 Good morning, everyone. Hi, I'm Leslie Ishii, co-chair of the steering committee. Joan Osato sends her just best wishes for a continued great conference. She had to leave yesterday evening. She's the other co-chair. It's such an honor and a pleasure to be with you. Here we are mid-week. And I just want to share that as I offer this greeting that I have learned from our dear friends and colleagues from the native Hawaiian community, that when we have this greeting together, it's part of reclaiming language. And in my conversation this morning with Jenny Marlowe, and Jenny's, well, Jenny, will you share? Come on up here and share this with me. She's going to be mad at me for the rest of the conference now, but it's worth it. Jenny is from Indigenous Direction. We've worked to reach out to other communities to be here with us. Black Theater Commons is represented with us. Latinx Theater Commons, of course, our native Hawaiian delegation, and Jenny Marlowe from Indigenous Direction. So I feel well into my lifetime, until well into the lifetimes of, I'd say, looking around every person in this room, which is something that I don't think everybody knows. So it's an act of defiance and also an act of restorative justice when we hear Indigenous languages spoken aloud on stage. So shall we say aloha? Yes. Yes. So will we share aloha? It's a revolutionary act, people. Ready? Yeah. Together? Ready? Aloha! Oh, come on. This is a revolutionary act. Let's get it on. Aloha! That is the vibration of revolution. Thank you, everyone, who turned out for the rally down the street. That was a revolutionary act. That's what we're about. So as just a brief recap, we started out with Tammy Haileopua Baker with part one, which was reclaiming language. And today, it'll be our honor and pleasure to welcome our guest speaker, who Victor will introduce as part two of our revolutionary acts. So with that, thank you, Jenny. Oh my gosh, thank you. Let's give Jenny a hand, because it is a revolutionary act when we call people together, right? And build coalition and solidarity. It's my honor and pleasure to introduce one of our other many board members. She is the executive director and literary director of Pangea World Theater, right here in the Midwest from the Twin Cities, Mina Natarajan. Part of our mission is to knowledge share. So that will be part of what Mina does in these next moments with another one of our colleagues in our community. Aloha. My name is Mina, and I am the executive director of Pangea World Theater. And are you guys having a good time in this conference? OK, great. I say with pride that this really has been one of the most amazing conferences for us, too, as board members. And just in the way activism and everything has come together, and the plays, and our social justice mission, everything, and then also are reaching out to other networks. It's been truly revolutionary, the things that are happening here in Chicago. But it is my pleasure to introduce somebody that I love very much. Her name is Mina Malik. And I had the extraordinary privilege and honor of being one of the advisors of the National Theater Projects of the New England Foundation for the Arts for the last three years. I stepped out for a little while and back again in December. But I wanted Mina, Malik, I invited her to talk about the National Theater Projects in the hope that people in the Asian-American community could apply for this amazing, amazing opportunity because it's an opportunity to develop, create, and tour work in a way that really supports artists. So Mina Malik, and she's a program manager at New England, at the National Theater Projects of New England Foundation for the Arts. Thank you for having me. Aloha. I must say, I was telling Cheryl this morning that I think this is the conference that I've ever felt most comfortable and welcomed in because I attend a lot of conferences. And yeah, this is my space. It's really amazing. So thank you for welcoming me. So yeah, I wanted to briefly talk about the National Theater Project. So I'm the program manager of theater at the New England Foundation for the Arts, aka NIFA. So NIFA's work in theater is to expand the boundaries of theater through grant making to support the creation and touring of new work, partnership and network building, and through supporting artist sustainability. Our fundamental grant, which is the National Theater Project Creation and Touring Grant, funds the development and touring of new ensemble devised theater work. And we award eight projects annually. And the grants range between $80,000 to $130,000. So it's pretty substantial, which is divided into the development portion, which goes directly to the artist, and then the touring portion, which acts a subsidy that presenters apply and receive. And in addition to this creation and touring grant, each recipient also receives $10,000 towards the capacity building for touring the project, because we understand that some groups and some ensembles don't have tour administrators and funding towards actual touring. So that's the grant. And since the first round in 2010, we have distributed more than $6.31 million into the field and have supported 57 new theater works that has toured to 43 different states across the US. Yeah. And I do want to mention that National Theater Project has been made possible by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. So thank you. We can't do this without them. And for today, I really wanted to mention this specifically, because we want you all to apply. We want more Asian-American theaters, anything that encompasses within that Asian-term theaters and artists apply for this grant, because we want to elevate your voices. And I want to tell you the people we have supported so far who are Asian-American artists and ensembles. So we've supported Byron O'Young, who's, I think, going to be speaking later this week. CloudOwE Control, they're based in LA. And Tieta Productions. And Yang Jin-Li, where Tai Dufo is currently performing in. And we just announced our eighth cohort, which includes a project that involves Joan Osado and Roberto Uno as well. So we're really excited about that. We really would like to encourage you to apply. So if you have a chance, and if you see me around, if you have questions, please grab me, ask me questions. I'm here to help. And our next round will be available in January. So thank you so much for your time. Oh, yes. And I don't know if people have seen Pohaku last night. They're performing today at 3.30 as well. That has been supported by the National Dance Project, which is the sister project of National Theater Project. So go see it. It's amazing. So thank you. I just want to say that this process, the process of this application is one of the most thoughtful processes. It's very different from anything else in the field. There are 12 advisors who actually talk through every single project. And consideration is given to everything. And more and more organizations of color have been getting this grant, especially because of the composition of the advisory board has changed so much in the last like six, seven years. And so really, it's something that even in the process of application is going through the process where the advisors choose about 25 projects. And then each project is mentored by an advisor so that you have, so that the grant writing process is actually mentored by advisors. And so you really think through the project together with the advisor. And it's an amazing, amazing project. I think that Leilani was saying yesterday that she learned so much more about grant writing as a result of writing that grant. So there's really, and I know we applied for it this year. And we really learned so much from just talking to our advisor. So I just want to really encourage everybody, every single person here, please, please apply for that grant. It's a really amazing opportunity. And it's been a game changer in the field. We also learned from Greg Reiner. Is Greg here this morning? Is he still? Yes. Greg, didn't you mention that there are very few Asian, the Pan-Asian community as far as grants applications that come in for the NEA? Right? Please, OK. Oh, so folks, let's get on it. Yes, there's opportunity. And there's money there for us. It's really important. And it lifts everybody when we apply. It sends a message that when we apply as well, that we're out here and our voices are here. It is my great honor and pleasure also to introduce another board member, Victor Moag. Victor, come on up. You saw Victor's great direction work in hot Asian everything, Monday night. He's a talented director. And we're so lucky he's on our board. Thank you, Victor. Thank you. Aloha. I'm Victor Melana Moag, vice president of the board. And I'm just going to take just a very little bit of time to introduce Rajiv Joseph. And I was wondering, I was sitting in the corner. And I was like, I'm really nervous. I'm really nervous because, well, you're all here, you know, your colleagues and friends. And I'm really nervous because I've known Rajiv a long time. So I told him last night, and I tried to say it in the broliest way possible. I said, hey, I'm super sentimental about this. Because a year after 9-11, I met Rajiv at NYU, where he was a student. I was wondering, what do you do with theater? Who's going to make theater? I met him. I saw the first couple of pages that he ever wrote. And, you know, he's done pretty well. And he is one of our contemporary revolutionaries, putting our bodies, our voices, different forms on stage. So I was sitting in the corner next to Rajiv, feeling all these feelings of, you don't know who you're sitting next to. You don't know who you're going to grow up with. And you don't know who's going to answer that call years down the line to speak at the national conference. He's been a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a L'Hotel winner, two OBs, worked on TV, all sorts of stuff. And he just won an OB just a few months ago. But more than that, he is an old friend. And I'm incredibly proud to welcome playwright Rajiv Joseph. Aloha. Thank you, Victor. And thank you all for being here today. What Victor didn't say was that he directed the first two things I ever wrote at NYU. And so we have this connection that I think we will always have. And so it was a great honor to be introduced by you today. If you ever ask someone what their favorite movie is, and they tell you, don't believe them. They're probably lying. Not out of spite, but that question is so general that people feel the need to accommodate a variety of different criteria when answering it because favorite is a weird word. Am I saying what movie means the most to me personally or the most fun I've ever had watching a movie or the movie I've rewatched the most or what I think is the most important movie or what I think is the most impressive cinematic achievement or the movie I wish I had written? There's just a lot of variables. So I have a much better question that I like to ask people, usually in social situations, over drinks. And the question is this. Say you were given access to a wonderful movie theater of your choosing anywhere in the world. And you can invite all your friends, family, and whoever you want to party with. And there's a cocktail hour beforehand in the lobby and a blowout party afterwards. And you get to screen one film, and everyone at this great event knows this is your deal, your choice. Which movie do you screen? It seems to me it gets to the heart of everything. Because number one, you want people to have a good time. You don't want to buzzkill the whole night like a deer hunter. But you're also making a pretty significant statement. I'm the cinematic DJ tonight, everyone. And here's what I'm spinning. I have found, when friends tell me their choice, it's revelatory. You learn something about them. Because it's more than a favorite movie, it's something personal. As you can imagine, I've thought about what my answer would be for this hypothetical party. But I didn't have to think too much about it, because the answer was very clear to me right from the start. I would choose Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. On one level, this makes a lot of sense. I was 10 years old when that movie came out. I was a huge Harrison Ford fan. And it was the first time I ever went to the movies with just one friend without adults. But on another level, this choice is really messed up. Because Temple of Doom is one of the most racist movies Hollywood has released in the last 35 years, which is saying a lot. And the racism and xenophobia within this film is pointed directly at India and Indian people. And I am half Indian. But let's put a pin in that. Let's put a pin in that, much like the little Maharaja did to his cloth Indiana Jones voodoo doll, deep within the second act of the movie. Because you know, Hindus do voodoo. So a quick recap for those of you who are unfamiliar of the first 10 minutes this movie goes like this. We opened in Shanghai Night Club in 1935. Where a dazzling woman named Willie Scott sings Cole Porter's Anything Goes in Mandarin. Then Indiana Jones sits down with renowned Chinese gangster Lao Che, and they perform a wonderful exchange of goods on a lazy Susan. Indy gets poisoned. Willie puts the antidote in her bra. Then there's a huge gunfight among balloons. And needing the antidote before he dies, Indy grabs Willie and they dive out of a window crashing down through several awnings and falling into a car driven by Short Round. Indy's 10-year-old Chinese assistant who speeds through the streets of Shanghai with blocks tied to his shoes to reach the accelerator, evading Lao Che's henchmen who are shooting guns at them. Indy retrieves the antidote from Willie's bra, which prompts her to slap him and say she's not that kind of girl. They get to an airplane hangar where Dan Ackroyd, using a British accent, puts them on a cargo flight full of live poultry. They're about to take off when Indiana sees Lao Che across the tarmac and smiles and says, nice try, Lao Che. Then he closes the airplane door, which has Lao Che written across it. And Lao Che nods at the grinning pilots and says, goodbye, Dr. Jones. Flying over the mountains, the two pilots sneak out and parachute away as our heroes sleep, but then wake up and nobody knows how to fly a plane and there's no more parachutes. And so they jump out with the yellow inflatable raft, which sails down thousands of feet as the airplane crashes into a mountain. The raft hits another mountain, bobsled through trees and snow, then flies off another cliff plummeting down another approximate 10,000 feet into a river. They can finally catch their breath and Willie says, where are we? And Dr. Jones looks up, sees someone, clasps his hands together and says, India. So before that moment when Dr. Jones says, India, I just want to say that the 10-year-old me was all in on this movie. I was wrapped, but then when I realized that the movie was going to take place in India, which is something I did not know before I walked in there. In addition to that, Dr. Jones could speak Hindi and read Sanskrit and that Indian people were in the movie and that this was all happening. I was so proud. I had never seen my Indian heritage represented on the big screen before, much less as part of the Indiana Jones franchise. In the moment Indiana Jones places his hands together and said, India, I felt this deeply personal pinprick of attachment to the film that I knew my white friend sitting next to me would never feel. And for the first time in my life, I felt this was a good thing, something special. Until then, my exotic name in darker futures made me feel separate than everyone else in an unfortunate way. And that day it switched. And again, we're going to put aside for a moment what I would come to recognize later, the colonialist, racist, and horrifying misrepresentations of Indians, India, and the goddess Kali present throughout the rest of the movie. As a 10-year-old, I didn't see the cultural problem of villagers believing this white archeologist had been sent down from the heavens by Shiva himself to save them, or the inane menu at Pankot Palace, wearing Hindus who are vegetarians, feast upon chilled monkey brains. Or at the climax of the movie, when our heroes are cornered by Indian thugs, the fucking British army steps into slaughter the last of the savages. It didn't matter to my 10-year-old self that the Indian government forbade Steven Spielberg from shooting in their country and then banned the movie upon its release. From my vantage point, India was an India. And I was psyched. I saw myself in that movie. Not literally, but I felt a connection to it that I would never lose. And I love Temple of Doom because it activated a part of my brain. It lit a fuse that I think led to me becoming a writer. Everyone in this room has felt, at some point, a sense of identity connected to a film or a piece of art or literature or theater. And it's not always easily explained. Sometimes it never is. But it's there, and it matters. And so then we try to replicate that sense of connection with our own creative work. Anyone who has ever tried to create art was probably inspired by something else, something they saw themselves in, and then said, I want to make something like that, something that contains within it my inner self. You might call it your soul or your subconscious or simply what makes you you. So we do. We write, paint, compose, direct design. We engage. And then 99% of the time, we're just frustrated as hell. Because as rare as it might be to see yourself in someone else's work of art, I think it's even rarer to see yourself in your own creative work. And it seems like this would be self-evident. That mere logic suggests that you would always be present in your own work. But I would argue that it's not. For me at least, there is a constant struggle every time I embark on a creative journey. But it's so important. Recognizing yourself in your work is the first step towards creating something authentic, truly yours, as opposed to what you think the world wants from you. In college, I was a creative writing major. And our initial classes were in short fiction and poetry. I liked the idea of being a writer. I liked the idea of having a bottle of booze next to a typewriter. I liked the idea of being tormented. I liked the idea of being published, the attention, the interviews. Maybe someone someday would ask me to make a keynote address or something. The problem was that I was a bad writer with little to no discipline, no real voice, nothing really to say, no understanding of structure or character or dialogue or what made the things I loved good. And even as I gained some of these basic principles and was encouraged by some professors, I always thought I was trying to imitate something. So it turns out that for someone starting out or even someone who's been going a long time, imitating is not a bad way to go. Imitating is a big part of writing. I was able to improve as a writer by imitating. I imitated my way through the next decade or so of my life, always in love with the idea of being a writer, but never fully committing to being one, because it's hard to commit to something like that if you've never written anything that's truly of you. It's hard to call yourself a writer until you've seen yourself in your work. I was able to imitate myself into the dramatic writing MFA program at NYU where I met Victor. And whereas I continued to imitate what I thought a play or a screenplay was supposed to be, until finally in my second year, my parents were visiting New York and my dad told me a story about an experience he had in college when he was 18 and had just moved to the US from India and struck me as an idea for a play but a really, really, really strange one. And it was really, really, really strange because it wasn't something anyone else would ever write. So what I wrote was called Huck and Holden and it became my first produced play. But it wasn't like I had crossed some threshold and could suddenly access my inner life through the written word without a second thought. Every play is a struggle to do that and I do not always succeed. Every first or second or third draft of every play that I write still feels like an imitation of what I always thought a play should be. I cling to accepted structures, I hold tight to stereotypes, I tell old jokes that aren't mine and my endings suck. But if I trust the process, there comes a time where I drop into the play. I become part of the play. I am looking at it now from the inside out rather than the outside in. And that's when I know not that it will be good or bad but that it's something that I should absolutely be writing and that I should continue. So playwriting as a form of creative expression is my best friend. It is the friend I feel most comfortable around, most intimate with and the friend with whom I am the least insecure. And this is because playwriting and me have been hanging around each other a lot for the past 14 years. I have other friends who I like but I'm not as comfortable with them. Screenwriting and I have had some fantastic times together but at the end of the day, screenwriting is kind of a two-faced jerk. TV writing and me dated for a couple of years and we still hook up. But TV writing is a lot of imitation and never feels very personal. I have a really messed up relationship with lyric writing. This is the friend I am most insecure around. If you were to criticize one of my plays, I wouldn't sweat it. But talk shit about my lyrics, I will jump you because you will probably write and I have a hard time with that. And this is all to say that whenever I am insecure about writing something, which is pretty much always to varying degrees, I fall victim to my insecurity by trying to imitate a generic idea of whatever I think, for example, lyrics are supposed to sound like or what a play is or what's gonna sell in Hollywood. Nothing I write will be truly authentic until I drop into it. The problem is that there's no way to consciously do this. The drop into one's own creative work is a mysterious thing and it can't be forced. But it can be tempted. There are ways to shift your thinking in order to open up yourself to the drop. There's a moment near the end of Temple of Doom that illustrates this well. Dr. Jones makes a decision and does something utterly crazy that I find dramaturgically useful whenever I'm stuck or lost or frustrated with my writing. So, Indy and Willie in short round have ventured out on a very old and frayed rope bridge hundreds of feet in the air above a chasm between two cliffs. In the water below are rocks and crocodiles. The bad guys are coming at them, swords drawn from both ends of the bridge and our heroes are trapped in the middle. So every writer must feel the way that Indy must have felt at that moment. I've come so far and for what? To die on this bridge that is going nowhere. There's only one good decision and Indy makes it. He machetes into pieces the very bridge he and his loved ones are standing on and it snaps in half, collapsing on either side of the cliffs. This is always a good lesson when facing despair in the midst of a creative process. If the bridge is a trap, destroy the bridge. But now, getting back to that racism. It's not cool what Spielberg and George Lucas did with their collaboration on Temple of Doom even if it was in 1984. There's so many egregious offensive moments in the movie. But the one that I find maybe the craziest is at the climax when Indy having macheted the rope bridge and now clinging to it aside a cliff is fighting Mola Ram, the main bad guy, who has the ability to put his hand into people's chest and tear out their beating hearts. And just before Indy knocks him off the bridge and into the crocodiles below, Indy growls at him, prepare to meet Kali in hell. I mean, can you imagine any other deity from a major world religion being cut and pasted into that sentence? Really, a goddess, a divine being from the oldest religion on earth is called a devil. And it is the intention of Spielberg in that moment that we are to cheer because Indy just vanquished the bad guy. And cheer I did. And moments later when the British Army shows up and opens fire picking off the thuggy on the other side of the cliff, 10-year-old me felt a cathartic swell of relief. Part of the reason we are all gathered here this week is to eliminate this kind of bullshit altogether. So why do I still love this movie so much? And after all, I should know better by now. I think this conflict within myself has become part of what makes the movie significant to me. When I watch it, which is maybe once a year, or when I think about it, which is quite literally maybe every day, I enjoy thinking about how my affection and disdain for the movie intertwine. How a childhood pleasure can persist even while the adult me can unpack the problems of the movie and maul them over. Part of the reason I like thinking and talking about Temple of Doom outside of the dramaturgical lessons I sometimes find in its corners is that it's a good example of what nobody should do anymore. And it's a good example of what was acceptable in Hollywood just a short time ago, and is slowly, hopefully being erased as the arts in this country slowly become more diverse as more voices are heard, as the racial and gender and sexual and cultural politics of the practitioners of the arts are more often and more clearly shouted from the rooftops. And when other parts of the world, for example, the White House, seemed to tragically recede into an archaic bigoted mess that was supposed to have died long ago, our defense against future Temple of Dooms is all the more necessary. That said, I'd like to finish with another thought. Back when I was in college and in love with the idea of being a writer, but never dropping into my work and becoming one, I had a professor who changed my life. He was the first person who spoke to me about writing in religious terms. He told me that writing creatively from multiple points of views requires engaging in enormous acts of empathy. To write from the perspective of a person you don't agree with or a person who has lived a different life than you or a person of a different gender or sexual orientation or race or religion to do these things and to do them properly, to do them well with respect and honesty, to do all this requires a bold imaginative leap and act of empathy and this act of empathy opens your world. To attempt to write and think in this way begets compassion. This is a holy business. This notion when I heard it at the age of 21 shifted how I perceived writing and shifted how I perceived my life. It shifted me out of a narcissistic focus on my own feelings about the world and gave me the permission to consider other perspectives, other points of views. This idea was a contributing factor in my decision to join the Peace Corps when I left college to force myself into a place, a culture, a community, so far outside anything I could have ever imagined. And this idea led me to my vocation which has shaped my adult life ever since. And I bring this all up for a specific reason. There's a lot of talk these days about who can tell what stories, who is allowed to tell certain stories and who isn't. If you could imagine our collective imaginations as a large sprawling map, a map of stories, characters, ideas, images. When we say that this material over here, this point of view belongs to me and not you. We are saying you aren't allowed on this piece of imaginative land. And if you come here, you'll be punished. This is a Trumpian way of thinking. And I say we should reject it. Let us not be Trumpian in our views of imagination. He's caused us enough damage already. We must as writers and creative artists embrace the idea that imagination is a country with no borders requiring no passports and no visas. All are welcome. And of course we must demand thoughtfulness, hard work and care and reject harmful stereotypes, reject temples of dunes. But we should also embrace the idea that being an artist is being someone who can and who should consider the world from many perspectives and feel free and open to tell whatever story they see themselves within. It's an honor to stand here in this room with you all today. And I hope one day soon you'll all join me at the Cedar Lee Cinema in Cleveland Heights, Ohio for a cocktail hour followed by a movie I've chosen especially for all of us. See you then. Thank you. Folks, because of time, we'll be able to take just a few questions for Rajiv. Rajiv, thank you very much. I have a question for you. Yes. What's your movie? What's my movie? Swiss Family Robinson. Because, that is my origin story. My dad had bought one of those huge VCRs and that was the first videotape and it brought us around that movie. Thank you for asking Rajiv. Because this is about Rajiv. Folks, we're just gonna take a couple of questions two or three questions before we pass off to the next panel as well. So just know that we're aware of time. Yes. Hold one second please. Just. Oh, hi, thank you. We'll need to get everybody on the mic so we can capture your beautiful questions. Hello. Welcome to Chicago. It's a pleasure to finally meet you. I had auditioned for your work multiple times. For Ensemble Theater and Kermit House. And I've been wanting to, I love your work and I just wanted to know, how do you deal with the oppression in a Trump road right now? And are you creating work that is geared towards this fight against the evacuation of the Muslims and of people who have not been born on American land? Sure, the thing about the world we're living in right now is that it is so grossly out of whack and so close to entering into a fascist state that all forms of theater and all forms of creative expression are as this conference is called revolutionary and acts of protest. And I think that like, I think in part of what this talk was about was that like is the danger sometimes of putting the cart before the horse. Simply because we have certain political issues, explicit political issues, like the Muslim ban or like children in cages at the border doesn't require us necessarily to write plays about the Muslim ban and children in cages at the border. What it requires us to do is be thoughtful and political and provocative in our thinking and in our creativity. And so that's the beautiful thing about theater and literature and poetry is that it's metaphorical. And within those metaphors, we find greater power than the, I think, journalistic attempt at making a play about the specificity of those facts and those moments and those details. Theaters can be bigger than that and it can appeal to a larger, I think swath of people if you're allowing yourself to kind of, sit within this environment and think how would I respond? Not how should I, but how would I? How am I responding? Yeah? Maybe here in the front? Yeah, there you go. Okay, hey guys, thank you very much for being here and for your work and your sharing today. And I wonder if you could please elaborate upon you mentioned, well I interpreted when you said religious, I interpreted the spiritual necessity in making our work or a spiritual urgency. Could you expand a little bit about that? Oh sure, yeah. I mean, when I said, my teacher talked to me about writing as in religious terms, is that what you're talking about? Yeah, I mean, I think that that there came a switch for me where I thought of writing as this craft and as this thing that was done for entertainment, which it is, both those things are absolutely true. But for me personally, when it started to kind of really matter more deeply to me, is when it became a sort of spiritual endeavor, a vocation as opposed to a career. And that vocation, it occupies my life. I don't go to work and come home from work. I am always in work, you know? And I find that a great thing for me personally. And I think that when people find that, it could be anything, it doesn't have to be in the arts at all. Or in any kind of spiritual realm necessarily. I mean, the way I guess I look at it is that all work is spiritual. And if you drop into that and if you're being conscious and open to it, there's a great deal of peace that can come to you. Thank you. Time for one more question. Yeah, please. Kathy. I'm sorry. Thank you. My name's Kathy, and I've seen so many of your plays and they're beautiful. And what I love about them is they, you really explore the intertwining of the dark and light aspects of the human soul and each of your plays. I'm just curious in your writing, like for instance, Guards of the Taj, did you start with imagining what must have been like for the people who actually helped build the Taj Mahal? Or did you start with a question of what is the value of beauty in our human lives? I mean, for any of your plays, or gruesome playground injuries, for instance, it's not a beautiful play about relationships. Well, yeah, I mean, I think that those, when you're able to kind of, like you've so articulately created this question of what's the importance of beauty in our lives? I don't ever begin with those. I think that those questions come out of what I've been writing after several drafts. But I start more from either images or points of fascination. I was fascinated with the Taj Mahal and the way it was built and with the legends that surrounded it that I learned as a child. And I thought, I wanna write a play about that, but it didn't start with the two Guards. It started this kind of chaotic, large thing where Shah Jahan was a character and Ustad Issa, the architect, was a character. There was like 20 characters, and it was a terrible mess. And I threw it away, but it kept nagging at me this idea, and I was like, well, you know what? The only two characters that were interesting were the two smallest ones, which were the two Guards that were standing there the whole time. So let's just take everyone else out. And that was a launching point. And so I think that when I talk about dropping into your work and seeing yourself, it can take a while. And when I was trying to do a four, I was like, oh, this would be a good play. Like this is what I think would be a good play. And to me, at least, that always ends in frustration. And it's more when suddenly you've keyed on these two guys and suddenly they're talking and you're just like, go for it, guys. Like just keep on talking, like, you know? And suddenly I'm writing from a much deeper place, you know? But I think, again, what I'm saying is that it's hard to start a play that way. It's almost impossible to start a play that way. And it's impossible to kind of start any creative work like that. It has to be brood. And so that's frustrating. And it requires patience, I think. If you haven't had a chance to read some of Rajiv's work, please go out and find it. Because you're absolutely right about the humanity and the complications within the play. But this is the end of our session with Rajiv Joseph. And I just want to give him a round of thanks. Thank you all. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Thank you. I was thinking in September 2002, when I first met Rajiv, I made the connection last night that I also joined the Union for Stage Directors in that same fall. So I've been a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society since then. And so that transitions us to our next panel, which is the Panel for Asian American Directors. And it's going to be led by the Executive Director of SDC, Laura Penn. Thank you so much. I think we're sort of spread throughout the house. Do you guys want to come on down? It's quite a quintet of talent. While everybody's gathering, I just want to say it's a huge privilege to be here today and allow me to say aloha. In this digital age, BIOS are pretty easy to dig up, but I do want to say, hey, May, I do want to say just a few words about this group here that we're going to hear from. We've got May Adralis, who is an extremely busy freelance director, also associate AD at the Milwaukee Rep right now and the recent Schneider Award winner. Tim Dang, who actually was a Fit Chandler winner for the SDC Foundation, served for 23 years as the Artistic Director at East West Players and now is out in the world continuing to be a major force. Jess McLeod is the resident director for the Chicago production of Hamilton and a next generation directing fellow at Victory Gardens and was also recently the Michael Maggio fellow at the Goodman Theater. Man Tiao is a film and theater maker, has just been announced as the Artistic Director of the Musical Theater Factory. So we're thrilled about that and is a professor at Hampshire College and then Che Yu, Artistic Director of Victory Gardens, established this next generation program for directors and is a former executive board member at SDC. So in preparing to try to figure out how to structure a discussion with this group, I found myself trying to identify some moment in the last 35 years that precipitated any measure of advancement of EDI initiatives in the field that didn't benefit from the leadership or the vision of this collective group up here. I'm not sure we can find something that has happened that didn't have you all involved. I also challenged myself to try to find an award, a fellowship, a grant missing from the list of organizations that have recognized the talents of this group, nationally, internationally, those with local significance. And the only exception I could find would be those reserved in the commercial sector Broadway, a sector that is clearly behind the curve in embracing these and other extraordinary artists from the Asian American community. So I'd like to talk about leadership in the field, some of the issues that Rajiv actually mentioned, but first I'd like to begin with directing with you as artists. The depth of theaters that you have all worked in as a who's whose list of American theaters and the projects these folks have directed include exciting new work and classic work by Asian American playwrights, but also African American playwrights, Latinx, musical theater, noteworthy texts from the Western Canon. With that in mind, and if I can borrow for a moment the idea of dropping in, can you tell us about a project, a play, a production that you feel best defines you as an artist and a citizen? Yes, great. I'm gonna take out Rajiv's challenge, but I think that the movie I would play in my, in my cinema for my party would be a movie that hasn't been made yet, but it's Via Gone. Because that's the story that I really wanna see. It has bad jokes and it has a family I know, it has the people I grew up with and it has the Asian American stars that I'd never saw on the big screen before. And I had rarely seen it in the theater before. So I think that of all of the work that I've done, it's the most significant to me in terms of the impact that it's had on its audiences, of not only giving a voice to refugees and humanizing refugees, when we first were working on the play, the Syrian refugee crisis, which is still a crisis now, was added to media height. And so humanizing refugees, humanizing the other. And also providing role models for the young 10 year olds out there that never see themselves on stage. And it was so profoundly moving to me to see so many people be so transformed just by witnessing themselves on stage in such a hot, sexy, exciting, funny way. And we don't get to celebrate that that much. So I hope, I hope, soon, you'll be invited to my movie screening. You go next. There's one in the, okay. Yay Jess. Hi, I would say that my two pieces that really reflect the kind of work I do, it's sort of two ends of the spectrum. I think on the one hand, I'm always interested in creating work that puts very political images on stage in some way that can shock you, that can be messy and ugly and thrilling and exciting, and you can sit there and say, I can't believe somebody put this on a stage. I recently directed a play called Hangman by Stacey Osekufor at the Gift Theater that was about a young gay black man who lynches himself for pleasure. And it was kind of a comedy, not all the time. But the image was, as you can imagine, extremely controversial, and a lot of people didn't like it. I think a lot of people hated the play. And I kind of think that's okay. And so when it comes to my work, which is often about gender or race or some kind of sociopolitical structure that is oppressive and about people trying to kind of climb their way out or about the responses that we have to those kinds of systems, there is that very direct way of confronting those things, putting together images from the corners of your mind that together make one image that forces you to ask yourself a lot of hard questions. And I would say another recent piece that really hits what I do kind of right in the center is this play by Idris Goodwin called How We Got On. That seems like a very small, simple play. It's about a couple of black and brown teenagers growing up in the 80s in a suburb outside of a big Midwestern city like Chicago, like Detroit, and it's really just kind of the wonder years for kids who grew up in the 80s loving hip-hop mixed by a sort of all-knowing DJ. And what was really important to me about that piece is I grew up loving the wonder years. I grew up reading so many coming-of-age stories. And it didn't occur to me much like it didn't occur to Rajiv that he was being included in a certain way or excluded in a certain way from his stories that I was being excluded. It didn't occur to me for a long time. I also grew up in San Francisco where a lot of people look like me and talk like me so I didn't seem very other or very different. And what I love so much about this play is that it is just a chance for people of color to just be on stage in a coming-of-age story. And to me, that is an incredibly radical act. And so, yeah, period. Thanks. Yeah, well, it's my turn. I guess it would have to be a piece I wrote and devised with Cornerstone Theatre back in the 90s called A Beautiful Country. And it came about a roundabout way. And if Roberto Udo is the house where this conversation just yesterday, because I was supposed to meet Roberto somewhere in LA and I didn't know where this place was, she got her mother on the phone. And her mother says, you're Asian-American and you don't know where that place is and what happened. And I realized my curve as an Asian-American artist was lacking. And when it came into full confluence was my partnership with Bill Roush and Cornerstone saying that you're gonna write a piece about Chinatown, which I began to research and devised. And it was 160 years of Asian-American history in a grade school in Chinatown. And God bless Bill. And Bill was supposed to direct this. And so they said, we should co-direct this together, Bill. Two days later, I said, I think I should do it myself. Yes, that's a secret to my power and success. But the most profound thing was just this. It was just finding yourself and your community in creating the work. And it has a profound effect on me. And I think the reason why I'm sitting here today is because of that politic, that history that I never knew that needs to be articulated. And the more we forget who we are, where we come from, it will repeat. And I've learned this from the elders. And I have to just finally say that that project, too, brought me a different way of looking at my art, which is not my own self, but my community and actually the ancestors, quote, unquote. Hi. So I grew up in the double whammy of oppression of being Singaporean. Hey, Che. And being a semi-diamondist, very conservative Christian. So theater for me has always been about subverting the grand narrative of everything that's sort of handed down to us and sort of like taking that and going, like, well, let's actually look at the stories inside. This is also an impossible question and a wonderful question because knowing all of everyone's work, like there could be like 1000 things that we talk about. I'm gonna decide to talk about a project that I just worked on and put together as a global citizen. So I, with the Singaporean makers of a comic book called Dim Sum Warriors, which is about anthropomorphized dim sum who fought a giant bowl of ramen called Colonel Quickie Noodle. Yeah. It's so good. It's so good. Oh my God. And we made it a musical with a composer, Du Yun. And after we sort of said, let's do this together, she won the Pulitzer and was the first sort of Asian woman to win the Pulitzer for music, right? Like, yes. So we're putting this together and we're like, what are we doing this for in China? What's going on? We ended up realizing that everything came really clear in one moment where the artistic director Stan Lai came to a rehearsal and run through and he said, you know, there's this line and the line is Colonel Quickie Noodle says, I want to amass power and I want to amass control over the entire country. He said, this line in Chinese is actually not allowed to be spread on social media and the news because Xi Jinping is wanting to do that. And so you're not allowed to say it because that's actually what's happening. So he said, would you mind changing it to, I want to amass power over heaven and earth that bypasses exactly what it is but it is exactly what it is, right? So it's like all the codes and everything. I was like, I'm fine with that, let's do that. And what was so powerful about this piece which is Family Friendly, which is the first time I've ever done Family Friendly and I did it because I have a niece and nephew and I want them to love something that I've made, you know, and I did it because of them and I also did it because I knew that this message is gonna play to 30,000 people across China, we won a 25 city tour. And that story about ordinary people, dumplings, being able to overthrow someone who's amassing power over the entire country, a dictator fascist, who is happening right now just when he's demolished term limits. So it's this amazing moment of being able to go, what are the stories we're telling and what is the impact that we're having in our psychological, political, social framework of how we think about the world? That's the impact that art has. And the more we're able to sort of assess what is the Temple of Doom, what's really there, what's really all of these things and be rigorous in what we're doing, the more we can make change. You know, it's so great to see, you know, what I see three generations of Asian American directors here. And for me, the defining moment is a play that I have never directed that I will never direct that made me the person that I am today. And this is where art and activism gets together. I started off as a musical theater performer, but when Miss Saigon came out or was coming to Broadway in 1989 when there was the casting of Jonathan Price, that actually changed my direction from a performer into an activist. And when Cameron Macintosh said, well, if you wanna cast the show your way, you go direct it, you go raise your own money. But Miss Saigon is my project and I'm gonna cast it the way that I. So that's when my direction went into becoming a director. And to tell you the truth, you know, and I know that there's people here who have degrees in directing, but I never had a degree in directing. So everything that I've learned just came from observation. And believe it or not, I had only directed three plays in my life before I became artistic director of East West Players. So the learning factor was really quick, but I would say that Miss Saigon has been a thorn in my side because one of the first plays I directed was a production of Sweeney Todd at East West Players. And we had eight of those cast members go directly to Broadway in Miss Saigon. So it employs 27 Asian Americans every time Miss Saigon is done. And yet Miss Saigon is a play that just keeps on going. So that's it. Thank you all so much. You are all deeply committed clearly to advancing Asian American artists with commitments. And you've directed work outside of the Asian Asian American experience as well. There are a lot of interests, there's a lot of interest, concerns, thoughts to explore around representation. Can you talk about the tension that exists at that intersection between ethnically specific representation, color consciousness, artistic relationships, aesthetics, in other words, who gets to direct what? I had to go first again. This is, I think about this issue quite a lot. Because there is a part of me that believes that yes, imagination has no bounds. And I've certainly have directed work that has pushed me out of my, what I grew to understand as a person outside of my lived experience. But then when I really think about it, every single play has pushed me outside of what I've had in my lived experience. And there are very few plays that represent a first generation Filipina growing up in Appalachia. Well, except for Rape Montmont, he knows. And so I appreciate the fact that there are so many stories within us and none is we are all unique in that way. The amount of experiences that we gain throughout a lifetime are multifaceted and they cannot be put into a box. So I have that tension where I think, yes, of course. And I'm directing in the heights. And I go into rehearsals this afternoon. And so I think a lot about what am I doing? Am I taking someone's place? I mean, it's interesting as a freelancer, you don't, and also as a person on staff at Milwaukee, that decision for me to direct this was out of a lot of different producerial reasons as well. And so you are subjected to a lot of the practical side of who gets to tell that story. But there is also a part of me that champions very strongly in all the work that I do for authenticity and also for opportunity and making paving way for opportunity for people of color and people whose voices have not been heard. And so I do, I tow that line a lot and I think about it with every artistic decision that I make, every casting decision that comes in front of me, every project that is asked of me. And so I don't know because I have been approached about, I think because I'm a woman of color, sometimes people are like whatever playwright of color they're producing this year, you should do that. And I have to say, well, I actually can't access that. I don't understand how to get into this as an artist. And so it's not this cut and dry thing. So I don't know who has the answer. I do think that our theater depends on one thing that we all possess is theater makers. We must have empathy. We must be able to step in other people's stories. We also are driven by an intense passion to tell the stories that we think are important and that will resonate in the world. And so how we reconcile those things I think is a challenge that we have certainly going ahead. I just do things when Shay looks at me. He looks at me and I just decide, okay, I'm gonna talk. This is what the next generation fellowship is just so you know, to give you a little preview. For me, it's always a question of expertise. That's actually what I think all plays have subjects. Some of them have a couple of subjects. Some of them have a couple of different subjects living in them depending on the time they're done, who they're done by. For me, what I need in order to feel like I can direct a project is expertise on the subject of the play. I can tell you that I directed that play Hangman, which some people didn't think I should direct and that's okay. I thought I should direct it because for me, the play was about neglect. Neglect can relate to race. That's a thing that I know a lot about. Neglect is a thing that can relate to family. That is a thing I know a lot about. And so when I read it and usually I know in the first couple of pages, yes, I get this, I get this voice, I get the story, I'm in. I feel like I can do this. I can tell you that I am lucky enough and unlucky enough to be in May's position in the sense that people just come to you with plays by playwrights of color that are happening. I can tell you that a couple of years ago, a theater came to me and said, hey, we'd love to work with you. What are some playwrights? We sort of tossed some playwrights back and forth and they said, what about Adrian Kennedy? And I said, well, I love Adrian Kennedy, but let me go back and reread those plays to make sure. And this artistic director was really excited about doing Funny House of Enigra when I went back and reread that play and I thought, this play is about being black. I don't think I'm an expert on that subject. And so I said no. I said there's so much that formally interests me. There are kind of larger topics within the play that interest me, but to me, that for me is my North Star when it comes to picking projects. And that's the thing that keeps kind of guiding me through plays that look like I should direct them, whatever that means. I'm sure many artistic directors can tell you and plays that don't look like I should direct, whatever that is, that's the thing that I need to feel like if I'm going to lead the room and lead a design team and create the visual world of that play and take the actors through it and be the person who's ultimately the arbiter of what makes it on stage and why. I need to feel like I have expertise on whatever that subject is. Yeah. You know, this is my thought that a lot of people say that the director's work happens inside the theater, but I think it's more than that, that a director really has to do due diligence for the work that they are doing and they have to be really aware of the community that they are performing the show for. So I think a lot of community engagement is very important. Like, who is the audience of the theater that you are going to be directing a play at? And I think the director should know about that and should know the history of the community that they are performing at. So I think that's very important in terms of doing due diligence and I think a director should be able to direct any show as long as they do their due diligence, their research and hopefully they are also helping to educate if they are working at a predominantly white institution to educate them about the culture of the play. Sorry. I'll pick up from that. I actually, this is my point of view. I just think that being in the room with many different people telling one story is profound. And I think, I've always been also quite recently, they always put me with sometimes, hey, with an Asian playwright and we want an Asian dramaturg. And everything is all Asian, which is great. But sometimes I feel where we are going towards as a nation is more siloing. And I think the opportunity for theater is the collision of voices. So I've always felt that I've become a better citizen and an artist through different voices and narratives. And sometimes that relationship with a Latinx playwright or an African-American playwright or even an Asian-American playwright. And I feel like the more we silo ourselves, I'm not sure there is a conversation that we need to have that isn't, I would say, inclusive and also ultimately diverse. I mean, I recently did a play in New York and one of the partners of this production says, you have to have an all diverse design team. And I fought it because I felt without having a white voice in the room in the design team, it's actually discrimination. And we had a huge conversation about that because I think if we are supposed to have a wonderful playing field where you can understand and we can work together to tell this one story, who are these people? And this country being an immigrant, the promise is everyone has a place. So the question then becomes while we are learning from each other and also who is the arbiter of the story? And I'll give you an exception. If it is a story written by someone else who doesn't belong in the community and if I do not belong to the community, I will not direct that play because someone has to be there to say this is not how the story is and what is quote unquote authenticity. I know this is a very tricky matter and directors are very strange in that way because we are interpreters, we navigate but we also wanna make sure that the story we tell is truthful and to what the playwright intends. So my point is just this, in this very fractures time, we also need to expand what is our borders and our walls and that is artistic too. And the more we work together with different kinds of people, I think the idea of a truly inclusive nation can begin in the rehearsal room and on the stage. I agree with everyone, you know? I think it's about how do we continue to expand compassion, as Rajiv said. Like this is, we are in the business of compassion and empathy. And how do we continue to grow together in a way that relies on our expertise of certain perspectives and skill sets but also sort of expand. For me, I think about a rubric of context, intent and impact. Of basically thinking about how to unpack and understand a wider context into the intent of what the people are making and then the impact of who is not getting hired and getting that job because you're in that place. And being able to be really rigorous about that and sometimes with, you know, I was a professor at Hampshire College and there was a young man who was asked in a class that was about partition to write a monologue based on these women who had been raped during partition and he said, I can't do that, that's not my story. And he said, okay, so what is your story? Well, one of the British soldiers. I'm like, so you're saying you can't enter into these women's stories because you think you're closer to the British how. And I think that there's something that happens now where, you know, because of, and I'm not saying like go do it and then present it as a professional. I'm saying know the context that this is education, know the context that this is professional, know the context that how you're representing what in what space will be right as authenticity that May said is so important and know what you're actually doing. So it takes a lot longer to unpack it as this panel has started to do than just to say I get to direct it because I'm Asian. There's amazing op-ed that just came out in the New York Times that talks about identity and the fact is that I cannot speak for all Chinese Singaporeans. I cannot speak for everyone. We all have a multiplicity of experience even in that label. So I think that that's something that we want to continue to remember so that it just doesn't fall on like each of our shoulders to represent all of it, you know, expansion of that understanding and cracking the monolith of Asian is also really important. And when it comes to these larger topics, I mean, I think no matter what you believe, one of the common themes that has happened across the panelists is rigor, you know, and I think a lot of the way I speak about how you choose what play you choose has to go with the fact that I went to directing grad school at Northwestern. A lot of white students at Northwestern. And so as a, you know, this is a panel of incredibly rigorous and thoughtful arts practitioners to be sure. And part of the way I speak about it, the way I do is because I have a lot of, I've had a lot of students come to me and say, do you think I can direct this play? What do you think? Looking for my approval, looking for my check box. And my answer is almost always, you need to read more plays. And so to me, rigor, rigor me, and this is a group of people that reads a lot of plays all the time. And so when it comes to who you are and how you bring yourself to your work, are you reading enough plays and going into enough corners to find writers and voices and artists whose stories you do identify with? No matter who those people are, because I think rigor needs to be part of the searching process as well. And there's time. I had another question, but I think I'd like to take the five minutes to get your questions, since we've just got five minutes. Are there questions in the house? Great, sure. Thank you. It's so inspiring seeing you guys and it's really inspiring. I'd love to see all your work come to the UK one day. My question is, how do you support directors and makers who are very isolated? I mean, I'm in London, but in this room I feel fellows and London, there isn't, I think it's maybe one or two others who think like you guys do. And I've met people here from, I don't know how big these states are, places like I work, Kansas, et cetera. Who are also, like myself, very, very isolated. So any thoughts about how do you support people who are in that situation? Thank you. Well, the final question I had was gonna be around mentorship and sponsorship and how, you know, the web. Well, I was gonna say, I could answer it for directors, which is at SDC, we are community. I mean, the core of our work is about contracts and standards for directors, but we're so much more than that. And we have many different layers of membership so that directors can engage, you know, at any point in their career and it's not about restricting employment. And we've become very, very assertive about our desire to be connective tissue for directors. And we have a lot of international members. And so, I can answer it from that point of view. I don't know. I, you know, this is also an response to some of the things that people said on the panel, but we do have a discipline of rigor in our decision-making about representation. And I think it's because we're pioneers in so many ways. We're really like paving the way and finding our way through it and navigating through a very complicated landscape. And I think part of paving that way is also lending a hand to anyone that is like-minded and struggles in the same way. And so I think forums like this and also what I found, I find with this community in this room is that people are so open-hearted and, you know, I always feel like I'm invited to dinner. Like I feel like it's a very welcoming community that wants to know me and I want to know them and I want to create opportunities because I think everyone in this room is so special. And so I think that as we, you know, we can galvanize all of our energies. I'll just say something a little bit more personal. I think when I said earlier that I'm not here because of a lot of people, actually in this room. And I think, and the person next to me is the one that basically reached out to me back then in an email saying, I sent you a play to the artistic director because she doesn't want to do it, but can we meet? And from then onwards, it was my entry to American theater. And it's actually an Asian American theater that gave me that foothold. And I still come back to it because I feel like it's a family and I think that's why we're here. And the reason why I started to direct is because Tim let me do it too. He never said, no, you know, if he did, I'll find a way. That's another thing. And through some grants, you know, even Tim says, you know, hey, you got this grant. Can I figure out how a theater runs? And from my time at the Mark Tipper Forum and also at East West, learning everything allows me to become the artistic director I am today. All that to say that community is where you think you can find it, it will be there. And sometimes it's at the Asian American companies from there onwards. And I want to also say that I may be reaching, but I think because even in theater, generally, we don't get paid enough to do what we need to do. So we have to say, what do we get out of this? It's the place that we do that inform us and also the community in which we work with. So to some extent, we are all here a family. I'm gonna say that. And I'm also gonna say that, let's not use the word, agist, but there's a generation of elders. And I would say for all of us, we are always at your service because we want to say to you that you are the future. What we have done is not revolutionary in a weird way, it's evolutionary because I came from Tim and Tim came from Marco and God knows Marco came from somewhere else. It's true. So what are you guys going to do as artists? How can we help? And we are going to help. So feel free to reach out. This is a moment of intersection that we can raise each other because the field needs all of you. It's a collective, collective artistic, I would say front, yeah. Hi there, my name's Nicki Minyes. I myself am here as a freelance director so I need to get coffee with each one of you. I, as a young Asian-American director, I really would love to pick your brains about how you got started. Like what, where you each found community or had to create community in order to do the work that you wanted to do. Whether you had to make it from scratch or you found an institution. And how, particularly if any of you went into MFA programs, how to navigate predominantly white institutions? That's how that works. Hi, I grew up in San Francisco and I grew up in a family that actually, you know, we listened to some Broadway albums growing up and so in some ways it's how I started listening and getting interested in theater. But it was a family that really didn't want me to have anything to do with the arts. Said they wouldn't pay for college if I went to New York, said they wouldn't pay for college if I was a theater major. And so how I got here is by being incredibly stubborn. And I went to Williams College which is a great school but not for theater, sorry. Sorry, not sorry. And then I went to New York and I made myself as useful as possible. I would sort of come at people and say, hey, I'm new and I want to direct all these things. And they would say, okay, come back to us in like 10 years. Nor with a lot of money. And so I worked in arts administration at a lot of different organizations. The last couple of years, I was in New York, I was the director of programming at the New York Musical Theater Festival. And where I wasn't really making opportunities for myself but I was making sure to be inclusive and reflecting my own values as far as who was judging our work, who was on the reading team, who was getting hired, those individual artists. And I got really good at hiring my friends which is a really valuable skill. But at the end of the day, maybe not necessarily why you got into it. And I felt like I needed a chapter two which for me was about how to reconnect with my own work which in New York can be a difficult thing because you're always doing things that 12 other people have turned down. And by that I mean 80 other people have turned down when you're a young director and it's that time. And so I applied to a whole bunch of grad programs and I said that if I didn't get in, I would like move to Brazil or something like that to get some different chapter. And so I got into Northwestern. And yes, a very predominantly white institution. I think I was one of the first directors of color in Enes Shapiro's tenure as the head of the MFA program. And what was great is that I was often listened to. And what is not great is that I wasn't always listened to. And the truth of the matter is that when you're in a program or it's just you and a couple of other directors, you just fight for your voice. You always do. You fight for the kinds of shows you wanna do. You make sure that they can be done at the institutions you're at. I didn't choose plays that needed, that required actors of color because they weren't at Northwestern. And that's a bummer. I think things are changing a little bit and that's great. And navigating those institutions is about being, for me, being incredibly clear about why you wanna do what you do. And if you go to an MFA program, I do think that there's a way you can, whether it's through class, you can fight for your values. But always read the most plays in the room and know the most writers because that's how you get what you want. I'm gonna have to stop us here but maybe in the lobby, we can continue the conversation but they've gotta get ready for the next event. So thank you all so very much. That was great. Thank you, Laura, for coming all this way to moderate for us. Thanks to our esteemed directors. Brian Balcom, our incredible volunteer coordinator. Let's give it up. All those folks that show you where to go and coordinating everything. It's been Brian. So he's all over this. Thank you, Brian. We have just a few announcements. I just wanna call myself out. I have not been doing my gender pronouns and I feel strongly that we wanna be inclusive. So and I'm also realizing we did not offer the opportunity for folks to identify on their name tag. So if you feel inclined, I've written mine on here now. If that is something you'd like to do to support us making sure we don't miss gender folks, I would appreciate it. I know I'm in practice and I'm in self-education all the time. So I'm calling myself out to call myself in. I also want to say Pohaku is at 3.30. If you have not seen it, I highly encourage it. And with that, I will also share the mic with Brian. And after Pohaku, I just wanna remind everyone that there is a happy hour down at Steppenwolf Theater from five to seven PM where there will be specials on drinks and food. And there will also be a backstage tour of Steppenwolf to the first 20 people that sign up and that starts at six o'clock. So get there early, get your name on the sign-up sheet and have a drink while you're there. After the happy hour at Steppenwolf, we have the festival show 893 Yakuza at 8 PM back at Victory Gardens. And as far as the rest of this is concerned, we will be doing a couple of sound cues to get set up for the next reading that starts at 10.50 now. So you don't have to leave. You can get up and stretch your legs and converse with each other, but we will be running a few sound cues and we will be starting the next reading at 10.50. Oh, looks like we have one more announcement folks. This is board member Andrea Asif. Hi, there was a group on mixed race and mixed heritage that met very briefly yesterday. And because a lot of folks were still at the protests, we wanted to invite folks to maybe gather for lunch if you would like to continue that conversation or didn't know about it and would like to join us. So you can find me in the lobby and we'll just go to lunch together. Awesome, thank you. We encourage that kind of spontaneous meeting. If you need a room for an affinity group, please let Brian or I know. We'd love to accommodate you and support that. Thank you, everyone. Have a great break. We'll be back for the reading.