 Hi everybody, thank you for coming to our first seminar of this season. My name is Terri Stratton, Director of Education and Outreach of the Dramatists Guild. Welcome to DG Academy, Writing for Disability. I don't know if any of you were on Facebook today, but American Theater Magazine posted an article that one of our panelists, Christian wrote that was in the Atlantic. If you didn't get a copy, you can get one on the way out. But it was just interesting, the conversation that was started by they're posting that on Facebook. So it's a conversation that needs to happen frequently and I'm glad we're getting something started here at the Guild. If you've got a program, you'll see on the back is the schedule for all of the events through the rest of the year. We'll send out an e-blast when it's time to start reserving for each of the events. And if our online audience is watching, hello. Remember, you can send questions to our panel by tweeting the Dramatist Guild and at Dramatist Guild, hashtag new play. And send all your questions our way and we'll get them to the panel. If you could all put your phones on vibrate, we'd be happy for you to tweet during the event and take pictures. But please turn your flash off, no flash photography please. And if you have questions, please make sure you ask them loud enough that our online audience can hear you. Generally, our panels go about an hour of conversation and then we'll open it up to questions but that of course is completely up to our moderator who will be in charge once I'm finished. I'm happy to introduce our moderator, Howard Sherman, who is the Interim Director of Aligned Conclusion in the Arts. And he is also a wonderful blogger, he's an advocate, he's a Renaissance man of theater. You can read a short bio about him in your program and I highly suggest you go to his website, www.hesherman.com. There are a lot of things that you need to read, things that we're not aware of that happen every day and that we can make a difference if we just pay attention. So without further ado, welcome again and I'm going to turn it over to Howard Sherman. Thank you, Terry. Welcome for today's panel. Our guests in front of you are Christine Toy Johnson, who's an award winning writer, actor, filmmaker, and advocate for inclusion. Her work's included in the Library of Congress's Asian Pacific American Performing Arts Collection. She is on the board of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts, a founder of the Asian American Composers and Lyrices Project, an alumnus of the BMI Musical Theater Writing Workshop, and has been honored with the 2013 Rosetta Le Noir Award from Actors Equity and her works include book and lyrics for Barcelona and internal bleeding. Christopher Shin is the head of playwriting at the New School for Drama and the author of many plays, including What Didn't Happen, Dying City, Where Do We Live, and Four, and his work has been produced internationally with five world premieres at the Royal Court Theater in London. So welcome. In discussing writing for disability, I think the first question is simply, are you or when did you become conscious of creating characters that had disability or disabilities as opposed instead of just thinking about, oh, everybody's the same, everybody's got no issues, everybody is seemingly without disability. You wanna start? I mean, I think my first disabled character was in a play called Where Do We Live in 2002, and that was really based on my experience. I had a neighbor who had lost his leg in a car accident and I just sort of noticed how his life changed. After that, she didn't know at the time that it was a car accident, but he would come and he'd asked me to go buy him cigarettes and stuff, and eventually I felt I could ask him how he lost his leg and he told me the story, we began talking, and I didn't make a conscious decision to write to basic character on him so much as I just happened to do it. It just sort of came out of my unconscious. I was very close to my 20s to John Beluso, who was disabled, and I think I knew, I understood that disability was real. John was a playwright. A playwright, for those who don't know, a wonderful playwright and a disabled playwright. So I always had a certain consciousness about disability, I think just from being so close to him, and so perhaps when I got to know my neighbor a little bit, that was in my mind, that he was a person who had a disability, but I sort of understood some of the broader issues around being disabled. And then I didn't do it again, I'd write a disabled character till I wrote a play called Teddy Ferrara, which was done in February 2013 at the Goodman, and that was a character very loosely based on John, from when we were much younger. So again, both characters that I wrote who are disabled characters came out of my own direct experience as a citizen and a neighbor on one hand, then as a friend on the other. Christine, if I was told correctly, you're at work or just recently did a piece where you changed a character to specify that they had a disability? I wrote a play, you mentioned internal bleeding. It was inspired by a story I saw in the news about a Korean American man who was an Olympic-bound gymnast and his parents were very, very against it. They wanted him to be a doctor, they were adamantly against him being a gymnast. He ended up having an accident that made him quadriplegic. And so, and but then, years later, he became a doctor of physical rehab. Yeah, and so then he had actually become estranged from his parents because of the gymnastics and the accident because they said, you would disobeyed us. And so, this is what happened. Yeah, and so he later became a doctor of physical rehab and was working with the, I believe it was, it led, went here with the Atlanta Olympics. I should know this, it was a while ago that I read this. The Atlanta Olympics, I'm guessing, 96. Somewhere in there. So it's not that, I think it was actually Beijing where he started working with the team. But he became really very vocal about his work and how he was able to help gymnasts actually in their injuries because of his experience. So I saw that on the news. I literally saw an interview with him on News 4 New York and I thought, that is so interesting. I wanna, it just stuck with me. And I, so I wrote this play and I, the character went back and forth in time between being at the top of his athleticism and when he was in high school to the time when he first ceases his mother after being estranged for a number of years. So the way I wrote it at first, because it was going back and forth in time, I think in the back of my head it was, there was an assumption that it would be, it would be played by an actor without a disability because of going back and forth in time. And we had a couple of different readings of it and because of my work in advocacy, I have had the good fortune to know a lot of people who are talking about disability and who are bringing ideas up that a lot of us may not have had before. And so, especially in talking to our colleague, Anita Hollander, we were discussing the idea of what would happen if instead of assuming that the character should be played by an actor without a disability to do it the other way around. And so the following discussion ensued where I did not wanna have somebody else said, well, what if you had two different actors? And I said, I do not want to send the message that the person becomes another person, a separate person after an injury. But it might be seen as a metaphor. Yeah, I did. To do a rewrite that would make it clear that it was for an actor with a disability and how, and so that really was rewriting the past scenes in a way that would be theatricalized. Well, but that brings a question. When you write a character with a disability, you may be creating a set of staging challenges and the disability in and of itself is not a singular term. We've both, in both cases, you've been talking about mobility disabilities. It could be someone who is deaf and hard of hearing. It could be someone who is blind. They can be limb difference. There's any number of things, but when you make the decision, are you consciously thinking about what it will take to stage the show? Well, sure. I mean, in this case, I had somebody in mind. I had Daryl Chill Mitchell in mind and I was able to actually do a workshop with him here in town. We brought him in and it was easy. It was really, really super easy once I kind of got the, I could see it, once I could envision how to rewrite it, it was actually easy. Chris, I mean, as you're writing, do you think about the staging or is that gonna be the director's issue? I mean, I think it's always fun to give a director a challenge and a designer a challenge. I guess I think about it a little bit. For Teddy Foro, we needed to have a wheelchair accessible set. And that's not a big deal really, but it's something a designer doesn't maybe pick up with every single set that they design. But I didn't think twice about it. And where do we live? We didn't have a disabled actor for that. We looked for one, but we didn't find an amputee African-American actor for that part. So we didn't have to think about design in any specific way. I think the thing I think most about is, can I convince the theater that it's essential to find a disabled actor? Or is that gonna be something like, well, we'll try, but it's no big deal if we can't do it? That's sort of the thing I think most about. I always think design challenges are probably pretty simple in the end, but casting can be challenging. I think in my experience, even leaving disability aside, it can be hard to get casting directors to think outside of who they already know and theaters have actors that they like and want to keep bringing in. So that can be a challenging discussion if you say, look, we have to really do this the right way. Chris, you wrote a really terrific essay for the Atlantic that ran this summer called Disability is Not a Metaphor. And without going through everything that it said, you made some very clear points about your belief for the opportunities for artists with disabilities to portray their own lived experience. And I'm wondering if you could just talk a little about what motivated the article. It's actually a really good question, what specifically motivated it? Because it's something I thought a lot about and I think I'd talked with friends about and when various things would come up and around issues of casting and disability. I think maybe there was just, there were a lot of movies and TV shows coming out. I'm not below the knee amputee as a part of my cancer treatment. I think maybe it was the thing that really sparked it was watching Oranges the New Black and seeing that they gave, I forget, I stopped watching the show, but I forget there's jail or whatever his name is. They gave him like a CGI amputation. So he had, you know, you saw his residual men and I knew he wasn't an amputee and I thought it really bugged me, you know, that it was so realistic looking, which it was, but there was something also kind of off about it, having amputation myself, I kind of looked at it and thought, well, it's not quite right. And it just annoyed me, you know, that was like, what's the special effects are gonna allow like movies to get even better at having able-bodied actors play disabled characters? So I think it was that particular TV show that sparked me and I thought, I'm gonna write about this and make the case that we gotta have disabled actors playing these parts. From the moment you wrote the article, as the article keeps being rediscovered and suddenly flaring up again on Facebook or through Twitter, as it did today, thanks to American Theater Magazine posting it, there are people who say yes and there are people who say actors aren't who they play and so why should an actor have to have the disability that they play playing a role, whether they are blind, hard of hearing, mobility, what have you, mobility, whatever it is, that that's just a technical skill and why should anything be favored? You've both spoken about wanting to write specifically for actors with disabilities, so what do you say to the people who say this is not an issue, this shouldn't be an issue? Daniel Day-Lewis in my left foot or Gary Sinise digitally in Forrest Gump, the list is legion. Well, you know, I've been talking about this question for a really long time as it pertains to actors of color and actors with disabilities and my first thought always is there were a level playing field and every actor of every ethnicity, disability, non-disability, everyone had an equal shot at playing all roles that are not necessarily culturally specific or disability specific, we would have a whole different conversation. So we have to start with that, knowing that we're all in this position as, I'm an actor too, for fighting to play ourselves, which is another, so that's that part of the equation of the idea that actors with disabilities are not getting a shot to play people of America, you know, so then for them to have to also fight just to play a person with a disability is an added layer of a conversation that we cannot ignore, does that make sense? And just to add on to that, my personal experience with this particular play, as a writer, I have now been informed by the way Darrell played the role, what his insight was, what his, what depth he brought, what his personal experience, what he shared with me and the other actors, so from just a writer's standpoint, the play is better because I've been listening to people that have disabilities that are similar to the character that I wrote. Just to pursue something that you said, you equated opportunities for actors of color and actors with disabilities and I'm putting up a question that's part of our daily life working at Inclusion in the Arts, but is that a fair equivalency? Well, it's probably not, but the only reason I put it together is because the communities are having similar fights out there, so it's not to say. Not fights with each other. No, no, but really with being represented on stage, not only by the portrayals of characters, but how they're represented with authenticity. So I guess my answer is no, I hate the idea of lumping everybody together, but what we share is the fact that we are still fighting for a place at the table. So that's where that comes from for me, the comparison, it's not to say that we're all alike, it's just to say that we share that experience of fighting for a place at the table. Chris, whether it's disability, whether it's roles for artists of color, do you think about that in your writing? Do you specify the race of a character? Do you specify even if disability is in no way the focus of the show? Do you stop and say, this person could be that because the tendency seems to be that unless an author specifies a race or specifies a disability, there's a tendency not to stop for people to not stop and say, well, why couldn't they be? So is that something you think authors have to be thinking about? I mean, I have a kind of complicated answer to that, but I'll get to it in a second, but I am curious when, because I don't actually know the answer to this, when people, you said that you didn't, that people make the comparison between disabled actors and actors of color, but some people say that's an unfair comparison. I only asked if it was fair. I didn't say that it wasn't fair. You said it may not be the same. In what way isn't it the same? I'm just curious. Well, I guess I don't like the idea of putting us all and that those that feel marginalized, those that feel disenfranchised. And yet, because we're different, we have different concerns and we have different issues and we're dealing with a lot of different things from society and perceptions that people have of us and each other. So that's why I don't feel comfortable putting a blanket that's... Well, there is, I mean, I tend not to contribute when I'm moderating, but I just point out that we are born as who we are and if our ethnic heritage, whatever it is, influences our genetic makeup and our appearance, at least our skin color, whatever that may be, whatever shade we may be. I could walk off a curb leaving this building and become a person with a disability. So there is an interesting difference. Does that make people, able-bodied actors think, I can imagine, because I can imagine getting hit by a car, therefore I can imagine being disabled, but I'm white and I can't imagine being black as I could never become black? Well, as a society, we've moved towards the idea that it's not appropriate for people to play other ethnicities. That black face, yellow face, red face, all of these things which were part of a performance tradition are indefensible as tradition because it is denying opportunities for artists of that heritage portray themselves. So the question is, does the same hold true for people with disability, again, to the point that Christine made, because until such time as people will look at a script that in no way specifies race and in no way specifies if there's disability or not, stops to say, could this role be African American, Asian American, Latino American, blind, deaf or hard of hearing, mobility, disability, and so on, until all of those options are always on the table, it's hard to say that you shouldn't give, at least do your best to give the opportunity, an equal opportunity for people to play a role that's part of their lived experience. So I wanna hear your complicated answer. Yeah, and I asked that question just because I remember there was some article on RogerEvert.com, I forget who wrote it, but it was somebody making the argument that disabled actors should play disabled characters and he used the black face comparison. That's a British critic whose name, I'm gonna forget his first name is Scott, I believe wrote that piece. Well, anyway, people in the comments got really mad that somebody would say an able-bodied actor playing a disabled character is like a white actor and black face, so I left that out of my article because I saw that people couldn't accept that, but to me it's obviously the same thing. And the reason is we all know that if the purpose of art is in part representational to represent an experience, but we know that a black person knows what it's like to be black better than a white person does. I mean, you can't argue to that. And I mean, any kind of argument you make in that direction would be absolutely tortured and absurd. So of course, a disabled person would just know more what it's like to be disabled than an able-bodied person. I mean, it's just obvious. So I find it interesting though that people have a hard time with the black face comparison. I wonder if it is because an able-bodied person thinks, well, I can imagine being disabled or I hurt my leg once and I had imagined, multiply by 10, what that would be like or maybe there's some kind of bizarre thing where people exaggerate or use their imagination for minor injuries they've had to think they could represent a disability. But I will now find the answer to your question. I would say in the older, my older place, I always specified race every single time because I felt like the experience of your ethnic background and how you experience that in this culture is so important that I would always write the character with that in mind. And then I noticed with this play Teddy Ferrara, when it's about undergraduates at Rutgers-like University and I noticed in my work with some younger students that the students of color no longer seem that different than the white students in the way they interacted, the way they spoke, their cultural references. There was so much integration in their social groupings. When I was in school now 20 years ago, things were very different. I mean, race really seemed to matter. Socializing was highly segregated. So actually in Teddy Ferrara, I didn't specify, I did specify that this one character was disabled but I didn't specify race and actually we had a very diverse cast. Does the script suggest that it should be a diverse cast? It doesn't. And basically what I say to any director is look, if you cast a person of color, their experience as a person of color has to be integrated into the part. You can't ignore it. So it's not that I'm saying it doesn't matter but what I would say to any director is it matters who you cast and then integrating their experiences as a person of color with the character that I wrote. And you have to find a way to make it work. I think disability is a little different because I think being disabled unlike being a person of color is still very sexual part in a significant way. And I'm not saying that being a person of color isn't still significant but like in this one play with younger people in my experience, as I said, working with some younger people, it didn't seem that race was as significant as it was 20 years ago. That said, I still think you could cast disabled actors in some of the parts of my plays where I don't specify if the character's able-bodied or disabled and it's sort of the same argument I just gave about race. As long as you can integrate the experience that the actor brings as who he or she is into the character, then it's fine. It will, I think, be much more rare only because I think having a significant disability really does set you apart. And I imagine that certainly the two disabled characters that I wrote, that was a big part of their stories in those plays was what the hell it's like to be a disabled person in a world that is built for able-bodied people. So I think it'd be very exciting to see some of my plays cast with disabled actors and I would be curious to see if the disabled actors were able to really bring their own experience as disabled people into these parts in a way that it felt compelling and realistic and convincing. I think that's so interesting what you said about encouraging a director to have an actor bring their personal experience. If, have you had that happen or how has it manifested itself? Well, in Teddy Ferrara, I guess I imagined most of the characters as white and we ended up with an incredibly racially diverse cast. And you know, really, I think what the director of in cabinet, he's a wonderful director who emphasizes honesty and truth and bringing yourself to the part. And he just really made a space for them to be who they were. And they did it, you know, and I think, you know, casting is such a unique kind of process where really the soul of the actor, whatever character you wrote, it's being met by the soul of the actor and whoever they happen to be is going to significantly impact the story that you're telling. I think in that instance of that production, it worked really well because the director encouraged that kind of personalization. That's fantastic. I definitely write in my character descriptions when I'm being culturally specific or when it is open to actors of all ethnicities. But I definitely will start writing also when it could be with a person with or without a disability because I think that is important for us to do. I think that the default has always been an able-bodied quotation person. So I think that the more we as writers start putting that in our stage directions because I think it will only help to open people's minds as to when they're reading the play and when it gets to production and they're casting it. Because you know how it is, also first production often dictates the rest of the production. So in the first production, you have a person with a disability playing your character, whether it's written specifically for a character is disabled or not, there's something really important about that decision and that choice. Do you think producers, and by producers, I mean anybody from a not-for-profit artistic director to a commercial Broadway producer, do you think there is any resistance to portrayals of disability on stage? Or do you think? Yes. Yes. I don't even need to go on. So can you say a little bit about either how you perceive that or how that's been expressed to you? Let me think about how I can say this. Without naming names. Yeah. You want me to go for... You go for it. I remember when John died at his memorial, I spoke about his work and I felt like it was really because I knew the theater community would be gathered. Everybody liked John, he was very sweet, a warm person, a very lovable, funny. But he'd never got a major in New York City production and a major in non-profit. And I remember thinking, if you're telling me that John Beluso's plays weren't as good as every play I've seen in New York City non-profit theaters the last 10 years, you're just deranged. I mean, so obviously not true. John was an extraordinarily gifted writer who wrote compelling, complex, interesting work. So obviously the reason his work didn't get done at major non-profits was they didn't want to put on plays about disability. And I know that people in power never think that way. They never do. They think this isn't a good play or they think my audience won't like it. There's always the two things. Somebody rejects my play, they say either I don't think it's a good play or I don't think my audience can handle it. That's always what they say. They never say I can't deal with what you're representing because I think it's just human nature to not think that way. People don't think, oh, I'm scared, I can't deal with this. They think it's bad or people won't like it. So to me the question is always, how the heck do you get people to get past their resistances and their fears because they're not aware of that. It is fear. It is fear. And it's also fear of casting. I think that people will think, well, how am I gonna cast your play? And so that is a big roadblock. I am also part of the elected leadership at Actors Equity and the co-chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Committee there. And part of one of the things I do is look at the language that we negotiate into the rule book about non-traditional casting and inclusive casting. And so we are trying to expand the language to make it clear that we also mean actors with disabilities in terms of who we would like to make sure being given open universal access. And what I've found, this is why I've been hesitating because I can't really say specifics but what I can say I believe, I'll find out, is that that language has met resistance on a very basic level based I believe on fear of what that could mean. What does it really mean? If I'm speaking at, say I'm a producer of a theater, whatever contract it is, what does it mean if I agree to that language which says I need to make sure my auditions are accessible that I have interpreters available if an actor who needs one voices the desire to be at the audition, if I need scripts to be prepared in a certain way for people who've vision impaired people. So you can see the wheels turning when you give them this basic language that at the core philosophically is about universal access and giving everyone a fair shot at the very, the first level, the audition level. And you see them going, what does that mean to me? Well, how is that going to make my life harder? Am I going to be able to do that? What if I don't? Am I gonna get fined? What's gonna happen? Am I gonna be looked at as someone who doesn't want to, who is not inclusive? And so fear is the bottom line. It's a fear of how can I do that? What if I have an actor with a disability? How am I going to make sure that theater is accessible? Or am I going to have some kind of problem that I can't afford to deal with? I wanna take a moment. There was a question that came in from online just actually for a clarification that in our conversation we may have somehow suggested that race is a disability. And that was not our intention. I think we were talking about two groups, very broadly defined groups, both of whom historically have not been included who are both seeking greater inclusion. And there is no shame in being a person with a disability but we're not suggesting that they are equated. It's just that they're both groups with an interest in being treated as equal to what has historically been the mainstream. So for anybody who felt we may have blurred that, I just wanted to clarify that. No, that's why I said that I was not comfortable. It came on a blue card. That's why I said I wasn't comfortable with lumping us all together but that we do have a shared experience of being excluded. I think I'm the one who says the same thing. I didn't mean that being a person of color is a disability. I think it's the same thing in terms of a person representing their own experience having more authority than someone outside that experience. That's all I meant by that. So back to the issue of where it's fear. Some of it's fear, fear is often born of lack of knowledge, lack of understanding, lack of experience. Certainly that's something we work on at inclusion. I'm not here to do commercials repeatedly for inclusion in the arts but that we will go in and talk to people, we'll talk to cast, we'll talk to theaters. But many theaters themselves, many rehearsal spaces, many office buildings, while newer buildings have had to be built up to ADA code, there are literal barriers for not just actors, for artists, for employees. Audience members. And audience members to function. And so I think that's part of the concern is people go, gosh, my rehearsal space isn't accessible and my theater isn't in the financial position to suddenly jackhammer away and those steps and make them a ramp and so on. Is the physicality of the spaces that in which we do our business in theater deterrent to more fully including artists with disabilities? Must be, yeah. Yes. Yeah, okay, from the audience, yeah. I mean, have you experienced it, Chris, at all since some? Well, I mean, when you were talking, I was remembering, I won't say which theater but John Belusso, talking about a theater he was hoping would do one of his plays and he just said one day to me, I can't even get into this theater. How can I expect them to do one of my plays? And I think that absolutely, it changes hard and if a theater is gonna become fully accessible, they have to admit that there's a problem and that's... We had a lot of learning. John worked at the O'Neill when I was the executive director there and there was definitely learning for the O'Neill to have a playwright who was part of the experience in what is a partially rural, somewhat rustic physical plant and while there were absolutely existing ramps for ramps and access for the newer buildings, there were definitely challenges as well. So it's, I mean, that is part of it, is what does it mean if you own your own facility or even as we talk about Broadway theaters where sometimes you walk in the stage door and there's two steps to get up to stage level and dressing rooms are often two, three, four flights of stairs up. It's tricky. So in terms of talking, I will stop for a moment and just say two people who are watching or listening online or just watching the Twitter feed, I will take questions as they come along, not just comments. So please feel free to send them and to the folks here, please pass them up to me. If you were counseling playwrights, perhaps playwrights who have never thought about including someone with a disability or many characters with disability in their plays, are there things that you might say, let's say how might you help dissipate their fear? Well, first off, I would tell them to go out more and meet people because, you know, really, I mean, we write about the world we're in, hopefully, and not to say that everyone has to write about the world I'm in or the people that I meet, but I do feel like part of the joy of writing is that you get to look in the window of some place that you haven't seen and meet people that are outside your experience and explore the stories that are there. So I think you know what, just speaking from the experience of organizing the workshop with Darryl, there were challenges. There were. There were challenges from making sure we could afford to fly him first class so that he could get into the seat. I went over to the Millennium Hotel, I think the Millennium Hotel, that's where this was a workshop that was funded by some grants that I applied for and also co-sponsored by Equity and I think the Millennium is their hotel, but I went over there specifically to say, do you have, I need a wheelchair accessible room. But that brings us back to the physical, not the physical limitations in any way of an individual, but the physical limitations of a space. I'm saying how do you, what would you say beyond saying get out and meet more people with more experiences? No, it's true, but in terms of are there, how do you move past people's limitations of imagination or of understanding where they may have never before thought they could or just thought about writing, not even a question of a limitation, could just think about writing characters with disabilities? I hate to say anything that would imply that I would be sitting in judgment of another writer and what they should be writing. So again, I didn't mean to be as glib as I might've sounded, but what I would say is that just talking to each other and sharing our own experiences is enlightening. So I love hearing your stories and how your experiences, it educates me. And hopefully it would do the same if there was another writer that I was in a conversation with that was expressed fear about it or something that I would be able to tell my experience. So I guess that's how I would approach somebody. Yeah, I meant to guess why it's so important that disabled people be more front and center and disabled actors be cast. You only really learn about something. Again, somebody who has gone through the experience tells you this is what it's like. I mean, there's so many writers who've written disabled characters that they're not disabled and they don't seem to really know any disabled people because the characters aren't very convincing. So I don't think writers have any trouble writing disabled characters. They have trouble writing really convincing ones and truthful ones. And I don't really know how you do anything to make people see things more realistically other than you just keep trying to tell your story and whoever is willing to listen to you, you engage them in conversation and a dialogue takes place. Couple of questions from our online audience. Someone asks, I've written a character with a disability in this case, a wheelchair user. The director wants to cast an able-bodied actor in this person's words. What can I do? I know. What rights does a playwright have to say, to insist that a role that is written for a character with a disability must be cast with a person with that disability? I think that we have casting authority, right? You have approval. Yeah. It depends on, I don't know what, but the kind of production it is. When we are in the guild, we should probably know that. We do. Well, that's a very interesting, I would want to know what the relationship the writer had with the director because hopefully they would be able to, their collaborators on this production. So hopefully they would be able to, the writer would be able to express how important it is to him or her that they do everything they can to cast an actor with a disability. What do you think? Yeah, I think it all depends on the situation. I remember early play of mine, we were casting the off Broadway production of four, Worth Street Theater, which doesn't exist anymore, and a director named Jeff Cohen. Many people don't really know him. He hasn't done too much recently, I don't think. But there's a character, he's a half white, half Latino guy. And I love this actor named Armando Riescu, people know now, who had done the play in Chicago in 1999 at About Faiths. And Jeff wanted, he thought Armando was too actory, and he had this non-professional actor who he thought was more street, more like real. And I disagree, and I thought this untrained actor was just didn't have the stage dynamism that was required for the role. And I just said, no, I refused. And Jeff said, well, then I'm pulling the play. And I said, okay, I guess he was bluffing in the end. But I left that meeting thinking, well, that was it. And it was terrible. I felt really bad. And then a couple of days later, he called me. He said, okay, we'll cast Armando. And it could have gone either way. And that was my first big thing, because I transferred to the Manhattan Theater Club and kind of began my New York career. So I understand the fear when the director is saying, I refuse, and you're a young writer, what do you do? You're a writer like me. Hopefully, by now I can just fight and say, I'll pull my play if you don't cast a disabled actor. But when you're younger, I know it's hard. Sometimes you gotta make compromises. But hopefully if you have a director you can communicate with, you can make your case. And hopefully you'll be able to get to the person who asked the question. I hope you succeed. And it's probably not dissimilar to some of the experiences we hear about in Los Angeles. I won't be specific about the industry. Where someone will write a script and it's like, well, it's great, but could you make them something else? Could you make it set in the future? Could you set it in the past? Can you do this? Can you do that? And it is different, as the Guild would be the first to say, the relationship of a writer for the theater versus a writer for television or film, and their fundamental ownership of the material gives a writer the right to say no in theater. This is a question I wish I could pull out a little more from the person to understand it, but I'll read it and we'll see what we make of it. How can we as playwrights create a character with disability that makes audiences aware? And I don't know whether that means aware of just people with disabilities, of any particular aspects of that nature of disability, but let's take a play, for example, like Children of Lesser God, which not only was specifically written for a deaf actress to sign, but it was actually about the politics of signing. It was must people do whatever they are able to enter the hearing world, or not as a political statement, but even as just a personal choice, the refusal to learn to lip read or something like that. So I choose to say this question is about must writing for characters with disability be about disability and about the place of disability in the wider world. I think it has more to do with writing the character with authenticity. And like you said, truthfulness. Again, I don't know the various layers of that question, but that's my first response. I don't know what it means to making people more aware in this person's mind. And they're writing in on Twitter, so we understand the limitations there as well. But that's my first response, authenticity. I think that's good. Aware in the broadest sense, aware of the disability or aware of the reality of being disabled. I don't know if they're talking about the character or the actor or both. I think it's more, I always feel like when it's a non-disabled actor, everybody always knows that. They always find ways to tell you that. So you know you're watching something safe in that sense. It's not real. But we didn't do anything. We had an actor with cerebral palsy in my play, Teddy Flora. I don't think we announced that or told anybody that. So for all they knew, he was just an able-bodied actor in a wheelchair. But hopefully, what you're talking about, the authenticity, the fact that it was a disabled actor, came through somehow, even if it was never announced, or we never made the audience aware. But also the way that you wrote your character so that it came from a place of understanding as opposed to sort of applied ideas, I guess, is what I'm saying. Yeah. Well, let me ask you a question. And this is, again, something you touched on in your essay. But since you bring it up, when an actor without a disability plays a disabled role, when the curtain call comes, if you've watched somebody for two, two and a half hours and then they've done a superb job playing a character who's a wheelchair user, but then at the curtain call, the curtain opens and they're standing there, do you think that's a message? I mean, look, in a certain way, if it's an able-bodied actor, it's unavoidable. I mean, what I just find upsetting is the sort of primitive response of audiences. Eddie Redman is playing Stephen Hawking in this new Stephen Hawking movie. Eddie is my friend. He was in one of my plays. He's a great actor. I'm sure it'll be a great performance. But obviously, he's able-bodied. And I saw that Buzzfeed, which is supposedly kind of a progressive fun pop culture news site, they had this weird article. And Buzzfeed articles often are kind of image-based. And the article was like, can you believe this, play this? And it was like a picture of Eddie looking beautiful and hot, and then a picture of him as Stephen Hawking looking like Stephen Hawking. And it was like, oh my god, OMG, exclamation points. And it was like, they did it eight times of these pictures juxtaposed. And I was like, this is so primitive, so awful. But I was like, this is sort of the unconscious of what it is. When an able-bodied actor plays a disabled role, there is something you just seem to, you know, you can't get past, no matter how kind of tactful you are and mature you are about it. There's some element where the audience is like, oh my god, that's so amazing that that able-bodied person could look like that. And it's awful. And I wish there were some way to critique it or make a dent in it. But it just sort of seems like fundamental to, I remember one of the first American Horror Story images was like, is it Sarah Paulson playing the conjoined twins? It was like, Ryan Murphy sharing like, look at this, you know? And you know, it was a CGI. And it was like, oh, you know, there was just like this excitement that an able-bodied person could be turned into something disabled. It just sort of seems to be like what it is. Well, that character, I've looked at those pictures and said this is not actually conjoined twins. This is a person with two heads. And it owes more to a bad horror movie with Rosie Greer and Ray Milland from the 70s than it does to biology. But it remains to be seen because there are characters with disabilities in American Horror Story who are digitally created. And there are other actors in American Horror Story who are actors with disabilities. And of course, the interesting question will be, will the audience assume everyone's a trick? Will they understand? And should they or shouldn't they is an interesting question. Because then to go back to the person who asked of making people aware, how do you make people aware? If they can't tell what is life and what is bits on a screen? Well, I think this goes back to the question of how can media images impact perceptions we have of each other and of ourselves? Really, because if we kept getting fed the stuff that you're talking about, and it's for a large part of our population, they might not be meeting other people with disabilities. So maybe their only exposure is stuff like Buzzfeed. And so the images that those horrible, distorted images can perpetuate the problem. And so I can't remember what your original question was. I'm not sure I even posted entirely just a question. But just the challenge of perceiving, do we need to understand when a performer is actually a performer with a disability or when it's been faked in some way, so perhaps do we need to appreciate the performance differently according to whether it's a trick or it's the person's own physical self? Maybe it's a rhetorical question. You don't have to answer it. I'll go to another question on the card, because we want to be fair. And I do need to say to the people here, if you have questions, by all means, we'll bring them up. I'm going to do one from the card, so all of you get ready. What the question is, are there things that theaters could be doing to encourage theater artists with disabilities and indeed audience with disabilities that you don't see being done? Well, sure. Sure. I mean, it's more that they're not going to. Of course, there are things they could be doing. Will they? I mean, it's not a thing people want to think about. Really, in my experience, so I don't see theaters doing that. The question supposes that if they didn't say, what should they be doing? What should they be doing? I feel like, well, there are three things that come to the top of my head. First of all, the theater has to be accessible. So there's that. And I know we're not only talking about people that have mobility issues. But let's say it needs to be accessible, meaning a lot of different things. And then I think it's programming and it's casting. So programming, meaning do some plays that have some characters with disabilities or that talk about disability, that it's part of what the story is about. Don't be afraid of that. And casting actors with disabilities in those roles with disabilities. And also, I've come to not really like the word non-traditionally because I feel like it shouldn't be not traditional. Because traditional suggests that there's something that is the norm and everything else is off of the norm. So that's specific. Not specific. OK, thank you. So there's that. I believe that those are three primary things that theaters could be doing. Yeah, I'm not a cynical person in certain ways. And in other ways, I am. And I think, well, producers already do plays about disabled people. They're just rimmed by able-bodied people and they're played by able-bodied people. They already think they are. Producers are basically conservative. They're basically afraid of putting anything that will upset anybody on the stage. Because they think people don't want that. So it's like, well, what can theaters do? Well, they can change how they think about reality. How they can reformulate their theory of human nature. They can completely upend how they think about art and audience. That's sort of what they have to do. Are they going to do that? Probably not because they're conservative and they have sort of a model they think is working. And they're sort of going to keep it going in that direction. In my experience, that's sort of how things go. But people who disagree with that can speak up and say, hey, I disagree. I have a different perspective. And I'm going to advocate for that. I'm going to pressure you. And I think that's the only way anything ever changes. So to me, that question, the way it was asked, it was as if the theater is already new or could know very easily what they could do differently. Whereas to me, the whole problem is they don't think they're doing anything wrong. They don't think there's anything to be done. They think they probably already think they're doing a lot as it is. I was at a panel on Friday evening that was run by the NPR host, Michelle Martin. And I believe it was Chris D. as the playwright who they were talking. They were focusing very much on Broadway. But I believe it was Chris who said, you know, if the people putting shows in those theaters would just walk outside the theaters and look at the people on the street outside them and figure out how to put people who look like that on the stages, they would expand actually attendance and sales and interest because there is greater diversity on the streets there there is in our theaters. Do we have any questions here? Oh, we've got a bunch. Terrific. OK, we'll start with you because you're closest. I had an interesting experience with my first play. It was produced in Texas. And I was emailing the director back and forth. At a certain point he said he wanted to cast the Russian-speaking mailman in the play with a deaf actor. And this was my first play. I was really new to all of this. And I was kind of shocked. And I thought, who is this crazy O2R director? And long story short, he explained he had a limited casting pool. And he thought, this was the best actor. I agreed to it. I rewrote the play so that the main character would speak what the mailman was signing. I went for the production. I felt like such a schmuck that I was so narrow-minded to begin with. It was so moving to see the tapestry on stage include a deaf person. And then the added benefit, which I wanted to ask you to comment on, was they had an entire, the final performance was an entire audience of deaf people from Houston who came and they signed the entire play for them. So suddenly there was an entire audience of people who never would have seen the play, if not for this deaf actor. So it really opened up my eyes and my mind. And I'm hoping you'll comment on the audience portion. And it's an opportunity to expand the audience. Well, I think that's fantastic. What a great story. And at Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts, there has been a lot of work towards expanding the ability for different audiences to experience Broadway shows. Howard can speak to that, I'm sure. Probably not as articulately as the staff, because they've been there longer. But absolutely, I mean, we do see things, whether it is sign-interpreted performances, whether it's open captioned performances, whether it's performances, they sometimes call them relaxed performances, but performances for children or adults with autism. I think Christine is speaking specifically to the eye caption and the descriptive devices. Yeah, so it is a way, there are ways to reach out to audiences that might not have been given the opportunity to really experience plays. And it's amazing, it's fantastic. Yes. I don't want to talk about my own work. I just wanted to say you're making me rethink Tennessee Williams. I mean, has anyone actually disabled ever played Laura? Me. Oh my God, terrific. And lots of other women too, but mostly not. Not in my, I haven't seen that. Yeah, but it's interesting, you know, Chris and I had talked about this actually as you were working on your article. You know, in 2014, the number of disabled characters portrayed on Broadway is significant from Curious Incident to the Dog of the Night Time, Richard III, Glassman Ashery, we've got the Elephant Man coming in. I mean, there's really about seven or eight, the Cripple of Inishmon, and so on. And of course, so there is portrayal of disability, but because of the perceived or actual economic needs of Broadway, because those are leading roles in most cases, they go to stars because stars have to drive sales and awareness, and so there's the chicken or the egg thing of we have very few stars with disabilities. Marley Matlin became a star because they knew when they did Children of a Lesser God, they needed to find a young deaf woman to play that role. You know, Robert David Hall, who's spent years now on the original CSI playing the coroner, is a double amputee, but it's more the fluke when someone is recognized or gains fame for a disability and until we, so how does it come? Until the opportunities are created and people can become famous, then they can't play roles, certainly on Broadway, that are with disability. Somebody raising their hand as if they want to speak, now do this. No, I think this may, I have thoughts on that, but I think this, my question may point to that, maybe, I don't know, but on top of my head, I can think of a handful of Asian-American theater companies in New York. Natco, Pan-Asian Rep, 2G, Mai, Young-G Lee. There's Intar, which has been around for several years, where Jose Rivera credits people to play rights. North Theater, which focuses on Middle Eastern work. I can't, you know, and these are places, these are petri dishes, these are spaces where actors of those particular ethnicities and populations and theater artists of those specific ethnicities can go, and a lot of these companies have writers groups where they're developing talent, future talent of actors, writers. I cannot think of a single theater dedicated to disability that does that. Well, we can name one that is theater-breaking through barriers. That's not part and parcel of their mission. No. I mean, they're great, I've worked with them, they're fantastic, but that is not, you know, there isn't a place where people are nurtured and the talent pool is developed and grown. And I feel too, but without, I mean, because there the work gets made. There the work gets made, and people are committed to doing the work. So I think there's a disconnect, because it's fine to say, you should cast these people, but where's the work? Where's the work by that community? And I feel without the space, the community can't grow. You know, we need allies, such as yourselves, because I feel disability is an incredibly integrated community. It crosses, you know, it crosses all cultural, ethnic, economic balance, right? So, but without the space where we can say, where, how are we promoting developing disabled actors, playwrights, et cetera? Here's a place for them. This is where we're gonna start. Back in the day, they did it with the Negro Ensemble. You know, all these, Sidney Poitier didn't start as a movie star. James Earl Jones didn't start as a movie star. I think theater still predicts what television and Hollywood takes, you know? It still is fertile ground for all that stuff. But I think there's a big disconnect, because where is that space for that app? And where's the cohesion? As far as where disability is concerned? Well, I would say all of the theaters that you have mentioned were started by theater artists who needed to find that space. So they started them. So I guess my question is, where is the leadership from, so start a company? You know what I mean? I'm not saying that globally too, because I start things all the time. Like the original, like, I don't care where you say, I'm gonna start my own company. But I guess then the larger question is, those companies, some of those companies have been around for decades. And so why, what is different about the culture surrounding disability that that didn't happen? I can't answer that question. I don't know. I think you need a historian, because I don't know. That's an interesting question. I mean, I think as we saw, I mean, certainly, if you look to say, the Nirong Tzamo Company, which grew out of, not directly grew out of, but certainly came after the strong rise of the civil rights movement. It, you know, was it that a unique group of individuals came together to build something? But what's also interesting about some of the culturally specific theater companies, and this is a question that is legitimate in speaking, you know, about racial diversity, or even the conversation we're having about disability, many culturally specific theater companies have gone under more recently. More of them have been going out of business. And the question is, to do a corollary to what you were saying, is it that those specific companies can't sustain because they've been co-opted by advances in diversity by the so-called mainstream companies? And so either is it that we need artists with disabilities or deep commitments to depicting disability to band together and create a company? Or is it about breaking down the barriers at the established companies rather than starting on their own? Because once upon a time, those companies were niches and they made a case for something. And that's not to discount the validity or value of any of the companies that remain. But it's sort of an interesting question. It is now, is it about creating something of your own separate because it's not being represented? Or is it lobbying and advocating even more strongly within the existing companies for representation? I think it has to be both. I really do. And I don't know the answer to your question, but... I don't think there's any easy answer. Yeah, I'm asking it rhetorically as well. It's a question that's not, you know... Yeah. We may not be asking the right question. I'm not here, but I mean, just in general, you know. Yeah. This is a question that's really not for the panel. I'm going to turn to the inclusion staff who are here with us. Are there grants to write and produce plays about disabilities? Are there foundations that will fund that? Christine, do we have that many that we don't see that focus? There's no specific grants or... I mean, you have to do the work that every playwright does, that every fledgling company does and looks for grants. You just... I'll say, because I've done quite a bit of work as an actor in the UK. And the UK has different schemes for their funding. So they have culturally specific funding. So they have funding for artists of color who want to do a proposal-specific project. They have a disability equality scheme where they have funding for disabled artists who want to do specific projects. In this country, we don't really have specific funding, at least for disability. You're sort of in the pool with everybody else. So you have to... I mean, I don't know where the person who asked the question is located, but like in New York, go to the Foundation Library. They have a website. You just got to go and roll up your sleeves and do your homework. And there might be some specific disability-specific grants, but it's nothing that sort of... Unless you live in Chicago, there's an organization called Three Arts that funds artists every year. The funding is specifically for female artists, artists of color, and artists with disabilities. So if you're lucky enough to live in Chicago, I would say, get on the Three Arts bandwagon. So I should be careful to say that we know of... This is one that we can point to. It does not mean there are none. There may be some that we're not aware of. But I think there's an interesting question, and I mentioned the civil rights movement earlier. You know, the big civil rights push for people with disabilities was the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1989. I know. 1990. It's 25 years after the Civil Rights Act. So that was the big push, the question. And that was very much about, in many cases, physical access, education access, and employment access. Except for our business. It was not about artistic growth and enhancement. And that's not been part of it. We're ignoring our panel a little bit. We're starting to talk among ourselves here. But as we're coming to a close, I wanna come back around to this a bit more. Which is, Chris, you commented early on that when you were writing your essay, you left things out. Do we, you know, Christine, you've worked with, certainly not only with a variety of diversity organizations, not just disability, but racial diversity as well. How do artists become advocates? How do artists become people who can move an issue, can artists always move an issue through their own work? I don't know. I really don't know. You know, you brought up Americans with Disabilities Act. I was remembering, I went recently and looked at Bush's speech on the day he signed it. It's a beautiful speech. No politician would ever say the things he says in that speech today, including anybody in the Democratic Party. Bush won. This is Bush won. A Democrat would not say the things he says. There's a language about social justice that you literally know it could not be spoken today. That some kind of poster or advisor would say, you cannot say these things. And when I saw that, when I read that, and I saw that beautiful language on that, you know, really historic bill, a great day in American history, I thought this is really hard. This is not something that maybe we can do much about. There may be bigger forces in history right now that are objectifying human beings in distressing ways, dividing us, the ideology of individualism and capitalism, moving to a realm that has never moved in human history. And you know, I don't like to be negative. I don't like to be pessimistic. But of course we have to fight and work hard and speak our minds and our hearts and speak what we feel about the world. But it feels like a very frightening time and a dangerous time. I think also the discussion about theater companies and certain identity-based theater companies not doing well recently, it does feel like there's a shift happening that at a time where we have increased awareness of social justice, people also find themselves more frightened and alone than ever before in human history. And so I think it's a time of great dread. And certainly artists have to, you know, do what they can to kind of wake us up to what appears to be happening. But I do, you know, I bristle a little bit at the idea of well, we're not working hard enough. And if we only do X, Y, and Z, then change can happen. You know, I think the world is changing. And I guarantee, if you go back and look at that speech from 1990, you cannot imagine Barack Obama daring to say the words that the first president Bush said. Hmm, interesting. Christine, creating opportunity, you talked about creating opportunities for yourselves, is that still a part of it? It's, I think it's, for me personally, it's been absolutely key to my survival in this industry. And you know, here's the thing, change never happens as fast as we'd like it to happen. But I will live and die by the idea that we can each move things forward bit by bit, by bit by bit, if we really want to. And that means something different for everybody. So as artists, I think, yes, it's about creating our own opportunities, but it's also about writing what we want to write, not being afraid to only write what we think is going to be commercially viable, or safe, or things that people won't fear. So that's part of it. That's one way that I think that we as writers can continue to change the images that are out there, is by writing the things that we really care about and that we really want to write about. And then, I was thinking about how I became involved with advocacy so many years ago. And I think it's just because I really, this is one thing I say to people all the time, it's very easy for me to talk about inclusion and fighting for inclusion because I know without question that I am right. I know I'm right. That inclusion is what has to happen. And the world is about all of us. So how can we not include all of us? So I think that, again, every person has their own capacity to speak up and volunteer and march and write and all those things. And however that each person needs to find a way to do that, I encourage. Early on, we were talking about the lack of theater companies for people with disabilities here in New York City. I think one or more of the people who have been watching online tossed in names of some companies, they are not New York based and the question was surrounding New York not to favor some companies over others. That uppity theater company, a company called, I'm never sure how I pronounce this, Grye or Grye in England. Grey Eye in England. Family Detour Company, National Theater of the Deaf. Certainly Deaf West, Mixed Blood, the Apathite. There are certainly companies around the country we were talking earlier specifically about given New York the number of theater companies in this city, there does seem to be a noticeable lack here. It is not that the country or even the world lacks for companies that are focused on this work. So again, don't want to get any false impression. But thank you for people who tossed in those names and for people who are watching online, continue to toss around those names. If I didn't read one out, we may not mention them before we wrap up here, but that others know about those companies. Yes, question here. I wanted to make a comment about, you were saying about blacks in theater and whatnot and the fact that just like disabilities, it is separate of course between being black and a disabled person. But there's also a dangerous thing in it that you have to be careful because in respecting playwrights, if you're gonna do a streetcar named Desire, I say no, that you shouldn't have blacks. I think Stanley Kowalski is who he is and the play is what it is. On the other hand, if you're gonna do something like trip to Boundful, it's fine. It's according to the meat of the play, what it's about, the theme of it and everything, whether you can say, well, it can be done by Asian, black, white or whoever. It's according to what the play is about. And if it's not about, Tennessee Williams never meant for anybody to do that play by, okay? I know he did. All of his plays were on a certain way and that's the way he wanted it. And I feel people should respect that. On the other hand, playwrights who have done wonderful work and their plays to me should be able to be done by anybody because they don't cover a subject or issue or place in the South or something. That's my approach. I think if we were to respond to that, we would be here for another 90 minutes. We'll find many, many different opinions on that issue because these conversations around colorblind casting, on traditional casting, all of these things are challenging and that is another entire conversation, certainly not focusing on our subject today, disability. If we, do we have any more blue cards to run up to me and because we're drawing to a close here? Going the fast way. How do we do this? This is actually a terrific question, though I'm not sure there's a firm answer. Is there a way to ensure the disability rhetoric in a new play is one of empowerment, not wonder or pity? Certainly, there are many stories in which we either find that someone who does not have a disability is uplifted from by knowing somebody who has met the terrible challenges that were dealt to them. How do we get from, can we focus on disability as simply the part of our universe and treat it as empowering? Do we see those depictions? I don't know how you do it. You know, again, you just have this audience and like, who are they? Why do they see things the way they see them? I have an African-American friend who says, you know, in the gay community, people don't really see him as a sexual being unless they're fetishizing him. There's nothing he can do to overcome that. It's just sort of how it is. I have an Asian-American friend who says, white gay men, they don't look at me unless there's a fetish. There's something about the way dominant culture looks at the other that I think it's just, you know, a vexing question. Well, how do you get someone to see someone as they are rather than see them through whatever their ideological lens is or their psychological need to fetishize them or pity them or elevate them as, you know, examples of transcendence and wonderment? I really don't know. I mean, I think I go back to what you said about authenticity and all you can do is say, this is who I am. This is what I feel. This is my experience. Please try to look at me as who I am rather than who you want me to be. Right about the humanity of the character, not make that person a saint because, you know, give the flaws like you would for any other character you were writing basically, you know, that you're looking at the humanity of a person that comes in all different layers and textures and everything. And it goes out, that is about authenticity because that's treating a person as a person that has all kinds of different aspects to them. Isn't it interesting that you have filmmakers like, you know, the Farelli brothers, whatever you think of them, who in their work regularly include actors with disabilities, not necessarily for any other reason than sometimes they're just, they're friends of theirs that they grew up with. But that's why, that I was gonna go back to something that Chris said in the very beginning is that when his first play, when you wrote it, it was because you had the experience of having a neighbor with a disability. That's, I think, the answer to that person's question, is if you yourself, if the person who is the writer does not have a disability and does not have that lived experience, and this goes for disability or any experience, an experience of a person of color, if you are, if you, the writer, don't have that particular experience, seek out the experiences of those people authentically, and it's gonna make a difference in your writing. And it inevitably will be one that's empowering to that person, to that lived experience of that community, as opposed to one of assumption of pity or myth or, you know, overcoming adversity, because those are all lenses that are looked at through the eyes of people who don't have that lived experience. I'll say one thing to playwrights. Christine, you touched on this. You worked very hard on a play where you do have someone who becomes disabled and you depict them both with and without the disability and you met the challenge of figuring out how to use a disabled actor throughout the play, not splitting the role. I will say something that we see a lot of, if people believe that actors with disabilities should have the opportunity, not everyone can be as creative as you were, not everything, if it's film and television, can be achieved through CGI. If you are writing a character with a disability, don't give them dream sequences where they don't have their disability. Don't write a single scene that is a before scene unless it is utterly, utterly essential because in doing so, you may inadvertently make it impossible for an actor with a disability to play the role. I didn't mean to give myself the last word, but come on, please. Oh, there you are. Oh, yes I did. Thank you, thank you all. Thank you all out there behind the camera for hosting this session. Good night. It was fun.