 I'm going to do my little blurby thing so that we only have to explain this. Once I'm says my parks. This is watch me work. Watch me work is a show where we create the action and the dialogue together. And it's basically an opportunity for you all to talk about your creative process. Okay. So watch me work the me in the title is you, you know, if you don't know, I'm a writer of plays and movies and teleplays and songs and all kinds of stuff. I'm also the master writer chair at the public theater. I've been doing this show. Watch me work for 11 years. Sorry, my son is yelling on his with his friends in the background. Quiet. You have a small apartment. Anyway, I've been doing this show for 11 years. Live, mostly in the public theater in the lobby of the public theater. I'm about, I don't know, five years ago, we started streaming. But with help from howl round. And so a big up to the public theater and howl round for making this way happen. I used to do it once a week. Yay. Once a week. In the lobby of the public theater. Now, because of this Corona. Thing. I decided I wanted to do it five days a week. So, so here we are. So here's how it works. Watch me work is a, a show. We're creating the action together, the dialogue together. What we're going to do is we're going to work for 20 minutes. I'm going to set my timer. This beautiful, beautiful thing that I'll talk a lot about later. If anybody wants to know why I love these kinds of timers so much. I didn't make them. I don't get paid to sell them. But we're going to work for 20 minutes. And together. Work on anything you want writing or anything. And then together, we will create the dialogue. You will ask me questions about your work. And your creative process. And I'm going to talk about that. I'm going to talk about the dialogue. You will ask me questions about your work. And your creative process. What we won't be doing in this setting is we, I won't be critiquing individual work. So it's not like you're going to write and then read it to me for critique. We're not going to be doing that. We're going to be talking. Only about process, your work process. And how I can help it. Continue to merrily roll along. Questions like how do I get started? I don't know the story of my play. My characters in my novel are. Not cooperating. It's something like that. Okay. So process questions only. And process answers. And Audrey is our, one of our moderators. As Miranda and anything else, Audrey. Totally. So in order to ask a question, what you'll need to do if you are in the zoom is click on the raise your hand button. And you'll be in the participants tab, likely at the bottom of your screen. We also sent out a PDF today that explains how to do it. And so it should be in your email. If you have any questions about it. I just saw someone test it. I see a lot of people test in it. That's amazing. So. The other thing to know is that if you're watching the stream live on howl around.TV, you can ask us questions. Also via our social media channels. Just go to the public's Twitter or our Instagram. And you can also ask us questions that at watch me work SLP on Twitter and the hashtag is howl round H O W L R O U N D. And that's it. I think. We're all good. You're still muted SLP. Okay, you need to be quiet. Okay. 20 minutes. I got my timer. Are we ready? Here we go. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that was the. That was the action part of the show. And now we're going to do the dialogue part of the show where you guys are going to. Ask me questions about your work and your creative process. And I'll answer to the best of my ability. Incredible. All right. Anybody got anybody got a question. Yeah. So first person we have, I'm going to say, I think it's a lean. I'm. I'm muting you. I'm sorry if I pronounced your name wrong. Coming out very bilingual Spanish. And I'm excited by it as I write it because it's unlike. I've heard. On stage yet. It's like. Not even Spanglish. It's like really. Yeah. 5050. And I catch myself being a little nervous that. I'm worried about the. Understandability. For certain people. That would be, you know, only connecting to one of the languages. And also, I guess, Producibility because the last time I saw something bilingual in a very commercial space was like the. Last revival of West Side Story and everyone. Bitched about that. And they had to change it back to all English. And there's a part of me that. Aside from like the commercial implications, just the like. People missing out on not really getting it. So yeah, how do I. Stay excited by it without worrying about the shortcoming. Right, right. So great, great question. And say your name for me again, so I can hear. Lean. You keep cutting off right at the beginning. Yeah, my name is a lean. A lean. Okay. A lean. Okay, Elaine. That's a great question. A great way to, to start off. So. All right. So I'm going to play. Played, which is coming out bilingual. English and Spanish. Yeah. And. How far are you in the writing of this play? This beautiful play of yours. Right now, I'm very much still in the. Structuring. Side of things. I would say I'm. Very, very little in. Right. to work on dialogue and scenes. Right. So somebody in our group of almost 200 or more than 200 today knows what I'm going to say. You know, somebody knows what I'm going to say. So I'm going to say, Elaine, those are really good questions that you have. The producibility of my play, screenplay, novel, you know, whatever, you know, how will it be received in the world? That's a great question and something that's very important to think about after you write it. Okay. Right. So you know the phrase, the cart before the horse. You know what I mean? You know, you don't want to put the cart before the horse. Maybe that's too old school. You don't want to, you know, or some of us are wondering like, why doesn't my Zoom work? Why doesn't my Zoom video work? Oh, you got to click the button. Or will I be accepted into this Watch Me Work class? You got to click the button. You know what I'm saying? So those are great questions to concern yourself with. But my feeling is that because you have yet to write your play, those are questions that are getting in the way of you writing your play. And my suggestion would be not to invalidate your questions, but that you need to write your work. And then once it's done and you have it in your hand, you can go, hmm, now let me have a read. You know, you go through the steps. You see what I mean? Because some people who, who, and it's beautiful that you're writing it bi-lingually, some people, for example, who don't write bi-lingually, but write say about their mother. Come on, watch me work. And they ask me, how do I deal with this play? It's not going to be producible because my mother's going to see it and she'll hate it. So I can't write it. You see what I mean? There's always something. Or how do I write this play? It's about, it's about current politics of the day. And I don't know how I want to talk about it. So I'm stuck. You know what I mean? You see, there's always something. And what I'm suggesting is that we put that something while it's not, while it is important, we put it aside. We do our work. And then we ask the next step questions of how can this be produced? Because the answer is, it can't be produced. Right? You know why? Because it's not there yet. Yeah, you got it. So go ahead and write it. Put those voices, let them chime in when it's appropriate. We're handing it to a producer and the producer says, I don't know, lady, you know? It's, oh, I don't know. The people who speak primarily Spanish, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever they're going to say. You know what I'm saying? But that's down the road. So as I go along, should I even try to make it like, like every plot point should be at least understandable in English, like even just a little bit of a guideline or just... Sure. If that's what you want to do, sure. Or maybe part of the story is that some things are not understood by in any language. Do you understand the plot point of today? What we as a world are going through right now? Something they're mysterious and some audiences can roll with that and some audiences can't. You know what I mean? Some audiences, like, when I'm in an audience, I don't mind going, I don't get that, but I'm willing to roll with it or I'm willing to kind of try to figure it out on my own. Some audiences like to be spoon-fed. It depends on the audience. It depends on the, maybe some uptown or downtown in New York or Broadway or some audiences in Berkeley or in the wild shit, some audiences in somewhere else might not be, you know, you don't know. So if now, if you want that to be your guiding light, then great. Go for it. Okay. Sure. But don't let it, you know, just realize though, I think the deeper answer is just realize that you're putting things in your way and instead of writing. Okay. So right, right, right quickly because the sensor in your mind is very slow, not to diss, you know, people who are, you know, more advanced in years, but the sensor uses a walker, you know, slow. And if you run, you know, they won't be able, because they're full of ideas and comments and critiques, you know, so they got a lot to say and they're kind of slow, not to say they're advanced in years, but they're just, you know, okay. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay. So come and come back and visit us, you know, like make yourself a game plan and come back and check in with us because we're going to be here for a while. Yeah, I'm here at this day four. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Our next person is Madeline. Are you unmuted? Yes. Hi, Madeline. Madeline. Hi, Madeline. Hi. This may be something similar to what Aileen was talking about. I'm primarily an actress and I've had ideas to write for a long time and I get scared. Like I can't do it. Like I see other actors that like write really wonderful plays and wonderful shows and films and I'm like, that's what I aspire to, but I feel like because I can't do that, I don't put it down on paper. And I don't know if you have any suggestions or thoughts about, I guess, courage. Like I didn't go, you know, college to study creative writing or screenwriting or anything like that. But I know my taste. That's good. You know, courage is another way of saying heart, you know? So as an actor, does it take, would you say it takes courage to get out on stage in front of people and act? For sure. Right. Okay, great. So you already have courage. Oh, that was, because if you were like, no, then it'd be like, okay, how do we find it? But what we were talking about is a transferable skill, right? So you've already got, Madeline, you've already got a lot of courage. So what you're going to do is you're going to help, you're going to take your courage and have it help you do something that's relatively new. Okay. Okay. Although you've had a lot of experience interpreting other people's works and all that, you're going to take your courage and your courage will, will gladly help you do something that's relatively new. Okay. All right. That's what courage is for. Okay. So you're watching this show, which, right, because this is the pipeline to what you want to do. Absolutely. To the pipeline to what you want to do, right? Because I'm here to go, okay, let's think of a game plan, Madeline. So do you have, you don't, not, not to tell us, not to tell us, keep it secret, but do you have a title or an idea or a theme or a character in mind or anything like that? You don't have to say it out loud, but do you have a character or a theme or a subject or an incident that you want to show us or something? Do you have something? Yeah, I do. Okay. Good. Okay. So could you, you know what free writing is? Free writing, like just getting your notebook and just like write about it, like blah, blah, blah, blah. This is what I'm thinking about my idea. No, I've never done that. Okay. So do you, are you available to join Watch Me Work for a little, you know, okay. I have, yes. Awesome. So what you do is you get your notebook. I liked, you know, I mean, in Watch Me Work, it's hard to do on screen. So I work in a notebook, very expensive, not notebook. And I just, what you do is you at the, at 20 minutes, every time we're in Watch Me Work, I want you just to say, okay, here's the subject of the play I want to write. No, no, no, even better. Here is the subject of the play that I am writing. Okay. Right. Or here is the main character of the play that I am writing. And they are doing this and just free write, blah, blah, blah, vomit, write whatever you want to call it, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you got to keep going. You know, this is a very old technique. Lots of people use this. You got to keep the pen, touching the paper and writing as fast as you can. Okay. Okay. What you're doing is you're getting in conversation with the work. Right? It's like dating. You show up. You show up. I mean, I know you're like, what dating? Have you ever gone on a date? You know what dating is, right? People still date. Yeah. Okay. Unfortunately, yes. It is awesome. It gets you, it gets you to prove a couple of things. One that you want something, right? So you show up, right? And your work is the same way. Your work wants you to show up for it. So what you're going to do is you're going to build strength. You have courage. What you're going to do is you're going to build your muscles. You're going to build your writing muscle. Okay. Just like when you were an actor, you're starting out in acting. Maybe you didn't get, you know, the lead lead role in every single play you were in, right? You're building up your acting muscles, right? Okay. So every day when you're in Watch Me Work and on the Saturday and Sunday that you're not, because we don't have it on Saturday and Sunday, you're going to set your timer for 20 minutes, right? And you're going to just free write. This is what I know about the play I'm writing right now. This is everything I know, blah, blah, blah, but whatever comes out is good. Okay. Gradually subjects, themes, characters, ideas, plot points will emerge. Okay. Okay. You got to put the time in. Okay. Yes. Okay. And keep showing up here. It's a perfect way to kind of, you know, show that you're committed to your writing process. Okay. Thank you. I will. I'll be here. Thanks, Madeline. Right on. Thanks, Madeline. All right. Next is Ellen. Ellen, are you unmuted? I am. Hi. Thank you. Thank you again for doing this. So I had one question yesterday about work that I teach and during semesters, I have no time to write. So I write in between semesters and what happens is a project is almost at the end and unfinished. And then I come back to pick it up. And I'm not sure how to revive it. I'm always saying to myself, that's because I don't have enough time. I have to go back and teach again. And yesterday, when you spoke about the idea of things getting tangled for you, and when writing gets tangled, and you have to really look at it and try to end it. And I think you talked about Joan Diddian's, you know, saying that she writes to try to see what she thinks. It occurred to me that maybe that's part of what my problem is, that I'm stopping not because I have to go back to teach, but because it's tangled and I don't know what to do next. I'm curious if you have more ideas about how I'm curious about what that means to you and strategies like what do you do to untangle it and what do you suggest? That's a great question, Ellen. For me, the most important, the best tool that I have, or a couple of, I have a couple of good tools, but one of the best ones is putting the time in. Putting the time in. I think if ever I say like, oh, I'm having trouble writing that song, or oh, I'm having trouble working on that teleplay, or gosh, why isn't the novel working out or whatever, right? Again, it's like dating or relationship. You got to put the time in. So a lot of times in your schedule, you're teaching and then not teaching and teaching and not teaching is tricky because you feel like you can't put the time in as much as you might like to. And a lot of us have that, you know, problem, that difficulty, or that opportunity. So I would suggest two things. One, you find a way to put the time in, even when you're teaching, in your teaching semester. And I don't know, maybe you've got like 100 classes a day that you've got to teach. Oh my gosh, I hope not. But I'm more on the show, pumpkin pie. Daddy went for a walk. Sorry. But maybe you have, you know, a lot of classes to teach. But I would suggest trying to find a little bit of time every day. Okay, I'm sorry, hold on just a sec. Sorry. I would suggest finding a little bit of time every day, even if it's 20 minutes, which is why we do 20 minutes. 20 minutes is for most people, you've got kids, you've got a job, you know, a day job and all that. 20 minutes is manageable for most people. If it's not, and everybody's got a different schedule, but if it's not, don't worry, 10 minutes are also available. Right, Ellen. If 10 minutes are not available to you, not to worry, five minutes will also work just fine. Okay, so I want you to try to find a little bit of time a day. You'd be surprised. People think, oh, to write, you know, I mean, I used to go to those writer's colonies a long time ago, because, you know, the idea was to write, I need to, I need, you know, space and time and all this stuff, which could be true. But it also could be true that what we need is just to use the time that we have and make the best use of the circumstances that we have, not to discount everybody's busy schedule. Those of you who are homeschooling these days and you got a job or you're laid off and there's stress and all that stuff, not to discount any of that, but to say that if I put five minutes a day, so if I sit down with my work, right, for, I only got five minutes, I turn on the timer. I'm looking at it for five the timer goes off. Okay, now I go to do other things. It works as it would work if you were trying to establish a bank account, you don't need a million dollars to establish a bank account, you need to put a little something in your savings account, right? What is it called? Something interest, a crude interest, no, something like that, right? Okay, you put a little bit in, right? We put a little bit into the bank account of your work. It's pretty much how I get everything done, okay? So with the tangles, if you have something in your work that is tangled and it's very, very hard for you to look at, ah, it just makes you angry or upset or whatever, spend a little bit of time with it every day, five minutes, just even if you just do this, you know what I'm saying? Even if that's all you can do, some days I write songs, some days I just hold my guitar, you know, like that. That's all I can manage. There are people who are, have a very beautiful meditation practice. Some days they say if you can't meditate for an hour, meditate for less. If you can't meditate for anything, just bow to your cushion, okay? So make a commitment to showing up for your work and your work will show up for you. Also, just one more thing for you, Ellen, because you have to do a lot of stopping and starting. This will take away the problem of stopping and starting because you'll be familiar with your work every day. But if you have to stop anybody over a period of time, post-its are great. You put a post-it in your work. This is what I was doing on this day. When I start again, start here with blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever, right? Put a post-it in your work. When you come back to it, there it is. So that was a lot of answer for a little question. Thank you. Does that make sense? Go ahead. Perfect sense, and it helps a lot. And as long as you're talking about the timer, could you say what you wanted to say before about this? Assessing about my timer. Here's my timer. I do not get any money for these. I did not invent it, but it's for sale on places like Amazon or wherever, you know, with those brilliant and brave people who deliver things these days to us. The reason why I like timers, kitchen timers, egg timers, whatever you call them, is because that's all they do. Your phone, not only is it filled with germs, but it's also cracked. This is cracked, right? We know that. Your phone got all that wonderful stuff on it. This counts time. It's great. It's not like that tomato app. It's not on your phone. It's just a timer. It counts time. I love it. Okay. So when I meditate, I use it for my meditation practice, for my writing practice. When I give the kid a time out, I use this. It's good for everything. So I'm just obsessed with these timers that just count time. That's all it does. It does it brilliantly. When I look at it, I'm not also checking the weather, my newsfeed, my email, Gmail, you know. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ellen. All right. So next, we have Jan. Jan, are you unmuted? Hello. Yes, I am. Hi. I'm having some bandwidth issues. So hopefully that won't happen now. You are so wonderful. I know everyone here believes that, and we're just also grateful for you. Thank you for being here. Actually, the last couple of things that have been said really related to my main question, which, you know, I've sometimes, I'm a director, but sometimes I do a little bit of writing. Occasionally, something comes to me like all the whole thing, beginning, middle, end, like it's just there. And so something happened like that recently. But then all these little doubts started to come about how it would be received in the world, you know, or politically, like it doesn't really align with my politics. And I'm concerned about sort of how that would be in the world. And so, but I think what you said was you just got to, it's not written yet, right? So I just need to like write it first and worry later, right? Or maybe don't worry at all, just write it. And then the other thing, which you were kind of addressing too is, and I guess that, you know, how do you deal with the self-doubt? And you're probably just going to say sit down and write. But, you know, it's like, there's a cloud, there's like things that I want to do. And it feels like the doubt gets in the way of the work of like actually applying myself. Do you ever feel that? Yeah, I had it on mute because there's an ambulance. Hopefully everybody's okay. There's an ambulance passing. Yeah. So I would say, considering the first thing, how it will be received in the world, I would suggest like we did earlier to write it. Because regardless of how it's received in the world, and regardless if it ever gets published or produced or whatever, the main thing, the main relationship is between you and the spirit. And for you to acknowledge that relationship by doing your work. You see what I mean? So that's the main, that's the most important thing when a piece of work comes to you. It's not, will it get produced on Broadway or will whoever, you know, Tom Hanks star in it or whatever, whoever, you know what I'm saying? The main thing is that you acknowledge the relationship except the gift that you've been sent and your work. That's what we're doing. That's our job when something comes to us, whether it's in bits and pieces or bits and starts or whatever, our job is to acknowledge that. So that's one thing. So yes, write it now and worry later. You can worry. I'm not going to say don't worry. Shit. Worry, worry, but write it. Okay. That's the first thing. But the second thing is the doubt, you know, doubt. People think that, you know, doubt is something only reserved for people who, you know, aren't for real, you know what I'm saying? And if you're, I don't know, whomever, someone who's achieved something in the field, the doubt goes away. And you used to have doubt back there in your past. Now you're just, no, that's not true. You know, with, with, with, if you're really wise, you have doubt. Think of the people, the person in the news today who doesn't seem to have any doubt about how well they're doing. Right? Those of us who are reflective and wise do kind of go, hmm, is this really what I'm going, you know, we do, we do, we are reflective. We do ask ourselves questions. We do consider and all those kinds of things, right? We do engage often in self study, which we call in Sanskrit svadhyaya, self study, right? We look within and ask questions, right? We don't know it all, unless you're eight years old, like my son, he thinks he knows it all. I know it all. And you know, people, other people in the news today, um, doubt is not a bad thing. But again, your job is to recognize that you've been sent a gift and to hold hands with that gift. Thank you. And say thank you to that gift and, and go forward. And I'm saying it like it's easy. It's not. Yeah, it's hard. It's very hard because you have to tunnel through and push through all that, those voices that are telling you to go the other way or stop where you are or who are you to be a fill in the blank, right? You know, a writer, a director, an actor, a singer, a trapeze artist, whatever, right? Okay, so your job is to, to tunnel toward the gift. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The sunlight hitting your face is wonderful and it reminds me of what a light you are in this week for us. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Be back next week. God willing. Thank you. Be here. Yeah, we'll be here. How, how around in the public theater willing? We will be here. We will be here. Yeah. All right. So we've got about eight minutes left just to flag. And the next question is from Giselle. Giselle, are you unmuted? Yes, I am. Thank you so much. Hi, SLP. Thank you so much for your work and your gift to the world. I am adapting a political event between Iran and the United States in the 50s. Um, but I'm caught up in this question of how do I keep it? I'm trying to figure out what my point of view is. I know what my point of view is. My point of view is that the US should not have done what they did. Um, because it kind of brought us into our current situation with that country. Um, but I also don't want the peace to feel didactic. And I don't want it to be me being like stupid USA, like you're stupid foreign affairs. Um, so I want it to be personal. And I don't want it to necessarily be pro Iran. Because I think that that isolates Americans watching it. Um, so I'm trying to figure out who my protagonist is. And it's going to either be an American or a Persian. And I feel like when I choose someone's nationality, I'm choosing that nation. So I'm just trying to figure out like how to keep it neutral while still having a point of view. I'm confused. I don't think you're confused at all. It sounds like you're right in something really great. And you're just, you know, talking about it. Yeah, question. Could you have a character from either side? Be the main character? Could there be more than one main character question? Yeah, that's possible. Yeah, I mean, you know, not I mean, not if it doesn't ruin your the story you've got going. Second question. What's your what's your favorite political play or political work? Novel, movie, anything? It's a German piece, which I'm forgetting the name of right now. Deutschland 83 is what it's called 83 83. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. What do you feel like that's didactic or any of those things that you know? Okay. Okay. So what do you think that they've done to make it interesting and moving and all those things? What do you think they've done? They yeah, they've made me care about. They've made me care about the characters. How do they do that? Do you know? By showing their inner worlds, I think showing challenges they're going through. Great. Okay. So you've just answered all your questions. So maybe you know, you want to choose a character who's an American person and a character whose version, right? That could help, right? Because then you're choosing you're not choosing once I mean, when you say when I choose the main character, I'm choosing a side. If you choose two main characters, then you're choosing both sides. Yeah, which will help. Okay. And you said this Deutschland an Axis, it gives us characters that we care about. It shows their inner life. So you're going to want to give us characters that we care about and shows their and we want to see their inner life. Okay. Also read some political, you know, political plays, you know, Brecht writes great political plays. Carol Churchill is awesome. You know what I mean? Her play Mad Forest about Romania is really interesting. You know, Carol Churchill is a great, great writer, playwright, British woman, awesome sauce, great writer, you know, so she's really interesting. But you know, so there's but there's a lot of, you know, political plays out there. I think the to get to the heart of a play, no matter if it's political or not, you got to get into the characters. So that you're going deeper than just like you said, wagging your finger, which you don't want to do. Okay, so just get into those characters. Get to know them. Get to know them. And can I ask a follow up? Do we have time? Sure, we got time. We got nothing but time. We're just sitting at home. That's really helpful. And I think about I'm so the play rating that I'm more accustomed to is like one protagonist and then they have their own journey and all that. So I'm curious, like, if you could talk a little bit about what a two, like a two protagonist or like two main characters. Well, like off the top of my head, Beauty and the Beast. Okay. Porgy and Bess. Bonnie and Clyde. You know what I mean? Peanut butter and jelly. I don't know. You know, I mean, there's lots of, there's lots and lots of stories, plays, movie, but Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Yo, watch that movie. Just watch that movie. It has probably very little to do with what you're writing about, but just you see these two and they're two white guys, you know, okay, so whatever, but hey, it's cool. And they're doing shit. You know what I mean? What was that movie that Homegirl just came out with? And I can't remember. Now I can't remember a title on something and slim, something and slim. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of and once upon a time in Hollywood, Tarantino film, you want to watch, I can't remember their names, you want to watch Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio have kind of a, they're two protagonists running around doing shit. There's lots of two protagonist kind of plays and movies out there. And I would think of more plays, but I've been watching a lot of movies lately. Okay. Does that make sense? Lots and lots and lots of great models. Thank you. Yeah. Have fun. Have fun. Thanks, Michelle. All right, we've got one minute left. Do you want to do one more question? Great. All right. I'm going to say, Hey, Carol, are you unmuted? I hope I am. Am I? Carol, yeah. Is that Carol? I think it's Carol Carol. Turn on your video, Carol. We can't see you. You should get an ask. Is there a button for you to click? I asked you to turn on your video on the screen. Does it give you a pop up? Trying to pop, you know, it doesn't seem to be giving me any. That's okay. I'll try tomorrow. I've been here all week watching you, though. Figure all this out. Thank you for doing this again. Yeah. So life-saving in these days. Just, it's a sense of normalcy, even if it's just for a short period of time. Hope you're well. I'm glad you're here, Carol. I'm glad we're all here. It's great to see you, but I don't see you. So, but it's great to have you here. I did have a question. Yes, ma'am. I'm working on a scene in a play that I'm doing, and I wondered if you had any suggestions on how to get more action in scenes and less talking between characters, you know, like when it's non-physical activity situation, like in a hospital room or something, it's not like real active. But so it's a lot of talking, but I'm feeling it's too much talking. Right, right, right, right. You could, I mean, you could give the characters things to do. And that sounds silly, you know. I mean, I'm assuming one person is in a hospital room and in the bed. Right, right. Are they in a coma? No. Okay. Great. Great. Can they, can they do things like read a newspaper or can one character do the other one's nails? I mean, I don't know. Pick an act, you know, make a list, Carol, of 10, I've had you do this before, 10 stupid actions, right? Okay, 10 stupid things. Like, okay, one character could be, could be teaching the other character to throw darts. Mm-hmm. They could be watching a TV show and kind of, or a movie that they've seen before and they're imitating the movie. Yeah. Just think of stupid, you know, they could be knitting together. I do have, I actually, I did, I did do that and it didn't work. Now that you mentioned it, I have tried darts. Hey, I had them painting, but it's still, yeah, painting, yeah, I don't know, painting, painting is, you know, but, but drawing 10 stupid things. Okay, that's a great idea. You know, and then just look at your list and go, well, that one is kind of fun. Mm-hmm. Try it and try it. Yeah. The right ones will be the ones that delight you and the ones that actually dovetail into the action of your play. Mm-hmm. So it's not just an action. Right. It's an action that actually is going to move your story forward in some way. Great. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. I'm wondering, or I guess it's what's going on in the world today. You know, I'm kind of always used to myself as being the one who's encouraging someone else to talk about or to do something. And I find it hard to let myself talk about what's going on today. Like if I'm writing about it, I'm writing about it. I'm not writing about my feelings. But today, just because I was doing the fast writing today was the first time since all of this crazy that I did write about it. So I thank you for that. There you go. Love you. Take care. Keep healthy. Love you. You guys too. Thanks. Thanks too. We will get through this. We're going to, you know, and just again, stay inside, wash your hands, disinfect surfaces, you know, you know, all those things that they're already telling you. And but also keep doing your work because it can give you a feeling of joy, you know, and joy helps, you know, coming together in community. So I'm sure everyone's got at least two or three online communities that they go to, you know, I'm just so thrilled that I actually figured out how to ask this question. My achievement of the day, you don't know. But a lot of a lot of people are figuring out all these new technologies. My son is in there with the zoom chat. He's eight. I know. I know. It's kind of great. And I'm going to be a great grandmother. Wow. And that I never thought I'd say. Congratulations. And it's going to be, it's so far we know it's going to be identical baby boy twins. How exciting is that? So for the world to know. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. So lots of live for a lot to make a better world for. Make a better world as we all do, right? So as we say to everybody, we're your school, we're each other's squad, you know what I mean? Exactly. Okay. So we're, we can be like squad for each other and cheer each other on through this, you know, and have positive energy to give to other people. Whether it's whether it's a grocery store clerk or delivery person or our spouse or our kids or whatever, you know, we do come in contact with. Yeah. And you're the cheerleader in that. So thanks. I'll bring my pom-poms next time. Okay. Thanks. Bye. Thank you. We're going to be back tomorrow. We're going to be back tomorrow. We're going to be back tomorrow. And then we'll be back next week as well. So as a reminder, the signups are on publictheatre.org. It has a day for a link for every day and we'll release next week's links tomorrow at five. What time, you know, tomorrow and then you have to sign in by three. It's by three p.m. Yeah. And I'm so sorry. We release the links tomorrow at noon and then every day you can sign up until three p.m. And then I'll send you the link. Okay. Thanks everybody. Love you.