 Hi folks, how are you doing? Good morning. I need coffee, really bad. Welcome to Culture Bot, to our conversations here, under the Radar Festival. Under the Radar we've been working with Culture Bot for like three years now, and designing these conversations. And there have been amazing conversations there, really taking a lot of life, and I've been really proud of it. This is being streamed live, up into that web thing. And so just know that, that you know, here is someone you aren't supposed to be here with, or something. That's, take that into consideration. So Andy, would you want to just start this? Thanks again for coming. Move in, Andy will tell you how the table works, and what the conversation is today. But thanks a lot, and this is the last point for this year. And then we'll do it again next year. Alright, I'll hold you down. Thanks a lot, here we go. Alright, good morning everyone, and our afternoon guest technique. So first off, why doesn't everyone just move in, you know, move the circle in closer? Because we got, you know, you guys like to end up like, you know, it works best when everyone's been 90 years going on. So we're going to be using a bent mark, everyone a big hand for Mark Russell, and he made Mark very much, making my life possible. He invented, or created, or designed, Weaver, who's an immensely talented theater artist. She, along with Andy Shaw, and Bridges, back in the 80s at the, wow, theater down the street, and she's been doing excellent work in creating non-hierarchical, democratic forms of discourse. This is one that she came up with. We modified it a little, hers is totally democratic, and she doesn't, you know, she just puts the table out and bites whoever. I like to invite people, you know, because we're tackling some pretty big ideas, we invite people to sort of seat the table, but the way it works is like, there's open seats, so if you feel moved to speak, please come to the table. If you feel moved to speak and there's not a seat at the table, you're welcome to have somebody out. They are welcome to refuse to give you their seats. You know, if you're at the table, the only real rule is you have to be at the table to speak, so you don't speak from the circle, you know, you have to actually come up to the table, or even if you just want to come up to the table and listen from the table, that's cool too. Come on in. Oh, hey. Everybody has bios in the, all the inviting guests have bios in the program, so we're going to dispense with that. Today, oh, there's etiquette guides to the long table, I think they got handed out. And today, what are we talking about? American Theatrumor. Oh, we're talking about American Theater and the aesthetic department. And it's kind of, yeah, so we'll just, we'll just get into it. We're just going to be looking around of the four conversations. This is the whitest, this room has been. And, and, at the end of the course of the Brooklyn County project, we really had the Brooklyn County Project is that grassroots project, that's right. You know, and, you know, we, you know, we had really the past four discussions, and very diverse, you know, and we talked about the people who came up with this project. It's a real Brooklyn County project. And, you know, it actually, although we extended invitations to many people, it was hard, but it's been harder sometimes to get the diverse perspectives that's able, and we talked about it in different contexts. So I wanted to sort of integrate in a separate, and when we talk about it, we talk about it happens. How is that, and democracy and theater, and how do we, at first I would, you know, how do we, how, how do we invite each other to do better practices, how do we create spaces that feel inviting, conversations that feel inviting, how do we, you know, you know, you know, talk jobs, and you know, how do we, you know, Allison, where are you? Do you come here to see me? Because I wanted to talk also about when we met the other night and we were talking about, you know, well, you wrote a report, and you wrote a report, and a lot of that. Allison just wanted to talk about how sort of the settlement happens, university settlement, of course. I was just thinking about, you know, invitations there, and you can have them there, but you're, you know, I just sort of wanted to open up that question to you, talk about the game, it's a really complicated, I feel like I spend, I'm a, I'm a maker, I have a theater company called The Foundry, and I make theater in lots of different positionalities, and I think I spend a lot of time wondering how to, how to invite it. I just had a really interesting argument with Morgan about invitations the other day because it contains within it also a positionality, like I'm inviting you out. Yeah, well, I don't know if it's about if you're making an invitation, but how often can you talk about an invitation? And then I don't agree because I understand the positionality, I understand it has a positionality, like I'm doing something, would you like to be a part of what I'm generating? Right? And that's the difficulty when you're, when you're making art and you're inviting people to do it. Yeah, but that's already problematic, right? Well, that's the thing, so actually, let me just get to the end of this part and then I'll throw it away. The notion of invitation is for me, and I don't know answers whatsoever, I'm absolutely comfortable with honesty about it. It's, what is its direction, but where are you throwing it? How are you presenting yourself as transparency and meaning for this possible amount of attention? So for example, there's a lot of questions we hear when we're inviting people to do things. We try to do, I don't even think we know of it, but we often start with certain questions because those are the questions that are generally to work and that everyone is grappling with these things. So throwing a question out in a certain way as part of the affiliation with some, I don't know, it feels at least like we mean it. But the problem is how muddy the water is with marketing and how muddy language has been made by marketing. It works like I was thinking I was wondering if the word aesthetics in the invitation of this was an open enough word. I'm not, I'm just saying that's something we would go should we use this word for what we mean, but how is it received in the world and how? I think that's a great question. Two things that people have been interested in one is the whole model of our feminine phenomena shown in the room today which is the reason we do this is that this idea of presentation and communication while language is statistical, but if you want to talk to each other about these things, the way that Abby and Michael work with non-reformers that are real. That function is artists love to save all artists who come from that who don't do the job and the way how it works in her constituency and her kids and the word we get this tension which is sort of aesthetic really and is there a kind of play privilege you never need to hold both sides accountable really? Totally. Another one of the terms in your invitation in this little theater and this whole reminding us that before there was regional theater there was little theater a community-based locally responsible theater that sets up different conditions of communication so if you're working with people who are geographically toxic you quite naturally make great changes and so you don't have to be the person inviting someone you can find that because of who you know, your kids go to the same school or you go to the same church or you shop at the same theater grocery store you can find that you have interests in common, there are issues there you end up wanting to make work and you want to know other people's things and you end up working together so that's a kind of vitality and I think that again going back to our starting point here I think we're in such an interesting moment with regional theaters where so many of them are looking back to the local this institution we're one of them with the works and the work that they're doing this and they're starting to have a road as a lot of it when Bill grabs the cornerstone to run the the work at Shakespeare Festival the biggest budget country could have thought so there's clearly a desire to find meaning in common locally it's funny I totally agree in theory that these things happen naturally but you know I didn't say naturally they happen in your game to build that which is worth it that's my part and that's what I mean but that model actually has been served to the assembly so in the last 7 years we found we were very diverse minded people we didn't want and encouraged diversity in the way that people had to work with but as a result we found that there was still after 7 years working together and we did and we kind of we decided to get a much more more diverse objective recently and it was not an easy choice to figure out how to really make a more track-minded level of diversity especially racial diversity that we do see as being an integration that we play about class yeah, time to talk to three hands together what also important money and what yesterday we had David Donnie and Harrison they just made it really well it was last year and they would get resources to save their lives and so they were like we have all these great queer men in color that are our friends and these writing goals and how to manage artists sound installation that does that with voices around the people that will work out tomorrow and they built it with their local staples and they really wanted to produce a theater to prepare people for this and then they got to go see and you know, so the geographic approximately is actually a really unique issue here which is especially to get on the board as a practical class-based, race-based cultural-based segregation goes through that group and I'm kind of I know that I'm not a person in a loaded way but I want to throw it to you as you guys so I'm a CEO of a theater star theater so I think it's really kind of both these topics of general application and these that I do I do feel that we love being this wonderful and really trying to learn from the community and shape our program in a responsible way that's answering both the downtown theater scene and we've managed to do that with the learning all the time but I think that it's certainly tricky and challenging and a wonderful problem but I think because we have a venue we're fortunate that we've been able to grow our performance it has been so fascinating to kind of always, of course, invite everybody and try to make it so that everyone can walk out of the place there's, of course, a lot of students and people so you have to be very careful about protecting the status that is on mission and what's being started based on things like the name that we're things like that where it's of course time goes by and you have to do this years ago but that doesn't really make it a fail-off it does sorry I'm going to tell you it does we've done now since I guess we're the fourth group for everyone there that needs to want sometimes Spanish translation sometimes it's not even used but people get to know that making yourself when you're inviting takes a long time you have to invite people sometimes 10 times before they even trust you enough to consider it it's been a while I want to ask you about that because every residence you know and I'm sure a lot of people when you do come from a place of access to resources a lot of settlers here have to grab and share and have resources to share and that's for a lot of people that's actually for if I have access to these resources it's worth that I share them with others and I'm not trying to come to a place where I have to empower people I have access to these resources but at the same time technology it's hard to build trust and it's hard to build relationships and it's hard to you know that you call it more years you get to learn more it's really struggling as an African from Africa it's struggling being asked to identify black or being otherwise also wanting to have your work reach out to other people from continental Africa and community and then being out in those places not having the trust of those communities so I just I'm wondering how does trust happen in the short term in language and aesthetics like Dustin close this year that was a wonderful show and I feel like it was a really really solid show that both embraced the same use aesthetics and the sort of more popular community aesthetic which were working but it also had like great performers and what's authentic it wasn't some sort of it's all of kind of like that it was a success I have many huge marketing efforts because I'd say someone's also worse than you definitely the thing I know how to do is directors can build trust from small groups of people and I think about a lot in many you know I mean I do have a lot of ideas and a small group but I think for us we don't and we don't have the tools or the experience really I don't know how to reach out to many different communities I'm just curious about very specific ways that people are found and I'll say something to you if you focus there it's bigger I really feel like I mean I know I know I have to invite people to play because of their time and we also don't have a space we don't have a space so it's not like there's a place where but I think that this idea of invitation attached to marketing is what really is as fucked up and so if you kind of hire us back and you think about what's inside the work what are you making that you want other people to talk to you about and you can't involve everybody of all the time sometimes you can and we do but there's different ways of making but we have to be careful we don't end up in this penton school where the only good art now is art that is one way or another what's being made isn't necessarily the play all the time the show or the performance when you were just now talking about you have skills you know how to build something with the actors I felt like you were saying is there kind of a clue in that how you build something bigger to start your community and I'd say hopefully she'll come here in a minute and talk about the way she does that Michael Road has written a lot about how he does that he makes the distinction between civic practice and social practice different people make that distinction differently for performance people I find the way he makes it really useful he says when someone invites him in to take his skills and use it in context which is not a performance context that's civic practice he could use those same skills when he invites other people in a better context the performance in an example is he's been working a couple of years with Catholic Charities and here these people they come together in national convening once a year but they still feel they're splintered from each other and so someone found out about him I don't know how father somebody from Catholic Charities found out about him and said could you use some of the skills you've used to build community in theater to build community in Catholic Charities and he does now he's been working in their conference big conference and little conference so one thing is I think we live in a great time to question what is the whole thing and it's not the war it's not the stop it's not the performance you all make beautiful performances I would be impressed but that does not have to be the train for the whole thing one of the exciting things now is I feel that artists are being invited to claim what really drives them and you know here to Miss May has been quoted talking about the importance of her religious upbringing and she wants to make the kingdom of heaven on the stage but how we bring the certain things we care about there's this larger way and we can't do it necessarily with the usual suspects so we're not being able to favor by her channel I think that's really important it's a feeling that here's this thing I want to do and I can't do it with that I'm going to say it over and over because I think dual, shared, magnetic shared, obsessive obsessive is absolutely important but I also think it's really important that people don't feel theater or performance venue as a intimidating, scary place I walk into theaters sometimes and I see a lot of shows and I walk in and I just don't like start in a car you know, you're about to talk something and that is really sort of off-putting especially, so think about it if there's someone who does see a lot of performance and you don't, oh, why would you want to be there? just to speak to what you were saying, Janna, I guess you know, I've heard since I've been here and we notice a large shift in our audiences and I think that it's important to distinguish when we're talking about audiences versus artists because like, even though I think it is the same relative conversation about the mutation of participation and social or civic engagement there is a difference of what those conversations are but our audiences dramatically shifted when our casting dramatically shifted and it wasn't intentional you know, we didn't, we started working with certain people certain performers and then all of a sudden small houses made up of black journalists you know, for lack of utter description you know, it's people's parents it's their cousins, it's their next-door neighbors we're coming to see them in a play and I think that there's something while it is great to create a theatrical environment that feels necessary and important and vital and valuable and those words are hardwood I also think it's important that it feels open and fun and playful and that it's not intimidating that someone's uncle can come see them in a play because there's my nephew on stage and this is fun and not that you have to make sapper in a suite easy plays but that it has to be inclusive in some capacity actually I think it was Mark Yeoman who said at the keynote address or the symposium on Under the Radar that if it's I think it was that if it's not well made it can't be received to people who say well, you didn't get it or it wasn't that's a sign that it wasn't constructed well it should be we're not talking about dumbing down we're talking about well-constructing the art itself so that it involves the invitation to be back I'm so sorry, I'm too old I tried to be back on so what were you going to say? you know I remember sitting in my talk behind the wall of our theater the opening of it's now performed by 10 more boys and I did definitely not the suicide masturbation now to be offered like we need to like forget what that word means one of those words I'm always looking at but I don't forget what anesthetic means like we're good or not so I say so aesthetic is the opposite of that it's bringing all the feeling back so then I think of that as aesthetics and then these two with the two of you that makes me think about well whose aesthetic, whose feelings who's all the senses your mother will be getting a second experience of the audience who is getting to really be part of that to have all their feelings engaged and how do you do that and then there were a couple phrases I heard about aesthetics like at one point I think you said protect, you sometimes do you need to protect aesthetics and how you understand aesthetics that you're protecting them and you brought up aesthetics of democracy which seemed just wondering what other people if that was at all an interesting thought as far as I mean I love the last question that I want to go to but that's not why I write these that we look at American theater I would really love some of you to say where do you see the local bone and what's the relationship that is well the last one I'm really interested in is those protecting aesthetics of who exactly is making this putting a big conversation about who should not be I really think there's a lot of time that this kind of is what artists do not release any information about themselves, the others they simply release the cover art and they drop the user and they get out of there and then they share what are called standards which is like the style of what other people are making with other artists to really make sense of what these standards are and so I sort of begin to wonder at least in theater what who is the value of all of this marketing communications and performance and having everyone know who you are all the time rather than simply just releasing work and allowing others to do that I think I don't know how to actually because less people know about the meaning the more they can actually focus on the art and which is both the invitation and the setting that's just another thing you know what's really complex I mean so here you are you have to do you have to put people's bios in the background but you have to somebody but the way that the factory has been identified with me apart from whatever it is that I've done to identify you right? I think we are now I have a partner who runs the factory we are partners we are co-creators like this company we've been this way for a while I did this session we've tried this before with two others nobody would let it be ours everybody wanted it to be they wanted it to be mine when I don't put my bio in a program funders come up to me people come up to me and say you need to do that well that is so complex because it has a functioning company or whatever you need to communicate yourself and it's totally splintered so it's like to funders well yes you have to you need to over-identify yourself and they want to know exactly who you are and then you know if it's a foundation maybe it's the city that's all over the thing you have to want to speak you can tell us basically about yourself and haters or things and I think that's a kind of attitude it's nice to be very careful to not or you know like to always remain try to remain in check about what your real passion for fishing is down here at the end because you're basically just spending your circles constantly getting money or getting people to see so they're back to marketing it's like we're in this situation where we do more of ours fish is coming up in our system and we do more of an arch and anyone who's more than a fan has an unintentional idea about things and it's been really wonderful it's kind of broken down a lot of our systems and we're passing marketing and inviting reviewers and how to invite reviewers even things like the whole of Scandinavia is totally berserk and it's like all those things because we've been doing this for years and I'm like it just takes somebody like that sometimes it's so important to kind of just like strip down and be like do you like start your show at 10am I also I think it's a really awesome idea too but I'm thinking about a lot of times I feel like in dukely the black people which is where I've come from I've run comfortable like this and there's a lot of conversation and there's a big idea just connected to aesthetic and I feel like there's a lot of catching up to do in some particular demographic and dukely I think the black community that has always been expansive but there's been one narrative that's been supported and encouraged and so I feel that someone's been through a lot of ways and how she feels like she's sort of being put into a black category and so like for me it's about first identifying the multi-layers with any black experience or the sort of African experience because I feel like those people wanted the identity because of we're so long with filter and POV with so many else's kids even when it comes to black Americans writing an African story that's still not that particular indigenous so I just wanted to say I think that's a really great idea but I feel like for some demographics I agree except that it just gets come off of so but it's the communication is like the step beyond the categorization because I think that Michael and I experienced that with our work is that people continually want to call out a community-based company or other labels that talk about getting some of these funky hierarchies like well it's not really artistic but it's a community arts project and it's a weird graph like the work doesn't stand on its own it's more about our casting as opposed to the piece itself or why aren't they connected and it's regardless I think that it overlaps what you're saying about it, it's a process of categorization and it's a process of saying this is that and just with that box it exists in that world the lack of experience of that that's over a year and so that as an artist I think it includes the power of your work and you are told how to excel it and be what it is and you know allow the experience of being in multiple things I wonder about that fact the general sense art of the year is just that about the future of the theater and this is about artists and that role in the narrative and not being a power of 40 institutions and what Daniel is talking about and what I mean I think you know for too long institutions you know it's not anybody's fault but you know institutions are because they're physical because they have a certain amount of and out of that and art is an institution that requires institution previously and to get the cultural and cultural and I think what we're realizing is that when you sort of talk about from the side is that artists actually have a much more of a work than each other and they work from they are aware of the complexity and their work is all involved and what we're describing is that very marketing moving to spring work and what I'm saying is that they can modify the artist's work and the artist doesn't see any impact so what this really is I think what it feels like and what Sam was talking about about electron positions you know it's like I may put a sample out of a certain base track but my name it was with it and that built the audience so I think part of it is about artists is taking control in their communities in their networks over the ownership of the intellectual property content that they see when they sell it to an institution or when they build a new relationship with the film world as well so you know a lot about and you know a lot about the film world and have the time to economic outlay the artist's investment in their work so that the content comes back to you because the thing is even if you don't have to sell it you still have to talk about it even if you got a new channel to work right here or something you would actually still probably have to talk about your work actually in some way and so it's up to us to come up with the language sorry it's really quick I just want to I agree with everything you said and I want to push back on it for a second because I think it's not just artists who are always the people fighting the system it's that like it requires every artist and how many institutionalized themselves to find their own short-hand and the short-hand by definition is the thing that we're fighting against we're trying to reopen which we started fighting it wouldn't just have to come with it how large is it that you expect it to be this basket of experimentation but like when I try to do a process of a slightly different I invent resistance from every corner and in an opening I overcame it as an experience to fight in that institutional setting but it's remarkable the short-hand that you and your team what they have on the budget and so I think that it's also from your industry from within I think we also need to constantly challenge our own it also for me comes back to the difference between marketing language and talking to funders and talking to foundations whose job it is to support work that is going to work to support people that can succeed by submitting and that language really changes based on you know there's always a retrobacking sport they're always looking backwards at what's already working trying to keep her from getting that when we're trying to do the opposite so it's a potential of the art the artist cresting control versus an institution I think the question is what institution what context because you also were talking about money and how does the artist get paid to be an artist and I just think it's important but I see it happening I see it happening that there are many platforms that there are increasingly more many as being an artist there are increasingly more platforms that artists are working out being able to create work that is true with vision that they have but that is kind of it's decentralized it doesn't all happen in cultural institutions like this again it's not either or this is one kind of place that art can happen the fact is and listen I'll be the first to dish litter about higher ed with anybody I can dish litter about higher ed so it isn't anyone I've ever met on the other hand I see amazing projects come out of my head because often colleges and universities which are very diverse they're publics and they're privates they're big and they're small they're in Wyoming and New York and Florida and you name it and what they're doing in those places often is very interesting and very interesting experimentation and sometimes it's one of the best places to take to work for plus it's a financial source and neighborhoods you're probably walking in New York City called naturally occurring cultural districts and it's really bringing support for what art brings in neighborhoods and it doesn't mean you stop doing what you care about it means you're part of the neighborhood at the same time so there are other platforms which are not strictly cultural and to me that's one of the places I hope the American theater is going as the capital A capital T and it keeps to me so it all doesn't happen and it feels to me like I mean one of the things is that it feels to me like ours just gave us green money well this is this kind of money this is this kind of money some kind of money is better than others and I think when you look at the Oscar Eats one of the best things that the Oscar Eats has done is said fuck that money's money and he doesn't care where it comes from as long as he gets what he wants to do it's like institutions are good for one thing like the public theater is really good at some things you know the community and the work that actually America is putting art in the university setting all these things exist the thing is how do we help the ecosystem where the small our individual artists and artists are able to have the power of each other that's our race that we don't get to enjoy every kind of flavor and you know what I mean and in the end I think we're better than the students because of the spirit this happens in so many ways around our community the unknown is at once terrifying but actually the essence of what art is so we're possibly fighting this battle between institutions and creativity just to see how many people here feel responsible for inviting people to come to their work or to the work of a community can you please remember if you feel like you're responsible for it thank you thanks I just want to tag along to the current pulse part of what I do when I do white justice I want to reclaim the large black narrative and provide both for development and funding artsy opportunity to sort of rethink their own POE and filter and then what's important for me is that I try to share other theater companies to help build their respect and also educational portion around me particularly the African diaspora narrative and so what I usually do is I have like six plays and I'll reach out to you know or whatever it is and see if they're open to having a day or a job or whatever that is and that's my way of trying to not keep the aesthetic insular but to help all of us sort of understand each other in a more enlightened way and I found that to be very very successful just around the sort of market when a theater company like Dorothy has developed something that I sort of share with you then more folks want to come to see what I've done what I've done so it just builds this community with it so that's I think a way to think about sharing is important and how open are we to that and if it isn't part of your mission or your sort of aesthetic mission then I know it's important to sort of be there this conversation because of questions that we should have there so I as an aggregator the conversation that we're having today we affirm some concerns about how to reach a theater and how is it really created from within our community we we bring the right director we bring the right performer and our only in that set in our own way to make our community to help our community is by creating some of the drives of our connections to those people through days like ours through days like these through days like trying to understand what they're going to see together if it gets down to living or monitoring because people we are not by our performing for a community like us or a community that is both from individual or from and they need something to drive on to and so where is the intersection between those people we need to drive on to we can't fall down for what a don't, don't, don't where's the when the work is being when the work is being brought we require ourselves doing everything we can but it's not all of the community in any of the ways and yet there's a difference there's some really interesting ways that regional theaters are becoming more creating including some work in their seasons that's more wounded where they're living I know South Coast Rep is doing something in their new work season and they brought in playwrights to do residencies and each was meant to write something that looked at the diversity in that county and I know there was La Jolla play has launched with that wall festival which is one site specific so sometimes by playing with plays in the community that's a way in but it seems like I think the network of ensemble theaters having a real influence but correct me if I'm wrong I think there's like some 200 theater companies that are part of the net and there's some 500 that are part of PCG and there's a big overlap I think 100 of them are the same companies and I told that even 15 years ago maybe 5 foot of them so there's less either or so I think it's the networking that Annie was talking about that people just quite naturally their interest you wouldn't have to call it community based because incredibly community based many from the original theater and then turn over sure it went on then I think there's more fluidity and I see more of the original theaters entering that one way or another institutions are at a certain level of ensuring a certain level of size the distance between having the idea and executing the idea yes wider and wider and wider more assessing how to vote for and so is so there's a lot of dipping in the toe in the water but maybe it's also recognizing your institution can and shouldn't have to do it all friends who is within your market you can partner with people I think what Eric is doing with the library is fantastic I mean he's doing some amazing shows and I don't know about the program it's a program that actually so I was going to call it that but we wanted to create a partnership with the community called the library so we made a partnership and we got a small project in there first we needed to say library in a lot of different places each place can check out the library privately and then also small branches have theater passes they can check out the library and check out what and then we followed and it's been great it's been great and the community has a program that we did in Friday it's representative theater to come and attend your press person and get involved in the conversation and it's all great it's all great and it takes time and actually what you're saying about the marketing how you speak to the community in the back of the building it's interesting to think about how the back of the building and all the marketing and so I would say the marketing part is really fresh yeah I'd like to know how you measure success how do you measure success how the money flows so much about the anxiety of the fear of if we do this we're somehow going to fail we're not going to get money or we're not going to sell tickets I'm not speaking on behalf of everything I think it's important I mean I work with brick and our mission is actually in the interior it's like a project that we're called diversity and I agree and I would say it's sort of a nice example of what we've done in one of the largest music festivals it's been like about a year to take our tickets to adults just to donate I mean in terms of accessibility I can't think of anything unless we're changing the company and you know the programming really and for whatever reason we've gotten a lot of after 35 years that program is good no one is stressing out making it more accessible and but like that took 35 years but you know Brick House which is a building we opened in October and I would say it's already fairly successful most of our tickets are under $23 and our doors are always open we have like the cafe and the student that's free and that's good and we're like up to our next with like stressing about how much programming is the best way to do it so with all of that I think about like what is our responsibility to our surrounding community and for the most part again our programming is like wrong ground it's like a huge truth for us it's worth it's so driven but based in community centers branch with and have workshops and have the the answers and a lot of us answer formal interest and so there is that and at the same time there's still this fear of failure in terms of money because I feel like funders and board members without respect tend not to be a diverse group of different socioeconomic governments they tend to come from a place where they might be why they are on your board but then and this is me talking this is not where I'm talking I maybe I'm just thinking I have a sense that there's an economic disparity like the things that they're like really excited about may not be the thing that folks living for green are excited about but they have the leverage where I think you can say if a funder wants to play a million dollars to make this project happen do you say no to that but like the money it's like the extra millions pay some folks whatever I feel like there is a tension between that and there's a lot of there's a lot of you know I think and you know what I don't have a board I mean I haven't made a board and it is and I've never owed anybody any money so it's also possible I mean there's lots of problematics with that I mean I have a board legal board for tape I have a board in a cemetery I've never I've tried it for about two years and it took so much time and people always felt that we were failing and it just wasn't working and so I said okay it was different I don't want to sort of ping along on that the idea of the board because obviously the funding and the work is all about legal leaders so on and it's all the faster than any of us and that's one of the things that is so important it's an interdependency system and because we are disincentivized from collaborating in English and from sharing resources and there is a whole in the great detail about sort of why the Bible was agreed with that for starters and basic life I think it must go through these sort of collaborative mechanisms that almost preclude smaller or nimble or actual organizations from access to that calculus but I want to sort of think about that in relationship to really actually what you're doing with the public and then for self-interest and discourse because I feel that the one of the big problems is language and I think you articulated very well that our artistic communities are basically their challenges and how they talk about the work and how they talk to each other about the work and we have fields always talking through the cross for instance from I can imagine from the perspective of our traditional theater it starts with magic how they do the same sort of highway measures and I've heard a story of places all the time they're trying to work but they don't have large institutional years that want to work it's smaller ensemble and I think that they don't have to negotiate their own infrastructure and we have been able to build a public conversation that powers artists always able to have a real opportunity about how do we talk about the work how do we talk about risk how do we talk about success versus failure what do those mean so I actually want to talk back about if you want to talk real good about because you can work in a part in contextualizing and articulating and also do a public talk a little bit about that and I don't know if you can take this one if you just go I'm sorry this is a pretty new journal there's one patient that you can log on to public.magical.org there's an organization called Magic America Artists and Spudlers and so check it out I also want to be where discourse just because I'm listening to this and I'm thinking the same thing and where are all the different places when conversations have to happen as well as the work that we need both but where what are the entry votes so obviously the internet and it's open access that's good I wish that there was someone who wrote about the kind of performance we've been talking about two of you at times but I'm an alternative gal so it's not like I want my days in that basket even if I could and so like just because there was like there's this there was this great paradigm that that physician came up with it's how the paradigms change hearing this quote puts someone thinking of it in the evening or someone else but it's about how scientific paradigms change it's so used to look at things one day what allows it to change and the example that the writer is given is he's showing cards very quickly you have to say like red of hearts two of spades, three of clubs but some of the clubs are red and some of the diamonds are black and people are getting terribly confused and upset they can't prove themselves to see a red club and they don't want to call it just because there's no language for it even though they see it with their own eyes there's evidence so what is it that allows us to see differently and I agree with you more about how we measure differently we have such a terrible habit of somewhat monolithic ways of measuring and yet listening to the word to see we know there's any number of things that are valuable for us so that's what I say the most important science of this conversation is between artists now conversations that we have with people they don't artists there are many artists who resist having agency knowing how to write a budget knowing, thinking about the nature of the invitation to the world and I mean somebody said to me 10 years ago somebody from the social justice sector said oh you're an artist organizing and I said oh yeah well not really but it's very hard I think because the structure of how people have to make a living is so backwards in terms of thinking about the future of theater the market the sort of less unfair market that we live in is pretty choking and so I don't the family doesn't like to even deal with agents until we absolutely have to and right away a lot of artists are like I'm not comfortable there so that's cool but they don't we don't like to deal with agents although sometimes we're stuck doing that we try really hard to make the budgets I've ever shown with the artists who are coming lots of times they're not so interesting I mean and again this is not a plain thing this is a systemic and so I feel like why the book in common is so important and why I have been running the family for 20 years is because what are the territories upon which artists can come together to find their own sense of urgency and recognize the real importance of that urgency in the change in making that we listen to and get back to the old I mean for an artist who can't really kind of force me to see things from the perspective not force, not that but that's what's important and luckily we're small enough and we're possible enough that like we are a little viable and the game is switching up and things but I think whenever possible it's important to have the artists voice and make sure that they are and another thing I was going to say is when possible and I'm praying for the day that we don't do it on our own in the press but we do which means that we work very closely we don't hire an outside house person which I think that's potentially losing a little bit of life but I think that's you know I mean that's something to stay here I feel like it's important thinking about the future the incredible quality of all of this and measurement is not not one of us not one of our forward moving entities can do everything we can do like I don't have a board so I don't have that fundraising possibly I have limited enough money to do what I do and to pay people well to do it means that I can't do many many things that I wish I could many many but you know what other people are doing you know what I mean so like I can say okay well I have enough to do these six things damn it I have eight more I wanted to do and the detail and the idea of invitation I'm sorry to go back to this but it's always reaching for its understanding I try to teach a course for the mama to a bunch of directors about where does the stage be like how is invitation it's a terrible consequence but the idea of of these only six things that I can do are massive when you think about the extension of the stage and how people are where does the invitation the invitation starts a piece the making of the piece starts a piece the invitation starts a new you know it's like every single tiny bit contains the whole thing and that's the details and that's doing it in house and that you know the minute you start I totally get it I'm kidding please I have to do that so so carefully I really carefully pop in here because we're at times and some people are already going to see you on the show so I just wanted to quick housekeeping one thank you all everybody for being here we'll just talk about really quickly if Mark wants to take it because you talked about it and when I worked with Nick, it was crazy when I realized why he was doing what he was doing he was listening to the artists giving the piece to the house of the crazy people because he's the greatest example listening to the artists and making sure it happened and if you ever want to know how to do it right, just talk to Mark and look at his history and the third thing is if you want to do this conversation going a bunch of us from Brooklyn County are going to be there for 3 o'clock 5 or 6, hanging out with everyone, great art, thank you everybody enjoy your entertainment