 Hello everybody. So my name is Sarah Rose Leonard. I'm the literary manager here at Berkeley Rep. I'm here with three wonderful playwrights for a creative careers panel. I would like to start off by thanking American Express for making these talks possible. So I'm just going to dive right in. Here we have Christopher Chen, who is a local playwright from the Bay Area, whose work has been produced nationally and internationally. We have Dipika Goa, who is from like four countries. She lived in India, Russia, UK, and now she's here in Berkeley, California. We're very happy to have her. And Akpore Uzo, who is from the great country of England, and is with us fresh off our Berkeley Rep run of 946, the amazing story of Adolphus Tips, with Nihai and his developing a solo show while he's on tour. So I would just love to start us off if you could each introduce yourselves and say a little bit about where you're from and how you came to the theater. That would be great. I'm going to start with Dipika. That's alright. I'm sorry. How did I come to the theater? Yeah. How did I come? It's a very good question. Your old writers hear that moment when you first realize that you might have something to say or you get deeply envious of the people who are saying things. Like, who are those people? How can I become one of them? That moment and the moment of feeling like you have permission to claim that for yourself. For me, there was a very long gap. I think I felt like I was bossing people around and making them do plays when I was six. Charging admission. Yeah, it was very professional. But I didn't actually write anything down until I was 22, 23, I think. And my first experience with playwriting was at the Royal Court Theatre in London and I happened to be in a program there. A little bit like the program that you're on now. I think we met once a week. It was a bit more intensive for a shorter period of time. And I think all I wrote was stage directions the whole time. I was the only one who left without a play. So it took me going from writing those really short bursts because I had no muscle. I hadn't developed that. So it took me a long time of writing really small amounts to kind of make that larger claim for myself that I could do it. I could write a full play. But it was that first structured time, that time at the Royal Court during the Young Writers Program where there was a sense of accountability and a sense of community. Maybe what you're finding and hearing other people's words out loud really was my first experience I would say in the theatre. That's great. So theatre, I came to theatre through acting. I started acting really in 2006 when I started taking classes at a part-time drama school in London called Identity Drama School which has now been quite popularised by John Bayega, another very well established, talented actors and actresses that have come from there. In terms of writing, writing started slightly before that because I was a singer first before an actor and I would write all my stuff. Part of that was the need to have complete control. So it wasn't necessarily always positive because I didn't collaborate with anyone. I wanted it to be my words, I wanted it to be very specific and it resonated with people and I would write listening to music. So either I would write to music that I'd already created with people, musicians or whatever or I would write with a tune in mind. And as I started to act that transition came quite naturally so I started to write different scenes and various different things but still with a musicality to it. And the show that I'm doing now, A Day in the Life which is showing just next door, a lot of the material for that was written listening to music that is in the show. So once it resonates with me I can kind of just pick up what I want to write and I think that's part of the tools that I use. So 2006 started the acting about being writing before but I hadn't been writing plays and then that transition went to writing plays and now it's brought me here. Thank you. Chris? I always I guess knew that I wanted to be an artist but I think throughout my life I had kind of an artistic identity crisis. I started out making puppets and doing puppet shows for my family although I did not charge admission. And then throughout high school I wrote fiction, wrote poetry, I did music, I'm a cellist, I went into university as a music composition major but then I was still confused about what I wanted to do so I also did film and then I also kept on writing and I just took acting classes for fun but I never even considered theater and then I joined this Asian American sketch comedy group called Theater Rice and it was there that I kind of had the opportunity to direct something and it kind of was filling this, I decided to use that as kind of like a platform to kind of fulfill my film directing itch, kind of to make this spectacle and I didn't know anything about theater, about what play I should direct so I just wrote my own and then I also liked the control I had of just being complete control of the vision and it turned out I just started writing plays and it almost became the perfect, I just kind of found it, that it was almost the perfect union of all these different types of genres. It has literature involved, it fulfills the musicality and also kind of the visual spectacle of films I just kind of really found my niche kind of haphazardly. Those are all such different stories, thank you for sharing. So I'd love to hear about what your big break was and I define that very loosely, whatever made you feel like this is a turning point maybe it's the first time you got paid or the first time a bunch of doors open or the first time you just felt legitimized in the theater what would you point to as that moment if you had to point at something? I think my prime, the thing that really kind of made me feel like okay this is it, this is it, I finally kind of made it was this production I had, that was a local production called The Hundred Flowers Project with this local theater company called Crowded Fire which I'm currently the resident playwright at and that was such a profound experience for me it was the first time I was reviewed in the paper in the SF Chronicle and it won some awards, it was a big hit here it was about a group of this tyrannical regime that uses social media to take control and proceeds to gaslight the entire community so it's very very, I feel those impressions It was about China Yeah, it was also about China and America and yeah, I think that was really a turning point for me because it was a small company but it was a multimedia spectacle that we kind of managed to really achieve on a really shoestring budget but it seemed a lot bigger than it was so I felt like this was me as a playwright and as a group, as part of a group kind of firing on all cylinders and then achieving affirmation from doing the vision that we really wanted to do so that's why I think this one was a really profound experience because it taught me that I could really pursue my vision to the fullest and if I really kind of I'm unafraid to kind of really buy into it and if other collaborators as well weren't afraid to go with me that it could reach an audience that people would respond to it that was my experience and it did help lead to other opportunities business-wise as well Yeah, that was an awesome production I agree I think for me it was the first play that I got cast in which was called Torn at the Alcolla Theatre in London and I just remember thinking that's it, I've made it and then you realise that the journey continues and there's many of them so it's not just one so that's a very good question I think and as I was thinking of answering the question I thought, oh, I was silly then but not really because that first experience that I had in that feeling is a similar feeling that I have every time I've developed to the next stage when I got into Guild Hall I scored a musical drama I had a very similar feeling okay, yep, that's it, validation now and then you find other struggles and you might reflect on that and think that wasn't a breakthrough but it was all it means is that you're progressing and the breakthroughs keep on coming and you keep on developing so it was the first play that I got the first like official professional play called Torn that gave me the gusto to say, yep, I've landed I still feel like I've not landed I don't know I feel like I also relate to this that I feel like for me it's a series of small breaks if you will or like every new play every new process every new set of collaborators is kind of another step in figuring something out about how my words land on the page or what I'm doing to translate them to with other people and so much of it has to do with the historical moment as well the time that you're writing in and how your words are being received kind of comes through the prism of what else is happening but a big moment for me definitely was a lot of I felt a turning point when I met my mentor who I studied with Paula Vogel and I feel big turning points have come for me through mentorship and through meeting teachers has been a big has been very significant for me because she said I had written one play when I met her and I met her and she said I'm sorry my dear but you're a playwright I'm sorry to tell you that you're a playwright and I felt this sort of deep confusion I didn't quite I didn't even know what that meant and I didn't foresee that that meant years of what's been years of writing plays you know I thought I wrote one play and I was done I said the thing I could move on but I think looking at her and seeing her example and what I could talk about Paula for a really long time because she's had such a large influence here on so many writers but her question always is what's the next play you know it's a great question so I'd love to talk about something a little even before the big break that's more nascent because this is a panel for early career writers and if you could point at some early career experiences that happened at that moment that led you to that moment what are some experiences you had that were a little bit smaller or granular that led you to that break moment that I was talking about that we were all talking about well I just I decided to really get involved with my community here San Francisco or the Bay Area I guess so once I kind of decided to become a playwright or just Oregon to theater I just started looking at all the landscape and just trying to kind of insert myself in any way I could so I interned at places I interned at the magic I ended up running lights and sound there I ran the box office too I house managed and yeah I just took on random acting gigs here and there too just to kind of like just keep the fire going I took playwriting classes too and the person who actually gave me the opportunity with the 100 flowers project that I mentioned was someone who directed me in a little workshop that I acted in so just from a business angle just kind of getting involved with the community was so important to me and it taught me stuff it definitely it taught me what was out there it also inspired me too like how could I really make my mark and also seeing other artists at work that was just really inspiring I didn't know you acted that much I love this I'm never going to act again no did I love the word granular because that is to me what writing is it's like thousands of grains one grain at a time and some days none so um I did something when I first started writing I'm going to plug a book by Julia Cameron called The Artist's Way that is sort of a bible for a lot of artists um and it's a three month course which she says on creative recovery and the bedrock of that practice of the things that she says is three pages longhand and I've done three pages longhand every morning for maybe ten years now and I think for me the granular that beginning like once you put something in motion and as Chris is saying and then you keep it in motion however you can you know you do a bunch of stuff but keeping your energy in motion seems sort of key in the sort of granular sense and the three pages longhand is just a sort of way of clearing out all of the crap in your head it's not even like fancy writing it's like first thing in the morning but it has a way of kind of you're always writing you're never not writing and there's no pressure on it and I think the more you can keep the pressure off it doesn't have to be good because I think it was very liberating for me and really began my journey as a writer for me those experiences came as suggestions from people one was a good friend of mine called Rinse Kenny again he's developing his his artistry and I'm sure you'll hear of him soon if you haven't I was speaking to him and he said you should audition for this school called identity drama school and prior to that I had thought to myself yeah I think I can act yeah I reckon I can just for whatever reason I just thought I could do that and from that suggestion I went and auditioned and got into the top class on my first try and that was okay and then a little while after that I met another actor called Abon Walker again not too far from where I lived this was during a show that I was doing a singing show that I was doing I explained to him I wanted to be an actor and I said to him like I sing as well but I want to be an actor and he said okay no problem go to drama school I said well no I can't do that because I'm of a certain age because I think I was about 26 or 27 at the time and I just tried to explain to him that you know his suggestion was was appreciated but he just didn't really understand and his response to me was quite I wouldn't say brutal but he was just like no if you want to act then take it seriously and go that's kind of alright Aiman just relax kind of thing and it wasn't until I think three years after that that I applied for Guildhall because I filled out an application form for Ryder it was sitting there missed the application date and then the following year something similar happened and then the next year actually did and I said if I get in that will be the deciding factor that will be you know the sign that what I'm doing is the right thing to do because at that time I think I was I was older I won't say how old I was but I was older and I ended up being the eldest person, oldest person within my year and so to answer the question it was the suggestions from those two people that lit the fire in my mind and it is really really important because I think part of the main thing about it wasn't just what they said but was because they had belief in it they just said okay yeah go to drama school drama school was very very difficult to get into even though I went I still recognize that it's very difficult to get into so he didn't say try and train he said no you must because you want to do this as a career so getting in wasn't even a factor in what was being said and the same thing with my other friend when he said you should audition I hadn't told him that I acted before but I just said yeah you should try out so for me the suggestions planted were they turned out to be major stepping stones or things that helped to reach those stepping stones for me Thank you I'd love to just stay on you I want to talk a little bit about how you all develop your plays just to give it some context playwrights have workshops labs, readings where they develop the work before it goes to production hopefully it goes to production and I'll put it I know your show A Day in the Life is a solo show you've already performed you've been developing and you're on tour with knee high and you're developing it as you go so acting and singing and also developing your own work how are you can you talk a little bit about that process what's your creative process and the development of that piece so initially the piece was 20 minutes and it was performed as part of my master's program at Guildhall we were on a two no not two week a four week time frame that we had to produce this piece by so there wasn't time you know you had to produce something I picked a topic that I felt was very important and resonated with me so it wasn't that difficult to get inspiration for it but once that section of it had been completed and then luckily I was picked to go and tour in the Netherlands after that also was completed and I wanted to then expand it coming here the methods that I use again was music so listen to music and music that I already had connected to the piece to the original piece because for example there's a scene where there's multi music that plays that allows me to have some kind of connection to the piece and what I can do with that is I can speak any of the lines from any of the scenes and for some reason it just works it's almost like that piece of music is made for the piece in its entirety so listening to music whilst running or whilst doing something else is a major way in how I get inspiration to to find certain emotions or you know to find certain tweaks or just things I want to place within the piece but in terms of the material itself I look at the piece and I think of what's missing so at 20 minutes it's very good it was recede well but there are things that can be added and I think okay what is it I want to put in place and if I can understand what it is I want to implement or what kind of subject matter I want to discuss then the words come easily through the music and that's um it's working very well for me I think maybe because of musical background and acting is musical anyway even though it might not seem like that and therefore because acting is musical then the writing is also musical it's all about timing and you don't necessarily have to think of it like that if it helps you can if you already think of it like that that's good but there is a musicality to writing and when you write something that doesn't quite work it's musically it doesn't work so a musician might be able to look at a script and say to you oh no you've got too many words in that line you might think well I can write how I want but if it doesn't work it might be that there's too many words in that line and if you cut it it will then work so I would say um this this part isn't really answering the question but some advice I'll give you is that whatever works for you take that because it might be music it might be something else it might be something completely abstract but if it works for you like invest in that and allow that to be your process rather than thinking of how other people do it or what you're taught you should do in order to get to somewhere because your goal is just to get to that place so for me I can get to that place by running I can get to that place by listening to music and then when I show it to someone like my script supervisor who's my wife when I show it to her and she says yes I know that I'm on to something you know um and both the Deepika and Chris you've both developed work in a variety of places as well as the ground floor here at the summer residency lab could you talk about why and how workshops help your process um how workshops help the process um yeah well what is something that you've gotten out of a workshop that you've walked away and said I'm glad I had this time to do X yeah yeah well I guess workshops I mean you pretty much get to almost see the play um on its feet you get to actually see how it kind of lives and breathes in in real time which is super which is super useful a lot of times I kind of start plays very much in my head um so I kind of developed these kind of like elaborate structures that the play kind of moves through and so then the actual kind I guess human element um comes into play during the workshop part of the um the development process um so you know with resources like and you can just like gather friends together so one of my director friends um she hasn't she gives me an open invitation you know if you ever she doesn't live here anymore so I can't do that but um she says you know if you ever need a script heard I'll just gather um actors around a table we'll have wine and and snacks and we'll just hear it read and everyone if it's from it it's fun it's low pressure um so I don't know just kind of like and I think like the more I workshop the more I kind of just get a sense of I don't know just how to how to write more directly for for um for actors and how to I don't know how things operate in real time um and that's a that's especially useful for me again because I come at things initially from a starting place um I guess kind of more from a I guess more from a head space um yeah it's a kind of answer the question definitely yeah yeah yeah I've used workshops in different ways I've used workshops to start plays you know I've um uh I did that at the magic theater in December a couple months ago I thought I was going to like having actors in a room when you know they're coming there's nothing like that fear I you know the fear of humiliation like I use fear quite a lot um to generate work so um you know just knowing that they're coming and that they're giving their time I think that that I um that process I wrote um 60 page I wrote the first act in four days um you know with starting with nothing pretty much so I you know started with pages and then over the course of four days you know I would hear a little bit go home and write and then come back and hear hear a bit more and then um on the third day they they workshopped it without me I heard it I left to write and then they they kept going the actors kept going and familiarizing themselves and then we did a reading of the first act so I do use it generatively um I'm going into a workshop process of a play that I wrote a first draft off and now I've I have notes from the theater and this is a trickier it's a trickier place it's like much more fun to be gestating a play and writing the first go but now I'm kind of having to listen to their notes and listen to myself and that balance can be really tricky um so this next workshop will be me kind of trying out um both their notes and my notes and hopefully that marriage you know I'll be able to hear it in the next workshop of a play that's um a bit further along and then going into production in April um Chris I'd like to ask you so recently you're from the Bay Area and recently you've had a lot of work go kind of be developed or produced in the in the regions um from New York to Chicago um could you talk a little bit about how those various outside experiences how you're bringing those into your current playwriting practice yeah um I mean it's really fascinating to hear to see a play of yours performed in a different city than the one you're used to um and then it's also interesting to see how that play is received by a different community with different sets of eyes with different sets of values um and I guess I guess what what that's really taught me more than anything is to kind of almost like this will sound a weird reaction to that but to almost like double down on my own instincts um just because I think a lot of times when you're in a community a single community for so long one of the dangers is you may start to feel a little too comfortable or you may start trying to write for specific people in the community or in reaction to specific dialogues um that may get a little I don't know a little myopic a little too uh close quarters so um I think and so you know I did start to kind of feel like after a while like I was having a little writer's block or something but once I saw my play performed in multiple cities suddenly I started to become a little more inspired by thinking oh you know what this community actually received this play in a much more engaged way than this other community so something something in me was right all the long so I'm going to actually double down on that I'm actually going to um kind of just go with my own instincts even more than before um so it's it's good it's good to come break outside your bubble and try to pursue things in different areas and um yeah just kind of engage with different communities in that regard um yeah like this this one play I did called caught um was really well received in maybe like two cities um and then it was like slashed pieces in two other cities if I had if I had just received in the production one see my writing might take a different course from now than I may have kind of lost some of my mojo um but kind of knowing that okay something was actually right in there I I I have permission to double down my instincts so now I think I'm kind of taking that to heart so that even knowing that in say maybe this community or say this other community um I may not get a good reception it's kind of like it's nice to do whatever you can to free yourself from the the notion that you're doing this to please other people um and kind of know that if you kind of write from a place of real truth and instinct if it's truthful for you it will resonate come trust that it will resonate with other people um so so yes so in that sense it was really inspiring to be able to have worked in different communities um and Deepika I wanted to ask a question for you um so this is kind of weird to point at but you've had the wonderful fortune of being the recipient of many grants and residencies I know you're in the thick of like two residencies right now perhaps am I making this up maybe maybe she's lost track so I just love to talk a little bit about how do you seek these opportunities out do they come to you what what is your um what's your process in trying to find ways to support your writing through grants or residencies yeah well when I was in graduate school my teacher uh told me that um now very well respected playwright Nilo Cruz lived in residencies for almost two and a half years I could be making this up but I think he went from residency to residency because he um I hope I'm not misquoting this but I think she said that that he he put um his stuff in storage in her house and then just went from one residency to another which is um I don't know if you know what a residency is but basically you get room and board um for a couple of weeks to any to three months some of them um so your food and your rent is basically taking care of for a little bit of time to give you time to to to work and you know they're they're often in really beautiful places um and there's also academic residencies we should say where you're you're working with an institution um but you're not living there necessarily. That's true there there are those also um so um I think I mean the two things about that the residencies the writing residencies are things that you can apply to and so I was definitely in grad school encouraged to apply to these as a way of not paying rent for a little bit and um um so I was really inspired to apply and get into the habit of applying to these things um and of course when you're there you meet other uh artists of all kinds because there are visual artists and sculptors and you know everybody um doing their own kind of practice and that that was very that I found to be really encouraging and inspiring um that makes of people uh because playwrights um get to be kind of boring if we keep only talking to each other um and that's why we need other people and collaborators especially but um and then residencies with institutions academia in the United States is so great in at making space. I think for artists to pursue work and to um follow your your instinct as Chris is saying and uh it's just a way of giving you time and money again to um you know to get to take the pressures of your everyday life off for a bit and to maybe have the permission to follow your curiosity you know and latch on to something that may or may not feel like it will yield because oftentimes as writers we try to end game you know this might be a great play this is a great idea for a play without maybe totally um following the path so that's what it that's what it's good for. Thank you. I'd love to open it up to questions from our audience our young writers and they want to have a question they want to come up come on up come on up and speak into the mic and say your name please I'm Kayla um I had a question for you it's more like just wondering you were saying how music is like a big part of your writing and how you write with music on like what kind of music do you listen to? Oh wow um my music tastes a bit eclectic I don't funny enough I don't listen to that much music I have when I say that much I mean I don't listen to a vast amount of music so there's I want to think of the best way to answer this if I hear something that I like that makes me feel something then that's what I listen to um prior to that I like Neo Soul um jazz classical music music that's quite evocative so yeah that's the type of music that I listen to but in terms of what helps me to write I might hear something and if it resonates it can be any genre that's what I pick so for example for the so I think I did two shows of A Day in the Life and then for the third show I was in the dressing room with 946 the play that that we just finished and one of my cast members was listening to a song and I said to him what's the name of that song and he told me I was like okay I found it and then listened to it and that helped me write a scene and it's a band I've never heard of it was you know music that I hadn't listened to before but that was it and if you ask me the genre of it I wouldn't even necessarily know it's just nice music really really really really resonating music so in answer to that question anything that resonates anything that resonates so it could be anything thank you anyone else hi I'm Camilla and my question is for you Christopher you mentioned working with Crowded Fire and I was wondering what do you like about working with smaller companies and with larger companies well I probably only work with smaller companies but I don't know I mean I work with Crowded Fire as well and there's just a sense of teamwork comradery and energy and it's almost like just an extension of I think what makes theater exciting period which is just even as a singular artist I mean what you have to do is create your own opportunities like if you have the energy and the vision that's like 90% of it and the ability to do hard work I was like 90% of it and so then being with smaller companies often times you have 10 people with the same amount of energy and so then you can almost be like a de facto leader so I would say like anyone starting out the smallest of the small companies because that's where I started and don't be afraid to really say I want to try this out they have such good attitudes that more often than not they'll say sure we'll try it if we have the resources we will they don't have many resources but they have manpower and energy and if you drive it then you'll make something happen like that leadership is really really thanks anyone else I'm going if you have questions I would just come up so I'd love to talk a little bit about what opportunities or challenges have come up being writers of color in this field and what experiences you've had in terms of identity if you want to talk about them can you elaborate on the question yeah I think so we're talking just to be obvious for those on the internet we're talking with the young writers of color collective there's a lot of efforts in this country and I cannot speak to England to promote young writers of color writers of color on all levels and there's also a lot of challenges that come as a writer of color in this field where you maybe feel overlooked for reasons that you can't quite place your finger on and so I just if there's an incident that comes to mind when I say that negative or positive I really mean this in the broadest of terms just it's a unique opportunity to be speaking to young writers of color with a panel with all writers of color I just want to address that something that I would say and this is broadly speaking is that generally with creative work and the work well with creative work you're supposed to have complete freedom that's part of the understood nature of it or how I understand it anyway when you start working with organizations or you tie yourself to certain projects there are times where you then have to start creating a certain way so for example at drama school and we're taught to be completely free you're supposed to be completely free and you're supposed to be completely malleable and one of the things you're also taught is to speak a certain way there's an accent kind of speech and accent called recede pronunciation and this is linked to class it's linked to social economic kind of elements but with that when you come in especially for someone like me that doesn't have that accent naturally you think okay let me learn that which is fine because you adopt a new skill but there is the danger of thinking that you have to get rid of what you have and take this on the more I want to choose my words carefully because you might perceive it as to be to be a better way or I'm losing my words this happens sometimes you might perceive it as being something that is of a high standard than what you have and what I would say is that that struggle is something that will come up again and again and as an artist whether you're writing whether you're going to be performing within what you write I think it's very very very important as you said Christopher it's very important to keep that part of yourself and hold on to it regardless don't compromise because you go into a certain program whether it's a residency or whether you're doing something for another organization try your best to keep yourself because that is one all you have and two that's the thing that's going to resonate with people when you try and adopt something else yeah it might work you might get success but the thing that will make someone come to you and say wow I really felt that is because you tuned into yourself so that thing that you're saying I really really identified with it and a good example is this piece of day in the life because when I wrote it it was my first opportunity to use my own voice at my drama school because prior to that everything I'd done was in RP or a different accent I was like okay I'm going to use my own voice speak and be completely unadulterated with it the response I received it wasn't just that it was positive I thought okay it's not only positive but I say this begrudgingly but I have to say it because I want to give you something I was accepted for me and that was a lesson and I thought okay so I don't have to try and do this and especially as writers you don't want to have to bend because you are in control and you are literally creating out of nothing so if you restrict yourself by having to follow something that is outside of you then you're not necessarily using what you have to its fullest potential and you just really don't have to do that because you'll be accepted and I guarantee it and especially with what you're saying again some people might not but the people it needs to reach it will and you will not please everyone that's just a given you're not going to please everyone but what is genuine resonates to add on to that like it took me a while but I feel like I'm finally at a place right now where I feel more comfortable putting my own voice into my plays and characters to the point where a lot of times my characters on the page might be almost indistinguishable from each other because they're all my voice which I don't think it's a bad thing like this is my experiment that I'm trying and it's interesting that the more I the more I allow my characters who are a lot of times Asian my Asian characters in specific to be a lot more kind of I think bold in how they speak and very almost like almost like kind of almost like boldly kind of lashing out very explicitly at power, at power structures that has been the most rewarding those have been the most rewarding times and conversely too I've gotten the most I would say like pushback those that's kind of like the I guess when I was referring to before like some communities did not like that at all but other communities did and so that kind of emboldened me to say like well I don't care anymore like my characters have been getting more unafraid I've been getting more pushback but also more acceptance in other corners so it's kind of like you will feel resistance at times and you may feel like oh people just like these types of plays where I kind of fit myself into a box but if you're not afraid to really even if the characters are angry or even if they're very almost like I don't know very feisty that's that's fine um writers of color have not been writing plays for very long so chances are when you say something it would not have been heard before in quite that way and that is why I write plays I write because there's a certain kind of theater that I have not seen yet and the word that we have used we've all used as experiment that that is why that every play is an experiment and so there is a kind of courage involved in experimenting without precedent you know it's not like you have a whole lot to look back on and that's why teachers and mentors I think in theater are so important because then you have people who have been through it and particularly writers of color who have been through types of articulating something or saying something in a way that is unfamiliar is fundamentally unfamiliar because it hasn't been said before and I think that's why it's exciting and that's why there's so much resistance but I think this urge to represent the world as you experience it as you feel it in your voice is very it's a difficult thing to do it's a lifelong process and I think winning acceptance from yourself giving yourself permission to go on that journey is one aspect of that that battle you have to win the acceptance battle you have no control over when people are ready for your work whether or not you will get resistance or acceptance we can't control them very often there is a lot of resistance as Chris is saying partly because these are rich and vital experiments in voices that have not been heard yet and that's how I feel and I think there is a lot of bias we know that according to Dramatist Guild 25% of productions in this last year were by women out of the whole out of that women of color I think 6% productions so that's not is that merit that's not merit there is a lot of bias a lot of unconscious bias that exists and that is the climate that we're writing in and knowing that will make you feel less crazy probably when you do receive resistance which is going to come but that does not make the value of what you are doing less significant I think it makes it more significant yes I would also add to your note of I think the country has been so hungry for different ways of storytelling that it's a moment where those numbers I hope are changing incrementally I would love to just end on hearing a little bit about feedback so you've all had plays in different parts of the country different parts of the world and when you're developing work or even when it's produced how are you navigating what you want to hear I'd love to just start with talking about your peers like if you're eliciting responses from fellow theater practitioners and then the second part is audience how do you navigate your relationship to the audience and what you want to hear and what isn't helpful to you I'll go quickly for me and I'm still learning this it's important to it's important to have authority over this so for example if you've read it to someone or you've had it performed and at that point it's not useful for you to have feedback I think it's important for you to make sure that doesn't happen as best as you can rather than thinking that because you've offered something it has to be evaluated and the reason why I say that is that it's important for you to understand your own process understand what your motivations are and what can potentially hold you back or what can make you feel insecure which will then limit your productivity so I when I'm doing these shows we have a post-show discussion and I'll just ask what people think and in that environment I'm mentally prepared for it people can answer, ask questions and we can have a discussion but then I point back to another situation where it was just a play that I did and a friend of mine gave me very specific notes and I think I was having a bit of a hard time with this particular play and I didn't ask for these notes I didn't even ask the person what they thought they just said okay, yeah, yeah, it was good but it wasn't like, it was very, very specific like the kind of thing that my director would tell me and I was like okay I don't really need to hear that right now and that is just being able to take care of yourself so take care of yourself because that instrument has to function so if you know that for example, if you know that going to the bar after a show you're going to meet people and they might be saying things to you that it's going to affect you in a way that will then make it harder for you to do it again the following day don't go to the bar and don't see that as a weakness see that as an awareness of yourself you know how you work and then work on developing that muscle the thick skin, etc, etc but whilst you're doing what you're doing you have to protect your creativity you have to protect it because that's what feeds you and the more you can express the more productive you can be the more you can give out so I would say for me, I'm still learning that because before I didn't think I had that option if someone wanted to give me feedback or say something, I'll just be like yes, okay, thank you and then have to then deal with it myself, but I'm not necessarily going to do that anymore but also be brave and be ready and willing to fail because failure is yeah, failure is on the root to success failure is part of the journey it's a vital part of the journey I'm actually going to have to move us on because we're running out of time, sorry so I just wanted to thank you so much for being here thank American Express again for making all of this possible and making it possible to have these wonderful artists up here we need to do two shout outs one is the ground floor our new play development program applications for being an ambassador are due on February 1st and the other is the fellowship applications at Berkeley Rapper Open right now and that's our lovely fellowship program where you come here and become part of our company and are essentially staff and incredibly invaluable so that's it thank you so much for coming thank you for those watching thank you howl around thank you so much howl around in the world right now, thank you all and I'll talk to you soon, take care goodnight