 As everyone, grab your food, found your seat, talked to some new people, I hope, great. If you could just turn this away a little bit, you might have to turn your chairs a little bit. But I am so excited to introduce to you to Cat Little Tunnel, Kia Little Tunnel, and Nankaya La Bina. They are here to do a cultural presentation about the traditions of their southeastern native culture. They were so honored to have them here to share this with us. So please watch and listen with open hearts. Thank you so much. Thank you. In the beginning there were the words, there was only water below, and up above there was skyland. And in the water below there were all kinds of sea animals, and water birds. And then below in the skyland there was a tribe, and within that tribe there were warriors, and there was a chief, and he had a wife, and she was with a child. Now also that you need to know that in the middle of skyland there was a tree, and on that tree who all did things to eat in beautiful flowers, and it grew right in the center of skyland, and it had four great roots that grew out from it. One to the east, one to the west, one to the north, one to the south. One night, as the chief's wife was sleeping, she had a dream. It was a very real dream, and so immediately upon my knee she broke her husband, and she said, I have found this dream. I dreamed that the tree that's in the center of skyland fell over this big hole close to him, and he said, you have forgotten a dream, you have had a vision, and we must make this come to real. So all the warriors in skyland had them to come to the tree, so I was empowered of trying to move that tree and to know the tree did not budge. But he knew it was hard, that compassion that he knew, that her dream must come to force in him, and pushed in him until that tree gave there, just as she had dreamed. As she had each home. She had watched the man and watched her husband and now. She had to look down through that hole, and that's why she got closer and closer and her husband said, do not slip, do not get near, do not slip. But she had to see it, she got closer and closer. She reached up to grab hold of a limb of the tree so that she could bend down and see even more, and as she told me not to that limb, her foot gives way and she is falling down from skyland. The locals in the sea had watched this, and they were looking up and they sent two of the biggest birds to swan to go up. One resident on either side of her holding her up as they flapped one wing each to start lowering. How many life that you were solving, only for another to develop? She had no webs on her feet. How was she going to live in the water? The birds were bringing her down to safety, but what was safety? And so the animals all began to talk, what were they going to do? What were they going to do? And one little boy said, I have heard that below the water there is earth. And so the first to do that was the duck. He did not make it very far at all until he came back to the surface. He didn't even make it down before the water grew dark. The next one to go was the meaver, at least to the dark water. And so down, down, down he went, but he didn't. And she is getting closer and closer down. And what were they going to do? And a small boy spoke up, it was that of the muskrat, who said, I will go down. I will go down. The muskrat drove down. The pressure was pushing him on his lunch till he couldn't pass him out. He felt something with his call. And so he went back to the surface. His friends had to get to wonder if he had died while he was there because he had been gone for what seemed a long, long time. But then he came up through the waters by his claw. And once again, what to do? Boys, why is the one of another snapping turtle? She had been stirred up from the bottom with everything going on. And she came up and she said, near her mind, spread the earth online. The muskrat was taken over and that earth deposited on top of that turtle's back. And as it was, the swans lowered the woman to the turtle's back. And she began shuffling with her feet. And as she did, that earth was spread out over top of that turtle's back. And it grew, and it grew, and it grew to where we are standing this day. And her hand opened up and the seeds poured out. And all things good and wonderful was spread above the earth. That those songs that we sing today, the songs of creation, are called the Escagne Gatne. Listen now as the boys sing those songs and remind you of those creation stories. We're picking up a hand drum and we're going to see the steps of Turtle Island, of the Southeastern Natives, an old style dance that Eastern Woodland danced. And this dance has been danced since the beginning, since it was very first. All cops, and through the creator who told us it was, he thought to get across the snake, down and laid that to rest. But then, not too long ago, we started to have meetings again and bring back those old dance songs in a different way. And Smoke Dance was born as a test to show athleticism and agility. And so an old dance was reborn in a new way. Smoke Dance! Showmanship, and it's made its mark on the contemporary Indigenous communities here across what you now know as Turtle Island, of the United States and Canada. So at this time, we're going to give the newest form of Smoke Dance, or the Smoke Dance Trick Dance Song. Anything that makes you well, whether it be physically, spiritually, emotionally, anything that makes you well, so our songs, and our dances, and our languages, and our stories, are all medicine for us, and so I want to give you one of our prayer songs from Medicine for every single one of you here today. Thank you. I got typically this presentation before, so this is a really short version for us, which I really appreciate you shortening it for us, and I know that it doesn't cover any amount that we should be knowing about your culture and the land that we're on right now, so we really appreciate it. And we encourage you, I know they have been really busy this month, Native American Heritage Month, but all of you, you could be talking about Native American people. They do educational performance, they do every kind of presentations, so if you are in the region, and if you have these opportunities, please call them. I have their email addresses, so I just want to encourage you to keep that in mind, so thank you again so much. We can eat. Okay, great. Hi everyone, how are you? On a live stream, this is an empty regional committee, I'm going to pass it on to Kitas Salman. For those of you who weren't here this morning, I'm going to introduce myself to someone that I wasn't. A quiet Kitas Salman, there is a way walk, Nick Schalman's walk, but my name is Kitas Salman, I live in Schalman in Boston. I am the political director of the American Foundation for the RISP. I am also able to talk at each and every one person, there's no gender in her language. And I also want to say, since you read it, it's not often that I hear stories that are so similar to mine, representing the opening of anything. So to have them as a start for our day is emotionally opening. It means the rest of my day is all. So I want to read to you the statement on the back of your programs in order to start this in a good way. Again, if you need to talk to any of us about the actual National Theory Project, that's great. I'm going to also tell you about why we do this. The National Theory Project is a national project. We have 12 advisors who are amazing people with a wealth of experience, a wealth of backgrounds, a wealth of knowledge that is well beyond what I as a program director could ever hope to accomplish. But we also recognize that we don't know everything, and we can't know everything. So a few years ago we started doing these convenings in areas where we do not see a lot of applications, where we do not hear from a lot of artists. In order that we could learn what the aesthetics are in that area, what are the challenges in that area? Why aren't we seeing more applications? Who are the artists that we should know? And so that is why we started doing these stuff. We have done them in Mississippi, Phoenix, Dallas, Minnesota. Now we're here in Knoxville. And next year, on the occasion of our 10th anniversary, we will actually be doing it for the first time in New England. So it's very important for us. It's important for us to come to you, and not for you to have to come to us. We want to learn. It is our obligation to reach out to you and to learn from you in a way that is respectful, that encourages networking and conversation and art. It's not your responsibility to always come to us, and so we are here. I'm going to read this, and then I'll turn it over to Linda. At New England Foundation for the Arts, we believe that one of the roles of the arts is to make the invisible visible. We also believe that it is not the responsibility of those who have been made invisible to remind us that they are still here. Therefore, as a committed ally and as an artist, the New England Foundation for the Arts acknowledges that the ground on which we are meeting is the traditional and unseated alliance with the Shabahi or Jerky, and currently the Eastern Bank of Jerky. We honor their ancestors' past, present, and future and recognize their continued survival and contributions to our society, as well as the sacrifices that continue to make. We also recognize that there is a long history of colonization, displacement, and forced removal, so that many indigenous peoples have come to this place, and that there is a connection between that displacement and the removal and enslavement of African peoples to work this way. Nifa Valley is an equitable, diverse, and inclusive world, which we all interpret as all people have fair access to the tools and resources they need to realize creative community endeavors. We acknowledge structural inequities based on race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, class, age, national origin, language, and geography, and strive to counter those inequities in our work. That's why we're here today. We will be mostly in our listening mode and our learning mode, and we hope that there will be conversation amongst you all, because we know that when Mina was here on her site visit, that was the number one thing she was saying, oh, I really want to work with those people. I really want to meet those people, and so please take this as an opportunity. First of all, I want to welcome everyone in this room on behalf of the Carpet Bay Theater as we celebrate our 15th anniversary. It is our practice to enter every community as a learner, and as we learn together today, I hope it will take home with you the quality of the performance and performances that you're going to see. I hope that you take home with you the hospitality that we offer here in East Tennessee. I want to acknowledge, because it is our 15th anniversary, and I particularly want to talk about the future, I would like the Carpet Bay Theater staff to please stand so that you can be acknowledged. Because, you know, we're working until the next 50 years, and again, our practice is always to enter as learners. And I think we have something to share from East Tennessee, from urban Appalachia and from rural Appalachia that's represented in this room. And I want us all to be able to share our gifts and our talents and to support one another. Because the one thing that I do know is that we, in terms of our survival in the arts and culture, in terms of our survival as a community, we are going to depend upon each other. And to come together is essential, particularly now. And thank you, first of all, Kita. Thank you. And, Nifa, for bringing us all together, I actually have very little to do with it. You know, I do get a lot of credit, but I do want to say that Joe Tarver, Jonathan Clark, and all of the members of our community are the contributors. And I just want to acknowledge that. So, we are going to move into another panel that I was supposed to thank you with. And Linda is also a former National Theater Project. And I was very happy to be able to celebrate 50 years of Black theater in our culture. I'm introducing our first panel, which has my comrade, Jonathan Clark. So, if you come on up, the managing director of Carpet That Theater. He will be in conversation with my moving tour, with the Paris Baby, with the Executive Artistic Director of Carpet That Theater. I'm director of Apple Shops World Side Theater, and it's set here from 1976 to 2018. So, give it up for me. That was a lot of noise. Raise your hand if you have been here before. I said raise your hand if you have been going. So, we're about to take this thing off. I have the absolute pleasure of speaking to two of the founders. Two of the founders of some of these movements in Appalachia. Although Linda Perez-Nellie is not the founder of Carpet That Theater, the most we think she is. So, that's just how it goes. And doesn't copy part of one of the founders of Apple Shop and World Side Theater. We're going to have a big conversation. I wanted to start off by asking these two, how did you two meet? Well, you know, Leslie and I both confessed to, you know, kind of faulty memories. So, I think I first met Leslie at Appalachia, at the organizing meeting or the convening of artists, theater artists from the region, where alternate groups was formed. So, Leslie and I... Oh, do I need to do that? I'm so sorry. I do have a big voice. I was asked by my mother not to use it. So, Leslie and I met at the high-level center by the invitation of people who were thinking about what was needed in the region and how our isolated existences were not creating the kind of environment where we could actually live. So, there was a call at the convening and I let Dudley fill in the hymn of peace. But that's where we met. And I had been with Carpe Bags in 1974 and this was 1976. Is that correct? Yeah. Yes. So, I had two years of thinking about and working with an African-American theater organization in Nashville, Tennessee. And I'll talk later about what prepared me for that. But that's where we met. Dudley? That's all true so far. There was the director of Highlander Center at the time. He had a dry sense of humor. I don't know how many of you all have had a chance to keep him alive. But he said to some of the black folk who were coming to Highlander for meetings that now there's a group that I think you ought to meet. They seem to share a nationalist perspective. Although a little different than your black nationalist perspective. They're over in Weizberg, Kentucky. And maybe you want to take a trip over there to Weizberg to see what these white nationalists are doing. So that's how Miles sort of introduced us. And it was at that meeting that, as Linda said, that we met. And Linda had both of this kind of remember program. And both of us had committed, I'm sure, different degrees to the civil rights movement as teenagers. So it was natural for us to be at Highlander Center because we were looking at the way art and activism could be joined. So I had not really done all that much in the arts. I certainly had no theater training. But it had become apparent to a lot of people in the civil rights movement that it was important to work on the cultural aspect of the movement and freedom. And so that is what drew us, drew me and others to Highlander. We knew we would be better together than apart. And it rang true once we were all there. We had a lot to share. We had the movement to share. But we also didn't know a lot. Or at least I certainly and Rose, I didn't know a lot. So we came there to really learn from each other some basic things like how you write a contract for tour. So we were really making this up. A lot of the groups from scratch. And it was a good meeting. And then we kept going. And Roots, of course, is going to this day. And just an addendum to Dudley's statement. When the invitation went out, it was broad. And I have to say that there was a significant amount of sympathy that happened from that first meeting. And I think that those that remained were those who were committed to art and social change. And I think that is a kind of foundation for our long history together, Carpe Van and Roots. And Roots Company, Bob Leonard is out there somewhere. And all of the first founding peoples of alternate groups. But yes, there was a significant amount of fallout when we were talking about social justice. Yeah, what she means by the fallout is if four people showed up, 20 left as soon as they saw there was no money in it. John O'Neill, who became very involved with Paul Leonard, he didn't show up. He sent somebody, one of the people in Junebug, with the instruction to keep an eye on what the white people might be doing. Thank you. So I'll let you get to your next question. But the lesson learned from that, show up. I mean, if there's anything, and I thought about this this morning in the shower, show up because don't let people speak for you. Show up. Okay, John. So as we begin to talk about both Carpe Van and Roots' side of work, I thought it were a little bit more appropriate to work in the form of story, which is something that we all do. Both organizations are very, very good at it. And I started thinking, also, I did want to reintroduce on our call. I'm going to make sure you guys know that the phrase for you to begin is grounding up your thoughts. That's enough of that. And it's clear with both of these individuals. So if you want to just an upstart millennium, as we speak to this generation, it has to be clear. It has to be clear. That's enough of that is in the signifier to wrap that thing up. Just so you all know. So in the world of storytelling news prompts, and I thought with the help of both of these individuals, I came up with a couple of prompts. And thinking about when we talk about the word free-going, when we talk about things that we have to fight for here in Appalachia, I wanted you both to begin thinking about talking about the time when it would have been easier to talk about it. We got started at Highlander Center. And because we came out of political activism, I don't think we were even lenderized. Certainly people I hung out with on the right side. We weren't. We knew it was going to be a long haul. So that's what we were geared into. Expectations that suddenly everything was going to be new. It was going to be a fight. Miles Thorpe was an example. I understood for that. I can say though there have been times when I have been very surprised and wondered whether I should be doing something else as part of that long haul. And one of those times was in 1990 to 1995, when roadside, we were touring expensively. We've been pretty much in all the states, 43 at that time. And we had a challenge which was to see if we could invert the professional theater audience while on tour. So as many of you know, the majority of people waiting some percent of all the surveys say are from the wealthiest and most educated group of people. But that wasn't going to work for us because we were working class theater. And what we found is considerably performing for those audiences, they began to unwind, to undo the play. And so at one point one of the actors said she found herself falling into Ellie May Plamp from the Beverly Hillbills. And that's because that's where the audience was responding. So anyway, we made a decision that we would not perform in any community that did not contractually agree to work with us to thin out the entire community. So they had to sign as part of the contract that they would work with us over a period of nine months to bring out their entire community. So it was a risky business decision, but it was a good artistic decision because the plays were getting corrupted. So we worked on this for five years intensely. At the end of those five years we were able to demonstrate that in fact we had attracted the inverse of the audience that typically attended professional theater and we got it nationally. And the reason we did this is because an independent tracking firm from Connecticut followed us for those five years and did all the data. So we thought this is great. We finally have shown that it can be done and what a boom for the box office. The theater field is going to really love this because now they've got another 80% possible of the people. And what we found out was the theater field wasn't interested at all. Well, my story really I think has to do with our local community and local support. I have to say that Carpetbed has relied largely on national support. We don't have very many foundations in this area. We don't have the support of the larger community and on a good day we are 12% of the population. And our alliances with Carpetbed with Highlander really brought us the community of actors so that we rely on the communities of Kudlow and activist communities in the area. So the lack of kind of governmental support support on the financial end locally has been an issue for us. And I think where it becomes or became a kind of heartbreaker was really around real estate around owning our own home and having a place here in Knoxville and we would come this close, this close and somehow the city council or the mayor or somebody would scut up that effort. It didn't matter if we had money, we had time when mentors were willing to support that effort. You know there are times and every day the city council and the city government do whatever effort. We even got a $100,000 grant federal grant and the city council even that. So that has been those times when I kind of felt as if I maybe should not be here. But other than that, I had to really promise myself that I wouldn't cry in front of city council anymore. I mean that became a resolution. No more crying when city council was in mental care. So I think that for me and even as I kind of come to the end of my tenure as executive and artistic director that is my one regret. And let me see, that's been painful. So in the same breath, would you share a story? I know we talked about pain a little bit. We talked about times when you both had times of thinking you should have done something else. Which is hard. I don't know if there's any artist or art administrator in this room who has never had that feeling of maybe I should be doing something else. Maybe something would pay more, maybe something would be a little less difficult. But you're all here and we're all still going in one way or another. So talk about the time when you thought some work that you put together or your hot song creating something beautiful. Okay. You know there are several and I split them up into producing and touring and presenting and programs. And I have had so many opportunities to celebrate and really define success for us. And I started with the presenting and we, you know, presenting is difficult in Osmo as well. People are just, you know, we loved it to buy tickets to some of these fabulous stuff in the world. But what I remember about our presenting is that we brought cultural odyssey and cultural odyssey with Dessa Jones. And we have never been in the theater of the Clarence Brown venue, which is an equity house on the campus and it's a bar just in the area. But we partnered with ARC, which was Age Response Noxford. No longer exists. And we managed to convince Clarence Brown Theater that we should do this big butt girl spotting women and take the long road of odyssey. But what happened was that we engaged several different communities and we filled the house and we were able to do it without, you know, without anyone having to pay any high prices for it to get. And we had a following behind that that was pretty extraordinary. And that was one of the successful presenting opportunities that there were. I'm going to say that when we developed Dark Cowboys and Barricades and toured that show, we toured that show probably 10 years. And the good side of that is that we toured in small communities and small presenters who treated us really well and who were engaged in their own communities in such deep ways, in the Deep South and Appalachian. And that, I think, was something that fed us, I think, culturally and spiritually and taught us a lot about engagement. So what's the question? Talk about a time when you saw your work, the work that you created, with dinner. Well, and I think that all of our work is beautiful. I think the work that led us to different populations, probably the work that we did with partners in Kentucky, really proud of that work and that included Robert Gay, similar to this room as well, and Appalachian and other communities in Kentucky. And Deep South, I learned a lot, learned a lot. I learned a lot about when you enter community, what you're asking people to risk. And I think that's a very, very important lesson. What are you asking the community that you've been doing to risk? So that's kind of the takeaway for my touring piece. And I guess I've talked about that. That's enough of that? I just want to say one big shout out to Robert Gay and the higher ground folks in Kentucky. That was actually one of the moments that changed my life. As an artist, the work that we did with Carpenter Bay and the partnership there, and I just always take the time and opportunity to mention that. That's what really made me take my life to the arts and to change my community with what the arts can do. So that was a time that was beautiful for me if I could take that opportunity as the moderator for the whole week. That's enough of that? So we had a touring, and we did a lot of touring in more than 2,000 communities. Sometimes we would bundle it together. So one of the touring highlights was early on. We got some support from the NEA National Endowment for the Arts and the North Dakota Arts Council. We were going to make a statewide tour over a month's time. So they had it in their mind, a kind of typical tour. We would come in to this town and move on to that town. But that didn't seem like such a good idea to us. So I went out about 6 months early to negotiate a different kind of tour. And the different tour was, yes, we'd come into a community and perform. But we also wanted each community to co-present with us on the tour one of the pieces, artists, that they would select. And then if they wanted to go for the 3-day deal, we would make a performance with those artists in our arts. So it was all about participation. One of the guiding principles of roadside work was a guy from a person that I used to hang out with, named Alan Lomax. And he said that what you have to do is remember that there will be inherent genius in every community that you visit. So look for the inherent genius in that community. So that's what we did in Dakota. And we visited 16 communities. But there's this whole issue of context. So we also put Appashock films on the public television for several months before we arrived. And then we convinced the person from Public Radio in North Dakota to come along on the tour and file reports in the daily, or a couple of three, four times a week. And so what emerged from the reporting on Public Radio was a portrait of North Dakota with their performers and the landscape, the weather. We did hit a moose as we were pulling into Cavalier and told all the car, but no one was hurt. And so you can see that made a good story. So Appalachia as it connected to North Dakota, and especially in North Dakota, emerged. And just one footnote. This question of context, it's so easy to get, as we all know here in this room, stuck out on a limb, being the only one that sat at the other. And so you start to feel like an appendage. And one of the times when context became so clear to me was we were performing in New York City at a well-known theater, the Manhattan Theater Club. And that morning, the New York Times had the coal strike, a nine-in-mine worker strike on the front page of a newspaper. And so it created a context for that audience in that show. And it was a moment of beauty you asked about because you could feel the show levitate, just rise up. And it was rising up, of course, not because of just the actors, but it was rising up together with the audience. And that's enough of that. So we both, we heard from both of you, talk about your experiences with national work and as well as local impact as well. Would you be willing to share a story about a time when there was balance between your local impact and your national impact? Or is there more? Was there balance? You know, I think I can't give you a specific question. You do? And now I'm not answering. You know, we are always seeking balance. And, you know, there are a couple of things that throw balance at the children in our circumstances. You know, we are an athlete and an urban athlete. And I think what we have had to do is to figure out what balance is not only in terms of programming, but in terms of economy. And I think that's one of the difficult drivers for us. We have been consultants in terms and we have been facilitators for other organizations and that's been an economic driver. We have toured and that's been an economic driver. How you fund local programming is another difficult piece. Again, I've already talked about, you know, the kind of lack of foundations in our area. The lack of, and I think we're really working on this, individual support, individual givers. And we, you know, these are our challenges for us. So, I think we are in the next 15 years. You know, under the new administration, I think that this balance is a really topical issue and I think that hopefully the day will just be better than we did. That's also been maybe the case with us. I mean, we were doing a lot of touring because we could earn money that we didn't have by touring. So, some years 55, 60% of our budget was from touring and that allowed us to do the work at home. So, we were always conscious of getting back to home. So, here's a little story of a strange kind of balance, maybe. But we were performing in New York City and at intermission, there were a couple of older theater mavens who I overheard. And one, and it was apparent that they went to the theater two, three times a week. They knew everything about the theater and here they were, this Appalachian play, not surprising. They were totally eclectic in their case. And one made a turn to the other maven and said, these are the best Appalachian accents we've heard from our viewers. Just a follow-up to that, is that something that you think is indicative, both of your stories kind of have hints of having to exit Appalachian to go get what you needed to bring back to Appalachian. So, we know that you do the statistics on poverty and income, economics. The money doesn't lie here. It depends on what business you're in. But is that something that's indicative, is that kind of the trials that you've had to go through as executives and administrators of theater organizations based on Appalachian? Is that something that you think people have in common who do this work here, that you have to go out and get what you need to bring it back for your community? That's an interesting statistic for things that I know that are based on the lane information, and that's leveraging that incorrectly. For those of you who don't know lane and PM initiative, find it out. There's interesting parallels, statistically, between rural communities and African-American communities in terms of the percentage of arts funding that goes to each. And it was very interesting to look at those things as kind of parallel. In our urban center in Knoxville, in terms of the arts, you are going to see a lot of music. Nassau was supposed to be the national historically, so there's still that desire to bring music and to have music. We have a very vibrant music community. Theater doesn't have the same embrace or activity or support, and you really can't rely on funding for the art loan. So when we think about our communities and we think about initiatives that would serve, again, both the art and social practice, we really do have to look at organizations and foundations and people who understand that connection. And I think for the past 50 years in Knoxville, we have been trying to get people to understand and support that connection. So, again, part of the lessons about power and the power dynamics of Knoxville is a lesson kind of in the future. We are already going to have more than one African-American person on City Council, even though there's a City Council movement now, which is absolutely amazing and wonderful, still a new one. So there are certain political realities that you have to deal with, and I think that we have been able to make a case, a much better case, actually, about the importance of those in combination with one another, particularly in communities of color. So kind of that's where we are. And every day we are engaged in education and understanding, trying to get people to understand that these are important parts of our community. So I'm hopeful. But I'm still making applications to some national funding sources. Just a tidbit of information about Knoxville. There was a study that came out recently that Knoxville has the highest poverty rate of African-Americans in the South. So we are doing really good at one thing, and it's making sure that black people do not have money. And that's what Knoxville is really, really good at. And that's kind of one of the biggest challenges as I begin to take over. Carbobag is this transition begins next year. That's the goal, is to make sure that people understand that and make sure that people understand the work that we have to do. Because if that's not a challenge, I don't know what it is. But that's our audience. The people in the audience that we have here with Knoxville and Carbobag being a legacy historical African-American theater company, that's the challenge that we have to face and it's the biggest challenge in the South for the people we serve. Yeah, I really think that's it. It's a question of who's in the house that you want in the house. And who's the audience? Somebody once asked me what would happen if all the support, government, foundation, whatever support went away from Redside? What would happen to Redside? I said, well, we'd be taken in by the community, but we wouldn't be able to apply ourselves to this work except on the weekends or when we could get ahead of work. The community would take us in and we would continue to do the work but we couldn't be as intentional about it. And this urban, rural connection that Linda just talked about, it's really been our experience. Years ago, I used to watch and see which communities in the U.S. would be at the bottom of the poverty list at the bottom of the poverty scale. And so I noticed for a while there, Central Appalachia was playing tag with pre-ownists in the South Bronx or with the South Bronx. And so after seeing this for a couple of years, I'd open the paper and say, well, we meet the South Bronx this year. They meet us. So I figured they must be our long lost cousins up there. And I said, what was the feeler company up there in the South Bronx? And it was pretty good. So we got together with their ten folk and that was like 25 years ago and we're still making plays together. So as we move forward, we kind of touched on this, but I wanted to pull a little bit more out. Talk about a time when under Carpet Bag and Roadside knew that it was connected deeply to your community. I'll start by talking about our youth programs. You know, Jonathan over here, some of you have heard this story, but Jonathan came into Carpet Bag as a 13 year old. Actually you were 12 years old. The grade was my 13 year old, so you became 13. We knew the potential. But he came into our youth program and one of the things that I think we have been particularly successful at is what I would call growing an artist and leadership in the arts. And when I look around the room and ask for today and look at the connections, we haven't talked about Joe Talbert. Joe Talbert was a key major as well. And people who were with us for short periods of time like that, I think that these kinds of seats that we planted that have blossomed and there are many, many more. I mean, my favorite thing is for somebody to walk up to me like some of the community members have done and say, especially if you're six foot tall and like 280 pounds. I've got a daughter, she's like 13. And I want to have a program. You know what program I'm for? And he's got his elbow on my shoulder and it's one of our youth service. You know, that's something that I'm proud of. And we continue to do that and continue to have a youth program director that has vision that we are preparing young people for work in this field and in other fields of course. But that's been really one of our strengths and one of the most rewarding points of our work. Yeah, I remember vividly we got a call at the office and a woman said that her father had just passed and she wondered if we could come and sink this general. And it was at that point that I knew the connection was deep and beyond just the theater space. And so that, I'll tell you a funny story though about connecting to the community is not too long, John. We had a friend come from a national foundation, a fourth foundation. And like we said earlier, we're really glad we're starting to maybe have more convenings like this. I think it's very important. Back in the day, people at the foundation always would get out and do their field work. And the person who came down to see one of our ladies in Weizberg at the intermission, she got really mad and came up to me. She said, you set me up. And I said, what do you mean? She said, the people to my left and right all know the songs, they're singing along and they're sometimes completing the lines. I said, well, pick a place after and when you go to any place, the problem might be arrangement. And afterwards, of course, she came up and said, same thing happened, I apologize. So in that same line, talk about a time when you, during your work, when you were very surprised. Well, yeah. I thought that meant you were surprised. Positive or negative? Yeah, because it comes, you know, I'm going to start with the positives. You know, in the work of collaboration with community organizations and what not, you don't really know what's really happening. You don't know what's really happening. So one of the huge surprises was that we were working with solutions to issues of concern to not civilians, also known as sick. And they were community-oriented. Yes, they thought that was sick. Well, they're now one longer in existence. They finally call themselves solutions. But, you know, we did this partnership and it was with the rest of the work which we just remounted. And they said, what we're going to do is we're going to pay you in and we're going to, this is a fundraiser for our organization. And I said, oh, well, we'll just kind of see who turns up and what not. That was one of the few local sold-out performances in our history and not some completely sold-out. They raised a lot of money, which was really good. But that was a surprise. Definitely impossible? Definitely impossible. Okay, you did it. So a little coda, I forgot to that last story I told with that foundation person. She was so excited at the discovery that this was going on in theater in the U.S. that she spent the rest of the evening celebrating with moonshine. It was amazing. She had a great time. So there's some of the surprising things that happen in Coruscant as they say some of the different levels. But here's one that got me. We had just come in from Turing. We've been in a big city, I can't remember, maybe Chicago. And we were coming back for a benefit performance at the Bromley Gap Hunting Club. Now, the Bromley Gap Hunting Club was one room with a cold stove. And what we were trying to do was to stop the Bromley Gap project that was going to flood Bromley Gap much like the TVA flooded out so many homes near here. So we came in. The place was of course packed. In fact, the kids were sitting right at the actor's feet. It was that packed. Of course, we also, but since we were the actors, got a place near the cold stove because it was cold. And anyway, there's a point in this one play where the actor goes to a room against that room. And the kind of setup is that there's this guy, Henderson Mullins. This is a somewhat true story. Henderson Mullins had a white dog. And bad Henry Adams had told Henderson Mullins that that blankety blank dog bites me. I won't kill him. Well, what happens is Henderson brushes in because he finds his dog like a day later dead. So Henderson brushes in and John Adams, Henry Adams, the bad Henry Adams, he's sitting there at the supper table. And he's thinking, well, bad Henry Adams never laid his gun down when he slapped when he ate. And Henderson holds his gun and is going to shoot him. And bad Henry shoots him and kills him right out, shoots him through the table. Now, the actor at this point in the setup goes to an audience member and says, would you mind playing Henry Adams? Just pretend you're eating. And so usually the audience member gets a hang of pretending they're eating and gets to shoot this guy with the dinner cake. Well, the guy sitting in the front row an older man was deaf. So he was in the front row, of course, so he could follow lips. But he was deaf. So he didn't get all of the setup. So when the actor went to him and said, sort of aggressively, well, they had Henry Adams. And pretend they ate to eat. The guy pulled out a knife and went. He just survived. You brought a knife to a guy? All right. So as we begin to wrap up, we've got about seven or eight minutes left. I know the question is, in everybody's mind, who has a little bit of knowledge about both of you and your organizations, as we talk about transition, I wanted to take 30 seconds. Not for this whole conversation, just how, I was going to surprise you both with this. I wanted to take 30 seconds and think of five words. This is a little repertoire about my friend Stephen Sett from Union Versus out of his look. I want to take 30 seconds to come up with five words about transition. Smile and count to 30. Close five words down here. I want you to pick one of them. Smile and transition. With using that word, where are you going to hang out on your careers, your life, and your legacy? I start with simple things. Hopeful. That's my word. Hopeful. And what am I supposed to do? Talk about it. What do you mean you say hopeful? What I mean when I say hopeful and it's about the future and confidence in leadership and about the landscape that shoots and changes. It's about being confident that the allies will support you. Being confident that you have, and this is a collective view, have listened to all of the amazing influences, woman tours, men tours, all of the information that has been collected over time by so many, so many people. And I want to, you know, you mentioned my sort of pool. I work at Highland and the Browser's there as well. He was fun. But I also want to mention some names like John O'Neill, who was certainly a mentor to me. Also, Jane in a different set at Highland. Mentors to me. So, so many people who taught me how to do this work. And I hope that I've passed on some of those lessons that I've learned from some of you already in this room. You know who you are. But it's very important to me that we honor our elders and those who have brought us to where we are today. So, that's my statement. Thank you. The word that comes to my mind is generous. It's a key word in the transition. Later today, you'll, on the fourth third of town, there's the new director, Rosa. She just started in September around the first, September. And it's about passing on the stories that my generation and growth side has. I'm just one of a whole generation of actors and writers and musicians. And if you extended to Apple Shop of filmmakers, et cetera, et cetera. So, there's a great wealth of stories that need to be generously shared. And that's kind of how I came up with long stories. People like Ed Brown, Brown's brother, John O'Neill, people like that, after we did whatever our business was, we'd go out and get some beer and go in the backyard and barbecue. And they would get to argue about SNCC and that was a great education for me, why this worked, why that, why I didn't do this. So, I would just sit there and take it all in. And I got whatever barriers I had in this work through their generosity. Alright. So, we only have a couple of seconds left. I did want to open this thing up for questions, but we do have about 15 minutes after this is over to a network and ask some questions and do all those good things. Does anybody have a burning question about these two individuals? John O'Neill once. Can we expand that to any comments? I was about to, what they think it is. We got no questions, but as we pointed out, we have no comments. Clarion. I'm just curious about what you are most excited about, most passionate about, what's still in your tank right now? Individuality? Or organization? I'm not sure. Okay. I'm quickly coming to closure. December 31st. What I'm excited about is that I am a solo playwright and I get to focus on that. I also get to say things like I'm looking for residencies and placements supporting my individual work. Certainly Carpenter is always my first love but now I get to kind of fly out there and do some other things and I'm excited about that. I just went to the first time last week but I've been hearing about it for like 20 years. Why not? Just opportunities to do more work and to really focus on some of the things that I hope to do. That's not that. That would be great. Yeah, I'm very excited about the new core leadership at Roadside about the thinning thing. Bam joined us maybe three years ago and it's exciting that they've got plenty of ideas and they're pushing ahead and they're not getting in in a culpable sense. Awesome. Well thank you all for being with us and I guess we'll end you by saying that's another way. Thank you.