 some of the talk of further conversations with some of the topics that came up here, and other convenings that are already planned will happen. So thank you so much everyone for openness and for the candor, and the really, really refreshing conversation in mind. Mark and I were talking, it's been a really great mix of local Los Angeles folks and our visitors from international and national, and the conversation has felt casual, which is great, but very honest and there's a bit of depth to the conversation that I think we really appreciate. I spoke to a few people earlier in the morning so that we would have a public, some anchors to respond to in the last couple of days, and this is again very casual from where you're sitting. Just sharing some thoughts about the last two days would be sharing the conversations you might have. So why don't we just start with that. As I mentioned to you, I asked a couple of folks, please begin, and then the rest will be a little more time to think about things. Not anyone of course needs to respond to things, he's very great, but why don't we start? I think I'm going to start actually. I am going to pick somebody. Sure. Okay, hello. You want to come down? That might be better. I'm going to go ask, we have to know just before I'm running for a call, especially every year, I'm with you. I'm the sectional general of the European Union. No, of an international, originally called IETM Informal. What we changed our name into is a few years ago, because we felt that Europe was too limited. So now we are indeed an international network with many members from other functions, though we are still based in Brussels, the capital of Europe. And our main part of the members are still coming from Europe. Having been here, as a guest to this symposium, and I've brought in a few members of IETM here as well, I must say that it was very enriching to feel how much it is really important. And you have a problem, and how much you have to learn from it as well. Especially while we now in Europe there are very difficult situations, many of our very strong traditional cultural policies are now in decay. So all of us are looking for new strategies, new models. We also realize that it's not only cultural policy that is in decay, the whole concept of democracy, concept of a federation of Europe, et cetera, et cetera. And that there's a growing awareness between the artists that they might play an important role in designing those new models. I think this is really a moment that we could unite and fight to work together both you with a history of, well, very weak support of governmental aid. And we, coming from a place where we have had this useful aid, have now tried to find new ways. I heard in our last talk about the film Artistic Community, something that I thought, oh, yes, this is very, here we can learn from how you do, how you work together with the corporate group. For instance, we did it about first. And I know that there are a lot of things like the Fortile House, and that as well as we have a whole tradition of this, and we know exactly how you could do this, this type of work. So I think that we are very concrete levels, and I think there are a lot of things to share. That's one thing. Part from that, I think those wonderful inspirational thoughts of the artist were really great. It was both talking about mirrors or chattering mirrors, the incentives of art as a spiritual experience to how you could relate fiction and reality. But it is a proof of how strong the choice of the artistic program is because I made new idols and that's all. I was born before, and I was very happy to restore our friendships. Well, yeah, thank you so much for having me here and for making us experience this. And I hope you all get once the opportunity to come and see the ITM in its functioning as a network. We have our pilot to meet this year. So look at our websites to see the right role of your group to be able to once visit those meetings. And with our talent, I am thrilled that this is happening. I've been dreaming about this for a very long time. We spent the last four years in England really considering how we're going back to Los Angeles. Is there a community? Is something happening? And for the last four years I've been flying back and forth and actually witnessed how every two, three months things are really coming up and coming up and coming up and then two years ago when we had Ray Arley coming here and also this cluster somehow really interestingly we've really actually synced phenomenally in this town because amazing things happen at the same time. We had Ray Arley, we had, I believe, Asian American Theater Festival, we had Fringe Festival and this year we have a Live Arts Exchange Festival happening and this is phenomenal. This is so important because I think we are recognizing that we have the power to impact the fabric of the city in a very specific way and the conversations that took place the format of it was really organic. It actually, the breaks and the breakfast and the lunch and the reception and hosting little gatherings in our space we know how much work goes into it. So thank you guys for doing this and for feeding us and providing that because I think actual food really allows for something very organic around the table type of conversations happen when ideas are born and actions can take place. So for me Ray Arley is the artery. It's a celebration and yet it's a really much a working session. I saw that it's, for me it's opportunity to for me to really take theater seriously, I do, but I mean I can really take it seriously now because I feel we are actually being taken seriously too by the city. We take each other more seriously too I think. I see a lot of people here that I know for years and I think we are getting more grounded and rooted. This has also been an amazing education. I mean I have a list of things. I mean planning meetings with the city, go to the neighborhood, council meetings go to the order of business improvement, history of meetings. Yes, we have to be very, very, I feel like I have to be an actress in life in all of those roles in order to make theater vibrant and in a stable position, not being appointed by the landlords, not sharing, not having odd marijuana dispensaries placed right next to our theater without any permits required when our fantastic neighbors next to our theater just got their liquor license because they don't have a urinary in their bathroom. And they have 90 days to wait for the permit for liquor license. This is where I think we have the power. We can integrate with communities where our theaters are located. We can represent our views on how the neighborhoods can be developed. And this has been a form of that inspiration and to grow those... We are the same. I really feel that we are becoming the same. And I would love to see this festival happening every year. We are communities. We have forums to address that, whatever we can do, we are creative. And I think that can be something really that stable every year we know we have it. So consistency and yearly consistency actually can charge our idols. If something is here, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Hello, I'm Jolly and I work for Center Theater Group in involvement, but I'm also a local player. So these two days have been really... They formed a lot of questions for me. And yesterday I greatly appreciated starting off with hearing the manifestos from all the artists. I was inspired by Alice Twan and all the other artists. And as an artist, it spoke to me as like, yes, okay, here's how we sort of describe our people and sort of be unapologetic about it and not talk about it as sort of marketing speech. I appreciate that. But then as a person who works in donor relations and tries to get people to support the arts, I was wondering, okay, that's great. I agree with everyone on that stage, but how do we talk about this to people who aren't already sitting in those seats? Because whether we like it or not, there are a lot of people who aren't feeling in the seats, who aren't buying tickets. And I started thinking, I think there's a lot, though, what if we as theater artists, all the theaters just disappear? How long do you think it would take to really notice that? That's kind of a scary thought sometimes. I think we play an important role, but I think that because I like theater, right? And thinking about disciplinary approaches, I was really, again, very fascinated because for me as an artist, I love looking at things from different disciplines, and I get inspired by that. But as my own art creations, they're very formal. I appreciate language. I appreciate coming into a theater and letting the lights go down. For me, that's just different. That's a part of life that's completely different from my nine to five. So, again, how do we make this accessible is not the right word, but someone mentioned something yesterday about just letting people in. How do we do that? Is it just so evil-easing sometimes? Today, I also... So last night, I had a bit of a religious experience I was still in a different map. It was just something for me. It was like, okay, I didn't know what I was getting into, and half the time, I didn't even know what I was watching. But afterwards, I felt like, oh my god, I just went someplace else that most things aren't able to take me there. And I was able to step out of my typical theater eyes in the sense of, okay, I know a lot of theater. I don't know what to expect when. Okay, this is good to go there, and I'm going to judge this on how he surprised me at this point, blah, blah, blah. And that piece to me broke all kind of those rules for me. And still with me today, listening to the movie from 5.0. And then the panel I just came from where we were talking about creative placemaking and stuff. And I always feel like I'm in a weird place because I'm not indeed a Lois Angelino from Washington, D.C. And I come here and I'm like, what did I just come and gentrify in someone else's city? It was the same thing in my city. So I wrestle with that. And then as an artist, I think, yes, artists are already in this community. So let's give these artists, who are already in these communities, places an opportunity to exhibit their art, right? But then again, they don't need working with the funders. Okay, how do we get people to support this? How do we make it not necessarily sound sexy, but how do we justify what we're doing? And I think this is supposedly the past two days. I'm not quite sure if I've gotten any answers, but again, the questions, at least for me, are rising up. My question is that I'm leaving with are how can I join the conversation, but how can I come to the table as an artist, as a person who works in arts administration, and as sort of a citizen of Los Angeles and of the world, as a global citizen? All right, now we've got all these sort of questions and we've heard all these people talking. Next step, how do we make it happen? And I'm a writer and performer. I make solo plays based on personal story myself. I work with other people who have any connection to the rest of the personal story in a workshop called What's a Story, which has led me to begin an initiative with the Shoah Foundation called Witnessing Responsibility, where we'll be inviting artists to come into relationship with a workshop of testimony. And I have to echo the gratitude of the three people who spoke before me for this panel and talk about the conversations I've had, the many conversations. Oh, I live in Los Angeles. The many conversations I've had with my colleagues here in Los Angeles, who I see once a year, once every couple of years, out on the map like this, all of us say, how can we continue these conversations on a more regular basis? And so that's the question that I bring up to you. You don't have to do any work for us, but to us so that we can create it ourselves. When I was asked to sort of think about the past couple of days, the thing I think about has to do with ownership. And there's that, I saw, you should have stayed home more on, in the first scene of that, it's all about thinking what other people's had. You know, kind of the priority of your own who you are. And then there's the whole story as a big issue for me, personal story, what are our stories, and then the question might be this morning, do we as theater members need to tell stories, you know, about the Canadian experience that's not telling stories? And then, we were just talking about, I think, Donald, you were just talking about the experience you had last night. I had a similar experience, and I also had more unspectively, since I knew that mouse for it, with Eldaya, where we go there, and it seems perfectly familiar, it's about auditions and performance, and digging into something. At the end of the first act, something, the roof lifted, and I was somewhere where I didn't expect to be. And, yeah, something else? Yeah, somewhere I didn't expect to be. And the amazing opportunity here is we get to talk to the artists, you know, we want to talk to the that actress who is in the center of that scene, because it took me somewhere that was extraordinary, and we were talking, and she said that's the story I was trying to tell. And she was telling it in a made-up language with music and her body, and it came kind of directly into me. And then I felt like I don't know if she's here, but Helen, who is the other half of Stones in the Mountain, the other creative person, because there was just something, I said, how do those women do that? They're not trained performers. How do they inhabit whatever the hell it is that they're doing and saying with that fullness? They wrote those words. They're all in the program. It doesn't tell us what they mean in English, but somehow their stories come to us via our stories and who we are and that's true propriety. It's true propriety, where I can hand over something that means something to me and leave room in it for you to fill in the books with what you are. And I guess that's what's coming to me so profoundly. So that's what you're going to see in the fourth place of that. But again, we're proud to take care of you. To all of you, you don't need to come down here to be able to count just to show a few thoughts. Yes, I found fascinating with that this entire series seeing the shows being human for panels on this stage is that it has completely altered the life perspective of theater and how it exists in our lives and where I can take the experiences that I have, particularly shows and see other shows differently. And then I was having this conversation just before this was in March when the panels changed how I knew what performance is because I realized that this was performance. We had people coming up and storytelling. And it was a conversation with the audience. And it was a combination of having a conversation with the audience and us being an ensemble. And so it was really fascinating experience for me and I thank you both and please, please have it. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. I've seen, I guess, seven of the shows. Yay! And there's two more. Two more. This, fighting on the wing and I will receive a studio SCR series of self-disruptoria and I will also be able to secure the chance to hear. I guess I would say a moment of live performance that I found striking and compelling and thought provoking and confusing in the right way. And the thing I'm dealing with is pride. I just had so much pride that it's so much of the work was from L.A. theater companies. And so much pride that we're able to bring so much work from other places. And, you know, for a town that is not always seen as a theater town, I think the last two days we've been extremely a theater town. So thank you very much. Oh, yeah. I'm going to go to the full sphere of theater. Angela Maddox talked yesterday about this ritual with TVA of going in and out together as groups and community. And that, you know, as Crystal was just saying this theater we're in a theater experience right now. And this cannot be it's always made very clear to me that we must do this as community as those who make our art together. You know, if we were dentists we'd be going conferences all the time regularly, you know. So we need to be doing this as professionals in our field and to continue to see our mates and respect each other and the work that we're doing to stand in awe of the work that we're making the beautiful work that you've made possible to see in this bottleneck experience that we're having and I just want to champagne-like explode on the other end of it. You know, what's going to happen for all of us is going to be very exciting to track and see. And it is another reason why we need to stay doing this on a regular basis. So thank you. I also want to let people know that you like this come to the theory factory so there is an, you know, go on up to Portland and keep going, you know. The West Coast is identifying ourselves now and I feel this very strongly so I just, I want to give thanks and say hi to me if you haven't met me yet. I'm so excited to meet you. Hi. Hi everyone. I'm Natalie Darrell one of the Festival's associate producers. Thank you all for coming. It's been such an honor to meet you and to congregate. And one of the things that I find interesting, particularly with Lenny's work is this idea that the community can be can be professional can can wow us as professionals. And the question I leave for all of us is how do we not become a clique and how do we for radar like 2015, 2017 under the radar hype how do we begin to incorporate our community into these conversations so as not the cool kids gather to look at our cool work and talk about these amazing things that we are truly integrating our communities. So is that mean that every festival we require that we bring someone along from the community who has never attended a theater festival because if these conversations stay in tune we're doing ourselves and our communities in this order of service. So I want us to really remind ourselves and I'm very proud of the work that we've done but there's always work to continue to do and I believe particularly with us as artists we have to fight against being a clique. Yay! Thank you everybody. You didn't have to say that to each other. Thank you for taking part in one of the panels and thank you to LNTC for having us here and of course there's extra work already to be used each year for performances to add these conversations and extra efforts I really appreciate it but this building of course is well owned and operated by the well operated by the Latino theater company because they're the director owned by the city of Los Angeles and the department of cultural affairs thank you for working together with them during this course for your first and ongoing important support of Radar LA every aspect of it. Great. Other major funders Radar LA The Doors to Charitable Foundation was the first to step up and commit to support it and specifically to help make possible this symposium aspect of the discussion that we're having. Thank you. The other funders include Art Place America the National Endowment for the Arts and vital projects support from the National Performance Network especially the Performing Americans program K and Elizabeth and also for two projects in particular from the New England Foundation for the Arts the National Dance Project of NIFA and also the National Theater Project thank you Deena Selma our coordinator for this symposium theater group Malcolm has been extraordinary also