 Wow, it's so quiet. Everyone's recovering from the party from last night. Good morning, welcome to St. Louis. My name is Adrian Boudu, and I'm TCG's deputy director and chief operating officer. And I have the honor of kicking off our longest day together. This is the big one, friends. It's a pretty long day. But all signs point to us having a great day together. Yesterday, TCG board member, Megan Pressman, took a picture of the double rainbow, the arch, and the rainbow. And we'd like to think it's St. Louis celebrating its pride, or it's Naomi's calling of her remarks were pretty incredible to recognize her hard work. But I'd like to think it's St. Louis celebrating its beautiful culture and its arts and its unique place in our theater ecology. So welcome. And speaking of luck last night, Teresa shared that her first drawing would be a pair of tickets to Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte in New York City. And the winner of that raffle is May Adralis. This is your lucky, lucky week, May. Please see Dan Balkin at the registration to grab your prize. You know, we have a bunch of more amazing prizes ahead. So please stop by the registration table or there's some directions on the slide of how to submit your raffle tickets and additional information. Now it's my distinct pleasure to welcome my colleagues and my friends, Emilia Cachapera and Elena Chang, to the stage to share some exciting updates about our theaters of color gathering. Hey, good morning, you all? Yeah, and hopefully you're caffeinated. Keep on going here. I know I am. So way back in 2001, I tell this story and I just told it to another group a second ago, but it bears repeating. In 2001, actually Ron Himes called up Ben Cameron, who many of you know, who is then the executive director of TCG. And he had said, well, so what is TCG doing for black theater? And about the same time, within the same day or so, Woody King had called me up and said, so Emilia, what is TCG doing for black theater? And we were getting work from both ends, which is good in that way, but it really got us to thinking internally, well, what are we doing? Not only for black theater, but for theaters of color in general. And we were very fortunate to have received funding from the Gilman Foundation to have a theater, a three day, actually, theaters of color convening in White Oak. There were 21 theaters who attended black, Latinx API, but actually at that first meeting, there were no indigenous companies. There was no MENA representation, Middle Eastern North African representation. And fast forward to Wednesday, we were able to have a theaters of color meeting with 47 multi-generational attendees from across the country. Three legacy leaders attended, Muriel Miguel from Spider Woman, Woody King from New Federal Theater, Jackie Taylor from BT in Chicago, and we also had younger theaters. We had theaters founded as early as 1965, which is East West Players, to a theater founded in 2016 in Amona that's based in Honolulu. We had black, Latinx, API, indigenous native, MENA, and we actually created, and that gathering a mixed race affinity group. Elena, do you wanna add to that please? Sure. We wanna also take a moment to acknowledge truly the passion, the dedication, and actual on the ground work that various networks of color continue to push forth for truly authentic storytelling. These groups, along with countless people of color around the country, have been doing the work, have actually been living the work even before equity, diversity, and inclusion became a thing. I wanna take a moment to shout out and actually call out, we have black theater commons, Latinx theater commons, consortium of Asian American theater artists and theaters, Indigenous Direction, Middle Eastern Artists Initiative. We hope that the American theater can support you to thrive, or rather, we hope that you will thrive, be seen, and be funded for a truly inclusive American theater. It is so important for us to have theaters of color all over this country, and as much as culture is so important to our history, to our storytelling, to our communities, we must have theaters of color that tell the story of all people. I feel tremendously honored to be able to do this work and also ready to make sure that I fight to see these theaters thrive. I've witnessed firsthand how the stories we tell about our communities affect the lives of people in those communities. So it is vital that we take charge of how we tell those stories and connect with each other and empower each other in doing so. Native theater builds community, helps to build democracy, and gets to the root of the spirit of this continent. I wanna show the global array of Black experience. This is what the Ruby Theater Company is dedicated to. There's a difference between Black theater and plays with Black people in them. Black theater has a social justice imperative embedded in its mission. This is why we need to invest in Black theaters and theaters of color because we serve our communities uniquely and because we know our communities uniquely. Indigenous people are really important here. For us being the first people of this land, it is so important to tell our stories, the way we wanna tell our stories. The first gathering of theaters of color was in 2003. It led to building relationships and friendships that still exist today. It's a wonderful movement by people of color to tell their own stories with and about their communities. Telling the stories from the heart of the Asian Pacific Islander American experience, making sure that we make visible the invisible of our communities. That is my goal. It's exciting to be in a room with so many artists and representatives from theaters with different backgrounds from the African American community, from the Latinx community, the Asian American community, the Indigenous community, and the Middle Eastern American community. In order to support a vibrant theater college, we have to support initiatives that support playwrights of color. The mission of Chemspecific Beat is to share and transform personal and communal experiences of oppression into peace messages made public through performance. We are culture bearers. We are responsible for hundreds of years of history of struggle and resistance, but we're also three-dimensional humans living in 2018 and it's important that we be able to bring our whole selves to the table. We're going to offer sustainable solutions for Black theaters and Black practitioners. I want people to see us, not only as more than stereotypes, but as more than historical figures. Art, social justice, and equity. Updating the narrative of the American theater. Unapologetically existing with all of our distinct and unique experiences and all of the connections between them. I want to also give a shout out to our rising leaders of color, our critic journalist, T.J. Asena and Rosalind Early. T.J. did a very quick turnaround and the meeting was on Wednesday and Thursday morning. There was a write up about it in AT Online if you want to see a bit more. And Rosalind is going to be working on a longer report that'll come out in the next couple of weeks. And certainly we want to acknowledge our funders, the Gilman Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. So thanks a lot. Speaking of theaters of color and Woody King, I'd love to bring Woody King up to the stage to present the next award. Woody, please. So here we are. And you all don't know how difficult it was to find words to express my admiration for Ron Hyde. But here goes. Ron Hyde's and the St. Louis Black Rep are forces here in St. Louis. I see Ron as an actor, director, producer, and a playwright. Now that's not all. He's a friend, a long time friend. I was introduced to Ron Hyde in the early 80s and I knew I was in the presence of a black theater visionary. He talked about what black theater ought to be. He had already opened the St. Louis Black Rep, one of the first black theaters in St. Louis in 1976 and made it just that. A place for black artists. And that's always absolutely necessary. Because of the foresight of Ron Hyde's actor, director, producer, playwright, black actors like Minda Kennedy, Elizabeth Van Dyke, Starletta DuPois, Eric Gilpatrick, who was here the other day, Tony Fargus, AC Smith, Kingsley Legs, Tyese Walsh, Sanderese Phillips, directors like Lorna Littleway and Ed Smith, no longer had to do plays that dealt with, well, it was plays like, you know, you all know when you go to a theater and they say, we want you to do this Tennessee Williams. And you already had it in college. You already had Arthur Miller in college. You already had O'Neill in college. And so the actor could not get into that rhythm. St. Louis Black Rep changed all that. They do Wilson, August Wilson, Ed Bullen, Coleman Domingo, Ron Millman, and Terzaki Shange, Lorraine Hansberry and plays by Ron Millman, or Ron Hines, a musical, by the way, that has run forever. Given avenues of expression for hundreds of black actors, black playwrights, directors, and technicians, a friend of mine, Kathy Perkins, told me about a wonderful experience she just had here. And she never told me to play. She just said, wow, man, Ron will tell you all about it. Now, that was an experience I got to talk about. So we were in London doing this play. And we were touring London, Lithuania, in another country, but anyway. And we were doing, I Have a Dream. And somebody had looked up and said, Woody, is that Ron Hines coming, walking over here? I turned around and I looked. I said, I think so. It was Ron Hines in London, cast in a play, looking at Shakespearean productions because he was going to do something. He said, I had to do something like that in St. Louis. Then he would call me periodically, he said, oh man, I just got back from Stratford, Canada. We talk three or four times a month. So I just got back from Stratford, Canada. Man, it's some wonderful African actors. It's wonderful. I think I'm gonna bring two of them to St. Louis and let St. Louis people, audience, my audience, see what just great acting is about. Next thing I knew, they were in St. Louis doing a play. He just doesn't talk about it. He's a visionary. He sees out ahead of everybody else. I owe a great deal to Ron and the St. Louis Black Rep. For over 10 years, he found a way to produce and bring me and so many other artists to St. Louis for an award called the Woody Awards. And man, I felt so good. I mean, we would come in, Ron would be dressed to the nines. He was tux and so after that, people say, well, Woody, I'm going to your awards. What are you wearing? He sort of like set the tone, you know? So the Woody Awards happened for 10 years and it was kind of sad when it didn't happen. I hope you bring it back, man. And it was a fundraiser for the Black Rep and for the first three or four or five. It did very well, but he had to work very hard thereafter. I was acquainted with Ron before, especially his name, way before I met him. Ron produced at another location. It was downtown. It was at another location before Wasiu, before the Edison Theater. He was at Grindel Square. And at that square, he did amazing productions. Also, please note that the directors and actors, that he directs and acts. He directs and acts. I want to put that out there. So all of you all who are high in, you can just call certain theaters in D.C. You can call theaters at BAM. The public in New York. He's at the New Harmony right now. And he drives in to get this award and drives back. Ron is a legend in the American Theater. I'm so glad TCG is acknowledging his accomplishment. His accomplishment, well I'm glad TCG is acknowledging his accomplishment. And I tell you about, the last time he directed in Brooklyn, he brought his daughter Vivian. And I've never seen, you know, I know Ron. I know fathers. But Vivian, sort of like, owns him. And his mom had the, so I just let her go wherever she wants to go. And she goes right to Ron, and she'll want this, we'll get her that. He wants, she wants this, we'll get her that. It's, it's an amazing sight. So I'm just so honored to say a few words, I hope two minutes, about Ron Hines, my friend. I want to thank TCG, thank Teresa Irene, our staff and the board of TCG for being here in St. Louis, first off, and for this honor, this award. As Woody said, I am currently in New Harmony, Indiana in rehearsal. I'm playing Senator Edg Hedges in Born Yesterday. And so I have to thank Elliot Wasserman and the company of Born Yesterday there in New Harmony because they've been putting it up with me all this week. I've driven into St. Louis just about every day this week and back to be here and do what I could to make sure that the conference was going well and that the Theater of Colors meetings were happening and that you all could come here and celebrate American theater. I'm so happy to have been able for the past 41 years with the support of tremendous board members, gifted and talented artists, a tremendous audience and a philanthropic community that has supported us through all these years to be able to continue to tell American stories from an African-American perspective. That's what theaters of color do. We are here. We tell our stories. Our stories are American stories. And we will be here as long as the American theater is here. Thank you. Thank you, Ron, for your leadership, your service, and everything you've done to the field. We all appreciate you very much. It's now my pleasure to welcome Emily Mann to the stage to present our Visionary Leadership Award. Good morning, everyone. It's my great honor and pleasure to present the TCG Visionary Leadership Award to Michelle Hensley. Before there were buzzwords like equity, diversity, inclusion, or non-traditional audiences and casting before there was the directive to deal with the misogyny and the dearth of female directors and playwrights in our field. Before there were serious theater companies going into prisons and homeless shelters and performing for all people. Before there was a national call to speak to audiences across race, class, age, and gender, Michelle Hensley, with her amazing company, 10,000 Things, was doing it. Starting with $500, oh, much like Ron Hines, was doing it. She started with $500 and an idea. And over the last quarter century, Michelle Hensley has pioneered a new model for making theater, and she's addressed the most important issues of our time. She did it by identifying her audience and her community first, seeing as she put it the hunger for the work, first in an audience in a homeless shelter, using the majority of her tiny budget to pay artists to bring work to the people. She did not put her hard-earned money into a building or a bureaucracy or fancy sets and costumes. She demanded her portable productions fit in the back of a station wagon. And this made for inspired minimalist productions that could be played anywhere from a prison rec room to a halfway house's cafeteria. She created a signature aesthetic and a new business model, and her vision has inspired many other companies in our country to follow suit. I had the great good fortune of working with Michelle on an adaptation I wrote of Antigone. I also had the great good fortune of going with her company when they performed in a men's prison. Michelle told me to sit with the men and feel what it's like. It's an experience I will never forget. I certainly felt what it was like. I couldn't stop shaking. It was a maximum security prison. This is a politically incorrect statement, but it was clear to me not everyone in that room was wrongly incarcerated. The stink of testosterone made my heart race, and I sat between two men who watched the play as if their lives depended on it. Acutely aware of our proximity, I wondered the last time either of them had had this close contact with a woman, our arms touched. One guy's leg kept shaking hard whenever the gorgeous actress on your park thing as many appeared. He couldn't control it. He tried. I have to admit I was shaking along with him. After the performance both the guys wanted to talk to me. They were both blown away by the power of the play and the brilliance of the production. And I wanted to know, and they wanted to know what I had to do with it. When I told them I wrote the adaptation, they wanted to have what they called an in-depth discussion of this play. When I asked them who their favorite playwrights were, they named the Greeks and Shakespeare. They'd been both in prison over 20 years, and due to Michelle Hensley, they knew the classic repertoire better than most people sitting in this room today. They loved the classic stories because they'd lived them. They knew all about betrayal and injustice and breaking man's laws and needing to speak truth to power. They knew all about the difference between God's laws and man's laws. They knew who Creon was, and they knew Antigone intimately. I learned a lot from these men. The best actors in the Twin Cities vie to work for 10,000 things because they know they'll do their best work. Completely exposed with few props and little scenery. You can't lie in front of these guys. As one actor told me they can smell bullshit a mile away. Another actor said to me, there isn't a bigger adrenaline rush. You have to conquer your fear and play the truth or get boot off the stage. It makes for thrilling theater. We also took the show to a women's minimum security facility. The show had huge emotional impact there as well, and lingers in my mind in stark contrast to the men's event. Antigone was more an inspiration to these women rather than evoking a furious response. Again, hearing their stories is indelible, and I will never forget it. The work Michel Hensley has created over the last 25 years has had enormous and lasting impact on audiences, artists, communities, and the National Theater at Large. Her enormous contribution is due to who Michel Hensley is as a human being. A consummate artist, a mother, a collaborator, a director, a visionary, a pioneer, and a friend. She's one of the great women of the American theater. Thank you, Michel, for all you have given us. Thanks, you guys. Thank you, and Emily, thank you. You have been a pioneer for women in theater, and we all owe you enormous thanks. And I want to take a moment to thank TCG, which is, I feel like we don't do that enough, because TCG has been there all the way with 10,000 Things With New Generations grants, and Audience Revolution grants, and Fox Fellowships for so many of the actors that we work with. Thank you, TCG. But mostly, who I want to thank today, are the men and women who make up our audiences in prisons, in shelters, in detox centers, in struggling small towns in Minnesota. At 10,000 Things With New Generations, we have a saying that theater is richer when everyone is in the audience, and these men and women with their intelligence, their imaginations, the depth of their perception and understanding from their very hard one-life experiences have truly given me and the artist of 10,000 Things enormous wealth. They have given us the joy of performing for audiences who do not watch with critical distance through lenses of aesthetic judgment, but who leap into the story fully present as human beings, interested only in what the story has to speak to their lives. They have, yeah, they're great. Once you perform for them, you never want to go back. They have shown me that story is the thread that connects us all as human beings, but that a lot of the stories that we tell in theater are actually written for people who sit on cushions of wealth and really are not that interesting to people who don't. So at 10,000 Things, it's true. It's so true. At 10,000 Things, unlike the awesome, important work being done by the theater companies who have been hearing about this morning, our audiences are incredibly diverse. We take each show to at least 16 different low-income centers. So we need stories, big stories, that include people of all classes and can be cast with people from all different races at once because we want everyone to be able to see themselves on stage the very first time they experience theater. So those are the kinds of stories we need. Because we don't expect our audiences to come to us, but we go to them, I have actually found enormous wealth in the very limited performance conditions that we have without the barrier of a stage with very little set and props so that imaginations can be work full force and with all the lights on in the room so that actors can actually see the audience. Like, I cannot see you guys right now, and that is very weird for me. And because we haven't needed a building or fancy special effects, I have been able to make paying artists my top priority, paying artists fairly. I believe that all of us in theater who are privileged to get full-time salary and benefits must focus our attention on sharing the wealth with artists and making their lives sustainable. And finally, I want to thank everyone else in this room who is also wrestling with how to include people of all economic classes in the audience. There's still a lot of hard work to do. We need a lot of imagination and courage, but our theater will be truly richer when truly everyone is in the audience. Thank you.