 I am the director of theater school and community programs at theater horizon. I'm Erica Nagel. I'm the director of education and engagement at MacArthur theater center. Okay, so as these guys have mentioned, we're going to be talking about relaxed performances, but we really felt like rather than do a sort of toolkit or a how to those things exist and also we exist and like there are bars and we can go have drinks and tell you more about those things. So we really want to use this as a framework to think about organizational institutional change and also it's actually kind of magical that we were paired with the executive leaders panel because the the sort of conceit of that panel is that it needs to stop start from the top and part of what we were experimenting within this cohort is how can change rise up from not executive leadership and elsewhere in the organization and permeate and shift the culture. So just to get a sense about relaxed performances, can you raise your hand if you're familiar with that term? Amazing. What about if you're not really familiar with that term, but you've heard of like autism friendly or sensory friendly work? Great, awesome. Have any of you done a relaxed performance or an autism friendly, sensory friendly at your theater? Okay, cool. Great. So of those that know what it is or some somewhat familiar with it, would anyone be willing to give any specifics about what a what exactly a sensory friendly or relaxed performance is? As in what what would it look like? Yes. Share some of what you do on ASL popping rather than changing any cues throughout the show providing or making it clear to the audience that you're looking to open. It's great. Yeah. Yeah, so the sensory friendly the elements of sensory friendly sometimes can be very specific to production, right? So these light sound kind of shifts and what you were also getting to Reagan and the way that we approach this through relaxed performances is that it's a larger umbrella of shifting your organizational culture, right? It's not the sensory friendly piece is one piece of it for us, but it's really about the welcome. It's about the intentionality and it's about creating a space that is safe that is judgment free and that is inclusive intentionally inclusive. And so that's how we are approaching this work and when we refer to relaxed performances sensory families encompassed in that. But again, as Erica had mentioned, you can take this idea of relaxed performance as a stand in in ways for aspects of community engagement programming that you may be thinking on, but also keeping in your mind the specifics of this particular conversation. So we'll dive right in and address some of the potential concerns or barriers that we each perceived in approaching this work. So I'll start. One of the biggest barriers that we perceived we've been doing relaxed performances I guess we've done maybe for five years we've done about one a season there've been a couple seasons where we've done two but usually it's one. And when we started our biggest fear was about how much we would have to change the art. We talk about ourselves as an artist centered institution and that's very the sort of artistic quality is central to a lot of what we do. And so that was a fear that we had going into it how much are we gonna have to get rid of sound cues are we like are the actors gonna have to change right all that stuff. And we had the opportunity to partner with TDF and go see an autism friendly performance on Broadway. And the performance that we went to see was Spider-Man turn off the dark and about two minutes and we were like, oh we're fine it's all gonna be fine. And so although that was an early fear it was not it it's like so not a thing it's it's like one of the easiest parts it's one of the smallest adjustments that you'll have to make. The other barrier that we were worried about was I think there was some concern among the sort of council putting this together which we'll talk about in a little bit about our front of house staff and about our volunteer corps and whether they would be welcoming and judgment free and whether they could embody this. And again that proved to be unfounded we did offer them some training we did try to model that but it was not it was something that we were worried about that we just didn't have to be worried about. And we at PSF shared a lot of those same concerns and additionally because we were one of the theaters with the least experience in this work we came in very fresh and very scared of not being able to serve the community properly. And so while other theaters in the cohort had experience with autism drama programs or previous experience with relaxed performances on some level it was a program we wanted to institute for a long time and sort of backburnered it for a long time because we didn't have the resources or the knowledge. So going in with that fear was huge to be able to rely on our fellow cohort members to guide us through what was being expected of us how we can serve the community and how we can interface with them to know how how we can welcome them better into our theater space. And a big question for people said is what do you do? What is this? And we were first approached like you hear these phrase relax it sounds very heavy and and complicated and are we going to cause greater harm potentially are we responsible for being the caregivers and of course we're not the caregivers we are creating a space for individuals. So a big piece of our learning was just what is this universe and and how are we to be equipped how how best to equip ourselves we were also concerned with how our subscribers and individuals who are single ticket buyers were familiar with the culture of our organization how might they impact the experience of someone else by not being receptive to it or not understanding what someone else's needs may be in that space. So we were very mindful I would say we were concerned but more mindful of navigating that terrain for our subscriber base and those who are feel very comfortable in our space and are used to traditional theater etiquette. We were also curious will anyone come and what is the cost of such things what's the impact for potential loss of revenue the literal expenses loss of revenue and then is there potential income to come from this or is it all doing it for the the right reasons and is it all at complete expense for us and we learned that is not the case at all but those are ours. Yeah and and on the part of Theater Horizon in terms of perceived or anticipated barriers we didn't actually have very many anticipated barriers for because for the last 10 years Theater Horizon has already been serving this population and when I say this I mean specifically a at the the community with autism and we have an autism drama program where we run drama classes and writing classes for both children and adults on the autism spectrum and we've learned within the last few years that things that we are teaching in terms of empathy and and socialization skills and communication skills can really be extrapolated towards anyone that has issues with those things so we are now working with organizations that work with children and adults with all types of disabilities and differences so going into this we're like we got this this is great that was a bit of a mistake this brings us to our strategy section yes because one of the things that the we have learned and that we we went into this work doing was doing working with a consultant Roger Adishi and some others and doing and doing an all staff training teaching the staff which includes front of house and leadership and all of that about what a relaxed performance is all the different iterations that it can take and the particular population that we're serving Theater Horizon did not do that full all staff training because at least on my part I most we felt that most of the information would be redundant because none of the information was really new for us so when it came to you know actually implementing that I had lots of meetings with all of the departments about what we needed to do to make this happen and you know I got no pushback whatsoever especially from senior leadership because it was part of our mission was something we already did we were very familiar with it and it was a great expansion of of of what we could do to serve the population we already cared about so I definitely had the blessing of everyone but a blessing is slightly different than full staff and institutional buy-in because when it came to actually driving the what needed to happen to make all of the the small pieces work I was pretty much the one driving that which makes it hard which makes it hard and we're a smaller organization than others we have a a staff which fluctuates from about 10 to 12 somewhere around there so so usually there is I was the one that had the eye on is the language correct on the on the website are the packets created are the everything else and and making sure that was happening as opposed to now with now that we're in our second time having someone else in the company during staff meeting say hey the world our drop for relax performances how is that going is the website is the language on the website great hey those packets have you do you need any help with that what's what's going on there I'm now getting more we have we have accomplished the buy-in part that we did not necessarily have at the beginning because I was we were able to get the more people of senior leadership in the room when it came to being at the actual relaxed performance and being in in the training so I think that one of the biggest strategies for gaining that buy-in is is getting people in the room and to actually see the work that's happening as opposed to saying we're doing this thing these are all the things that you have to do they have to see the impact of what's what's going on in the work they were doing yeah yeah and one of the things that was really valuable about the cohort was that for folks that were doing this for the first time they could go to other cohort theaters and see it and bring some of those senior leadership with them so it doesn't necessarily like it can be a model of like just do it all yourself the first time get it through once people are in the room they will want to help you which is true that will happen but also you can go see one at another theater and some of that same experience or go to a ballet or go to an orchestra there's lots of different ways to do it in terms of a strategy at mccarter we started with a very interdepartmental we called it the autism council the first year so before we even decided whether or not we were going to do it we had a group of people and it was a very strategically gathered group it was people who are kind of sort of like the second layer in department so people who have enough power and influence to have some direct influence up but who are also like actually doing the work and are the worker bees and are not necessarily somebody who's going to delegate to somebody else so that they're coming to the meetings creating action items that they are that they are going to execute and I think that made a really big difference in terms of accountability that first year it was kind of organized at the time by our general manager and it was just because he had a passion for it and he wanted to do it and so he put this group together now it's a little bit homeless in our organization technically it is overseen by patron experience which is basically front of house and concessions but the ripples from that first council are still in effect so some of the things that were like the education department still creates all the pre-show materials just because that's what we decided five years ago so it probably is time for us to think a little bit more strategically about who's doing what but that interdepartmental nature of it for us has been like probably the most important element of its success that it wasn't just housed in community engagement or in education or in marketing or wherever the other thing in terms of strategy and I don't know if this is strategy as much as it's just like a truism is like it gets easier the more times you do it because you start building systems that are replicable so like you buy the bean bags the first year and then you have all your bean bags and like you create the template for your social story or your pre-show guide and then you have that template and you've already taken all the pictures of your bathrooms and your lobbies and your waiting areas and you can slot in just the the show specific photos things like our front of house team the first year showed up probably three hours in advance to set up the relaxation area and the quiet area now they show up like half an hour earlier and they all know how to do it the first year we were really intense about having like certified autism specialists on hand in the in the aisles and that has actually proven to not be needed and now our volunteers are able to do that and it's great if they can be there but it turned out not to be a selling point the way we thought it was for parents partly because they were like sure but you don't know my child like that's not a thing so just things like that that like the as you do it and as you do it over time it not only becomes easier because it's a shift in culture but just literally because you already have the systems that you've built and much like Angela I also made a sort of false promise of I got the blessing from from leadership and then said I'll take care of all of it and then it ended up being everyone needs to help me take care of all of it it's just the nature of the work but what was invaluable to me at PSF was being able to leverage the support of the cohort and TCG and our specialists to help make decisions because like Erica said at first year it's all decision-making um on the tiniest tiniest levels and so even just getting it on our calendar and if you know if leadership would say no you can't have a weekend performance I would say but people's lights as weekend performances are best or no you can't have this rehearsal time this never happened this is an extreme situation but no you can't have this rehearsal time uh our world renowned specialist says I need rehearsal time with my cast so it was all these things being able to go back to the cohort back to people who have done programs like this who have instituted these performances and being able to leverage all of that support to come into my into my organization and and get the buy-in from everybody who also didn't exactly know how to approach the work much like me but having these specialists sort of as a support system was was invaluable to us instituting these successfully in the first year and as Megan mentioned the you know it didn't we have a Tuesday night sometimes you need to work with what you have as far as capacity if you have one night that's underperforming and and it's the Tuesday evening show that's what you have to work with maybe for a first year of trying something out take that see what what happens because um what we were able to do as part of strategy for people's light was then we were able to gather so much data around okay anybody who had an impulse to come express an interest in coming that didn't show up on that first Tuesday night when we offered it what were your barriers what would be a different time when you when would be more convenient for you to attend well weekends well matinee great I took all of that and said okay my friends in leadership with me we need to give if we're going to do this this is the audience's need and what are the other barriers price what's the comfortable price point and we've settled on a model where it's a half price ticket across the board for anyone a $15 ticket for with a special promo code that we pump out to targeted constituencies and that's become something within the cohort that we've been able to leverage that across other organizations it's like well our regular ticket price usually $55 like but this is what the community has told us and so if we're really interested in serving them this is what we have to make available because it's not just um it's not just one ticket if you're thinking of bringing the whole family if you're thinking we might have a meltdown on our way out you also need to have a fully refundable a full a full refund policy is what we implemented at people's light and we're able to leverage that with others in the court say oh my gosh that's terrifying our theater would never allow no questions asked refund policy it's never never been used no one's ever asked us for it but the comfort of knowing that it's there has allowed so many more people to try and to minimize that barrier of potential risk so price point time and if there's anything that your organization that you feel like okay we can't negotiate that right now gather the data find a way to figure out what is the story we we need to share internally to make the change happen and you know calendar is so significant in that um please also in addition to these sort of decision-making processes what uh karmann was saying last night too about analysis so much of this is rubber to road of just getting the things done we also spent so much time I think forming very careful analysis of what we have done what we are doing what the results were and and organizing that into a sort of manifesto for the entire cohort of best practices and sort of what we all agreed to of that we will talk to our community before we institute best practices or whatever our policies are and also policies like the full refund and that kind of thing so that we were all on the same page and even though we're completely different organizations large small different regions some on college campuses some closer to the city we were still able to to utilize these very general best practices and general policies that serve the community best no matter what setting we were in as a theater thank you again um and the the question of I'd mentioned about how to engage our subscribers in this um in the first year we were really precious about it because we didn't know what we were doing and we're nervous and so we're very precious and we really specifically invited those targeted constituencies that we thought might benefit from the performance and we didn't promote it heavily with our subscriber base or single ticket buyers and immediately after that performance we're like oh no we got to blast it open like if this is about we don't want to this is desiloing how these are um families and and individuals who are not oftentimes seen publicly engaging publicly for all kinds of reasons and past harms that we ourselves are guilty of and so it's allowing our subscribers it's literally building community literally welcoming everyone in and allowing our subscribers to opt into that it's not taking a performance saying hey subscriber surprise here's here's some other friends to meet it's about how do we allow this space and welcome folks to choose to be a part of that to opt in and promoting that heavily with our subscribers and the way um that we rolled out that information came in the form of kind of an unexpected PR campaign as um it had been mentioned from Milwaukee rep um panel the conversation just a moment ago how Milwaukee rep does an annual um at Christmas Carol they solicit donations from the stage we did that as well and put in there an explanation of this work that show that you just experienced we want to make that available and accessible to others who may not feel welcome who may not feel that it is for them we're making these adjustments and we are committed to this work we we need your help to make this happen as a community and so every day our actors got behind that message our audiences were we're feeling this and like oh what what does that mean and you know we consider our subscriber base to be one this one kind of entity and yet we all have individuals in our lives for whom this kind of work could be beneficial because it's not individuals on the autism spectrum certainly um ADHD um individual with Alzheimer's and dementia folks with very small children anyone who would benefit from a relaxed environment I dig that often you know and it's not only a relaxed environment it's a celebratory environment because it's a space where we're all bringing our fullest selves without apology and that's refreshing and that's something that is contagious in an organization as well so um in order to build that PR campaign and let our audiences know what exactly this was um part of that was that that speech at the end of the show also it's the beginning of the performance on the day of in the curtain speech you set the ground rules um right up front and being able to make we kind of make a joke of it that it's a no-shush zone nobody gets to do that and people are like oh right I got it so if you're that audience member who might be guilty of judging someone you're the whole audience you're accountable to everyone because we all heard those rules together we know what this is and it's modeling the behavior so that this is the invitation and so you have the power to do that in those kinds of um windows um and we did that oh yeah Megan mentioned the listening tour how to know what's needed um the the dash in in the um the disability community of nothing about us without us I mean that should be everywhere prevalent in our work and community engagement and it is so deeply true um in this in this occasion that for our advisory councils for the work we must have the voices of individuals whom we hope to serve and benefit directly participating they should be involved in the planning process in previewing the shows with us and having multiple perspectives across our organization um because and all four of us will see something complete we'll see different aspects in a performance to know elements that might want to be adjusted or things that different invitations that could be made in ways that we can um better contextualize the show because as um Erica mentioned the um the changes that you make actually we're hoping it's pretty minimal you want to keep the art and the integrity of the art intact with this kind of work and sometimes it's about the context you provide around that with social stories with pre-show materials so an individual can prepare themselves it's the trigger warnings it's letting people know here's what you need to to be prepared for here's what's coming and however you need to to prepare yourself for that experience we're giving you the the tools to know it's out there um so yes and then having a listening chore that's how people's like prepared our biggest strategy was going out to members of the community saying hey this is what we want to do we don't know what we're doing what do you think about that what's been your experience and some folks who had been to um a TDF performance on Broadway were able to say yeah this is great that they did it but we had to wait outside for 45 minutes before they opened the doors they let us in the last minute we were you know cattled in there and you have your jackets and it's winter and what do we do we're all starting to okay so we are going to have um when we sell tickets a group of individuals you buy your party's tickets and then space on either side of you an empty seat easy you know these are things that we can just do to allow that breathing space and we also have sections of the house we just don't sell and if you will need to move in whatever that's great um so being listening and then acting on those strategies making sure that you're absorbing them um and how to keep it make sure your evaluations serve you so anything you're asking we leverage the cohort um like tcg tcg needs this grant they need to have um evaluate of stuff from us so executive directors of every one of our organizations we need a statement from you about what the impact of this work has been and so we all did that we all created this collective manifesto together which we were able to say to our organizations we've adopted this did you know that we've created this we've adopted this and this is now part of who we are right and everybody's able to be on board with that because they've had the training they know where it's coming from um and that was really really really powerful um but but but that's what i'll say on that bouncing off of that too it confessing that that's a moving target as well absolutely i recently had a staff member at a different conference be asked about a relaxed performance work and he could not speak to it which is not encouraging for me and just a signal that i need to share our story i was not as lucky as cedar horizon to maybe get all of my leadership in the room when it was happening obviously when you're in the room like you said it's you you feel it it's infectious and the proof is there you can you can't help but see it but that's also a challenge for me is just to be able to share my story in my organization wide enough so that everyone can speak on it no matter what setting they're in because we need to constantly be finding our allies in this work in our organization and in the community um so we're gonna wrap up talking just a little bit about some takeaways or big biggest lessons that we've learned and then maybe we'll have time for questions we've been talking fast so are we live streams okay cool so one of our biggest takeaways um early on but it has continued to be true is um the the challenge of marketing and the first year that we did this we were like we're doing this show and on this night it's a relaxed performance that was terrible that was not a good way to do it we also the first year leaned really heavily on our community partner who had been amazing in terms of coming in and helping us see things that might be potential triggers and also things that we were like being way oversensitive about and they were like it's actually fine um they had volunteers etc but and like all of those things um are in their wheelhouse and in their expertise they are not arts marketers and we were leaning way too heavily on them to get the word out and to reach um their constituencies so um so we shifted and we're an organization um we produce and we present and so we ended up just kind of shifting our mindset of like the relaxed performance night of the show needs to be marketed the way we do like one night with joshua bell like that's the same kind of um resource and time and attention that it calls for um we also shifted because we produce and present um we've had we had a couple seasons where there sort of wasn't an appropriate show um we've been leaning towards when something is more family friendly that's a whole other conversation of whether that's like the right strategy um but we uh we started looking for um presented events either that were already um built to be sensory friendly or um where that artist had a particular um uh affinity for that work and might add a uh an additional performance or where it just was like that like we did a like a muppet muppet sing along with the muppet movie event and it happened to be on world autism day um and we contacted the artist and we were like how do you feel about making this a relaxed performance and they were totally excited about it and now they've added that into their touring package that they can offer um so so that was a shift of just like what actually is the content and it also came to all the data we had of like we want a saturday matinee um and how hard it is in terms of um potential loss of or the perception of how hard it is in terms of the potential loss of resources to give to to uh i don't want to say give up to dedicate um a saturday matinee in your run yeah um so that's partly why we moved to that model however meanwhile as all this has been happening in addition to the data of like we want a saturday matinee everybody says we want christmas carol every year um and talk about a show where it's hard to dedicate um a full performance in terms of revenue um then uh and it was really great in terms of having like the posse have your back of the cohort um to be able to go say this is an issue have you know have marcie be able to say like we do it for our panto and that's our that's our equivalent um and other people sort of help brainstorm etc then this year we had a really um interesting thing happen um we're looking at christmas carol hopefully for next year i can't make promises on howl round um actually became a solution rather than this sort of white whale dream um because we had chosen a presented event um and the way that uh it got budgeted and scheduled um ended up being tricky for for the community that came and we ended up having to kind of scramble at the last minute to get people in um and shift our pricing structure etc we ended up with a pay what you can which actually ended up averaging out to fifteen dollars which is what we should have priced it at to start with um but uh in that in that sort of scramble feeling which is a feeling we really we work really hard to avoid at mccarter we really try to not be in a frantic space um and that feeling led us to you know all of a sudden we we thought we were solving a problem by creating a special event for a relaxed performance but it actually created some new problems and boy there's one show we do every year and we and we know the calendar way in advance and it's family friendly and there's a couple shows after christmas that have lower uh inventory um and there's a matinee that's one of those shows and like boy that sure takes a lot of boxes of all the data that we've been getting um and so now we're we're on the verge it hasn't like you know it's not stamped and signed um but it was looking very likely that that will happen next year so i just say that is like one of the takeaways of this process is sometimes the things that you think are out of reach um if you just sort of never let them go and keep them in the conversation one day you might uh and this is for any community engagement thing not just for relaxed performances you might be in a meeting where it's like oh we're having this huge problem only we had the solution and this thing that you have been like waiting for the perfect moment can actually be the solution um in that moment oh yeah that's me okay um other takeaways if I surprise this um consider the invitation I would advise that consider what the invitation is how your space how individuals might be experiencing your space coming in and thinking about this universe as um erica mentioned the marketing piece of this the branding is huge for something like relaxed performances because it's not like marketing marketing that you you know set up the postcard you have the mailing list already folks are going to come and be excited you're reaching a brand new audience who are not immediately trusting of your ability to serve their needs because there's no track record and because there's a deep amount of past harm that you need to make up for and prove you've done your homework so a lot of this is actually one to one you know and then tapping into those networks where people do um have trust built and across our cohort part of that huge priority was to establish a brand for the experience if someone has come to people's light and experience our relaxed performance they can be confident that when they visit psf theater horizon mccarter the rest of our partners they are going to have an experience that feels it similarly welcome and that that they have elements in place and that's also part of the manifesto but all what all of us share in um our promotional language and in the materials that we prepare in advance so it is a different kind of marketing and that very easily can go into effect for um many of our community engagement offerings right if we're reaching out to a community we haven't served how are we building that trust and delivering on that from building starting from one place and continuing to deliver on that promise um also um finding your allies your advocates your partners across the organization um finding your posse as erica said it's you know it can be in various departments of the organization um board volunteers board members who may not be able interested in coming not know what's happening invite them to volunteer invite them to be engaged is made to getting folks in the room is so so important but drawing on people's individual expertise and perspectives in a lot of different ways um it does need to kind of come across the organization and finding who are your anchor partners we know that it's essential to have multiple cultural programming opportunities so it's not you on your own as an institution who has your occupational therapist who has your whomever else um that you're working with if you're doing one performance a year someone's not free on that day you're not serving that population in a meaningful way and what we were able to do is create a season of this work across our organization it was really intentional that we wanted to do that so there are multiple offerings somebody might not like a panto a christmas carol any number of one offering that we have but with multiple ways in it's the way anyone can opt in for for the content that's most interesting and compelling to them um other anchor partners can include um who who are the experts that you need social workers occupational therapists um special education teachers um uh school partners having a school partner was a really significant um throughout our work within the cohort um for people's light anyway and just considering what does this constellation of support look like for you um and the needs of your organization and I would also mention that it it kind of it there's an intentionality to that and there's also as it begins to happen the momentum just goes and we experience the people's light I mean maybe it was a four month period after less than that after the first relaxed performance we did it like it just kind of catches fire and as you have the right people in the room to continue to proliferate that message to others it I'm encouraging folks to be intentional across the organization but it also kind of organically just happened at people's light that we had folks in production folks in development folks in all different walks across seniority across um age experience level department who are deeply bought in and you can't have experiences like these a relaxed performance kind of experience um and it doesn't change the culture and temperature of your organization and that was something for us that as a really meaningful surprise and sharing is that you I hope with a lot of our work you you have new eyes and that you see the world in a whole different way that allows you to question all other aspects you thought you knew about your organization who is intentionally invited who is included who might feel excluded intentionally or unintentionally and right and so how can we begin to investigate all other facets of our programming and and consider that that invitation I also um I also wanted to mention that it's um are we here yet yeah so there's um we have experienced in the community in the Philadelphia region after um I don't know Philadelphia was kind of catching up to some other quadrants of the world that have been on this work um but now there's been a 600 increase in relaxed performances over a two-year period from before we were gathered as an official cohort to the years that we were working together and it's only ramping up and growing from there it's not just us now the Philadelphia the ballet got on board and wanted us to consult with them and share our learnings which we are eager to do right as you do it you want people to do this Philadelphia ballet the orchestra um Philadelphia theater company others in our region are now taking this on as well and aligning and and developing their own levels of partnership so um oh yeah and it's income generating it can be this working you know the first time maybe probably not there's a lot of investment but that it's a miss um it's a misconception to think that all of this is complete charity and that there aren't ways to leverage this you can scale it up and it takes having the right people with you to do it and being rigorous about um your intentions and evaluation and using that to your advantage but um yeah it can be income generating too and bouncing off of what Marcy said about stories seeing things through a new lens one of our biggest takeaways which shouldn't have been a surprise but when the work is more welcoming it makes the work better it's not that's not a hard concept but it takes going through it I think for us to have fully realized it one of our small success stories is one of our fears going into the project was that we're an equity professional theater but the performance that we chose and the show that we chose is performed by a young company who are college students at our partner university and so I had just self-consciousness about can these are these students able to adapt in the moment or do they have the life experience and the professional experience to be able to handle an audience that might be um something they're not familiar with and to trust that our audience would be um taken care of and protected in our space and they they went so above and beyond what I could have imagined when Roger came to consult with us they were offering things that they could adjust or things thoughts that they had on their own performances we had a lot of live music so they instituted for that relaxed performance a little um intro session to all their musical instruments so that everyone felt comfortable with what they were about to hear and knew that that drum was going to make that sound and this guitar was going to make that sound and they loved it so much that they did it the rest of the run so there were 40 more performances where they were like this is a blast the kids are loving it we're going to make our work better by instituting what we just did to make the work more welcoming to everybody and those are the kinds of things I couldn't have anticipated but it does just make and everybody's on point like that it makes the work better and more welcoming for everyone yeah yeah and and and there is no one way to um to do the work um we have have created a um a sort of best practices and or model for how we or a basic model for these are the sorts of things that were that we have been doing at our theaters but um there was um one thing that that you mentioned actually like like ASL clapping as opposed to um normal clapping I haven't done that we I don't think we've done that I think that's absolutely wonderful so there are definitely lots of um ways that you can um go about um making adjustments the the it's really more about what the what questions you're asking and knowing and knowing what your goal is and keeping um and asking questions to to drive you towards that goal um so for example at Theater Horizon our um the our first Brex relax performance was a was within a show that was very different than um the other productions that that were happening that year um it was a devised children's show um that that um allowed the audience to travel throughout our theater space in many different environments um and so it wasn't a the the whole oh well we have to um um set seats on either side because there were no seats um and so um and there are sensory stimulus yes and the sensory stimulus for that particular show was intense because it was completely immersive as opposed to one where you're on you're very much actually separated from the stage so um even those are ours was very different um we still took many of the um the practices um that you generally see at a relaxed performance such as um an usher with a blue um glow stick that sits in the audience that alerts anyone to um anything that's coming up we still had our blue glow stick um but it was with an usher that was traveling along the um uh with the audience so um but it's again it's about the questions that you asked and if your goal is inclusion then looking at it from that standpoint as opposed to well these are the things that we need to check off so that we make it relaxed um it's it's it's it's a lot more about who what is the community that we're serving and what is the thing that we're trying to make accessible to them and how do we um how do we bridge that gap so we're happy to take some questions at this point we really wanted to pull it in we have two minutes for questions so wow your timing was so good yesterday that's a minute for certain sections for one minute and time yeah all right and we had it's on there two minutes for questions yes sir and also varying our definition of who needs a relaxed performance we a large part of our audience for our first year was actually young mothers who maybe had a five-year-old that it was a easier to bring a five-year-old to a performance but also had a one and a half year old or one year like an infant that they were scared of disrupting the rest of the audience so relaxed performance is essential for that young mom or we had a birthday party and we explained what a relaxed performance was and they said that sounds perfect for a birthday party and yeah yeah so it yeah it expands and and moves as as it needs to depending on the yeah yeah absolutely yes now we have we've got water bowls in our lobbies we have mats that we invite and you know having a special designated doggie business area get assigned and tell people where is it safe for your animal to go but i mean we it's you're you're not allowed to it's illegal to exclude anyone and you know on the basis of any kind of need but for service animals like our institution has been welcoming of service animals but it hasn't been an overt invitation right and so now it's like come on how do we let people know this is a celebration and it's not even part of it is for the individual who who has the service but it's also about general audience awareness and education right so putting the signage out making things visible so it's like oh right we all have a range of different needs how can we be more understanding and inclusive yes please and in terms of people coming um like supporters coming back uh another group that we've noticed is our ushers and that uh a fear that we had early on is like oh will we get enough volunteers for this will people want to do this it's the first one to fill up every year people say it's their favorite thing to usher it's their favorite volunteer opportunity at the theater and that goes across our staff too staff dive into volunteer like oh no when when is that can I even make sure it's like we we don't need all it's amazing to have all the bodies but we don't need all of the bodies that show up to do an actual job they stand there and have the smiling face and that's what we've learned is um feedback from audience members is the first thing what matters most to them is how they're welcomed into the space right so it is that smile and we have families walk in and just break down from the smiles like I to know that this was for me and that I well is amazing we've zero minutes left thank you so much but we're around but we're around and we're yeah thanks for being here well done well done take it short take it short take it short take it short