 Our panelists are meeting each other. There are two microphones, so that when it comes... All right. Hi, everyone. That was fantastic. Thank you so much for that. And I feel like that was such a perfect framework going into this topic of youth voice right now. That was fantastic. So we couldn't have asked for a better segue into our topic for this panel. I'm really excited to kick off our first panel today with this topic of youth voice. I have been so inspired by youth across the country in recent years in their advocacy, in their way for speaking up for themselves, for their peers, for the issues that they are all fighting for. I mean, we saw that in Florida as well with Douglas High after the shooting. And we see that all of the time in history that youth are the ones that are really making change in this country. So how are we as theater companies working with youth to empower them to continue to make that change, not just in society and in their worlds, but also within our own theaters? So I'm really interested in that question. As our theater continues to centralize education and engagement programming as core to our missions and our visions, how are we representing youth voice at those tables? As we strive to create safe and brave spaces for youth at our theaters in the world of Me Too, we need to listen to them as we make decisions and how we responsibly hold that space for those youth. And how are we making the decisions with them rather than just for them? I hope to start here to put forth Youth Voice Front and Center as we continue on our day to discuss trauma-informed care and safety. I think this is a great flow to this whole day together. And let's consider in these conversations how we will take this work back to our own theaters and be more responsible when we do invite youth to the table then for these dialogues. I'm thrilled to have a wonderful panel here. This is really exciting to me. I think that each person here has a really unique voice, a unique role at their institutions. And I think they're going to be bringing a lot to the table for this conversation. So why don't we just start with having you all introduce yourselves, the role that you have as well as the institution that you are with. Hello. My name is Abby Thompson and I'm finishing up my degree at Columbia College Chicago and I'm an alumni of Milwaukee Repertory Theater's Teen Council. Hi, my name is Natalie Hirsch. I'm the artistic director of the 52nd Street Project, which is located in New York City and it's a after-school arts program for young people and professional artists. My name is Viad Kaddow. I'm the program's manager for Old Globe in San Diego. Hi, my name is Rachel Fink and I'm the executive director of Looking Glass Theater Company. Hello, my name is Victoria Rotraster and I am the director of education and family programming at Miami Theater Center. Wonderful. So something that really excites me about this panel is the variety of roles that each person has as well as the vast array of programs that we are all involved with. One of the questions in the description for this session is around the extent to which youth are being given decision-making powers and involvement at your theaters. So Natalie, I'm actually going to start with you in 52nd Street Project. I think you've done some amazing work in creating space for youth to co-create with professional artists. Can you speak a bit about that process and how youth are involved throughout it? Sure, yeah. So just a little background about the 52nd Street Project. So we're a nonprofit in Hell's Kitchen, neighborhood of New York City and we provide free programming for young people ages 9 to 18. And the way every program works is that it's a collaboration with our young people and professional artists who volunteer their time. So to start, all of our programs are collaborative, but to start to get a sense of what we do is that our 9 or 10-year-olds come in and they take a playmaking class, which is essentially playwriting, teaching them how to write a play. And we teach them the basic structure of a play, want conflict and change, or the three main ingredients we teach them. And then we have them write an original piece of theater. We do not touch content at all. We let them take it wherever they want to take it. And each young person is paired with two professional actors and a director. And so that one young person is working with three professional adult artists to help fully realize their play and then we fully produce it in our theater. And we take it really, really seriously. And so yes, they're 9 and 10-year-olds writing these plays. So there's often you think, you know, they're writing about monsters or unicorns. But the content is actually really interesting and I think really important because, for example, this last round, a young person wrote about a superhero whose dad just died and the only thing he had left was his dad's guitar. And this young girl who wrote this, her father had just moved out and he came to the play, to the show and just saw it the whole time and realized that there is a connection and that's their way of expressing themselves through superheroes. So that's kind of the start of how we do everything, how we do our programs, but the way every other program that we do works is that we are pairing a young person with an adult professional no matter what. So if it's our dance program, we pair a young person with an adult artist and we teach them basic movements, how to move their body, but then the young person creates or choreographs an original piece of theater that the two of them perform together. So every step of the way the young person has a complete creative say or creative collaboration with their partner and their partner is not there to teach them, it's really just there to support and guide and go on this path together. So that's a little bit about how we try and really make sure that the young person's voice, creative voice is in every process, even if it's something new to them like dancing or like writing. How long has that structure been in place at your theater? The project, the 50 Secondary Project, we call it the project, we've been around 38 years, but I think the playmaking program started about 30 years ago. Oh wow. Yeah. It's actually a book, the man who created it is a man named Daniel Judah Sklar and there is a book about playmaking out there, I think it's called playmaking and it teaches you the steps of how to teach them the basics of writing, but then also how to balance the structure of a play but giving them complete creative freedom or content freedom, yeah. That's fantastic. Do you find that the structure has changed throughout the years or has it been adapted at all in recent years? I don't think the structure has changed, I think we are always aware of content, the one thing that is always a little tricky is making sure, again, which I'm sure we'll talk about later today, is the safety of the young person, so when they write something that might feel scary or concerning, we make sure, we used to have something that I related to, we often on have a social worker working with our organization and sometimes it's really useful and sometimes it's, we always lose that balance of how much do we support them therapeutically but the one thing that I always try and talk to my young person about, especially lately is that I never want to censor anything they write because I think it's really important for them to feel complete ownership over it but I always remind them that this is going to be performed by a big audience that's going to come to the show and just reminding them how would that, how is it going to make you feel when this information is performed to a lot of people. So I think content has been a little, I think because the nine-year-olds feel what's going on in the climate too as much as we do, so I think the content has gotten a little darker maybe and I think we're just trying to negotiate and navigate how to still support them and let them feel like they have complete agency over the work but not let them ever feel unsafe when their work is performed on stage. That's great, thank you. So staying on the artistic creation side of Victoria, Miami Theatre Center also has a program in which youth write and produce their plays, correct? Yes, that's correct. So can you describe that program, that process and how youth are engaged from the beginning? Yes, and I will just start by saying that my first ever job in the United States, New York City was at the 52nd Street Project and that's where I started. I was volunteering, I didn't have my green card yet and I was volunteering and seeing that program from the inside out was absolutely incredible and so inspiring and I literally took so many things from that program into the rest of the positions and jobs that I held. So thank you guys for that. The model is really incredible and you should all check it out if you have those programs. But yes, we have two main programs that we have where decision making, youth decision making is really at the core and one is during the term time which is a playwriting residency in schools that is a similar model except it's a little bit different is that the kids work with their classroom teacher and work in groups to write their own plays but they are performed by our ensemble of teaching artists on the stage for them and that's in schools and it's very similar where we give them stimulus to create characters such as images, maps, letters that sort of thing and then over a six week session in partnership with their classroom teacher they write small group plays. So that's the one element and then a second program that we have is during our summer program which is our musical theatre summer camps which are just about to begin next week because our kids finish up this is their last week of school here in South Florida and again decision making is at the core of it there are three week sessions and we give them a theme and it can be from superheroes and then kindness or ancient Greece and bravery and courage or fairy tale and advocacy change whatever the themes are of that year and then with their teaching artists they create character, script, costume set the older groups actually also tech their own shows as well as operate front of house so at the end of the three week session the family and friends and the local community invited in to see their shows and they are literally operating every part of the show which is also incredible the groups stay with their two teaching artists their local teaching artists professional actors and playwrights and dancers from Miami and then during the course of their day while they're working on their plays they will also go to specialized master teachers who will work on the dance number or work with a choreographer or they may work on their musical number with a composer so throughout the day it's broken up where they're constantly working on their play but with different people to get a different view and then I should just say for our playwriting residency in schools the head of that residency is local playwright Carmen Plays who's going to be presenting at one of the panels during this conference she just had her amazing play produced at Miami New Drama here so she's very, very well known in the community so we try and access while we try and access local Miami working professionals that really are interested in working with youth and young people but also making sure that they understand that these are the kids they decide what they do very similar to what you were saying sometimes they've got it in their mind what they want the kids to do and it's going to be great and we're going to do this and we're like no actually if they write a play about a ball of bubble gum chasing a goat then that's going to be the play and they're like what? but very interestingly just talking about the change we had a group this last season it was part of our playwriting program and the kids were a little bit older but I noticed the change with the climate they wrote about all the play was about the national monuments throughout the United States going missing and the trial of the play and the protagonist was the American eagle who was very upset with the way that things were changing so it's just interesting that and this absolutely came from them so it's interesting how you say kids pick up on everything they hear everything, they feel everything they try and represent that in all of our programs that's fantastic so how long have those programs been in existence then? so Miami Theatre Center interesting enough three seasons ago we went through a huge transition and we went from a producing house to a presenting house so I was brought in as education director so during our main season we present four to six TYA focused theatre companies or dance companies music concerts from around the world from around the country and then the education programs everything that we do is related to whatever is on our stage so we'll bring these groups in to see a live performance is inspiration or we'll, you know whatever we do we'll expose them to pieces of visual art whatever it is so this is our third season running that program and what was the other part of the question? just how long these programs are being in existence then? yes, so this is the third season now our musical theatre summer camps they've been running for nine years our camp director, Art Garcia is an absolutely insanely incredibly talented people know his name they come to work with him in his summer camps and you know, and I think one of the main reasons is because he gives agency over to the young people and they really do create their own work that's great, that's great so as we've talked about as well already we've seen how the world is seemingly rapidly changing these days as is the role of education and engagement programming in our theatres Vieca, I think you have a really interesting position I'm kind of going in the order of our calls you have a really interesting position where you had a huge transition at the old globe from almost not dismantling the education programming but the department transition more into the engagement side and overseeing that can you talk a bit about that transition and how did that impact the education programming itself and were youth a part of that dialogue at all or how did that become part of that influence yes, thank you so earlier I forgot to mention that I'm part of the arts engagement department and it's a fairly new department I'd say three to four years old and prior to that we were the education department and so I think the main difference between that is the interactiveness with the community before we were providing a lot of educational programming we were providing a lot of one way type programs like the student matinee programs where we bring the students onto our campus and we also had a studio program where we would bring an ensemble cast of students in about 32 to be part of a production and act on our stages well we've kind of transitioned into making it more studio for example a devised piece where the students kind of have a collaboration between the Shakespeare's work and then putting in and inserting their reflections and that becomes the piece itself and so it's really a way to give them a platform and we literally give them a platform and stage to provide their creative pieces and it's really empowering to them because it's no longer us dictating and directing a play it's them curating it themselves and yes we do bring professionals in such as fight choreographers and music directors and movement directors and such to make it a more professional piece but really it is theirs we also have another program where it is school in the park and what that is is when the students come in they also interact with Shakespeare something that we do they also interact with the Shakespeare piece but they also are given components on how to write their own poems how to write their own pieces and then they share it we call it peer to peer sharing and for them to provide these vulnerable pieces in front of their peers is just really empowering because they might be really quiet in the classroom and then once they get to our space they feel they have a safe space to be more themselves and that's a really beautiful thing to watch unfold and so with the education department we still provide some kind of educational programming but now we've grown very quickly I might add to having 20 plus programs that span from community engagement where we're out in the community providing playwriting classes to multi-generational communities to bringing more and more students onto the campus for programs and working more with volunteers of all ages that's great so you also talked on our call about a program that you do with incarcerated youth is that correct so we have a program called Reflecting Shakespeare which is now going to be in Donovan and also we are currently in Centinella Federal Prison and so we provide the inmates a space to also be in the play but also put their reflections in also something that we've brought into studio and so right now we are definitely trying to promote that amongst the youth who are incarcerated in San Diego and giving them that space and growing that program it's still in its early stages of planning but that's the goal that we have and we're slowly expanding we started with just a handful I say three people when we were the education department and now we've grown to a staff of 10 plus 20 teaching artists and a marketing person who helps split her time between the PR and marketing side of it and then us and so we're really trying to create a sustainable program and grow at a rate where development can keep up with us but also still provide free programming for everybody and so it's kind of a chicken and egg kind of situation but we want to keep that going and we don't want to cut programs and figure out where we can trim the fat we kind of want to figure out how we can keep everything all the good work that we've been doing going Great, excellent So transitioning over to a bit of teen councils and I'm going to go to you next Rachel here they have become more and more popular as a way to bring youth voice into the theater we actually have 12 teenagers across four different theaters that will be joining us for the conference tomorrow so a lot of them are coming in right now I just got a text a few minutes ago with a picture of my teens at the airport but Rachel your design of the program when you were formerly at Berkeley Rob has really been an inspiration to many people who have designed these programs across our theaters and it was a model of us that we were all inspired by since then Rachel has transitioned into executive leadership and is now looking glass I would love to hear from you about that role shift from you from education into executive leadership and how that value of youth voice has carried over into a very different role Oh my goodness First of all, thank you so much for that that's so sweet Teen council was something that was and is near and dear to my heart so that was very sweet of you You know, when I started I was at Berkeley Rep I started in 2000 we started the teen council in what was it, Joanne 2001-2002? Yeah, so like and what I'll say is that when we started then it was not that different from what I'm experiencing now going to a whole new institution because so much of it is about creating a culture that embraces youth and youth voice so while like there is there's the piece of it that everyone on the panel is talking about in terms of creating these really dynamic engaging programming that fits the needs of the youth as well as the community there's also the the structure that it fits within and so I remember starting at Berkeley Rep and it was at a time when we were building a new theater and everyone was terrified about having teenagers come in and they're going to rip up the seats and oh my god they're going to spray paint the bathrooms and so like there was a I'm not kidding there was a a long process in terms of creating space, building trust kind of saying you know what Tuft, this is what this program needs to be and we're just going to show you that it's going to be okay and we can trust these kids because they're amazing and that really took time and effort and love and care from a whole variety of stakeholders and to the extent I was right before the beginning of the session talking to Rachel Hull who's now the director of Berkeley Rep and she was telling me how the artistic director was talking to the the current artistic director was talking to the kids recently and saying how much a part of the culture of Berkeley Rep is the teen council and it's about having a full integration across the organization so I had that experience it was in my body and but wanting to have a change in my own career and wanting to run a company and work in collaboration with artists moved to Looking Glass which had a and has a long tradition of working with youth but in a I would say a more traditional sense in terms of having resident teaching artists going out into the classroom and that has been celebrated but not a fully integrated space for teenagers and I was like oh I remember this oh right the thought of where are the teens where are we having where is their voice how are we both training and mentoring the next generation at the same time as we're doing the work because something that I learned from the years of doing teen council is that actually and I found this in any type of mentoring it makes me better at my job because if you're constantly being questioned of why to do something you can't take it for granted and you're challenged to always rethink and re-question the choices that you're making and so it's something that I also embraced in my leadership so you know we're at the beginning stages now of Looking Glass of figuring out what is the equivalent of really integrated youth voice into the organization there's definitely space where they're creating work kind of similar to what other people have talked about but our challenge and this is a new challenge for me is while we love our space we're very grateful for our space we're in a public utility we're in the water pumping station on Michigan Avenue which has a lot of baggage attached to it we are in one of the most affluent areas of Chicago it is a high-end shopping district and our building looks like a castle it literally like you could it looks like a need to moat around it so if you're thinking about trying to create a welcoming space and a space where youth and teens have ownership and a voice of what all of this is about it is a space that is screaming the exact opposite and you know then we are dealing with the politics of Chicago and of we're in a space where we regularly get updates from the Michigan mile association or from our landlords of oh be careful there's a group of teenagers who are coming on public transportation and going to be on mag miles so watch out so yeah so as staff we're having conversations we don't feel comfortable about that so what are we going to do how are we going to make this space be a place where teens can feel like they can be themselves that they can engage with art where it is a place where they belong where you know they may be different than the person sitting next to him next to them and that is okay and so in some ways it's really interesting because I did not fully appreciate and it sounds stupid to say it out loud but I'll still say it the amount of power and privilege that I had as an executive director going into this space to say oh but no we're going to really change this this is really different and it used to being in a space where you had to build so much buy-in and you had to do that work and knowing that that's certainly important because you know I want people to actually do something because they believe it's important not because the boss told them to but that there is a little there is a certain amount no I'm just going to rip off the band aid and we're going to make sure that we're going to say that this is okay and figure out the steps of doing it and yeah there's going to be parts that are messy and we'll learn from that and we'll have our eyes wide open and we'll keep on talking about it but that that has been like one of the one of the big transitions and change so I'll say that you know I've been at Looking Glass for a year so we are in the beginnings of it but it's something that is exciting and I think incredibly incredibly important both for youth work but also just for the health vitality and sustainability of the organization thank you and of course what would a panel on youth voice it be without a young adult at the table so I first met Abby when she attended one of our teen councils teen nights I think before you were even in high school I think I was like 13 she was very young and she very quickly got involved with our programming she became an intern at Milwaukee Repertory Theater she became our teen council president she was also highly involved with all of the other theaters in town as well so she was a very very busy youth and she remains busy in her college years right now and is involved in multiple theaters still she also attended TCG in Washington DC as a member of teen council so it's really exciting to have her on this panel and one of the questions that I have that I'd love to hear from you because you've continued your involvement in various theater companies not just with Milwaukee Rep of course how do you feel that your experiences as a youth where do you feel that your voice was included in the decision making process at any of these theaters and how does it inform you today? yeah well something that was really unique about Milwaukee Rep that I was just speaking to Vieca about this morning is the transition between doing children's theater and adulthood like the Rep definitely specifically really was there and that in between stage when I was looking at colleges when I was prepping my resume when I was learning about the adult world so teen council specifically I think really not only empowered my voice and gave me the chance to be able to learn about all these things and have a voice in these things but really prepped me for that adult world and prepped me for college in so many ways in some ways that even more than my high school did and I went to an arts high school so I was getting like double dipping but something that teen council specifically did for me was really like the administrative side and the behind the scenes and learning about the education department and Vieca and I were talking I'm also a teaching artist in Chicago and in Milwaukee and for the Rep and so and something I didn't even know that teaching artistry was a thing or what that was or what an education department was until until I really joined the teen council and really got to see that side of things I grew up doing professional children's theater I grew up doing shows at church and at school and but seeing that education side of things and I used to joke that like I kind of had like resistance education because I have a lot of professors in my family and my dad's a professor my grandma's a professor and so I kind of joked I loved working with kids but I knew I didn't want to be like a traditional classroom teacher but I loved working with kids and I was constantly finding myself doing it since a young age so discovering that theaters have an education department was a brand new concept to me that I'd been around my entire life but I'd never seen the inside workings like I teaching artists come to my school when I was younger and I don't think I even fully realized what that was or what they were doing for me and that that was a career and something that I could go into more so that's something that the Rep in particular really exposed me to that and arts advocacy which TCG was the first that I'm taking me to TCG we also went to a conference in Madison, Wisconsin in our capital and did some arts advocacy there so that whole world was open to me that I didn't even know existed or that I kind of had snippets of but really connecting the dots and helping with that transition between being a child and children's theater to adulthood so yeah so from your experiences with each of these theaters as well what do you think theaters could even do more of in terms of youth voice and in terms of like program design not just again we heard a lot about how youth are involved and their voices are heard within specific programs but how about that development of those programs where do you feel that that those voices could be really beneficial something I think is super beneficial that I had the privilege of having kind of I guess informally but I think could be done more formally is the idea of mentorship I think I had kind of a natural mentorship through the rep and I just kind of naturally was at that point in time and as someone who's always like seeking and following and wanting to learn things so I think that was very informal but I think having a more formal structure of mentorship not only just professional to student or to youth but youth on youth and peer on peer and the former president of teen council right after me her and I still remain friends this day and we were talking about this having this conversation about really that importance of having a mentor that's in similar age in you that's only a few years older than you because they're those next steps they're the people that are going to be there are the people that have just been where you are right now and where you're going so having that those different levels of mentorship not only professional to youth but really just having having interns maybe working with the interns and that's something that again I kind of I think our teen council has been acquiring and we kind of acquired informally because we were so excited like all the interns they're in college or they're fresh out of college we want to know what they're doing and ask them questions but having in place more structures like more panels more meet and greets and interviews shadowing I think shadowing is super important against something that I did kind of informally throughout the years through interning and just asking questions but having more of a structure and more of an openness so that teens know that's an option and youth know oh I really want to try this like when I interned for the rep I'd never done sound before and my internship was more education and administrative based but I think at one point I just said like Jenny I really want to run sound I've never done it and then the next thing I know I was in the booth learning how to run sound so and that's and I'm primarily an actor so that was totally new territory for me but really just making that known that that's an option and having more of a structure in place to do shadowing to ask questions to do resume prep again something informal that was done by a lot of my mentors at the rep were having them look at my resume and give me feedback and help me with interviews having them help me search for opportunities for future summers so that I could have the opportunity to go to other theater companies and intern and dip my toe in the water in different fields and just showing me where those resources are taking me to TCG prepping us for the conference before we even went talking about the sessions and what we're going to experience and goals that we have in mind so all of these things kind of happened I feel like for me pretty informally but having that kind of leadership and shadowing is really important great so turning it back to this idea again of youth voice within our programs I thought there was an interesting question that I keep coming back to is where do we begin this process where do we when do we invite youth to the table so I know after that TCG conference in Chicago were the first time that the teens were all there and they all went oh we all need this at our theaters you know that ended up being a like how do we start this how do we begin this right and we haven't do a summer program at the time and we invited those youth from that summer program and said hey there was this thing that we learned about how do we shape this how do you want this shaped and even recently like after you know Abby graduated too out of the program we have a whole new group of teens that have looked at all of the plans that we're going to be doing stuff like what really so these are the things that we really want these are the things that would actually help us so I thought that was fascinating too of like whoa so the years of building these programs with youth once we get new voices in they need to shift in having that flexibility to be able to do that we also have an after school program that has been very youth centric and around community engaged work with youth in relationship to our students as well as the neighborhoods in which these programs are occurring and it's been floundering it's been we've struggled with attendance with retention with getting the youth to stay and now granted most of our programs are for teenagers so it's really difficult to get teenagers to stay after school when they have so many different responsibilities so we have youth leaders that we've hired now as part time employees of the wrap and we have them giving us information and helping with just surveying their peers and talking to them about how do we make sure that this program is sustainable and we've actually come to the decision that it's just not that we're going to have to cancel this program so we've ending this program but in these conversations we knew that we needed to replace it with something informed by what those youth were saying at the time we were doing a lot of research on August Wilson monologue competition and we were able to apply that with their voices at that table and that's the reason why we've applied for that shadow year we're starting that shadow year next year so it's going to be a huge learning process there but even with what are we doing in that shadow year what is the programming elements we've have the youth leaders from those after school programs as well as from our teen council who are at that table with youth serving organizations that we would be partnering with and schools and teachers to be able to say okay what is it that we want to do and what is it that's going to best serve the youth today and knowing that in two years those youth are going to graduate and we're going to be at that table again asking those same questions of what is it going to be this year now so that was a really long introduction into that original question of when do youth become involved in that process you know how do they influence the program design not just the content of a program and that's for all of you so I'll speak so it's something I think about all the time and I grapple with all the time so I've been at the 52nd street project for five years and I've been artistic director two years and this organization has been around for 30 plus years and so one of our programs is our teen ensemble which is a two year program when our teens can they opt to be part of it or not it's totally their choice and you start around if you're a sophomore junior anyone who's a member will is invited to join the teen ensemble and so the history of the project the second year of the teen ensemble was always a bridge Shakespeare show so they would put on a 90 minute Shakespeare show and make it contemporary and so for my first two rounds of the teen ensemble that's what we did and it wasn't working and it was really really hard and because while I'm not knocking Shakespeare at all love him not knocking him but it just wasn't it wasn't working for our teens and I was like what's going on here and I had to reflect on it and think that so all of our programming while it's all theater based we're not here to produce or make actors the theater is there for other skills to build their self-esteem and their sense of self-worth and community and their creativity but we're not here to make actors so this last round of teens we did the program before that is what we call our two onto's where the teens we put them into groups of about two or three or four and a playwright comes and meets with our teens and gets to know them and then writes a short original piece of theater for them and this round of those plays were very personal to our teens and they were so excited because they were political and each teen really related to their character in a way that often our plays are very abstract and not as connected to them and so we witnessed them loving the fact that they were playing things that were close to their hearts so I for the first time had to step out with my associate artistic director and we were like we're not doing Shakespeare next year we're going to devise an original piece of theater based on their what they're interested in and it was really scary to have to do that shift because here I am the new artistic director with this history which I really respect and value and so I asked my colleagues who had been there longer why do we do Shakespeare why is this what we do for their second year and the main question answer was that's what we've always done and then I was like okay this is going to be scary but we're going to do something completely different and based on what we watched happen with our teens and so here we are it's June 4th we have a show in our original devised piece of theater that we'll do for the first time is happening in two three weeks and we're all scared and we're all really excited but it's also the first time that I've seen this is my third round of teen ensemble and I've never seen the young people show up so often they're not as flaky as they use I mean teens are always going to be a little flaky but they're not as flaky as they used to be they're way more responsible and we're holding them accountable like we can't do this piece if you're not in the if you're not in rehearsal we can't finish this because we need your not just your body but your words and your thoughts and your ideas so I've never seen so many of them return every class and be really more on it and communicate when they're not going to show up and it's usually for prom or I have to take this exam so it's it's a hard transition especially with a long standing organization but to try and really listen and I'm now like how am I going to do this with every other program I've got to reflect on every single program and bring them at the end of each program and be like what worked for you what didn't work for you but it's an ongoing battle and struggle and it's also really exciting too so something that I think comes from the teens there's a story of a show that we did a little bit ago where we were talking about the first female astronauts and one of the artists children were watching it and they were little girls and they did not understand why there was this unfairness and I think what that says to us is this perfect world that we're working toward already kind of exists in the minds of these young children and we live in this world where we're trying to make sure that it continues in that direction so while we're in this purgatory of having a world where all the izzans and all the izz are there we have to realize that there's this world where these children think that the world is fair in a good place and we want to continue that trajectory and so I think language is a really important part of this conversation empathy and understanding where they're coming from and also representation I think with our department specifically we are out in the community a lot and we have 20 teaching artists very diverse in all sorts of aspects and so I think it's really important to present a space that looks like the world that they think they're living in that they are living in and so we want to send a teaching artist into a community who looks and feels and speaks like the students and the families that live there and I think that that is something that we should continue doing it's a hard topic to do it's very new and exciting our department grew very quickly from the very beginning I wasn't there during the Big Bang is what I'm calling it but our director was not to say that he's old if you're listening to this I'm sorry Freedom but he was there in the beginning and he was a really good part of curating that program and very selective about the people who are going to represent this department who really are representing this community and the youth are included and I think their voices have always been there and growing up I rarely saw persons of color and especially Asian Americans on television in a good light and so it's really nice to see that that's no longer the world that we live in or are trying really hard to create this world that we should be living in so language and empowerment so going along the same lines of language I think accessibility and not just in the sense of like POC and students with disabilities or what not but I know something like we talk about teens are flaky it's really hard I feel like there's kind of one of two types not to put labels on things but you have those teens like me who are super involved and so busy that when we weren't able to make something because we were so busy and then there's this other teens that it's just difficult their circumstances beyond their control of them being able to attend events or get there and something I think that really helped myself and peers was like having accessibility to public transportation being able to get bus passes and so depending on what community you're in there are very simple things that I think helped a lot of my peers that weren't able to make it because not all of us you know were able to have our parents drop us off or get picked up or things like that so I think that was something that was super helpful just having bus passes or just being offered the option that there are multiple ways to get to where we need to go and kind of really problem solving with the teens and figuring out okay how can we get you there like for TCG like okay how can we make this happen and we fundraised we got GoFundMe accounts we learned how to set them up we reached out to all the actor friends every theater professional that we knew at the time as high school students and along the same lines having a smaller sort of incentive like we had some programs we had a program called the Teen Council where we were offered the opportunity to go into schools with teaching artists and it was like a slam poetry the slam poetry workshops that we did and there was a small monetary incentive so as teens we were able to get paid a little bit to do work for the Teen Council I know that's not always feasible and possible but I think for teens that are so busy or that are torn between they really want to be involved but they need to get a job they need to say for college very practical things and I know it was super helpful for a lot of my peers who really really wanted to be involved really wanted to be there but that was just a setback that they had and I know there was another there was a gala event where they had some of us come in and they wanted us to share about our experiences about the theater company and Teen Council and how it had helped us and they wanted us to perform and they asked us to come in for rehearsals and they were able to give us a small stipend for that so just small ways small incentives for those teens that are super busy like myself where like I really want to be involved so much that I can do saving for college and all these other things so just having that accessibility in terms of thinking troubleshooting those problems and working with the students if there is flakiness if there is kind of a deficit and okay a hundred teens came to this event and now only five are coming but really asking the youth asking them what's going on like how can we help you and really getting at the root of what that is and sometimes they're out of our control but sometimes they're things that can be we can work together and solve those problems One thing that we recognize with our theater with the other part of my job which is the presenting and the programming is that I was finding that the elementary school aged kids for field trips coming into our theater was no problem we could get 1500 kids through our door in one week the teachers would contact us they would want pre or post show workshops after we'd send teaching artists out into the schools it was great we were winning we were like yeah this is great I'm good at my job but I noticed that whenever I tried to put on a show for a TYA and this was by a professional theater a professional theater company that was geared slightly older kids maybe up middle or high school I was struggling to get the audience in I was struggling to get the school audiences and I was going out into the schools and I was trying to meet with the teachers and I was talking to them about I've got this idea I'm going to program this show it's based on a it's based on a book will you bring them in if it's based on a book you know I was you know whatever it took I was like I'll do it and they were like well we want to but we've got testing and we've got this and we've got that and I was just like oh man and so what we've tried to do not for this coming season but I've committed to us and our staff that for the following season we're going to try and either commission a show or book a show that we're going to pour into the high schools whether it's a small scale production which is when I was at the National Theatre in London we often did with our Shakespeare piece we often took one you know we had one piece in our main theatre that we bussed in or people took the tube or brought them to the field trips but then we always had one small touring piece that we took into local schools and it was set up in the corner of the dining hall and they would do a big pre-show and they would see the performance and then we'd do a talk back or we'd do something afterwards so for me we had to make that shift a little bit and it's not easy to do it it's really expensive and it's going to take a lot of staff and it's going to take a lot of organisation and it's finding that right company that are willing to do that and not maybe be on a stage with you know a sound board and lighting and a crew but you know in a dining hall like we're going to you know so it's trying to make the best of what we've got but it's recognising that that is the age group that are crying out for this kind of work and that we've got to shift a little bit our focus to make sure that they're accessible to it so that's one thing that we're doing great I'll just add one thing which is that in our conversations about empowering youth voice for these types of programs it's important for us to define like really what age group are we talking about what is the type of program we're talking about we're all you know small arts organisations we're never going to be all things to all people and by trying to do that I personally believe that you are not able to deliver on the greatest program you could by trying to serve all so one define that and then realise that all of your constituencies that you're working with have expertise that they're bringing to the table so if you're focusing on working with high school youth then there's real knowledge there in the same way that there's real knowledge in your staff and it's about collaborating together for the best program to meet what your goals are but it's difficult if you're trying to approach it one for what I think Evelyn was talking about before in terms of trying to fulfil what some mandate is from the funder or from someone who is so far away from the community that you're working with that they don't actually have an understanding of the community's needs and wants and desires which they need to have an opportunity to express themselves so it's really about creating that space great thank you for sharing that it's interesting I had a you know we were looking at doing some neighborhood programs this is a little bit of a sidebar but it does relate I promise we were doing a youth after school programming in a specific neighborhood in the Imani neighborhood and our youth that we were working with we kept hearing them talk about how they don't have enough adult positive interactions in their life like oh this is really interesting at the same time there was a funder that was saying hey we're going to be cutting the funding for these youth programs because we're going to be focusing specifically on neighborhood programming and on community engagement program and I was like okay so then I was getting active to think about what could we do and I'm not I don't like that perspective of oh a funder's dictating what we should be doing so let's do it that way so I took the grant application to the community and I said to a couple of the community leaders at small organizations within that community does this make sense this is what I'm hearing from the youth that we're working with in this neighborhood does it make sense to develop something with you all as partners and have it multi-generational where we're working with the youth but we're also working with this and through that we've also you know considering that just some of the learnings from when Abby was with us too about that monetary incentive was really important so we make sure that in those applications in every grant application we are including part-time youth leader positions these are paid positions and making sure that they're there for that entire process so it was interesting to me just kind of thinking about that that shift of focus for us and how those those conversations of where we're at the table with these applications and how do we also include the youth in those applications for grants you know from that writing perspective so as we're shifting our after school programming and looking at what is the content of what we're going to be delivering next year you know I had a team council member who was doing his internship with us as well work with us on editing this grant on providing some of this research you know so from that beginning how are they involved and how can we empower their voices but then at the same time not having that pendulum swing so far because I've also realized when I try to empower our team council too much that they have no idea you know like oh just make the decision it's fine like we don't know how to make the decision you know and that reminder of oh yeah wait they don't know what they don't know they haven't been in the same world you know of program development and planning so how can we make sure that we're providing those options and seeking their guidance in a responsible way on that direction as well great does anybody else want to add anything to just where where youth come into this process of development kind of going off of the grant writing thing because I actually recently did a apprenticeship where I was helping edit grants because I told my boss asked me what do you want to focus on what do you want to learn and I said grant writing so myself and three other apprentices in Chicago were helping edit a grant but another factor I was thinking about is the marketing aspect and the outreach to actually bring the youth in and involving them in that but again not too much I know like that was a huge challenge I feel like when I was in team council is okay we're trying to recruit our peers but our peers are doing all these other XYZ activities and we were just at a loss for like where to start I remember like our first masquerade ball fundraiser and myself and another friend from our high school invited everyone we could think of that we knew to this masquerade ball and the masquerade ball ended up being half half of the attendees I think attended my high school just because we had asked so many people and then years later we had more and more people but since we had such a small council and we had such limited options of even who to invite we didn't even know where to begin so finding that balance and really just evaluating the size of your team council the size of your group and what they are capable of doing and what we can put in their hands and what we shouldn't I know that was always such a tricky question because we had to be told you know invite your friends invite your friends we want to but we at a certain point there was no one left to invite or we couldn't you know our friends were involved in other things they had prom they had exams and what not so finding that balance between the marketing and the outreach and bringing those teams in and maybe having the professional staff go in you know ahead of time and prep I know something that the rep really helped do is anytime they would have any sort of workshop they would always like put in a plug for team council and say explain it a little bit and so hopefully that drew in some students so really having the your theater organization prep ahead of time and go in and find some teens to begin with so you have somewhere to start and so you're also empowering them to go out and outreach but it's not all on them it's not solely on them to bring in people because eventually we graduate and then you know there's this constant turn over with teens so the bigger and the stronger the better because we're all going to bring a different role we had one team council member who moved away and when I was president I think it was my junior or senior of high school he was sending me a marketing plan like from I think he was in Boston at the time or Colorado and he wanted to be involved so badly and we were good friends from high school and so he's like here I really want to help you guys I know you've gotten smaller people are leaving so he sent us a marketing plan to use as like a junior in high school that we tried to use so really finding that balance of bringing in the youth ahead of time so that we have somewhere to begin but then giving us the choice and the tools to help us and equip us to be able to market and bring in more teens because we don't know everyone there's only somebody teens we know wait you don't know everyone I don't understand and they're involved in so many other things so this actually is a really great segue into my next question for you all beyond education programming where do you see youth voice being incorporated into your theaters how do they get involved in marketing in development in artistic programming and community engagement if you're a separate department or if it's the same so how do you see teens starting to infiltrate in other areas and influence other areas in your theaters so we we've had volunteers as part of the Old Globes program for a very long time but they're there in a manner of being ushers and patron services and so since I've been brought on I've been tasked with curating our volunteer program from the community engagement standpoint and those volunteers are slightly of a different breed because we want them to be able to speak back and have a two-way conversation with those that they're engaging with when they're out in the community it's not just a thank you here's your seat so we want to make sure that it's a continuous conversation about what it is that they're witnessing that they like the show and so we have something called Breaking Bread which is when we bring people in to hear their voices and these are obviously adults but eventually we'd like to bring in the student voices that have been coming through our programs and curating those those relationships that we've already started to build and so for example we would love to bring in the studio alumni who are now young adults they're in college maybe they've graduated by now they've been in the program a lot longer and so they would be the ones that would fill this awareness gap that I think is missing from these marketing departments that say I think they'll love this show but really did they ask a student about it and so I think that awareness gap needs to be filled by the students that we're trying to seek and that is the students and so we have a lot of participants and I'd love to spend my time reconnecting with them bringing them back in and really having them guide what we're doing we are on a couple of councils the Creative Youth Development there is a conference in San Diego called the Arts Amplifying Youth where it's planned by teens created by teens and only teens are invited to the room except for a handful of people and that's really amazing some adults can't even do that you know so it's really awesome and I'd love to connect with them because they really are the future and if you give them a platform earlier then they'll feel more empowered and innovation is all about taking risks and I think when you take those risks it is very scary but the results are very rewarding and so sometimes you really just have to put yourself out on a limb and trust the people eventually be running our future kind of in the same regard in terms of marketing just really providing them not even just marketing just exposing them to the different departments at your theater beyond the education departments that they have those options and they know they're out there whether that's ushering, volunteering I know like a lot of our teens on the council we'd volunteer for the annual gala so we got to see that side of things so just exposing them and from having that groundwork of this is what our theater is, this is what we do in different departments and then if it's out there they've seen the options and that way before they even are interested in shadowing or having a mentorship or going to these events before they even know they need to know what's out there and what their options are so just showing them those different departments I think it goes back to something you said earlier in terms of asking them what they want and what they're interested in and providing space for that I think that's kind of the bottom line across the board when I was at the wrap we had a program where the teen council young adults were mentored by the fellows so that we had the kind of multiple levels of learning that was cross-departmental that was very fruitful I know that now at Lookingglass it's interesting because we have this additional culture in that so we're an ensemble-based company the ensemble members are in a place where their lives where most of them have teenagers there is this extra level of 20 or so teenagers who grew up at the theater who most of them are interested in being artists and create their own work where it is an accepted part of the culture but it's this interesting organism because it is this elevated status because they're children of ensemble members and so figuring out how do we connect that with what's going on in our education programs in a way that feels organic and authentic and dynamic and fun is something else that we're talking about because there is already like something in the DNA there and it's just about how are we weaving that across the entire organization so that's another thing for us to work on and I think anytime we talk about youth voice internship programs, it's funny Alma's here, Alma and I used to be at the New Victory Theater together and in New York City and you cannot have this conversation about internships without mentioning the New Victory Theater and their incredible internships where they have young people placed in every single department of the theater and they're paid and they're trained and they're doing real work and you know just a funny side note personal story in turn when I was in the education department who shadowed me for however many weeks and then she went back home to London, she was actually an international internship program, she went back to London and then when I moved back to London several years later she was then my boss at the National Theater which you know was incredible and awesome and that shows the level of program that the New Victory Theater has and I know that members of their education department are going to be at TCG later on this week and if any of you are interested, you know I'm not the one that should be speaking to the program, they are and it's like mind-bogglingly good so you know I think that they're worth just dropping in right Alma, we were just talking this morning, we were like they're the Rolls-Royce you know and that's how and they're very generous and they will share any program information and details with you guys and you know just reaching out to them because Lindsay in the education department is you know is phenomenal so I'm just giving them a shout out it's been interesting too over the last I mean we've had our team counsel for about nine years now and for having you know seen the ones that become very involved and just happen to like make the theater another home for themselves you know the more that they become present and infiltrated not just in education but then they start being seen by other departments that's when we start getting questions from those other departments so one of the things that we've set up now as a part of the team counsel is that we have space for one team to do a semester or a year-long internship where they job shadow every single department or we set up with them a plan for that job shadow and what are you interested in what do you want to learn more of and then they have reflections that they have to do after that initial shadow and then I'll go back to that department depending on that reflection say hey we need to follow up you know we need another shadow they actually want to spend some time in the department could you use them as an intern for four weeks and then just be placed in development you know and now we start getting requests from my new play development saying hey can I have your your high school intern for a while you know so I need a couple weeks I've got a couple projects and that would be a really great perspective to have you know so it's just been an interesting way for us to start introducing those teams but then also it has resulted into actual jobs too that aren't just me setting up jobs but somebody saying hey we need a receptionist you know is there a team council member that would be a receptionist you know is there somebody that can work in the ticket office is there so looking at how they start becoming involved in other departments just because we're seeing that their presence is demonstrating their responsibility and commitment to our theater as well as the future of our theater so that's another interesting way to do that yeah exactly so one final question and then I do want to spend some time with some Q&A here one final question is just upon reflection of your we have a lot of years of working with youth or being a youth as a part of programming and growing into your own educational development what are some of those takeaways what have you learned about theater today the future of theater and where where we are moving towards what should we be moving towards as a field based off of the learnings that we've had in youth voice so that's a big question you know it's a pretty big question you know but one of the things that like I'll start while you're all thinking about that question you know one of the things that I've been learning is just seeing how maybe it's just at our theater but maybe it's elsewhere too because I feel like these conversations and the years of having even youth at TCG conferences has been a really interesting thing for us to be taking from them as well as working with them and hopefully mentoring them you know how how is this a reciprocal relationship with the youth and not just about us you know oh we need your perspective because we're trying to bring younger people in our seats right but how are you actually ingrained into every decision that we are making how are we taking that into consideration when we're even looking at new plays that we're developing at our theaters if you have a new play development department how are we looking at that in terms of just programming what the shows we're doing you know how are the youth able to read some of the scripts that we're considering for season planning how do you structure that you know so there's a lot of things that I'm just considering and thinking and I feel like in the last decade you know with community engagement becoming so central as well and education programming alongside that I think we're just becoming more and more central and I wonder how much of that has also been influenced by youth being at the table I'm not sure if it's going to answer part of it or part of it but what that made me think about I guess is representation of youth on stage so the project the young people are predominantly youth of color and we work with about 200 volunteer artists a year and one thing that I've been very cognizant about and focused on is making sure that the artists who are volunteering reflect also and represent the young people that they look like them and they that we have a very diverse group of volunteers who come in and work with our young people because I think it's really important that they see themselves in these adults as well and one thing that we also I'm you know blessed to be in New York City where there's so much the access to theater and so what we try and do regularly with our young people is take them to see shows in New York City and we do have a lot of wonderful relationships with a lot of different theaters who offer us comp tickets and honestly one of my favorite things to do is go to a student matinee or a show with young people because they are so incredibly honest in their reactions to what they're seeing and then we always you know with young with student matinees or whatever it is student shows we talk back and the thing that I see in a lot of these artists is that they always often reflect that they one are so excited to have youth in the audience and two they're so nervous they get more nervous than a regular show because they know that these young people are going to be honest and are going to react that you will hear how they're feeling in the moment they do not hold back but and so we've been making an effort to bring our young people to see shows that would excite them and not just you know when I first talk to my young people about what they think theater is it's like you sit in the theater there's an audience you don't say anything you can barely relate to what's happening so then I'm thinking what kind of shows can we take them to where we can break that so the last show we went to we started in a park and marched through the park it was like a New Orleans themed band and we marched through into the theater and we stood the whole time and we danced and we said this is theater I said yeah this is theater too so also like breaking there allowing them I think theater needs to move forward and think about how to be more accessible and more relatable to young people because they are smart as hell and they know they know things and they know how to relate to things and it's important for them to feel it and have an experience that's not always the most traditional kind of theater so I guess also breaking what traditional theater looks like that made me think of going along the same lines that idea of immersive theater and I think something that specifically millennials and youth is that idea of attention span, that idea of social media and the quick the story the idea of watching a story in 10 seconds moving on and bouncing from idea to idea thought to thought faster and faster and so something that I think theater that new theater has kind of embraced and compassed of a lot quicker attention span maybe moving from whether it's physically moving from room to room or whether it's incorporating social media on a screen as part of the show but really just adapting and utilizing social media and that idea of immersive experiential theater that I think excites youth and younger people something that I think Rachel had mentioned earlier is to define this community and I think we're talking about representation and really community can mean a lot of things you can relate because you're part of the LGBTQ community you can relate because of your gender you can relate because of your socioeconomic status there's really a large spectrum of what that community is defined as and I think we need to break this mold of what we think theater goers look like and how they what their socioeconomic status is we need to break the mold of what volunteers look like we have a very nice robust docent program but they're very veteran volunteers and I don't and I get volunteers who are like I'd love to be a docent but I'm not retired and I was like no, no and so I feel like we need to fight this it's very true and we need to fight this language that persists and let them know that just because the way things were aren't always the way they need to be we need to go forward to make sure that that is inclusive language allows them to realize that these opportunities are also there for them and they need to be encouraged to take it and I think that little bit of action needs a little encouragement a little bit oiling on our side because if we don't do that then we'll continue to get these older retired which we love and they do a wonderful job for us we have thousands of volunteers and it's great you know one day they'll retire from volunteering and we'll need a younger base to continue forward sorry to all my volunteers okay so my brain's going lots of different places but you know one thing that I'm struggling with that does get back to your question is that and then truly struggling with is an UED and an organization our tickets are too expensive like we have created or I don't even know how to best say it there are too many barriers to entry and at the same time we're not fully compensating people for the work that they're doing the cost of what we do is so expensive and with the way that our financial model works it's like well you're going to get it from fundraising or you're going to charge your ticket prices and so we're stuck and that's a huge problem because you know what I am a strong believer that particularly if you're looking at middle school and teenagers they should have the opportunity to go to any type of art that they could be interested in. I want to encourage them to be cultural omnivores and with no judgment placed on what they attend and consume and find meaning and joy in but if we have created a system where you have to be from a certain socio-economic class in order to participate then we're creating something that is either getting smaller and smaller not very interesting to me and also not sustainable in any way and not forward thinking so while you know I think that there's actually a big economic piece to this that I know people have been talking about for a long time we've been all that but still it's getting worse and that figuring out how to have the experience of attending a live performance is another thing that one can do on the weekend with their friends is something that I think is vital to our success as an industry and as artists and for engagement and also for human beings to be able to have a space where we're collectively convening together and engaging with ideas and thoughts and people who might be different than us so there's a lot in there that I think mirrors what we need to be addressing within our institutions and also mirrors what's going on in the world around us. Great so with that we have about 15 minutes left for a Q&A so if anybody has any questions for a group yes Kati? You've very eloquently talked about some of your strategies on the institutional side for inclusion of youth voices whether it's bus passes or representation of docent or teaching artists could you speak a little bit about some of the strategies you've talked about the what and how can you talk a little bit about the who like how you get a diverse group of young people in the room and that includes young people with disabilities. That's a super tricky question but just like a brief way is just like recycling your youth over the years like if you've got a teen council bringing those students back I mean like Jenny's brought me back and I'm teaching for her like just like and there's been multiple like she mentioned like there's been receptionists who have worked on the teen council so if you already have a program in place just like bringing those youth back again and again if they do you know represent because yeah that's super important so I think if they've already grown up in the program and they've already kind of had that like training I guess that's a super good way. So to be completely honest with you so at the 52nd street project one of the main things that we do with our young people is we take them away on trips so the component with all of our big theatre programs like if during the playmaking program the first thing we do we take them away for a weekend on a writing retreat to get them out of the city we go to the country somewhere outside upstate or somewhere and everything's free of course for the young people and we we just spend the weekend writing and like bowling or whatever the afternoon activity is and that's why our kids want to come to our program. Like these 10 year olds are like I'm not trying to be an actor I hear that there's a ping pong table and we go to the Hamptons over the weekend which is ridiculous but but it's also a way for them to have another experience outside of New York City and to allow them to write in different space or rehearse in a different space and so we know that we're not here to make actors or how build that but we're here to have them build community and relationships and creative skills so often we always joke like they're not here for the theatre and they're here because we're going to take them away for a bit. Do you need volunteers for that Hampton trip? I mean never been. Yeah I was going to say that a lot of our youth the way that we attract youth programming is word of mouth like people that have been part of our programs they tell their friends we also have an in school program where we're out in schools during the term time so we talk to teachers about any kids that they might know of that are either taking part in the pre and post year workshops come to see the theatre or if they know of any other kids and anywhere else in the school the teachers are incredible resources they know their kids really really well and then we might reach out that way the way that we get them into the theatre with field trips is really free and we also provide busings for all the schools we had to do that through grants and fundraising which was really really hard but that's the only way that we could do it the schools just could not we've partnered with the city we're part of something called the cultural passport program where schools will reach out to them and say we really want to do field trips and then they will kind of make that connection with us so that was like the schools and teachers and then once you're in there talking to the people that work with the young people themselves they become your advocate and so if they've got a kid we've also become in our summer camp programs we have a lot of kids with additional needs and that started where they were just coming to us the families were coming to us or a teacher would refer them to us we decided that we had families that were interested kids that love the arts we all know that there's so much research and studies out there that often kids with additional learning needs get so much out of performing arts whatever that is and so that we started training our staff sending them out to do training so they can have strategies and then we got a reputation and then we went for a city grant called the SASE grant which can give us money to help support these young people while they're in our programs so a lot of it kind of started word of mouth and just getting other community leaders where your theatre is to be your advocates to invite them in because you don't always have to ask people come in and then we're going to ask you for money sometimes we want you to just come in, see what we do and then just talk to everyone you know about us and just talk to everyone that you know and maybe somewhere along the line someone would like to give us some money which would always be helpful but that's not always the way sometimes Miami is a very word of mouth town so that's one thing that we do I think a huge thing is meeting them where they're at too meeting the students that you're hoping to get into the doors where they're at whether it's through various communities whether it's partnering with youth serving organizations that are not theatres most of my partners are not involved with arts at all most of it is after school programs, youth programs that have nothing to do with theatre and we might be that one arts partner with that group also connecting to my in school programs which we haven't talked about at all really is in school programming but during those in school programs we talk about these other programs these other ways to get involved so maybe we have this group of 35 students in this classroom that have absolutely no desire to be in the arts but they're a part of this in school program because they're required to but then there's that one student that actually I'm kind of interested in this you know so how do we provide them with the information that this is a pathway that there are ways for you to get involved beyond this particular school program and this is what we hear in communities as well is you have to build those relationships you have to start with those relationships because they're not going to trust you particularly at white institutions right and Milwaukee right now is a very white institution still you know so how are we able to invite people in and make them feel welcome but it really starts with being there being in their communities and starting there versus starting with us Evelyn Thank you all so much I have 10 questions so I'm going to have lunch with each of you and ask the questions but the one that's probably the most pressing is this idea of a compensation that Abby you brought up and I'm curious to know we have young people right now who are advocating for minimum wage to work particularly in the true colors troop and in Boston that's $12 an hour right and so through the writing process we're able to do that but once they go on tour it's hours and hours and hours of work and it's much above what we can afford so I'm curious to know of your organizations who is compensating young people for their work and how you're doing that One thing that we do in our this is with our musical theater camp which is a little bit different to your structure but we got a city grant I mentioned it where it gives us support for kids with additional needs but it also they offer us financial means to offer scholarships and so we might not compensate in an hourly rate but we may offer them a scholarship to take part in the program so that's one thing that we found successful Slightly similar we partner with After School Matters in Chicago where they pay youth to our summer program so we're able to do it that way but beyond that we're also struggling we don't have the resources to be able to compensate which is the problem Along the same lines our studio program is the only program that is a paid program it's a tuition based program and we offer scholarships and it's not an unlimited amount of money that we can offer them but it's that barrier that you were talking about earlier Rachel where this access used to be tuition only we didn't offer scholarships and everyone had to audition and so that's in addition to the money barrier there was a talent barrier too and so now we've transitioned recently what since our department has started into a none to tons kind of experience so you can come in with zero experience but have that little inkling like maybe I'd like to be an actor to the person who's aspiring to move to New York one day and become a Broadway star we want to include everybody in that communication and so we do offer the scholarships and I have this wonderful conversation with our development department and we were talking about scholarships and suddenly they're like you know why don't we just make it all free and I go oh my god and so it's not something we would have imposed upon them because we don't want to create more work for our departments but it's so great to feel supported by them and then the other thing I wanted to add was our artistic department has a really robust internship program the interns usually move on and get promoted from within and then they begin getting fairly compensated on a the organizational chart the way they should be paid just like every other employee one is going on to becoming an assistant director another one is starting to follow the dramaturg and so it's just really nice that we're collecting them from within and not going from without to show that loyalty to them we do have a employment program at my organization and so and it is a minimum wage which is $15 in New York City now and so they are after school receptionists are ushers and homework helpers to support the younger we do after school homework help every day after school we do have an education department and some of our teams are homework helpers and help some of the younger kids with their homework and then in every theater arts program that we have we also have a teen employee assistant who participates in the program perhaps they have done it a few years before and they act as a class assistant to the teaching artists and they will be compensated for that so we try and find different ways to give them opportunity to be responsible and have a job and to compensate them when they're performing or for the most part it's tricky to pay them and luckily the program is free for them and our shows are free to attend but it's something we always think about correct me if I'm wrong when I was part of the council I'm not sure there wasn't a specific compensation for being a part of the council but as you mentioned opportunities within the company so after school program you could be an assistant to a teaching artist like I mentioned working at the gala that was a stipend so mostly stipend based when I was there but we try to incorporate that into our grant writing so if we're writing a program a grant for a program specifically then we incorporate either if it's stipend based or in hourly wage for teens we also find the city partners and Milwaukee public schools in particular has teen internship programs particularly in the summer which is Abby was a summer arts intern and was paid through us but it was we were reimbursed by the school system to be able to do a paid teen internship we also have a program a professional training institute where teens have free master classes throughout the school year and then it culminates in the summer with a full production where we are paying those actors as paid actors part of that now is is paid for through that Milwaukee public schools arts internship program but also we raise a fund of money at our gala and we have it earmarked in a separate fund specifically for engagement and education programming and we use we allocate some of that fund to pay those interns and we know that we're going to have to replenish that fund with additional fundraisers but that program is not covered by grant are we done we're pretty much at time unless there is one last burning question I'm going to say this has been amazing talk about putting kids at the center of our organizations and empowering them to make decisions and giving them opportunities to use their voice and grow into their voice please thank the panel with me and engage with our teens there's 12 of them Alliance Berkeley Rep Center Theater Group and Milwaukee Rep will all have teens and they are doing a session tomorrow two o'clock tomorrow wonderful that's great on leadership there you go I love that it's actually incorporated into the conference proper we are on a 15 minute break we're going to start back here again promptly at 12 o'clock we're having a bit of a later lunch this is just a quick there's still a snack there use the red