 And so they don't have to update them. And then just to add to this, how did you choose to meet with me? I wanted a six-writers to watch them all, but it doesn't work. So they didn't have that, right? That he's with him, you know. He doesn't. He doesn't talk to all of his friends. And he did a week ago. Yeah, he did a week long with Sean. And he saw that I did a whole piece about how to live. There wasn't, wait, like, they accepted me as a program. And they gave me a copy of the theater, and there wasn't a great approval available. So I sort of looked like that thing. The piece that I created. Every time I touched on Mark, I got under great arms. Mark Russell was always like, I'm so happy. It's like, oh, they're called that. I'm putting you in this. And I didn't make use of it. Yeah. Actually, I've been a semester active. All right, Sean, do you want to put that in? Any great jobs? Right. In your elevator? Oh. On his back? Phone 23. I'm searching for a new family. Right there, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Newer? Open house? Cool. Yeah. I'm just going to do that. I mean, do you guys want to get introduced? Brian, how do you just want to start off the stage? Whatever you want to do. It's different, man. We're already here. We're already here. We're already here. Great. Yeah, totally. There's a lot of people on the bus there. Shit. We have big entrance. Fantastic. Great. Yeah, so it has to start from the other end. And we'll get started. Well, it's time to get between. Um, like, if we're on a conversation. Right, and you're said it doesn't have to be an hour. Is this your first one? So, I'm just sort of, hopefully, go for it a little more. If not, we'll just converse. The two of you alone. You're... Actable muscle. I am very friendly. I don't... I'm just kind of... I don't know. I'm just... I'm sorry to bother you. I'm sorry to bother you. Tomorrow I'm very excited. I have a friend of mine. He's doing a personal meeting. So... So that's great. I'm talking to him tomorrow. To the University of Chicago. Actually, that's... I've got to be the best. Well... On your list of expectations. She was, like, so... I mean, she has to have done something important. I mean, she has to have... I mean, she knows the couple in the center of the experience. Yeah. Yes? Yes. Well, I remember saying that she had... Yeah. I said... Very... Very special. I'm... Really? I'm pretty sure it's... I'm looking for... Um... I'm just wondering this one. So, I had to get 24, I can see the last five minutes. Where, how we had some of the programs that were done here, some of the programs that we had seen, so there was a lot of things that were done here. I remember the last thing that you were saying, from the steps that people might understand by now, it was cool. And it was so sweet that you don't understand that. That's great. So, well, I can just, I can just, I can just, I can just, I can just, I can just, I can just, I can just, I can just, I can just, I can just go all over town, and I can just, I can just be up there and all over town. And then, when I was just kind of going there and I remember when I mean, like I said, it's hard to make your own, it's difficult. When you let him shut up on some new work of my work, you know, the cabinets, you know, you don't really need to step in. Do you pay to calm down? Yeah, I mean, don't get fired from anything. Yeah, I'll be extremely willing to do that. Do you? Yeah. You're not going to talk about it. Yeah. He's not going to talk about it. He's not going to talk about it. I was going to see the fever, the death, the spread of the body, that's all that I heard about your chronology. And it was something hard to learn. Because that's what I've got. You know, the three leg bones in front of the lower leg. Yeah. The top leg. The top leg. The lower leg. Okay. That's what they do. I mean, I didn't look at that. I didn't look at that. I'm waiting very long, but it's like a long time. I've never heard one of the words like, what should I read? Yeah, I think it's shorter. Yeah. Short. Short. Short. She had sand crunch, which we're doing throughout. She was like, please take one more. Put it in the back. And she's like, turn it over. And she had a sink snuff. It would do the other person patient. when she came home, I was like, what's the whole thing happen? I was like, I think these are your kids. No, no, no, no. I mean, there was a time when she was like, seriously, she didn't even see all of this. I was like, I love to go to the track and I was like, what, I think she didn't even go to the track. Now what? She didn't even go. And then she got the whole thing. And I went, I'm going to go to the track. And I was like, I think so. I was like, that's it. OK. Let's keep it life. Bye. Now I have to use the light. I'm not going to be able to say anything about that, but I'm just going to move on to that. Check. Check. Hi, everyone. How are you? It's wonderful to have you with us today for our very first How To Make That panel to Les Jay's Guest, Kami Kreegman, and Arianna Smartroom. I am Ryan Head, after those of you who've done me, you probably don't know me, that's okay. I am a writer and performer. I've been in New York for about two years, and the most important thing that I have done so far is a solo show called Hi, Are You Single, which is about sex and disability, and it was under the radar of 2017, the third of the incoming series. And so Andrew, who curates the incoming series with Mark Russell, who is here, how exciting, asked me to come because he thought that I was charming and funny and could moderate a conversation. So we have two wonderful individuals here. First, Kami Kreegman, who is the founder and president of Archetype, which is a management and production company that represents all kinds of game changers, taste makers, major artists that are doing huge things on the fringes, off the fringes, emerging and established artists, and helping them get their work seen nationally and internationally as well as here in New York. And Arianna Smartroom is the producing director of Elevator Work Pair Service, which has been around since 1981, is that correct? And you've been with it since 2005? Yeah, 2005, 2006. I went on salary in 2006. That's a big distinction. It's a very important distinction. So we're going to have a conversation. I'm going to start with just a couple of very basic questions. Obviously, this is a festival that encourages and nurtures sort of DIY artists who are trying to make their own work, or producing, or observing, or being scholars. So we're just going to start at a very base level, and then I'm going to encourage you all to ask questions to fill our time together. Alright, so we're going to start with a question for both of you, predominantly about the touring work that you do. Your companies are based here, like you too, both are individually based here, but then a big part of your mission is to get your work seen outside of New York as well as in New York City. So when you first started in the touring business, what were the things that you hadn't initially thought about going into it that you wouldn't like to know in the beginning in order to successfully make the tours work for your artists that you were representing or the work that you were making yourself? Well, for Elevator Repair Service, John Collins, who's the Autistic Director, and I have both worked with the Wooster Group for a long time. So we had experience touring, because that's a big part of what the Wooster Group does. So we had in our minds a model of how that works for an ensemble company to make work that's probably going to premiere in New York and then hopefully make money for the company by touring around the world, which enables the company to then be working on the next piece. So it's sort of certainly being seen by audiences around the world is important, but in a way it's kind of an economic imperative. In particular, a lot of those festivals and presenters in Europe and Australia can afford to pay artists a lot more than anyone in the United States thinks it's worth paying for performing artists. So when I first went on salary with Elevator Repair Service, it was when GATS started touring, and GATS of Montbrussel put in the under the radar festival, the first edition at the performing garage. It was a secret underground performance, but luckily a lot of, because we didn't have the rights, technical detail. But so a lot of international presenters came and saw it, and it had its official premiere in a constant festival in Brussels. So anyway, there were so many things that we didn't know about touring, and for us it was just so exciting that the work was going to be seen. And even though we knew that this is a good way to make money, it was hard to figure out what is it that you are charging for. And so really on just like a very basic level, figuring out you don't just get a presenter to pay for your direct expenses of the salaries of your artists or your airfare or your podium, but sort of the meaning of everything that goes into the making of a piece. And in particular for an ensemble like ours, that takes an extremely long time to make a piece. How long would you say? Well we say usually it's about two years. GATS was a little bit different. It was kind of ten years in the making really. And our model now is quite different than it was then with GATS, but with GATS we just asked for enough money to sort of cover what was happening and it didn't, not enough for the future. And Vallejo Gantner, who is at PS 122 Aftermark, was really helpful in helping us think about all of the things that went into this. And also, and something that I think about a lot now, is not just everything that went into making a piece, but an aspirational. What would have gone into making this piece if we were in a position to be able to pay ourselves salaries that were living wage. And then charge for that. So you're sort of building toward when you're building a piece. You're wanting to make space for the next piece, and the next piece, and the next piece. But in the beginning, in the future, that's both on to go all the way forward. That's fascinating. And how about you? Did you start as an artist yourself, or did you start as representing other? Did you already know that you wanted? Let's talk about how your company formed first. That was my first question. It was 2005. And where did you see a need, and how did you aim to fill that need? I knew so little going into it that it's really hard to imagine what kind of goal was, except for a certain kind of functionality that I felt was necessary around how ensembles were coalescing resources to build their work and how that could happen. And there seemed to be a need around not just exposing the presenting industry, which even at that point, I still knew a very limited bit about. But going into it, it's hard to know how vast that network is and how many opportunities there actually are to permeate that network and to figure out different ways of combining forces to get something done. And that's just something that you kind of learn as you're going along. There's not one book that has everybody in it. There's not one resource that has everybody there, whether it's APAP or another kind of presenter-centric sales mechanism. There's no way to embody the entire picture of what is possible and who the players are and all of that. What I was really after at that point was that there were resources in the regional theater, there were resources internationally, there were resources nationally and how to figure out how to strategize through all of that for the building of a new work that allowed the most unique work possible to get made, or at least the most unique product to get made. And to really tune that to the artist rather than tuning it to what I thought at that time was a really kind of... I just didn't quite understand how the theaters that I was working at wanted to build work that way. That seemed to be a bad way to build work and I didn't like the product. So I was trying to figure out what then is the way to build work and what's the model and the structure around which you can allow work to get made. That's not to say there was anything that was cohesive about it, it was super slapdash and you're just kind of as ERS would do at that time too, just kind of putting resources together as best as you can to do it all and really what the learning is about that in terms of producing is what exactly you're setting up, what the equation is that allows a structure and environment and process by which the artist can do the best work they can possibly do. At that point what I was doing was probably not doing that. And as you get older and do more of it you start to realize how you can, what really is needed in the room at any given time that allows you to, that at least allows the artist, particularly to the artist, that allows them to do the best work that they can. And so when you're looking for touring venues for a specific artist to represent how do you zero in on, oh this institution is a big match for this ensemble. This institution is a big match for this artist. How do you do that, matchmaking? I take a lot of time trying to get to know the presenter. I think that's a really, really key thing which is kind of an investment of time that certainly artists don't have time to do. I think there's a certain, there's a kind of chance equation that allows you to be in a place where you are commonly around a bunch of presenters or in those meetings or in those conferences or in those circumstances that there are a bunch of presenters in the room and you're sort of gauging and getting to know what it is, how they do, why they do it, why they make their choices and how you can infect those choices. So I think it's, the choices there are just getting to know sort of what the tiers and systems are and that goes, there are systems that are geographical, there are systems that are more or less tuned toward avant-garde and experimental work versus not, there are university systems whereby presenters have black boxes, mid-size and large-scale work so you're really thinking about scale, you're thinking about economy, you're thinking about the aesthetic and all those things feed a practicality around like, okay, this artist is good for this piece and this artist there and this presenter is good for this piece and this presenter is not and then from the beginning of a work, always for me is a kind of in the conversation around a piece at some point I see and can kind of see a kind of line-up I can see a strategy where I can think about who this piece would appeal to and how that would work and it's just a kind of a different way of, I think it's the presenter-centric way of formulating how a piece could exist and live and building those strategies is what I do every day and recording around that. The touring piece with experimental work is about how to get a presenter involved as early as possible in the making of the work and get them aware and wet it somehow to that work and then from there for better or for worse they have to present it. And that's crucial. Do you do that with one presenter? Do you do that with five presenters? Yeah, as many as I can. It definitely depends on the scale of the work. Sometimes it's two to three presenters and sometimes it's in the middle of a piece right now strategizing around with Bryce Desner which is a very different kind of conversation because he's the kind of the guitarist of the National for those who don't know and people want him in the room because he's bringing 10,000 people who know of him and know of this band and they want to get to a new audience and new people with the work so that's going to involve 40 presenters in the building of that million dollar work and other stuff it really just depends on the numbers and how many it's going to take but the more presenters the merrier because that's the life of the piece of course. I'm going to ask a very interesting question which you alluded to in your previous answer at the time you were working at the garage performance space you did not have the rights to gas Gatsby and how and when was it determined okay now is the time we have to actually get the rights to do this and what was that process like because that sounds so utterly complicated to me and it's a show that you continue to do or that tours and it's had multiple iterations in New York so what is that conversation like with the rights holders and how do you facilitate that as a producer? Well when Gatsby was being developed I was not working with the company and so John Collins was doing all that negotiating and I think looking back on it now he would say he was a little bit naive I think he had a conversation with somebody affiliated with the Fitzgerald State who made it sound like oh yeah you could probably have the rights and I think he thought great we have the rights it's just technical and if you look back to it that person left Harold Irwin John DeWolcker had this person he had been talking to and they said oh sorry the rights aren't available now that you actually have this engagement in New York somebody else has the rights so it wasn't personal it wasn't like we don't approve of what you're doing with the book it was just they signed a contract with somebody else playwright and then Simon Levy who had written an adaptation for the stage part of his contract said that nobody else could do a stage production during a certain number of years in New York so we were able to get the rights to do it in Belgium and at the time it was there was a lot of conversations with lawyers or fair use or you know and John was a real meaningful nut so he was really interested in having those conversations a great length for a lot of people but what the main thing that we found out and sort of going forward is it's it's actually really simple it's just about having straight forward conversations and so since then I've had to get the rights multiple times renewed for GATs and when we were able to do it in New York it was just that the agreement with Simon Levy had lapsed and that's all it was really just a technical thing and have a nice relationship with the people who are the rights holders and then I had to do it with the Hummingway estate and every estate is there's no standard it's always just about trying to be clear and of course it helps a lot if you can say a couple of things if you can say we have an engagement at this place that's reputable for instance the public theater or theater workshop and also we are reputable and we can review if you have time to read about us we're not hopefully we'll take your text seriously and treat it with a certain amount of confidence and be able to be clear about what you want to do with it and then also most importantly to say we are a non-profit this is downtown so you try to make yourself sound really big and important on the one hand and then very very poor on the other and say but we'd like to offer you $200 I usually say we'd like to offer you $200 for the rights and they say no way can you have the sound in the fury for $200 but then it has a knock more than that really in the long term for the whole just to get the rights and then usually a standard agreement is 6% of the gross box office and that we have learned that's another thing we learned from touring was to make that the responsibility of our presenter because we are presented by other people we have no control over what the box office is subsidized festivals might charge $10 for a ticket $190 for a ticket so we make the responsibility of the presenter to pay the royalties to the estates that we have negotiated the arrangements with Fantastic, keep them away from the fee Yes, and keep them away from the fee and so you would say it probably had gotten easier after gaps because you had the press and oh my gosh this is terrific and this is getting all these amazing reviews so then you could use that as leverage to the other estates to Faulkner anyway Yeah, although I think it's just a couple of lawyers I've never met them, I picture them as being like in a Dickens novel like 95 years old sitting all dead okay, looks like you're not going to hurt the reputation of this book, yes so you know in some ways how one of the other companies can then feed into another right now we're navigating 600 Hollywood Men's Adaptation of Death of the Salesman so that which they did a long time ago similar to what John did, they just kind of did it maybe a big conversation some here or there but maybe it's very usefucking and they didn't and immediately they got their season sis letter after two performances down at the Laura Manhattan Cultural Council then at that point it was called This Great Country and so now we are and I know I think that Oscar was assisted a bit with the Hollywood or the film shows a number of years well he's assisted greatly with this process now and as is Mark Russell and so we're looking at the future of that piece in a different kind of way of course because it's an actual adaptation of a script which I don't know Is it too late to get the rights? What will they even talk to you? Well it seems to be happening eventually there's going to be a final verdict but right now it all looks very promising but the key issues there of course are they're doing an adaptation of a script Arthur Miller's daughter Rebecca it's not really there to or desires to authorize any adaptations of her father's scripts and nor would he permit that probably if you were alive in any way so there's a big decision that has to get made and of course we're discussing that through a structure of yes it's only going to these experimental houses yes it's doing these limited runs yes it's festival based yes it's non-profit yes it's this so that you get it all into one very peculiar corner of the world that they know it's going to have a very limited basis and it's not going to open the can of worms where every regional theater director is going to say oh I'm ready to do my crazy version of Death of the Sales one that I've had in mind since college calls on that from so it's yeah it's interesting it's your responsibility to keep that promise right to limit the scope of what it can be karma you've set the kind of parameter on that and then just keep trying to push it for sure which is basically what producing is okay I think you can send it at the gas in the gas development period versus now the model is very different can you talk to me about the evolution of ERS when John started ERS in 1991 it was with a group of actors friends who he'd gone to college with and for many many years John's day job was the sound guy for the booster group and keeping ERS alive was like the night time we all just donate our time to nobody gets paid side gig and at a certain point John decided to really just commit himself to ERS and to find a way to raise enough money to pay himself a salary a very small salary but you know just enough that it could be his job and he did that maybe in I'm not sure 2002 something like that and for one who was just John and Tori Vasquez and it was a very tiny little organization trying to get these shows out there and touring and Gatz was just a really bizarre unusual occurrence in the life of an experimental theater company and that it was so popular with so many people you know it was critically acclaimed and audiences loved it and every festival wanted it and it toured everywhere and once we figured out that we were charging the fee went from really high and it was a very expensive show for presenters to present what they did and so we were able to really solidify an administrative staff and I came on and I'm an office manager so the administrative structure of the organization grew and was able to be sustained by the success of Gatz and the success of Gatz meant that the next piece was sort of supported by the coming and starting with having people buy in before it's even made we had five commissioners supporting the Sun Altar Rises the New York Theater Workshop co-produced the Sound and Fury with us all the same people saying whatever you do next we're in without knowing what it is which had never been the case before so having enough money to have enough people working to make more possibilities happen it just grows and grows and grows you know what I mean it's the same difference if you don't have enough time to make any phone calls then you're not going to get any gigs but if you have enough money to pay somebody to make phone calls all day long which is what I do then you get more gigs and then you have more money and then you make more shows it's perfect tell me one more question for you and then you can open it up to questions from the audience how do you establish relationships with artists or ensembles does the artist relationship come first do you open them to develop a piece or you've seen a piece of their work and then you say I want to get involved with you as an artist and then the second hand how is your organization how is the archetype different from a traditional sort of artist management or actor playwright management kind of company I think it's really really instinctual and it always starts with a conversation with the artist and it feels right and there's a kind of fire there and we both feel comfortable with each other and there's a fundamental trust and it feels like the goals are there and there's sort of a shared vision or sort of a passion about what the ultimate goals of the company are then that feels exactly right and it feels very very natural to enter into a relationship and start strategizing and dreaming together about what is possible and that's really every artist relationship just happens that way that you know yeah and then continues on for as long as that relationship can exist and feels viable and right and then you know sometimes there's an eventual thing where patterns of how that artist work are made and sponsored and supported change fundamentally where I'm no longer necessary and other times it continues on and the trajectory keeps working and and that's it so there's always a constant kind of gauge around am I functional or is the work that they're doing need someone like me or does it not need someone like me and that kind of fundamental need drives the conversation from the very beginning there's certain artists who need a strategy like the one that I offer and there are artists that do not need that strategy or don't desire that strategy and wants something to happen in a different way some artist wants a kind of deeper... it's me and my dining room is how I work and sometimes someone who helps me is there sometimes they're not and it's kind of a constant kind of balancing around the massive things that need to get done and the strategies that are at play at any given time so you know sometimes artists just want more depth and they want to walk into a room and there are just more people sitting there and they can see a kind of different kind of efficiency than I can offer and that's crucial for them in terms of how they want are totally comfortable and like and are down with the way that I work which is a bit more raw let's say and I think that's what makes it different than other artist management outfits that I know of who have a system and I just don't have a system I can have a system me having a system is antithetical to how I want to make work and how I do that and also just the way that the field changes and the frequency with which it changes and that I have to be so observant all the time about how strategies are shifting and how funding models are shifting and where certain people are going and the personnel and how things are mixing and what you know just the fundamental changes around how sort of patterns are seeing their way through is part and parcel to how I think about everything every day and you know obviously other artist management facilities have that but I think I have mobility is what I need to do my thing. Okay now we're going to open up to questions for the audience if somebody has a microphone alright so let's start oh I'm supposed to tell you how to ask questions we're not going to do commentary or compliments even though we're we love compliments we do we only have about a half hour remaining together so we want this to be very crisp and just the questions so don't be afraid to ask anything you want nothing is off limits and nothing is too elementary world you know we're entering a place of assumed presumed like we don't not even know the answers so everything can be asked but you know we don't want to hear your life story connection to one of their pieces okay so just questions alright let's start over there this is a question for Ariana so you spoke about how early touring was necessary to keep your coffers filled and what I'd like to know is is touring something that has value in itself and that you would want to continue to do or now that the company is more successful is it better to stay home thanks such a good question mom yes we absolutely so because we're an ensemble and because the way that we make work is by approaching a text as a group of people who know each other really well and who have all these kinds of short hand communication and shared experience touring is like an amazing way to bond a group of people and we have at this point decades worth of memories of being on the road together and being exposed to the work of other artists in other countries that we never would have seen in New York which have been formed our own artistic practice and just what it means to see yourself as an American on a stage in another country over and over and over and to be you know to receive the perception of yourself as an American and what that means and to then turn that back on your own work you know so much of the work we've done for those three novel pieces by those dead white men Hemingway Fitzgerald and Faulkner being able to really look at those from the eyes of the outside has been very important and those pieces have continued to evolve because of that so many many reasons and also now that a lot of us have kids and the kids are getting old it's a really fun way to go on vacation with your child or without your child and bring my daughter to New Zealand in February which is great Can I because you have families do you factor that in to the fees associated? Yes we do elevator repair service has always made a huge commitment to making it possible for the lives of the ensemble members to change and not mean that they have to withdraw from working on the work and so from we have all kinds of policies for the company for instance if anyone has a child who is under two or is still breastfeeding and we go on tour then the company pays for that child and for a care provider to come with them and that child is over the age of two but the parents want the child with them then we talk about what do we need to do how can we help and will pay for half of your caregiver to come or whatever and we pay for childcare frequently and this piece but if I'm rehearsing at night for four or five week periods over the next 18 months it doesn't make sense for me to say well what can I talk about how much you're spending on childcare and how much can we contribute so we make all kinds of commitments to making being a parent not be able to be an artist that's wonderful Can you talk a little bit about I guess in terms of touring in terms of the different spaces I feel like a lot of us do a lot of hybrid work and so I felt like there's a lot of opportunities for it to be in a lot of different places whether it be theater or like a music venue or have you found the landscape change within the last couple of years of being able to I guess kind of do pieces and not unexpected places but places that necessarily weren't considered where you would normally do your show Yeah, it doesn't get any working with an artist who has a desire to create a very specific kind of work that goes to certain kind of places and places and certain kind of venues and to go on that strategy to source who the partners are for that and where the money is for that doesn't get any easier You wind up falling back on just out of necessity partnerships that might make that viable for example if someone has a desire to do a piece that actually has to play in algorithms in small towns or wants to play on farms or wants to play in very let's say only high schools or wants to do some very specific kind of site specific deal typically I'm still falling back on who's the local presenter out of there who can act as a core of that and can help us find the regional partners that can allow that to happen and will be interested in making that happen There aren't a lot of people who are interested in doing that because there's so many factors around audience building and how they can mechanize that that more or less makes sense for them and then going into the other approach where you're going into communities and you're trying to find a funding base that can allow this piece to exist is another piece of it I think there's another factor about what you're talking about in the kind of music world combining a more kind of commercial versus non-profit sector maybe to some degree for example my answers are going to be all so specific about what piece you're talking about because it's hard for me to think of the abstract about that because in a larger way but some artists that I'm working with would be playing at a concert hall you know in a town get in the morning, load in like a band sound check, go it might be a multimedia piece and it happens I can go to a concert promoter, I can go to a presenter I can go to another kind of venue or avenue and I can build a strategy and a tour around that and I think people are more receptive to that than they were years ago you know I think that you've got I think the music business particularly wants is looking kind of looking for ways to break out of the kind of infection and control that AEG and Live Nation and others are putting onto these venues and they're looking for ways to break out and find new stuff that they can be in control of again and I think that there's an opportunity there to do that but it's still the money almost never works out based on their models which is like okay you get 80%, we get 20% go and then you have to count on their marketing systems you have to count on their space for that and then for them to intelligently staff that piece that the production cost don't get too high you know these are all the things that I'm thinking about along with the artist to make sure that there's creativity around that does that sort of answer your question? Yeah I mean I think that just in terms of some of the work I've had conversations about well where can we do this at can we do this in an art gallery because in a music venue can we do this also in a theater is it about us creating a different kind of iteration for that but just wanting to try to be flexible and try to do it in a lot of different interesting places because some of the work is very hybrid where it's like it has music to it and it has you know so that we're not just stuck in like a theater space Yeah and every time I'm thinking about that I'm thinking about what their basically the programming systems in and around each one of those venues are right because a gallery is programming a music venue is programming two to three months out and a venue is programming you know nonprofit typical performers a year to a year and a half out so how do you balance through all those things some pieces you know kind of forward want that gallery partnership and want a concert partnership and then also have a theatrical arm to it and I'm trying to bring three or four entities together in one city you know again that works but I wouldn't link down there's a time kind of strategy that has to say okay but we're really talking about we have to consider everybody's system and then how we bring it together and that's just time at that point I think also the universities can be a little bit more open although universities can be very bureaucratic and feel very slow moving on the other hand because they have all these different departments that can come together oh it's part dance it's part performance it's part you know community outreach it's a way of different departments coming together and pooling their resources they often each have very limited budgets at universities for presenting but they can kind of all combine together and then say and we're going to do this in the library you know I find that universities can be good places for that kind of and I don't know if that's new but in my experience there they can be very open and yeah the vendors need to have things in their space yeah what's your position on that how do you approach that since you know that they need as well as you you both have a common need okay so it starts with the kind of systems that are in place within the conference system that someone like me uses to get to people conferences happen in September and they're regional then you've got APAP in January then they're international conferences and other things and that's a place to go right and sit down and know that there are a few hundred people around me that I can access in that given point and some of them are going to be more or less interested in talking to someone like me because I'm always bringing something very edgy to them and and then the second part of it is you know just really looking strategically from the beginning of what you're doing that has either a thematic or some cultural or you know some sort of aesthetic base that has a certain applicability to some subset of presenters and then you go to that subset of presenters and you say okay how do I best present this piece you know is it through you know an email do I have to travel to them is there a fancy dossier do I have to come up with a bunch of sort of multimedia magic that's going to turn them onto this piece so there are many many many different approaches to how that is but they're all based and trying to figure out who the applicability is to and what the piece relates to and getting to them somehow again time is a massive factor with that and allowing yourself enough time to do it don't be you know foolish enough to foolish enough but not even enough to think that if you're trying to get something done in six months from now that there's any rationale behind doing that got to give it that time and ability to do so that's the common mistake you know through I think every strategy and artist that I'm dealing with the other one of course is hey man we just finished this run it went so well can you work with us you know it's like dude you're done with the run we needed to think about this a year ago and how are we going to show this piece to people especially the more experimental presenters who had to see it live in order to program it it's done the opportunity's gone move on to the next and start thinking about how are you going to use that strategy to the next piece so I think there's this kind of common theme around you know for someone like me sitting in a place that says know your presenter know your presenter know your presenter it gets to kind of sit all day and think about that and get then an email constantly people try to get them on the phone to talk about them through work get to know them get to know their approach get to know what that lights their fire and then consistently try to think about how to get something to them that works for them and their you know their season or their program or their you know students and universities and environments and neighborhoods and you know their local culture that applies and then you know it's as you're considering for better or for worse what starts to happen is that you then start to conceive of work or working relationships that feed that big beast somehow and that's you know is that good or bad I don't really know I mean should people, should artists just create and not think about that and then let the work have its life or should artists be really thinking about what is life and what potential is and create in accordance with that I think that artists who are doing well in those spheres are thinking about the market I think they are maybe whether they know it or not you know I think that's part of what they're doing and they're thinking about the applicability of that work and how it's going to find its place there because the artists that I know who are you know moving through those systems are doing it really really well and with charm and a lot of strategy and personal strategy with those presenters and those venues and you know so I think there's you know as they consider their work whether they're doing it for audiences or whether they're doing it for presenters are thinking about how that work is going to fit but the entire sphere is feeding the one why they do what they do and if there's alignment then that work is going to have a big long life but there's not it's going to have a brief one Other questions? We have about 15 minutes left One thing that I just thought of when you asked your question which I'm not sure if this is an answer but that issue of that the presenter to be the artists and the artist to be the presenters I think is sometimes a revelation to artists and I teach a workshop on touring and especially for younger artists or companies just starting out to say you are not in the one down position here you you are on an equal negotiating field and I think so often to artists it feels like this institution has the money and they have the power and they have the audience and that's what I want so that people can see my work I just have this thing I have only the work but actually that thing does not exist without the work and so I think you can really relax as an artist when you're in a negotiation but without your art you've got nothing so I think that's a nice point to remember I wonder based on what both of you have said Tommy just said that you can't you can't entice certain organizations to present you with unless they've seen it live so you need to be thinking ahead of time how to make the impact and I know that particularly some of your shows are looking at the timeline and Gats is the one that was just in New York again and again and again and again so finally it was at the public and then I went back to the public it was only in New York once in 2005 and then it came to the public in 2010 and then 2012 but it was all over the world between 2005 and 2010 that was how it was made I mean Oscar wanted it from the very beginning of the public but we just didn't have the rights but when the rights finally came through we were able to get it to New York I guess my question is are you careful with extinguishing the fire of a piece before you know what I mean making sure that the momentum builds that you haven't lost an opportunity there's just no standard there's no one way anything and so for instance Gats people still want that show I mean I have requests right now very serious requests from huge presenters on four different countries on three continents who still want Gats so at that point you will never be extinguished and then the select The Sun Also Rises we premiered in Edinburgh in 2010 and we kind of thought like that I'll have like a tour like this and then the touring hundred tapers off as presenters around the world they're like oh that's the old show but you know we're still touring that we just did a seven-week line in Washington DC we're going to New Zealand in February so it's like if people love the work then they'll want that and you can't make a present in very few instances have I been able to persuade a presenter to take one piece over another they want for some particular reason and you know there are presenters out there who say I love you as an artist and I'll take whatever you've got next but it's pretty rare that somebody as a presenter can afford to say that my festival this year is about bridges they always have like some theme or whatever and I can see how this piece you're bridging that cultural gap they make it work for themselves whereas your other piece they come to you with bridges so they don't want that piece so you just sort of roll with the punches and just take it you can't say this is the show of life because some people will still want it yeah I had somebody just say to me the other day oh you just tell them that show's not available this is the show we've got now it's not up to me I can't say that and for us we're lucky that we can keep our shows alive as long as we do because we work with an ensemble and we can keep calling all those same actors terrific and for you when you're starting with an artist who has a piece that's coming what are some tips if they don't have somebody as resourceful and as exciting working from their dining room table to make those things happen how can artists and young producing entities start to take the steps to make the impact that will last instead of saying oh it already happened okay do you want to look at it on a video? I don't know because I'm not an artist I don't know if it's fundamentally helpful for an artist to think about the goals of a work at the beginning of the work or not probably not but to somewhere in the back of your mind I think as an artist you have to know what you'd like this piece to do and I think that there's I think you get again for better or for worse that's going to feed how you're structuring that piece if you are considering that you want that piece to go on the road then as you're thinking considering your designs then you need to really think about how mobile that set is and how realistic it is to bring five people on the road as a new artist it's I think most often lightning strikes where it's like okay we've got this amazing piece we're doing it with a couple of people Jen Kidwell is here from underground railroad game and a variety of other amazing work and the success of that piece and I'm working with that now we're strategizing around and there's so many interesting complications around that piece because it is so brave and so beautiful that it takes presenters a while and meeting to observe others and how they handle it and how they do it and present the work that it's sort of how to kind of stoke those fires but you know I think within that creation process there was automatically mobility that company is creating a certain way that they're not going to go to a regional theater sit down and put a massive set together that allows that piece to live in that certain in one way they're thinking already about the mobility of that work and how it can apply so that by the time Mars Nova came to it I think they were able to fund it to where we're like oh look we've got this you know we've got this set we've got these things going on and you know then there's a structure that exists whereby that piece can now move forward and we're constantly navigating how it does so in a way that allows it the longest life it possibly can so I think it's there's a logistic to it that is crucial to understand from the beginning of the process that if your goals are the work to move then create it so that it's mobile if it's not and you've got a whole another goal in mind accept the fact and understand that while you may strategize toward presenters to come see the piece of what you may strategize toward the market to be exposed to the work that there are going to be parameters around that you're going to know that are going to be apparent very clearly from a logistical standpoint from a financial standpoint that are going to maybe limit it and build accordingly so I think that's always where a producing partner at least they can be thinking that way and can feed that information at certain strategic times so that the artist can consider that as they're going and then the artist doesn't have to think about that themselves which I think is you know can potentially be corrosive for them to think of it that way great does anybody have any other questions? we have a five minute if not we can oh great perfect hi so this is a kind of a huge question but maybe you can condense it into some 50 observations that's for both of you recently have you become aware of any differences in the presenting environment regarding what kinds of work it supported availability of funding and all of that that specifically are the results of the current political climate in the US do you feel like there's a connection between what's going on politically in the United States with regard to those resources in this country and also maybe even outside of the country or are they somehow separate worlds I'm curious to know about your experience what the barometer is right now I mean most people plan with representing far enough in advance that I don't think we would see the correlation yet so quickly I think in general presenters have been in my experience moving a lot more towards anything that has an aspect of community engagement that's become very important which I have sort of mixed feelings about personally but I think it's important but I also think artists should be allowed to practice art for art's sake but especially in light of the current administration I do think it's ever more important to have that kind of dialogue and to use artistic practice as a way to talk about what's happening in the world but I don't actually see an immediate difference yet personally do you? I guess my fundamental criticism of the performing arts in general is that they're always when it comes to theater and dance is that it's always so far behind the current the beauty of working with music is that you're right there all the time music can move very very quickly and new music can get made and the producing process and how that all works with composers and new music just because of the minimalism of that creation process of them being around the computer and the river, their instruments and their band and their producing process can happen very quickly so they can respond very very quickly to the events that happen within that sort of theater and dance module it's like all these things are going down in America and it's really hard to look around and see what theater and dance has to say to it in the immediate sense we need a year to build that shit we need two years maybe we need to begin now and think about the process and the dramaturgy and then what's going to happen is eventually there's going to be a response to all this but it's going to happen in a while for us to reflect on and be able to process that in other circumstances like with Jen's underground railroad game who knew how it pointed that conversation around whether there's really been an end to the Civil War it was going to be this year and then boom there's underground railroad game talking about just that and how that's just not stopped ever and here we are with the president who sucks that back that we have to be engaged in this conversation it's a really really question to have a much broader scale than we were before so I think there's a chance mechanism around applicable and politically concise the work is at any given time and you know more or less intellectual distance around how the work is being created with its immediacy and how audiences are perceiving it you know another thing about being as impoverished as our worlds are and how we create work and the the I think very very disastrous very difficult circumstances in which artists are forced to make work right now is you know is really how they can do that in a way that is accessible I guess this is one word for it but I'm really just talking about immediacy and sort of where people can relate to that work in the most immediate sense possible which I think is so crucial and important right now and I you know looking around at where dance is at and where theater is at what you need to bring to a room in order to understand what's going on in front of you is difficult I think is a challenge I think is a problem I'm more critical of that but that comes from my head of talking in any given day with presenters from LA presenters from London, presenters from Australia and presenters from Kansas City and around Texas and Florida and others and just hearing how all these folks are seeing the work that's applicable to them and really wanting something that can transform and change and have as wide an impact as possible is is my feeling on that and look that just you know it constantly changes it constantly changes you know okay I think do we have time for any more we're doing you too I think we do okay cool go ahead on the topic which we're just talking about are you finding a self-censorship coming about in the more venues or presenters and are you finding an underground railroad for artists who are really saying something that is not the status quo I guess again it comes a bit from the kind of origin and intent of the artists in the piece of how either deceptive subtle their being with what they're talking about I think it's either positioning something in a very very big loud way that's talking to audiences and you know is high-impact way they're doing it in a way that is you know a bit more I don't know sort of a quiet rebellion that's really meant to kind of plant a seed that's going to work its way through your life in another way from the show for a while and I think there's a bit of a poison always that in the more cosmopolitan areas New York, Seattle, Chicago Boston, New York, Boston a certain work is going to happen and it's going to thrive there and it's only going to thrive there it's not going to reach the in-between that's huge and I'm always trying to push presenters that I'm in conversation with just kind of set an example of the work that I'm caring about and advocating for that, that they take a risk on that but it's hard, I do see presenters really very very seriously running and hiding from work big way, no fucking question they are not programming things that are going to upend the systems and force them to lose their jobs they're not and that's to me I don't know what to say about that I care about them and want to protect them and it's also like, god damn it fuck her if you don't do it who the fuck is going to do that please, please support this work if they can't take a risk unless you encourage them it's hard okay, we have to wrap but thank you to Ariana and Tommy and I know that you both have things that are happening we're coming up and yours is sold out but still talk about it for just a second the manager of the public theater running until November 12th, it is basically sold out when people get in every night with rush tickets or off the standby list so it's worth going down cause we can get in and you have a postcard yeah I actually do, but I'm just going to anyway, the Freedom Theater from Jeanine Palestine opens next week on October 12th through 22nd at NYU School of Arts thank you both thank you so much thank you very much for attending and thank you Ryan for moderating the panel today stick around, we have a great talk with Peter Episol a new drop tour news event about new media in this room in a few minutes so if you don't have anywhere to go, please stick around thanks this is all we have we're going to wait oh wait nice oh this is this is this is this is this is this is this is this is this is this is