 So I just want to apologize in advance if I check my phone a few times, my old yellow lab, just a 12 raw chicken wings hole. So anyway, I'm going to have to just check a few times to make it off to the emergency vet. Very exciting. No, no, it'll be fine. I'm sure it'll be fine. But how do you eat 12 raw? I do it so fast. How do they do that? It's so wild, right? Anyway, so I just want to say, if I look at my phone, that's why. So what we want to do is get some feedback from you all. Obviously, we're going to take notice about the suggestions you have for how we're all going to stay connected. Then we're going to do some wrap up, and then we're done. So I appreciate that we hang in for just a little bit longer. OK, so and I'm going to, I had another microphone. Yes, I do. It's sort of like active to be handing the mics. I like the energy of that. So anybody, any group want to start with the, I think maybe each group should try to report back if you have something. And so maybe group A. Yeah, let's do it. You're not A. Oh, I thought you were A. Group A. Yeah? Group C is ready to go? Yes, I guess I'm ready to go. We had a great conversation, really rich and full of ideas. And there were prompt questions, but I don't have those memorized, so I'll just go. How can we work together? And what would we do together that we couldn't do apart? OK, so we had the normal list of conference calls, Google Hangouts, TCG, of course. We thought, well, why not find a way to get together and just have a party to Nathan's point? Like, sometimes you just have to get together and have a good conversation. It doesn't have to be about the work. It's just about good conversation. And like last night at the restaurant, there was such great energy in the room. And I'm sure, I know we were talking about baseball, but it was a great night. Wanting to see more sharing of scripts in production across the cohort, organizations being willing to welcome playwrights from across the cohort to have readings in different theaters across the country so that we can engage different demographics with the work, this was a very specific question, but can the cohort commit to reading at least one other playwright's work over the course of the residency? What are the avenues for playwrights to get the work out and how can we as a cohort help those playwrights? I think we talked about that earlier. It was interesting, the playwrights were all in agreement that there hasn't been any time really, other than I think the sharing of the works in progress, for them to talk about their work specifically, what their perspective on their work is. So are there opportunities to either, you know, by these Google Hangouts or TCG conferences, are there ways to have conversations with specific parameters around aesthetics, around process, around the audience we're trying to reach so we can get to know each other's work better? Or is it a speed dating approach? Do we all share five minutes on that same perspective and then, you know, see where the conversation goes? Can artists in the cohort do intensive workshops where other artists' organizations participate and be welcomed into that individual artist's process? Doing good so far, guys? Yeah, okay. Yeah, so Louis had some great comments. We need to understand each other's artistry and perspective in order to know how to go deeper. So if we are interested in each other's, we're only going to know if we're interested in each other's work if we know how we work, why we do the work. And not to get bogged down in the quorum, right? If only six folks can get together in a region, that might be good enough, right? We don't all have to always be together when these things happen. Ralph, great comment. We are the face of American theater in order for the field to understand where we can go. We were talking about this, of course, earlier. The impact that we as a cohort can have on the direction the field is moving. No one artist or organization can achieve that on their own. So we really do have to see each other as resources, as allies. But it comes back to how well we know each other and how willing we are to be curious about each other's work. That's great. Thank you, Tom. That's great. Yeah, really, really good. Madeline. These are from group D. We talked a little bit about exchanges, informal exchanges, going to visit each other. I like to watch other people make work that I'm not necessarily personally involved in. I like to watch auditions, and I like to watch rehearsal, and I like to watch tech. And I would love to see at the same play a couple of nights in a row and see with different audiences. So that's just like a personal thing that's interesting to me and that assaults my own process in an indirect way. And it would be really interesting for me to go and do it, let's say, in Minneapolis or someplace else. So we talked about thinking about having just a sense of hospitality towards one another for that kind of thing. And I think to that end also, sometimes theaters have artist housing that lies fallow for periods of time. Maybe there would be a way that theaters could share that information in case somebody wanted to go and use some of their funds to have a very informal writing retreat at someone else's house, you know what I mean, in someone else's artist housing. From the cohort there, there'd be an opportunity to like, hey, have a dinner, or what should I see tonight? Do you have something at your place or something else you know I should see so that we build that even more informal sense of community where those conversations of depth can happen that you guys were talking about as well. I mean, this needn't be a formalized thing, but just sort of like a sense that we're down with that kind of checking in with each other. I had felt very inspired in the small group of playwrights only by the sense that we're basically on the verge of leaping to our feet and creating some kind of manifesto. And I wondered if it's not, speaking to the question of what can we do together that we can't do alone, if it isn't worth thinking about some kind of semi-structured maybe hour, hour and 15 minute thought experiment activity the next time we meet together in which we do some kind of utopia game or play some kind of manifesto game which we could do some preliminary work before we get there. Kira was saying it's sometimes good to revise those things. Some people are more manifesto-y than others. Maybe it doesn't have to be compulsory, but it seemed like we were about to do that just organically anyway. And that thinking of the Kilroy's List as maybe a model of a recent example of just a document, a piece of text that all the same has a catalytic effect on the practice, that there might be a way to create a sense of an ideal theater or an ideal theater ecology that we can sign on and use in some way. And then we talked about maybe doing that twice, so doing it more once towards the beginning of the residency and then maybe again towards the ending of the cohort just to see what the space is in between the two. You know, I think of the Latino theater commons as a kind of manifesto, so I feel like it's not, you know, it's not outside of the range of possibility to do that. Yes. And we talked about a listserv. Like a very simple Yahoo group where people want to shout out a question or start a conversation that can happen in a really, it doesn't have to be a special... It's not on Facebook. Right, something that's public and not, and yet only within this group. Great. Great, great, great. Yes, great. Who else? What we can do as a group, I mean, that we couldn't do in our individual theaters and so one example that I was giving was that I've been doing a free ticket program where it's rush tickets for unsold seats. Every night we all have a few unsold seats, right? So I have a policy where anybody who comes with a student ID can see a show for free. But strangely, it's not gaining the traction that I thought we'll fill the theater every night then with students who can't afford, but we still haven't been able to, like, succeed at that even in my little theater. But I wonder if there's a way that there's... More people are signing on for something like that because everyone has those seats. Would we actually get a student movement kind of in interest in going to the work, if it's at more places? For example, Susan Birdfield from New Georgia started this Friday afternoon matinees for professionals and then they've been catching on so that at three or four o'clock in the afternoon on Friday, professionals are going to see a special matinee performance and that's a way to create dialogue in the community about the work that New Georgia's is doing and then a lot of other people have started to do them now so that more people are doing that on Friday afternoons going to see work and then talking about it after. Two examples? That's great. Other groups, other people. Yes, Aditi. Hi, we're groupie. Oh, God, that was loud. We were pretty concrete and we followed the script. How would you like to be connected as a group? We would love a contact list, which I think is already something that happens. And we're really interested in a quarterly email of upcoming playwright openings, readings, anything that's open for us to visit. We'd love to know if something's around the corner. We'd love to be able to plan ahead and say, oh, so I'm going to Minneapolis anyway. I should go when I can catch Kira's show. So that would be awesome. There was, I'm going to say this out loud, we don't want to make anyone recreate the wheel though, so if it's something that is already being served by one of the various other, like MPX, if there's something that's being served by others, we love the idea of wrapping them into the commons rather than duplicating work. How can we share work? Our group really would love to do yearly meetings rather than 18 months. We like summer better. We love the idea of the sharing of excerpts and, in addition, getting one full piece felt so satisfying. So there was conversation about one day of conversation and one day of sharings. We had conversations about the possibility of if that's onerous to keep coming to Boston or if, you know, it's more fun to do something else. We talked about possibly trying to piggyback it on to TCG sometime so that, you know, that would possibly make it one trip for people rather than more. Or piggybacking onto a playwright production if it's possible to plan ahead like that and then that could be the full piece that we catch. Thought that would be kind of fun. What could we do together that we can't do separately? I'm editing right now in my head. Shared development and production was the thing that largely came up there. Again, we also wanted to say if we are only going to meet one more time in the middle of our residency, our preference would be for earlier rather than later. So it's at the one-year mark rather than the two-year mark so we can implement learning for more years after having gathered. Did I get everything, Groupie? Great. Who else? Other group. Yes. Group A. None of us from Group A is spoken, so I'll just try to represent. And say actually that I think we said a lot of what has been said. And I would just say one of the things we did spend a bunch of time talking about was this getting together more. And I spoke about this. Our theatre had been part of another Mellon grant, The Launching New Plays, in which we were a theatre of four theatres that did a production of the same playwrights play around the country. And what was required, which I thought was going to be difficult and onerous, but it actually ended up being really fantastic and worth every minute of it, was that all of us had to go to and meet together in the other cities where the play was happening at the same time. And that was, I mean, we talked about wanting to do that, but I felt like I know myself without the requirement or somebody organizing it in some way, it's not going to happen. And maybe we said too, maybe if only eight of us can manage to do it, but try to get as much of that kind of thing happening. Because I felt like I learned so much more, not even just about the play and the aesthetics, but just other things in the many conversations we had over the course of that time that we did that. And then we also talked about the fact that this is a kind of collective voice for the whole of the American theater and that this remaking of models of how the theater works is something that we might be able to have larger impact on. We don't know exactly how. And just thinking about what that means, this remaking of the model and how to return to the artist at the center of the institution in some ways and how other artists might be that and how that could and should work in other ways like what Chris had brought up before about making residencies with other artists at the center of the theater. Great. I think that's it. Group A and more. Great. Susan, do you have anything over there? I always want to make sure you're... Anything? I'm good. Thank you. All right, great. Just, you know, don't want to be lost on Skype. Other report out? I just want to make a plea for the party and even if it's going to see a show and having a party but I'm all about the party. I am stunned. I am stunned. The... Susan. Your question about building cohesion in the... Beyond the network and... I'm sorry, I'm tired. Building this network more strongly and meeting more regularly. Just let me to wonder should we be having board members in this cohort in any way or in some kind of meeting and whether that would be helpful to building a sense of the responsibility that David talked about this morning and I'd love to get some feedback on that. So are you saying board members from the theaters are representative theaters in the meetings here? Well, I couldn't speak for everyone. I think that that would be really helpful. I think as we continue to have conversations about EDI it starts from the top down and so many of us are still... I wouldn't say my theater but I know a lot of the larger institutions still have a very homogenous board structure even though the playwrights in this room are very diverse and so I think a lot of the conversations that we've started here I think it would be most helpful for board members to at least not being part of the whole conversation but when it's important to come into the room and participate as well. That's my thought and other playwrights might have something else to say. I'm speaking to what I was saying but I think actually that would have been really great in this launching new place thing where we all traveled around to the theater. It would have been fantastic if there would have been a place for the board folks to interact with and learn from what all this meant. That would have... I feel like I'm just imagining my board members in this room right now and not thinking that would be so great. This. But going the other way actually and coming to them that could be really productive actually. Going to them? I'm now obsessed with what I want to have happen which is that we all travel around the country and see each other's work together as a group and then do things there together as a group. One of the great things I would love to be doing there is having those board members meet us and understand what we're doing together. I would want my board to do that. Yeah. And structure how that happens from our point of view. According back for Group B travel funds was one of the things that we talked about in terms of having the ability to go see the work. We didn't go as far as making it all do it at the same time which coordinating 32 schedules that would be a lot of fun. But we also talked about a lot of the other things that have been mentioned the newsletter, a Facebook group, an e-list to communicate with each other. Dropbox. Yeah, so we talked about having access to each other's work actually to be able to read the work. So even if we had a Dropbox because the playwrights don't want to share the work publicly yet but it would just be for this cohort of people and we could all just check in anytime we want and see how works coming along that's shared on there. And then also using the stuff that's already there repeating stuff that already exists for stuff that's ready to be seen everybody uploading to the National New Play Network the Play Exchange there and it could be tagged like the Mellon Group and then you could easily find the 18 writers that way and access the work that they want public. So what else did we talk about guys? We also talked about how we might use our resources for when folks are in town. So for instance teaching at DePaul University if a playwright has a production town and happens to be in town call me and I'll bring you to my class and how can we do that for each other because we are nomadic and we end up in each other cities and sometimes we're in the hotel room like well what do we do tonight? But how does that become a more formalized thing where we're visiting each other and actually beyond the connections to the theaters but also our other resources in our home communities. And the integration of technology just different ways that people are integrating technology within the shows themselves but then also is there ways that that creates connectivity amongst us as a cohort. That's great. Other... One of the thoughts I was having was what would it be if at the six year mark for the first cohort and the three year mark that this group put on a national convening and we invited board members and community people and other... If we put on a convening that was sharing these kind of best practices and so anyway just a thought that that could be a powerful way to make this... to think about how this is a model and how we would share that model. And I know the Hall around staff is really enthusiastic about a thought of another convening right now I think is a really... Yeah, yeah, yeah, but just a thought of it. So, other... Anything else before we move into the wrap up? Great. So, oh yeah, go ahead, Carlos. And this is related to something Madeline said but we talked also about how so many artistic directors are directors or administrators and that this is really an opportunity as a collective of writers to take an artistic leadership role in the direction of not only the theaters that we're working with but the overall American theater and how we might forward that. Great. So, in moving into the wrap up phase what I thought I would do is first what I'd like to do is have it be kind of two parts. One is I'd like to hand it over to Mellon with a couple things that they... various folks in the Mellon staff want to say and then hear some... any final thoughts from you all and then that with them will be done. So, I know Katie... Oh, there. After you want to... Yeah, okay, I'll... Susan, Ella, Hannah, any final... I just want to make sure you guys have a chance at any thoughts that you have.