 Hello? Hi. Hey folks, we just asked that if you could move closer to this lit area, we'd love to see all your faces. This is going to be a very hopefully communal interactive session. So we just want to get to know everyone and see everyone. So if you wouldn't mind moving towards the light, we'd really appreciate it. Please move towards the light. And if you should be filling out a survey, if you have not already, if you need a survey, could you please raise your hand and we'll get one to you. Everyone good with the surveys? Awesome. And please feel free to bring it forward or flag down Marie here at the center when you are done. Okay, hi everyone. Welcome to the session home here there. Where? Mining the gap and bridging it. And we're about to, we're starting right now. Okay. I'll take the ball now. Thank you. Good afternoon everybody. So we're just going to do some quick introductions. We're going to ask everyone to say your name, the organization you're with, and where you're from. It should be very quick. Again, your name, the organization you're from, and where you're from. Okay. Hi there. I'm Lillian Osai-Boateng with the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and I'm from New York, New York. My name is May Lee Yang. I'm an independent artist, but I started a company called Lazy Mung Woman Productions. I'm from St. Paul, Minnesota. Hi, I'm Alain Clouarec. I'm an all-for-the-artist at NYC. I'm a filmmaker and acting teacher from New York City. I'm Jin Lee. I'm a PhD student at UGA. I'm Tracy Kato-Kidiyama from Los Angeles. I live in Gardena. I'm with a project called Poe Project Ensemble. I'm Ginny Sakara. I'm from Los Angeles. Actor and playwright. I worked a lot with East West players. Hello, I'm Katawasko. I'm from San Francisco. I work full-time as a production manager for Youth Speaks, and I'm also an artist, and I run my own independent theater company in San Francisco. Hi, I'm Meena Natrajan. I'm from Pangea World Theater in Minneapolis, and I'm originally from India, and I'm also a private director. Hi, I'm Sharif Ajoka. I'm from Los Angeles, and I work at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Hi, I'm Tim Dang. I'm from East West Players from Los Angeles. Hi, I'm Clara O'Dellastreus. I'm from Brooklyn, New York, and I guess I'm here representing Leviathan Lab. I'm a teaching artist and an actor as well. Hello, I'm Jorge Ortol with my Yike company, New York City, originally from the Philippines. Hi, I'm Jane Jung with 2G and Ping Chong Inc. and I live in New York. Emilia Cachapero, Theater Communications Group, New York from San Francisco. Hi, I'm Sydney Chen. I guess I can call myself a freelancer. Because I'm a high school student right now, and I'm from Philly. I'm Marie Renvelez from Los Angeles, Downey, California, and I work, okay, I'm a rep, three people, three organizations. I'm with USC and Theater Productions and Artist at Play. Hi, I'm Julia Cho, not the playwright. I am an actor and a fellow producing partner with Marie here. I'm one of the founding members of Artist at Play based in Los Angeles. Hi, everybody, my name is Candice Feldman. I'm with 651 Arts in Brooklyn. Hey, Brooklyn. I grew up in Kansas and I'm based in Brooklyn. Hey, everybody, I'm Victor Mayog. I'm Artistic Director of 2G in New York. Okay, well, thank you all so much for joining us, for Minding the Gap and Bridging It, Tagline Intergenerational Partnership and Succession in Asian American Theater. A brief overview of how this even came about. There was an API panel at the TCG National Conference that happened a few months ago, and there was a comment made about the younger, newer generation of theater makers and how weird maybe not is... Our organizational and activism skills were questioned, to be fair. And so this kind of came from that. And I actually have to credit Mia Katikbak, who is very supportive in her response. And the title of our session actually comes from her. And the structure of this session we have planned for you today comes from a next-gen leadership panel at TCG that Maria attended that was facilitated by Candace here. So briefly, we're just going to go over some stuff, but eventually we will break into smaller groups where hopefully all of us will have a chance to speak and contribute to these conversations. So the goals for today are to have open, transparent discussions about ideas of succession, what are the needs of the next generation of leaders, and also what are practices in terms of work, organizational skills, and also what are the systems that are working for younger theater makers in the Asian-American community? So yes, okay. And sorry, I tend to get really awkward when I realize everyone's listening to me. So okay, so we do have four discussions set up for everyone. And so Victor will be leading a discussion briefly about, yes. Okay, so we'll go over what we're going to talk about. So mine is called participation. Do I belong here? And so what the question is for myself, I've been participating in the education realm and in more mainstream theater. And this is my first conference. And also I'm just trying to get to know what the Asian-American field is. And in my two years at 2G, I've been noticing a lot of folks telling me, hey Victor, you know this is my first time at an Asian-American company, though they've been going to grad school doing significant things. On some level they said to me, I was never invited and I didn't feel welcome. And so how do we begin to have that conversation? Why do people not feel like they can participate? Why do people not necessarily want to stay? You know, what's the value of that? So that's part of what that group is for me. Participation, do I belong here? Great, and I will be facilitating the conversation on succession. Are you ready? Who's ready? And basically that is a question that's been coming up a lot lately. Last year when I was at an NPN conference, one of the main discussions was there were leaders that were in position that were ready to move on and transition out of their leadership role, but they didn't know how to pass on the torch. And then there was a response from people in my generation or in that next generation that would be moving up into that position that said, well, we're not ready because we didn't know that you were planning on leaving. So there's this gap that is happening and how do you prepare, and if you are part of a younger generation that wants to accept that role, how do you start articulating that and positioning yourself? And if you are a leader, an executive director or someone of that level that is planning on transitioning out, how do you prepare the person coming up afterwards? So that's what we'll be talking about. I will be leading the discussion on burnout and sustainability. Burnout, pretty self-explanatory. And yeah, how do we keep doing what we do without completely exhausting ourselves to the point where we question whether we want to keep doing this? And sustainability, I think that applies to our audiences, yes, as theater makers, but also sustainability and leadership and administration. Just keeping that fire burning, not only for our community, for those of us creating the work, creating the art, how do we just keep that energy and desire and passion? Systemas. Thank you. And I will be leading a discussion about, I will be facilitating a discussion about cross-cultural systems and affinity. We actually had a conversation a couple weeks ago about this session and what are the issues that we really wanted to talk about? What are the questions that we have for other people in our field? And one of the sort of trends or at least practices that we have noticed is that as younger leaders or younger emerging leaders that there is a lot of coalition building across different communities within theater and also outside of theater. And so why is that? What are the obstacles in terms of seeking help with resources within our Asian American theater community? And also what are the needs and how we can come together to help each other? Okay, so Candice. Great. So now we're just going to talk as a collective about just some ground rules and making the space feel safe for everyone. And so I just wanted to throw out some things and then of course I want to open it up to anybody else that has some rules that they think would be good for our time together. One of them is that this is a safe space so every person's words matter. And that if we can just agree that everyone's voice is important, everyone's words or thoughts are important and that there is a judgment here and that it is okay to disagree but not to condemn people for believing or feeling the way they are. Can I just get a nod from everybody that we agree? Yes. Good. That's one of the rules. Other rules is that it's okay to step out if you feel like you need to take a minute. Sometimes we get really heated in our conversations and instead of engaging into something that might become explosive that it's okay to take a breath and it's okay to say I'm feeling unsafe. So if you feel that conversations are going down to a road that makes you uncomfortable or you feel being questioned about your own self or identity, it's okay to say I'm feeling unsafe and that we can respect that. Can I get a nod that we agree to this? And then the last thing is this group is really about how you identify and how you identify in your own environments, whether it's work, artistically on the stage, in your own career as a writer, as an artist, as an administrator. And so it's not how I will identify you but how you identify yourself and that we are not here to make assumptions on people or what we think that they should be. So if I could just get that nod one last time. Great. Is there anybody else that wants to suggest just a ground rule for this space? No? Oh, I love you guys. Good. So now we're just going to take a moment before we break out into our sessions. Each facilitated session, we're going to have a lot of time to really get down into these guided conversations. We're going to have 30 minutes. That's a really beautiful amount of time to start one warming up to each other, trusting each other, but to really hit on some of the important aspects of each conversation. And you can go to whichever one you want, but just realize that we do want to walk away with action items. It's just, it's not a conversation about, no, this is what's going on. How do I change it? This is what's happening. How do I start the conversation? So there's 30 minutes to do that, but before we break out into those sessions, I just want us to all stand up together. I'd like us to come in so at least that there's just a little bit of space in between our shoulders. Yes, yes. I just want us to take a good look around each other and I'm going to actually have to drop the mic, sorry. We will all reconvene at the end, so don't feel like you're missing out on any one topic. We will all get together and share our thoughts at the very end. So we have Victor with participation at the far corner. We have Candace with succession, me here with burnout sustainability, and Marie with cross-cultural systems. So feel free to grab a chair, choose a group, and take a seat, folks. And we do want these groups as evenly numbered as possible just to keep the discussion time pretty even. So don't feel like you're missing out on any one topic. We will all gather together. So Victor with participation, Candace with succession, burnout sustainability with me, Julia, and Marie, cross-cultural systems. Gather around, gather around. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to see if we're ready to wrap up. Hello. Hey, folks, we're going to bring these small group discussions to an end now. Do we want to gather in the front or do we want to review in our respective stations? Can we circle back, folks, into the original large circle? Thank you all so much, everyone. Let's all reconvene. Let's all reconvene into the light. So we can share all our new knowledge with everyone. Folks in the back. Actually, Victor, if you want to stay there or whatever you're comfortable with, if you want to report back to us. I'll bring you the mic. Hi. Okay, so I'm going to bring this microphone over to Victor so he can report out from his group. But I'm also going to pass around an email list. So that we can also all get a report out of today's session. So we have what are the next steps and everything that we have discussed. Hi, everybody. Could my group just raise their hands, please? It's a mighty little team, actually quite international. And what I found ironic about the group was I thought, well, there's no other sort of Americans who had come in and participated in this. And I thought, well, maybe they're just not here. So I find that ironic. Participation, do I belong here? So part of the question that we had was, what are some of the blocks? And I don't know how much time do I have. Five minutes. Okay, great. Thank you. So we just talked about the blocks. Maybe it would prevent people from participating in Asian-American theater. One of the things are the identities, that it's splintered, that you don't want. Maybe you're not interested in one particular sect. That it's inward-looking. It's work that hasn't traveled. The reach of the work maybe has not gone beyond that particular city or to different countries. The other bit is, of course, like money, the profile. If you're going to be subsidizing theater anyway and doing theater, the money's not there. The spotlight's not quite big enough. And there's not an industry influence, right? Industry power. And sometimes there is, when we're speculating, maybe a bias towards the work. Maybe these are things that you already know and understand. And perhaps if people were doing this work, they would think of them limiting themselves. So if they're going to do this sort of work in theater anyway, why not go on a platform that doesn't necessarily frame them? And the question of who's limiting them? It could be like a white person's image of theater. Like, you're meant to be in this box. And frankly, they think there could be lack of opportunities and just invisibility. Like, this is work that no one pays attention to anyway. So those are some of the blocks. In terms of closing in the gaps, we think about how do we find a way to actually serve each other, right, the seemingly disparate groups? How do we begin to lift each other up? How do we identify outward-looking practitioners and funders with passion? How do we find those folks who are actually activating, putting money in, pulling the trigger on some things and have some skin in the game? The intent to create names for, I guess, part of it was how do we have a theater community with more recognizable names instead of just a few? And is there a strategy for that? Other communities have had that. Can we connect, build the reach of the theater by connecting the internet with the theater to widen the scope? Right? So it's not just a limited place. Can we begin to be more inventive with that? And exploring the root culture. Maybe you can just explain what the root culture is. If you go to anywhere in Asia, so things like the Philippines, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc., Tokyo, you see the huge presence of song, music, popular culture, journalism, and so I think that theater makers, theater is just bursting in Hong Kong, bursting in Singapore. And there's that energy there. Can we connect to that? That's the point of exploring one's root culture. Okay, thanks. Up next, we have Candice and Succession. Hey, everybody. Where's my group? Throw up those hands. Woo-hoo! They were awesome. We're going to do this, and we're going to do this fast. Okay, so we have a lot. A lot of fine print, because that's how hard we worked. We had identified four questions that we wanted to talk about. Unfortunately, we only dissected two of them, because that's how deep it got. So number one was how to remove fear from the equation. What is the torch? Right, that's so deep. Legacy change, transition, or lack thereof. And so we tackled fear as the first one, and then we took out what's next. If you're the person in leadership, what are some of the things that you are preparing for? Pensions, transitioning into a consultant type of position. Financial planning is the organization that you are leaving in a healthy place. All these things to help you move on. Also, which kind of helped with number two, which is what the organization, cash reserves, that sort of number one and two are concurrent. They're on the same plane. Then we really went into how to communicate interest. If you are interested in being part of the succession plan, if you are interested in taking on that leader position, how do you open up that conversation? And the burden of that responsibility of moving into that leadership. Do you feel you're in a place that you can rise to that? And some of the things that we talked about that were good steps to take is mentorship. Mentoring is the number one important thing that came out of this. And finding a mentor isn't about force. It's an organic thing. You have to be open to the fact that the timeline might vary to be ready to be honest and vulnerable, that it's reciprocal. And when you're looking for a mentor, looking for someone that has a similar career path, values that you can have authentic relationship with. Then I go and find mentor transition committee. Then we talked about this responsibility and the burden and being prepared and starting with maybe a self-assessment of yourself. What's your story? What do you know about your skill set? Where do you need to work on it more? And then finding opportunities to get training, going to conferences, opening yourself in and educating yourself. But also having places that have funding for that. There's plenty of leadership, APEP, leadership you. There's so many of them. And putting yourself out there and learning and growing and talking to your boss about them. Staff grants. Oh, having organizations that have staff grants. Have professional development opportunities for your staff. This is about people that are already in leadership identifying leaders that are coming up and how to nurture them and get them prepared. It's a two-way road. You've got to be interested. You've got to be ready to do the work. And then you've also got to invest in those people. Moving forward. And for mentors, I just really like this quote, every single word you are saying is being listened to. You see that? That's serious. Then because we only had five minutes left, we decided that we couldn't tackle some of the other ones. So we just wanted to identify what the torch was. And the torch is interchangeable. The torch could be your torch. And when you pass it down, it could change. It could be somebody else's. Not having to say, you know, this is my torch. I'm giving it to you and it cannot change. But understanding the vision. Having your own vision. Where am I? Oh, being honest about the torch, if you are passing it down, knowing what you're leaving that person and what they're, you know, going to take on. Building in time for an interim person. That's important. You need to do that. Overall flexibility. Again, doesn't have to be the same torch. And if you are a next-generation person and you really want to... Marie, you said an alarm? Last thought. Last thought. Okay. If you are someone in the next generation and you do want to, you know, open up that conversation about being a next person to be considered for that position before you ask for that support, know that, know your foundation. Is it strong enough to start having that conversation? Do you share in the same goals of the organization? Know your truth. Be ready for an honest answer. One of the things we talked about is if you're going to be like, hey, I'm thinking about, you know, this. And if you have a feeling that your, you know, leader might be like... Maybe now is not the time to ask. Maybe start, you know, working towards positioning yourself. I'm done. Thank you. Go group! Woo! Now, and sustainability. So a lot of our conversation came from how we all got involved in theater in the first place as difficult as it is, as challenging as it is. Why are we here? And why do we do what we do? So as Jane Jung pointed out, our conversation kind of took an interesting trajectory and we always kind of came back to why. Remembering why, why we are here, why we choose to do what we do as difficult as it is. And I think part of that sustainability, part of what keeps us here is continuing to ask that question because I think there's something about the why that brought us all into this line of work in the first place. And I think that's the why is what's going to help keep us here. And also the why in bringing new people into the fold. So that was just a great kind of nucleus to kind of come back to. Some of the stuff that we also went over. Part of the why, there's so much personal, there's so much of the personal that comes into the professional in what we do. We can't help it. It's just art. We can't help it have our personal selves be intertwined and be such an innate part of the work that we create, the work that we help bring to fruition. What was interesting was that Emily brought a very, very fascinating parallel of how the work that we put into the arts is similar to the energy that one puts into parenting. I think some of you may relate to. I definitely relate to in terms of artists at play. We spend one entire year bringing this show to life and there is something about investing all that passion and energy into this kind of one entity. And at the end, we're like, we did it. It's alive and like never again. But then there's something so beautiful about the work you create that the cycle continues. I think working with like-minded people, like-minded colleagues with similar personal, similar work ethics, similar artistic sensibilities was something important that came up because that will be your support group when you inevitably come across challenges and struggles and hardships. Those people that you choose to work with are gonna get you through it because they're in the same boat. Strong leadership came into play. Working with, working for, working as a strong leader. The civil discourse in a world, in a society now where emails are so much easier. Just texting, what have you. But going back to that in-person interpersonal connection, which I think is also part of the work that we do in terms of touching people in a way that not all, I don't think any other profession can. Again, part of the why. And what's interesting, it needs segue into the cross-cultural systems. Perhaps another way of maintaining, working towards sustainability, having a more diverse team, having a more diverse group of people that you work with who can bring in different skill sets, who can fill in the holes that maybe you cannot. With different backgrounds, the people who can be there for you to maybe pick up the slack or the people who will understand what you're going through and will help hold you up when you are down. Because we can be down in the dumps in the work that we do. And also keeping in mind the perspective of the audience. Because again, theater, what we do is meant to be shared. This is not a solitary field. There's so, I mean, those of us here in the room, the people that we work with, our own kind of personal, I guess, constellation of friends, family, colleagues. Let them know what you're going through. Because not everyone understands what it's like to work in the arts, to work in theater. How much of the personal is intertwined with the work. Let them try to maybe explain it to them so they can understand how difficult it is in different ways. And what different challenges we face as artists and arts administrators and arts practitioners. Awesome. Thank you, Julia. Okay, so my team. Raise your hand, because you guys were great. Oh, my God. Okay, so we talked about cross-cultural systems and affinity, but we actually covered a lot. So first I got a survey of who was in our group and what their experiences were working outside of their own communities. And so we have people working in mentor-mentee relationships, also community partners with service organizations, LGBT communities, immigration policy makers, also regional collaborations, Latino community partners, and all four development of plays, also in terms of education and working cross-culturally within a staff. And then also intergenerational collaboration and partners. So that's who we were with. And then, so I asked the question about what are the obstacles, like what is, like what is keeping people from getting what they need, or at least like what is holding you back. And so we had people being afraid to ask for help, but then learning quickly that you should not be afraid to ask for help. And then also not knowing what specifically to ask for, thinking beyond the Asian American community, also thinking about timetables with a lot of community organizations, they do need more than a couple weeks or at least or more than a month to be able to organize and create a timeline of a plan to get people to come to a show, be involved. And then also there was a question of manpower, like capacity, you know, access to space, time and money in terms of development of plays and then realizing that there is a need to build a community. Like what is the time involved with that? So, and then we had really great stuff like in terms of bias of representation being an obstacle, being under resourced, also facing ignorance with other communities. So there was a wide range of obstacles that we were facing and so then I asked the question of how can we help each other within this community within this and then also within our national community. And so this was a really great part, this is my favorite part. Okay, so we had, so then Mei-Li Yang talked about transparent process. So like being really transparent about what your process is and then that going into artist exchange, the idea of a touring writing lab came about and then also utilizing intergenerational dialogue to learn about different models to better assess what models are working well. And then Tracy asked about if CATA has a resource guide of what are the programs that all of the organizations involved with CATA offer? And no, there isn't one. So we should, this is a task. This is a very tangible task. And so we have this as something to do to have an organized resource guide for what everyone has to offer. I think that'll help just build in terms of publicity, visibility, and then also to, it's an outreach tool. And then, so then speaking of that, there's the publicity and marketing of CATA as a network, as a national network to make sure that all Asian American artists know about this right here and what we do. And so that in two years it'll be a bigger conference so we have more to share. Tapping into the national network of arts presenters. So there are a lot of individual artists who do tour their work. And so to know who exactly is presenting work, to know which colleges and communities outside of the major cities bring in artists. And so then there's also a question about, well that also brings up the question of competition. A lot of artists don't want to share their list of presenters that they always tour with. But then also, Tracy brought up a really great point about, well, what if I had a list of top five presenters and then I asked someone else to make up a list of their top five presenters. And then individual artists and independent artists can have the power to have their top lists. And then presenters can compete, and that puts presenters in a great competitive field. And so that came into thinking about the long game, and then also thinking about smaller convenings. To think about smaller convenings and to have working conference calls, on a quarterly basis so that all of these tasks right here that we can actually get them done if we meet more often. And to actually set aside three hours every three months to get it done. That's it. So we did want to open this up. We're at six o'clock, but we did want to open this up if anyone has any urgent points to bring up for a group that they did not participate in. Yes, Amelia? To try to address it. And then also in terms of burnout, really important to find ways of renewal, which is essential. And I think I have a lot of different thoughts that I'm trying to cram into like a reader's digest version. Really important that your personal goals align with the organizational goals, because that disconnect can learn to burnout if there is not a right fit between where you spend your daily life, your work situation, and the organization. That's huge. But also really important to find the reflection time, that time away, the time not at our jobs. We all too many of us work 24-7. And to say it's okay to step away and just take a walk, step away and buy ice cream, step away and whatever it is to build that in. Thank you. Anyone else? The group that is in the succession group. And I noticed it was like, you know, the leaders in the field, you know, and I was wondering how you felt that there was no next-gen folks joining you in the conversation. Oh, besides Candice. Candice is moderating. But I'm saying to be part of the conversation in this, I almost left my group. I just, you know. Oh, next-gen. Hey, girl. Hey. Hey. Yes. I think that's important that as maybe someone younger, and I'll say, because as a facilitator, it was a little daunting myself to have what I felt for very experienced people, and I'm leading or facilitating this conversation. So I am, I just want to go ahead and throw that out to my group. You know, what did it feel like? An organization, like I said, one of the practices is, an active practice is to have everybody facilitate. So it's really, you know, it's part of the practice that people, you know, build leadership in that space. So maybe this bounces off to the question that I had actually for that group, was in terms of succession and leadership, I know folks have different models of leadership. If there was a conversation on exactly that, in terms of sustainability, you know, there are definitely dominant models of leadership and how people succeed, like take the throne for lack of a better metaphor. But, you know, is there like, there are companies who rotate leadership in a yearly basis, and so, you know, certain sort of qualms in that dominant model is probably already being addressed through, you know, building up that capacity for say one year this, or two years this person is leading, and so they have that capacity while at the same time two years later, another person gets it. I'm always wondering if there was a conversation on that, like the different models of... I think that's more like an ensemble-based model, and it's an interesting model to think about, and especially as... Yeah, I have to think about that a little bit more. You guys are popular for this succession group. But I'm very interested in the question about the torch and defining the torch and what it might look like for another artistic leader comment. So I was wondering if you could just elaborate on that a little more, the discussion that you had. It was in the end. Yeah, we just talked about the leader who's passing on the torch, giving the newer person a little more freedom to kind of define the torch for themselves, giving permission to have their own failures, ask the questions they need to ask, and let them know that it's okay for their torch not to be the same as the previous person. I think that's really important. I think it's hard for some of those leaders going out to let go of the torch and to accept that it might be different from what they created. Just to piggyback on that, I think we also broached the topic of self-assessment. What am I capable of and being allowed that time to be able to really kind of assess that for yourself and also on the other end, allowing this new person or maybe an outsider as you bring them into the fold, allow them the time, even though we're all on the go, we're all trying to make art happen, there's so much that we need to check off our list, but allowing these, you know, allowing our colleagues, maybe newer folks, allowing them to assess, like what am I capable of, what are my strengths and weaknesses, what can I bring to the table, and then being able to work with them after they've realized that for themselves. I'd love to pose a question that's between the torch and kind of connects these two, which is that I feel like as a nonprofit, as a leader of an organization, I've often found that we really, like, nurture, train, build people up, and of course it's a natural organic process to really be... to lead, and then what happens is that they leave and go and join the for-profit. Very often. I feel like this is like the underbelly of a conversation that I've had with so many leaders across the country, that they leave the field. Like, we're basically nurturing people for the for- You know what I mean? So I'm like, I just don't know, or we nurture people for larger organizations, so they go through the smaller organizations, they get trained, they get really, and then when you're kind of like saying, okay, let's get to the next step, or whatever it is, but they're gone to a larger nonprofit because they get more money in that nonprofit. So I feel like it's a really important question for our field. How do you sustain? You just hit on it because I think our organizations, overall, within culturally specific organizations, people need to be paid what they are worth. And people over all in our field are not paid what they are worth. And so that's a systemic issue and I think we all, everyone who's a leader, needs to figure out a way to make that happen. I will never bring on... But it's having a strong relationship with the advocates in your community. I mean, that's where the board and who you're reaching out to, your community liaisons, your community partners, essential, essential. You can't function in a vacuum in that way. I think the point I want to make about secession is that, you know, I've been an artistic director myself in the UK for two years, and being without cohorts. And the other side of the coin is that, you know, a certain sense of one chooses that is a sense of service and almost sacrifice of one's personal life, one's, you know, almost friendship somehow, you know. It's so hard for me personally to maintain my friendships of actors in the UK the moment I became an artistic director. It's where it was one of the most lonely experiences I've had. And I think that, so, you know, so it's not everybody's cut out, it's a calling if anything, you know. And very, very few people seem to be cut out for this level of calling no to so many people. I think it's probably managing expectations and saying no is probably the majority. So I think that there's something around, there's something around that side I think. The other point about people moving on, I think that's a good thing. There's about retaining the talent to the same things, but I do think there's moving people on to the full profit. That's great. If you can tell me who are the most successful people, you know, to create massive successes. If they're more, I'd love to hear maybe I can have a chat to you about these people that have moved on. Because I think that there's the people that will move on, but there's the people that will always have their foot in more than one camp. So some of them are wonderful advocates. Some of them have their foot in the full profit camp and they're not for profit. So I think those are my two points. I think also that organizations have to welcome people to come back. That I think it shouldn't be a given that once they cross to the dark side, they're never going to come back. But in essence, there are connections, relationships, I mean, lots of resources and there's not, I've talked to a lot of people about this and there's not always the sense that people are welcome to come back. I just want to go back to kind of the idea about sacrifice and being paid what you're worth. I think we all know that in the nonprofit world that the structure has been rough for a while, but there is opportunity and there's always an opportunity for change, restructuring, radical intervention about how that works. And I feel like I've had this conversation at TCG that too many times we do sacrifice so much of our personal lives, our mental space, our emotional space for the work that we do, but how is that good for the art that we create? It's not. So how do we get, and this is really something that is an action item that I encourage you to respond and you know there was a perfect nonprofit arts organization structure, what would it look like? And I mean really dream about this, we're artists, we work in this world, we're allowed to dream, we're allowed to think bigger and bolder, that's what we do. What would it look like? Because I think we cut ourselves short. What? By thinking that it's natural to be burdened, it's natural to get out, get some release and come back in. There's probably a better way of doing it. What is it? You know? This is actually, we're on the same wavelength right now maybe because it's Brooklyn all day. No, but I had conversations about these things in Brooklyn with the Brooklyn foundation and just how we restructure and allocate funds and again I'm not as familiar with the nonprofit funding and the community-based work. So a little bit in our conversation about when we do community-based work or teaching artists work to be more specific, it's almost disrespectful to be not paid for planning, to not get healthcare, to not be paid what you're worth and I think these teaching artists work and community-based work obviously starts to funnel into audience building and to theater in the community. You know, there's that. That's how I consider, that's how I make my living and if I don't get healthcare because of what I do and I spend a lot of time off the clock building curriculum and whatnot because it's something that I believe and it's time for these companies to start really restructuring and how do we make that sustainable for me to keep working at that level without burning out. And what Amelia said about welcoming people back and the idea of leaving non-profit as someone who left a non-profit and I left for a bigger non-profit but it's a giant non-profit but it's, I mean, I submitted my resignation and then offered to be on the board and I was really grateful for Leilani to be willing to move in that direction and also I knew that even in leaving non-profit that I still wanted to be involved, that it was still a passion of mine, that by leaving I wasn't leaving theater because that is still such a big part of my life. And then after about a year after that we co-founded Artist of Play and so it never really left but to still be able to not feel like I was leaving people and to have that opportunity to still be involved. Yeah. And the inviting people back, David Hayward that was in Homeland and the various Black British actors that have made it over here in America they've certainly come out to the UK and brought back the expertise brought back inspiration. So there's something about the African American and Black British there's quite a healthy symbiosis there and there's a thing about there seems to be a very single-mindedness on detecting about their community based in the UK a lot of the community theaters opening shows in the West End and so they have a non-profit model partnering with a for-profit model and so you know so there's some there seems to be quite a lot of sections and I don't know I don't know which I'm observing I offer that as one provocation that you can be non-profit and to have shows on the West End there's multiple examples currently and I think again in the UK companies that work internationally for for-profit reasons or working with healthcare providers etc I'm sure there are models here as well so I guess there's a duality and flexibility of thinking being true to what we do but also finding you know basically you know if I was a plumber if I was just doing little kitchens all the time and not doing you know big bathrooms or doing hospitals whatever maybe some bit you know that would be like I like to be a plumber that will clear anyone's toilet really anyways Okay so that was awesome I'll take that and so we wanted to also give the opportunity to talk about to assess this session and give and start and do a list of plus and deltas plus is you know like what worked, what was great delta that moving forward what can change in terms of having a session like this again you know if we do have a session like this again at OSF then what kind of changes could we make to improve this One thing is I think to make sure to track the conversation so you don't have to start from square one every time you know because I think there was a lot of great ideas a lot of positive action steps and to put it on I don't know Katta's website so that it can just be tracked in some way Oh yeah so we will have a report that will go out to everyone that's why I collected emails so we will take this we can make it a Google Doc so that everyone can look at it and then maybe put a link up on the Katta website to be like these are the actions that we are taking you know to keep connected who else and if we can just pass around the microphone to anyone else I think what worked well for me was the option to have four different types of conversations and to have an extended amount of time to talk so that was nice but I think for the future I would love to just go to a work group meeting so we're not starting from scratch again but we you know maybe one of the workshops is yeah let's work on succession planning and or we you know whatever so anyway within our group we talked a lot about how can we stop talking but actually start working there seems to be a lot to talk about infrastructural issues I'm congregating every two to three years I don't know I mean I don't think that is a strategic company a constituent organization can Katta expand somehow perhaps engaging in a group of academics or people who are jobs who can volunteer time to you know policy making I've been a policy maker it doesn't come out of thin air it comes out of being costed it comes out of you know and certainly TCG is a very well funded I believe or you know organization so I think that of course there's these meetings in between but there's strategic thinking these think tanks you know the mainstream may have a lot of money invested into think tanks and into infrastructure support so can Katta evolve to be more TCG like in its function actually the one thing that I say I don't know if you guys I won't go through the whole thing but in TCG's current strategic plan we are focused on equity diversity and inclusion one of the two points main points in our strategic plan currently and part of the six point plan I won't go into all of it is around nurturing supporting theaters of color specifically and we got a grant from EMC arts to start focus groups around that and so this is something that I don't know what it's gonna look like I don't know what is gonna be the end game I think it's going to be the process that we're going through but it is something we're deeply committed to wonderful anyone else oh I would and for this session I would love to somehow integrating an opportunity where the participants get to create a genre of question like a topic I should say oh that's great thank you okay so if we we can all do this while we're sitting but if we can have both feet on the ground and thank you all so much for participating in this I've found it really helpful and I've truly appreciated everyone's input and participation in this and being open to this format and so thank you all if we can all take a deep breath in and out let's keep this going okay we'll keep the work going we'll stay connected we'll have a report for you guys we'll have next steps, we'll have assignments we'll have working meetings, we'll have a lot of stuff so so thank you all yay