 Philip Arnaud, director and founder of the Center for International Theatre Development, and the president of the Martin Borosch International Fan Club. And we are here to talk with Daniela Topol, the artistic director of the Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, playwright Jonathan Payne and Martin, the aforementioned wonderful director from Hungary that I've known for almost a decade. And I think he's one of the most interesting directors working right now. I followed his work and it would create variety from operas to wonderful mind-bending pieces in the theater to unique things like a drive around in a bus, a promenade, that we helped him do both in Baltimore and in Albuquerque. And now have been following like a very interesting grandfather, this four-year project that brought us together today. I was able to see last night a dress rehearsal and I was just so inspired knowing the history of this incredible project, four years of bringing people together. Not, you know, if you were all lived in one block in New York City and were able to pull this off, I would have been standing up and giving you a standing ovation. But the fact is that this was, you know, a true international collaboration. It was stunning for me to be there last night. I want to do two thank yous before we start though. I want to thank HowlRound. HowlRound is celebrating its 10th anniversary and we've had so many good projects with them and I think they're so important to the theater ecology in America. And I wish them a very, very happy 10th anniversary and you can donate money to help them keep going. So I would highly recommend you do that. And then I want to thank the four of you for being here. Just a real quick introduction. I spent many years putting my body in theater seats, sometimes seeing as many as 300 performances a year when I was hopping from festival to festival and seeing four or five a day. When probably in 2016 I went to Urani, which is a wonderful developmental nurturing incubator space in Budapest, into a classroom. No stage lights. I'd heard about this production. I saw everything. There was no pretense and I didn't know what to expect. I had a script in front of me, a translation because it was being performed in Hungarian and Martin was sitting over my shoulder pointing out where the text was going. And then I stayed around afterwards and there was a sort of a coda afterwards. And I left that theater changed and I tried to shake. I tried to say, wait a minute. This really didn't happen to me, but it did. And Martin, I've told you this before, many times. I wanted every human being who walks the streets of America and walks past these people to be able to experience this really getting inside of what is essentially this shared humanity we have with people that are far too often written off. And you guys pulled it off last night and I salute you and I thank you. So I'm going to try to almost disappear. That's hard for me to do, but Daniela, I'd like you to talk about this incredible journey of four years that, in spite of everything thrown in your way, how we've arrived to this moment where this weekend, this piece gets open to the public in a very different manifestation than it was originally, but something that's for our time and our country. Thank you so much, Philip. And maybe we can do that narrative together, Martin and Jonathan, but I'll just give a little bit of context and say that Philip Arnau has been like the godfather of this project and never would have happened without him saying, you need to, when I went to the Duna Park Festival in Hungary in 2017, you need to come to this festival. The Trust for Mutual Understanding was so supportive in making sure that it was possible for me and a number of other theater producers and presenters to attend that festival and you need to meet Martin Barasch. So that was the first instruction and Martin and I had a chance to talk and I had a chance to see his incredible piece at Dressless and I too felt exactly like Philip felt after seeing it. I am different now than I was two hours ago. I am different now. I am the conversations I've just engaged in, though what I've just experienced, it has changed my life and I just fell in love with the piece and it is just an incredible mix of both theater, theatrical gaming and essential community conversations. It's an individual experience and a collective experience simultaneously and I think that makes it so profound. You're sort of watching it from your own perspective but also really understanding things from other people's perspectives as well. So our first step was to figure out the right playwright to work with Martin to adapt this for the New York City and a beautiful playwright named Corey Thomas said, you need to talk to Jonathan Payne because Jonathan Payne is an incredible playwright who's also a beautiful social worker working about and inside of these issues and these questions and so Jonathan then met each other and maybe I will sort of pass the baton maybe we could do sort of communal storytelling here about the making of the piece for this incarnation to Jonathan Martin to sort of talk about what happened between the two of you when you first met one another. Great that's a great hopscotch. Yeah I met Daniella and she talked a bit about the play and I mean even before it I was like well of course it's me it makes sense that they would want to talk to me. By day I was a social worker, I am a social worker and I was supporting people who were formerly homeless but now was transitioning into supportive housing so I had a background in that and so I think my experience of coming from the theater and stepping into housing insecurity and supporting people who were housing insecure it seemed like such a great way to work on a play because the audience's experience was very much my experience of stepping into this work as someone who has a background in theater and wasn't really thinking about any type of social work at the time when I graduated so Daniella talked about the play and you know I am a lover of brecht and you know I love very creative and interactive theater and stuff that makes people think and so it was a match made in heaven and so I was introduced to Martin and the script was sent to me to read through and what was really fascinating to me you step into that situation and you're like oh well I am the adapter and there's all these things that I will have to do to sort of shift the play and have it make sense for New York audience and surprisingly I was like oh you know it was familiar I was like oh this is I am reading something that I know there is nothing that is very unfamiliar or strange it was universal and so in terms of using the word adapting it's kind of funny because yeah I think Martin and I sort of saw eye to eye in terms of the understanding of what the pieces and what the intention is and so I think that's probably a good way to pass the baton to Martin and I came in a little later in the process and yeah and yeah it's been a great experience yeah all of the above and then and then I remember our first conversation and Jonathan expressed that this theme in general and all the elements of the dramaturgy stigmatization of people experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity the prejudice of the society victim blaming and health related issues and mental issues and addictions that in most cases are not the cause but the result of experiencing homelessness these are all not foreign for him from his experience so he can relate to it but the same time he was open to revision the piece because I think one of the first things we did is we embraced the idea that we want to keep the game structure we are talking about an interactive theatrical game which now is an interactive online play in the New York version or we could say a theatrical computer game really so we we decided to keep the general structure that the audience is divided into teams to lead the three main characters of the story who lost their homes for different reasons and they have to face a number of difficulties that are mostly unknown to an average person and in these situations the audience have to make decisions to rewrite their lives and luckily Jonathan really liked this idea and also that we think of this as a strategy game where people fight for survival and money is also in stakes because the goal of the game is for the audience and for the characters that they are leading to get back to housing and start a new life but as we were scanning through the script we realized that the characters are not always applicable or that doesn't necessarily make sense in an American or more specifically in the New York context so that was one of the first steps to figure out who these three main characters could be and maybe Jonathan can tell about it in more detail but we ended up choosing a veteran an LGBTQ person who is a runaway from upstate New York and a single parent and we we decided to keep that aspect of the original piece that we have a social worker in the cast who besides being a consultant helping us with the script and being one of our consultants also will be the game host and the master of ceremony in the piece plus one of the characters and we weren't sure which character this is going to be one of the the characters should be a person with lived experience and someone who is an activist and someone who can also represent himself instead of just playing simply a role and also articulate and and and present their cause so I think that was that was the first and most important step in the development phase and that was a bit of a journey to figure out who the right social worker an activist could be and we're so lucky and privileged to work with Hope Beaver as the social worker who works at Henry Street Settlement and is the master of ceremonies and Shams de Baron otherwise known as the homeless hero is the activist and they are bringing such integrity and authenticity to the project because this is their lived experience so for a long while we thought we were going to actually be producing the play in Rattlestick and traveling it to the boroughs and at the time we were planning to do that in partnership with the working theater and then there was COVID and could you could you put a timestamp on that like when that first thing was in what 18? Yeah so I think Jonathan and Martin had retreat together in 2018 and started partnering with a couple of different artists at different phases Katie Pearl and Tamela Woodard both of whom were really wonderful collaborators on the development of the concept and the script and a series of other experts and consultants and all of that I think was from 2018 into 2019 and then we were planning to produce the piece in 2020 in the season of 2020-2021 basically the year that then was COVID so I do remember some intense conversations in the spring of 2020 trying to figure out how we reimagine the piece and whether it was possible to reimagine the piece in a different kind of way either of you want to speak about the wrapping our heads around reimagining the piece in some way? It's interesting to think about the timing of it because there are periods where homelessness suddenly pops up into the mainstream and then we tend to forget about it and then it pops up again and the pandemic has been a great sort of window into what housing insecurity is in terms of even in terms of people who you know had quote unquote normal lives who had a job who had a place to live and what the pandemic did to them in terms of income in terms of you know feeling safe one of the big things that's happening is you know the I guess the mortgage moratorium is you know ending and so you know there's a lot of you know terrible horrible things that could happen down the line and I think to actually get together and figure out how we can present this piece at this time at this crazy period made a lot of sense to me and even found its way into the script and so it's interesting that we were thinking about the virus and exploring that within the script and then you know Shams De Baron came along who was quite a big beacon or representative for those who are housing insecure those who were in the shelters at the time he was a vocal figure during the Lucerne hotel on the upper west side and the men who were housed there so yes the play had to live on and it definitely made sense to me in terms of this period and incorporating it into the play and after putting the deciding on postponing and putting the concept in a quarantine to nurture a little bit I think it was this I mean last 2021 January when we finally decided that it should be an online piece to make it COVID proof but also to take that opportunity to make it as accessible as possible so not only people from New York could possibly see it and also because it's so adequate to its content because it's a game and it's not something that people would be unfamiliar with in front of a screen but at the same time it was we realized that it's very challenging and I personally had to I had a struggle about this because while it's exciting artistically it's we need to fight the stigmatization of the zoom performances and aesthetically or artistically limited or visually limited pieces that a lot of theaters came up with as a reaction to the pandemic and we agreed of course that we would not like to do something like that but it's like I said we started to think about it as a theatrical computer game that's featuring film and music and animations and a lot of interactive parts because the core of this piece is that the reason why sometimes we refer to it or I refer to it as a democracy game is that there are a lot of discussions within the audience and those are the most provocative and most risk-taking and the most funny and entertaining and exciting parts not just from an audience perspective but for us creators too when people make a fist fight about whether they should take this deal or run away or let other people humiliate them or fight for their rights go to a shelter and live among restrictions and let the system chip away your autonomy or go on the street where you can nearly freeze or be someone under someone's thumb and couch surf so in all these dilemmas every day people walk into truly unknown space and they must think together about things that they would normally not think about. It's been really exciting to watch the cast work through the piece because it demands it demands a lot of an actor not only are you memorizing texts but you are there live with people and discussing the situations that come across and how you'll hand you know which way which way you should go and so I do have to after watching the run yesterday really I have to give my hats off to the actors and just to think about the actors and their expertise we are also asking a social worker and an activist to step into the piece and not only be representatives of themselves but you know play in this world called acting and also interact with people live it's insane to think of the weight of that to give that to someone and it's been really flooring and exciting to see the two of them step into those roles and you know wear them comfortably I you know it's not like we auditioned a lot of people and you know we we had to pull for what we could get especially during a pandemic I mean who's thinking about that stuff at this time and so there's a lot of luck involved in what has happened and so I just want to give space to the actors and the new actors and their experience of the piece. Yeah and um and there was an important pivotal shift that happened in the middle of December because we were planning to make the piece record the film sections and then have rattles to be essentially like the tv studio for it where all the actors would be gathering in the studio with the technicians and the designers everyone together so that the live portions would be happening at Rattlestick and with Omicron then everything just needed to shift again and so that was not an unstressful moment and so it became about you know how do we set things up so that the um actors homes or wherever they can be based to perform the show can be you know we just have a series of separate studios now essentially so our incredible production team then sent laptops to everybody and lights and microphones and set pieces so that the everybody could engage in making this piece as safely as possible which meant that everybody had to be essentially performing this pretty much independently instead of being in a in a space all together and um just watching Martin navigate that complexity in such a beautiful way keeping the team really cohesive with exciting exciting design simultaneously with engaging the artists and the zoom managers and all these things to to make a cohesive event even while everybody is remote is is quite a feat thank you thank you Daniel uh I think part of the reason why everyone works so hard in this project that is that um speaking of the cast I think they find challenges and good challenges in that and it's also a tool for them it's it's artistically special because they got to make film pieces they were engaged actively in the music making and and there is this always mysterious field of interaction and facilitation of the of the live discussions that's that keeps surprises every single day and there's hope and there's shams who can really make their the the cause vocal and and this is where art and activism meets and it becomes um art tourism and uh and um it's um so they they can uh they they don't need to put aside what's really their life and what's really important for them but use a dressless as a as a different kind of tool to fight for uh what they fight in their everyday life and uh yeah I I'm I'm very lucky that the the design team and the production team just uh thinks it's gotta be a good it's it's a concept that that suits new york and it's it's a it's a script written by jonathan that people should see and experience and and I think that's that's one of the reasons why despite of all the obstacles it's it's going to open in the end I just wanted to add one thing to the pre-recorded film pieces I think this was part of the concept that was also something we came up with last january when we were thinking about how this can be online and despite of producing for screen how it could be and despite of not having a movie budget and the the stuff for making cinema how it can be still something engaging and and then we came up with the idea that every single scene is played out and it's a video and then around two-third of the scene there is a point where where it becomes a fork and we can decide whether we go to scenario a or b and it's it's all up to the audience and meanwhile as I was telling people about it they were familiar with this because of Netflix that I think introduced the first show that has a similar format this summer this last summer so it's also just something I find interesting that now it's it this kind of format became a common sense because of pop culture too so I think people who will experience this they they will find themselves in a familiar space. Daniela could I ask you to talk a little bit about where this fits into the puzzle of Rattlestick because we're looking at lots of leadership changes in the American theater and I think that your leadership and taking over Rattlestick has been one of the success stories of really redefining a theater uh can you just take a minute and talk about how this walked into because I've seen other work and I've been following what you've done how this is a part of the vision of where you're taking Rattlestick. Um sure and thank you for um thank you for those kind words I mean Rattlestick has always been committed to supporting playwrights and new work so and ambitious work so that was that's always been part of the DNA and then um you know a few years ago when I took over it became about really digging in and creating opportunities to see work that responds to the complexity of our culture and so we've produced a lot of work in conversation with community partners a lot of work that prioritizes making sure that those who have lived experience are welcome into the room and can really respond to the work in an organic way and that has been really important that that it's not about making issue theater but about finding and creating a work that is deeply compelling and um and that is really addressing the ache of our humanity and that there's a large umbrella for what is under the ache of our humanity and uh various projects like Corey Thomas's lockdown that dealt with long-term incarceration is one example Cousy Crams Novinas for a lost hospital that dealt with um hospitals and the closing of hospitals that was an is another example and there's a series of different projects along the way that really address um really kind of lean into that space I love this expression artivism that Martin you were just talking about about the bend diagram between art and activism and what lives in between and I think that's actually where Martin and Stereo Act and Rattlestick actually really gel with one another I love um your passion for all of those things too Martin that has been part of the DNA of who you are as an artist and the work that your company makes um and then I would say we have a really big passion to support immigrant artists and international stories um we have a wonderful managing director ua and she's really led with a co with a company of um immigrant artists and other international artists um an annual festival to support immigrant artists and global perspectives we have a monthly global forum called global gab and so a number of different programs that are really saying how can we um create opportunities for artists um from different parts of the world a lot of whom are immigrants but in general how do we create a platform where we can hear stories from other artists so just the fact that this is this beautiful international collaboration not just with Martin and Jonathan but we have a number of international artists on the team um we have um you know a beautiful Brazilian um set designer and props design at Patricia we have a beautiful animator from Japan so it's it's it's really um exciting to see how the international collaboration that is part of our DNA is the DNA of this project as well so this really fits in the sweet spot of a lot of things we're passionate about we have um a couple of important community partners on this project community access and urban pathways and um just there's just so many different ways in which this project is responding to things we are so passionate about um and even though it's what I what I was struck about it seeing in Hungary is that even though it was focused on Budapest the version I saw it was totally relatable to New York as Jonathan mentioned and I think this version is totally relatable to any other city it's there are real universalities there are specifics that would be adapted for a particular city um or a particular country but in reality I think what's so exciting about this is that this really speaks to so many different um communities and perspectives that feels quite universal and Martin as I say followed your work very closely and you're at a moment in your career where you're making choices about what you do um I know that and you made a huge commitment to this project where did this where was your sweet spot in finding uh Rattlestick because there were a number of moments I know that we all agreed that could be exit ramps and you didn't take those exit ramps you kept pushing so somehow that fed Daniela and that must have fed you could you talk about that for a minute sure so yeah I think the most important was Rattlestick or specifically Daniela's commitment to it it's not an easy project and it's it's clear that it's um it's uh it was clear from the beginning and it's just became clearer and clearer how big of a commitment it is and how complex it is and we always knew that there is never gonna be more than 60 people who can more than 60 people taking part at once we knew that it's probably not going to run throughout months and months and months um and and despite of this end and that Rattlestick needs to bring me over from Hungary and and have me here throughout the entire process so I understood that these are challenges and and the only reason to do this is the true interest in in the content or in this concept and I really appreciated it and and if I I can't imagine producing the exact same piece twice ever in my career really um but as I understood how I can find ways uh how this can be different and and what I can gain artistically and as a human from the collaborators and and all the partners and and Jonathan personally uh it uh it became clear that I have more to gain from this obviously than than what what I what I invest in it um so um yeah it's um for me working or making theater um even if it's beneficial or serve the society in any way it's never charity it's um there's there's always a personal ambition in that and in one word that ambition is growing um artistically or as a human and and I felt the potential in that um here I I think what also lifted uh the piece for me was the uh uh collaboration as well just in terms of um I guess an improv they have this thing where you say yes and um and I think Martin and I were very much you know uh yes and uh uh collaboration has a potential for much conflict and uh many disagreements but it seems like uh we definitely sort of gelled and you know um there'd be you know we I wasn't too sure how the filmed parts would look you know I come from a playwright background I can't write you know tv and film stuff but the the melding of that was interesting to think about um so even in rehearsal you know uh Martin would be like oh I'm thinking there's gonna be a a ding here and I'm like oh okay I all right you know I I don't know I don't know but then in the action and seeing it presented I was like oh yeah that that makes so much sense um and I I think that's a testament to um of of course a writer wants their script to be lifted and uh and grow and so yes there was my presentation of what the play is but uh what really built it was the the joining of the two of our sort of understandings and visions and that great sort of yes and and so that's been a real gift of that collaboration especially um being involved in something that is somewhat you know selflessness sense that you are putting forward people who don't usually get put forward and so uh the cohesion of that towards something that is important and needs to be talked about uh has been such a great experience um and uh one of the highlights was a run-through we did and that's when we met we did a read-through and uh and Shams DeBaron um and some other participants were there in the end and the conversation was uh so uh jarring and flooring and uh I don't know it hit me I couldn't speak at the end so I felt really like I can't say anything I I'm too emotional right now um but uh that's one of the things I want to highlight is those after conversations of you know if people can stick around um it's it's amazing what comes out of that um I saw Corey Thomas's play at Rattlestick um and it was fascinating to see people who were formerly incarcerated sitting amongst people who don't have an idea of what that experience is and just the power of those voices to be brought into the room and what that means to uh the you know the common man's ear um uh is uh such a fascinating thing to witness let me ask another question um when I look into my dark crystal ball uh I see the touring international touring is being very very cloudy uh in the coming in the coming years actually I think you know that it's going to take a long time for us to bounce back from the pandemic I think that uh what will be happening it could be happening here politically of isolation the difficulty of getting visas etc uh while there's nothing easy about not too about what you all have done which is a collaboration between an artist a foreign artist and an American company or the other way an American artist and a foreign country a foreign company I think that's in the near future going to be one of the major lifelines along with a baseline of trying to keep conversations going between us no matter what's going on about airplanes what's going on about politics that we've made uh relationships that are friend or copanis are people that Daniella you're going to want to talk to Martin four years ago just because you're thinking about something and you want to hear what he might think about uh and so if I'm if my crystal ball is anywhere near right I see the real growth and the growth potential is in the kinds of projects that you've just done and I've been involved with a goodly number of those as well as touring uh finished pieces but Martin you've done deep work with two American companies now that I know well and you've left them better I think they've left you better and can what can you can you talk about what's really baseline quintessential about making that collaboration work from what you've just experienced in this one from your side Martin and from your side Daniella and Jonathan what's the baseline curiosity is important I I imagine because if you come to not just an international but to any kind of collaboration without real curiosity and openness you can pretend it for a while but in the end it will clash and it will result in compromised work and in in conflicts so that probably plus you need curiosity and openness to understand the difference in norms and and cultural codes and speaking a language somewhat or in an upper intermediate level is not not it doesn't equal understanding the culture um so that's that's something that I needed to learn for example throughout these works and for me these the the ground where I that allowed me to meet parts of the culture were always within um theatrical work which is partially nice because there are um because people who who like generally think about the word similarly and and inclusive and and open-minded tolerant people and but that's but that that getting to know them will never authorize me to make statements about phenomenons that I observe here I can I can chime in and I can post questions but to me when I work abroad it's always important to provoke instead of make statements because I I'm always aware of this position of being an outsider I'm not sure if if this is an answer to your question it's a great answer Daniela sorry were you about to say something no I was saying I saw you getting ready to say something I own um I mean I think I would totally echo the curiosity and um I think ability to be really flexible I mean particularly at this time when what does it mean to make work and how do you make it and various challenges and being able to I mean what has been amazing about watching your leadership through this Martin is that you you've been very clear about what you intend to make and also very flexible and collaborative simultaneously and that is a really hard balance um and you know it's super exciting to find like-minded collaborators um who come from different parts of the world um that in many ways are you know the the collaboration is more similar than someone who lives down the street and that's feels like this so magical and fun um I think we've been very very lucky and fortunate to have such um advocacy and support from the trust for mutual understanding um from Barbara Lancers and um from you Phillip in order to make some things that could be barriers um for Martin to be present here to be fully present here to be supported to be here um that the fact that those things have been possible has made things very um doable you know as opposed to oh we want you but you can only come for five days and not the whole process or whatever that is so I think being able to find hunt the resources somehow in order to make things happen has been really essential also to make this possible just on a really practical level oh maybe go ahead yeah go ahead something interesting to mention that um for me when you and I Phillip first talked about a possible international collaboration or American-Hungarian collaboration I remember that I wasn't there at all on like basic structural things how theater works here as opposed to Hungary and Europe so for example the lack of governmental funding which is not just a financial question but an attitude question and and how self-esteem question and how much you you need to rely on marketing and how much you need to rely on your members and your board and and your audience and um but for example um seeing how different theaters operate within this condition um I also learned so much about how you need to how you can engage different communities and people who really think of your work and of your theater as their own and people who for whom just being part of your your work can become a lifestyle and become a routine and become a community and so every single time I return from a collaboration like this this is this is one of my uh takeaways and also um yeah just to see um yeah learn learn different practices and and different words I I met so many amazing actors here and seeing how many actors are uh here available and hungry for for good work um and good plays and good collaborations uh we we had some unfortunate obstacles throughout the way and and um someone important from the cast uh uh from from this original reading that Jonathan mentioned and we did in the summer couldn't take part because of COVID and and we needed to find someone uh who who wouldn't who none of us would feel uh is a compromise and and magically uh it turned out to be um an amazing uh meeting um and it it was just for example something striking for me how many actors are how many great actors are in this city who who can be available if if there is if the offer is interesting enough well we're about out of time so it's time to give a little plug uh this piece will open Saturday night is that my understanding um it officially opens the 20th although what is opening but it starts 20th of January 2022 because some of you might be seeing this in 2025 because one of the great things about howl around is that they archive this so you know if this is something that you know you think your friend Nancy needs to see she didn't lose out Nancy can go to howl around and look up this on the archives and see it and then it will it will let's roll the tape back to 2022 it'll run until um it'll run until February 13th okay and um I hope you will all get a chance to see it I I thank you all for a very enlightening hour with us uh I'm I'm so impressed with what you've done and so inspired by what you've done uh so keep up the good work and thank you howl around 10 years old save your money peace everybody