 We're back. Was that a good initial conversation? Yeah. We're feeling good still and just good. Alright. So now we're going to open it up and kind of change the energy a little bit. This is a small conversation that's going to turn into a larger conversation. How many people have participated in something like this? I'm just curious with the raised hands. Fishbowl or long table. Good. So it seems like about a half of you. Excellent. So what we have here is an etiquette guide for those of you who aren't familiar. You just need to be familiar with yourself with it. And what I'd like is some help from all of us to kind of just quickly read out the points on the guide. And I'll start with the first one. This is a performance of a dinner party conversation. So the conversation can go in a million and one directions, but our moderator will initiate that conversation. Who would like to take the second one? It is a democracy. There could always be laughter. There is an end, but no inclusion. So we're going to start with the group and I'm going to ask our moderator to step up first, Diane Rodriguez. And now I'm going to ask for our initial participants to also join us. So we have a couple of empty chairs in about 50 minutes. We'll invite the rest of you, not all at once clearly because there's only a couple of empty chairs, but the rest of you to come in and join us. And the way to work is let's say you have a question or a burning issue. Olga doesn't have to raise her hand all she has to do. And then she could choose to stay or go back to her chair. And that's how we participate. We only talk or ask our question when we're inside in the circle. And the rest of us continue to listen. And then they go back. And you can go back, including you all. You may be done with the conversation and with the dinner. So you can find a seat so fits in the larger circle. That would be rude. We want to be mindful of our stances. So Diane, I'm going to ask that you set us off. And we have the mic. So note about the mic. Part of it is not all of us are good at projecting our voices. Like me, the other part of it is we're live streaming and there's recording going on. So feel comfortable to share the mic and pass it around, which is why there's two of them. You do not need to use it because we also have these mics up here. But it is a choice. Should I introduce her? Yes. I think introduce. Okay. I'm Christopher DiPaola. I'm an actor and a playwright based out of Chicago currently born and raised in South Florida. Shantel Rodriguez. I'm based out of Los Angeles. I work with the Latino theater company. And I'm also a young professor at various universities in Southern California. Juan Amalud based out of San Francisco with Gunpla Sanctuary. Richard with the Culture Collection of solo playwrights. Vignalia Cruz, music and playwright from the Bronx. I live in the United States of Arts. I come from New York. I'm just kind of artist. Everything. Lydia Garcia, a drummer heard by Oregon Shakespeare in Washington. Luis Alvaro, playwright from Los Angeles. Abigail Vega out of Chicago and Carolina. Yes, yes. The mic. Can we use the mic? Yeah. Just because it's something for other actors. Can everybody hear me? Because I prefer not to use the mic. I will be on people for a while. I'll get on the mic. I don't want to make waves already. I haven't even started. Okay. So then the question that spoke to me the most was, do you think you deserve special treatment because you are Latino? And I said, absolutely not. But the institution has now trained me to feel like I deserve some. That's interesting. I guess, yeah, it goes back to certainly, my father's Italian and my mother's Cuban. Oh. My lovely childhood. No. And so, and I feel my mother was very much Americanized, very, what was all about assimilation. And I very much feel like an American who happens to be Latino. Somebody actually said that earlier and I was like, oh, that's exactly the way I feel. And so I feel like the institution of theater was the one that told me I was a Latino artist. I never thought about it. I never thought it was important. I never thought about the color of my skin or anything. I really got into this game to, you know, as an actor to just be an interpreter of great stories and then as a playwright to be a creator of great stories. And that's pretty much getting to entertain people, ultimately. I mean, I think that's what my job is, is to be an entertainer. And so now I find, you know, almost 20 years doing this that I really lost in the landscape of not knowing what the hell it is that I am, I guess. And I don't know how to negotiate this world. I mean, I feel very blessed for being here for the first time. I have to say yes. I should say thank you. I don't know how I ended up here because I'm really a nobody. And I'm pretty sure I know how I got here and I just happened to speak to the right people at the right time. And I don't know exactly who they are, but I think I do. And it's wonderful that I don't know and I don't want to know because I feel like I have a couple of little guardian angels all of a sudden that I've always wanted, you know, during my career. And so I'm just very happy to be here. I feel very blessed to be in this group because I really am not. I kind of, yeah, I'm just struggling with like, do I belong in all this? And so I asked myself a lot, what do I do next? What do you mean belong in all this? Yes, and identify myself as a Latino artist and what that means and why am I in that category? Should I be in that category? What type of stories do I want to tell? What is being Latino or being a Latino artist? What does a Latino play? All those questions that start to swirl around. It literally is like a whirlwind going around me right now especially being here. It's just all kind of hit me of like, wow, just where is this all? Where do I land in all this? Because I feel like I have kind of a unique perspective and a unique voice that I don't, you know, I just don't identify as anything. Chris? Yes. So I'm just going to stop you. Yes, because I'll ramble. Yeah, you'll ramble and ramble. And what I think is important is where you're coming from in terms of your career. And I would love to hear others rip on what you've just said and then rip somewhere else where they're at. And there's a way of feeling, of being concise and not feeling rushed. I just wanted to throw that out for everyone. Is this an actual thing that happened to me? And I thought it was really interesting because I grew up straddling both countries so I was on the border so I never had to identify as anything simple, you know. And then I moved to Connecticut recently. I'm not there anymore. And that's where everything kind of came out. And I have a friend, who's still a friend, who every time you would say, excuse me, like you would whisper, like, excuse me. And I was like, why are you whispering? What's going on with this? I'm going to miss something. And he was like, it's just a derogatory term. And I said, yeah. So I think, to flip that around, I think, and I told him, I said, you know, I need special treatment. Like, oh, bonus. So I think the whole special treatment is something that I kind of twist around. And when I feel like there's a misunderstanding or an ignorance about it, then it's just, you know, taking the time to actually be like, why do you think that's a derogatory term and why don't you just get to know me and get to know the culture. And I handed him this huge history book on, you know, and I said, read it. It's really interesting. It's really fascinating. So anyway, I mean, that was just an experience that I had for the first time. It's just like the whole thing together. You know, saying, or being, you know, or even with my partner now, she would be like, oh, I saw this Mexican guy in the stream. I was like, are you sure he's Mexican? I mean, you're in New York City. Like, everybody's Mexican. You know, like, and she's like, oh my god, I don't know, you know, he's probably Ecuadorian or Guatemala. I don't know. It was just a very interesting thing. So I think the special treatment issue is more about, like, how you approach others and see where that little chip is missing. So you twist it. You turn it around. Yes. Christopher, you're at the table. So you're here. Oh, yeah. No, I don't want any pity. No, no. That's not pity. That's not pity. No, it's an actual very real response. Yes. Like, when I first started, there were a lot of tables that didn't want me there. You said, if you invite yourself, you say, I want, this is who I am. I want to be here. Feed me. Or I'm just going to be over your shoulder taking stuff off your plate. Who you identify as is who you are. And you should always feel welcome at any table. For me, the first question that Diane had about, I got it last night, but somebody did for me an email that said, mention any names. There was another one about Latinidad. About being boxed in. Yeah. Do you feel boxed in by your identity? And for me, it's like, that was, I'm empowered by my identity. And I carry that with me whatever I go, whether it's at this dinner table or any other. And it was, to me, that's such a strange question. I was like, who feels boxed in by being Latino? It's such a fabulous blessing. And it actually gives us something to create art about. You know, no patanto. We're all here, right? Yeah. It makes, that makes sense to me a lot. As far as being treated specially, you know, I don't want to be treated specially, but if I am, I'll fake it. It means I get to enjoy all those perks. But really, I expect to be treated specially for being a playwright. In the room, being an artist. That's really what I count on. In fact, if I'm not being treated specially for what I bring as an artist to the table or to the organization or wherever I'm working, then I really wonder why I'm there. Then I really wonder if they brought me in because I am a Latino. Yes. You know? So, I think that's all I wanted to say. I want to just, no, go ahead. I want to just say, we're addressing two questions right now. Do you think you deserve special treatment from a Latino? What are your expectations? And the second question we're addressing right now that Miki brought up, as many of us throughout our careers have felt boxed in by our Latino, and that's how do you handle that? What are your strategies to avoid the labels? Richard? I was going to start doing another question. Go for it. Go for it. Just, como está cantido. Right then. Just looking at this beautiful brother right here. There was a question there that really unsettled me on the list, and I thought, why not jump in and get our arms around the competition question? Love it. Because it's nuanced, and it happens. And in a place like LA, it's competitive by nature. But I think there's a special fire and fervor that I feel on many different levels that many of us in this room compete sometimes. And we're not honest about it. And I felt that my skin stripped away at times. And that's been good, you know, to shed, you know, one skin thinking about the serpentino and Luis, again, diatro, but the stripping away. I remember watching my dad compete with other Chicano and Chicano poets. I watch my son compete for the attentions of his mother, which happens to be my wife. And when he's breastfeeding, he looks at me like, what are you still doing here? Get out there and hurt some women. Goes back to the Greeks. And who's skull is Hamlet holding at the top of that show? You know, it's, we got to get a little, got to embrace this, because we are going to compete. For me, the dark side to that is that it allows sometimes institutions to exoticize us and say, well, who's the best? Who's the youngest? And, you know, who's more East Coast? And who's more West Coast? And that thing I did this morning, thank you again, you know, to share a little bit of Jose. But, you know, did there, there was not that argument, you know, in the 70s with, well, maybe there was, there were always broncas and stuff going on. But, you know, for Pinero and Chicano poets to stand in the Lower East Side and to be challenged, what's the, you know, what's the best Chicano poem in the world? And they're stumped and it's tattooed on McGill's arm, you know? That's, that's a, I'm yearning for that moment. I'm looking for those corners where I can convene with Puerto Rican artists and Cuban and that. So, but the levels of competition, and we all get into it, you know, and we're all living very public lives now. But, but when it starts to move into your body of work, and then your body of work can also be stripped from you. And so you spend a lot of time defending and competing and just the, the amount of quality time that it robs us. It feels very safe here right now, even to have this conversation. Sit across from Luis, sit across from Octavia, sit across from you. I've never met this lady. You know, my sister right here and the younger artists coming up. But if we're not careful, you know, it's, there was a convening in New York a couple weeks ago. But, you know, I can sit across from Robert Schenken. I can sit across from Native American writer. I can sit right next to Lynn Nodige. And I don't feel that we're necessarily competing with each other. We're conversing. We're opening up our books and helping each other. But I think, I think sometimes we do get a little caught up. So you're feeling here. I mean, you're feeling in the Latvian? On the outside world that we do and that we're not really honest about it. But here is a safe place to address and talk. And take a page from, I'm sorry, take a page from the Anglo book and the African American book and the Jewish book. And the Puerto Rico. All of us together. So that it's a group of established writers mid-careers so that we're not always, that's going to happen anyway. That's part of being American. But reaching out and helping each other has got to be the other side. When I wrote that question, it was more of the quality, addressing the quality of your work that the work was competitive, not so much that you're competitive with each other. But I think that's a very cool and, of course, another take on it. And I wonder, any other thoughts in the circle? I don't understand what your intention was in that question. Are you competitive? How do you shy away from that word? Why? I don't know. You tell me. How do you take it? I already spoke too much. When I heard that question, I just thought of creative competitiveness and coming from the hip hop aesthetic because I'm an MC, that's what I grew up doing, battling. It could get ugly, but at the same time, hip hop and music, we use competitiveness to push each other and to evolve farther. Being kind of new back into doing theater, I just sit in a circle like this and I always feel like it's the weakest link here. I can't do this. But simply because I know that it's going to be like, well, if I'm the weakest link, I'm going to step the hell up. And I'm going to at least try to keep up with you if not make you doubt yourself, but not in a bad way. But not in a bad way, but just to be like, let's take it to another level. I'm here with people I idolize and I'm amazed by, so I may not reach it, but I'm always going to push it and I encourage that from other people. We have a writer's group with Gun Posanto right now where everybody's just writing whatever pieces and just creating conversation. It's beautiful because I see that, like, damn, I gotta come back with something that can, so we can continue that conversation. That's what competitiveness means to me. And I auditioned for hella parts and doing that stuff just yet, but creatively I think it's a great thing. I embrace it. And you say hella. Can I say hella? Well, when I saw that question, I thought it was provocative as well, but it made me think of my mentor, was Elise Valenzuela at the Los Angeles Theater Center. We produced a lot of theater. We were in town, and we just recently had an LA in Cointreau in which we saw how much Latino theater is happening every month, every weekend in LA. And people have asked us that as well. Oh, but that play is happening at the same time. And we've had these conversations that the more people go to the theater, the more people are going to the theater. And that it shouldn't be competitive that just because they go to York doesn't mean they're not going to come to my show. And that the more people that are going to Latino theater, the better. And that it really creates a stronger networking community. And, you know, we want to run a show while Casa Aceruno is running a show. We want them both to be successful. And we support each other. And I think that that really speaks to the models of collaborative nature. I find I'm more competitive with myself as an individual, as a scholar. And even in the scholarly community, competitiveness can get really challenging. In academia, I find it gets very competitive. But I'm very blessed that Latino scholarship like and Garcia Romero is my dissertation buddy. We got each other through the dissertation. We wrote together. We're writing on very similar themes. But we never felt we were stepping on each other's toes. And we sought mentorship from ourselves that we weren't getting in academia. So it feel like I think I've successfully sort of stripped that competitive nature away and resisted it. Because I do think Richard's right that it exists and you have to resist it in my opinion. I do have something to add to that. You know, it's something that as young writers we go through we see someone else's work and we admire it and we want to emulate it and we copy it and we imitate it. And that's okay because that's how we learn. That's how we learn to find our own voice within that. And then at some point, I think we all start to realize that only Richard Montoya can write Richard Montoya play because of who he is, his life experiences, his struggles, and his dreams, and his own aspirations and his own issues that he's working through. And they're very different from mine. And they're very different from Louise's and they're very different from Mickey's. We all have our own history and our own mores that we're constantly putting in the stoop items during it. But so... And even now I'm no longer the young writer but even now I still look at those words and I go, how am I ever going to get my play written after seeing that? After seeing, after seeing, you know, Elecricidad is like, damn it, how am I going to write a play now? Ah! And then I shelve it. I deal with it. And then I shelve it and go, oh, but you know what? Only he could have done that. I can't do that. It's only me. And it can only come from me. So I have to just get over the fact that I'll never be able to write a Louise Sanfato play because only he can do it. And once you come to those, come to terms with those things, then you're ready to move on. Then you're ready to sort of find your own voice. I mean, I'd say like, you know, I mean speaking to a book that you just said, like that's one of the things that, you know, the knowledge that you as artists are so individual because of, and what your voice is as an artist, is what makes it so hard for me as a dramaturg and a Latina in an institution who is part of conversations around the season's election. When we get down to, you know, 11 slots sounds like a feast of opportunities to do all kinds of different stories. But by the time we actually divvy up the feast between Shakespeare, who is our resident, our names like Playwright and the American classics, the European classics, all the incredible new work that we're commissioning, all of a sudden we're fighting for scraps of one or two slots with which to slot every other aspect of humanity that reflects our country, right? And so suddenly, as artists of color, we are competing with each other for that one or that two, or that second slot. And invariably, it's in the smaller spaces because there's this perceived sense of risk about these plays that, you know, if they're a brand new place, our audiences may not know this writer. And so let's do a classic play or let's do this this, you know, classic 400-year-old play from Latin America. Oh, but the dramatic model is just like Spain. So why don't we just do a Spanish Golden Age play? Can we talk about colonialism, please? So like all these conversations that I'm part of and that need to happen. And so for me, like, you know, this question of, you know, my identity as a Latina, as an artist and an institution is wrapped up with this sense of competition. Is wrapped up with this, you know, should I expect special treatment for, you know, because of who I am as a dramaturg, because my training has told me to strip away the skin that I wear and to be able to say I can turn my skills to the Greeks, to Ibsen, to Shakespeare, to Miquela Cruz, whoever it is. And at the same time, I want to say, no, I'm bringing something to the table that, you know, my colleagues can't necessarily, I want to be at the table. I should be at the table. Put me at the table. I'm going to be at the table. So how do I weigh that day to day? You know, because I know this community. I know my community and I know how different you all are. So I don't want to be pitting one of you against the other because we only have the one slot. Okay, great, great, great comment. Thank you. How, okay. So what I want to do is I'm going to take that and excavate that a little bit more. Knowing that this is the reality that we live in, what are our strategies? Okay. If we examine the theatrical ecosystem that we live in, because it's multi-layered, these regional theaters are not the only game in town. What are our strategies to get more of our artists produced, both ensembles and playwrights? What are our strategies? Just thoughts. Well, I have one. And that said, if there is a play that Alivia gets and she really loves it's a kind of play that she saw reading of in Denver and really wants to bring it to the OSF and there's just, there's no room for it right now, then she should get on the phone, call the other literary managers around the country, because she's got you know, a phone line there that she doesn't have to come out of her own pocket. And I'm sorry, I'm not so senior director. She should call him and say, have I got a play for you? Do this play. Spread the word. Get the word out about that work. And that should also happen among playwrights. I've been talking with a friend of mine who's been struggling who feels like she's written this great play and nobody, she's had like seven readings of it and no one will do it. And I said send it to me, let me read it. And I read it and I love it. And now I know who to take it to San Francisco. And I can get around the readers those 22 year olds who are reading lots of plays. And you get around there and take it directly to the state, to the artistic curriculum and say, man, you got to read this play. You got to read this. Other strategies? I'm sorry. Well, I feel a little unmoored by this because I have to say that one of the reasons why I'm coming here today is we got these questions beforehand and sort of my first thought was, and I hope this doesn't change the shift of the conversation. I was raised very Pentecostal, very Catholic, because I was raised in a concept of service. And yet I study with Irene Fornes. One thing I always remember Irene saying to me is there were many great playwrights before you, there'll be many great after you, but for today you get to tell the story of what it means to be here. So something clicked in my head that I just want to offer because I think it changed the way I started to do my work after being at school for ten years. I was really unmoored and what happened is that I realized that it's not the play that I want to write, it's the play that I need to write. And the play that I needed to write happened because I went back to community to my people. And so I realized something extraordinary about myself that I'm not a Latino writer, I'm a World Writer. And when that shifted, all my Latinoness, all my Chicanoness, everything inside of me started to come out in the work. And so a lot of people say well why are the Greeks? The Greeks are very Chicano. And so I was able to write. And people say why not Newark? And I say the Greeks aren't my Newark, right? That collaboration on electricidad is because a young 13 year old girl murdered her mother in Tucson. Oedipus is because I met a young man at Homeboy Industries who had just been out of the shoe for 16 years, right? And that's my Oedipus, right? Mojada came out of working with the undocumented in Chicago. So those are my new plays, right? But what I've realized now being in the regional theaters is that excellence rises. And we have a tremendous, tremendous responsibility to go into regional theater. And Chris knows the first time I went to OSF, I said can I meet with the box office people? And I brought my donuts, right? And I said how many of us speak Spanish because I have a play that's going to attract Latinos. And that was an amazing initiative when I went to Hartford Stage. May I meet with marketing? Well, no, why not? It's actually my play. And I want to know how you can sell my play. So can we talk about this? And then that was an amazing conversation with Michael Wilson about that, right? But each step of the way, I think is what I've learned is we have to do a very generous subversion of every institution that we go to. So now I go, can I meet with literary? And can we talk about what I've been seeing around the country and what I've been reading? So service is for me, sitting on a panel and reading 30 plays and not happily sometimes, right? But then you get a feel for what's going on in the field. And you start to get the sense of who's writing what and generationally where you're at in the whole bit. And I think that's really changed the way I'm doing my work. So the strategy is we have to write the best fucking plays that we can write. That's first. Above all else is the work itself, the artwork itself. And yes, I'm not Octavio in three years, I wanted to be Octavio. And it was, you know, that I reported, it's changed. That said, you have to just be you and understand who you are. Many years ago when I was at the Goodman, Michael Maggio, the rest of the piece, is that his name? Michael Maggio, right? I was my first play at the Goodman in the old Goodman space and it was not going well. And Jose directed it too, straight as a line. And Michael Maggio came out after the first preview and said, the problem with you is the Latinos want to see you be Latino and the white people want to see you be Latino. And I thought, what is that? Me? You're not sticking to what you should be doing, right? And then that was the beginning of how to write plays outside of myself, right? So the first place I went to was young people. We are the diversification of this country, mix race, everything. It's like the, we don't even think the same way that we thought when we were coming of age in the Chicano community. So I think in some ways, when I think about strategies, I'm thinking about how we diversify boards, how we diversify inside of a company in Indiana and we're in a company where trying to get a Latino on the board was very, very hard. But we know that the board is what picks the artistic director. So you can't really knock the artistic director. You have to go back, back, back to trustees marketing departments and, you know, so it's always beating those people. But I meet them as an artist. I don't meet them as a administrator. I meet them as an artist. This is the play. This is the story I need to tell. And here are the people that are coming with me. Sometimes they're scary to companies because they're a bunch of gang guys, right? And or they're recently released from prison and how do we meet that community? But I think that yeah, I'm a little more right now because I feel that the question is about how to make the work. And I think that's something that's so hard to go to conference because it's hard to talk about the art making process. How to make the work, how to make the work happen and how to not make it because somebody gave you a grant for so much money to do it. But how do you take that and really do the thing that you're best at, which is to speak your soul. And so, you know, I keep going back to those concepts and those concepts are really about the quiet, the silence of the meditation, the religiosity of writing a play. And how do I take that into the experience, right? The discipline, rigor, rigor, rigor. And how do we tell our stories in a way that are authentic to us? And so, maybe my second part of my life is how I might not work towards my own authenticity. And how do I bring that into the community? And now, I feel like really honestly, I'm working as a kind of mid-wife where I go to a community and I say, what do you guys want to say? And I have a trick. I always go to the person who is the leader of that community, whatever it is and I say, I am the most ignorant person in the world and I need you to tell me how this community works and then I become the leader of that community in a way because then I tell my story about you know, but in a way it's starting off from the most humblest experience into the, you know, you are a translator for a community. You are the interpreter of community. With all the attendant responsibilities that are required of that. So I think less and less when I was institutionalized I think less and less about strategy that way and I think more and more about, I'm really just coming with expression. Yeah? I think from this kind of goes back to what you were saying one of our duties is to really expand what we view as that being that and especially with you're saying 2046 for the majority but we're also not going to be pure anymore. Like a lot more and more artists are Latino and Latino and black, Latino and white, Latino and something else and if we don't accept that we're not from day one not saying you are Latino artist because you're telling Latino stories just because you are they're going to go somewhere else and they're not going to relate they're not going to self-identify as a Latino artist and then the competitiveness that you were saying goes down so really like especially with younger playwrights who were actors or designers or directors or whatever who are being forced to go other places because they don't feel like they're enough that's the people we have to seek out I mean those are the people that are the next in point that those are the people that need to be invited the people who are like do I belong here those are the people who really belong here right? Those are the people that we really should be seeking out and bringing them here to join the conversation in 2046 we keep bringing up that day as a day of like you know we're going to be the majority and we're sort of coming to terms with that but I think we also have to come to terms as she said with what the rest of the world is going to look like what kind of world is it going to be when we are the majority Ripping a little bit on Louise I think of the humanizing that we do with you know just going back to my dad's work the humanizing he did with the farm worker he never disparaged that world he didn't want to return to it that's why he took his GI bill and went to art school but he didn't disparage that work but he wrote of the specific nature of the spider underneath the leafy green world of the great minds of Fowler, Fresno and in that universe he found an entire universe that was part Beats, part Sorority and part Steinbeck Part of the strategy to Diane is that instead of taking the emcee energy of these kids, these hip-hop kids over here but instead of looking at Sean San Jose and Composito like what the fuck are they about what's up, what's up, what's up just go work with them go write a play go see my play or I didn't see your play didn't mean it didn't happen go to OSF even if they don't buy you the ticket and most often times they do thank you Chris but I've gone there when there is no ticket just to go see universes just to go witness other people's work I was uneasy about Luisa St. Jude because he's talking about his dad, my daddy but there was also an uneasy how are we going to say to Luisa just go watch it and the audience the other day at Water and Power might know him and it's like that was generous of you and I thank you, we're there we must watch each other's work stand witness to that work because then the competition melts away and it's like I love you brother I love you sister so I found it and I was notorious for reviewing plays and having never seen them man I heard about this play man you know and I think I've seen I think I've seen the trilogy Latino Theater Club Latino Theater and I mean I've watched it I've sat there and they have conversely come to see our work there can be that gulf there and we just have to scale it and traverse it I guess I just want to open another conversation to even if I'm not in this circle for later especially hearing a little bit about Davino Luna and stuff of the idea also of putting work out there regardless touring you want to see it done stop sending it to all these theaters and expect that they're a manager to read it or stop pulling on these connections there's a trend now with crowd source funding and we are not tapping into it I don't see it as often in my feet on Facebook I don't see other Latinos being like here's my play can you guys help me out I see it from a lot of other people filmmakers and all this so I don't know there's a conversation missing there as far as like you want to see it if you want to be on the stages it doesn't mean just the big stages it can be the road for sure and it can be anywhere as long as people are actually doing it and I would really love to engage in this convening in the conversation of crowd source funding and how can we support each other and how do we get young artists to just do their work and get it done and get it seen I mean I think money is always nice that's great crowd source, that's wonderful but I think another way that Annette goes back to seeing each other's work is yeah absolutely getting your own work out there doing the touring doing all of that, doing yourself and then supporting the artists when they come to town that's what happened with us it was simply that people were like oh that's really awesome what you're doing and we can help out by letting you be at our theater for a weekend when we're dark anyway so I think that yeah that's the best way to do it there wasn't a whole lot of money before we went we had a little bit but that was the point of just getting it out there especially with communities that don't have access being in Chicago and being in LA you kind of get bogged down with everybody else the competition, but when you go to Phoenix you're like oh we're the hottest ticket in town you know so yeah I think that's probably the best yeah the best way of doing it one of the new ways to do it I want to just land a little bit on I think that your tour, the Theatraluna tour this year was a real bright spot you know it got you guys out and you just did it are there any other bright spots in this last year that you want to mention that you really felt just pop for you that were a revelation a moment this is kind of weird but when we brought Irene Fornes from the obscurity of Upstate it's not that obscure but actually as we all arrived she was so brilliant not so much, not so far to go but then when you get there she's so far away also in her mind so the fact that the theater community especially on the east coast around her and the people all over were like sending stuff that had been so much to me because she's like my mother and she is the mother of my work no whatever but that was like so special and it also made me feel very hopeful about the theater community which most of the time was like damn we do love the time to see it we're talking about this idea of generosity you know we help each other I do it all the time I see young writers and not that people necessarily listen to what I say but I say you know read this book read this play, meet this writer I recommend people for stuff and all of us we're talking about competition competition is for it's an individual thing I talked to Gandhi about this earlier who we need to be is within us so it's like we're competing if anybody has to be yourself you always have to push yourself to be better to be a better artist, a better person and then there you are you know I was so suspicious of this conference like there's too many damn Mexicans what's going to happen sort of a smaller form of this leading up to this and that was really beautiful and Jorge, Tiffany and I were on a panel in which we had an encuentro committee and all of us there was a large fraction maybe 12 people or 15 and we all committed to see work in Los Angeles and a lot of us saw new theaters for the first time we had a big revelation and we sort of gave a report of the field and it was a beautiful moment and one of the best things was so you know there was a big argument but as was the least said well it happened at 2 p.m. and not at 9 a.m. so we're making progress in terms of like the house festivals and things like that but one of the things that in terms of going back to sort of challenges I think what we struggled with how do we talk about aesthetics as a community and as artists and practitioners how do we really have an honest conversation about aesthetics so that we can continue and develop and grow the field and that's something we started to sort of wrestle with and I think a bright spot is that and this is a forward moving and we've already planned the next LA Encuentro in August 2 Pasadena Playhouse is interested in hosting and it started to sort of snowball into a major sort of thing and it really was just about let's see each other's work and let's talk about it and it was about being inclusive and so I think it's become really exciting to see this happening in communities across the country and I thought like I don't even know well burro shout outs are next I know it's coming no burro shout outs well not surprisingly I was my own bright spot this year but I don't know what I would hear later Richard if you were a competitor but what Magdalia said was true but I wonder how much that brushing up against each other that we need and you know brush up against you and what if Culture Clash went back to theater for at LATC what if we went back in the room with Jose Luis what if we went back there Arcaza 101 it doesn't always have to be the taper of La Jolla or something like this we've paid the price to be in those large institutions as well but there was one moment that went really unnoticed but we had just opened Federal Jazz Project in San Diego Campo Santo was closing the river and Cal Shakes was starting rehearsal for American Night and there were 30 equity contracts for 30 actors in California and I had had a hand in each of those pieces and that moment and they didn't shout it out maybe I posted it on your Facebook page but I was proud that the individual playwright as we're talking more and more about devised works and where's the position of playwright in ensemble and devised works but that all this work had been created for collective theaters and couldn't have been done without them I'm going to ask you all who have been listening, deeply listening to join us one person at a time oh we have an introduction yes sorry yes got it we have an introduction and Polly or Rob will come yes this is going to be really really brief thank you for giving us this opportunity but we have with us today the president of Emerson College Lee Pelton and I have bragging rights because our president is a political scholar listen it's just a great pleasure to welcome all of you here for this momentous occasion I need not tell you the value of what you do from the value of art and its capacity to connect us to life supposed enduring themes and to humanize the landscape of human events and so I want to thank David I want to thank Polly and Rob and others who this I guess it's 48 hours or whatever six hours made this happen and welcome you to our campus and we are a welcoming sort of place we put into place a five point strategic plan and two of those two of those points are to strengthen and deepen our civic engagement because we believe that colleges and universities that the nation looks to colleges and universities to solve its most pressing problem the other significant part of our plan is diversity, to strengthen diversity in all of its various forms and perspectives and all of what we do here is rooted in what we now refer to as inclusive excellence and a strong belief that diversity of ideas, people thought it's a foundation of excellence and they cannot be separated it's not an add on but it is in fact the core of excellence ArtsEmerson has taken a civic engagement initiative in our diversity initiative to heart and has shaped much of its programming around those two very important and critical aspects of what it means to be excellent in an environment where an environment is becoming increasingly complex and increasingly diverse and I must tell you I used to live in Boston many years ago and I returned two and a half years ago and the place that I returned to is not the place that I left it is radically different and for the most part it's very positive I love the I love all the color that's in Boston now that wasn't here wasn't here 25 years ago no red socks and so I love that neighborhoods are different, radically different and we are using ArtsEmerson as an instrument of change as an instrument of transformation as an instrument of bringing arts and culture to diverse groups and diverse communities because we believe so profoundly in the power and the authority of art to transform and to make us better people so thank you for being here great little crying, little yelling forgive me, I got excited so now just step in and freestyle it yes I wanted to I know we have our bright spot I just wanted to actually end with Chris I want you to let us know what your bright spot was you so bravely started our conversation give us a bright spot sure I just moved back to Chicago six months ago we were being away for about four years and I happened to get there at the same time I first looked at Steppenwolf was going on and I went to the whole event and the three plays that were produced during that festival was some of the most diverse most diverse writers most diverse casts very diverse stories ethnically, culturally just all around and for the first time in the theater I felt like we're close now like we're finally reflecting what America is and what America looks like we're so close and that was like the first time that I had been in a theater where I truly felt like we're finally getting it everybody finally got smart you know we're figuring it out how to talk to real people and talk to what and reflect the world back at the people in the audience it was wonderful first time I entered the circle let's start with Josefina hi everyone I'm Josefina Lopez from Pueblo Heights oh hi Sonia Casa 01 people call it 101 which is fine with me because it is the beginning of the theater it's your beginning class introduction because we're all welcoming so I've been a playwright for over 28 years and a writing teacher a playwriting teacher for over 10 and after working with hundreds of writers I really get that people may come in and just want to take class but what they're really trying to do from what I've seen, the clarity I've gotten is that they're trying to heal the trauma that happened at least 10 years old 10 years ago what's being written is about something that's 10 to 20 years and when trauma becomes drama when it's constantly recreated over and over and so I wonder for the playwrights here or anyone who writes is that if you'd be willing to share with you what sort of wounds what wounds are you writing about without being too revealing or being too elaborate but if anyone would like to share the wounds maybe the wounds are not so hard to express because they're happy wounds now once you write them but I've been really really blessed this year I've had like five world premieres and it's also the year that my father died so the wound is really really open but I think that when I write about trauma especially in the community it's a really kind of silence or how our community has been ignored so working with the undocumented was a very intense experience because people talking about their invisibility was extraordinary in a city as gigantic as Chicago so I think that when you talk about the repetition of being ignored and being ignored and being ignored and also having to be ignored you're most successful as an undocumented person in Chicago when you're not sussed out or when you're not recognized so what does that do to your DNA what does that do to the character who you are as a person so I think when you write that trauma it's very interesting that first moment in a writing exercise or in a writing workshop when someone gives voice to their experience is the greatest poetry and it is the most unfiltered and most extraordinary moment and then our job is to rewrite it and rewrite it and rewrite it until we hone it into something that's even more extraordinary but writing about that trauma has been very interesting because I'm looking at my father who was not even a year gone and I'm looking at his journey as an undocumented person in this country so I think every time you write that story you feel it new every time and then I took it a step farther and I did a one person show this year about that very experience to feel it and to draw blood every night and to draw my father's blood so the bloodletting of that experience was really really amazing so now when I go back to the community I'm not in some way separated from it I really understand it because I'm in it I have a 15 year history in the construction business as well so whenever I'm working a construction job I'm always talking obviously to all the trades guys that I'm working with and they're always very curious about theater and acting and all that sort of stuff it's kind of some sort of societal wound that we have that there's this whole kind of sector of middle class that we're not touching for some reason so for me as a writer it's very much a part of I'm always writing about socio-economics it's always kind of an undercurrent in a lot of my work that I purposefully put in there because it's always my view of like if I'm talking to the electrician and I want to tell him about my play and I want him to say I can go to that I really want to go to that and I want to take my family to see that and not feel that theater is something removed from him or her that they can't they're not a part of and so I think for me that's a big wound I'm trying to heal all the time as a writer I feel it and then we'll do up top okay I'm very new to to writing anything but other than music but recently being in this writing group it's funny you say ten years because the wound I'm dealing with is that my father was he was killed in the Nicaraguan Revolution before I was born so it all culminated trying to figure out who he is and I think the idea of trying to write something for him culminated ten years ago my first trip to Nicaragua and just my uncle taking me to the spot where they think he was tortured and killed and so that's my wound trying to connect with my family and roots and finally for the first time ten years later just starting to put something on paper so that's what I'm dealing with I'm just going to say my wound is my original wound I'm going to talk about which when I was eight years old my best friend was raped and murdered on the roof of our building and I wasn't allowed to go to her funeral so I feel like everything I write that was the first thing I wrote was I wrote a story about that because I wasn't allowed to express mourning and loss so I feel like I feel that I'm an open wounder so I think it's always there I'm always losing my catch on you so be careful from that point people who don't no longer have them or feel disempowered to say or disenfranchised by other society or by poverty or by race just to say we exist we're here and we're entitled to poetry the last play I wrote is the work that I started writing when my daughter was born and I really didn't finish it until two years ago and it's actually about losing my daughter at the point when I'm fatherhood and that's I think something mixed up now as feeling you know with an empty nest this moment so that's what I guess that's a wound Thank you I just want to let everyone on the outer circle that we have two people in the circle Josefina and Reverend Nesterwald I have to ask this question but you can tap a person who's joined us in the group after their question has been answered and replace them in a circle to add and there's one more seat here still available if you want to come on in great I'm going to move on to Mario Nesto Thank you I have a couple of questions and I know I'm going to sound very naive but listening to your original comments at the beginning of this session I felt that no one in the 21st century should feel the way you feel and I was wondering if it started at home at school at church or at work but I believe that we need to think with ways as a global community to start improving that so that no one ever feels the way you do I'm going back to the 2046 majority sometimes I feel that we should have more sex so that so that maybe it's a 2036 and not 2036 I said that I wonder if we're going to be ready by 2046 and that's another question as a global community that we have to think about us, about education about making it the best so think about it because we need to perform we need in terms of artistic quality we need to be the best in Latin America and perhaps in the world and I wonder if we're going to be ready to be a majority in 2046 Any thoughts on that? I have hopes of us being a majority in 2046 that actually has taken consciousness and we become beacons that understand that all these societal problems won't matter if we don't have a planet and that's quite true and I'm coming from the environmental side but if we do not start to think about climate and our crisis as spiritual and symbolic creatures that we are Latin Americans and that we can really think to that and connect to the indigenous and those roots and that's severance that has been caused with our connection to nature and to animals and to respect then I know that it won't matter that we're a majority or it won't matter that we see our plays on stage if we're not the first I guess to turn our symbolic and our spiritual and our intuitive eye a larger global problem that has been intellectualized and has been rationalized and I think that's why it's not hitting and I think I hope that it's the Latino community and our inner witches and wizards and you know chisettos that can really sort of twist it and create an awareness that is missing I would invite myself to the table and that was the one of the people here you know I get excited when people say oh we're going to be the majority but as a feminist as Chicana I go yeah but we need to empower women and when you do that they don't have five kids they have one kid or two kids because then they pursue their dreams so I feel like I don't want it to be at the cost of women giving up their dreams so we make that happen so I really hope it does but I don't want I want to empower women and so that may that may prevent us from the majority but I think we're a better so I just want to throw that in I want to say that I don't think that you thought of it as a problem Oh no it's a line that I was constantly negotiating yeah and I think we all constantly negotiate that line you're not unique in that way I think we're all constantly going through that and I think part of the point of getting together is to sort of assess our identity now but it'll change again next year or even tomorrow because I think we're not just a term we're not a word we're not defined by our cultural origins it's that changes all the time I'm just going to say something really quick that I wonder a lot of times when I go to conferences and we talk about things that are missing I think I wonder if we've already actually achieved that if in some way when we go to conferences people say oh I haven't seen culture class do this and I think that maybe it's a kind of consciousness raising that happens really at these events which is that you realize that actually we are doing it and we've been doing it maybe we're not doing it at the Goodman but there are a million theaters around the country and if you start looking at it that way and people are telling these stories all the time and how do we create the necessary environment for all of us to be a part of it but in some strange way I was thinking earlier about context and I was thinking about this notion of access and I feel like maybe the question right now for me is the legacy and continuum and I was thinking that maybe because I've seen maybe every culture class show except one I can go somewhere when somebody says something about something and you can say well that's really I know that they do or this is the aesthetic or this is the idea of the work and I think that sort of bronze out so just being here today looking over Regina Garcia I'm thinking a million years ago I saw her her book, what is it called her designer book her portfolio and thinking yeah she's been around for quite a while so there are a lot of designers opening up the consciousness of every regional theater or any small theater you go to that says there isn't a designer it's part of our activism right the stories are already being told getting a play as somebody is one of the larger many strategies for us I too am very hopeful for more sex with my wife I was telling Luis in Lupe last night that Yaki Yelder had speaking to my brothers and sisters recently but what startled us was that 10 days after my dad had passed that he was in direct contact yeah there was a direct message and it just and any one of us has access to that and in LA I found a Cuban Bavalao who was saying the exact same thing but part of the message from the Yaki Yelder was that we weren't talking about an art project we weren't talking about a cause anymore we weren't talking about a business or Jose's archive or his collection dad was also a painter a drawer and a teacher and a poet and the other day when we got together to do a fundraiser for Rene Yannes who seminal to many of us in this room Rene brought to bring Frida Kahlo and the dead to and he's watched both these things turn into mega things that wasn't the original intent but Rene is one of the last of the Latino artists with Yolanda Lopez being evicted out of the mission again we weren't talking about a project anymore we were talking about lives homes and so when I used to feel uneasy about stripping away our identity that we got to get down to the human element of it that's precisely what the elders were saying in that process of stripping that away might be helpful to this is the line and the question that we're constantly negotiating about our identity and Gomez Bagnus says identity politics is a never ending cul-de-sac that can be a trap we're talking about the spirit the human spirit and the soul of a person whether it's departing or staying with this that's going to be exciting work also Luis sent me a beautiful message as many of you did and he said regarding my dad's passing a new life is beginning for you a new creative life and the gifts that are there haven't come close yet I just wanted to speak to the question about 2046 and I agree it's not sort of a magic button year in California we're already the majority and I think paradigms have to shift we have to start recognizing our own privilege male privilege, heterosexual privilege we have to break down all of these paradigms internally and then the numbers will really have an effect but I think it's a great question of will we be ready because we're already some of us living with that seriality and yet we're still the other we still exist in this binary of the ethnic other which is really sort of difficult to deal with you know and so I think that it's really about those paradigms and shifting and we really have to with the young people and being educators we have to be working in those realms or else we'll just replicate sort of old colonial model we have another seat here please join us ask our question we have money on gas so that you can tab out if you'd like and we have another question here I've been thinking about how I've been thinking about how I see our work as dual on the one hand making theater with our communities is is really exciting and fulfilling and gorgeous and thinking about roles for specific actors but on the other hand is an activist element and on the activist side you have to be willing to be reviled and objective and then that's not about being a playwright who is liked and loved and you know who networks and it's just about being a playwright or a lyricist or a libres who just shows up and continues to get in their face because there isn't a apartheid there happening right now and as someone who grew up fighting apartheid and who was aware of apartheid I very much know and feel what that means and so then that means that you let people sometimes know that the character that they produced or that isn't a play is offensive to you thank you very much after that and you might end up on blacklists there aren't composers here there aren't dedicated lyricists because we're shut out of that system so I say things that sometimes really piss people off and sometimes get myself defended but that's a whole different kind of work and so I think that needs to be contextualized for those of us that have been in politics that needs to be contextualized as work that is terrifying for a sensitive playwright but it's work that I don't even think we're sitting at any fucking table right now in many places and so then that means we pull up a chair and we sit down and we say this fucking seat is mine and you might never get produced in your lifetime but it might jog someone's conscience so that their child produces his baby that's what the kind of work we have to be moving to do is about is to be fucking courageous and to stop trying to fucking kiss people's asses because we're not there yet we have to be courageous enough to be hated for saying the fucking truth which is that we all have a voice we all restore it and you have to hear it because I am here and I'm not going anywhere deal with it thank you thank you what I'm going to comment on that because it's very moving to me is we really have to stop thinking about that we collectively or individually need a place at any table let's create our fucking table for years we've been fighting for that space look around this room we don't need a chair at any table we can create our own table we know our stories we know where we come from we know where we're going and yet we will be ready by 2046 I'm pretty certain we will be because we're here today so you know we don't have to kiss ass I mean some of the playwrights around this room mind boggling the stories they write and how they write them they've inspired me they made me a better person a better artist so I just think we need to just keep going and hey we have our own table so people can come and join us we're happy to embrace them but definitely we are powerful and don't let anybody ever tell you otherwise because it's wrong that's right thank you hello I'm really moved and energized by the conversation in this circle and I consider myself somebody who's a midwife for playwrights that's my goal is to be a collaborator in the artistic process sometimes that requires cheerleading and sometimes it requires very painful truth telling and very painful coaching for the painful to give but also painful I think for the recipient but necessary to part of growth how do we create spaces where that pain can be honored as a vital part of the process of an artist and it works and accompanies individual growth the growth that we need to make happen to move forward in our conversations in LA we've been talking about the complexities of dramaturgy and criticism and how do you create spaces where that can be honored without shutting down things to be able to deliver that respectfully and honestly but to have it heard in that same spirit so that's the question I want to pose but well I think dramaturgy is a lot I think like for instance I don't know Alex but I wanted to be your friend before I ever talked about her work one of the things I always say is let me read all your plays first so we can talk about the dramatic through line and all that good stuff but truthfully I think that one of the challenges is that no work of art is ever the same ever I mean that's one thing I've learned in my last 30 years is you can never approach it the same way it's a new relationship and every time there's a new love affair hopefully and sometimes it's not a love affair sometimes you're going through a very nasty divorce but you've got to get the work done you've got to get the work done and I think little things like the generosity of the criticism how do I open a door to be as honest as I can and really help a process rather than hurt and a lot of times pull out of the process because I'm not helpful I am not helpful sometimes a player knows exactly what they're doing but we are in a collaborative business and it's super super important to understand that none of us we work in the silence and sometimes in the pain of our own silence and you know isolation but then we have to give that child away and we have to share it with the whole group and team of people sometimes the best dramaturgs I talk about this a lot there's a guy named Chris Ackerland who is a lighting designer he is my best dramaturg by the time we get to tech and he says I'm having trouble lighting this how is that possible then a designer looks at a work and says there's a problem with your text extraordinary right but that only happens because I think you become friends with people and then you build a relationship and then you're able to talk about it and over many years and I believe very strongly in mentorship it's so funny that I'm in the space because I've known her since she started roughly and the conversation is difficult sometimes between us and we've had a lot of tearful conversations about our work and how to be better but in the end we want to be better artists we want to be more skillful and we also want to be more desirous and we want to be more passionate and we want to have better technique and that's the thing that we strive for as a community so excellence rises together right and you know so I'm sitting in an Irene's chair but I'm also sitting in a Paula Vogel's chair which is all about how do we do that together any questions you're quoting from Anna no I was bringing it back to what we were saying I navigated the world of building your own space and then now being in the larger spaces and I'm just confused about both sides I couldn't really make a living having my own space but creatively it was like the best most fertile time now that I'm in the larger space I still can't make a living as a playwright and I know we've talked about this a lot in TCG like how does a playwright make a living right now I have to write for TV to make a living which is crazy because it's not sustainable so it's not really it's just a question of like how do we make I know how we make a life in the theater but how do we make a living and that's it's a reality when you get in your 30s you're like well I want health insurance and I want to eat you know I like eating but like so like I just was bringing it back I'm bringing it to that because yes we can build our spaces but it's like sometimes life is not sustainable that way you have kids you build your own space so like it's just a question it's not I don't have an answer just kind of throwing it out there people have to model and talk about it yes there are a lot of powerful people here from the artistic side but we're not powerful from the economic side 2% of the money that is given out in the United States of America goes to Latino nonprofits 2% so we might be a majority in 2046 but we're certainly not an economic majority and what happens is that the few people in our communities that get rich they go and sit on the center theater board they go sit on the Miami city ballet board they go sit on the LA opera board they don't sit in our boards and so right now the majority that means we pay taxes and we have to start demanding from government philanthropy every fucking funder that exists in this country has to be brought to task because 2% is just not acceptable you can't make a living you know why because nobody's giving us money to make a living it's going 58% of the money that goes to nonprofits goes to the 20% of the highest funded nonprofits so we better get smart people we better start organizing and demanding because 2046 is going to come and we're going to be just as poor and just as under resource and just as begging as we are now so I think that even though a lot of this session and a lot of this conference is about artistic you know feeling good and telling your story this is a story all fairness to the organizers we aren't going to address that issue and this is not also feeling touchy I think there's some real hardcore realities that we do have to face so thanks Olga and also yes practically I think practically also when you're in this business I think you have to think about what art making is for me I felt that being a teacher was a way of making money and it was also a way of becoming a better artist and I do really believe I don't know if it's Pollyanna I really do believe that I learned how to be a better artist because I had to articulate my craft and that changed the way I did my work and so yes it's really good to have health insurance and I don't regret and I don't resent I love teaching I love going to teach and I love the way it works because it's part of my art making process part of my process to help is somebody facilitate their process because I'm making a community right and that's super super important super super important and it also opens up my mind to you know my best students are the Indian students right now the Indian community has a really extraordinary playwrights that opens up my Chicano world to expression and Indians a lot of Chicano's right so there's something that's happening in terms of that but I think 20 years ago to say if I'm just going to be a playwright playwriting is what I do but it's also how it opens up the door to thinking about how to do it and teaching is one way and you know thinking about how you work administratively as a company all of that stuff but yeah generating your income is not generally going to come through so let's riff a little bit on that because I think it's interesting in the climate that Olga is describing and that Tonya is currently working in for survival any sharing of those models from you personally Mary a lawyer I've had this conversation with a lot of people is that we need to go back to a patron system where it's like reach out to that person and it could be your significant other that is able to they are your patron and they are getting you the health insurance and it's the same thing I think we have to be is to get out there and find the business people there are a lot of people with a lot of money who want to give it out but personally speaking from my experience not working hard enough to engage those people those business people who have money to throw around and you know think the arts is just such a novel thing to be a playwright and an actor and all these sort of things I think we can do that if we work harder at it I'm sure we'll talk about this later but to engage the business community in a way that we just are not doing well enough as individual artists as institutions because they have to deal with business but we as artists to engage those people because it's not my thing I don't want it to be my thing but there's people out there that are making a lot of money doing this thing so engage those people I'll go Louisa's point about going into the university and teaching I mean that's my training as an academic but it's also another way where we can infiltrate and represent because there's so many students that go into classrooms and like if they've never heard of Zoot Zoot I'm like that's a crime and I even know of professors of theater who don't know about Chicano theater there's a need and so I think and that universities are stable and you know it's really I think it's a great way for artists to give service as well as to have stability and security that's at least the model of working life is getting really finite and narrow for renegade you know didn't come up through the academic world as soon as I realized at 50 and having my son that what was really going on in my work was that I had a little drum a tambour and that drum every time I hit it I yearned an endeavor to rattle and haunt the ghosts of colonial urban Americans so wow the penny drops I realize what I'm doing and how am I going to make a buck doing that that's dropped a lot of pennies that's you know this so Anthony Quinn said that great thing that an actor in Europe is always an artist whether you're working or not an out of work actor in the states is a bum you know and a lot of times you can feel like a bum if you don't have a national commercial if you're not writing on a show if you're not making a film and at the same time at those key moments has been said by Luis and many folks here today how do we still write and tap into our best that we have when you know your kid needs milk and you know the wolf you know is at the door and it's not about coming here feeling good I come here because there were going to be moments I wouldn't be feeling too good here but that's a painful process but I can't show a film at LACMA that's a county fucking property if I'm not selected by film independent LA in any other world that's monopoly it's a controlled monopoly in any other world so I might have to go see Gloria Molina and say Gloria you have to create LACMA and center theater group space and music center and why don't we have access to this county you know property built you know for the public hi I'm Rose Kano and I kind of wanted to go back a little bit what Jose Carrosquillo was talking about making our own table and before that we were kind of talking about identities and labels and I have a great view of the timeline right from where I'm sitting and so I just wanted to kind of frame it where are we now since that's why we're here right largest convening since 1986 and I was talking to him and and when we were at a conference in 1990 at Irvine and it was about otherness and we were trying to remember the title and we spent days we spent three days talking about this very same thing spent three days talking about el otro and otherness and Latino-American and it was before kind of Hispanic and Hispanic came back with such force and there was people from South America and Rita Buenaventura was here a lot of scholars so I just wanted to throw this out there so we're in 2013 that was 1990 how do we think this how's it going how are we doing in terms of and is it still relevant to find these labels and how does that influence us coming to these tables that we're talking about these decision making tables I want to address that you know the conference at the TCG conference where we realized that we were in leadership positions across the country in terms of the theaters that we are leading and the artists that we have involved so this convening comes out of a sense of power so we have changed and the tenor of the conversation we're here because we are leaders let's just accept that we've moved very very far we have many challenges but I just want to say that we come from a very very different position we are creating our own table we are more empowered that's where we are okay so thank you Rose for that comment any thoughts on Rose's comment silence silence silence silence silence silence One, that when the Kansas City Monarchs played Yankee Stadium, they used to sell it out, 52,000 people. When the Yankees were playing there with their roofs and gerricks, they were getting 12,000 people. So, you know, we see always in the championships when they are, they have the house packed, but in everyday games, the Monarchs and the black baseball team were getting more people in. And the integration happened because these people were making a lot of money. And there were being the innovators of baseball. So, something like lights were created by the Kansas City Monarchs so they should travel and they should bring the lights with them. And then major league took that. You know, and they worked up a lot of things. So, for me, some of us, you know, have broken into the kind of cross that line into the regional white theater. But, you know, it's still hard even for the people that have crossed those lines. And we got as welcome. And we are the person, the smaller theaters. And what they want from us is that audience, right? And that's why they bring us in a lot of times. But they might think about that Latino audience or they might take that audience from a Latino theater and say, bring it over here. And, but, you know, they'll do one show and some of our audience might go, but then they will do another show for a couple of years. And then they say, well, you are a failure. But you did not bring the audience in here. Oh, they got a grant to bring Latinos in, right? I mean, that's like my experience. So then I'm questioning, well, what do we bring as Latinos to a regional theater or even the public or whatever, any theater in New York besides our stories? And I think that's a question that they really want money. They really want an audience they want. And how do we develop a Latino audience that follows us? That's right. That's a really good question. Because that's your power, the people that you bring. And so that's a great question. How do we? Yeah, actually, it's really great because I think it's right, we're right on this place of a precipice, really. And I think the secret of 2046 is not lost on the institutions of this country. I think that I was at a summit a few weeks ago in Denver, an innovation summit, which was a group of leaders from arts institutions, museums, symphonies, as well as theaters. And the reality of that 2046, of the shift of how to get Latino audiences and how these huge companies that we have built over decades have now reached a point where they are not able to, their capacity is not able to adapt. And so it's a really big question about how our institutions, if that is in fact what we feel are necessary to survive, how we integrate into them, or rep better yet, how we actually dismantle them and recreate them for an audience that has been not invited. That's right. How do we even assume that inviting an audience is going to be the way that that audience is going to come? We have not built that trust over decades and decades. So I guess the question for us is that we do have a power that we are not necessarily aware of to make sure that these institutions, if in fact these are the ways we want to work, will sustain in the manner that they are, or that we have the ability to change them. And I think we really do. And I think it does speak to economic power in a way that's really relevant for these institutions that are seeing their audiences die, that are seeing their audiences dwindle. And where is the audience that's going to come up to take over? Peter Thiel, or something. And one last thing, I think the... Sorry. But there's, I know it's my fault. But I'm also adding on to this is that how will that affect those theatros, the theaters that have been devotedly building their audience over the years, like Su Teatro and Borderlands, and Teatro Vista, Teatro Visión. How is that going to affect them when finally these other institutions or larger institutions are dismantled and then they make a big place for us at the table? How is it going to affect them? Is it going to hurt their audiences? Is it going to hurt their funding chances? Are they already hurting? I think that's a really big question that's happening on the national level because so many bigger theatres, and they are diversifying more. But as bigger theatres are finding their new value and dismantling, the smaller theatres actually have to reevaluate their new value and power. So each entity must evolve and change. I mean, that's a big question, but that's a strong answer. Thank you. No. Oh, sorry, it was you, yes. Hey, just hand me this one. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Well, there's a, I'm a company, I'm with kind of me and Dallas, and so we're in a city that's extremely wealthy and we are 43% of the population and we have a coalition of theatres and I think that we all have, and so this goes back to this idea, what would be ready for 2046? And it takes me to Richard's point about competition because there's levels of competition that are really inhibiting, I think, our ability to unite because I think that if we're able to unite, we can tackle this problem of only being 2% of the companies that are funded because there's, and I don't know what the solution is because some of it is the fact, the reality that we work with some people and we move on and there's bitterness towards that, there are personality conflicts and you can't really change personalities. There are differences of opinion and agenda, and these are just classic human problems that I don't know if we'll ever solve. So, but what is it? And so I had a conversation with a TCG over diversity and inclusion and it was actually a very frustrating conversation. It was a very, I was proud of it, I was glad that it was happening, but the conversation was about us being the policemen of these larger organizations about how we can improve the quality of cultural place and I said, I don't really care so much about that. What about these smaller groups? And one of the answers that came up was that look, the companies that are funding that are paying dues for TCG are larger organizations for the most part and other organizations. And so is the money going to in, and I don't want this to be about TCG, I mean. No, but the fact that these small organizations aren't members, and so since they're not paying dues they're focused as they're going to be there. But how are we doing this? So does the comments need to reach into the communities and help mediate these conflicts? Help mediate this issue of competition? That it's just that we need, I think just we need some sort of guidance in order to, for people outside of community, like for example, I think Kinan coming to Dallas was a huge help in uniting our groups. And so because I think we need this contact with a national network and that's what keeps us going. And I think that that's what it's being built here. And I think that that conversation amongst each other is so important so that we know how we feed into each other and support each other. Great. Thank you all. What about those stories, huh? The idea of all the various perspectives that are coming out in these conversations. So I wanna thank you for adopting all the six dances in this listening session. But most importantly here is the one of the diverse perspectives. And that's what the rest of this afternoon will be like is to be able to hear those various voices in order to be able to see the larger picture and then begin assessing it and discussing it and imagining a new future. So I'd like everybody encourage everybody just for a brief second to stand up, okay? Let's just stretch for a split second. So just reach up and just stretch. Let's do a group stretch here. So we are at that moment when we're going to take lunch in just a few minutes. And the way that we're going to do lunch, is not necessarily a work group, but we'd like to invite you all to do what is called a mentor lunch. And what that means here is that we all understand about the need for mentorship. But we'd like to do a cross mentorship lunch that is self-selected, find your colleagues, find the people who could mentor you, give you perhaps some of their time and you can ask each other's questions. Here in the lunch we wanna focus on the stance of suspension of certainty. It is okay not to know and to ask your colleagues questions that you might have during lunch. So these groups will be self-selected. So look around the room right now and see who you might like to spend the next 45 minutes with. Where are the funders? The thing is that tomorrow, when we have our strategy sessions, when we start building a new vision, is that we are going to need to set up some time right now with the leaders for that session. So if you are a strategy group leader, will you please come spend lunch with your co-facilitators over here? We won't spend much of your time, but we'd like to spend a few minutes with you in lunch. Not your co-facilitators. Yes, sir. Yes, so before we all bounce out, before we all bounce out, we are all going to need to come back in this room by 1.25 so that we can begin sharp. 1.25 and the lunches you will find in the lobby. Have a good lunch everybody. See you at 1.25.