 It was a wacky, far-out idea that I had that I would like to do a show that would be a play and it would be me working on stage, doing my writing work, and as the audience worked on their work in the audience, and then after the timer went off, I would sit with them and talk about their work, whatever that work might be, and offer them encouragement and guidance and cheerleading and all that kind of good stuff, and that was 11 years ago. We started in the lobby of the public theater. I've been doing it all over the world, mostly in the lobby of the public theater. The public theater, thank you, HowlAround came out a few years ago to help facilitate the streaming of it, and now HowlAround is creating this beautiful mosaic that is all of us. So thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And here we are. It's Thursday. What we're going to do is we're going to work together for 20 minutes, as we always have, because there's something magical about 20 minutes. And then we're going to, that's the action of the play, and then we're going to do the dialogue of the play, which is going to be you asking me questions about your work and your creative process. It's all about you. And Audrey's going to tell you how to get in touch with you. Do you have a question? Go Audrey. Thanks, Ms. Lopez. If you do have a question and you are inside of the Zoom, all you need to do is click on the participant button. Likely at the bottom of your screen on a laptop or the top of your on an iPad, there's a raise your hand button in the participant tab that you should click on. And if you are watching on HowlAround.tv, you can actually ask us questions via social media. Or you can tweet at us at at watch me work SLP with the hashtag HowlAround, H-O-W-L-R-O-U-N-D, or you can tweet at the Public Theater's Twitter, which is at Public Theater NY, or right to the Public Theater's Instagram. And those are the ways. Those are the ways. These are the days. Now is the time. That was a rhyme. Okay. Here we go. All right. That was 20 minutes. I got some work done. Yeah, so now's the time when. I can't hear you, SLP. I am unmuted. You seem to be unmuted. I am. Yeah. You can, it's just me. Oh, it's just me. What a dingbat. Thanks, everybody. Not a dingbat at all. You're a hard working woman, girl. We know who you are. I have a question. Thank you. I was going to write out all my answers and put them on my notebook. I was like, yeah, that's going to be tricky or type them in the chat. Yeah. Okay. Who's got a. We've got Laura. All right, Laura. How are you doing girl? You got to unmute. Laura needs to be unmuted. I'm clicking. Are you there, Laura? It looks like she's. There we go. There we go. Okay. I just want to tell you, thank you for telling me to watch. Dave Chappelle. Oh, that wasn't so funny and it was so maybe I won't be so funny when I do my set. But also I just want to say thank you for creating this like community. I mean, everybody is just so warm and really open. And even Kim that comes here called, you know, we spoke and she books. Com, you know, comedians at the West Coast. So we had a really long talk. So this is also a great networking thing, you know, so thank you so much. It's really great. You're pulling us through this time. So thank you. Thank you, Laura. I really appreciate that. Thank you so much. And Jimmy would love you. All right, Gavin, you're up next. Are you there? Having a struggle with the clicking today. Here we go. Oh, no, he's moving. No, he looks muted. Yeah, I'm clicking on it. And you, Gavin, there you are. There we go. I'm sorry. I'm a computer idiot. It took me forever to get on this thing and trying to do this for the whole past week. Good to see you. Thank you for this format. First of all, it's wonderful. I love the dialogue you guys create and the openness and the fact that you are not afraid to step on people's toes. The challenge ideas and not the unapologetic body. I wrote my question out and I written 28 plays so far. Wow. Wow. And my plays deal with social issues like women are rape. I'm working on one about domestic violence. And I'm trying to walk through issues and I'm best way to describe I am intellectually passionate about what I'm saying, but I'm apologetic. Unapologetic what I say. I raise questions on all sides of the fence, whether you're white, black, Spanish, homosexual, whatever it is, I'm raising questions on what do we do? What do we create in this, what I call social mythology that is creating in our brain when we see people of different pre-age religions, race, whatever it is. And with the murder of George Floyd, it really sparked the play I've been trying to work on for the past 10 years, because something occurred with my son on a bus. And I raised, was raising questions about the black community, the black American community and society and the media and the arts and what I call the angry black American mentality. This monster that they feed into that we all see, but it's not of our own creation, but rather it is a festering of all our concepts put together in our expectations or lack of expectations upon other people of different race, creeds, religion. So I'm trying to understand what means to be a black American and a white guy right in this play raising these questions. So I wrote it down so I can actually ask you about the ideas and how to approach it. My plays are sparse when I see or hear something that makes me itch the back of my brain. But the murder of George Floyd, the spark, is an old play that I've been trying to write for 10 years. This social mythology that depicts black Americans in the mind's eye of society. Black American culture, the media and Hollywood that creates this, this, us and them mindset, dividing and conquering people by making us think that we're different when we're all really, when we are all really, really simply but complexly human. But how would you go about trying to understand a point of view, such as a guy trying to write from a woman's point of view or a white guy trying to understand what it means to be black in America? Or a guy trying to understand a woman who's been mentally and physically abused but still accept, but still accept her circumstances as such as a thing that is making, that is her own making believing that she has no other, has nowhere else to go. Knowing that you're as a playwright who has not yet experienced the trauma, but you see and hear what makes you angry and appalled, you know you can't really know or understand. You as a playwright, you want to, you as a playwright, you want to and you're simply trying to mentally walk a mile in another person's shoes to know, to understand. You see the injustice and self-criticization process that occurs within and without the system and you, don't you dare? And you might have almost won it, and you want to speak out against it, to bring it to a fresh and raw, to the minds and hearts of the audience. So they may as individuals and a collective conscious consider these thoughts and questions that you raise in the play. It's the playwright looking in, in trying to look out and still keep the goldfish world reality painted on the world stage for the theater as he or she brings the play alive. Where how can the stranger play, the stranger playwright come to the better understanding as so she can write from honest and heartfelt play that makes the audience consider the unthinkable truth that they have allowed themselves to become numb to and still remain objective in the process without allowing his or her social prejudice and accepted truises and social labeling to skew the idea and question the play to his or her own thought of what the play should or should not be. I tried to put that on Twitter, it was not going to happen. That's great, Gabrielle. Well, it's such a beautiful question. I mean, how do we as writers or specifically as playwrights or dramatists walk a mile in other folk's shoes? You know, how do we sort of embrace and also help untangle some of the difficulties and of our society, the issues of our society? Specifically, as you said, by walking around, by walking a mile in someone else's shoes. It is a great, it is one of the hardest things about dramatic writing. It's one of the things that sometimes I find myself doing when I find myself writing characters who are not on the surface, me. It's something I've been working on as long as I've been a writer. So we're in, you know, 40 years. I've been working on this craft. It's a craft thing. And it really, for me, as I understand it, and I'm sure you've tried it, you've written many, many plays and works of literature. And we have to, as much as we can, forget ourselves. So that I am writing from the big S of self and not the little S. And it's a skill thing. It's a craft thing. It's an art form. It's much less, in my opinion, about what I've got to say, what I've got to say. My challenge runs in this is, in fact, when I'm writing this play, and I'm, I get shut down because I'm raising issues with the black American culture that helps propagate what I call the black American, like when they say the N word, they said, we'll just own it. So I said, what exactly are you owning? And I'm raising questions that I get shut down automatically on that. Well, I mean, sure, sure, well, if you, I mean, the N words is whole, it's a whole big conversation. But the short answer to that, my brothers and sisters say, if it can't cancel you, you can't use it. So, you know, I mean, I think I think I said that correctly, like, if it can cancel me, then I can use it. Meaning, it's mine. For someone else to just use it as, yeah, well, you use it, so why can't I? That is a misunderstanding of the complexity of the situation, basically. So that's a short answer to that. It's a long conversation, but the short answer is, is that that we have to understand what's going on in the world, you know, to have that conversation more effectively. But the point is, is that I think that what we, if you write as a writer from your perspective, instead of trying to tell, you use the word them and they and this other culture, instead of telling the other culture what they should and should not be doing, I think you'll be able to sit more in your shoes, because I'd like you to be walking around in your shoes more as a writer. You know what I'm saying? Instead of trying to walk around in, for example, mine. Yeah. Well, I did send you some things on Facebook, so I mean, I don't know if you got it or not. I'm not on Facebook. I have people who are on Facebook for me, just so you know. I don't, I don't, yeah, yeah, I got it, you know, I've got a packed day. We try to, yeah. I'm going to play the white noise because the conversation was what I got to just is actually dressing some top some issues and trying to dress. So I mean, that's why I was trying to say get your, your feedback on that and see what you thought. Yeah, I'm just trying to get someone else point of view. I hear you. I totally hear you. Yeah. Thanks, Gavin. All right, we're going to go to Russell. Are you there, Russell? Yeah, hi. Okay, let's do it. Oh, man. Why I'm also starting a new play. I kind of I know what I want to say I know kind of where I want to go with it. But I don't really know plot so I was looking for your opinion because I've asked other playwrights to do you find it's more valuable to like beat out every beat. Of a story before you actually sit down and like bang out the dialogue or do you just kind of like free flow. Right, right. Well, which would you prefer? I've tried both ways. Okay. The favorite piece I have ever done what I did was I didn't like plot out like different plot points. I figured out a mechanism through which to tell to like tell time through the story because I didn't want to have any blackouts in it. So once I got like that mechanism down, I just kind of like wrote the scenes into chunks and just kind of heightened each character experience from there. And I think that's the best work I've ever done. So it's a combination of both. Sure. Okay, then I mean, I always think if it if it works for you and you enjoy it then try it again. You know, I mean, once it stops working for you then you can look at two other options but there's no rule. You know, I was talking to all all streams lead to the sea. There are a million ways to the finish line. So if you found a way that works for you, I would say keep working it brother you know what I'm saying. All right, cool. Thank you. Sure. Thank you. All right, up next we've got Laura. Yeah, hi, thank you so much. And thank you for doing this wonderful. This is a piece writing in unison experience. It's just fantastic I just wanted to thank you first of all for for doing this. My question is, I'm not writing a play right now. I am actually working on a memoir, and it's coming along been working out for a long time. I don't have a point yet where I'm going to write a query letter and send it out. But I can see that time coming. And I'm wondering in your process. Do you do you go to an editor, do you go to a good friend to review the work, because I mean there are parts of it. You know, I've looked at parts of it so many times I have it practically memorized so I may miss things. I was just wondering what you do when you get to that point. Mm hmm. I have a couple of different trusted readers, you know, they're not, you know, professional readers, you know, they're just friends who might have the time to read a piece of the work or the entire work sometimes. And give me feedback they care more about me and succeeding in the work than they do about me getting their ideas in the work. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, I do. Yeah, so so I just I just sort of check in with a couple of different friends maybe this week one of them is available, you know, two weeks from now another one might be available so kind of farm it out a little bit. Yeah. And go from there. And that's super super helpful because you are getting the opinions of people who are smart who have known you a long time who would be the kind of folks who might want to read your work eventually, you know. Yeah. And and they care about you. So that's the super helpful. And then query letters. I think are these days are more successful they go through agents. I'm not sure but that's what I've heard, you know, publishers are more apt to read stuff and and look at stuff if it comes through a professional that they know. Yeah. Yeah. So that's just a pro tip on that. Yeah. Yeah, no, no. Read it for you or would you. Yeah, I, I, I have some people who I would trust with it. Yeah. It's not quite there yet, but I think it'll be there soon. I don't have an agent but that'll be a whole, you know, that's the next step so. But really though it's really thrilling though. Thank you. Yeah, I am excited. Thanks, Laura. All right, up next we've got Vrenita. Are you there? Yes, can you hear me. Yeah, hi. Good to see you. Hi, Miss Park so nice to see you. Hi, Audrey. Hi everyone. I am logging in today I have a question. And I think one of the things I feel like I've discovering more is that I really enjoy writing from these kind of hot palpable. My phone experiences that I'm having and the feelings that I have around them so. And this particular one I want to bring up because it's, it is tying to the current climate that we're in, and that outside of my aspirations around writing and really seeing writing as the bigger part of my vision and work. I'm also an independent event producer. And as a consultant. I've been independent for about seven and a half years going on eight. And I'm being confronted right now with myself these last couple of days and to be honest I actually miss Monday session for watch me work because I was very consumed with just kind of the emotion of self realization, my own kind of like the next wave and I'm feeling through this black lives matter critical mass is that it's like how much I'm indoctrinated in this country. How much I have been trained to respond and act and play the parts of like the part I'm supposed to play as a black woman in this country within the systemic racial constructs that have been created, and having been someone that I really think of myself that way or as a young professional Ivy League educated person that I would transcend these constructs. And it's like no no I haven't transcended them like they are fully operating in my life. And there is a certain level of reckoning that I'm feeling with that right now. So as that spills over into my consulting work that I mentioned is that I've started brainstorming a piece. And I think it's an article. I think it's an open letter, but part of my experience has been that I get hired to be the lead I get hired to be the executive producer by black organizations. And over the course of my career, when it comes to white organizations, I get hired to be a do a piece, you can do seating, you can be guest relations. But I've never been the executive producer of a major event for a white owned white led organization. And I even have a very specific experience come to mind where I was personally recommended. And I feel that I was passed over for to be that executive producer for a team. That's an all white team, with the exception of one long junior assistant who's, you know the one black person on the, on the floor. And that I do feel I was, I was passed over, even if it was an unconscious bias by the color of my skin. So I start writing this piece about my experience as being an event executive producer and, and this particular company and client has put out a statement of how they realize they need to do better. In terms of inclusion and equity. I got feedback from one of my mentors that I really trust and her response to me was like, you can't write that. This is a black woman. You can't afford to write that you can't afford to take the risk of putting yourself on the line of and losing business, which I feel like kind of like plays into the same that systematic construct that I that that I'm speaking about but I feel like this is I'm going to speak about this. This is the time to do it. And if my question is, I heard part of a previous session this week we talked about, you know, do you use synonyms pseudonyms. Not use the real name of the company, but then I'm like how do I move the needle forward if the persons. I'm looking to be accountable art. You know, don't have to, you know, be accountable like they don't have to pay attention to this piece they don't have to take ownership because they're not being pointed out. Wow. This is this is great because when I say watch me work and I want to talk about you and your work in our in our writing work, we might experience self censorship. And the woman Bernadette you were referencing, I think was yesterday or so who talked about should I use a pseudonym. I think if I remember correctly was because her family was shunning her for telling the truth. You know, so that's. And now there's this other level of in your work life, you were being unfairly treated discriminated against or you feel that you are and I believe you. And what do you would what does one do about that? How do we have conversations about that that can move the needle forward when your mentor says, if you start talking. You'll, you know, you're going to make it difficult to get jobs. If I'm repeating it correctly, I just want to make sure I'm repeating it correctly. So there's a couple of things. Number one, the feelings you were feeling about, you know, I'm, I'm part of this mess to, you know, I thought that I, you know, had were more liberated and I'm part of this mess to. Yeah, there's no way that anybody in this country cannot be part of this mess. Okay, some of some folks, some of us end up with a knee on the neck and I can't breathe. Like, dear George Floyd, right? Some of us have to do a reckoning like what you're doing. Some of us are the perpetrators of this bullshit. But there is no way that any of us in the there is no one in this country. Now, maybe a baby that was just born today, maybe, but then that baby, they got parents and the parents have ideas and the parents are going to start have started already teaching the child some things, right? There was no one in this country. None of us are free of this shit, right? And, and talking about it is a great way to process it. Vernita, I think it's very brave of you to even admit that you might be churning, turning some of the wheel, helping a little bit somehow, somehow, how do I stop? Okay, so there's that. So just be awake to what you're doing. I would say that's a great way to start and I think you've started doing that. And then the third thing, trying to enlighten a employer that they are doing some bullshit and you know it. In my experience, folks who, number one, I, it sounds like your employer, well, how do you say this? I try to do my job. I have, and not to get into it too much, I work in Hollywood and I work in American theater. I deal with shit like you're talking about all the time. All the time, every day, today I've been on Zoom since nine o'clock this morning, since nine o'clock this morning I've been dealing with shit you've been talking about. So how do I, you know, how do we do, what I've decided over and over, I got to do my job and not so much instruct somebody else how to do theirs because I don't know if the folks are talking about can be changed by your lecture. I don't know. So we got to play hot, but we also got to play smart. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like if we were in the WNBA, you and me were on a team, right? I don't know much more about basketball than that. But you know what I'm saying? There we are moving down the court, right? And I pass and you go and you dunk, right? Okay, you're playing hot. But now we're going to play smart because we got the whole game to play. If we're running a marathon, right? Or if we're a relay race, you know, we got to play hot, use our energy, but also we got to play smart. So I don't know this, I don't know the specifics of your workplace and how that all works, but I would just say try to employ both. Try to employ both, okay? And I am, and I realize now as I'm speaking of it, part two to this is there's my personal experience. Then my other, I mean, I guess I feel like I would be a chump not to express something because this is also a magazine outlet that has done a really good job of presenting itself as diverse and inclusive because there are people of color on their covers. There are, you know, black doing well at the, in participating in their events, which is, you know, what I'm, you know, being brought into. But then it's like the entire team behind the outlet. Right. There's no diversity at all. So like, you okay, so you put a person of color on your covers, but you're not investing in the team behind the work. And so that's the other piece where I feel Okay, I hear you. I, and I've needed I've been in the situations to I would just say play hot and play smart and play smart. This is this takes another level of intelligence and you have that intelligence. Because the goal is to be given a seat at the table and be given a meal at the table. And not just to be thrown a bone or get your anger off your chest. Right. Keep the goal in mind eyes on the prize. That's another one of our mantras. Right. Eyes on the prize. So, I'm not saying don't write the letter I'm not saying write the letter I'm just saying you know more about the situation and with your mentor I'm glad you have a mentor who can give you some guidance. Okay, and keep coming back here and keep writing your articles. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Good to see you. All right, we've got about nine minutes left and we're going to go to Emory. Emory. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes, Arya. Good good good to see you. Um, so I have a question kind of about being in well not kind of it's about being an early play right early career play right in like these times. Kind of before COVID, you know, I feel like there's like, there is like a big emphasis when you're an early career play right on like getting produced, either by other people or like self producing. And I was lucky that I got to do some of those things before COVID hit and I felt like the gears were really turning and like, you know, the little little moves were being made by me which felt really good and was really when all this came crashing down. Obviously, the world ended for everyone. Like I mean not not fully but like you know everyone had dreams that they like you know couldn't achieve because of it so I feel like that's not unique to me at all. But I guess I'm just wondering like, as an early career play right like how like what what what like what do you think is like the role of the early career play right in like a post COVID world and like what can they do to make the gears turning and keep moving in the direction going. I think that's a great question, Emory. And because we're not in the post COVID world yet I don't, I don't exactly know. And I left my crystal ball at home. No, I, I don't know. I do think that, again, like I was telling for Anita, do your job. So what's your job, Emory, if your job is to write. Okay, if your job is to continue to try to make connections as many connections as you can. You know, like I mean, have zoom calls, maybe schedule zoom readings, network with folks that you want to meet or can you should I mean do everything you can. And let the things you can't do anything about, you know, run their course, because you can unless you have a, you know, to hot tip on a great vaccine, you know what I'm saying but if you don't. What can you do, you know, you can keep writing, you can keep doing workshop of your plays, you can write some plays that are fun on zoom, you know, keep writing though I would say that's your job and that's going to be your job. Obviously, that was your job before COVID and that's going to be your job after COVID. That's, that's your work. That is your work. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks Emory. All right, up next we're going to go to Dahlia. Dahlia, are you there? Hi. I just made myself ask a question because I'm kind of scared of this zoom thing. I've been really lucky I, I've been a New York Foundation for the Arts playwriting fellow and the Disney Fellowship and so much generosity and my first play was like it wrote itself through me at and you want to be a writer. I have this new play and it's called the Oh My God particle show and I was actually sent over to CERN a few years ago in Switzerland to go inside the large Hadron Collider and I cooked up this crazy play about like our place in the universe is the universe responsive. It's to encourage girls to get into STEM careers and to disengage from romantic love and use our creativity. But I, I, this is ridiculous because I, I don't mean to toot my horn but this is like I went to Oxford I was a scientist. And I feel like how who might have the right to explain the universe. And I'm like short circuiting myself because I know most great any plays that are about faith or huge topics, but I feel like this one and even the particle physicists I work with they're like most of them become suicidal because it's such a massive topic, but I'm having a hard time now to like get the personal you know and to wrestle with my own questions of the universe and where my places how we're all connected how we use energy without sounding like a woo woo person but I'm just my last play which was based on an event of actually when I got attacked in New York and that was easy. Well, hard but easy but you know, I'm just having this is such a vague bass topic I'm struggling about. I guess it's just the words or my place in the universe but I mean I guess that's a question of every playwright or writer scientist grapples with but I'm having a hard time bringing it down to the personal from so I didn't know if there's some tricks to just do it. Oh, yeah. Believe it or not, every plays about the universe and every single thing in the universe is about the universe and trusting we all have the universe in us it's right and it's just writing it and performing it through us. But what I'm saying is that writing a play about the universe is no different from staring at a rock because there is the universe in the rock there it's everywhere. So what I'm saying is the way you're talking about it outside of myself. Do this with your hands, you know, because what you're writing about is inside connect yourself to character. You know, I mean any play that you love whether it's fences or for colored girls or King Lear it's about the universe and our place in the universe. That's why we create what we do. Regardless of the specificity of our issue. The Black Lives Matter movement is about the universe. Everything is about the universe so chill. Yeah, and breath, trust and and think about character. Think about character. I'm guessing that in your play you have some characters. Am I right? Yes. Goody goody. Great, great. Okay, great. What do your characters want more than anything? Love. Okay, what does that look like to get it? What would that mean love? You know, you know what I mean? Yeah, character want more than anything. What's in their way? What's keeping them from getting what they want? How do they go for it? Show me. You know what I'm saying? In the end, do they get it or not? Made it. You know what I'm saying? These are questions you have to answer. These are just questions that you have to ask yourself. You know, And I think it also is, it's so wonderful when you get grants and this place already got 14 amazing grants. And I think that also makes you like a deer and headlight, right? Because you're like, I have to teach about the universe and just do the very specific work. I would say it makes you like a deer and headlight. I'm just to clarify, right? That's what I'm saying. We as writers, you're dealing with language and get specific. Okay. So it seems like it's creating some anxiety in you. You know, again, take a breath. Do you have a meditation practice? All the time. I know better. Is that a yes? Yes. Great. Okay. How often do you meditate a day? Twice a day. Great. Great. Okay. Great. Do you have a yoga practice or running? I walk. I do everything to get centered, but I maybe I'm doing too much of that too. I just need to. Do you sit, you have, and you have a daily writing practice, I'm guessing, right? That's a little bit hit and miss. That's why I need better. Yeah. Okay. Great. Okay. It's great to find something that's hit and miss. So what you're going to do is you're going to have a daily writing practice. You have a daily meditation practice. Awesome. You've got a daily sort of exercise practice. Fantastic. And now you're going to get serious about your daily writing practice because believe it or not. And I know you know this. That's the only way it's going to get written. Play as brilliant as you are and as brilliant as it is. It's not going to write itself. So it's going to take you sitting down probably at your desk. It's going to take you a little bit of time. But it's going to take you a little bit of time. Most probably. And putting some time in every day. Right? How much time is 20 minutes too much time? How long do you meditate every day? Twice a day. 20 minutes. Great. So 20 minutes, 20 minutes is good. 20 minutes. In the morning after you meditate. Can you spend 20 minutes writing? Yeah. Because it's already a first draft. I think I'm just scared that. No, I mean, it doesn't. Even if it's a commission. It never has to go out into the world. I know plenty of writers who are commissioned and they never turn in their work. So it never has to go out into the world. It's going to go out into the world when you're ready. And hopefully you will, you will be strong enough to do the work necessary. To do the rewriting work necessary. So we're trying. So what you're going to do is you're going to get serious about your writing practice. And you're going to spend 20 minutes. Can you do 20 minutes three times a day? Okay. Separate segments. Because you have meditation twice a day. You can do 20 minutes three times a day. Right. Or even four times a day if you feel like it. And you're going to do your rewrite of your play if there's already a first draft. Fantastic. Think about characters. Ground yourself in characters. Okay. As specific as possible. With your characters. What do they want? What are they doing? Okay. Yeah. Thank you. So good. Thank you. Great question. Okay. It's six oh two. Who knew I did. I was watching the clock. That's my job. But so. This session is over as we all know tomorrow. We will release the signups for next week sessions Monday to Thursday. And those go up on the site. I think around 2pm Eastern tomorrow. They'll be up on the public theater's website for you to sign it for all of our sessions next week. All right. All right. Everybody have a great SLP. Thank you. Thanks. Bye bye.