been intending to cast it and that's what it is the good thing about a play is that you can do it many different ways you know it's not like a film script where you shoot it and that's kind of what it is right yeah you can cast it in many different ways i'm guessing i'm guessing you're going to do it on a zoom kind of thing right okay so why don't you know the tricky thing about doing the right thing is that you want it to well sometimes you know you want it to come from an organic place but you also do want to encourage it along sometimes you know because if we all waited for everything to come from an organic play you know you want to go hey maybe i don't feel comfortable going out to the march today but let me go out anyway and see how it feels right so you could have your reading cast with the people who look like the people in the paintings right um and that's what it is right now and that's what you wrote yeah and maybe look at the reading and then go well you know what i'm being moved to reconsider what i wrote maybe maybe you will maybe not that's okay i i think it's i don't think that justice means that every kind of person is always included in every kind of thing i don't think that's what kind of justice people are asking for do you see you know what i mean it's not like every play gotta include somebody who looks like me god damn it you know i don't think i don't think that's what people are asking i do think people are asking to be seen not abused and certainly not harvested not to have their cultural works harvested so i mean i gotta say in terms of you know i i mean just me personal again this is just my personal opinion i have seen plays which are white characters you know a story that does not involve a personal color okay but then they keep making a reference to some kind of thing going on in the world like gee that thing in Uganda or whatever to kind of show that they're relevant it's you see what i mean and that seems abusive to me yeah personally i find that abusive because they don't want it to be a white play they want to show that they're woke so they kind of talk about or they have one black character in there to make it look relevant yo and that's personally yeah that's that's that's tricky um but for example like uh i don't know um richard knows i had a play on recently on online but his his plays that i saw the public theater i think it was last year white characters white plays that was that was fine i wouldn't call it a white play i call it some characters that he loves that he wanted to see just like i wouldn't call an august wilson play a black play you see what i'm saying you see oh yeah yeah yeah you know so i would go ahead and have your reading have your reading the way that you imagined it you know and see in the reading of it if there is something else that you want to do differently next reading or not write a new play right yep that maybe incorporates some of the things more specifically going on in the streets today um we're all being moved to look at our actions you know yes we're all being moved to look at our actions so i appreciate you looking at your the actions of what you do thanks thank you but and thanks for showing up here it's good always to see you Devin all right we got three minutes left and we're gonna go to jody jody are you there oh yep i'm here am i unmuted hi hi miss parks so i have just like a quick question um i feel weird calling you anything but miss park so i'm gonna put all my okay i'll do it um and my cat's like roaming around here so if he knocks me in the head sorry about that in advance um i just have i have a play that i've been struggling to come not necessarily complete but really kind of figure out the broader like story broader narrative and part of it is because it the play itself kind of frightens me and i can't really figure out why i feel it's almost like i have the sense of dread to try and go back to finishing this story that i began and i'm just wondering have have you ever had that experience where you started something and they felt afraid of it or intimidated by it and if so what did you do or like i just it's like i have some sort of block and i think it's very much fear-based and i can't quite figure out how to break through that yeah well there are a couple things yeah okay so you could put it down and never write it on it again that's a possibility right you could totally in your mind anyway in your imagination imagine the worst case scenario what would really happen you don't have to do it now but what would really happen if you finish the play what is it that you're afraid of and take a good look at that you know which is sometimes helpful or you could not really focus on whatever it is that you're afraid of too tough and again get out of timer maybe set you know maybe 10 minutes a day small little increments 10 times 6 is 60 you know so right and you would you could accumulate an hour working on it every day just chip away just yeah just inch along inch along inch along okay like that and so you don't have to really um sort of have a conversation with the thing you're afraid of you know right right right right right okay you can have a conversation by inching along and you know during the day you're going to be sort of having these things roll around in your life and in your head right in the meantime you get 10 minutes a day yeah a little 10 minutes a session and what you do a little bit and the timer goes off okay a little bit more and the timer goes off you know I mean spaced throughout the day right right you know okay thank you that's wonderful thank you thanks thank you good question thanks jody it's six o'clock six o'clock magically magic it's become six o'clock again I can't believe um so as usual tomorrow is our final day of the week Thursday June 11th um and if you sign it up by 3 p.m eastern time tomorrow on the public theater website um you can be in the zoom and I'll send you the link between 3 and 4 30 p.m eastern uh and you can always just watch us on howround.tv we love it thank you thank you guys thanks have a good evening everybody see you tomorrow