 So welcome, everybody, back here to the Martin's Segal Center, the Graduate Center CUNY. This is the last panel here at the Graduate Center of the Segal Center. From Craig Hill, it's our 20th anniversary edition. It's a very important festival for us, but this also is a very significant and important panel for us and something we all might and should focus even more on it. It is one of the three big questions they hold in Trinity. There's time, money, but there's space in theater. And with the space, the light goes on rightly. So there is a lot of space, but also space is missing. And from all the discussions, the panels we had, actually what was in the very center of it, always, always came back is about, you know, to have space and to connect people to space and the right people to the right space. So this is what we're gonna talk about. I would like to welcome our viewers from HowlRound who are nationally-wide broadcasts. This is an important discussion and we didn't want to have it on Zoom, but so I feel it is important that we meet in person, see all of each other and listen. And I think it's a lot about listening, perhaps also even radical listening, but these are masters in their field. These are people who have dedicated their lives who taught of their professional career to have spaces, create spaces and connect people. So it's something to learn from it, not only how they get messy, but also the way how they think. And we are in a complicated moment, a dangerous moment for theater. There's a lot of talk about doom and gloom, but I think as the previous festival showed, there's a lot is happening. But there are also people behind, sometimes we do not know, and I didn't know all of you before, who are doing work, which is groundwork and it's basic work, it's foundational. And I'd like to hear, of course, you know, what's all on your mind, what you're doing, all your institutions. One, we couldn't make it the sacred spaces. Karen will give us a short video, it's like one or two minutes, bear with us. But we are now getting really an insight into what a city provides. And people think about institutions, people think about the city as a structure. Ultimately, it's often the individuals who makes things happen. These are people here. So it's something to really listen carefully to and also get ideas inspired and also hopefully, will contribute that we are part of the change we want to see and you all are doing this. So that's why I'm so honored to have you all with us that you took our time. And so thank you. And the format will be that we go from Randy down the line, but following our prelude example of this talk, maybe I'll ask randomly some people in the audience, if it comes to space and you are an artist or you work with the audience and Jess, would you like to start with a short segment? Should I say that there are a lot of empty buildings and vacant spots and they should be filled with theater and for aesthetic needs as well. So I think that we, those spaces open to us. Thank you. We'll be holding spaces for people, whether it's for theater or healing, it's super important. And I hope that funding and they can secure artists' jobs in the future. No real comment at this moment. I'm just curious. Can you listen? Okay. What do you think about space for artists? More like a space in mind is more important to be expressed, to be picked from and it's very important for me. It's a space of mind. Yes. Yes, yes. Hi, everyone. Tess, hi, everyone. So when I think of space, I think of things. I think of me serving space and taking up space because as an artist, I'm not only a senior entity, I'm a village, but then a village. So much of my work is about opening doors and you certainly space and lack of real artists. Thank you. So Randy, what do you think about space? Hi, everybody. I think about space all the time. It's something I think about every single day. So I'll introduce myself and tell you a little bit about my organization, the organization I'm the executive director of. My name's Randy Berry, my pronouns are she, her, hers. And I'm the executive director of Indie Space which is a community organizer and industry cooperative that provides radically transparent, equitable and responsive funding, real estate programs, professional development and advocacy for individual artists, small companies and indeed venues. We, I'm gonna talk about the real estate programming in this context, but of course it's inextricably linked to the funding conversation that we have to have. Indie Space was created to address systemic inequities in real estate to make sure that those of us that have not been able to operate space can and that they have the tools and network and research and advocacy and knowledge in order to operate space efficiently and sustainably. We do that in a bunch of different ways. Two of the main ways that we support space making is through a free advisory and consulting program where we work with artists that are facing a real estate transition challenge or opportunity and we provide them all the resources we have at our fingertips with real estate experience in order to help them navigate whatever that challenges. I should say that I'm an indie theater maker myself and I worked in commercial real estate as my day job because I couldn't afford to pay myself as an artist. And I was the director of operations for the investment properties group at CBRD for a long time and worked on $11 billion in real estate transactions. All while I was rehearsing for free in the vacant spaces of the buildings that we were selling. Yes, and working with my real estate colleagues creating fundraisers that I know they were the only people that could afford to come to and trying to figure out how to make my way through using the day job that I had to have in order to access space for myself and my theater company. And so indie space was created with one of my partners at CBRD at the time, it's not at CBRD anymore but the financial analyst was a big indie theater supporter and said, why don't we do what we were already doing with the indie theater fund for artists through real estate. So that free advisory and consulting program takes all of the network and resources and knowledge that we built in that work and we have a board that is familiar like has real estate experience and we hand that right over to the artists that we work with. The other way is we're developing affordable spaces in unique ways. We're trying to partner with community boards with like-minded developers with public space and with local venues to create cooperative spaces, to create collaborative spaces, to create inclusive spaces that are affordable and long-term or permanent. That's what we're doing right now. Is that good for now? Yeah. Okay. I would just say that I think our way forward is collaborative spaces and the sharing of resources. I think it's always been critical but it's especially critical right now. And there's a lot of that happening not just with my organization but with every organization that's up here. So I'm excited to have this conversation and make sure that everybody knows what resources are there available to them. That's right. Kat, this is also Zachary here. She here pronouns. I'm the Director of Programming and Justice Initiatives at DanceNYC. So primarily I'm a dance maker, producer from Trinidad and Tobago originally and I've been with DanceNYC for about the last four years. The organization is about going on 12 years old at its own entity. And it is the service organization that promotes the appreciation and advancement of dance in New York City and the metropolitan area through justice, equity and inclusion. And so we do that through a lot of the programming that we do and leadership training and the way that we gather people to talk about issues around equity. We do that through the visibility that we offer on our website dance.nyc which is like a one-stop shop for auditions and listings and community calendars for resources that the dance community needs. We also do that through one of our, well, our regranting programs, one of which is the Recursal Space Subsidy Program of which my friend here is, I can't see. And that is a program that is funded by the Bellin Foundation that allows us to partner with spaces and venues across the five boroughs and we subsidize their spaces so that they can offer them to artists at much lower costs, right? Between eight and $20 an hour, which you know, at this point is really, it's like basically, but we make it available that, the communities that these spaces serve can serve their people basically. So that the Recursal Space Subsidy Program is a big one and is one that I would say really kind of upholds our sector. I joked on another talk that I did that when people walk into a space and they say it's $20, I'm like, y'all, you know, that's not a real rate. Anytime you get a space that's $20 or less, someone is subsidizing it. And it's so prevalent now that people take it for granted, but we know behind the scenes that that kind of intervention is what is making it possible for so many dance makers to do their work, to train, to meet, to ideate, to create new works. So yeah, that's just like a really critical program. We also serve the field through our advocacy, which is another place I think that space comes up a lot. And then finally through our research, right? Like the kind of case making that went into even a program like Recursal Space Subsidy Coming to Life was pulling from some of the data that we collected from the dance field that said that among immigrant and foreign-born artists, affordable space is one of the most critical needs. Among BIPOC, dance makers and dance artists, critical space, affordable critical space is what they needed the most, right? So part of our work is, you know, going into the field, finding out what people are experiencing, where their needs are, where the barriers are, building the data, the actionable data that people can use, right? For their funding colleagues at City Council, how can we change policies that make some of these spaces more accessible? I'm putting that data in the hands of dance makers, in the hands of wonderful people that currently, so that we can start to make change to make things more affordable. So that's what I did. Thank you, Candice. Good afternoon evening, everyone. I am Erin L. McKinney, Egan Piz, and I'm the Executive Director of High Arts, formerly the Hip Hop Theater Festival, we are a 23-year-old organization. We do theater, music, dance, and visual art dedicated to hip hop and urban culture. So we really serve artists of the golden majority slash people of color, basically. And so space for us, like I said, we do theater, music, dance, and visual art. Space for us, we are, you know, very fortunate to be located in Art Space PS109. We have been there since they opened in 2015 up in East Harlem. And we, since we've been there and we are one of the anchor commercial tenants, we have been able to move into a larger space. So now we occupy a 3,500 square foot studio slash classroom slash office slash rehearsal space. And then we also have access to a shared black box and dance studio within the building. And this building, if you don't know, Art Space PS109 is a, used to be a school and now it's 90 affordable artist housing units with four commercial arts organizations in the building that shares some of the space. So again, theater, music, dance, visual art dedicated to hip hop and urban culture. Thanks to Dance NYC, we can offer subsidized rates for dance and movement artists. And so right now we can offer rehearsal rates for $10 an hour, which basically is nothing. But the problem is not many people know about it. And especially mainly for artists of color in East Harlem because what we've heard is that there is no space in East Harlem for rehearsal, which is not true. There is space, it's just not accessible. And so that's the question that we're trying to answer making sure that there is accessible space for our artists in East Harlem. We also, one of our programs is called the One Wall Movement, Speaking of Space. And what we do is we find walls in the city and we give opportunities and support artists, mainly artists of color who do not have the opportunity to put up large scale murals. So if you go to Art Space PS109, you will see a large mural on the side of the building that was done by one of our artists. And if you go to a building, it's on 112 between Frederick Douglass and Adam Clay and Flower. There's another, our second mural that was put up there called Flower, Girls in Harlem. And that's another mural. So Speaking of Space, not only, we're talking about rehearsal spaces, but wall space, we think about, like I said, the work we do is dedicated to hip hop culture. So they're graffiti artists, they're writing artists that they need space to do their work. And so that's one of our main missions is to make sure that we are providing space. We are an organization that focuses on process. And so we always say process of a product. And so we just want to make sure that there's space, again, especially for artists of color, because most artists of color are conditioned to have a product, to make a product. They're never really supported in the process, which is very important because they don't have room to explore, to figure out what works, what doesn't work, to really take their work to the next level. So that's who we are. Hi, Alex. You can always go to our website, www.hi-artsnyc.org, to find out about all of our programming, to find out about our rental spaces, or you can follow us on social media, all platforms, hiartsnyc. So I'll be in there and we can talk more after everyone else is gone. Thanks, Erin. Hi, everyone. I'm Anna Fiori. I use she, her, hers pronouns. I am the director of artist services at LMCC, which was founded as the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. But since the 80s has really served as the Arts Council for the Borough of Manhattan, and we work throughout the entire borough. Within the artist services work that we do, we are primarily focused on being a re-grantor of public and private funding for independent artists, as well as small emerging organizations throughout the borough, who are doing any sort of community engaged programming and presentations. And then most pertinent to today's conversation, we are a residency provider for artists in need of studio space, working across disciplines and providing space, primarily in temporarily vacant office spaces in Lower Manhattan. So this is a model that we have been working in since the 90s. We originally were able to move into space on the 92nd and 93rd floors of the World Trade Center at that time and provide space originally just for visual artists. And then it has expanded since then. But working with a roving temporary model means that we work with a lot of different real estate owners and developers and we move pretty much every year in terms of where the residency is housed. It also means that we are working in a studio model that is pretty DIY and scrappy, but that I think allows us to help foster collaboration and artist communities to be built because folks are working in spaces that are more open and collective and shared, especially as with the affordability crisis that we have in the city, those kinds of communal artist communities are occurring less naturally and they're less available for folks to form those or they're happening maybe in less dense neighborhoods in the city. And it is also in an effort to be a bridge or be the intermediary between some of these big developers and corporations and space owners in Lower Manhattan for artists to be able to gain access to those spaces and to be able to take over the space for that purpose. And so we like to say we've changed what it means to work in Lower Manhattan through that program. The other residency program I'll just touch quickly on is we've also been out on Governor's Island for over a decade now. We were one of the first year-round semi-permanent tenants back in 2010 that started working on the island and we are able to provide year-round studio space to artists out there. We have really beautiful dance rehearsal studios out there as well as space for writers and theater makers and visual artists. And I think that this is very much in alignment with our goals and desires to ensure that as new development is happening in the city and especially new public spaces are being created, that arts are part of the inception of that work and remain core to the way that space is getting used and doled out throughout the city. And so to be able to be part of an arts community that now is really flourishing on Governor's Island and is full of a lot of organizations and to have helped foster that and helped kind of demonstrate the way that that could be important to the development of that public space has been really important. And it's been really wonderful to continue to be able to, yeah, support artists there. The last thing I'll touch on very quickly, which is a studio residency, but is another way to think about space for artists is that we are also a provider of the Tsukasa program, which is a partnership with the city and this places artists in residence in senior centers throughout the city to provide space primarily for activities with older adults and for artists who are interested in a creative aging practice and a participatory practice that incorporates older adults into their process and work. So other, you know, public venues in which artists can have a more active role and have a job and receive a wage. Yeah, we get there. Awesome, it's great to be on this panel with some amazing folks. My name is Baba Israel, he, him. I'm the artistic director of the performance project based at the university settlement. I first have to say the great sunrise space is the place has had to get that out. And I think I wanna also acknowledge my own upbringing, I grew up in the living theater. And so I wanna sort of bring in and acknowledge a tradition of street theater, of theater that comes, that claims space, takes over space, that takes space. I grew up in a children's theater company and political company, theater company. We used to do performances in Washington Square Park. And for my early formative years as an artist I was a street performer for many years. So just a reminder that artists can just take space at any moment. But that is also a privilege and there are limitations. But I just wanna acknowledge that spirit in New York. Cause I think the way that New York is always, New York artists have always just claimed space permit or not. So I wanted to just acknowledge that. But now to speak in my institutional hat for a second. Performance project is based at the university settlement which is, I think the unique model is part that attracted me to this work is that we're a small arts program based in a very large social service organization where we probably have 30 buildings that are connected to us. Throughout Brooklyn and the Lower East Side. And we also have our own theater in the Lower East Side which, you know, and our building has been there. We've been there since the late 1800s. So there's a lot of history. Aaron, you guys come see our space recently. We have artists in common. And so that, what that affords us in a way the fact that we have our own theater space gives us a lot of flexibility when it comes to ticket prices, being able to comp community members, being able to be really flexible with how we use and share space. I think a couple of things that I'll share specifically that we've been working on around space. Think partnership is key. So we've been working on a program with Brick who have been our core partners in something called the Intergenerational Community Arts Council. And the idea with that program has been really to switch who's at the decision making place of arts curation and programming. And so this is a group of 15 public housing residents from downtown Brooklyn who designed a call for artists in residence and then collaborate with that artist to create events that specifically happen, not in arts venues, but in cornerstone community centers in public housing. And so that's been a really important new model for us which is to not just create work in our theater space but to actually create work within the cornerstone community centers that we manage. So the settlement manages three cornerstones. Two in Brooklyn, one in Lower East Side and if you don't know what a cornerstone is, that's a community center that's embedded in the public housing residents. And so we worked with a wonderful artist called Pia Monique Murray recently on a series of events. And really the idea was to bring production value, to bring artistic integrity into spaces which often are not invested in and to really celebrate the amazing artists that are in those communities and in those spaces making work and to have the resources of both of our institutions to support that process. So I think that's one thing that's been exciting for me is like break and open where we can do art making and it doesn't have to just be in a traditional theater environment but working in these cornerstones has been a real breakthrough for us. And then I think also, we have an artist in residence program which brings artists to collaborate with all of our various community programs that might be seniors, that might be early childhood, that might be after school, that might be mental health, that might be adult literacy, recent immigrants who are learning English. And so what that allows us to do is to really embed artists in all of those spaces. So artists are working in community centers, after school programs, senior centers, early childhood programs. And we try to find a balance between that interaction serving their development and their own creative process but also creating opportunities for artists to develop, rehearse and practice and develop process in those spaces too. We give every artist and residence a minimum of 100 hours of free space and that's really important to us. Right? Yeah. Cool. All right, so, I don't know. It's recorded. I don't know if you gotta hold it then. Okay. I'm gonna be on it. So I'm gonna ask everybody to like stand up and just stretch for a second. If it was a little long. Yeah. If it was a little long. If it was a little long. And then we're gonna take our arms, we're just gonna like make a little heart and then we're like, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. For a bigger heart. So, thank you. Now, can I just like go and give a hug to anybody who's right next to you? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, okay, yeah. So I believe that space, you can make theater happen, connection happen in any space, anywhere at any time. Yes. And I've been doing this since 1989, finding space for artists. I started with Reza Addo and he knows, he would not, he needed space that no one had ever used. So I would find him space, old hotels, beautiful hotels, empty space for everybody. So what do I do? I give space to artists, as you said, empty spaces in New York should be used. So we give space for anything you can dream of. We will give it to you for it. Basically. That's a lot of it. Is there something you can do? Thank you. Oh, yes. Cheshawng. That's what we do. So yeah. So small businesses, free art classes. We do a lot of free art classes. Charles Esperanza. He gets a free space. He makes books for harpers. And then in exchange for that free space, he teaches at a transitional housing. Theater. We're doing a lot of theater. We just got a theater. New Ohio, 154 Christopher Street. So we are going to give that out for free. That's what I'm going to try to write grants for. And... I do a lot of it. Oh, yes. We're talking to the DCLA to make it the state of art theater. So it's really beautiful. And we're getting a new lighting system, new sound system for that. We're expanding. That's right. We're in Selamunca, New York, in the cup. So yeah, we're really... So we're in Selamunca. Same thing. We get property owners to donate space to us. And then we give it to artists. That's what we do. We have 13 million worth of space. We have 45 locations right now. And there you go. Pass it on to you guys. So, so much to talk about. First, do you sense something is changing in New York City when it comes to space? Better or worse? I would say absolutely. I think with coming out of the pandemics, there is a question about accessibility. And who has access to space? Who can afford space? What can be done in the space? There, to be honest, I think there's a lot of gatekeeping that has always happened, but now is being questioned and now is being challenged. And so some of those places that have been comfortable gatekeeping those spaces are now being challenged and things are being turned on its head. And people are, artists are really looking into how to gain more access to space. Who's running these spaces? What are these spaces used for? Who is gatekeeping these spaces? And, you know, asking the questions. My opinion, more artists need to be in charge of spaces. And yeah, that's just a simple little bit. More artists need to be in charge of spaces because who knows how to use the space, you know, like an artist. It's nice to observe this, but if you're practicing artists on the stage, yeah. And in high arts, our staff, we have an eight-person staff, four ones on four part time. Each staff member has an artist practice outside of their administration work. Yeah, the thing I would say, so we were tracking studio closures, you know, again, I'm a dance. And the study we released in 2021 said that 18 studios had closed from the pandemic. And then there were names of more that got released after that. So I think it does especially, it was sort of, well, not sort of, it was a survival of the fittest, right? Like people who could, you know, take on debts, people who could survive by other means, people who could take their classes online, people whose studio numbers didn't go down to zero are the ones who kind of made it to the other side. And I do think now the other thing that I'm just thinking about is that where people gravitate to use space is also dependent on their relationships with the community that the space is in and also the people that are holding the keys, right? Like who's running that space? Like the space I love to go to is one that's like one neighborhood over from me. I know the owner, I feel a sense of home when I go there. So I think in terms of at least the people, the artists that I'm in close contact with, a big part of what's driving us to take up space in certain areas, like where we wanna rehearse, where we wanna make work is to find that sense of home and the community. That's huge. I really appreciate that. And I think it's, there's a lot of artists, I feel struggling with isolation at the moment because I think inflation is intense, rents are intense, people are working extraordinary hours, you know, to survive and make their work. And I think one of the things is how do we cultivate environments where artists can not only have focused time to rehearse in a closed door, but also the informal social interactions. I think in this space, you've been doing something really cool with this sort of open office hours model, you know, where you invite people to hang out and cross-pollinate. I ran a theater in England called Contact Theater and we were well funded by the government because it's England. So, you know, we were able to give out extraordinary amounts of free space. But for me, the cafe was so important because it was a place where artists, when they came out of rehearsal, well, we're getting ready to go into rehearsal or coming out with me, chat, cross-pollinate, share. And so I feel like that's just an element I wanna hold up is, you know, how do we create those moments for artists too? Because I think sometimes those kinds of meetings, conversations, sharing actually give people the fuel to keep going even more than just the isolated rehearsal process. And so that sense of home is so vital. One of the spaces we're working on, we're calling home, we were talking about that today, right? So we were trying to create spaces that feel like a home for indie theater, especially because so many organizations are itinerant and they're not meant to. Some artists wanna run space, but not all artists wanna run a space, right? Like some really want someone else to run it. But they want to be in community with that group or people that are running it. And they want it to feel fair and just and safe and all of those things. And I forgot when I was talking before I mentioned the one thing we do with our programming, but I forgot to mention the spaces that we're working on. So we have the West Village Rehearsal Co-op. This is a 99 year lease for a dollar a year that we were able to work together with the community board, CB2 in Manhattan, our city council members, the speaker of the city council and then my wonderful partners, which are here Art Center, the new Ohio and Radle Stinkly Rings Theater. Those are three operating theaters in that neighborhood that were really seeking, they were bursting at the seams and needed additional rehearsal space, but also we wanted to make sure that that resource was not only for those that already had space, right? So we operated six months out of the year and they each get two months out of the year. And because we were able to collaborate with the developer and the community board, our max, max, max is gonna be $10 or it has been $10 an hour. In most cases, we've been able to give it for between $5 and $8 an hour. So partnership is important, but what's different, I think there are some things that are different, but I think space and it being too expensive and not easy enough to get is a problem that I've been trying to create theater here for 25 years and it's been my same problem. It's why I had to get a job in real estate to rehearse in the building through something because I couldn't afford to rehearse otherwise and I certainly couldn't afford to pay any artist myself included if I was paying for a rehearsal space. So that feels same old. What's not the same at least in the last 25 years but was a few decades before that is how much available space there is right now. 80 million square feet of vacant space in the city, not to mention spaces that are theaters but remain empty almost all the time. That is, we have to change that. Like that's the key, right? To me, if we're worried about the collapse of the American theater and we're worried about large institutions, we need to start thinking about who's holding keys, right? I don't want the American theater to collapse. I actually think there's a lot of artists that want institute, not everybody. Let me be fair, let me be clear. We want fair pay, we wanna be paid, we wanna have access but we don't all wanna offer buildings because it's not necessarily healthy for everybody to operate buildings but those that have all this vacant space, we need to start rethinking how we rebuild together. Sometimes some of them are gonna have to fail, right? But we don't want all of them to fail and we wanna rethink instead how we can fill those spaces of people that have been systemically excluded from those spaces. And I think we do that together. That's where the city, state, and philanthropy can step in and help us. They could say small, itinerant theater companies, individual artists, global majority artists, disabled artists, most of those big institutions are accessible spaces, right? So many spaces in New York City are not ADA compliant and because people rent those spaces they don't have the capacity to, or the ability that even if they add the money they can't add an elevator. So we need to take these accessible spaces that have been privately funded, that have been publicly funded and rethink who's using them. In partnership, I think we can help each other get through this moment which is a difficult moment for everybody. I have a thought. What is it? One is to piggyback on what you're saying. One of the things that's happening now is that the city of yes that the city is working on in terms of changing the zoning laws. Maybe you know about this in more granular detail but I know that one of the events that they're planning is to be able to turn, to make storefronts in certain zones available for use by like art studios or dance studios which were not available before to take up those kinds of spaces. I think there's some weird rule that you could only be in like the back room or upstairs. And that's one of the things that's on the table right now but we just need to make sure that it actually happens. The other thing I wanted to say is about in terms of what's changed maybe or what should be changing is this idea of the practice of making these spaces more accessible especially for people who use wheelchairs or need accommodations that should be given but aren't in a lot of our old architecture. And so that being top of mind for all of us now in terms of how we program, how we invest and how we look at the spaces that we occupy every day. And there was a third thing that I think has eluded me so I will say that it's no longer. Oh, the third thing is our friend Karen who works at sacred places. I don't know if the video is here but I do want to just mention that Dan from IC and Randy are both in partnership with her and they work to make sure that sacred places create partnerships with artists because they have so much space. Let's have a look at the video. So Karen is on the way in the airplane right now she wouldn't come. It's a partnership for sacred spaces. So it is temples, synagogues, churches. Mosques. Mosques and what else? Yeah, faith spaces. Yeah. Questions. Hi, I'm Karen, the director of strategic partnerships for partners for sacred places. And I'm so sorry I can't be with you today on the rest of the stories and my container just not in line at this time around. I'm currently in the final phase of our Illinois State Performers in Sacred Places program. So if you are a performer in New York City and you're looking for creation space or if you are just looking for a more affordable space then you can see the Performers in Sacred Places program that we reviewed. Connected in partnership with the NIC and in these spaces this program is taking artists who are in need of space for performance rehearsal, classroom, office, no maintenance. The program is also for community state places throughout New York City who are interested in sharing their space with New York City artists and performers and there's no fee participating. For full information and details you can go to sacredplaces.org slash NYC. The registration is on that same webpage sacredplaces.org slash NYC. Just click on the button in the red box. Our last two training sessions will be on November 4th of this year and April 13th of next year. Thank you so much for your time and please contact me if you have any questions at all and I look forward to meeting you soon. Beautiful. I think one thing I'd like to talk a little bit about I'm curious to see what you all feel about this is there's space, the physicality of space but then there's also the culture and quality of space and I think that's just as important to discuss. And I know one thing that I feel positive about one thing we've got feedback from the artists that we work with is that they like coming into our building because it's a building full of elders, young people, local community members folks who are in the arts, not in the arts it's like it feels like New York when they walk in our building. And that's not always true of institutions in New York and I think that's a question. I know some artists have worked with some institutions and felt alienated felt unwelcome felt the way they were greeted by security didn't feel good. And so I just wanted to raise that too like the quality of your experience and how you enter and exit the space really affects your practice particularly when you're working in very vulnerable ways in performance. So I just wanted to throw that here. I think that that's another quality that we should all be paying attention to. And I think folks up here are but it's just something I wanted to raise. Well, and that's what I was gonna say earlier is I think a lot of what we've been alluded to and talking about and talking around his community building as a part of space and space usage and space accessibility. I think it's very important as you were saying like the comfort level of being in space at high yards we're trying to say that we are creating a hub or home for artists like eventually we want artists just to stop by come sit on the floor and have coffee and write a book, read a book. It doesn't matter but somewhere where they feel safe and secure to do what they do or just be to exist. And I think that's a thing that we need to consider as far as spaces like the community building aspect of it. Who are we in the community with? How are we treating our community members as we're in this space? Yeah, I mean, one thing that I've been heartened to see like one thing I wanna shout out about Brick that I appreciate is that stoop. You know what I mean? And that when venues have a social space that does not require a ticket to be purchased to engage and enter, you know? And I think wherever that we can encourage that to happen I think it helps to continue to accessibility because then that social process of people coming and gathering my oh, then there's a little flyer. There's few rehearsals based on this. I bumped into this person. So many things happened because of organic communication word of mouth. So I think continuing to set a precedent that if new space is open in New York that there is a public social space that does not require ticket entry and whose main focus is not just the selling of tickets, you know? And lobbies should not just be for selling tickets they should be places of public gathering. And I think that's like a really important value that I want to highlight. Yeah, I'm also just thinking about how community building is so essential to a successful shared space model and that it allows us to actually move from a place where it feels like we have limited resources to a place that actually feels abundant and full of possibility when you are embraced by and sharing in community in a way that is like equitable and clear and accessible. We work on a cohort model. So we invite cohorts or groups of artists to come into space with us at the same time. And that means we need to ensure that when we welcome folks in we are creating a platform and a container for that community building to happen. But the beautiful thing is that as we start to try and foster it we then hand it over. And the artists build those relationships and have beautifully creative ways of being in community and relationship with one another. And it also means that our shared communal spaces then are organized by them in the ways that make the most sense for their group and for the sharing that needs to happen. And that kind of space sharing it feels like our kind of only way forward at this point just given the, yeah, given the way the city is continuing to develop and the way funding is working right now. Before the pandemic we already had a crisis around small venues closing and there being fewer and fewer of them being viable especially in Lower Manhattan. And so many of them have closed before and continue to close. And so being able to not only fill those spaces but organize them in a way that is like meeting the needs of all the people who are in community in them feels really exciting and hopeful around something that I think sometimes feels very limited. What are your challenges? What makes your job complicated and you wish would be different? This is a great question because I was actually just about to speak on this from what I was comment. When we're talking about spaces and especially about offering space to historically excluded communities and populations and I won't mention the exact situation but we also have to be mindful of making sure that we have advisors and councils on how to work with, how to accommodate these communities. They can't always, I wanna be very careful how I say this, I'll just say speaking in draft they can't always adhere to the space rules because sometimes those space rules are based on systems that don't apply to them. Or that they're not effective. Or are effective, exactly. And I'll say it, we were working with a trans artist and there was some tension in the way that she was working and the way that we usually offer space. And that's just because we did not have the right council between us to have the conversation of how should this happen? How do you work? Because in our mind it was you're using our space so this is the way you're going to use it and that's not fair. And that can be oppressive. So we have to be very careful. For us that was a big challenge is not necessarily expecting or not take out necessarily expecting everyone who comes into the door to be ready and to be knowledgeable of industry standards or industry rules and adhere to those when we're speaking about comfort and making a space feel like home just being open to new ideas, new populations and new working styles. Yeah, I really appreciate that. I think working with, we have a fellowship program for emerging artists 18 to 26 and I found that the artists we've been working with have stretched us and challenged us in really beautiful ways. And for me as an artistic director have taken to me two moments where I've gone, okay, I'm gonna trust this and I'm gonna take some risks and I've had some, I mean it was really good debriefing with some of the fellows I worked with. They were like, this is one of the few programs where I actually didn't feel shut down when I brought an idea to you that was maybe outside the box or confronting to maybe traditional theater expectations of audience experience or whatever it might be. And so I think creating a culture where there is a willingness to listen and to be artist centered in how you program and curate. Well, maybe she didn't report it. I just, if you want my name to be used, a couple of examples, we're talking in a very general, always more than before I'd like to talk about and you create, but I don't know what it means that you're similar to something that wasn't so multiple or acceptable or understandable in your spaces and there were certain rules that you sustained. What is that mean to somebody who's not completely involved in the organization? Thank you for that question. And I'm, yeah. I'm sure there's privacy related to that specific topic, but one of the ways that can be is percussive dance or drumming or it depends on the space, right? So like there may be like, I'm using a politically correct answer just so that the privacy of that artist is respected, but I think, I don't mean to cut you off, but I didn't wanna put you on the spot. So I think that there's rules that we think are standard, but there are art forms and artists that have to often work outside of those bounds. We as venue operators have a duty to serve the artist, but we're also the ones that are beholden to the building. And so that's a complicated thing to navigate, right? Like we need to navigate it and we need to bring in counsel and make sure. So like, but we could be talking about something as simple as tap, tap dancing, right? And how it might affect a floor or our neighbors or any percussive, anything. I beg to give you one example too. Like there's a, one of our fellow is named Rocket James and he's an incredible dancer and DJ and he produces an event called rounds of flame, which is a dance battle. And it's an event that we're really proud to support for many years. And, but there were also challenges because we, you know, and it's like creative adjustments. We were doing the event and like we had staff we had to think about it. The event would always run too late. And as it got later, people would start partying and things would get a little wild, you know. So we talked and we sat down and said, you know what? Since the context of our venue is a community-based space and maybe that context would work at a different space at a different context. We said, let's do, we're gonna do our version of rounds of flame from four to nine. So we just adjusted the time and it really shifted the whole dynamic. And then we also, but we also, there were, there was also a, some, at one point there were some people in our organization who didn't want to bring, that were concerned about bringing the event back. And I was like, this event is so important. And so we sat down and we said, well, what are the concerns? Let's get the concerns out open. Let's meet and have a dialogue. And then as a group, institution, artist, let's shape something that's sustainable. And so that's one example. Like just moving it earlier in the day, shifted everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the process. But in some places, in a lot of cases, that event would just never have come back. But also you're saying that from your perspective, a simple, you know, consideration. We decided to do it or not do it, but we couldn't. Hey, I just wanted to put you in. Yeah, but then also even outside of the actual space, like I said, working with the trans artists, you know, as Bob mentioned about, you know, even, you know, checking in with security, that was a concern for them. I mean, we don't have security in our building, but we did a performance with another trans artist. And that was a concern like, how is security going to treat us? You know, making sure that there are accessible restrooms. They don't may not feel comfortable going to the gender multi-stall restrooms. Do you have other restrooms in the building? Like these type of accessibility issues, all these things are. Yeah. Yeah. Question for Anita. You have pioneering and pioneering work also over decades. Has it become easier or more complicated? You connected so many artists and so much, so much space. Well, we used to have a lot of fun and have lots of parties and give keys to any artist that we know. But now we're an institution and I have property owners contacting me to give me space constantly. And my issue is not enough money and time and people to take on all these spaces. So it is definitely much more complicated and harder than it used to be. So you have more offers than before, but you don't have enough staff to implement? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. An interesting model from the early 90s that I stumbled on. An independent gallery, no connection to any nonprofit, decided that they would support renegade spaces. And what they did was they said, people, you want to find a space, go from wherever, come to us, we'll give you insurance because that's what the owners of the places need. And when they had insurance, they also gave them their mailings. And sometimes they had extra chairs. Sometimes they didn't have extra chairs. But the responsibility was on the artist to find the space. And all they did was not get special insurance. They used their local insurance because they did an external project outside of there. So they didn't have to pay anything extra on their insurance. Just a thought. Yeah. We're doing something like that. It's just been very hard for my staff to get there. Instead of giving to individual artists, we're going to move to giving to organizations. So we're not programming 150 shows a year. So yeah, so we're moving towards that. And then I'm scared to give anybody my insurance. I mean, that's a challenge. And that's something we went through with the real project is this insurance situation. I mean, you want to talk about capitalism and rules. And we're beholden to that system. And one instance for a small nonprofit, one instance where something goes wrong and our insurance rates go sky high, we can't afford general liability insurance. If we don't have general liability insurance, we can't do anything. So we have to be very careful in, you know, it's a great gesture, it's a great thought. But I want to make sure the doors stay open. There are risks. As an artist, I think one of the hardest things for me has been trying to expand and grow for what I call my village or my people. And insurance is like number one because I wanted one of my biggest projects was to do with LMCC and Franklin Furnace, a block party. And it was a protest party in front of the Nutella Church between West 123rd and West 125th. And it was synonymous with the luxury techniques that so many European and they also have an 80. And I was turned into a protest party as well. And we could not get insurance just because I practiced in the nude. So as simple as that, I use my body as a vehicle a protest for also as a vehicle of exposure. And I say that to say this, how as the A. Longsville artists, are you in your individual ways from your organizations trying to reshape and re-scope for exponential, potent, dangerous work? It's interesting. I came up for me recently where there were several of our young fellows, one, two artists who wanted to work with nudity, which obviously nudity has been in performance for a while. I mean, the living theater was a break through on that front. But for me, it came down to it was integral to the meaning of their work. And so we supported it. And we felt it was part of the integrity of what was being communicated. And it was vital to the execution of the piece. And so we supported them in that process. I think it really depends on the scenario of the space. When you're working with a traditional lease, there's this long list at the back of the lease of prohibited uses. And you can lose your lease if you allow work in that space. That's why we need to own spaces, everybody, why we need long term ownership and spaces so that we can appropriately program them. Nudity gets is lumped in to that long list of prohibited uses. And so often the people that are the leaseholders don't want to actually hold you. Smoke would be great. It's a smoke machine. It's food service and nudity. It seems random, but it's there. So they're free. Yeah. No glitter also, no grime. But so. Sand. Yeah. So those things are often prohibited above the operator of the space. And so one of the ways to combat that is for us to own our spaces and not be beholden to anybody else so that we can freely program them. I just want to say one tip on insurance. This will not cover everybody. And it would not have helped you in a block party, unfortunately. But for those that are itinerary companies that are just rehearsing for a short period of time that maybe do one showing year or two shows a year, which is most of small theater companies, you can get event insurance instead of general liability insurance. You are properly covered in the same way. You can get it for like $200. This is a big everybody thinks they need a general liability policy that's thousands of dollars a year. And they're mostly not doing a show. So you can just be covered for the period that you're in rehearsal and performance. And it can be inexpensive. So just for everybody out there, don't spend money on a general liability. If you don't have an office and you're not working together out of you're in your homes, only ensure yourself then. Don't come back to me. That's a problem later. But just, you know what I mean, you know? Like just try and you can save yourself thousands of dollars a year. How is the relationship to the city of New York? Do you feel it's more openly open or more closed? How is it at the moment? I feel like we've had a lot of strong relationships with some of our local council members and support. I feel like those relationships have been strengthened recently for me. The longer you are at it, the better the city supports you. And you have to engage with them. Like you can't, it doesn't happen accidentally. I tried to make it happen accidentally for a really long time. And it just, it didn't. It's funny enough I had to meet with them in order for them to know what I was doing or what we're doing at Indie Space. So one of the good ways to start engaging for space access is to even with your community board, that some of them are wild, you know? It's like a... It is theater, I was just going to say. But you need to engage with your city council members. The hard part, again, I always am focusing on itinerant companies, individual artists. You're often not doing your work in your neighborhood. So you're a voter in your neighborhood. That's where you're a constituent. And so that's tough, right? And, but again, it's over time in election years. Get to your new city council people because they have a whole new roster of people that they're ready to support. But I think the city is desperate right now for some answers and some innovation. And I think that we have an opportunity in front of us. And I hope we're all seeing it that way. There's lots of rezoning that's happening. The whole garment district is in the process of a rezoning. How are... That's where you start talking to your community board. They can have some influence there. You're a city council member, can have some influence on making sure, making sure that artists are considered in those decisions. Every new development in New York City should be forced to have a cultural carve-up. We like quiet spaces, we like dark spaces. They don't... We don't even need a window. We'd like windows sometimes. But sometimes only. Performance spaces don't want them. There isn't one in here. We like being in here. So they're quiet, they're cool, they're dark. They don't make those owners that much money, right? They can be income-generating space, but they're not high income-generating space, right? So give them to artists. And in exchange, have a bunch of happy artists. Increase the positive foot traffic in the neighborhood. Increase your photo. Your building will be on social media. Nobody otherwise cares whether your building's on social media. There's a lot of things that we should be doing in this moment when we feel we're at a crisis or an inflection point. This is the time that we should be engaging with. Development, this is the time that we should be engaging with our city. And we need artists. We're not gonna recover. The city's not gonna recover without them. So take it or leave it. Are we also talking about rezoning in affordable housing? Not just... We're talking about... Places with artists can be here. That's it, right? So we don't lose them, especially technicians. We're losing technicians. That's a real issue. Yeah, and I think a part of that is also just... The affordability crisis and then the kind of gentrification that happens. And so part of the work that is at the intersection of like place-based advocacy, place-based connection with the city council people, but also making sure that the cultures that are present in the communities that have been there for a long time like the Bed-Stuy's, like the Crown Heights. I live in Flatbush, which is largely West Indian. And if you got your African drum class going past 9 p.m., people are calling the cops, right? So it's again, like how do we find places where we can be ourselves and be understood and not be under threat that we can also afford? So that intersection is key. What would be a small thing that could change and make it much easier like from your experience? And we have Anne Washburn here, the playwright. I was using an email to her. She does what she called the murder room investigation imagine in New York, downtown, see there is a dead body or has been beaten almost to death and you're investigating it. So she's talking since three months. A lot of people are encouraged to connect to her. And she says, some of them are small change. That would make a big difference. What do you feel would make a gigantic difference? And it shouldn't be so complicated for that. I think one thing is better resource sharing. Like when you have an artist in your institution, try to let them know about all these other institutions. Like just, I think sometimes people can stay a bit siloed. So I don't know, maybe some more efficient way to distribute that information feels important. Yeah, the thing, this came to me earlier and I forgot to see it. One thing that is different is that space finder used to exist, right? And then it ceased to exist and that's left us. What's space finder? Space finder was a hub for all of the studio spaces. Theaters, they were like multiple types of spaces you could find on space finder that were, they were also flagged for the ones that were accessible. Like you could book directly through space finder or reach the people. It has the dimensions, like there were pictures of spaces and then they, that went away. And so this idea about centralized resources because one of the things we found in some of our research was also people being able to access the type of space that they wanted was an issue, right? So you need your Indian classical dancer and you need a space if you can dance barefoot with your drums and your jingles. Where is that space, right? Or a tap dancer and I need a floor that we can tap on. I guess we're working on that. So I just want you to know that we're with partners for sacred spaces and bricks and mortals which is another organization that works with sacred spaces. They've already developed a very beta, manually it's, it needs, it's on its way but we're going to work with them to incorporate indie spaces because we're all spaces, right? Dance, studios and rehearsal spaces because this was one place that you could list every theater, every rehearsal space, whatever and needed better search tools but the space manager also needed to not cost millions of dollars. And so it was good for the venues and it was good for the artists for one stop place. I think- Is it an app or a website? It's a website, by the way it was. It was a website that came down but we're setting up like a, the setup will be like an Airbnb kind of site meaning the venue can post themselves with photos, dimensions, search criteria. And then you can book through there or you can book directly not all venues want to be booked there. So something is coming but it's going to take a while for it to be any good. I'll just say that I want to manage expectations but it's coming. But one small thing I think we could do aside from like a space search is work with the way artists earn means that they have a million 1099s and their income one year is low and their income the next year is high. This shuts them out of affordable housing lotteries immediately. This is something that we can do to change the trajectory because artists almost always fit within the income brackets to be eligible for affordable housing but because of the way our income works, they were at and we have to change that because if artists aren't going to be a protected status and they're not in New York we have to be thinking about ways that artists at least can be competitive in the affordable housing lotteries here. Yeah. That's hard to say I know I'm close to military support. Right. I believe that empty space in New York that property owners can declare it as a so they can get a deduction. And I think empty spaces should be taxed. So then they have an incentive to put artists in them. That's I think that would make a big difference. In this initiative, if your space is more empty from three months, you're looking heavily taxed. Super heavily. I think New York needs something like that. Yeah, it's a big sense of tax and they've talked about it a lot and we need but they need to hear our voices around it. It's super important because they keep them big on purpose aside from the getting the right off for it but they're also creating assemblages with the future full having you development that they're planning to not end everything. Yeah, it's important. And it keeps available spaces high and full price because it's as much there. I think one change speaking about what Randy just said is to rethink what we define as affordable. Yeah, that's true. Maybe be slowly go over where we have great people and there's always also great audiences or even so this is more or less an online how long panel. And we on our side, we are developing a website which we want to go theater listings and YC. And it will be just to find performances that are going on because being become impossible where to go. I'm subscribed with 30, 40 lists and still have a hard time. So we will also create hopefully, you know, one would be how to find space and maybe we can then connect to your site. But also we would like to invite you to become editors and suggest what's good where people should go or what we should be seeing and it's not commercial. We know ads and hopefully that will continue to a use of spaces that people will come and see. But let's go to our listeners here, our audiences can also be a comment, doesn't have to be a question but these are great experience people with decades of work behind so it's a great moment to ask something. First, just on the vacancy tax. I think the problem politicians would tell you that runs into is the constitution that would be unconstitutional. It's the takings clause, you can look that up. I just want to say as someone who has been making site-based performance for three decades, I would encourage you to rethink your belief that artists should be more in charge of running spaces. I've dealt with so many artists and look, believe me, we become artists for a reason. We don't want to be masters of Excel. We don't want to know the difference between liability insurance and workers' compensation. We don't want to do a lot of that kind of work that you need to get discretionary funding to write all the budgets and craft all these narratives. So there's a reason artists should not be business people. Here's my compromise. Artists should be more on advisory councils and space to advise on space. I want to challenge you back for one second. When I was in England, they have a model where artistic directors are the CEOs and then they have a producing director or general manager in addition, but they believe that the artist should be at the center of the leadership and decision-making. And so I want to say when that's not the case, I think we run into some real issues and there's ways to create structures where artists have the executive decision-making but have the infrastructural support to get the work done. Yeah, I would say artistic directing is a lot different than running the space. Well, I would like to say that I was on sisters record and a chief executive and that that's a model that's working. But I would say for me, I don't think the problem is space. There's a ton of underutilized space out there. Some of it run by artists. I mean, just in my neighborhood, Dickson Place goes unused a lot of the time. The Jean Frankel Theater goes unused a lot of the time. Access Theater goes unused a lot of the time. My gym, a university settlement, rents out space in the Chinatown way on YMCA. I always walk by that place. It is always empty. I don't know why, I think it's more of this awareness and how do we share these resources and how do we get people to know about that these places are out there and existing because so many of them are just sitting dark right now. I feel it back to you. Have you been spreading my word about that? Actually, I did post on my Facebook page of the solution. But I won't say the problem is not space. The problem is back to the liability insurance, the public assembly permit, the certificate of occupancy. And believe me, I've been working in vacant spaces for a long time. They're out there, but you've got to convince the owner. And Jane Jacobs said the same thing you said. Ownership is the key to all of this. Because owners, they're scared they're going to get sued. They're right inside. Another bald guy. To go one step further, there's a lot of larger arts organizations. And in the description for this panel, they said, well, the Shedd Lincoln Center, there's a bunch of organizations. I think the Shedd has some issues, but... Because it was empty three months. Well, the Shedd... March, no orders inside. The Shedd has lots of issues. They're extremely wealthy and needn't probably know about them. But same Lincoln Center. Lincoln Center now is trying to reinvent themselves. Henry Timms is thinking about how to make the space so that people can actually come in, spend time there. There's no velvet rope over a lot of the space that you can come in and hang out like the Geffenau lobby. Anyone go in there, spend all day there, they don't kick you out, which is very weird. I think it's great, but there's not many spaces like that. Sorry. The fact that you think it's weird is part of the issue though. I agree. I'm not an artist. I have an MBA in arts administration. So I am sort of the guy who runs things. I used to run the events at Bright Park for almost 20 years. And so I gave away a lot of space for free if I could actually do that. Because I also had people that I had to report to. There's a lot of space that is available, but the insurance issue is one thing. The costs are another thing. Artists want certain things, it's another issue. So all these people want different things at different times than the capitalism which was brought in before. But I guess one thing that I was thinking about and if CUNY is going to take one step forward to help artists to either find space, help people to find artists, is there a way to then have these large organizations, maybe fiscal sponsor with insurance, with other means? There's gotta be a way to change how people are thinking about what is not just space, but what are artists? Because I don't think the city is thinking that artists are going to change the city even though artists change. So Chelsea, Bushwick, keep on going. But the city doesn't think that. So the city is not going to listen to that kind of argument. The city is only gonna listen to the developers, the people that have the money. I mean, we go back to someone that's been doing this for a long time. Anita has been doing this, working with developers, working with people who have space, working with people that have billions of dollars who are thinking about things that they cannot, they can't really justify having artists in their spaces until they're convinced. So how do we convince these all large organizations to actually support artists in different places? That's the big question. Their survival depends on it at this point. I think that's why I was saying we're in a moment. Their survival, well, it depends on quite a few things, but if they're handing over keys to skyscrapers at this point, because they're vacant, they have to, if they want to stay and they wanna own, they're gonna have to rethink their space. 50% of all, in total, more than 49% of the statistical data, this is empty of the space. So just how we're all having to rethink work, we're all having to rethink audience habits, we're all having to rethink the way that we engage with each other. Eventually, they're gonna have to come around. I disagree with you that the city doesn't think that artists are a way forward. I haven't disagreed. They keep asking us how are we gonna fix it? They're basically bringing a council together and talk about how to do it. So I do think that, you know, and they do give, that we need a lot more money, but they also give more money than any other state in the country. They have a bigger budget than almost, just short of the NEA, you know? So the city does, I mean, we're still only 0.25% of the budget. We need to be a 1% for culture, but that's an argument that's been had for decades. We'll be back. January, check it out. Yeah, check it out. But, you know, in order to create brave spaces, we have to rethink our relationship to space and owners eventually come around, not always, not all of them. But I think when New York City is looking like the 70s and the 80s, we might, that's when artists started taking over those spaces. That's when there was a resurgence of art and culture here. And it was subversive, right? We were taking over spaces, we were squatting in spaces, we were using, we were doing galleries, just whatever. Eventually, I feel like they're gonna have to, they're gonna have to come around. And something to do, like they're not all, yeah. Yeah. I want to shout out to the things that I think of Hero Arts Center, where I was a resident artist for many years, and they were participating in one of those office space programs and free office space, this new space. And I remember you rehearsing there, developing work in an office space. I want to shout out to the Parliament Arts Center. I'm doing some curatorial work there. I'm really glad to see their commitment to free programming in their lobby and their lobby stage. They have an open lobby space, which is a beautiful space that's going to be presenting intergenerational programming. So there are some shifts happening in the culture that we should celebrate. Do you want more SMU? Oh, there was a, there was a great piece by Todd London today in HowlRound about whether there is collapse and whether the whole thing is on fire. And he made the point in this essay that really there is no one size fits all and there is no field, but there's a field of fields that there's this proliferation of different spaces, different needs, different artists, different ways of doing the thing, right? I've heard a lot on the panel today about a focus on artists and a focus on creating, making space to create and to live and work. And that's excellent. There is a proliferation of space that Randy has pointed out that everybody pointed out. I'm wondering how the shrinking audiences sort of fits in to our thinking or to you all's thinking about how we engage these spaces and activate community when that portion of earned revenue in some cases or ticketed revenue or just bodies and seats, even when it's free, how it sort of perpetuates, well, how does the artist engage with less of an audience? I mean, one thing I'll say to that and it's like, part of it is culturally relevant programming. Like I went to see Little Sims the other night to one of my favorite MCs, if you don't know who she is, look her up. And that show was sold out at Terminal 5 and it was packed and it was a theatrical performance as far as I'm concerned. So it's about culturally relevant programming and aesthetics that are relevant to New York. And then I'll say again, it's about, with the fact that audience behavior is changing, I work from home three days a week and I might more likely go to an event that's in Flatbush or the King's Theater or in my circle of close to home rather than travel to the city to go to something. So I think there's also something about investing in a local neighborhood like artistic and creative activity that needs to be happening that isn't only focused on some of the major screwways that we think about when we think about performance at theater. Yeah, I'd say that all of the packed rooms that I have been in over the last year for arts programming has been in a neighborhood community center or a senior center or a sacred space. It is programming that is deeply connected to the community and neighborhood that it is being made for and wants to be in conversation with. And those rooms like those artists don't seem to be having a hard time filling them. And it's really exciting to think that like every neighborhood in the city has a community center, has a space that could be vibrant in that way with arts programming. But I think those connections have to be built and developed through the artistic process, through a genuine relationship to neighborhood and the people that you want to be inviting into your process. As someone who's had a lot of shows with a lot of empty rooms, it is definitely very difficult to get audience. I've often thought about the concierge of hotels and connecting with them. I think it's about letting, it's hard to let people know when there's so much noise in New York, it's hard to connect to people. So it's not, I haven't figured it out yet. Well, we hopefully hope that maybe our website will help as it was just sugar on the shelves and something and what is a good organic product, even if it's small. I might send you a bit over time. I want to thank you all. We had one panelist with us, Jamie Cawson, who said we have to think like this kind of philosopher. Let's think of theater as a big bag of apples and some of them are rotten. We have to toss everything out and then put the good one back. What do we keep? What is really good? But what is not working is not working. And the subscription system is not working. It produced bad theater. It didn't produce audiences. Some of it, of course, everybody literally put handcuffs on a lot of things. So this maybe has to go. Maybe then we have to radically reseen. Maybe it has to happen in all the boards in the parks outside and in the big spaces that they're used in a way that they are beloved by their neighborhoods. Whenever people say, I often have people say, we have to connect to the community we are in and they live there. They say, well, this sounds like you're not part of it. What are you talking about? As if you bust them and all. And that's my final comment and also to what other people said, there's good German playwright and writer who said, if you have your own home, do you need a painting at the mall? You don't. Do you need a carpet? You don't. Do you need a nice, beautiful sofa? Do you need flowers? You don't, but you want it. And the city is a living room. It's a living space. And New York City wants to be a cultural capital, not only of America, North America, the Americas of the world. The city will have to invest. The big city will have to reconnect. And the city is a great city and will come back. It has done so over centuries, but it has to have a real commitment. And I think the times of just the commercial theater that it was put enough over. And I think this is the usherings of a new beginning. And it's a painful first. And I hope this panel, and I want to thank you all for being here, is part of it. Thank you all, thank you for listening to this and for how around. And I hope we made a little contribution to this. Thank you.