 All right. We ready, Audrey? Good to see you. Okay. See you. All right. All right. Hey, everybody. This is watch me work. This is Tuesday. The 22nd of 21st. I'm sorry, the 21st. Yeah, just skipped over that. I knew yesterday was for 20. And then I, you know, I was like, Oh yeah, right. Then there's another day. Right. The 21st. All right. It's, um, yeah. The 21st of April, but it is Tuesday all day long. So this is watch me work for those of you who are new to watch me work just to give you a brief overview of what this is. And of course what it isn't. We have a joke. We say it's just like Shakespeare in the park, except it's not Shakespeare and it's not in the park, but it is free. And it does come to you through the generosity of the public theater where I am the master writer chair of the public theater. I've been doing this show for 11 years live in the lobby of the public theater. And so thanks to the public theater for helping it happen for all these years. Also thanks to howl round, who came on a few years ago to allow us to live stream and now has very generously donated there. I guess donated I don't even know if that's true but offered the resources to allow us to create this, this community in this difficult time. For those of you who don't know I write plays movies TV shows I'm a show runner on a show right now that's on hiatus movies, every kind of things songs I have a band. So I write all kinds of different things and will be happy to offer you my insights and thoughts on your work and your creative process. Okay, so what we're going to do is we will be working together for 20 minutes and I'll use my little timer. You will be talking in the time remaining up until around six o'clock about your work and your creative process. What we won't be doing is inviting you to read things you've written and getting critique. We're going to talk about process which keeps it open for everybody and accessible and helpful to everybody who might be listening. So, Audrey if people have a question, tell them how to get in touch. If you have a question and you are in the zoom what you can do is click on the raise your hand button it should be in a participant tab at the bottom of your screen likely if you're on a laptop or the top of your on a tablet. If you can't find that treat me a little message in the chat and I will be happy to help you. If you're watching on how around TV or streaming on Facebook, you can ask us questions via social media. You can tweet at us on the public theaters Twitter or on our Instagram. Or you can tweet at us at at watch me work SLP with the hashtag how round which is H O W L R O U N D. And that's all fantastic. Okay, well that's everything I need to know. Let's, let's get started. We got our timers. And here we go. All right. There we are. All right. Okay. All right. So hopefully somebody out there got some work done. Um, great. Who's got a question anybody. Up first we've got Jenny. Go for it. Hi, Jenny. How are you? Thank you. How are you. All right. And so I'm working on a short story. And I have a question about space and setting and their relation to character. And so I've really gotten into this one particular story. And I've got this character that I feel is quite real. Feels quite real. And I feel like that identity is becoming clearer to me every day. And, and they sort of inhabit this space in my mind, but I'm struggling I think to envision a setting that fits that character. And does it justice. So I guess it's this idea of being able to transport figures from a space in your mind. And to conjure a space and that doesn't feel like a mismatch or doesn't feel like, and is sort of them. Doesn't fight, I guess, and accommodate the characters. And do you have any strategies for that. I'm going to find. So you have this awesome character, you're writing a short story, you have this awesome character. And you're thinking, okay. You haven't yet found a space, a place. Yeah, I don't even know whether to call it setting or place. Yeah, because it's so abstract. I mean, it sounds like you feel like you need one. I mean, it's, it's, I guess you don't necessarily need one. I mean, plenty of stuff. I'm thinking of short stories of, or maybe novels of Samuel Beckett, you know, I'm never sure where they're set, you know. So that's one example and those are really fun to read and interesting. I've just been reading happy days. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. Well, even in happy days, I mean that wonderful play by Samuel Beckett, even in happy days. You know, when he, when he wasn't when he, you know, hold on, telling my son to go clean his room. Even in happy days, though, you know, when he had, you know, she was on her dirt mound in her dirt mound or the mound kept. Is that correct. Am I talking about the right play. Yeah, okay. And Willie had his thing to do, you know, so they had things to do there were things around them they might have been in a no persons land, but there were definitely things happening right. Yeah, with with tactile circumstances, if you will. So, you know, I think Beckett had an idea of where they were, or at least what they were dealing with physically in their environment. So do you have an idea for your character about what she or they or he is, is dealing with in their physical environment. Yeah, I gave them a setting. And I, and it's, yeah, in the physical world, I guess. And, and it just doesn't that was the problem that just didn't feel like it fitted, and it didn't feel like it accommodated this like quirky character, I guess. I mean, can you think of try would you like to try another one I mean you can try out different settings it's like on this zoom you know how some people have like really cool like backgrounds you know you can try out a couple of different backgrounds and see if some of them would fit. Or you can just focus on the basic things of what they're doing and what they're going through and let the specifics of the setting go for now, you know, and have you written a full draft of it. It's not full yet. Oh, okay. You haven't yet gotten to the end. Yeah. Okay, well, that's another thing to maybe just write to the end. If you really hear the character in your head. You know, right to the end, and then reread it and maybe the things that you need will reveal themselves after you've written to the end, you know, have it. Since it's a short story, it won't take you that much longer, you know, it's not like you're writing a novel, which is a longer slog. But you know, you see what I mean so maybe just go forward, finish writing it finish the first draft and then see if the story doesn't tell you what it needs. A lot of times, our work will do that. Thanks so much. Thanks Jenny. Great question. Thanks Jenny. We've got Sterling. Hold on a quick there we go. Sterling. Yeah. Go for it. You've got the same name is one of my favorite brother actors. Oh for real. All. You know what I'm talking about. This is us. Well, from act from father comes home from the wars parts one two and three the public theater. Before this is us. Yeah. I'll have to check that out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Sterling Brown. Where are you? Where are you? Where are you from today? Miami. Oh Miami. All right. How are you doing? I'm doing good. You. All right. My question was, I'm working on one of the pieces I'm working on is a play. Okay. And it's already outlined to the end. And I've written a draft, like a little bit. But I'm not sure what it's halfway through. But now I'm at the point where like, I know how I wanted to end, but I feel like it's losing like the, it feels like lackluster. Now I'm just like writing stuff as opposed to like, I'm being inspired, like all these characters telling me to write this. So I was wondering if you do any like exercises or techniques that could get that spark again. With the piece. Yeah, that's a good question, Sterling. And it'll, you know, so it sounds like you've done a great amount of work already. You're writing a play. You've written the outline. You know how it ends. So you know how you would like it to end. You're writing along your halfway through and you're like the BB King song, the thrill is gone. But you know, it's like, it's like any relationship Sterling, you know, there are days they're going to be dry patches or days, you know, when it's like, you know, and the best exercise I have is to write. You know, I mean, I really, when it, when it happens for me like that where it's like, oh, gee, I have the whole thing outlined, you know, in my case, you know, the producers have signed off on it. Everybody likes it. And, you know, all the plot points pretty much and you're just going through and you hit that point, maybe page, whatever it is, like page 50 or page 45 or page 112, whatever. And you're like, you just have to keep, keep writing, you know. So I would just say keep showing up, lower the bar in person. I show you my little exercise with lower the bar. Oh, this is, you know, now lower a little bit longer. Now I'm going to drop out of the frame. But you know, all the way down to the floor. Look, here I go. All the way down here, man. You can get it so low that you can easily step over just write a page a day or if you want to write five pages a day, don't worry about the quality. You know, what you're doing is just, you know, getting by any means necessary to the finish line, because what will happen in my experience anyway, then you get into the rewriting. And then the rewriting is where you're going to make it better. You know what I mean? So you don't have to be, you don't, and contrary to popular belief, you don't have to be inspired to do your creative work. You know, I mean, you've heard this quotation, you know, anyway. Oh yeah. Yeah. So you don't have to be inspired to do your creative work. You just have to work. You just have to do the work. Okay. So just, just write a page a day, you know, and then go do something else. You know, how many pages do you think you have left? What do you think? Maybe about 15, 2015. Oh man, you like, come on. It's like the Boston Marathon. We're like two, two miles to the finish line, brother. You're like, I don't feel inspired. I felt so good when we started. Come on, brother. Get to the finish. You got 15 pages. You could be finished in 15 days. If you wrote one page a day, like bleh. If you just bomb it out, right? You can be done in like two weeks and then you can have a party. Come on. Right. Okay. Okay. You got 15 pages. You just gotta. Yeah. Just struggle. Yeah. Do what they do. They throw themselves across the finish line. I mean, come on. All right. Thanks. Yeah. Don't worry about writing, writing well. Just write. Fix it. Make it prettier later. Okay. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks, Sterling. All right. The next person we have is Gerald. Darrell. Hi. Hi. Thank you so much for doing this. I'm so filled with gratitude. Hi. So I wrote a play. Like, uh, it was, um, it's about 40 minutes and I'm turning it. And I'm like, well, well, tooth it into a novella, but I'm also expanding it. But, um, Some people saw it and say, I really see a novella. And this is a two part question is, is. Is confidence. Is not feeling like I'm. Good love. Not trusting myself. I also wanted to know how to really believe in yourself. And your work. And also do you have a roadmap when you start to write like? Do you outline first? And do you know where you're going? Or you just start writing. Right? Okay. A couple of things. So I. Like, out. If it's a longer work. you know, a play or a novel or, you know, I like to have some kind of an outline, even if it's just a couple of bullet points or like we say in screenplay, land a beach sheet, you know, just this happens, this happens, this happens, something just to just to know so that I can turn off my, my analytical mind, I suppose you would call it not sure what I'm not a psychologist, psychologist, you know, but turn off that part of my mind that has to focus on planning and organizing and all that and really enjoy taking a long bath in my creative mind, you know, my more creative mind is just like, yeah, you know, this sounds cool like that. So that's why I use outlines so then I can relax. Same reason I use, you know, whatever, what is it called, Google Maps or Waze, you know, when you drive, some people use Waze because they want to know, oh, yeah, this is the best way to go. This is a way to go. This is my route, you know, if you're going somewhere new, you would pop it into your phone or whatever, same kind of thing. So you don't really have to worry. Oh no, we're, you know, that's kind of taken somewhat off the table, you know, although as we spoke with Sterling a second ago, you know, it doesn't take all the difficulty off the table, but it does lessen somewhat, you know, because you've done, you've divided the work into different parts, you know. It's funny, my son misbehaved earlier and I told him that if he cleaned his room, he could get his iPad back and so he's making a lot of noise doing it, just so you know, I keep looking. Yeah, I'm talking about you. Anyway, so that's what I'm dealing with right now, but so that's kind of, so definitely I would say try and outline if it's a simple thing like a beat sheet, just a few things to give you some kind of roadmap, you know. And then the confidence thing, the great thing is you already have a play, so you've got a kind of roadmap. Now, novella, so that's a novel but shorter, right? Right, and yeah, go ahead, go No, and also people have said, I don't want to take, with transitions, it was really hard too, but that, yeah. So I wrote a play, it's about 37 pages. Right, right. So with the novella, you would flesh it out, right? You would, you would, sorry, the sun is getting in that here, you would flesh it out, you would open it up, right? Right, right. I would just say focus on the characters, give yourself a, you know, again, try a page a day, try a page a day. So give yourself a beat sheet, you know, you have your play, look at your play, say, okay, this is my outline, so to speak, right? Yes. Right. Okay, so I have my roadmap. All right, a page a day and see how that works, you know, and as far as confidence, you know, confidence is something we all struggle with all the time. It doesn't, you know, people who, you know, you write more, you know, it's not necessarily that you're more confident, it's just that you get over it more. You know what I'm saying? So I would just encourage you to again, set the bar low, it doesn't have to be pretty, it just has to be on the page, you know, and try a page a day, if a page a day is too much, try half a page a day. It's, you know? Yes. And try to see your story as much as possible, see it, see your characters. You know, it's different with the novel. I've written a novel and you know, it's the way of writing is different because you have to just, the amount of detail, you just need more detail. I'm in a novel than you do, than I do anyway in a play. And there are more words. So yeah, so that's, you know, so that's, but just, you know, again, keep the bar low, keep it enjoyable, you know, do a little bit every day. Allow your work to give you the confidence that you need, you know? Thank you so much. Thanks, Gerald. Good question. Thanks, Gerald. Up next, we've got Rayne. Go for Rayne. Hi. Hi, everybody. So my question, so I'm writing what is looking like a novel. However, I have a question about tense. I'll be writing in first person and in the present. But I feel, I don't know, like I'll just go and just slip into past tense, but it doesn't feel wrong. I personally like what I'm doing. I just, is that like wrong? And like, is that something that's like kind of unacceptable? Or is this something that like when I'm finished, will have to be fixed? Yeah, in a world, I love it in the world where we have accepted like fluidity and all kinds of things, we're still holding each other to, you know, this is a musical and this isn't, this is a play and this isn't this, there are rules and art, there are fewer and fewer rules in life. And there is no social contract anymore, let's be obvious. But there are rules and art. You can use any tense you want, Raven, I think you should, you know, if you're enjoying it, if it sounds good to you, if it's telling the story that you want to tell, go for a sister. Well, really. And if you finish your novel, and you send it off to your publisher, whatever, and they read it, and you have a relationship with the publisher and an editor, and you can have conversations about it at that point. But at this point, because time is a construct, and it's all something, what did Einstein say, time is something that we invented so that everything wouldn't happen at once. And, you know, and gender is fluid, and please, girl, you know, write your, will you just write your novel and not worry about it? If it feels good, yeah, writing to use more than one tense or to go back and forth, whatever, great. Even paragraph to paragraph, because I've seen it done, you know, like from chat, like a new chapter will start and like, obviously, the perspective may change. But I'll literally like switch from paragraph. Well, you ask yourself a question, I mean, you see, you keep asking, you keep asking the question over and over, Raven. So I got to ask you a question. Is it because of lack of focus on your part that you're doing that? No, it just feels, it just, it's coming out that way. Well, then let it come out that way. You know, you've heard that song born this way. I mean, come on, girl, where are we living now? It's born this way. That's how it was born. And until you, you know, you've written the whole thing, maybe. And again, you have a relationship with a publisher and an editor, and you can have substantive conversations specifically about your work. Right? I think you should write it the way you're hearing it. Okay. And, you know, I like that. I'll take that. Anything that keeps you writing. I think it's great. Thank you. Cool question, though. Thank you. Thanks, Raven. Nice to see you. All right. Next, I'm not sure what your first name is. M. Wicker? Yes. Hi. How are you? We're here. I'm, I started out doing some scenes and then it turned into kind of a self-contained play. It has a beginning and an ending and but it's not, it's only about 30 or 40 minutes or so. And what is your advice about, you know, what to put in the middle in those spaces that will continue to make it flow, but won't complicate the plot because it makes sense as it is, it just needs more. Ah, admit. So you've written a 40 minute play. 30 or 40, I think. 30 or 40 minute play. And it's got, you know, you like it. Now it is. And you want to add more because. Yeah, I think we need, you know, it just needs more to get to. Or does it, or does it, I guess, is the main question. But I think here we go. This is, this is the day where we're going, what? Yeah, this is a good, no, it's beautiful. These are beautiful questions. So Sam Shepard has this essay called, I think it's called Time. You know, Sam Shepard, the great playwright. Right. We love him. He used to live in a building right next door for me. And one day, walking around the neighborhood late at night, he and I walked around and had some coffee together because he would hang out on his stoop. Anyway, um, he has this essay called Time, in which I'm going to paraphrase horribly, but he says a play shouldn't be any longer than it is. You know what I'm saying? This idea of full length play or, you know, these categories we set up or that actually that the marketplace is set up to control the creative spirit. Let's get real, right? So it says you're playing in full length unless it's a hundred and seven pages and has an act break in it. And anything less than that is just not full length. And so you're not a serious writer or whatever the fuck people are saying these days. Jesus Christ, the amount of stupid stuff, right? If you're feeling good about what you've written, I think it's long enough. If you're feeling when you read it, like, gee, I kind of move fast over this one, this series of emotional beats, you know, right? Yeah, then maybe there's a spot you've identified a spot where you could open it up a little bit. Right. You know what I mean? I mean, think of your favorite, maybe think of your favorite play or think of, if you, you know, think of a classic play like, I don't know, gee, you know, I don't know what, you know, Hamlet. I've been using Hamlet forever, but you know, think of Hamlet and think, okay, so he arrives home or no, we see the ghost, he arrives home and no, no, no, how about he arrives home and they say your ghost, oh, shit, oh, shit, the ghost, he sees the ghost swear, swear, swear, and then he poisons Claudius. I mean, right, that would be satisfying, but maybe, you know, maybe there's something that we'd like to unpack a little bit more, you know, maybe we'd like to learn more about his emotional state. Right. Yeah, I don't want to put anything in there that'll, that'll kind of derail the, or make the ending any more, you know, complicated or really change things. But, you know, I do agree, I do think I could have a little more exposition on some of the characters. I just don't want it to get in the way of where we're going at the end. Okay, okay, so you don't want to get in the way, so could you go instead of creating more of a horizontal thing, could you go deeper? Is there something, are there things about the character like, gee, Hamlet loves theater, right? Yeah. So we have that whole thing about the players and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, the murder of Gonzago and all that crap, which is brilliant crap, right? And we, it wouldn't be Hamlet without that, right? So that's vertical, that's, you know, we get deeper into the heart of the character, or Ophelia, or the guys in the Yorick, you know, Alas, poor Yorick, I mean, all that shit, would it be Hamlet without that? There would be no posters of Hamlet without the person holding the skull, right? And, and although you could have the play without it. But oh, what, how much, you know, we would have missed, right? That's all. So go deeper. See if you can mine your characters. Okay. Get them to start talking. Cause a lot of times characters are like, okay, you know, I did my thing, right? I'm cool, right? I told you my story, right? Okay. Like that. Yeah. You have to sort of, on that next rewrite, go through and see. Okay. But it does not have to be longer to be considered a serious play. One of the coolest plays I've ever seen is by Carol Churchill, a British woman, and the play is called Far Away. Brilliant play. I, I don't think it's an hour. Yeah. You know, it's, you sit there and you go. And curtain comes up, you know, maybe 37 minutes later, the curtain goes down and everybody's like, like, it's one of the most brilliant plays I've ever seen. You know, so. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for good question. Thanks so much. Um, all right, Eric, we're up next. Hi again. I feel like I should have lowered my hand because I feel like we're all kind of on the same track of asking these questions of relooking at your work and you're like, wait, wait, wait, I feel like this is wrong, maybe. I was just going to ask a quick, um, sometimes when you write things and you read them through and they feel so much like you're lecturing sometimes. You know, when you get to those points, you're like, oh, wait, I kind of just maybe like started teaching a class here. This feels awkward. Do you feel like a good, maybe not a good option or like, do you think there's space to kind of break it up into a conversation, maybe have two characters explain what one person is would, do you feel that would make it less like a lecture? Yeah, yeah. No, definitely. I mean, again, if you tie what the character is saying to a character's need, right, and not, not just a need. I mean, the fact the playwright needing something to be in the play is not the character's need. Yeah. Right. Okay. So you tie something to a character's need, right? Sure, two characters, two different characters can have, uh, you can, it's just if you have something to say, just make sure you tie it to a real need of the character. Okay, because it probably would inherently feel pretty false if you didn't do that. Right, right, right. Exactly. Exactly. And then I did, I did want to mention something quickly when Jenny was talking about finding a space for her characters, a mentor of mine. Just she, I had a similar situation and she was like, just have them. If you know this character really well, which I think Jenny had said that she does, it might be helpful to just have them describe their favorite place to you or a place that they've been and maybe that might help find a setting that they feel comfortable in. So that's just a great idea. So great idea. That's a great idea. All right. That's all. Thank you. Thanks, Eric. Um, so we've got about eight minutes left. Um, and we're going to go with Heath. Go for it, Heath. Hi, Susan Laurie. Hey. Thank you so much for doing this. Um, so I have a play that I've written. It's one of those full length plays that you've just talked about. But it was about two hours. I got a staged reading of it at a local theater here and as part of a playwriting contest. And since then, I've been kind of shopping it out to friends, anybody who would read it. I've gone through a lot of revisions. I'm kind of sick of reading it by this point. And I'm wondering, I know it needs to be developed more. What advice would you have for next steps? What to do with this play now that it's gone through a number of revisions? It's had a staged reading. But you, but you say you, you say you're, um, you're kind of tired of hearing it. What was that part about? I mean, congratulations, by the way, you wrote a play. It's a long, nice, long play. You won a contest and you got a reading and. I'm just tired of my own voice in my head with reading this play. I feel like I need other people to come in and give me feedback. I just don't know how to do that because I've really tapped out all of my friends from grad school, people that I teach with. And now I'm just like, who do I ask? What do I do? Right, right, right, right. So when you had the reading, the actors didn't read it with with you or? They did. And we had a short talk back afterwards, which was. But you know, this was about a year and a half ago now. OK, OK. The play has undergone a number of revisions since then, and I just want to do with it now. Oh, so do you have a so that community of actors? Do you know them? Or do you have their contact information? I mean, you could have a Zoom party. That's a great idea. You know what I mean? You can have a Zoom. Yeah, so you know some of them and maybe, you know, maybe you could if you'd like to get a director on board to maybe you know somebody that you want, or maybe you could direct it yourself. Or maybe, you know, it'd be great to have like a Zoom party where you invite some actors in. You have I mean, you can't offer hors d'oeuvres and snacks or anything, but you could it could be like potluck and you could have a Zoom party in a chat and a chat and shoe or something afterwards. And open yourself up for any way to reciprocate that would be appropriate. You know, if they want sort of feedback and stuff on their next project or you could, you know, like create an online community with that. That's fantastic. Zoom meetings work really well. I teach at NYU and we're we've gone on Zoom since, you know, mid March. I said, you know, even before that. But, you know, Zoom with the readings of plays, we've done a lot of readings of plays online and a lot of conversations like this. And it works really, really well. Great. Thank you so much. You're welcome. You're welcome. Have fun. Thank you. Amazing. Hey, thank you. We're going to go with Emily. How's it going? I have never been this relaxed during quarantine. I have to say, this is the least thing that's happened so far. This is your project. I was really actually curious. It was something that Tuyg when it sort of said you'll be working, you know, your next project or your project of the moment. And my biggest problem is knowing which project is the one of the moment, if that makes any sense. I'm just curious because I know like I've worked in, I've done a bit of TV and a bit of radio and in that sense, it's like, OK, I know what my deadline is. Like I've got people chasing me for drafts. I've got like, you know, all these different I've got. Yeah, it's much clearer. And then when that's not there, I'm like, oh, there are 17 things and like I could spend 20 minutes on any of them. So do you have a kind of I'm curious what your own queuing system for yourself is when you, I mean, you know, sometimes it's obvious. And then I'm kind of especially curious for the times when it's less obvious. Yeah, I mean, when it's obvious, it's, you know, it's maybe it's a work you've been commissioned for work, you've been working on a while. When it's less obvious, you kind of have to like, you know, put your hand over it. Oh, look, the lights on my hand, but put your hand over the project, you know, like, you know, and see, oh, this one seems to be warmer than this one over here. You know, I mean, like my heart goes out to this one more so than my heart goes out to this one. That's kind of how I do it, you know, it's like this one grabs me more. It's like dating. You know, swipe left, swipe right. I want that one. Nah, not that one. Yeah, that one, you know what I'm saying? It really is you go with your gut, you go with your gut and you say, yeah, that one is sparking my interest right now. I'm going to work on that one. And you say maybe I'm going to work on that one today, then I think I'll work on that one for a whole week. And see, it's I don't mean to make it like flippant and silly saying it's like dating or like, you know, tender or whatever, but it kind of is it's because go ahead. Yeah, it's almost like what you were saying about lowering the bar. It's not saying like this is my life for six months. It's like right this is today. This is this month's beautiful. I'm sorry, go ahead. You cut you become six months and then beautiful. That's right. Yeah, right. It could become six months. It become two weeks and you could get a rough draft. It could be good, you know, then you can move on to the next thing, you know. I mean, again, the trick is to put enough pressure on yourself to get your ass and gear, but not to crush it. You know what I mean? You got to get your ass and gear, but you don't want to like crush yourself. Oh, my God, too much pressure. Right. Just enough. Yeah, OK, this is nice, especially these days when everything is so crazy. Right. Right. And just again, and just just try. I would say just try to develop the relationship with the work you've chosen. So if you pick something today, stay with that thing for, say, a week. Just try. OK, because also you're fighting. I think you're fighting a little bit or you're dealing with a little bit of maybe a more. I mean, we are collectively as the world a little bit of anxiety. So it's maybe hard to to focus and say, this is what I really want to work on. I want to put time and that's OK. But let's stay with it for a week. No, and see what it gives you. That is lovely advice. Again, very peaceful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Emily. Well, it is six o'clock. It is six o'clock and my son has cleaned his room. Yes, get that iPad. Not really. Everybody's happy for you. Yes. Here he is. Yes. OK. So there is. Congratulations. Everybody's proud of me. Lord have mercy. OK, now go away. So just as a reminder, you can sign up for the class every day by three p.m. Eastern time on the Public Theater website, and I will send you a link between three p.m. and four thirty p.m. Eastern and we'll do it at five p.m. Great. OK, thanks, everybody. You guys are great, great questions today. OK, bye, everybody. OK, bye.