 If everyone can take their seats, we're going to start. Just as a little matter of housekeeping, a reminder that the regional lunches are happening in this building. We'll have signs and volunteers to guide you to where you're going. If you don't know what restaurant you're going to for regional lunches, it's because you're not. So we'll do that right after this panel. I am third to do now is the second panel in a row that builds off of the conversation that Magda and Vicki started in Boston on issues of diversity and inclusion in the theater. This is yet another panel where I just invited all my friends who I think are cool. So if you don't know them already, I'm super excited that you will be meeting them. And as I said in my introductory speech, I was deeply inspired by Martine's comments in that panel and about removing the language of fixing diversity by a certain date and instead committing ourselves to a lifetime of inviting people into the theater. So I am going to turn it over to the fabulous Martine Key Green Rogers, and she will introduce everybody. Hello, everyone. So number one, some housekeeping as well in terms of this panel. I want to remind you to please tweet about this panel and tag the conference with the hashtag. Just to make sure we have an honest conversation. And I know that's difficult while we're being taped, but let's just be free to say the things that's on our mind and ask the questions that are on our mind because in the end, what do we do as dramaturgs? Ask difficult questions. So let's just embrace that as we go. And so I'm going to open the panel with all love and respect to Prince with a little refashioning of one of my favorite songs. Let's go crazy. Ready? Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to talk about this thing called diversity. It's an electric word diversity and hopefully you're doing it forever and that's a mighty long time. But I'm here to tell you there's something else, inclusion, happiness, where your theater can see the sun day or night. So when you call out that artistic director, you know the one that thinks that the status quo is okay. Ask them how much of their time is left, how much of your mind is left, baby, baby. Because in this life, things are much harder than diversity and inclusion. And if they don't get on the program, they're on their own. On that note, introductions about. I am Marti and Keegan Rogers. I am an assistant professor at the University of Utah and a freelance dramaturg and a newly minted board member of LMDA. There. Next to me is Nicholas Vaselli, who is the newly appointed artistic director of theater breaking through barriers, the only off Broadway theater dedicated to advancing the works of performers with disabilities. He has been a core member of this theater since 1997 and has acted or directed in nearly every production during that time. Next to him is Keith Joseph Adkins, who is the artistic director of the new Black Fest, an organization dedicated to the new and provocative playwriting films and discussions of the African diaspora. He is also a playwright and screenwriter, and his plays include The People Before the Park, which is about the 19th century black community, Seneca Village, that was destroyed to create Central Park. Next is Rehana Lou Mouza. She is a playwright and a current member of my writer's lab where she served as co-director from 2011-2013. Wow, I can speak. Her full length plays include Soldier X, Lonely Lila, and Barriers, which she produced with her company, Disapita, thank you, a South Asian and Asian American theater company that she founded in 2001. Next to her is Lisa, Lisa McNulty is in her first season as producing artistic director of the Women's Project Theater. She comes to the Women's Project Theater from Manhattan Theater Club where she served as artistic line producer for eight seasons. She says the most interesting things about her right now is that this is her third time working at Women's Project, that she's worked for any artistic director the place has ever had and that she has never worked for male artistic director. And she started as a literary manager and a dramaturg and she still considers that her job. And then last but not least, David Harrell, and he is the disability associate at the Alliance for Inclusion and the Arts. He is an actor, dancer, writer, speaker, and advocate. He served as accessibility and outreach director for the Raleigh Ensemble Players Theater Company from 2002 to 2004 and was funding from North Carolina Council on developmental disabilities work to make their theater space and performances more accessible and inclusive. And so on that note please welcome our panelists. So in getting started what I would like to do is for everyone very briefly to just talk about how you feel like the work you do addresses issues of inclusion and diversity. And this will help our audience both here and out there in the interwebs land understand more about what you do if they don't know who you are already. I knew I was sitting next to you for a reason. Theater by the Blind or Theater Breaking Through Barriers was founded in 1979 as Theater by the Blind. We've always been an integrated company. Early on we worked with blind and low vision artists and really tried to, it was really all about trying to advance their work. In 2008 we decided to expand the mission. One of the key reasons being that while it was a wonderful mission working exclusively, well I don't want to say we worked exclusively with blind and low vision artists. We were always open, but however our name always just implied, oh no, you work with just blind and low vision artists. But the idea is no, we have to open it up. Everything has to be broader and bigger. So in 2008 we officially expanded our mission and changed our name from Theater by the Blind, TB, TB, to Theater Breaking Through Barriers, TB, TB. Inclusion has always just been a given for us. It's always been about, and we are an integrated company, so a lot of people would say well, why aren't you just working with disabled artists? And sort of the reason for that, I mean in our philosophy is that life is inclusive. Life is integrated. It should be integrated in any event. And for us it's very important because we're artists. And as artists we create our own world. There's a lot of obstacles in the real world. We don't always win in the real world. But as artists we create our world. We can make them as open as we want. And so I know that's a fundamental idea, but it's a very important idea. So the idea is always trying to be as broad and open as we can be. So for us it really is trying to fit the real world into what we want to do. Trying to find accessible spaces for everybody. Or to be able to make the spaces accessible. To be able to take the art and say all right, we're going to be doing a Shakespeare play. What's the difference whether someone is in a wheelchair or is blind? It doesn't make a difference. An artist is an artist. So that's the important key. So this has been our philosophy and it's worked for us so far. Thank you. I think I have a mic. I don't know. Does this work? Can you hear me? I'm the artistic director and co-founder of the New Black Fest. And we started in 2010 in an effort to share, celebrate, and advocate for diverse voices within the African diaspora. And one of the reasons why we decided to do that was because there were so many theater companies that seemed to be addicted or subscribing to the August Wilson narrative. And although I love August Wilson and many, many of us love and even often mimic his work. And even often feel that because so many theaters are interested in that style of narrative when it comes out of the Black Canon, people were beginning to sort of shape their own writing around what they thought theaters would like based on what August Wilson sort of provided aesthetically. And so the New Black Fest wanted to reach out to various writers from all over the globe that identified as being of African descent or having an experience that was African-centric and showcase those works, hopefully, you know, invite other theater companies, artistic directors, literary managers to sort of come in and not necessarily push the place on those entities but actually see it as a way to have a conversation with institutions and artistic directors and literary managers. Because also often in creative decision making when it comes to most seasons, there's usually sort of a white male who's sort of like vetoing or sort of accepting whether or not this is what we're going to do. And there's usually like one play that may or may not be of color. It doesn't even necessarily have to be Black or even a woman. And so we just felt that it was important to sort of engage the larger theater community with diversity and sort of hope that they would see that August Wilson isn't the only narrative to sort of subscribe to and advocate for. So I can say more about him. So I'm a member of my theater writer's lab and my theater was founded in the 80s in order to put forth a Filipino American experience because it was absent from a lot of the discussions on Asian American identity. And then gradually it started opening up to sort of a broader Asian American experience as sort of identity politics shifted. In 2003, Sung Noh, who's actually a Korean American, founded the writer's lab, which eventually I got to be a part of and met my husband, Mike Lou there, and we got married and started running the lab together. But when I originally got into the lab, Mike was sort of like, is she even Asian? So you can see that the identity of what Asian American is sort of is shifting and evolving as time progresses. And so within the lab, we're trying to embrace the differences while also sort of identifying the similarities. Hi. Women's Project was founded in 1978 by Julia Miles. She was a producer at the American Place Theater. And actually Women's Project was founded as a subset of the American Place, hence the word project, which I don't love, but we'll figure it out. But we are the nation's oldest and largest theater devoted to work by women. We're an off-Broadway theater. We produce a season of new work every year. And I think the way that we deal with and think about diversity, I think a challenge for women's theater is people have a lot of, I think, troubling notions about what it means to be a women's theater and what kind of work a women's theater produces. And I love and honor all of the agents in the room, but sometimes when I get a call from an agent and they say, I have a perfect play for the Women's Project, I get a little sad because I know I'm going to get a play about a sad lady with a problem. And women write about all kinds of things. And I think it's important for us as a theater to show the spectrum of work that women write. And so, you know, I think that's something I think about and grapple with a lot in terms of diversity, in terms of women's work. But also, I think it's really incumbent upon a women's theater to think really rigorously about all kinds of diversity, about racial diversity, about class diversity, about experience diversity to sort of expand the notion of diversity in the same way that I think, well, all theaters should be thinking about that, you know, all identity-focused theaters should be thinking beyond their own particular point of view and be thinking about diversity in a larger way. So, you know, I think about that a lot. And yeah, I think that's it. Hi. Inclusion in the Arts was founded in 1986 as the non-traditional casting project. And that came about because of a study actors' equity had done, a career study that showed pretty much every professional production in the United States at the time was 90% Caucasian. So, the effort was made to try to bring an awareness of actors of color that were not included and tried to bring kind of a concerted effort to that focus. So, the executive director is Sharon Jensen and she came in in 1989 and she brought the idea that disabilities should also be included in that idea. So, the idea for advocating for actors of color and actors of disability was something that the non-traditional casting project focused on. And as the internet began, we created what was called the Artist Files Online and that allowed casting directors to gain access to headshots and resumes of actors of color and actors of disabilities from around the country to try to encourage thinking beyond the idea that if a role was not specifically identified as a character of color or a character with a disability that the default was that character was to be played by a Caucasian non-disabled actor. So, as the internet improved and other services came about, we realized that that was a service that we couldn't necessarily continue. So, we now maintain a database of actors with disabilities that is not online but is maintained in our computer systems, in our office and we work with casting directors on a case-by-case basis to encourage them to cast disability as authentically as possible and also to bring an awareness that disability is part of the broader scope of diversity when we talk about diversity. In 2006, we changed the name to The Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts because the more we began investigating these issues, we realized that things were deeper and there was more to it than just casting. There were issues for directors, issues for writers, issues for theater policy, for audiences, etc. So, the issues became more broad and we wanted a name to reflect more broadly in the work that we do. So, that's where inclusion in the arts sort of became inclusion in the arts. Thank you. So, we're going to move into the section that I call Getting More Specific. So, we all know there's not an end-all be-all to figuring out how to incorporate diversity and inclusion into your theater and or work. Yeah, I know there are some people who are in our audience or who may be listening and watching who are wondering, how do I even start? So, my question for you is, and all of you can tackle it or some of you can tackle it, but how do you go about integrating these values into your theater and into your work? And so, maybe the question I'm asking is, how does one begin? I know. Hard questions. I just don't think it's that hard. Good. I just think if it's a value that, you know, if it's a core value of your, you know, you as an artistic leader or you as an institution, then you pay attention to that value and you take it into account as you're planning your season, as you're making work. And, you know, I think it's not just diversity in terms of programming, but also diversity in terms of your staff, in terms of your board, in terms of your audience. But I just, you know, I don't know. There's a lot of talk and a lot of questioning. And I don't see that it's, I just don't see the problem. You know, if you decide it's important to be diverse, then be diverse. Do you know what I mean? Like, you know, the plays are out there, go find them. I was just at TCG and somebody really smart. There was a group of people who were putting together a list of technicians and production managers and crew people of color. And they said that, you know, people say to them, well, we just can't find people. And they say, they said, that was so smart. If you can't find your keys, you keep looking for your keys, because you know they're there, right? And so just keep looking for your keys, you know? Yeah. So, I mean, that's a little glib, but I think you know what I mean, which is, you know, if you think it's important to look, you're going to look. And I'm totally with you on that. My first thought when I've heard those kinds of comments is, apparently you're not looking hard enough because they're out there. They're out there. Whatever it is you're looking for, they're out there. I mean, actually I found the question to be a little difficult because I feel that people are not interested in authenticity and truth when it comes to creative decision-making. It appears as if there's this entity that exists that we're all sort of trying to sort of feed. And it isn't really reality, you know? For me, like, the reason why the new Black Fest was so important to begin was that I come from Southern Ohio. My mother was Catholic. My grandfather, my dad was Baptist. My other grandmother was AMB, Zion. My other grandfather, you know, everybody was so that my mother was from the North. My father was from the South. My great-grandfather was a doctor. My other great-grandfather was a janitor. I mean, I came from such a complex, diverse experience as a Black person and I was always sort of seeking that out in art and I wasn't finding it. And so I just sort of decided to relinquish this idea of institutional aesthetic and institutional narrative and just sort of deal with the truth and sort of collect people within my circle who were also interested in sort of bearing witness to their own authenticity as opposed to bearing witness to something that may sell something or something out there that, you know, is supposed to be the ideal thing. So for me and Jason Holtham and Jocelyn Prince, who co-founded the new Black Fest with me, we just decided that we were all these diverse Black people and we didn't know each other's stories and there was probably hundreds and thousands of others who wanted to also kind of bear witness to their authenticity and individuality and so let's just do something about it and let's sort of let go of the institution, let's go of sort of feeling enslaved to something that, you know, isn't really us and create our own institution. I do think that's important that groups find their own way of creating their voice and telling those stories and I think it also comes into institutions of we're all artists and we all kind of like messy and if we just allow ourselves to be messy in those stories and search out different narratives that may be foreign to us, that could be exciting and could build upon what we're creating artistically anyway. So I think it's just, like she said, it's more simple than we make it. We try to make it so complex and so difficult if we really boil down to taking risk and finding stories and really looking for the keys a little longer and finding those stories that ignite us as an artistic professional. Yeah, and I was actually just going to, when I said actually, when I said it was actually difficult, actually what I meant was that people have difficulty dealing with the truth, you know what I mean? Oh, sure, sure. That it is simple but it's very difficult to kind of look at yourself and look at the reality of the world. I think it's interesting that both of us are saying, I feel like people have a very specific idea of what a women's play is and I think you're saying that people have a very specific idea of what a black play is or what an appropriate representation of a black experience is and I just think that's really interesting and so it's about presenting a more complex version of your community. Yeah. Sure. No, I agree. I think that, again, it's sort of just that idea that, as our world becomes with all of our wonderful technology and sort of the overload and the fact that information comes to us so quickly and there's such an overwhelming amount of it, people then tend to gravitate towards what they know and it can cause all kinds of polarization. In our profession, what we do is we need to try to just try to keep it as open as we can and to just sort of realize that art is all about possibilities. We can take something and turn it into whatever we want it to be. With our work, we want to showcase and highlight artists and performers with disabilities because they think that when you have a disability, you're suddenly less than and suddenly you're pigeonholed and stereotyped and marginalized and an artist is an artist, that is the bottom line, that is the mantra and for us, it's all about just working with great artists, finding a great piece of writing and working with great artists that will be able to make that come to life. A few months ago, we just closed a production of Agatha Christie's The Unexpected Guest. It was a hugely successful show. We had a cast of nine artists, seven of whom had disabilities but the thing was people came to the show because of the popularity of Agatha Christie and many people came to the show not knowing what our company was about or what we did and by the end of the show, many of them didn't even realize when they found out that we were artists and performers with disabilities they were like, where was the disability on stage? There was an actress in a wheelchair but we thought that was an acting choice. It's like, yeah, it's like, no, this is what we do and so it's the idea of being able to create art and with us, disability matters as much or as little as we want it to matter and that's, you know, so we have the control. Everybody in this room has that control to make that happen and we work in a powerful medium. We tend to sort of lose sight of that fact but the idea that we're in this room right now having this communication, this personal communication as opposed to on a telephone or on a computer and this is the most powerful way although we are doing some computer stuff. So it's ugly. It's a telephone, who talks on a telephone? It's true, it's true. But, you know, we have to sort of, you know, I guess realize once again the power of our art and our medium and it does have the power to make change and positive change and not in a get on a platform and talk down to you in a way that is just, it just comes across as natural, common sense. Yeah, I think sort of jumping off some of what you're saying is I think fear infects a lot of our work. I think it's easy to get overwhelmed sometimes of where to start and I think with Maid, they sort of have to start over with every single production because, you know, our aesthetically we're so different as artists and we're also ethnically so different as artists and the stuff we're writing about is very different. One of the first questions when we're interviewing writers in the lab is do I have to write something Asian? And we're always like, no, like that's not your end all be all. And personally as a half Filipino, half Pakistani, I'm looking at sort of a biracial experience and talking about that and so, you know, that sort of fluid identity sort of makes Maid have to be fluid in terms of what they're producing at all times and so they just have to jump in and not think about sort of, I've never done a play like this before. So I think a lot of that is admitting that they don't know a lot of things a lot of times and I think what's great about the lab is that we know not one person makes any decision when we're looking at applications, the entire group reads all the applications and the entire group decides and so there's like 20 people interviewing one poor writer who's like, oh my God, what am I doing here? But I think that sort of, I think that the more we reach out and lean on other people to help keep us on track, the less we'll just sort of sit back and be able to rest on things that we've already done. It just made me think of something you just said before. You know, it sort of goes the same way with our company as well. In 2011, we started a short play festival where we were getting playwrights to write short plays for us, 10-minute plays for us and I guess to sort of get the juices flowing, our artistic director, Ike Shamblin at the time, told the playwrights, we want you to write something about disability. Okay, it's a good topic. A lot of playwrights are like, well, what do I do? How do I do that? I want to make sure I don't offend or hurt anybody and what ended up happening was we created a lovely, a really wonderful festival. But a lot of our artists came back and said, a lot of our artists with disabilities came back and said, next time can we do plays that don't necessarily deal with disability? Like, why do we have to do plays about disability? And well, there's a truth to that in that we need to be able to sort of dispel some of the fears and talk about it because a lot of people don't talk about it. They just sort of, because they're afraid to or whatever. But I think the other idea is that, again, it's all about presenting real people. And a disability may or may not apply. So just having that open blank canvas of saying we can do whatever is a great, it's very empowering. I was just going to say that, kind of what Keith said, that it's this idea that we have the perception, or there's sometimes a perception of what tends to work in terms of, let's say, a black play or a play about women. And we say, oh, of course, this is what works, this is what we want to do. And I think that's sort of what we're saying, is that these issues are very complex and there's so many types of experiences and types of stories that that's where that effort comes into exploration and some of the work that's being done by these young writers. And I think what's exciting is the conversations that are starting now, and then hopefully these are seeds that are planted. So we're going to see a variety of different, very complex stories about culture, race, disability, et cetera, in our future. And I think that bodes well for the theater as we move forward. Great. Did you... I realized I should clarify one thing. When I said, do I have to write something Asian? I meant like Asian from the homeland, like anthropological Asian, which is sometimes actually like what a lot of Asian playwrights get a lot of traction, Asian-American playwrights get a lot of traction in larger theaters doing something like that, as opposed to something where it's just an Asian-American experience. Great. Did you want to throw one more thing in there? I was just going to say I don't care what the plays are about. Do you know, I think people get a perception that the plays need to be out with women, as people feel the plays need to be out with disability. I don't care what they're about. Do you know, I think it's sort of a misconception. And so when I first took the job, I got a lot of calls from male writers saying that they had to play about a woman, which I thought, here's the one place. There is no point of entry for you, and yet, you know, you think that there's a point of entry. And as long as it's about a lady. So, yeah, I just think it's an interesting thing to, yeah, I think we're all saying the same thing. It's about expanding the notion of what it means to be within your particular point of focus. Great. So I'm going to ask two questions, and I'm going to let you decide which one you want to tackle or if you want to tackle both. But I feel like they kind of go hand in hand. So what are the challenges that you faced in continuing to make diversity and inclusion an integral part of the work that you do? And then how do you fight diversity and inclusion battle fatigue? The faith that Keith is making is amazing. I think the challenge for us is to think beyond gender diversity. It's just important for us to always be mindful about, again, as I was saying, other kinds of diversity, racial diversity, class diversity, experience diversity. To expand the notion of diversity beyond our mission I think is important for us. And battle fatigue, I just feel like it's hard to make theater here and everywhere. And so, you know, just the idea of engaging with the work afresh all the time is, you know, it's just important for all of us. But I don't know, do you guys feel it? Is it diversity-specific fatigue? That's interesting. I do feel it. Yeah. I think I need a little more time to kind of just give language for it. Fair enough. No, I'll just improv. I'll jazz it out. I'll jazz it out. I feel, and I'm not sure if this is going to answer both questions or not. Just have that. But I will say this. I will say that there's one. There's the making of art, right? There's playwrights writing plays and theater companies sort of programming plays with diversity. And within that, the challenges are often that those who are programming and sort of making these decisions, they're not diverse themselves. And so they're making decisions without any sort of authentic interaction with the very demographic that they're sort of programming for or about. And so what happens is that black audience members and other diverse audience members, they go to see theater and it's a play that's supposed to be a reflection of their own experience, but it isn't coming from a vantage point that is actually theirs. Someone else has made this decision for them about what's authentic, what's important, what's urgent when it comes to, particularly, I'm speaking about the black, diasporic experience. And so that's challenging to sort of have an interaction and a conversation with these theater companies and these sort of decision makers about how to integrate the creative decision conversation. Like how does that happen? How do we diversify that when your entire staff is maybe all white men or all white women? Maybe one person is Korean or maybe there's one person is biracial. And so that's a little challenging. And so that's happening. And then you have the sort of real world, for example, like the Charleston terrorist event. And so you have all these people sort of reacting, every person on the planet for the most part in some way or another, they're reacting to that and wanting to have some kind of resolution, some kind of conversation, something. And there's no place for them to sort of do that creatively. Like how do we do that creatively when the institutional sort of entities are all kind of just going in that direction? And there's all this urgency that's happening that's very personal and primal and there's no place to do it. So you have to sort of find your own sort of way to kind of do it small, or big because you want to have a large conversation with the nation. So I think that's challenging and I think the fatigue comes in where it's always being challenged and keep sort of knocking on doors or texting or whatever you want to call it these days and just trying to get some kind of reaction or a conversation. And the institutions themselves, and I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in particular, but just the institution has this sort of blanket thing that exists above us. That the institution itself isn't ready or something, it's not ready to get real and that's exhausting because the world is moving so fast and theater hasn't caught up. For the most part, there's certainly companies that have caught up and there's certain individuals who have certainly caught up and are with it and are urgent, but the fatigue comes with that, I feel. So, yikes. I don't know if it works. Yeah, I think exactly. I think that institutionally, inclusion of the arts is what we do and so I think it's a constant part of our DNA and I think that the frustration and the challenge of not having the fatigue is impossible because we're always moving sort of two steps forward one step back and some of the focused work on disability that we do, we're seeing strides where I think it wasn't even part of a conversation before. I think when we talked about diversity, disability was not even in that conversation and just within the last few years, television networks all have diversity initiatives and they have diversity showcases and there was one showcase that was coming up that disability wasn't mentioned at all in terms of cultural and ethnically diverse actors could apply but there was no indication that disability would be included in that and so we were able to have that conversation and change that that process for that network so now moving forward performers with disabilities is now an ingrained part of that request year after year not saying that performers with disabilities are getting into those showcases necessarily but the idea is now there and so I think what helps battle that fatigue is seeing that little tiny progress and realizing that that progress is there for the long haul and so we're all in this for the long haul and that kind of gets you up in the morning and keeps you going. Anyone else want to throw anything in there on that? I think a major challenge is the preconceived notions that are brought in sometimes when it comes to seeing like theater production or whatever it's putting on the most recent Mayi production Soldier X for example which was one of my plays where I had a Muslim character in it who's a lot like me and then is wearing a dress and during intermission someone was saying hi Ernest and how she's Muslim if she's wearing a dress and so some of those trying to in terms of what you're presenting to the audience and how they're receiving it when there's so few things being presented out there then it becomes a little difficult to shift the perspective because I do think perspective matters and when there's an inundation of one perspective in theater then it becomes sort of the default norm and then trying to slip in things that go against that becomes the irregularity as opposed to just showing like a diverse picture and I think to that end I think inclusion is super important because I think a lot of the times the perspective of what is being done is often through one gaze and I think that trying to point that out or trying to tackle that there isn't yet dialogue as Keith was saying around that about what perspective is and how do I identify what that perspective is and how do I even identify what another perspective on that same thing could be It's really wonderful to hear what everyone is saying about it it's also true I think the world has changed so much even in the last 10 years and things move so quickly now and it's oftentimes in our business hard to keep up because when we're on to something it's already now our short attention spans, we're now on to something else I also know that during the times of the greatest struggle is usually when the best art comes that's what I always was told it's wonderful that we are making progress and that is very positive right now we are at least getting people to talk the talk we haven't started walking the walk yet maybe we're crawling the crawl but we're not quite where we should be yet and that's just going to take time right now the way the world is moving it's sort of like riding a wild horse and we haven't quite mastered it yet I don't know if the horse is just going to keep going faster and faster or if we're going to be able to get a handle on these wonderful tools that we've created and to be able to manipulate them we still have our principle tools our basic tools that we can control so we just have to get out there every day and just keep trying and keep doing what we do and as busy and distracted as the world gets we have to become even more resolute in that stronger in what we do because it will make a difference those changes will start to sink in you'll see the cement starting to set I just when I got this job I started to think about other identity focus theaters and I started to realize that there was that every identity focus theater that has ever existed has always been small and struggled and I spent a lot of time thinking about why that is and I don't have an answer and I'm trying to sort of address that in the way that I show up at my job and think about what we do but I just I think that alone is perhaps the most interesting damning I don't know a thing that I can say about the notion about how we think about diversity or that notion of self identifying what it says to the field at large about who you are as an institution and what kind of that maybe everybody isn't welcome or that they I don't know what that is but it's a thing I think about all the time and you know after this over I want to ask you guys what you think about that and how you address that with your own theaters I will say that I've encountered a lot of preconceived notions of like if you guys try to diversify or if you do just lesser quality and I think trying to combat that sort of insidious notion that oh if I throw a woman in there it's not going to be as good if I throw like a guy in there or if I throw an Asian in there that's just because they're Asian and then it's not going to be as good as this like other thing that doesn't have the Asian in it and I wonder how do we start getting that conversation around quality because I think that idea is so subjective already and that the values have been it's just time that has made these subjective values fact you know and so how do you start like supplanting that that's a question do you want to answer that question and I can also throw out one last question and I'm going to just turn this over to all of you because I think that there should be hopefully a lot of questions out there I know it's a little warm in here or maybe it's just to me but so this may seem like a silly question but I'm actually a huge believer in naming things because the things that we think are the most obvious may not be obvious to everyone else so why does diversity and inclusion matter what is the musical chain wow okay beside the obvious I just feel like it matters because it's who we are it's like our own individual identities are diverse and unique and deserves to bear witness on the planet and despite whatever you know whatever anybody else paints or says about you or it doesn't have to be your truth you have your own truth and so there should be in terms of revolution there should be revolution around bearing witness to yourself like that and if you have more people doing that and because I feel like part of the challenge just sort of tagging back to what we were talking about earlier part of the challenge with diversity and inclusion is also inspiring audiences in larger communities to get on board because of the fact that so many of us have subscribed to this other thing so this sort of singular narrative or whatever you want to call it and the idea of something personal and bearing witness is still unauthentic it's just that's scary that's not going to make any money with a public do it maybe not the public is not the right example no public I didn't say that maybe like the public or something some crazy theater in the middle of the Atlantic ocean or whatever I'm just saying like using that as just an example of this sort of ideal institution so if I bear witness to my truth then is that really art? like how can I make money take the revolution is to bear witness to oneself and to be as honest as one can be about oneself and as courageous and fearless as one can be and that's where we need to go I don't live in an all white all male all same amount of ability, upper middle class and none of you do either and so when I go to the theater I want to see the world that I live in so I want to see all kinds of stories being told and I know that there's I'm going to learn something and I'm going to have I'm going to find something of myself in you know when knowledge is ruined or you know this season we did a play of Tonya Barfield's called bright half life and the thing that I thought was powerful about that was it wasn't about gay marriage or a marriage between a man a woman of color and a white woman it was about marriage and I think that's powerful and people came and they saw and like straight couples were sitting there crying because they were sort of thinking about their own lives and their own relationships and I think that's powerful so I think you know I think all of these institutions push people to think about the way they think about reflecting their communities they come and see our work and they can see oh that's just a play about marriage or that's just a play about life or a question that that artist is asking it's not a black play it's not a differently able play it's not a women's play it's just a play and I think we're sort of the gadflies to the field to help people remind people of that there was that thing that happened what was it, the summit where they said that there were no good plays by women in the pipeline which is why there are no plays by women being done and I feel like I'm the pipeline you're a pipeline we provide access to and bear witness to the fact that they're incredible artists making incredible work that is about everyone not just about our own our own identity that we represent in our theaters we have a sociology study right now so you might want to google it after I'm done but a group of students were shown stereotypes of themselves before taking an exam and scored significantly lower on the exam and I think that unless we diversify the images that are being presented we're going to both have a community that is left hungry and left feeling badly about themselves and also you're going to have a lack of empathy being created amongst our society so I think those are two really important reasons to have diversity inclusion and I think that you know there's often there's often in theaters sort of this idea of like one race at all times on stages at all times and I think that by just that absence of sort of that communal diversity I think can be harmful over many years I just echo what everyone's saying I think the importance is because it reminds us of our shared humanity and by seeing those stories we're seeing those reflections audience members that may not have seen that representation or all they're seeing are those stereotypes there becomes a greater conversation and a greater awareness of themselves as people again just to sort of echo I think you know human animals are funny because we you know we all want to be loved and accepted and we want and we try to you know assimilate with groups so that we feel like we belong and we classify and pigeon hole and yet we forget that you know each one of us as individuals have our own story you know and we're storytellers that's what we are so for us it's the ability to seek out as many stories as we can and to be able to share them you know it's with what we do you know so much of the idea of disability is is fear based you know disability has always you know hardwired into us that if you are disabled you are less than in our work if we're doing work if we're working with disabled artists it's not going to be good it's going to be less than you know bless you for doing what you're doing but I'm not really interested in seeing that because of that and you know part of what we do is sort of to say no we're here to prove you wrong we're here to prove that you know we're great artists we're great stories and if you come and sit down and see our work you're going to you're going to have a wonderful an important experience so and I think that's what all of us are trying to do and that's our incentive for writers and you know it's just try to keep you know I I always like to say you know as an artist you choose the colors of your work but you want to be able to see all the colors so that you can pick the colors to choose for your for that work so try to remain as open as possible thank you so at this point I would love to turn this over to all of you I want to hear what questions you have and in the spirit of diversity and inclusion I'm not going to leave it up to just these lovely panelists to answer some of the questions that we're asking so I may throw some of the questions that are being asked in the audience back at the audience does that sound okay? does that sound nice? alright this is a question for Keith but really for everybody I was struck by the notion the world is moving so fast and I was thinking of your commissioning of the Trayvon Martin plays and I guess the question creatively is does there have to be a gestation period for us to actually artistically be able to absorb and reflect and write on something I remember after 9-11 people were saying well we're not going to get any good 9-11 plays for at least 5 or 10 years or whatever so how I guess does one balance the fact that the world is moving fast and artists we do want to comment on it but it takes a while to write a good play well for me so the new black fest after the Zimmerman verdict we commissioned based on our true 10 minute plays on Trayvon, race and privilege and I gave the playwrights I knew that it was something that there needs to be a conversation quick and fast so it was important that the plays were short and 10 minutes or less and 6 of them 6 or 7 of them and so I gave the playwrights maybe 3 and a half weeks and because I sort of found playwrights who I knew would be more than interested in writing on these subjects and would do it fast I got them quickly without the first day writers were always saying I already have a first draft it was such an urgent thing that was happening so when I saw that template work I knew that I could commission something right when it happens and get the right writers to pump it out and find theaters because the great thing about facing our truth like even before the plays were even completed I had reached out to several theater companies all over the country probably all of them and half of them responded like yes we'll do it we haven't seen anything but we'll do it so there seems to be some desire some deep desire to participate in the current and the trending so I think there's some kind of template for that now to just sort of do it find a space people will come if they want to have that conversation so let me just interrupt for two seconds I'm not even going to bother with the microphone can you hear me use the microphone really quickly I almost forgot to mention also the spirit of diversity and inclusion if for example you are one of those people who does not feel very comfortable in this kind of form asking questions please feel free to use my twitter tag and ask questions to me via twitter I have my computer here and it turns as your voice to be an ally and if someone at your table really wants to ask a question but doesn't feel like they have the strength to do that please feel free to call on your other table members to ask those questions thanks I events like that often offer a community both building opportunity and a response opportunity we did, Mai does every year a stunt night we went on to an event so there was a couple years ago where we did a response to the yellow face casting that was happening around the country and just did it the whole time so we had like 30 plays by playwrights and it was like 3 and a half hours long which I was surprised everyone stayed so I think that it was so needed and so necessary and I think that it's actually really a great role of theater to be able to bring everyone in this room to kind of process I was just going to say that also it may spark those next plays as well like it may be a spur to somebody to take that next step to writing the longer deeper I think that there's value in both the immediate response and then the deeply considered next step so I think both things are probably true I'll be very excited to see how many other plays come out both of the projects like the yellow face project as well as the George Zimmerman project it'll be really interesting yeah no I absolutely I think that like you're saying these things are so intense and there's a yearning to tell these stories a yearning to get these out by playwrights so I think absolutely I think there's a new template that's beginning which is really cool so at the risk of asking a big question and looking for maybe a reductive answer all of you have used the word fear except for McNulty but she doesn't know what that word means there I'm wondering is the fear about getting it wrong is it fear of offending is it fear of looking like an idiot and do we as artists have enough in us in the institutional structure and lack of flexibility to say hey you're being a dick don't do it this way so I wonder what that the fear thing is really in presenting just doing the work I mean I've heard variations of fear I've heard fear of like oh I don't know that writer when I tried to advocate for including a female writer to the list of where it's absent I've heard fear of losing money I don't have that audience how am I going to find that audience I have no idea how to find that audience I've heard fear of offending where they're like I don't know this play it doesn't really represent the community again bringing in preconceived notions of what the community wants so I mean I think fear can take many different variations and I think the only way to really look at it is to sort of acknowledge what that fear is and then go to a group of people and sort of just talk through sort of okay so what is it and what might be ways in which this fear is valid or invalid because I think what the fear could be valid is actually a super important part of the process and then figuring out a way to sort of overcome it together because I think alone no one's going to really I mean I'm all like there's a big freaking monster in this closet I'm not going to open it up so so I think a lot of people I think that yeah I mean I'm a fan of sort of the group hive mind and of this sort of sociology and the idea that different backgrounds create better work and better solutions than those of similar backgrounds working together right and that just goes back into the diversity institutionally that we've talked about before I think the more diverse an institution may be the easier it is to have those conversations the easier it would be to disseminate the fear that might that might exist for us I think it's it's really not so much fear as artists as a company it's trying to get over that sort of a preconceived fear or perception of in our case what disability is because people just have those ideas and those notions and it's hard to break that I mean if we're looking at it from a business model disability just does not sell in theater if you mention it it automatically just sort of causes this I mean I've seen the light change in people's eyes when I say I work with performers and artists with disability they're like that's nice it's like no we're a professional company so really it's that there's there's a world of political correctness we become much much more politically correct in the past few years I always have to keep reminding myself I'm we're artists we can be politically incorrect we can say whatever the hell we want and you know if people like it great if they don't like it great let's start a conversation about it I'm going to throw one quick Twitter question out into the universe so this is from at Webster Left her shy girl question is how can we work to increase diversity at college and high school theaters would it not be the more diverse I think it is the professional theater gets the more diversity that these students might see productions that either come into their schools theater for young audiences or shows that are done in their communities that their parents take them to and they begin to see that reflection and then they become inspired and then they begin to seek out opportunities for themselves that could be one possibility I will also add I mean I worked as a theater artist with Epic Theater Ensemble for a couple of years and their whole mission is to generate student generated work to have conversations sort of trending urgent conversations with the students teenagers, millennials are generation Z's around whatever is important for them and have them sort of write their own plays based off some template that's like a master writer or whatever Brian Moore, Concordia University in Nebraska that's my question I actually want to follow on that but also your question about fatigue because I deal with that a bit particularly when I think about my community, my audience demographic as well as my acting demographic where we do not have a lot of diversity in our acting give us a little background of where you are oh yeah I'm at a small conservative liberal arts religious institution I'm a department of one and pretty much the diversity in our department I guess I am the only faculty of color but that's a different issue altogether in that session but in terms of my acting pool I have a handful of people of color or diversity of any kind and pretty much if I'm thinking about doing a piece of as in type of issues of diversity or need for diverse casting I basically would have to beg someone from a different activity, sport, etc to audition, let alone cast them so I guess the question I'm sorry for assuming that you all are probably working or based in a larger community where if you can't get one group you at least have other people to kind of pool even though you may want to try to reach out to larger groups what do you do when you're in a predominantly diverse slash conservative slash and institutional like university setting in terms of how do you get people involved or how do you connect to those individuals when diversity is not necessarily what they're looking for and or may not care about there's always diversity of ideas so if you're in a community that's all white in the middle of Nebraska I'm certain that there's people who think differently than the people across the street and I'm sure there's probably different I mean I know that part of the country has a huge history as far as like the German population coming out of Pennsylvania in the 1880s and I'm sure that kind of clashed up against maybe the pioneers who were there previously so I think there's a lot of ways to sort of think about diversity when we don't see what is obviously diversity and maybe that's a way to sort of begin conversations just around maybe even religious ideas in the area I know that's a pretty protestant area as well and I'm sure there's some that existed in that area so I mean I think there's ways to sort of play around with diversity when it comes to ideas as opposed to sort of what's physically present I'm going to throw something else in there as we talk about the question that Brian has put out there someone asked from Twitterland can we as a field be honest that not all theaters value diversity and inclusion some do some are trying do we convert or do we just abandon the rest I sort of I told you we were having an honest conversation in here totally it just makes me think about the guerrilla girls who I always thought were so great and they would sort of think about the theaters that weren't doing work by women and they would like hang stuff in the ladies room saying like little signs in the ladies room saying are you aware that this theater doesn't do work by women do you know what I mean just I don't know I mean convert abandon or call it out I sort of love the lily awards I love the kill roys and I love the idea that we're sort of pointing out pointing out to people that they are not being as inclusive I think some folks because privilege is a thing white privilege, class privilege gender privilege any of those things but it comes with maybe a lack of awareness and just sort of if you get called out maybe you have to pay attention you know I mean I'm a big fan of just pointing it out to folks directly and you know if it happens enough then it's you know it's no longer behooves them to not pay attention to that in their programming you know I think people care when they're held accountable you know and finding ways in which to hold theaters and individuals accountable for their practices that might be harmful I think is sort of the trajectory that I'm currently on and trying to figure that out and I want to put together a think tank of people from different fields to try to figure out what are different ways we can do that within the theater so I encourage everyone to sort of put together their own think tank because I think not one person is going to be able to punch a hole in the wall so I don't think it should be abandoned I do think that with fatigue and having to be the only one sometimes who cares about it is exhausting and so maybe abandon it for like a week and then and I find I try to align myself with someone who is also working on it so that when I'm like exhausted I'm like tag me out man just tag me out I'm going to point out all the bad things happening and you just like take it over for a week and so I think I think that sort of giving yourself a break is also really important. I stepped down as co-director of the Writers Lab in 2013 because I realized when I was waking up in the middle of night 3 I'm being like oh my god so now that email you know I thought like okay I'm going to need to like calm my ass down because it's not going to help anyone if I'm sort of not functioning but if I find individuals who are as passionate about it as you are also just as important as taking on the mantle yourself. It's interesting you mentioned that because the other day I actually was having a moment of diversity and inclusion and racial battle fatigue and on Facebook I ended up saying that what I was going to do was remember a quote from the Colored Museum by George C. Wilf the one that says being black is the one about being black is too hard and so you know before I choose to be black on weekends and holidays chuckle a bit and then put back on my big girl undies and get back in and start fighting again so I think that's right sometimes you do have to remember to take a break and recuperate and then get back in and remember the struggle is real I have an idea so in the spirit of the kill roys right so what if we actually create a list of theater practitioners of all types a list that basically says if this theater company no a list that says I'm only interested in being part of programming that is about diversity and inclusion and if your theater company is not about that I don't want to be produced there I don't want to work there and have this list go around and then see what happens to the theater companies mic drop I think that's a really interesting thought I mean why not start it on Twitter I'm sure there will be a lot of theater companies very upset with us but then in the end getting back to either they get on board it's not an attack it's just sort of like this is the reality of the new world get on board sorry I forget I'm so loud sometimes I forget that mics are necessary I have a question all of you you all mentioned that it's important for people to tell their own stories but also for us to see the stories of lots of different people so how do you justify coming from a position of for example yes I'm a woman but I'm not a minority ethnically and I want to tell the stories and I want to see the stories of people who aren't like me so how do I go about either helping other people collaborate with me to tell stories or do you cross a line when you try to tell someone else's story for the sake of diversity that's the question that I've been grappling with it's about collaboration right it's about all of us are I think saying that that regardless of what story you're telling what capacity you're in if you're bringing in a group of writers to sort of collaborate and look into a certain story or a certain situation I think it's not having the idea that you ultimately can tell their story I think it ultimately is somehow collaborating and allowing whatever that that group or that group of people, whoever that story is about to be a part of that collaboration does that make sense for me personally I find it problematic when one story is representative of an entire community so when I'm writing something I make sure that there are other stories out there by people from that community already and supporting those stories as well as writing my own stories that might contribute to stories including various diverse cast and I think that I try to consult as many different people of that community as possible so for example I was doing a play about the military and so I got the perspective of an LCSW someone who was a cadet still at West Point someone who was a veteran someone who was a woman, someone who was a male and they all had different opinions and when I was writing it I tried to include those while not diluting my own point of view and also try to actually have those that ideology sort of attack one another because I think that consulting one person is sort of reductive and so I don't think that there should be one consultant on a play to be like okay I'm done now I think it just takes a lot of work Gina I have a question about making audiences responsible for what's on our stages I think it's really easy for us as artists to be like diversity we needed to save the world but there's no funding and there's no audience demand I think it has to do with maybe invisibility our audiences don't know the value of diversity they just come and see what we have but I'm curious about strategies of actually engaging audiences to demand diverse work and or understand the definition of diversity versus inclusion and I'm really curious about audiences also include board members they also include the funding communities that are out there and how can we get beyond talking about diversity in terms of just representation and in terms of just finance saying we're doing a black play so we get the black audience there which doesn't hit the heart of what the actual value of diversity and inclusion is and it's just a losing battle I think if that's the continual conversation so I'm just curious about thoughts it's so interesting I feel like all of us are in companies that are in New York and I just think audience development and how you reach audiences and how you communicate with people it's a little bit different than it is in New York than it is I think sort of having worked in regional theaters and other kinds of theaters it's a little different we'll have here everybody's fighting for the same eight people who go to the theater but it's such an interesting question and I super don't know the answer and I hope you guys do because I want to hear how to figure it out I always feel like I love history and I'm always very interested in regional history and I often feel like regional audiences are not aware of their diversity because they're not really aware of their history within their own communities and the diversity that exists there which is what I was talking a little bit about with the Nebraska if you're in the middle of Utah the expectation or perception is that there is no diversity there but there certainly were migrations of all types of Chinese were there probably in the 19th century black people were there in the 19th century their Native American presence and so there's a way I feel like maybe there's a commissioning template where you commission writers to play around in the region and so audiences are coming to see something that actually belongs to them particularly and it doesn't have to be black do you know what I mean and so even with that said the other side of that would be commissioning work that is trending what's contemporary happening in that region that people will be interested in that region to see that also exhibits diversity without this is about diversity but this is just about the Native American family that live on the other side of the creek and this is what happened to them and the German family or whatever so I think maybe that is one way to think about it that's wonderful I think it really because it does allow you to in that particular way to just be able to to sort of glom on to what you know what I'm discovering with us is sometimes a soft sell finding, trying to hit the notes of what is going to appeal to this audience and then to be able to plug in and integrate what we're really doing and what we're trying to say so that when you do come to see what you're interested in you are getting what we want you to get and it may not be over the head smack but it will certainly seep in at least that's what we hope and that's sort of what we're trying to do because as I had sort of said before it's when we're talking about disability people have those preconceived notions and they are there's that sort of fear I don't know what I'm going to get from you so I'd rather not so if we say okay well we're going to do in this case a play that you're going to like we're going to present our actors and we're going to present our artists like what we're giving you but if you want to say that's hate to use these but if you say we're sugar coating it fine and if that's where we have to start it's a start we're going to do a we're occupying a new space in the fall and you know we want to be really conscious about we're occupying a new community and a new group of people and you know folks who need to get to know us and so we're going to have a series of town hall where we're sort of an artist will will moderate or will you know will help that group of people identify questions questions that they have that are buzzing around in their minds and then hopefully I have a grant out so fingers crossed but hopefully we can commission plays by those artists addressing those questions so that you know a man comes and asks a question and a female artist you know writes a play addressing the question that he's asked an African American writer you know is addressing a question in a play that like you know I don't know an Asian lady you know it's just like so kind of cross pollinating helping people understand in a real way not only that first of all that their questions are important and the things that they're thinking about can be addressed theatrically by maybe through a voice that they wouldn't identify with but also to get them into the space and help them understand that theatre for women is a theatre for everybody and can you know address all questions that arise in a community so those thank you so there's been a request out in the Twitterverse and they're asking to encourage people to stand up and use the mic when asking questions because they want you to claim your space and hear your voice clearly potentially so putting that out there and then there's another really interesting question that's been posed on Twitter which is how are theatres with specific diversity initiatives changing now that people are taking on more specific and maybe complex identities when I when I took over at women's project I changed the mission in two ways well I made it shorter but but I also added women at every stage in their career and female identified because I think at this point to be a women's theatre what that means has changed a little bit and so I think for me at this point I feel like if you call yourself female or female come on down there's room for you but I think that's also going to get even more complicated and I'm trying to be very thoughtful about that both in terms of my programming so yeah I know I think it's as the community transitions we're going to you know how we sort of think about it's going to have to be in transition as well that's a question I struggle with on a daily basis because I bi-racial identity is actually one of the fastest growing demographics and yet it's very rarely represented and some of the I think you know I don't know because I feel like a lot of the time sort of the idea of diversity itself is sort of a reductive idea of sort of like pinpointing okay I'm going to find that black person and we're going to find that Asian person and I'm going to find you know and sort of how do we move beyond that as a concept and kind of just look at the world that we're living in and try to represent that and a lot of that sort of commissioning those who live in an area and figuring out sort of what that area is working on or struggling with and I feel like just putting forth those stories is important but also recognizing sort of where the discrepancies are and sort of embracing those complex identities is important and sort of reframing what the narrative is around that is sort of really important I think it goes back to sort of the audience question of accountability and I think that we've all been trained to look at stories in a specific way so if there's I had to play once where I had like one white character and I had to change the race because everyone kept trying to see her as the main character and try to find a way like what's her backstory I don't understand why she should have a greater role in all this and finally I just made her Asian-American and then there's like no questions after a reading and I was like alright well sidekick you are it's how we're trained to look at narratives and I think that that's so important and I'm not sure what the answer is other than just continually putting out more stories I saw a hand all the way back there give her the mic Jo-Leen brought up a really important point in early career in the early career panel sorry and I don't always love speaking in front of such a mess my name is Jess I'm a dramaturg in New York City working with One Year Lease and other projects to add to our diverse conversation there's also often an absence of class conversation within the US and it's so it's like pervasive but it's also something I think that can unify a lot of our communities so I'm wondering how we start to address like an economic system and bring forward our artists great directors dramaturgs who are on the poverty lines you know and how we can kind of start to initiate that conversation as part of the diversity conversation you've totally hit my hobby horse about the American theater I'm I come from a working class background first person in my family or college and I don't find a lot of people like that in the theater because the theater in order to have access right in order to do the things that you need to do to succeed in the theater it's harder I think to find your way without you know the kind of cushion or the kind of I don't know support that you know the working class folks don't have so it's interesting to me I think we I think we see I think we have an uncomplicated conversation about class in this country we feel comfortable talking about class as it pertains to race but not we don't feel comfortable talking about it absent of race Lucy Thurber a wonderful playwright a lot of the reviews of her plays would talk about how she didn't understand the world she was writing about and I think it was because they couldn't understand that a white woman could grow up poor and I found that really well first of all Lucy's half Colombian but they don't know that but anyhow I think I found that startling you know I just I thought oh they only feel comfortable they only believe that in this country that people of color can be poor which I think is racist and classist in a way that makes me really uncomfortable and so for me I feel like writing access to people who don't have that kind of safety net who are coming from low-income communities to be able to tell their stories giving them access is the only way we're going to address it because I mean I'm tired of people writing about poverty from outside of it it just makes me tired so if I that's actually that's the fatigue I have I have that fatigue okay so I have the unfortunate pleasure of saying that we are out of time so there are a couple of housekeeping things that I want to do really quickly before I send everyone off on their way for lunch number one let us thank all of the all of our panelists today please please please please please please please don't let the conversation stop here let's keep working on this like number one I want to give a shout out really quickly to Beth for making this panel a priority make let's make action some traction and some action I challenge all of you before we gather again next year let's do something to change the diversity and inclusion situation wherever you are thank you I loved this conversation thank you all of you I'm sure there are people who want to gab with the panelists but I'm going to give you some quick lunch instructions first of all some archive materials from our archive at the University of Puget Sound are going to be set up in the faculty room during lunch so if you'd like to take a little tour of that please do also in the spirit of the gene