 Thank you. Hey, Laurie. In the chair. Taking notes. And here's the young-ish upstart. Yay. Young-ish upstart. Young-ish upstart. Hi, I'm a member. I'm a founding member of the Bloomsburg Theater Ensemble of the Bloomsburg Museum. We are pleased to see them. You can get a little bit more of this sort of re-murdered history of art history, but let it be said that we are people who came together at a time when we needed to come together to put forth our way of working, which is artist-centered, artist-empowered, and we believe and we work in a way that proves that this is true, that theater, great theater, is made through collaborative cooperation. It's our belief that it remains our mindsets. We have incredibly, incredibly varying aesthetics, incredibly varying missions among the study companies here, but this is what we share in this world. Yes. We rotate in a space, it reminds me of Greg, one of the members of the Heartbeat Ensemble, great performer, great spirit. Sure. People who are not here, you'd like to acknowledge. Raise up the names. I know a lot of the southern contingent is in New Orleans. Let's hear it for the New Orleans contingent. Yay. Lisa Walker and Kate Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller. Thank you. Are they there? Yes. Ruth Malychic and Judith Malian. Reza Abdo, Joe Carson. To see if I stay seated or is that a problem now? I'm going to resist the urge to just complete my alligator skin briefs. Last time. There's a lot more leaders that can make jokes about history of time. I do want to keep the spirit from last night in the room. It's going to be participatory. It's going to get a whole lot more participatory in just a moment. But if you'd like something I say, you can make noises. But also, if you don't like something I say, you can interrupt me. Please do. I can't represent the full diversity of our field. That can't be on me or any one of us. So if I say something that feels wrong, please stand up and gently correct me. Raise gentle corrections. Just make them brief because I don't have enough time. I want to just again acknowledge the resilience and longevity of the field. We are approaching a big anniversary, which is exciting but also what's so thrilling is how many people focus. This is their first net gathering. I want to acknowledge that as the field has grown, it's changed. There's just a lot more practitioners identifying as ensemble and that's really thrilling. The growth is actually kind of amazing. There are numbers about it. We could have Ella come out here and do a presentation. We also know that ensemble's profile has lifted, not anywhere near as big as it should be, but it is not insignificant the amount of change that has occurred in regional theaters recognizing the value of the work of ensembles, of funders recognizing the work of ensembles, and thank you to the funders who have made the time to come here and be with us to all our possibilities. So much to acknowledge. Since that's been around, there's been a lot of changes in the broader culture. There's a lot of conversation around how data and measurement and impact drive how we talk about the work we do and that's good. And it's bad, right? It's myth, it's both. It's the rise of our digital age so we can say hi to howl around. And what that means for live arts, right? It's not good or bad, it's both. The rise of participation, right? Last night was a really good example of that. Participation is much bigger and not just in a theatrical sense. Our expectations of participation, culturally as a democracy, are rising. Inquiry of place, perhaps in reaction to the digital age, the arts have become a lot more invested in place and that is a fraught conversation, right? Even the term place-making has a lot of ambivalence, right? But it's real. It's a big change that has occurred and is continuing to occur in our field. Political polarization. We exist in an age right now where a mainstream candidate can rise to prominence by suggesting we deport 11 million people. That is... Don't look at my life for immigrant haters. Sorry. Don't look at my life for immigrant haters. That is a beautiful introduction. That's for real, right? That's a fake bonus. I'm not sure how possible that could have been. That is showing this rise in political polarization but at the same time, there's a renewed commitment to social justice and movements that identify as social justice are operating in an intersectional way, right? It's the recognition that racial justice is climate justice, is economic justice, and so on. And so that gives me hope that maybe what is happening in our country is you know that moment in an ensemble where you kind of go along to get along and then you reach that point, right? Where you've got to actually be clear on what you're talking about and what you mean and what you're really trying to do. So my hope is... That's what's happening in the U.S., right? That's incredible polarization where everyone's yelling at each other. It's like that moment in the ensemble room where you're like, no, what I mean is this. But that on the other end of that is a much healthier United States country. And that journey that we have been on culturally has really been reflected in what that has been doing. Who here had attended at least one micro-fest? It's your hand. If your hand is not raised now, do not feel bad. It is merely an opportunity for you to make a new relationship and to talk to someone who had their hand raised. A lot of the phenomenal work that happened during the micro-fest was really in conversation with those things that I just talked about, right? And through those micro-fest, we know a lot more than we know now. These are some things that I think we know and from the board perspective, a lot of what we've been doing, obviously, is just unpacking all the things that we discovered from the micro-fest and trying to understand what they mean for that moving forward. And I didn't get to finish this list in my little morning bag, so bear with me as I improvise the rest of it. The first piece is that we really need to resist that polarization. There has been a conversation within this community that this position of work that defines itself as primarily about artistic inquiry and work that defines itself as social justice is somehow being opposite or a binary. I think what we have learned is that they are on a spectrum. They inform and support each other. Work that is in community or doing social justice very often has to be incredibly innovative in its artistic inquiry in order to achieve the goal that it's trying to do. And very often the work that comes out of the artistic inquiry is the tool we've been looking for to make the change that we want to see. So these things are in conversation within each other and we are stronger for those differences. The second piece is the work must be diverse and equitable or it must not be. We are not going to go back to a time where there is just one kind of voice that is representing what that is, what the feel is. That just can't be anymore. We acknowledge that we got two co-chairs that are white coming up here. Part of not going back is acknowledging things like that. So I want over the course of this time for us to be really brave and interrupting power dynamics that are problematic. We make each other stronger when we do that. We do not get defensive when that happens. This is the part where I get to improvise. I ran out of time. I think the third piece because we really want to get to actually talking to each other is that it is going to be participatory. The future of that is going to be created. That is the roots of that. The network of ensemble theaters was just that in its beginning. It was a network of ensemble theaters figuring out what they wanted to do together. I am one of the inheritors of that extraordinary legacy. As we stand at this particular moment of a staff transition but I think something much larger in our field and in our culture where the world is looking for different models of being together, different models of distributing power and access and decision making we have a unique moment to think about how that can co-create that future. So a lot of what we are going to be doing together in this time is thinking about what collaborative creation means not just in its traditional confines but perhaps more broadly across discipline across sector and we are going to be co-creating together the future of what that looks like. So what that means is you are all tasked with a responsibility. You are all tasked with a responsibility for what that looks like. It is not enough to sit back unless you are sitting back and listening with incredible intention. That is all I have to say. A full amazing day ahead of us but before we get to that we have a lot of new people with us and a lot of not new people with us but I really want to get a sense and have all of us get a sense of who is in the room and also give you some time. I know there have been a lot of conversations happening so far but give you some time to talk amongst yourselves a little bit before we all scatter away. So I am going to move this so nobody gets hurt first but can we do a little cultural mapping for a minute? Yes. As you are able and willing to stand and let's go with ensemble for the organization that you identify as being most closely affiliated with whichever of those applies to you. I am going to say from you started this morning to you've been around for such a long time and kind of stretch around and go that way. So really new to really old and you can talk how old is your ensemble or the organization that you are building for? Older. Yes. Justin and Moira Church 1860. Pretty church and theater and a song. We have OSF in the room. And what year was it? 1935. So what year is it? How old around here are we? 27. 25. 14. 15. 16. I think you get to choose. Distribution all the way around which is sort of awesome and amazing to see. So from where you are how long have you or that organization been connected with NET, whatever that means to you? So I'm going to go from yesterday the morning when I got here to very clear everything. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Awesome people. Thank you. The number and a rough guess is fine. Number of in person NET events that you personally have attended. Including this one. You did that the fastest of all. So I'm going to start down here I'm guessing this is your first event you can talk now. Glad you're here and so coming around two, three, seven, oh seven, eight, nine, more than ten. 15 seconds, find yourself someone either who is at a very different place in this land than you are or is really close to where you are.