 All right. Hello and welcome, everyone. My name is Alyssa Stone. I am the senior director of programs and community engagement here at Mechanics Institute in San Francisco. We are very excited for you to join us with our special guest, Berkeley Repertory Theater's artistic director, Joanna Felser. Thank you for joining our program here at Mechanics Institute on Zoom this afternoon. For those who are a little less familiar with Mechanics Institute, we were founded in 1854, and we are one of San Francisco's most vital literary and cultural centers in the heart of the city. We are a gorgeous multi-story accessible general interest library, world-renowned chess program, and event center like we're doing this afternoon. Please join us for our upcoming writers groups, cinema lit, author talks, chess classes, and tournaments, musical programs, and everything in between. You can learn more about Mechanics Institute by joining milibrary.org. We are a membership organization, so folks join us as members to have access to our full series of programs and services, so please check out milibrary.org to learn more. We have tours every Wednesday at noon and evening tours one Friday a month, so if you're less familiar with our building or it's been a while since you visited us, please come and join us on one of our gorgeous historical tours in our beautiful downtown building. I want to highlight a couple events that we have coming up that you all might be interested in before introducing our special guest today. This Thursday, March 21st, we have Stanford's D-School joining us for their 10 book retrospective on their design thinking series. That's this Thursday at six. Hope you can join us for that. And then next Thursday, March 28th, we have our discussions on democracy with Dr. Juliet Hooker that's on site next Thursday at six o'clock, and then kicking off National Poetry Month on Thursday, April 4th at 6.30 p.m. We are joined by a trio of poet laureates for celebrating National Poetry Month. We'll be joined by California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick, San Francisco's Poet Laureate Tongo S.N. Martin, and Oakland's inaugural Poet Laureate Dr. Iodell Nzinga. That's Thursday, April 4th at 6.30 on site and Mechanics Institute. And now I'm very pleased to introduce Berkeley Repertory Theater and our special guest. Berkeley Repertory Theater has grown from a storefront stage to an international leader in innovative theater known for its ambition, relevance and excellence, as well as its adventurous audience. This nonprofit has provided a welcoming home for emerging and established artists since 1968. Berkeley Rep shows have gone on to win eight Tony Awards, nine Obie Awards, and 11 Drama Desk Awards, one Grammy Award, one Pulitzer Award Prize, and many other honors. Berkeley Rep received the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theater in 1997 and has continued to be outstanding ever since, if I might add, to formalize, enhance and expand the processes by which Berkeley Rep makes theater. The ground floor Berkeley Rep Center for the Creation and Development of New Work was launched in 2012. The Berkeley Rep School of Theater engages and educates some 20,000 people a year and helps build the audiences of tomorrow with its nationally recognized teen programs. Berkeley Rep's bustling facilities, which also includes the 400 seat Pete's Theater, the 600 seat Rota Theater, the Medeck Center, and the spacious campus in West Berkeley are helping to revitalize a renowned city. And our special guest for this afternoon is artistic director Joanna Felser who joined Berkeley Rep in the 2019-20 season as its fourth artistic director. Prior to her arrival at Berkeley Rep, she served for 12 years as the artistic director of New York Stage and Film, a New York City-based organization dedicated to the development of new works for theater, film, and television. Notable works that were developed under Joanna's leadership include the Tony Award-winning Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda, The Humans by Stephen Karam, Hades Town by Anise Mitchell, The Wolves by Sarah Dillup, Junk and the Invisible Hand by Ayad Akhtar, a 24-decade history of popular music by Taylor Mack, The Homecoming Queen by Ngozi Anyalu, The Great Leap by Lauren Yee, John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning Doubt, The Fortress of Solitude by Michael Friedman and Itamar Moses, The Jacksonian by Beth Henley and Green Day's American Idiot. In addition, Joanna is proud to have developed the work of many notable writers, both established and early career, including Jocelyn Bio, Zach Helm, Haley Pfeiffer, Billy Porter, Lucy Thurber, Duncan Sheik, V, formerly Eve Ensler, Stephen Sater, Jacqueline Baukhaus, Patricia Wettig, and Marcus Gardley, hometown favorite if I can say that, he's fabulous. She was formerly a producing director of Xena Group and served for five years as the Associate Artistic Director of American Conservatory Theater. Joanna is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the Actors Theater of Louisville Apprentice Program and has taught in the MFA Theater Program at Columbia University School of the Arts. She lives in Berkeley with her husband Russell Shampa and their son Jasper. Welcome, Joanna, with an introduction like that. Thank you so much about me. Yeah, no, you've had such a rich, incredible history and we are so honored to welcome you for this talk here at Mechanics Institute. Thank you so much for having me. We're very, very pleased to have you join us. Speaking of all the incredible things that you have done most recently, I always love to find out from theater folks, what was your earliest formative memory of the theater? What was the thing that inspired you to return again and again? Gosh, my earliest memory was my uncle Mike, who lives here in Berkeley, taking me to a touring production of Guys and Dolls, which I continue to actually think is one of the perfect pieces of theater. You all can find me on it later if you want to. I also originally trained in classical ballet, so I think that notion of performing was something that was part of my life really early. I originally thought I would be an actor and I kind of, over time, found my way to the side of the table where I think my skills are perhaps better deployed. You know, we can't act and direct without having done one or the other, right? Like, we have to have acted to direct. You've got to be able to know the way around the stage to be able to act. They go hand in hand, don't they? They do, and I think in a position like mine, the better understanding you have of actually what all the tasks are that are required to put on a piece of theater, the better ability to serve our staff and our audience as well as our artists. Would you share with us your journey to Berkeley Repertory Theater? What drew you to Berkeley Rep from your New York time? Yeah, Berkeley Rep is probably the only theater I would have left New York for in part because a lot of my family is here. So I lived in Berkeley as a kid. My parents met and married at Cal. I was that kid being marched around Sprout Plaza with a peace sign painted on my face as my parents were protesting to be a non-war. So Berkeley has been a big, big part of my family's life and of my life forever. But then separately, Berkeley Rep, and I can say this because I'm really talking about the parts of it that preceded me. So Berkeley Rep had this extraordinary reputation as being a place with a real commitment to new work, which has been my passion throughout my career. I think there is nothing more thrilling and at its best more rewarding than helping an artist bring to life a new piece, so to help it move from their original impulse, from their imagination into a moment that it's living in a three-dimensional form in engagement, in relationship to an audience who are each going to make their own understanding of it. To me is one of the most fun things you can do. So the fact that Berkeley Rep, not only on their main stages, always in addition to classics, in addition to sort of reimagined existing work, but always was producing and creating new work and also then had made space for the ground floor, which is this whole segment of our organization that is entirely dedicated to the creation of new work was very tempting for me. So when Tony announced that he was going to be leaving after, you know, 30-plus years in a really, really beautiful run, I thought I'd be crazy not to really see if they wanted to have a conversation with me about it. And things sort of spun from there. But yeah, so my husband, who's a lighting designer and an educator and our son, who at the time was starting ninth grade, we made the move west. Incredible. Our timing was total. That was not the best. Not the best timing. And we'll unpack that in a smidge. You certainly made that choice to go from front to back. What clicked in your mind when you knew that you wanted to be more in the curatorial space, which you've described your role as more curatorial? Could you help us understand what that means? And what clicked for you knowing that that was where your magic really came from? Oh, you mean instead of being a performer? Yeah. Oh. So right after college, as you mentioned, I trained at Actors Theatre of Louisville, which at the time had this really robust training program for young artists. And I was training there as an actor. But they also had the Humanifestival of New American Plays, which at the time was again, one of the real centers of play development in the country. So it was the first time that I had been in a room with a living writer that I'd watched them kind of fight to realize their imagination, their vision for play. And it was such a privilege to get to observe that, but then also just this subject of deep curiosity for me about how does that happen? How does it get made? It's something that's now so second nature that I forget to question it. But the first time you really see what happens when you go from a notion to a script to what happens when you add actors, when you add designers, when you have it interpreted by a director, but then almost most importantly, what happens when that work meets an audience? And you start to see where your original impulses land in the way that you intended, where they don't, and then how you want to continue to work and adjust that in that response to an audience. That iterative process was so, so fascinating to me. And to be in a place that really valued that and allocated time and resources and all of its theaters and staff to it was really inspiring. And then when I moved to New York, you know, like you do, I got a waitress in job and also founded a small theater company. As we do. And it was a company that was actually about 30 very young early career artists, all of whom had come out of this actors theater fluid field training program over a period of about five years. So our sort of shared vocabulary was in making new work, you know, that was what had been the sort of lingua franca of the place that had made us artists. And so we started just making new plays. And in that time, you know, my notion was we were producing these plays simply so that we had acting opportunities. And over about a five year period, I realized that I really loved the producing piece of it, which was everything from helping to select the script to figuring out who the right designer was, who were the right directors, the casting process, how do you actually market that? How do you help a piece find its intended audience? How do you help an audience find their way to you? At the same time, probably just to keep our theater company alive, we were producing industrial videos, we did a short film that was an adaptation of a play that we had done. We had a late night series with oops, what happened? Am I still there for you? You're still here? Yeah. Okay, great. I can't see. Oh, there you are. You're back. We had a late night series with dance and comedy and clowning and live music. And so over that time, I was like, oh, I am both better at this part of it and also felt like it was it was the right application of my skills. I liked to think really big picture. I take great pride in facilitating other artists' work, so to be able to be instrumental in helping somebody realize their vision is actually really deeply satisfying to me. And I think when you make the leap from a tiny, tiny company, which that was, to something like Berkeley Wrap, the missing ingredient or the additive part of it is what it is to actually be making art in relationship to a very particular community. And I think honestly, that was the other part that drew me here from New York is, you know, I think in New York, and obviously like New York and London are always going to be centers of the theater world, partly by virtue of just a concentration of artists, like it's a numbers game. There are so many theaters, there are so many artists working there. And there are also all these different ancillary industries that help support theater artists, whether it's film and television work, whether it's multiple universities where people are teaching. You know, there's all these different things that can help you build a sustainable life in the theater. But what I had found, and I hope this doesn't sound cynical, but I felt that the relationship between an audience member, an individual audience member and the work itself, or different institutions had become quite transactional. So when I first moved to New York, you know, there were people who really identified as being Lincoln Center people or Playwrights Horizons people or, you know, some of the smaller downtown theater people, there were people who were passionately committed to the public theater. But over time, I felt that they were actually now going just simply where the work was that was of interest to them. And the artists themselves no longer had those kind of singular relationships to a particular artistic director to a particular institution. So the idea that you could sort of walk through the world thinking like, you know, part of my identity is that I have this ongoing relationship to this arts organization felt like it had really diluted in my decades in New York. And in coming here, I feel like there's the opportunity to be in real moment to moment ongoing conversation with our community. You know, when I was first being introduced to people here as the new artistic director, there were many people who came up to me and said, Hey, you know, we have been part of Berkeley rap since you were on College Avenue. And I felt like the barely subtextual subtext was like, we preceded you here by decades, don't screw it up, like understand what is important to us in this organization, and to have and be surrounded by people who had that depth of relationship to a company that they were going to lovingly and lightly threaten the new artistic director felt really important to me. And so I feel like to be able to be in that sort of consistent relationship, not just with the audience members who were there from the beginning, but the people who are finding their way here for the first time, and to see if we can create a reason for them to continue to come back to hopefully be one of the ways in which they make sense of the world, and the world needs a lot of making sense of these days. And if we institutionally can be any bit of a bedrock for people right now, that feels so valuable to me. It seems like what you're also naming is there's a communal exchange, right? Totally. Where what you're naming in New York, which I also love, I have family in New York, is that kind of idea of it's transactional. It's like going to the movie house, something is produced there, and it's presentational. And in Berkeley, as I think in San Francisco as well, it is a constant exchange of ideas of information, of feedback between presenter and audience, audience and actor, actor and impresario, which is the role that you hold at Berkeley Wrap, right? You are an impresario. And I feel like that is what makes Berkeley as a theater center very special. And Berkeley Wrap in particular very special is that there is that feedback and exchange and communal connection between Berkeley Wrap and its followers. Yeah. I mean, and hopefully we're finding all sorts of different ways to be present in people's lives. I mean, we have our main stage offerings. We have our school of theater, which both sends teaching artists into the schools. It brings school-aged students into our buildings, into our theaters, but also has classes for people, you know, who are literally of any age. We have our in-dialogue program, which puts the work of Berkeley Wrap sort of in service of community. So the other night before our performance in the far country, we were hosting in our courtyard the Last Voice on Poets and the Del Sol Quartet, and we've worked with Segura Tech. You know, so it's a way that we can be expansive beyond just the actual work of producing a theatrical season. So yeah, I mean, we want this to be a place. When I got here, somebody explained to me that they felt that Berkeley Wrap had always been a place of learning, that it was a place that people came to kind of understand themselves, the world, learn new things, argue it out. I mean, maybe this is all very Talmudic, but the idea that in engaging with art, either as a practitioner, as you might in our school, or as a local artist who comes here, or as an audience member, or as a board member, or as a staff member, there is this idea that we are all constantly teaching each other as well, that feels meaningful to me. And that's exactly how it should be, right? The arts should allow us to be expansive. At their best. If we're all doing our jobs, right? You joined, you mentioned you joined Berkeley Wrap after, you know, the company's third artistic director, Tony Tacone, who had been the AD for the artistic director for 22 years and spent 33 years in total at Berkeley Wrap. And then barely into the first act of your tenure came the COVID pandemic and shutdowns, which deeply impacted live performances and venues. Reflecting back over the last few years, how has your understanding of the importance and impact of live theater changed? Oh gosh, it was such a horrifying time. I mean, listen, there was personal devastation for so many people in our community. And I don't imagine that there is anybody who was unpatched from the impact of COVID either medically, monetarily, in terms of, you know, your livelihood or the way you move through the world, leaving aside just the health implications of it. But, you know, it reminded me in a very, very direct way that theater is discretionary. You know, I mean, I think I don't like to think this way, but art to some extent is discretionary. And especially when what you see is a world in a fight for its survival, the idea that we were going to worry about, well, what about making plays felt a little frivolous. And on the other hand, Berkeley Rep is central to the lives of so many people in this community. You know, we had a staff of over 100 people who counted on Berkeley Rep for their livelihood to support their children as a reason to be in the Bay as their own personal expression. And then for our audience members, you know, there were people who were longing for community during that time and Berkeley Rep had been really central in the ways in which they found other people and sort of made sense of themselves in the world. And then there were other people for whom it was absolutely at the bottom of the list of things they needed to be thinking about or worrying about. And I understand both, you know. So I think to some extent, one of the tasks of the reemergence from the pandemic has been to remind people what the impact of theater can be because everybody got very, very used to not doing it. And there is nothing, you know, we all know the centrifugal force of entropy, right? So or of inertia. So it's very easy to continue to not to not go to not risk to not spend, you know, all the things that theater requires you to do. And let's be honest, you know, there were years where we all spent a lot of time being entertained for better for worse in our own homes on our own schedule for, you know, not much more than the price of a Netflix subscription. And and there was something very comfortable about that. And to go to the theater is a repeated act of risk taking, you know, you have to come essentially to my house on my schedule for the amount of money that I tell you it costs to see the thing that I have chosen for you. It's literally they come to my house and eat the meal that I'm making for you. Hope you like it. And I think, you know, you add to that the actual physical vulnerability of wait, I'm going to sit in the dark next to strangers that could cost me my life. While it is also the thing that I continue to find the most magical and the most transformative nourishing soul nourishing is that that act of experiencing something, not individually, not by yourself, but in the company of people who absolutely are strangers to you at the beginning of the evening. And by the end of it, you have shared something that will never be repeated. So how do we remind people that that actually is worth it is worth the time is worth the money is worth the risk. And I think again, the easy part where the people who had been longing for it throughout the whole pandemic and could not have been happier than to come back to us and to be in community, all of those things. And the harder part has been reengaging the people you know, who got very unused to doing it. And then also recognizing that there were years where there were no student matinees and even the first couple of years since we reopened because so many entire school systems frankly had fallen so behind that they weren't going to carve out the time to, you know, put the kids on the bus and bring them to the theater. So those are also just generations that we now run the risk of losing because if you don't experience it, then you don't know what you're missing out on. So to make sure that we are really, really actively reengaging people and engaging new people for the first time has been the work of the last few years. And it is, you know, it's a mighty mountain to climb and we're still really mid-climb, I think. On the other hand, I look around at my colleagues across the country and I feel very, very lucky where Berkeley Baptist. So while we are in no way, or at least not in some ways back at a pre-pandemic level, we are having a much more robust engaged experience than we're seeing in other communities. And I'm really deeply grateful to, you know, to the nice people of the Bay Area for coming back out and recognizing that this is something that's a real value to them. It always helps to remember and remind people, well, of course, our goal is to be healthy and vibrant so that we can experience the artistic aspects of life, right? The humanist, artistic, musical, visual, communal parts of why we're all here. Yeah, and hopefully some, there will be a story that allows you to see yourself differently or allows you to look at the world differently. You know, they gave out the last two that we've done and right now this show on our stage is the Far Country, which is the story of Angel Island and the Detention Center and the Immigration Center that's there. And to look around at our theaters and see multiple generations of a family coming together to experience this story because it is actually, for some of these people, the ways in which their family came to the States. You know, they were paper sons or paper daughters and to be able to have a piece of art that helps explain that to the generations that didn't participate in it. And especially for whom some of that history is, is withheld from future generations because it is painful. So art sometimes gives a lens through which those stories can be told, can be shared, people can come together in a deeper understanding. And I felt very similarly about Cult of Love, which was the show that preceded it, which was, you know, about a family but could have been any family. This family happened to be of a particular religion and were having to wrestle with sort of the inherent conflict in that family between their faith and the identities of some of their children and the challenges that some of their children were facing. But again, it was a way of saying every family has its own dynamics. And again, to watch people come together and feel so seen in very multi-generational ways was really deeply satisfying. And that could only have happened in this context through the very particular skill of that writer, Leslie Hepburn, that director at Tripcom and that really exquisite cast. So these are the gifts that those artists give to us are the opportunity to see more clearly, to be seen more thoroughly, to engage with the world more deeply. We do have a few stage photos from the productions if you'd like me to pull those out. And this would be a great time. You've given us a little bit of information about some of the shows, the one that's just closed and the one that's coming up next. But if you wouldn't mind hear some some stills from the Far Country, which is on the stage now, would you just tell us a little bit more about what what you hope audiences will take from these stories, what you hope that will take from these beautiful productions? And I'm happy to cook through. There's a few photos from each production and a couple stills. If you'd like to talk about the Far Country, it's coming in. This is a piece that was written originally several years ago. It had one production in New York last winter. And then Lloyd, the writer was here with us and continuing to do some tweaking on the script because these things are never finished. And then it was really important to him and really meaningful that Jennifer Chang directed it. Jen is a native of San Francisco. Her whole family is here. So for that family, the idea of what this what the Chinese community in the Bay had had had to navigate in order to become the community that we know now was really important. And as I said, I think what do I hope an audience will take away from this? I hope I mean, and honestly, it's one of the central questions of what is American life and citizenship and culture is this question of what it is to be largely, though not entirely, obviously a country of immigrants. And it came up in Hamilton, and it comes up in the Far Country. And especially as we head into this election season, I hope the opportunity to think deeply about what are the different needs and dreams that bring people to this country. And what are all the different ways that they actually help shape the identity of this country as we move forward. And I think the opportunity to look back on some really complicated moments in our history, you know, my grandfather came through Ellis Island. And for a while, I was like, Oh, Ellis Island, Angel Island, you know, very comparable things of people being driven out from their countries of origin and coming here, trying to make a life to seek opportunity. But I think what gets left out of that narrative is Ellis Island was not a detention center in Angel Island was so in the places that we look for commonality but also the opportunity to recognize difference. And it's so beautiful and the poetry is so gorgeous in that piece. I'm actually seeing the Far Country this Friday, so I'm very excited about that. One of the next productions, of course, is Galileo. Would you tell us a little bit about this Danny Strong, Michael Weiner, Zoe Sarnick piece? Yeah, absolutely. I will just say making a new musical, I think it's like the craziest, hardest to make theater. In part because as you see just from the number of people listed as the core creative team, it requires a depth of collaboration that sort of exponentially different than making a play where you generally only have one author. And this is, you know, the beauty of a musical is it's true shared authorship between the book writers, the composers, the lyricists, the choreographer and the director. And yet like when you make them and they come to life, it's so thrilling and satisfying. So it's one of the things I think Berkeley Rep has really developed a great muscle around, you know, and things like Ain't Too Proud and American Idiot, which of course Michael May are also directed. So, you know, I love to see us take it on if not every season than every other, but we like to have one in every season. So this is a rock musical about Galileo Galilei. And, you know, for a while, I was talking about it as kind of the tension between science and faith. And Michael Mayer, who's a longtime friend and colleague and somebody I've had the privilege of making a lot of plays with, he said, no, no, no, it's really about the tension between truth and power. And I think in this moment, keeping an eye on the difference and the inherent conflict between truth and power is an important thing for us all. Very, very present topic as well. Very present topic. Anyway, and it's an absolute glorious score, Raul Esparza, who people will know from like his four Tony nominated performances on Broadway to his years on law and order is like one of the great musical theater performers. So really fun to see him and we've built a beautiful cast around. And you had mentioned a little bit about Cult of Love, which just closed. So hopefully some of the people who are on this talk today had a chance to see it. But here's just some stills from this as well. If you'd like to share a little bit about, I mean, the crazy thing is you see in these stills is like this was a play about a pretty fundamentalist religious family and their relationship to primarily their daughter who is queer and who comes home with her wife for Christmas, but also to their son who is a recovering addict and their other daughter who is herself, both struggling with mental illness, but also profoundly religious and how all of these people can coexist, can see each other in all of their complexity. But it was also there's tons of music in the production. It's not a musical by any means, but this is a family where one of the ways in which they come together and have throughout their lives is they sing together. And so this cast not only had to act like, you know, geniuses, but they also all played multiple instruments and sang. So it was a really challenging and deeply joyful process. And I will say like the audience feedback was among the most positive that I've experienced since I got to birthday wrap. Amazing. And just jumping back a little bit, we of course have Mother Road. I don't know why it's showing up as Galileo. Oh, that's okay. So this is Mother Road by Octavio Solis, directed by David Mendesable. David is our associate artistic director. And what Octavio did in Mother Road is he wrote essentially a response to Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. So Mother Road tells the story of William Jode, a descendant of the Tom Jode of Steinbeck's novel, who at the end of his life has to find a living blood relative to whom he can bequeath that farm in Oklahoma. And he finds this isn't really a spoiler because you find it out in the first scene of the play. He finds a young man named Martin Hodes, who is actually the last blood link to the original family of Jodes. And Martin has been working as a farm worker in the fields in California. And William has to convince Martin to travel back to Oklahoma with him, essentially a reverse journey along that Mother Road back to the farm in Oklahoma. Incredible pieces that are coming up. And we are of course very excited that Berkeley Rep has extended a 20% ticket discount to Mechanics Institute followers. So that discount code is Mechanics20. And we'll pop that into the chat as well. And while we're on the topic of the chat, if you have any questions for Joanna, please pop them into the Q&A. We'll read them out towards the end. So we'll both put the discount code into the chat Mechanics20 and add your questions in. And as we continue with our conversation, you've told us about this incredible diversity of pieces that are part of the spring, summer season at Berkeley Rep and the various perspectives and life experiences that the characters go through. Could you help us understand what is the impact on audiences viewing storytelling in a collective space? Why is it vital to see stories unfold, you know, through characters on stage and how does it impact our individual lives? Yeah, I mean, I think we've touched on it a little bit already. But I think, I mean, I think the really reductive answer is like, Oh, it helps, you know, other people understand what your experience is. I think we talk a lot about theater as an opportunity to, to develop a muscle for empathy, you know, and truly for an artist, you know, that phrase of like, Well, what is it to walk a mile in somebody else's shoes? But that is literally what we ask our artists to do every day. They are always stepping into and having to explore and understand and create an identity within an experience that may not be their lived experience. So in the doing is one kind of generator of empathy and understanding. And maybe you do it through research, maybe you do it through conversation, maybe you do it through a more imaginative or intuitive process. But at the end of the day, you are representing a story that is almost certainly not entirely your own. And so there's a funny mind melt that happens in that. And I think, you know, it would be reductive to say, Oh, if you are the child of Chinese immigrants, come to the far country, you will see a representation of yourself. Because I think, you know, those same people who saw themselves in the parents, in a cult of love, may see themselves in the stories of the children in the far country. You know, we can't assume which aspect of somebody's own identity or of their lived experience is going to be the thing that is resonant for them. You know, honestly, like, there's no reason that any of those different populations might not see themselves in Galileo himself. You know, this man who was so convinced of his own vision, and the rightness and the truth in what he saw, that he was willing to challenge the very pillars of his own community and society to share that truth with his community. You know, so who are we to say where that penny will drop for any given audience member? What is going to be the thing that is resonant for them? So I think we have to remember as we are reaching out to different populations in different communities around these specific stories to not be reductive in our own thinking about who those stories may be resonant for. On the other hand, you know, absolutely, there were people who came to see Cambodian rock band last year who had never been at Berkeley right before. We did this, you know, beautiful Khmer community day where people were, you know, there were dancers performing in the courtyard and there was food throughout our space. And I hope that those people were drawn here by something that felt to them specific, and that they will then come back and see what else might feel specific to them as well. I don't know if that answered your question. Feelings are universal, right? You know, feelings are universal. Love is universal. War, sadly, is universal. Conflict is inherent in relationship. Yearning is universal. The desire to be understood, the desire to express yourself, to be accepted in your fullness, to be loved for it, to challenge authority. You know, these are things that I think you can find elements of them in every story that gets told on a Western stage. Yeah. I am seeing some questions come in, which is great. Keep popping your questions in. Maybe I'll ask one more and then we'll shift to our audience Q&A and I'll read out those questions. You mentioned, as we got started, the new works development, artist development, production development at Berkeley Rep. Could you tell us a little bit more about the process and differences between the conception of a performance piece versus presenting a fully realized production and how is Berkeley Rep continuing to nourish and support new works and why is it important for your company to continue doing that moving forward? Oh gosh. That's a big question. Yeah. I mean, I think when you look at the experience that perhaps an audience member has when they see a piece on stage, it's a little bit like the tip of the iceberg. I mean, you are seeing the visible result of what could be years of work that precedes that moment. So one of the ways, well, there are a bunch of different ways that we engage with work before it is at that place where it is being shared with an audience. One is we do something called commissioning where we will essentially say to an artist, is there a story you want to tell, here's some money to essentially buy some time for you to do that. And some aspect of that may be them in their own space, wherever that is writing, it may be bringing them into our rehearsal and pre-production facilities and giving them some space and some people to respond to it. All of our new work development goes under the umbrella of the ground floor. So that's everything from again, a commission to a reading to a workshop to a world premiere production, like with Galileo. But we also have something called the summer residency lab. And that is a four week lab that happens during the summer where we will bring early stage projects and could be generated by artists at all different moments in their careers from people who are very, very new in their own exploration of their artistry to people who've been at this for decades. But the projects themselves are in their earliest stages. Everybody comes to our pre-production facility down on Harrison Street in West Berkeley, and they work independently throughout the day. Everybody comes together to eat dinner every night. It's an opportunity for people to share what they're working on, new relationships, new creative partnerships are forged that way. It's the opportunity to say to somebody, oh, you're working on something, come pop your head into my rehearsal room the next day, give me some feedback, share your thoughts. Because this is a collaborative art form that we work in. So last summer, for example, during the summer residency lab, we had more than 100 artists working on 20 different projects over a month, long period. And we're in the selection process for this year's Ground Floor. And one of the important things is to say, at what point are you ready? You, the generative artist, are you ready to share the work? And what is it that an audience can bring into your process that will help propel you to the next phase? This was something we felt very strongly about at New York Stage and Film at my old company, that there's a real role for an audience to play so that you don't end up in a completely insular place. You know, it feels not just about sharing your work with your colleagues, though that is important with your peers, though that is important with fellow artists, again, though that is important, but with a sort of theater going, impassioned civilians, who are your intended future audience, and to know sometimes it's through a question and answer. More often it's through watching people watch the work, because you can absolutely feel where they are with you and where they are you are. So the attention of an audience member, a group of audience members, when things are in early stages at the right moment can be really, really illuminating for an artist. And that's a piece or can be a piece of the Ground Floor experience as well. They're not required to share or to present, but for the people who are ready for that or for whom that will be sort of a transformative moment, we do provide that too. It's so important to allow new voices to push boundaries and structures, because how do we move an art form forward, outward and broadened, unless we are folding in new voices and giving them the space, time and money to explore. Yeah, and it's a real recognition that you have to create structures that are capable of risk taking. And it's something, you know, I feel like the Board of Trustees of Berkeley-Rap has been so understanding of, that to make art is inherently risky, to make bold art, new art is even riskier. And yet if we are committed not just to this moment, but to the future of an art form, this is the investment that we collectively make, yes, of resources of time, space, money, attention, in order to ensure that new stories are going to be told, that artists continue to see theater as a viable form of expression. I think every great TV show at this point is being written by playwrights, truly statistically, but they are developing their craft for the most part within the theater. We have a few questions through our Q&A, so I'm going to go ahead and read those out. And thank you folks that have popped some questions into the Q&A. Please feel free, if you want to add more questions, please do. We'll try to squeeze in as many as possible. Our first question is from Elizabeth. ACT was also bringing on on board a new artistic director at about the same time. Did you commiserate with that person? And more seriously, are you in touch with those who serve other theater companies in the Bay Area? Yeah, the nice thing is Pam McKinnon, who is the artistic director at ACT and who took on that job about a year before I came here. She and I have known each other for 20 plus years. In fact, I think the first time Pam worked in the Bay Area is when I was the associate artistic director at ACT and she came and did a workshop of a play by Itamar Moses who grew up here in Berkeley that we workshopped at ACT then and then she took to New York. So yeah, Pam and I have been at it a long, long time together. We know each other well. My husband is a lighting designer who works for her regularly. He just did her show, Big Data. So yes, we commiserated. We commiserated just a few days ago about season planning and certainly have really been in touch as we've walked through the challenges, some of which are specific to each of our companies but some of which feel very of this community right now. Jennifer Bielstein and Tom Parish or the managing directors at each of our companies respectively are in touch with real frequency. And I think there is the sense that we're not in competition. What we really need is the rising tide. And also a shared responsibility because I think it's the two largest theater companies in the area. We also help support an ecology in which some of the members of our staff are the same people who are running some of the smaller theater companies or who are working at some of the smaller theater companies. So in addition to keeping our own work alive, we also I think are pretty collectively cognizant of the ways in which sort of being a big dog in the community helps keep some of the smaller organizations engaged in the float as well. It is a true ecosystem. Yeah. And that we need those smaller and mid-sized companies for people to be developing skills, developing specific work so that the entire creative community remains robust as people kind of progress through a pipeline too. And so that potentially performers will be able to stay and be here year-round also. You know, part of what we saw as a really devastating result of the pandemic is because the Bay Area is so punishingly expensive as a place to live. You know, during that shutdown when the work opportunities were really limited, we saw huge numbers of artists just leave. You know, they left the field and they left the area. And to regrow that creative community is, you know, another shared task. Along those lines, we got a question from an anonymous attendee. Members of the Bay Area Theater community expressed delight in witnessing the presence of local talent showcased in the current production of the far country. How might this trend of employing local artists persist, extending to directors, and what barriers exist preventing the hiring of more local talent? We actually had a bunch of local artists on stage for Cult of Love as well. So I think we will in Mother Road as well. So I think there's a little bit, I can't speak to history. I think there is a fallacy about Berkeley Rep doesn't employ local artists that in fact is not sort of statistically born out. But I think it's true that especially as we have seen the creative community shrink, making sure that you know, as we're casting in pretty specific ways, the bench is not always super, super deep. You know, so we have been much more rigorous over the last couple of years about making sure that we are using each one of these casting opportunities to be seeking out opportunities for our local artists and also making sure that they through an audition process are meeting not only local directors, but directors who are working throughout the country because that's good for the Bay Area too. We want people to be working here but we also want them to be working everywhere. Speaking of Cult of Love, a question from Jason. Cult of Love was insanely good as was the rest of the season. Curious to know when you will announce next season's shows. Jason, thank you for that TM. April 16th. All right, so mark your calendars April 16th. I will say one of our shows is going to be announced on March 25th because it's a collaboration with another company. So stay tuned for that and I'm not going to tell you anything more. No secrets today. No secrets today. It's about time for secrets please. It's only Tuesday. Is it Tuesday? It's just me. It is so not just me. But stay tuned. April 16th is the day. All right. And another, our final question that I see in the Q&A, although please feel free to drop them in. I've got a few more questions after this. It's from Carlos. As theatrical audiences evolve in their preference for storytelling mediums and engagement, how is Berkeley Rep specifically adapting to this dynamic landscape, particularly in embracing new storytelling mediums and theater technology? Oh, Carlos, this is where I sort of wish this were a little bit more of a conversation. So I want to make sure I'm understanding what you're saying. I mean, I think there's all kinds of ways that theater technology is changing. And I would say come see Galileo where we have huge LED walls that are going to be part of the design. So that's, again, like, you know, sort of in this or moving past the notion of just projection into these LED programmed walls. So, you know, we try and stay on top of it. I think the artists with whom we work demand that we stay on top of it. And I'll also just say, new technology, it's expensive. So that's one of the challenges. And I think, you know, there are times in which maybe this is going to make me sound really old. So apologies, if so, I think sometimes technology can be distancing. And sometimes it can really help breach distance. I think there is, you know, we really saw this with Harry Clark, I don't know how many of you saw David Cale's play starring Billy Crudeau, which is open on the West End right now. But, you know, that was this great reminder that sometimes the most impactful theater going is literally like a person standing in front of you, telling you a great story with their own extraordinarily well developed craft in the employee of telling that story. So sometimes technology is irrelevant, new forms of storytelling irrelevant. And there is nothing more powerful than being in the presence of an unbelievably gifted live performer who has a very well crafted story to tell you. So like there's that. And then there's also like, oh, come see these cool new toys that we're going to put into our theater for this first time and see what that feels like. And I love the fact that theater going right now can hold both of those things. I think as a pretty much a lifelong Berkeley rep, goer, family subscriber, my mother volunteers at Berkeley rep. I have a theater subscription with my little girlfriend group. We see as much as we possibly can. I think what has always been most magical for me about Berkeley rep is that whether it's an empty stage with a single performer or an absolutely packed stage with 25, 30 performers in every possible thing of technology I could imagine or not imagine. I always feel enveloped by the theater magic at Berkeley rep. There are some of the most standout productions that I can think of are all on Berkeley rep stage that truly took me to a different planet and expanded my worldview. So like I have always felt that Berkeley rep has truly had its finger on the pulse of how we tell the best stories and the best ways. And that doesn't always mean the biggest, most bombastic things. It can mean the most intimate, searing things as well. Well, I hope when you have Pam McKinnon and I hope you will. You will also tell her about all of the ways in which your favorite nights in the theater were spent in ACT. That's true. There are some absolute standouts for all of these moments. And you know, I think the task in our community is just to do everything we together can to make sure that we are valuing the process of theater going, that we are bringing people who haven't experienced it before into these spaces, whether they are the young people in our lives, whether they are, you know, some of our other friends who just don't have it as part of their practice. But if we can remind people collectively of this sort of transformative potential experience, then collectively we can preserve an art form for future generations. Yeah. As we start to wrap up, I do want to remind our audience and thank you for joining us, folks. I hope this has been an interesting and enjoyable conversation for all of you. That Berkeley Rep has extended a very generous 20% discount for their season by using the code Mechanics20 and we'll make sure that gets popped into the chat as well. But definitely check out the rest of Berkeley Rep's season. It's fantastic. If you come on Friday, I'll be there Tuesday. Hello. And please use the discount code Mechanics20 to have access to 20% discount on tickets to Berkeley Rep's season. I'll also just say if you come on Friday, come a little early, they're going to be a beautiful dance troupe is performing prior to the show. If you come, I think the following Friday, we have lion dancers here. So, you know, also just take a peek for some of the free events that are surrounding the work. And frankly, those events are free and open to the public. So you can come to those even if you don't have a ticket for the show that night. Love that. So someone scooped my normal last question, which was going to be, would you give us any sneak peeks, which it sounds like you won't. Maybe just the worst. I'm so sorry. All right. It's okay. We trust and believe and we'll wait for the season announcement, the first bit on March 25th and the rest on April 16th, I believe. Is that right? Yeah. I love to kind of pop a surprise question to folks, which is, what question have you always hoped to be asked that you haven't yet? What do you want to be able to share with your audiences, with us? What is it that you've always wished would be asked and hasn't been of you? I feel like you've done a very, very good job of asking all of the big questions already. So I don't, I don't know if I have like a pressing thing. I see it's such a good surprise question. What do you wish people would ask of you? I mean, I guess that I wish people, I hope, I asked this of an artist the other day of what do you wish the impact of this piece would be? Like leave aside all, you know, it's so easy to get caught up in the logistics and the planning and the doing and it's all hard and it's all bespoke and it's all handmade and all of those things are true. But like when you really step back from it and you think about like, what do you wish will touch the heart or change the mind or influence the journey of a person who receives your story? So maybe the question to your audiences is really, what are you hungry for? What do you turn to art for? What need does it meet for you? Because I think if we can hold that, if we can collectively understand that there is some unmet need as we move through the world and if we can speak to the ways in which art can can answer that, perhaps that will be the thing that will shape the ways in which we engage with art, whether it's standing in front of a painting or watching a dancer on a sidewalk or writing a piece of music or coming and sitting in the theater with a stranger and knowing that you've actually by the end of the night had this intimate shared experience that if you can each think about what do you need that art might help satisfy? Maybe that's a question. I love that. Incredible parting words, Joanna. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me and thank you all who came and spent your lunchtime with us. We're so honored to have welcomed you to our Little Mechanics Institute corner of the internet. We're really, really thrilled to forge this partnership together and be able to bring Berkeley Rep to San Francisco and bring San Franciscans over to Berkeley Rep. Cross that bridge. It's not so bad. I know the Barton bridge, it's it's nothing. Just watch the traffic and you'll be good. And we hope that many, many of our Mechanics Institute fans and followers will be making their way to Berkeley Rep as returners or for the first time. And we're very grateful to you Joanna for joining us today. Please make sure you visit BerkeleyRep.org and find out all about the main stage, round floor and all the various programs that Berkeley Rep has going on throughout the year. It's a truly incredible theater company that we are all very proud of across the Bay Area and we are very proud to have welcomed you today, Joanna. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Awesome. And for folks who haven't yet checked out Mechanics Institute, please make sure you come and visit us. Learn more by visiting mylibrary.org. Thank you very much for joining us today for our Making of a Season with Berkeley Rep today. And we hope to see you soon. Enjoy the rest of your day.