 Hello, good evening everyone. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. My name is Ronnie Pinoy. My pronouns are she, hers. And I'm really thrilled to welcome you all to this conversation. I'm calling from the lands of the Piscataway and Anacostan people on the lands colonially known as Washington DC. And I want to begin our conversation tonight by paying respects to the ancestors past, present, and future of those people. I am a guest on these lands. My background is that I am a Lucuna Pueblo and Cherokee. And so I am thrilled to have been on these lands and working with many Piscataway and Anacostan people over the course of the last 10 years. So thank you very much for that. And now I'm happy to extend an introduction to, I guess, more myself and the other members of my team. So I am one of the producer hub team members, along with my colleagues Sophie Blumberg and Brian Hunt that are also producing this event tonight. And the topic of tonight's conversation is pitching in the time of the pandemic. And for those of you for whom this might be your first producer hub conversation, I just want to give the briefest of introductions to what we're up to tonight. So the producer hub is less than a year old. We launched it in this pandemic moment that we're finding ourselves in. And it's really a virtual platform and gathering place for independent producers and other makers of live performance to come together and really better our practice to examine the ways that we produce, the ways that we share work, the ways that we are, and ask ourselves the questions of how we can do better together. So while the producer hub really focuses on the work of the independent producer, as that's a space that we feel hasn't had a lot of support historically, we really welcome conversation across the live performance fields about how we can move forward towards a more just and equitable arts practice. So that's a little bit of the producer hub in a short bit. I'll throw out that, please, if you haven't been to the producer hub website, please do join us at producerhub.org. And I'm now looking at the comments coming in and I'm seeing some awesome people here. Hey, B. Hey, Angelique. Thanks so much for being here tonight. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and just get us to dive in and start this conversation. So we have three phenomenal humans joining us tonight who I am thrilled are sharing their time and expertise with us. So first up, I'm happy to introduce Madeleine Sayet, who is a director, writer, actress whose work explores decolonization, Shakespeare, and the harm and healing of the stories we tell. And then Tommy Kriegsman is a creative producer and founder of ArcType, where he collaborates with many artists and institutions, creating live performance, and also the lovely Borsche, who's the executive producer, excuse me, executive director of Utah Presents, and the assistant dean for art and creative engagement in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Utah. So I'll let them all say hi a little bit additionally as we get started. But first, thank you all so much for joining us tonight and for talking about pitching and all of the many things that that means. So first, this is going to dovetail a little bit from our prep call. But one of the first things we talked about is that pitching can mean many different things to many different people. It can also have a little bit of a bad rap. So how do you each work with others to advance potential projects, whether it be as an artist, producer, or presenter? And how is pitching an active part of your practice or not? And Maddie, I'm going to start by throwing it over to you. Hi, I'm Chahana Tiwis of Chokais. Hey, everybody. I'm Maddie. I'm a citizen of the Mohegan tribe here in Connecticut, where I am zooming in from our traditional lands, which are also the traditional lands of the Mashin Takit Piqua and Eastern Piqua. Yeah, this question is so interesting to me because I don't really pitch in a formal capacity, but I have lots of conversations with lots of different people. And I feel like so often the really good relationships come out of a shared mission or interest in the same things. All of my work does come from relationships, right? Like everyone's work is built out of relationships. But I can't think of any instance in which I've ever had to do a 30-second pitch pitch. And it's worked as well as my overall career of discourse and dialogue and being in constant relation with people. And I think that's because so much of my work is, well, to be honest, it's not work where I can just trust someone. And I have a very, due to a lot of experiences early in my career, I don't trust a lot of producers. And so whenever I'm actually engaging in collaboration, I feel less like I've never felt motivated to try and pitch someone something. But actually, it's more of a care situation where because of so much of my work having to do with, I work as a director. We imagine a lot of classics. But then I also, as a playwright, tell stories that are very personal to me as a native person as well. And because of a lot of the experience that I've had with producers who approach indigeneity in a very tokenized transactional manner where they have expectations of a kind of feathers and fringe reality that is never what I'm going to give them, I have to actually genuinely trust that this person is not seeking to do something harmful before I can even engage in any kind of a collaborative process. And so that's actually affected a lot of my work over the years. And also, I also very actively have always been blogging very specifically my viewpoint. In the COVID era, that's translated to a lot of panels. So I feel like people who are drawn to my work are drawn to both my work and my ideology as much as anything else. And I feel like for me, that's been really liberating because I'm not the kind of person, I think, who is very confident to go in and be like, blubber, blubber, blubber, blubber, blubber. I don't have that like swanky car salesman vibe. I don't think I could pull that off. I'd probably turn red and puke. So I'm very grateful that I have found, over the course of my career, alternative methods for relationship building that feel very long lasting as opposed to adhering to any particular existing format. No, Maddie, I so appreciate that because I think that while I'll definitely speak for myself and Tommy and Brooke are going to speak to this in a moment, but pitching is a big part of what I feel like I do in my practice. And what I love is the way that you're framing it. It's that that's not the only way to actually communicate with other people about what you do and advance projects and build work and build a body of work and a practice and a career. So there's many different ways to do it. And I also feel like there are also ways to pitch that don't feel quite so much like Glen Ross and feel a bit more in the kind of relationship base. And I'm curious now, if I throw it over to you, Tommy, next, if you can talk a little bit about what, how you work with others to advance projects and how pitching is a part of that. For sure. Tommy Kriegsman, pronouns are he and his, calling from the traditional territory of the Lenape tribes past, present and future in the colonial Iceland, known as Brooklyn in the state of New York. So pitching is a huge part of what I do because as a non-artist, I am taking the seeds of ideas and I'm starting from that, you know, the pivot point and trying to navigate the project on behalf of the artist all the way to fruition and all the way through as much of a lifespan as it can possibly have. So in order to do that, I have to, I have to pitch, I have to pitch a lot and I have to talk about the work in as active and energized a way as I possibly can and I have to figure out how these high risk works because everything I do is high risk, right? Everything, I would assume that every producer on this call and, you know, mostly in the world, they're choosing to activate a piece of theater because they think it's necessary. And I choose to go after work that I feel is as necessary as I can make work be and it's usually because it's got a very, very political position and it's got a voice that I believe to be essential and that may not be heard in as often and as magnified away as it should be and celebrated. And so in order to activate that and activate that and to build the bridges between the artist and whoever's going to be supporting that artist to make that work happen, I'm the one who is doing that and I'm the one who has to do that, you know, very, very carefully and also with a knowledge of not just what the artist is bringing to the table but what I'm bringing to the table in terms of the servicing of that relationship and also what the presenter is bringing to that table and I'm coming in with assumptions. I've done my research on that presenter or that venue or that regional theater or that independent producer. I've done as much as I can do in advance. I wanna know if they've ever come in contact with the artist or with anybody associated with the artist. You know, I wanna know if they have programmed something in their past that is along these same lines. I wanna know if I'm asking them to take a, what I know to be a gigantic step in a direction that they have never, ever, ever, ever gone to or if I'm making a very slight step or if I'm doing something that is really aligned with what I know their values and goals and mission to be. And I do believe in the value of bringing extremely challenging work to those who do not normally support extremely challenging work. And I also trust that in that situation I can be as in service to the artist and caring of the artist when that situation cannot be. That we can get through that situation and that I can prepare everybody involved to care for that situation as much as possible. That's not easy to do at all and that has failed a number of times, but that is the goal. And on the other side of it, the artists and I always come out and we've learned a lot and we can take those lessons on to another challenge. And it all has to do with the idea that distribution is really, it's just something that I really believe in. I believe in the way a piece can activate in different circumstances within different cultures, within different cultural frameworks, within different ideologies and that that actually enhances and enriches the piece. So that's what my pitch is essentially contained when I'm talking to somebody about them. No, and I appreciate that, Tammy, because you really talk about pitching as an ongoing practice that is getting reinforced and just becoming more robust over time. So I appreciate that framing. And Brooke, I'd love to hear you jump in on this as well, to hear from your perspective as a presenter, as a partner, how you advance projects and how a pitching is and isn't a part of that. Right. Well, again, I'm Brooke Horst and I'm based in Salt Lake City, Utah. We are on the ancestral homelands of the Goshoot, the Yut, the Paiute and the Suphomene peoples. And we are so grateful to them for all of their stewardship with past and present of this amazing place that we get to be guests on. It's a beautiful landscape with many, many beautiful resources. So pitching is interesting for me because I need all forms of it, to be honest. You had kind of alluded to sometimes pitching gets a bad rap when you set up the topic. And it's true, it does. I mean, I'm a presenter that mostly is focused on mission-driven work and all of our artists do some kind of engagement work when they're joining us in this community. But the depth of that varies. And I'm also a presenter that is largely self-funded. So I have to present along a spectrum, which means sometimes I need to do things that are really easily recognizable, not necessarily commercial, but recognizable, right? Which means that those kinds of projects generally can be pitched to me in a really sort of familiar format, right? Like I don't have to get to know the artist or the agent really deeply. We're not gonna do something challenging like Tommy is referencing. And those pitches that are really straightforward in that way are useful because I need those projects. I need those options. But I'm also a presenter that dives deep into lots of interesting topics, challenging work and contemporary work. And so I also need the pitches that come from relationships. I need the ones where an artist or an agent or a manager or producer is gonna really listen to what we're trying to accomplish and who our community is, who's here or who we're trying to serve, what are the challenges, where are the opportunities, and then really be able to trust that person to tell me about projects or artists that are a good fit. So we do need all versions of pitching. And I think I try to signal if what you're gonna pitch me if I know right from the beginning that it isn't gonna be a good fit from that moment. But I also try to sit in a space that's open because oftentimes it's what you don't know about that ends up being the thing that you need the most, right? So you'll be willing. I mean, this sounds crazy. I get so many emails per day about those, but I really do want to look at every one of them before I delete them because there might be something there that that's unexpected, right? I'm just one person. So I can only know about so many things and I have to rely on all different ways of pitching me, whether it's an email or a phone call or a showcase or a word of mouth. Like I have to rely on all those things to really fill my hopper of potential collaboration pull up so that there's lots to choose from. Absolutely. Now, I think you covered so many valuable things in there and that one thread that I'll just pull out from a lot of what you're saying is trust and doing your research and understanding and listening. Really hearing what is happening on the other end of the conversation. Because I think pitching can often, I mean, at least when I was first starting, that kind of idea of pitching I had in my head was very one way and everything that this group is sharing, it's really so much more dialogue than a one way dynamic. Yeah, I mean, I just have to respond to that to say that there are, I have partners, colleagues out there, you know, Ronnie, you're a great example of this where I've come to trust octopus theatricals own choices around curation, right? Because you're curating a roster of artists. And so I will come to you and say, hey, I'm looking for something like this. I don't know where it is or what it is, but this is kind of what the parameters are. This is the need I'm trying to fill. Do you have anything along those lines? So sometimes I'm pitching it or I'm asking for a pitch, right? Exactly, exactly. No, and that's, I think that's right on. And it really gets it like pitching as a wider series of relationships and the ecosystem that we're all a part of. And Tommy, I want to go back to you to expand a little bit more on the way that you were talking about articulating an artist vision. I'm curious if you can, because I feel like this has been something that a lot of independent producers have been asking for in this moment is like what constitutes a good pitch? And being the producer hub, I think understanding what the components of that are, I think would be really valuable for a lot of folks. Hmm, I think what constitutes a good pitch is that, you know, when it's really going well in, you know, in a 10 out of 10 conversation between yourself and a potential partner, all of the, what you're describing is aligning, you know, bit by bit, that what they're reading into what you're talking about because every, of course, piece of art or, you know, especially a piece of theater has so many dynamics about it. They can be seen in a million different ways. It can be performed in, you know, so many different contexts. It can be understood in so many different ways. Each work has its own effect on audiences that may be more new to subject matter or way more advanced in subject matter. So when I'm within that, the framework of a conversation with a presenter or a venue or a partner or regional theater or other, I'm trying to take it from the point of view of what their communities are going to respond to and what community they may be trying to be more welcoming toward. Or be more inventive and responsive too. And that's a huge part of what that pitch is going to do and where I'm going to be putting certain works on the table where I'm not gonna be putting certain works on the table. And I mean, it should come from a sort of very specific place, which is that when someone is sitting down with me, there are probably 30 pieces that we could be talking about at any given time. So I have to be very careful about how I gauge that and not waste anybody's time. That's a very big part of why people like Brooke are even willing to sit down with me is that I'm not going to waste their time. And because there are 3,000 works that they can be choosing from at any given time. So how do you make yours a priority for them? Part of that is my choosing of work and the power inherent to that work and making sure that that work is of a certain quality and of a certain power and of a certain aptitude and depth that is going to respond to all these mechanisms. And then another part of it is simply how that work is going to be able to be positioned. So a successful pitch ultimately is going to give a partner immediately an understanding of how that work is from beginning, middle, and end. And that's a very short timeframe in order to create that picture, I think. They have to understand what it is from a marketing perspective. They have to understand what it is from an internal perspective of how their staff is going to treat and respond to that work. And they have to understand it from a community perspective and from the artist perspective about how they're going to care for the artist and how that experience is going to be. So it's one that ultimately equals that there is great mutual reward to enter into this situation. No, right on. And I also think it's worth sharing for the folks listening that a lot of this conversation is existing, looking at pitching as coming from a independent producer or artist towards someone who is going to be presenting their work fully completed. But I just want to shout out that this is, of course, not the only way to be pitching work. This is not the only way to be building relationships. Whether you're a playwright who's in relationship with a literary manager, whether it's an artist agent, or if you're, I often think about the network of ensemble theaters and a lot of those ensemble theaters who are working with each other and doing exchange presenting each other's work. So I think this ability of understanding, first, like doing some thinking about who you're talking to and why and doing some kind of level of choice making before you get there, I think Tommy to your point is so critical. So just to shout out that there we're not, there's not a assumption that this way of working is the only way of working. And I think a lot of what we're trying to, the threads we're trying to pull out here can be more broadly applied. So just to shout out for that. And I want to actually shift to now to thinking specifically about everything we've talked about so far, but with the lens of the pandemic on it. So, and Maddie, I want to throw this question over to you. How has the pandemic changed your approach? And moreover, how has your community changed your approach to working with that community changed over time? Yeah, it's funny, because until I started thinking about this a couple of days ago, I don't think I had realized how many people I work with right now that I never met in person. And it's well over 300 when I started counting people that I'm collaborating with right now that I have never met pre-pandemic. And so, and that's like just, I just started, like it's probably quite a lot more than that actually, which is really interesting to me right now. So for those of you who don't, so I am an artist in like multiple capacities. I am both a director, a writer and a performer. And that sort of happened mostly because I was trying to be useful. I was a performer and I felt like there were plenty of them. And then I sort of shifted to directing because it was useful and then writing. And then somehow I ended up in a solo show and then it shifted all back over again, right? But it was a lot of that was actually just like, well, I want to be making things with people and I want to be useful. So what can I be doing right now that is useful? And what that's translated to in the pandemic is really actually for the first time, I'm actually able to do all of the things because we're not limited timeline wise to be in one place the way that we were before. And so I'm collaborating on so many things both as an artist and as a scholar right now in a way that would have never been possible before in addition to that for native theater. And I'm also, I am also the executive director of the indigenous performing arts program and also a co-artistic director of Red Eagle Soaring Native Youth Theater. And for both of those programs as well as all of my other work accessibility for native folks during the pandemic has been immense. Like growing up for me, like I didn't find out that there were native playwrights until my final year of college because that's not what's accessible in a small town. You go to the bookstore, if you have a bookstore nowadays you might not, right? You go to the bookstore and what's on the shelves is like 80 million versions of Shakespeare plays and you're not going to find a native playwright and you're not gonna find that in school and no one's gonna teach you that they exist. But now suddenly what's happening is that you don't have to be in a city because actually no matter where you are as long as you have internet service which is his own limitation, right? You can access whatever's happening. So a zoom reading of a native play while it might seem like silly to some people you do that zoom reading in New York City you get 20 people to show up you do that zoom reading online and suddenly there's 2000 people watching. And so the way that that has actually shifted the way that within native theater we're able to collaborate and collaborate constantly and actually a lot of us all be in our homelands and still be collaborating is really, really transformational and I'm really excited now by the possibilities that that offers like for example, I've actually, I've been privileged in that I've actually also been able to make a lot of art during the pandemic I also understand that for a lot of people that hasn't been the case a lot of this is realistically due to the fact that there was a shift in attention to two native peoples from producers or like, you know, during the pandemic in relationship to a lot of the harm that has been done to our communities. And that was not necessarily true also pre pandemic you know, what happened with George Floyd and also what happened with native people facing the highest rates of death because of COVID like there was a lot of movement that drew attention to our stories and our communities in a way that was not true before. But what that means is that now we're creating all of these opportunities for access and even this spring, my solo performance piece where we belong is at Willie Mammoth and you know, structurally there's a part of me as a theater maker that's like it's gonna be recorded and on film and that's not what it's supposed to be and that's like terrible and it's gonna like make me cringe but then the other part of me that's like if we did this show in DC how many native people would be there? If we released this show online for two weeks like it completely changes who the audience is and who's able to access it. And so I was definitely one of those people who pre pandemic was like a theater theater person and I was like scared of like all other mediums, you know and now I've been forced to do voice acting to create audio plays, to create zoom plays to do all of these things that like, you know are messy the first time that you do them but like open you up to more possibilities and I actually feel like, you know even though as a director I think as a writer and as a performer I feel much more engaged in this medium as a director, I feel like I don't know what I'm doing to be honest, you know, when things are on zoom but the way that it's changed the actual dialogue around accessibility, I think is really undervalued because like if I was in high school and I could have seen one of these plays like it would have changed my life, you know it would have been a completely different experience from then on growing up and I've been able to create things like this year we created a Young Native Actors Award and around at the Young Nations Former Arts Program and around that, you know, programming or they get to take different classes and things like that and then be sort of like you know, brought into the National Native Theater community and then what does that do for everyone else trying to produce plays when suddenly you don't have to cast 35 year olds as teenagers anymore because suddenly like oh, we know we're all there, they all are, you know so all that is to say, I think if anything it's actually expedited the rate at which I can make relationships and meet people and I was someone who was actually like for at least a couple years before the pandemic started because I was in the air constantly like I was never in one place for more than a few minutes, I chose not to live in a city and so that meant that like I was like pretty much always away from home either I was like at five AM kind of like rolling onto the train to New York where I was like, you know, like flying somewhere and honestly like the ability to just like sit here in my apartment and be in like 5,000 places at once means that I can in some ways get a lot more done. So I think it's a really unique opportunity for relationship building where you can take I went on longer than I meant to, sorry but I just, I feel like people are really open to just talking across the entire world now in a way that wasn't true before and actually presents a lot of possibilities if you're willing to look for them. Yeah, and I think too to your point that native theater is in a lot of ways become less fringe I think for some presenters because it feels more accessible to find because it's in video form you can just jump in and join that Zoom reading that would have been, you know I think there's a little bit more of an appetite for watching work that way as well and I'm actually wondering Brooke if you have any thoughts that you would wanna add to this on how the pandemic has changed the way that you're experiencing work and building relationships and where it's been a barrier and where it's been an opportunity. Yeah, I think first I'll just say that not being able to sit in a space with artists and experience what it is that I'm being pitched on is a challenge. You know, as a presenter I am building a relationship of trust with the community that I'm working in and with the audience and as a predominantly contemporary you know, non-commercial based presenter I'm asking them to come to something that they don't know what it is. It's not, you know, Phantom Lim, you know it's amazing, I know it's amazing but no one here in Salt Lake City is familiar with Phantom Lim because they're based on the East Coast and they haven't toured here before. So part of like having the courage to like put all this stuff out there that we've curated is having seen it ourselves or having someone on our team or a really close collaborator having seen it and someone who knows our community and knows its dynamics say, yeah, we could do that here. It might be hard because of this or it's gonna be amazing because of this, right? So that is, that's a real challenge. So, you know, I think what everybody out there can take from that is you maybe think you don't necessarily need really good ways for presenters to see your work in the virtual setting even if it's just in development, what you do because if we can't be there to see it in person in some way then we have to turn to YouTube clips or, you know, recordings of the show and if you're the more effort you put into having those at the ready and having them be what it is you want represented, you know not having it just be, you know what you were able to pull off is important because we're putting a lot of stock into that what we're watching virtually. I would also say that keep in mind that you know, we're all struggling, you know I know artists are struggling I know independent producers are struggling but presenters are struggling too and so when you're pitching right now just remember in the back of your head that you know, we're so for example Utah presents we've furloughed over 70 people in the past year. We are down to a bare bones staff and those are really difficult financial decisions to make but we're making them because I want to have money to give and pay artists for the work that we are doing. So be, you know, that's the difference now like my resources are so limited not just in terms of money but also in terms of people. And creative capacity like we're just we're all in the same boat we're all working on really altered resources right now. So those I would say are the two ways things have changed I think another thing and this connects to what Maddie was saying is that we're engaging in a lot more field wide conversations right now. You know, we're trying to reimagine what we'll be when we can come back and we're trying to deal with the reckoning that has needed to happen for so long. And so we're doing a lot more of these kinds of things and so I'm listening in these things and I'm watching these things, you know I have never met Maddie before but you better bet now is the time where I'm gonna write down her name and be like I'm gonna go check out her work. So I'm making connections in different ways just the way Maddie is because our world has contracted in a geographic way but it's expanded in a virtual way. Exactly, exactly. No, right on. And I feel like there was so much that you just pulled in there as well about a lot of assumptions that I feel like a lot and assumptions maybe isn't the right word but this moment has made so many people so vulnerable that the entire way that the timeline, the approach, the kind of rhythm that anyone in the contemporary performance booking kind of universe is used to has shifted and every presenter is different, every artist is different, every independent producer is different of what's going on and I think that just adds it seems to me from what you're saying adds an additional layer of really, really asking where your colleagues are at for diving in that's been a big takeaway from this conversation. So another question I wanna speak, I wanna ask about is, this is taking a little bit of a turn but I do think for folks who really wanna get into the weeds of this I think it's gonna be valuable which is, what do you wish that someone had told you about either pitching or more broadly about building successful collaborations when you were first building your career and Brooke too, if you answer this question I'm curious too if you could speak a little bit more to some of the kind of like tips for success and traps to avoid. Sure. Well, I'll start with that and I'll end on the first question so then you can transition to somebody else. So I would say things to avoid. Don't condescend to me about your artists. Like I know artists are amazing and I know they're doing amazing things but don't tell me why I have to do that artist because I'm in this place and I'm navigating the complexities of the place that I'm in. So listen to the signals or the things I'm saying that are indicating if it's not the right fit for me and then respect that. Don't try to create, I think in our prep call I said, don't try to hook me with FOMO. Don't tell me that the Cranard Center is doing it and expect that to be why Utah Presents does it. We're very, very different. We have similarities but we're very, very different. And if I say no, it's going to ask me to justify my no to tell you why so you can understand it but don't forget that I told you no. Don't come back to me a month later, three weeks later, two years later and pitch me on the same thing because like Tommy said, we all have limited time and you don't wanna waste my time and you don't wanna waste your own time. So remember the no and I would then also say, a really successful way to be ready for a pitch is to particularly now is to understand all of the capabilities of the artist you're representing, the project you're representing or the things about yourself that maybe aren't apparent in that pitch description of the show because what I'm gonna ask you is, okay, that's great. I love to know that about the show and what the experience is gonna be for the audience that shows up on that night, on that day. But what about all the time I'm gonna wanna spend with you connecting you or connecting these artists to our community as part of the engagement? And I think community engagement around a ticketed show is becoming more and more prevalent. As a presenter, it's why I exist actually. I don't exist to sell the ticket to the show. I exist to create the connection between the artists and the community. So be ready to talk about that. And I often will ask an artist or a group or what else do you wanna do? Like other than the show, what else are you interested in? What else fascinates you from what you know on our community, what do you wanna learn from us? So be ready to answer those questions because that's actually what's gonna, I think, make you stand out. I noticed Diego asked a question about what makes certain things stand out to presenters when we are always getting so much contacts is, yeah, there's that question, fancy. Yeah, be ready with more than just your three minute pitch. Be ready to talk about things that excite you beyond that particular project or ways that you wanna learn from the community you're going to just be ready to talk about engagement. Yeah, so those are a couple things. And then as far as what do I wish I had known? Well, I wish I had, I've learned it and I'm glad I've learned it, but I wish I had known to be more forward with saying, no, that's not the right fit for everything, for everything that isn't, right? So that I don't keep wasting the person who's pitching me's time, right? So I've learned that it's actually not, it's not mean. I mean, you can deliver it in a mean way, right? But to just be really forward and say, no, thank you, not at this time. And this really comes into play, I think, around conferences and I get requests from a lot of people for meetings some folks approaches to just ignore the request. And what I've learned is a lot kinder way and how I would wanna be treated if I were reaching having to reach out for cold meetings is to say, thanks for reaching out, but I don't need a meeting at this time. And if I do, I'll come back and follow up with you. Yeah. No, I love it. I think one of my favorite sayings that I've definitely adopted is that the next best answer to yes is no. As opposed to this, like, oh, maybe, maybe, sort of, should we keep talking about it? No, it can be a real active love. Yeah, and Tommy, gonna kick it over to you. What do you wish someone had told you? You're younger than me, self. I think we all enter into a situation where we're constantly feeling like we're going to step over some boundary or we're going to cross a line or people aren't going to be as welcome to ideas. I think there's a lot more fear that is instilled in us about that than I think is warranted. I think if somebody had told me, be way more brave than you're being. From the very beginning, I think it would have, I just would have been nice to take less time to come around to the fact that what I need to be doing is taking way more risk. What I need to be doing is bringing way more, what I feel to be a more transformational capacity to the work that I'm bringing to people. I think the mistake is always underestimating who's across the table from you. And there are lots of ways to do that. I have my own issues with talking to someone with whom I'm sort of possibly, you're talking to a university where you're prejudging what the cultural capacity of that university might be. It's a big football school. They're not going to come to shows on Saturdays. All the parameters that come with any situation that occurs is always kind of a pre-judgment as to what work is going to be appropriate for them. What are they really going to agree to? What are they going to do? And I know, believe me, what it feels like to be sitting across from a blank stare when you're talking to somebody about something that is extremely important. And it has extreme relation and value to their community and they're really not understanding where that is and how that works. And it's a terrible feeling. It's the worst feeling. Brooke, it's sort of the opposite of like, underestimate or don't condescend me, but there's a part of it on the other side, right? Where you're being really condescended by somebody who's like, yeah, no, we don't have gay people in my town. It's like, what the fuck are you talking about? You know what I mean? Or just some feeling where all of a sudden it's like, this person is deeply, deeply, deeply unaware around even the own dynamics in their city and doesn't care to talk about that. So the question about, and that is something I deal with all the time. And it's very, very, it's tricky and deflating to say the least. So I think what you have to really, I think understand from the beginning is that the person across from you welcomes transformation, welcomes change, welcomes high creativity, welcomes risk, welcomes an extraordinary adventure and journey that they want to go on with a piece and trust that your, if you believe in your heart that you are bringing that, bring it, you know, really bring it and, you know, figure out what the dynamics of that are and be as brave as you can in your delivery of that. And it will come back to you. It will come back to you. If it doesn't work for that person right there, the energy you're bringing to it is going to get to another person either through them or through another way and it will happen. And so I think the trust in that inevitability is something very, very difficult to know for the beginning, but like after doing this for 25 years, you know, the feeling of like, it's going to be okay, but we're going to get there is a really good feeling to have. That's great. You know, thank you so much, Tommy. I think the be brave is a really, again, to bring that passion and to really know that, you know, clearly if you're working with an artist and you believe in them to really make all of that present right on. I mean, I think that's a great piece of advice for folks. I want to invite folks who are in the comment section if you have additional questions to go ahead and share them. Cause I think in a couple of minutes we're going to move to a question to pulling questions from the chat. Before we do that, there was one more question from me that I wanted to throw out to all of you, which was if you could each speak a little bit more about how trust, listening and transparency are a part of your process. I know those are words that have, you know, a number of them have kind of already kind of made their way woven through the conversation. And I wonder if we can kind of bring this section of the conversation home touching on those just a little bit and maybe some short responses this time if you don't mind we could take some questions from the chat. And Maddie, I'm going to start with you. Sure. I think also tying that to the question before also I was just thinking a lot about, you know like early in my career, well not even early in my career I guess like sort of pre-career, right? When they're like training you to be in the field they're always trying to get you to like compare yourself to existing things as if that's the thing that is most useful. And it's really not, you know I feel like you need to know who you are and you need to know what you care about and if you are consistent in knowing that it's infinitely more valuable than trying to like pretend you exist in some sort of box world. I mean, yes, in order to pitch there needs to be words that exist that can describe you. However, that does not mean that you cannot invent those words, right? It doesn't mean that you can't create the situation in which like that thing then exists. And I say that because like for me so much of what I've done hasn't been has actually been because I've been trying to like get out of containers people have been putting me in and ultimately the things that I'm usually doing aren't necessarily received well at the first moment. Like I remember the first few times I went to the Shakespeare Theater Association like when I was directing All Native Shakespeare is like everyone was like, oh, so cute. You know, like it's like your community service project. Like that's kind of how it was treated. And then like now it's like everybody would like wants that, you know it's like, oh, that's the thing that we need because everyone's like investigating now how Shakespeare is colonial. And so they actually have to examine these things. And so things change, like things change but you ultimately need to know who you are in relationship to the world around you. My solo show existed not because I wanted to write a play but because I had something I needed to figure out. And then every time someone asked, said can you do this again? I've said, please no, you know because it really isn't that fun to do. But it stimulates interesting questions that I want to be asked in the world. And so then I'm like, oh, it's worth it to ask those questions. And so in relationship to that also trying to keep it short but really failing Ronnie, sorry. The trust is so important because I recognize because I'm shifting position so often that the amount of vulnerability that goes into any of these positions is perceived differently if you're a director if you're writer, if you're performer, producer but it exists in all of those spaces. And so you really need to be able to trust people to know that you're willing to go on that ride with them. And I feel like nothing like I appreciate nothing more than having return collaborators. I feel like return collaborators are like a gift in so many ways. One, because it means like almost where it I didn't means you didn't mess up that badly the first time, right? But then two, because like there's like a comfortability there, right? When you go back into that relationship and you can deepen the work or you go back or the producer asks you back and they say, hey, what are you working on? You're like, oh my God, what am I working on? That's like a generous thing you can say to me I can do whatever I want, right? And or playwright like trust you enough to keep bringing their plays back to you. It just means so much. And so anyway, so all of that is to say that I think it comes from appreciating and understanding that vulnerability. And it's really hard when you are operating between cultures and I recognize that as a native person because so much of it has to do with the instances in which I did not receive respect. Very early on I became a director, mostly because I had seen like a lot of non-native directors do really horrible things and I was like, the bar is low. I was like, the bar is really low right now. So all I have to do is respect everyone and actually that will be a great starting place. And so being comfortable to ask the questions and be vulnerable and respect each other and like really respect each other before you take out your own securities, right? And like try and make it seem like you know what's going on and everything is okay. Like that kind of transparency, the transparency to actually be with each other and communicate and be vulnerable. Like to me, like that is what has 100% built my career. Like there is no one I have ever worked with who is like, she always has it together. Like no one is gonna say that, I don't think so. But they know that I'm always honest, right? And that actually means a lot more because that means the relationships are deep. And that ultimately they can trust me and they know that I'm doing the work and that I'm thinking about things really deeply and that the producers I really trust the ones where I feel like I can come to them and say like, this thing happened and we need to address it. Not the ones who I'm scared of because I think that they're kind of coming and say something racist in my rehearsal, right? And so really honoring, I think everywhere if you know me is a big part of that for me. No, thank you for sharing the full thought of that because I think that's incredibly valuable. It connects to the last question and it's foundational. It is the thing and it underscores it's our own storytelling of where we are and how we work the way we work. I mean, your background is informing so much of the way that you operate in the world. So I love the connections you're making there. Also why the stories, right? Which is different for different people. Right, right. And I just have to say too that, you know, Tommy, when you said about the, you know that we don't have, you know, gay folks here, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that about native people, I'd be a very rich lady. So, you know, it's, yeah, but anyway, but I digress. I wanna get back to, I wanna make sure that I hear broken Tommy on this question of trust, listening and transparency. And I also, the other question I'm seeing in the chat, I'm gonna shout out to you, Meredith, that I'm wondering if you still want to get an answer to that question. I think we might have answered it, but please give a ping if you'd like us to speak specifically to it. Otherwise I'm gonna keep going, but folks in the comments said, please shout out if there's a specific question you want us to get to. Okay. Yeah, Tommy, let's throw it over to you for trust, listening and transparency. You know, I think every, you know, I think every producer in this forum knows what it's like to get back into a situation where I have to have a very difficult conversation about where a project has turned. You know, and I think from the very beginning, they're, you know, part of that pitch process and where things really get established between you and a collaborator partner is really, you know, establishing as much as possible that not just that they can kind of trust what you're saying right now. I mean, very often I will catch myself saying things all the time in a pitch that are, they're salesy, they're really salesy, you know? I'm here to get the job done, you know? And I'm here to get the gig and that's cool. I mean, I'm okay with that. But that has come back to bite me in the ass for sure, you know? I mean, the situation changed. The artist had a different vision. Something got much more expensive. Things happened within that. What I need Brooke to be able to trust for me is that we're gonna work through that and we're gonna really get to figure that out. And I think that's implicit to the process that there's gotta be that trust and engagement and a certain level of transparency about what could go awry or what could just change and what pivots can happen within that process that I have to listen very carefully to them and they have to listen very carefully to me to kind of understand what all those parameters are and what could possibly shift. And I have to get better about describing those things off the bat so that everybody understands exactly what journey they're going on. So there really aren't surprises when those things happen as difficult as they can be. There really shouldn't be surprises. And that's really particular to the fact that I'm very often starting from the seat of a work. It's three years until I have a final thing with a final technical rider that is utterly mobile and just ready to roll and can load in in a day and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, until we get to that point, the artist needs to have all the freedom to do what they want, period. And I have to be the shield and conduit to allow that. And they're looking at me for parameters. I'm looking at them for parameters. The partner is looking both all of us for parameters and we're all doing the dance and trying to figure that out so we can all rise together. So I think that to me is where the trust and transparency thing is really very key. Right on, thanks Tommy. And Brooke, would you like to take us home? Yeah, I'm gonna focus real heavily on that transparency because I think trust doesn't necessarily come without it. And Ronnie, I'm gonna share a story from our relationship and hopefully it's okay because I didn't think about doing this. I should have put it in a private message to your ass. No, go for it. Better than me, I like that. I think the thing that we are the least transparent about in these relationships is money, right? Because in its most simplest form, Tommy's trying to get the most money for Maddie and her collaborators. And I'm trying to pay the least amount of money because I'm trying to lose the least amount of money. I mean, and I don't say that negatively. We do revenue negative work. That's why we raise money. That's why we ask patrons to trust us and donate money. That's why we exist at universities where there's other structures that support what we do. So I'm gonna lose money on almost everything I do, but how much I lose does matter. So money is the thing we tend to talk about the least. And so the story out to share is that, Ronnie and I were new to working with each other. And we met through a couple of different things, a couple of different sort of networking connections. And there was a piece that Ronnie was representing that was really compelling for Utah Presidents. And we had a great first time coffee meeting sitting down at some coffee shop in New York at the end of an APEP. And we talked about the project. We talked about all the amazing community engagement we could build. We talked about why it mattered to Utah Presents, why it mattered in Salt Lake City. We talked about what the company was trying to accomplish. We did all the right things. And then when we talked about money, we didn't go real deep. We did that thing where you kind of just do a certain thing. I said, well, what's the quote? And Ronnie said, it's this much. And I wrote that down because I take really good notes. And I took that number because that's the number that Ronnie gave me. And I went back and I moved around my budget and I figured out how to make it happen because she pitched me on the project really well, right? And then when I went back to Ronnie and said, let's do it, let's do it. And I said, this is the number you gave me. And Ronnie said, yeah, it's that number and then this and then this and then this. The things that she was adding on weren't unreasonable but that's not what our conversation about money was in that coffee meeting. And it was because we went through it quickly because it's the most uncomfortable part of our relationship, right? And so then we had to have a moment which could have went really badly. I mean, I could have just walked away. Ronnie could have just said, well, Brooke's trying to nickel and dime us. I don't wanna work with her, you know? But we had to have a moment where we were honest and transparent. And that's what happened. I said, this is the number you gave me. So that's the number I made happen and I don't have more to work with. And Ronnie came back and said, this is the number I gave you for this part but this is why we really need these other things and gave me the context. And then we met in the middle because at that point, we were being transparent enough with each other to begin the relationship of trust, right? And so now, if I'm gonna talk to Ronnie about a project, I'm gonna trust that when we talk about the money, we're both gonna know to make sure to be really clear about what that number really is. Yes, and what that number includes and doesn't include because in that coffee meeting where you're running out the door and adding the words plus, blah, blah, blah for this extra thing becomes really important. So, but that, I mean, I feel like as a result of that working through that really honestly and frankly, I think it actually ended up making our relationship stronger in the long run having to go through that. And we solved the problem together which means that we built that pathway, right? It's like building a pathway in your brain. We built that pathway in our relationship. So now we know that even if we have another conflict, conflicts is not a bad thing that we have a pathway already built to solve it together. No, I'm really glad you brought up that story. So I'm, I would love to keep staying on and talking with these lovely folks, but I'm seeing now that we're a little over time. So what I wanna transition to is first gratitude. Thank you so much to the three of you for joining and sharing time in the middle of this pandemic, we're still in here later and talking about this topic. I'm thrilled to get all of you in the same space together and introduce some of you for the first time. So just first, thank you, thank you, thank you. So appreciate it. And from the awesome chat that's happening, I know everyone here is really appreciating it as well. And then next, what I wanna say to everyone listening is thank you so much for joining as well. Please let folks know that this will be available after the fact tonight, the recording is available online and you can find that through producerhub.org. And our next webinar is gonna be on anti-racism and accountability, and that's gonna be two weeks from today on March 18th. And again, you can register for that and get more information about that in all of our future webinars at producerhub.org slash webinars. So thank you all so much for joining us and please do hit us up with questions and suggestions for future webinars. This was actually a recommendation from one of the members of the Creative and Independent Producer Alliance who's actually here tonight. So your idea about what you need in your practice could be the next webinar. So again, thank you so much for joining us. Really so grateful to be in community with you all and have a fantastic night. Thank you.