 10 to 15 minutes. Everything happened in just 10 to 15 minutes, that's it. That's how long it took for my life to just implode and now I'm slutty girl who shouldn't have been there and shouldn't have gotten drunk and shouldn't have done all the things that everyone says I shouldn't have done. But why is it about all the things that I shouldn't have done? So now I'm that girl. And I don't want to be. I mean, just think of everything we just talked about. Who would you believe? No, I'm really asking, be honest, because I probably wouldn't even believe me, so I'm a slut and a liar to everyone and it actually doesn't even matter what really happened because now no one will know. I'm tired and I don't want to do this and I'm tired of explaining everything to everyone and I get that I should have to. I guess that's only fair, but I don't want my life like this. I don't want it like this. I don't want my parents to have to miss work so that they could stay at home with me all day or sit in a fucking waiting room because they're afraid that I'm fucking suicidal or some shit. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I'm just aware that I'm making their lives miserable and everything that they ever wanted for me. I just ruined that by putting myself in the situation that I did and coming forward actually made it all worse. No, because it'll always be on my record now. No, not actually, but in the minds of everyone who knows about this, I'll just be that slutty girl from high school who claims she was raped and they'll just be these poor, wronged guys, just regular people back on the basketball team, back to partying every weekend, back on the road to those college dorms, right? Completely violated me and made me feel like an idiot piece of trash and I'm pissed because they thought they could do that to me, like it was no big deal to them and I told you that I had not made the best decisions that night and that I hadn't put myself in the best situation, but that's so what. I told you that I had said no and that I begged them to stop and that they did it and that no matter what I did, they are wrong. Hold me that this would be hard and I said I didn't care because I'm so fucking angry. I hate the locker room. Everybody's always acting like a fucking dick in there, more so than anywhere else in my opinion. There's always guys acting all big, ready to whip each other with wet towels or the guys who are all jacked up, ready to throw down right then and there, near the showers. Whatever. So one day I'm in the locker room and this kid named Raymond, who everyone thinks is the fucking man. You know, he's walking down the halls, banging on lockers, roughing people up, giving out daps, talking shit about girls. He's that guy. He comes over to me, rips my towel off and goes, yo, look at little dick. And that was it. And I was trying to get my clothes in all these guys are just fucking dying. Like little dick, little dick. What can you fuck with that little dick, man? Look, I'm a black man. And as a black man, this is not what I'm supposed to hear. This is not supposed to be my reality. I got these five foot, three little white dudes in my gym class calling me little dick. Fuck that. I was crashing, man. Like I was pretty much destroyed and there was no doubt in my mind that that shit was gonna get around. And when I went home, my other brother JR, he goes, yo, what's your deal, man? And I told him, which was a big mistake. He thought it was fucking hilarious. And then he told my dad, and that man, he wet my ass. Hard. He said, you need to learn how to be a man. Men don't let people talk down to them that way. You let those kids be little you and you did nothing? And he's like spitting in my face and he's like, you need to learn how to man the fuck up. Actually, he didn't say fuck. My dad doesn't curse, so whatever. It's like, I don't play sports and I don't kick it to lots of girls usually. And I definitely don't beat people up. And my dad thinks I'm some sort of fucking pussy. Whatever. I was on the ground that night. So I went to the bathroom and I took a shitload of pills. Anything I could get my hands on. Suda fed, ibuprofen, Tylenol, aspirin, my little brother's Ritalin, handfuls of pills. And I passed out and that was it. When I woke up, I was in the hospital. They pumped my stomach. My parents were worried but pissed. I would never tell anybody about that day. And I don't like what my dad did, but he was looking out. When you're a man, you deserve respect and I was not respected that day in the locker room. And I'm not havin' that, you know? I'm not riding that train. I'ma get mine, you know? Hello, I'm Adrienne Coteen and I work in the public programs department here at the Brooklyn Museum. I wanna thank Alfonso Jones and Amalia Yu for that tremendous performance. And now I have the pleasure of welcoming to the stage playwright and educator Katie Capiello in conversation with fellow playwright and House of Cards creator, Bo Willamon. And this is, she just took over this role and this was the first time she ever performed it was at the Brooklyn Museum in front of all of you. Yeah, and with the play forever. And I love him and he's a genius. And this is the best, I have the best job ever to work with these guys. Let me just say, I, you know, I, writer to writer, one of my favorite writers living on the planet right now, Katie Capiello. I've had, that's not hyperbole. I've had the pleasure of knowing Katie for several years now watching her develop this work, tackle really incredibly difficult subject matter. I am constantly astounded by what you do, how you do it, the things that you arrive at that I never in a million years could do. It's true originality and fearlessness. And that combination doesn't happen very often. So it's a huge thrill for me to be able to share with all of these folks, you know, a little bit about what you do and how you do it and what it means. So tell us, how did these two plays come to be? Okay, so I am a teacher. It's the thing I am most proud of, I have to say. And I run a theater, youth theater for a social activism program. And my goal is to work with young people, like the two that you just saw, and develop theater around the challenges that they face every day. And so with these particular plays, I was in a room with slut, I was in a room with a group of high school girls. Some were still actually in middle school. And it was story after story after story about the harassment and assault that they were dealing with every single day in their hallways. And I just never seen a play that authentically captured their voice and what they lived day in and day out. And I thought, well, let's share this, like let's, we will be responsible for creating some communal space where we can start that conversation. And then in the midst of touring that play, because you've been touring that play now around the country for a number of years, I was having a lot of conversations with kids of all genders, but having a lot of conversations with young men. And I started to realize, I can talk about rape with high school girls until I'm blue in the face. But if we don't start having conversations about rape with high school boys and middle school boys and sixth grade boys, then we're not gonna get where we wanna go. And so, yeah. And so I invited Alfonso and a couple other guys and a couple other guys that I really admire and trust and I respect their artistry and also their person. And I asked if they'd collaborate or just kind of like get into a room with me. And I'm like, I was 35 at the time, like a 35 year old woman, like what are these kids gonna tell me about their, are they really gonna talk to me about this? And they did. And so that's really how now that we're men came about is we wanted to talk about what's going on in our culture, what is happening to boys and to young men that's perpetuating sexual assault and harassment. We have to talk about it. And so that's what we're trying to do. Tell us a little bit how you created this space where, I mean, some of the girls that you were talking to, you know, 11, 12, 13 years old, you know, an incredible amount of trust from their parents but also from them. I mean, you almost make it sound like, oh, I could talk about Rape Tool on blue in the face but to create that space and you were figuring it out as you went. I mean, especially right now, I mean, you know, the conversations happening nationally to be able to understand how one creates that space, you have a lot of insight. Yeah. I mean, I think theater, it's interesting, you know, where the past week or so, there's been a lot of conversation around me too, right, this idea of me too and everyone's sharing their me too stories. And I think that that's really important. I am a believer that me too is where theater eats, right? Like theater is me too, that's all it is in my opinion. Like the best theater is, you know, it's these three things. It sparks empathy, gives permission and creates catharsis and that's what me too is. And so when you're bringing a group of people together to devise something, to talk about something that's hard, it's just that first step. It's saying what you share with me, I will believe. What you share with me will be uncensored. You are not inappropriate. The things that are happening to you are not inappropriate and I'm here to listen. And once someone goes first, it becomes, you know, there's a ripple effect and people want to share. And so for me, I don't know if there is a more important medium than theater right now for me. That's also what I do, so. I just think there's something about living and breathing in spaces together that we don't do that often anymore and watching someone go through an emotional journey that's just feet or yards away from you and feeling that and leaving with that and processing that and that gives you permission to talk about things that have happened to you or it gives you permission to feel, to cry, to process. And I don't think we have enough spaces like that today and I definitely don't think young people have enough spaces like that today. And so in my dream world, theater would be something that kids wanted to do on a Saturday night. So I get to figure out, trying to figure out how to make that happen. Was there anything, when you first started to begin to work with these children and young adults that most surprised you or shocked you or was it a reinforcement of things that you had already suspected or intuited? I guess the thing, it doesn't surprise me but the thing that haunts me, I guess I would say is how much they feel like they're not being listened to and how much they feel like they can't say the things they actually want to say and that there are no places, including their schools, where they can have healthy conversations about sexuality and sexual dynamics. And so for me, that's the thing that I'm reminded of every time I'm with a group of students, whether it's here in Fargo, North Dakota and LA and down in Georgia, it just doesn't matter where you are. They're not getting the conversations that they need and the adults in their lives are actually standing in the way of that. And so, I guess that's the thing. Tell us about some of the, you performed these two plays, particularly Slut the Play which has been around for quite some time now that we're men is a bit newer but it's been all over the country, a lot of different environments, types of audiences and often you do talk backs afterwards. And we'll invite the actors, it's kind of extraordinary. You'll have like a dozen teenage actors on stage having a really thoughtful and informed conversation. I've seen it in a room of 2,000 people where there might be like a senator sitting there as well and parents who don't understand it with the same nuance that the kids do. So can you give us sort of a sense of what the different types of reactions you've gotten in those talk backs? Yeah, so we do a talk back after every show. So when you're presenting material like this, so Slut is about the rape and of a teenage girl and the community fallout that ensues and how she fights to continue to move forward with her life and now that we're men is about masculinity standards in the weeks leading up to prom. And when you're bringing this type of material to audiences of any ages, I think you have to be responsible and you have to provide a space for a conversation after. So it's not like the lights come up and you're like, good luck. Good luck, I hope you can figure out what to do with that. Because we can't and the parents can't, educators can't, we can't. We need to have those communal conversations. And so we did a talk back recently with, so we go to a lot of schools, so we travel around the country, we visit universities, we visit high schools, we go to community centers and sometimes it's an audience only of high school kids and then sometimes it's an audience of, it's a mixed audience, maybe like this. And we went to a high school recently up in New England and we're doing the talk back and this kid had raised his hand and he stood up and he was sitting with the whole basketball team because he's on the basketball team there and he asked a question about consent and it was just a pretty basic question, you know, what does consent look like? What is your opinion on affirmative consent? So we had a little back and forth about that and then after he was hovering and I could tell he was waiting for his friends to leave because he needed to have a conversation. And so his friends wouldn't leave, his friends wouldn't leave, he didn't want to say all this in front of his friends. So finally they go and I'm standing there with one of my students that was in the play who's also a rape survivor and we could tell that he was sort of making his way over and as he's coming over he starts shaking, he has tears in his eyes. And I'm thinking to myself, I'm looking at my student who's also in the play and I'm thinking he's gonna tell us what he did. So we're gonna have to just take a deep breath and we'll figure out what we do next when we're done. And so he comes over and he starts telling us about how he'd been hooking up with this sophomore. She's young and they've been hooking up for a while and he likes her and whatever they're in his bedroom and they're naked and he's put on the condom and he as a joke, as a joke because they had been talking a lot about everything that happened at the St. Paul's school. So the rape that happened at the St. Paul's school. He said as a joke, ha, ha, ha. And this is how he said to me, ha, ha, ha. I have like consent right. And the girl froze and said, and shaking, I don't know. And so we're sitting here thinking he's gonna tell us that he did it anyway and he looks at us and he's like, I said, so what happened? And he said, well, I talked to her about it and then I got dressed and I left and he starts crying. And I said, yes, yes, yes. And I'm like, that is fantastic. I think you did the right thing. I thank you for listening to her and hearing her and my student who was standing with me is like, I just wanna tell you with someone who's been through this, I, you know, this is what I wished, that's what I hoped someone would have done in my situation. And I said, well, why are you so emotional? He said, because I could have not asked. He's like, I was this close to not asking. And I was so, and he goes, I can't sleep at night because I keep thinking, what if I had done this and what if I had done that to that girl? And he's like, I can't think of how many friends of mine I have that went, that didn't hear that, that didn't ask. He was, and I wasn't asking because I'm a good guy. I was asking because I was making a joke. And I said, well, you're not gonna, now you're always gonna ask, right? And he's like, oh yeah, I'm always gonna ask. He's like, because if I feel like this haven't gone well, I don't wanna imagine what would have happened. So that's just it. And another example, I'll just tell you to go along with this Me Too thing that I think about every time I go somewhere is we took this play to Fargo, North Dakota. And given our politics these days, it's these conversations get politicized and they don't need to be politicized. You can go to a red state and have a conversation about sexual assault. We can all be on the same page, you know? And so we're sitting there in Fargo, North Dakota and we were thinking that we were gonna get there and it was gonna be like picket signs and no one's gonna wanna come see our play because it's called Slut. And we were wrong and every show sold out and we are sitting there at the theater after the play and there is a 15 year old girl sitting in the audience and she's really having a hard time and she's got her two friends with her and they're like holding her hands and they're rubbing her back and they're really there for her and she's, you know, and I'm about to start the talk back and I'm opening up to questions and comments. And the girl with her two friends, they stand up, all three of them together and the girl raises her hands and she says, I just have realized that I have been raped and I just wanna say it out loud because I feel like I'm in a space where it's okay to say it out loud. And so the whole audience just starts having this empathy and this catharsis and this moment together and a 65 year old woman in the audience stood up and she says, well, I was raped too and I'm here for you if you wanna talk. And then a 35 year old woman stood up and then a 22 year old college student stood up and by the time that night was over, seven women had stood up and said, I was raped. Let's have a conversation after. We can create a safer place for all of us here in this Fargo community if we have more conversations like this. So I think it's working, you know. Yeah. One of the things I so admire about both the plays but let's speak about Slut the Play for a second is that you really tackle the gray areas head on. The complexities of how a family might not be supportive. They can love their kid more than anything in the world but they aren't necessarily the best resource. How friends and family and peers and kind of all interweave and get mixed up with one another and also people not fully understanding their own actions. I mean, one of the most powerful lines for me in that play and we heard Amalia do it beautifully is they were my friends and they violated me. That those two things can exist side by side. Can you talk a little bit about tackling those complexities because it's a really hard thing to do and I mean you're able to do it in like an hour and a half in ways that I haven't seen before. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. We've been talking, I've been talking about this a lot with the kids of just the challenge that we have I think is a culture to not want to deal with people's contradictions. The idea that you can be a good kid in your classes and you can be the star of the basketball team and you can be nice to your mom's friends when they come over for dinner that you can be the type of kid who is thoughtful in other aspects of their life and still also be a rapist. We have to make room for that. Like the myth that that kid doesn't rape people is wrong. The myth that the guy who was everybody's dad in the 1980s can also, by the way, be a rapist, you know. Someone who makes movies that we love and admire and you know, it's a successful person and probably really loved his mom and you know, has three daughters, gets to be, is also, not gets to be, is also a rapist. And so the challenge for me is to break these myths. The idea that rapists look a certain way, that we identify them in a certain way because until we're able to sort of get it in our heads that they're the people that we're sitting next to and the people that we ride the subway with and the people that live in our houses, we're never actually going to be able to move forward with a healthy culture because we can't hold people accountable. And so for me, it's the same thing with Joey, with that character, she's not a perfect victim. We want rape victims to be who we want them to be. We want to moralize them. And so it's about, you know, it's she drinks and she does drugs and she is a girl who enjoys sex and she likes sexy things and she wears little outfits and she, you know, hangs out with a group of guys all by herself. And we don't want that to be what rape victims look like because it makes it harder for us to believe them. And so for me, the theater is an interesting opportunity to humanize those two things. It's yes to make rape as humans so we can start to identify them in our own communities and they're not just a caricature, but it's also making victims and making survivors human of saying that these people get to be complex and layered and they're not going to be just, you know, the straight A student, girl next door, a virgin, you know, like that's not what they look like. And so, yeah. Yeah, I mean, which leads to another vast complex subject, which is these young women, particularly in Slut the Play, where you see them at the beginning and they're cheerleaders essentially, they've created their own group called the Slut Squad and they're proud of it. And they are discovering and establishing, defining their sexuality in their teens at a time also where they're incredibly vulnerable to these sort of incidents happening. And you do a lot of work in trying to make it okay, like say, have the conversations okay to be sexual, it's okay to discover your sexuality, it's not an either or. And can you talk a little bit about that and both in terms of your work and the kids that you've spoken to? Yeah, I mean, I think there's this, you know, you ask any of your, I don't know, I see some younger people here, if you ask most middle school girls and high school girls what sex ed looks like for them. It looks like periods and how not to get pregnant basically, right? So it's like reproduction and if you're not careful, this bad thing can happen to you, so you better like, you know, think about that. For boys, it looks a little bit like hormones and you're gonna be interested in sex and you're gonna want sex and let's talk about that. And so there's this idea that girls aren't actually coming into their sexuality just like boys are and they are. And so girls are not having a space in school where they're really talking about interest and they want to experiment and they want to explore their sexuality helpfully and safely. And so, but I know that that's true because I spend all my time with teenagers and they talk about sex a lot. And I'm glad that they do. I'm glad that they feel like they have a space where they can do that because those spaces don't exist. And so with this play, I wanted you to see what a group of girls do, you know, what a group of girls, you know, how they act with each other when you're not around, you know, and they talk about their vaginas and they talk about orgasms and they talk about their clitorises. Yes, they said it and they talk about all these things. You know, I just read an article that the word clitoris is not even a word we should be using in sex ed because it really has nothing to do with reproduction. No, you're right, it doesn't and that's the problem. It does have to do with pleasure though and that's kind of important. And so, yeah, I like depicting girls who are interested in pleasure. I do because I think maybe one of the ways of curbing sexual assaults in this country will be talking to boys about girls' pleasure and not via porn via actual conversations. And so, yeah, I mean, and it's very interesting. Now that we're men in slut, mirror each other in an interesting way. With slut, it starts out where it's like these girls are in this locker room and they're just being, I think, fantastic, but just as offensive as it gets. I mean, and I love it. And they're just talking about everything you could imagine and you know, now that we're men is similar. It starts out with a group of boys and they're doing the same thing. They're talking about who they wanna fuck and who they're gonna do this and this, this, this and this and all this, you know, yeah, man, whatever. And when the play is being performed, no one laughs when the girls do it. No one. And at every talk back, someone raises their hand and like, that was a very offensive. That was a very dirty. And I actually had a freshman boy at one of the high schools say, I just know for a fact that girls do not talk like that. And I'm like, how do you know? What have you been in a girl's locker room? You haven't. And then the other thing, and then with now that we're men though, right? These guys, we talk about this every time. These guys are saying all this stuff and you're just like, oh my God, what are they saying? And the audience is dying. They're dying. They're clapping for the crude things that these guys say about girls' bodies. So it's just a way that we sort of, girl's sexuality is not their own. Boy's sexuality is not only their own but girl's sexuality is theirs too. And so I just, I can't stand it. And so I really love bringing these plays to schools and I have to say teachers tend to really like it too because we get to have the conversations that they're not allowed to have with their students. So, yeah. Let's talk about ethics and responsibility for a second. One of the characters in slide, I forget the character's name, forgive me, her, Joey's best, one of her best friends, her brother is one of the people that assaulted her. And she has to grapple with that. I mean, she has a responsibility to her friend or responsibility as a person on the planet and she has a familial bond and love for her brother who she feels is not an evil person. That's a lot to bear and I think it really speaks to the grayness of a lot of this stuff. A crime is committed but then there's someone like her in the middle. Yeah, I think the grayness is where everything is. I think the black and white is hard for me and I think it's really hard for kids. So when you talk with young people, or really I guess any of us, right? Like when you talk with young people though, when you talk about it in black and white, they feel really conflicted because these people are their friends and these people are their siblings and these people are people that have status in their community, which is actually what we're all experiencing right now in the media over the past couple of weeks with the revelations of what's been going on in Hollywood. So I think we have to, I think accountability is something that has to be taught. So I think conversations around like talking to young people about what it means to hold each other accountable, I don't think it's happening enough and talking about it in a nuanced way where you are acknowledging that that's hard. So in the play what happens is there are two boys that physically assault this girl and one that watches and does nothing. And everywhere I go with this play, there's a line of boys waiting to tell me that they're that guy. They're the guy that watches and does nothing. And they don't know what to do with that because the reality of the situation is like, what if they're, it's all these what ifs, which I think are valid. Like what if they're misinterpreting the situation? But everyone's kind of drunk. So she's drunk too and they're drunk, but she's drunk too. And what if like I like ruin this person's life and who am I to speak for her? There are all these things where speak for him because we know that the people of all genders are assaulted. So I think that's the gray area in the nitty gritty that we're not getting into, which is just acknowledging that these are not easy things you're asking people to do. I think sometimes as adults we're like, come on boys, just step up or come on girls, like step up, speak up, come on, let's go. But we're not even telling them how. And we're not acknowledging that that is not an easy thing to do when you're 15 and status is at play. And I think it's okay as adults for us to acknowledge that what we're asking them to do takes courage and what we're asking them to do probably is going to come with some serious social sacrifice. And it would be nice of us to acknowledge that what we're asking are helpful is probably the better word. Now I know you said this is territory that doesn't need to be politicized. But real things are happening in Washington and state legislatures, real policies being changed. You've worked hard aside from the theater, simultaneously on the political front and advocating for what I think probably most of the people in this room would consider progress in the right direction. There are certain things that are under assault right now that might be taking us backwards. Can you give us from your perspective, lay the land, what you're most afraid of, what you think people should be focusing on, where people can make an impact beyond the theater? Yeah. I mean, we're in Brooklyn, so I feel like we got it pretty good here. But I would say, I think if you ask any kid, I would say sex ed is everything. I know we could have a big conversation about Title IX and I guess we could do that, but I don't want to. So I just would rather, I just think that's like down the line, right? Like wouldn't it be better if we were having conversations about this in fifth, sixth, seventh grade so then we don't actually, we have less sort of, we can have less conversations around Title IX, right? I mean, that would be the ideal situation is like what I want is like what is the preventative actions? What are the preventative steps? And for me, if your parents in here or your educators in here or you just, you have connections at schools that your kids used to go to, God, like go and say what does your sex ed look like? Because that clitoris story that I told you wasn't a school where they're required to teach comprehensive sex ed, but they're not gonna include the word clitoris. So I'm, you know, it would be really awesome if the PTA could say, hey, I heard you're not saying clitoris, let's start saying that or something. Or something. So to me, that's my area, like my passion and what I, what means the most to me is getting these people the education that they deserve and the conversations that they deserve. And that means as adults, we need to step in and help them and start like really getting administrations to stop being afraid of protecting their students because they're afraid of phone calls from parents, right? Or they're afraid of an article in the post where the post is exposing the fact that like some schools having sexy talk, like let's, you know, like let's not do that. That's that, and I would also say, you know, getting behind, you know, continuing to, I just feel like really cliche, but continuing to stand up with Planned Parenthood. I think that's really important. The majority of my students is like, this is where, this is where, you know, this is where they get condoms. This is where they get birth control. This is where when they're afraid, maybe something, they have an STD, this is where they go, male and female, all genders. So that to me is a big thing that we all should be doing and I feel like probably if we're here, we probably all are, right, so. So you've tackled sexual assault and abuse from young women's perspective, from young men's perspective. Are you thinking about ways to tackle it from yet another perspective? You know, I know that this isn't the only subject matter that you write about. Where are you right now as an artist? I just finished a play about masturbation, so there's that. I did, I did, because I think that's also something we should be talking about a lot more. And female masturbation, so stay tuned. We'll let you know where that's gonna be next. I did send it to Lincoln Center, I don't know. Does it have a title yet? Does it have a title yet? It does, the title is Joy. I love that. Yeah, yeah. So we're, I'm figuring that out. I am really actually excited about that play. So that's where I am as an artist. I think, I mean for me, I'm just always sort of trying to figure out what's the conversation we're not having, and in particular because I love young people so much and they're my, that's who I just, that's the important audience to me. You all are too, but they are really everything, really to me, is that what are the conversations, what are the things going on in their lives that they, where they're not getting to sort of crack it open, you know? And those are the plays that I wanna write. And so I'm gonna keep, that's what I'm gonna keep doing. And as issues come up, we'll keep tackling them. Like we just did, I run a theater for social justice class on Wednesdays. And we are doing a play, we're devising a play right now where the entire play takes place during a high school lockdown because there's an active shooter. And this of course came out of recent events after what happened in Vegas. We had class the next day and the kids were like, we all had lockdown drills this week. And that's a lot. And so we decided we create theater out of that and out of that fear. And so all the scenes are, how do you come of age in tight little spaces in the midst of a lockdown? So that's the play. So we're working on that too. So yeah, and there's a workshop tomorrow. I have to plug it because we're gonna be here. There's a workshop tomorrow for high school kids and I will be there and Charlotte will be there and our other amazing teammate Marquise will be there and we're gonna devise some theater. So if you know any kids, please send them 130 to 430. We'll be here, here in the museum. Okay. So Katie, I mean I could talk to you for hours about this and I'm sure these folks would love to hear more but according to our countdown clock we've got about a minute left. So is there anything I didn't ask about that you wanna say to these wonderful people? No, but I do wanna say this about Beau. Beau is the president of my union. Beau is the president of the WGA and Beau sent an amazing letter and as a woman and as a writer and I'm really grateful that the president of my union sends out a letter addressing what's been going on in Hollywood and as an ally said that his goal would be to do everything in his power to make sure that we all felt safe and I think that that's really important and not only felt safe but would do the hard work of listening to and doing what needed to be done in order to make sure that everyone's getting to work in healthy environments and so I'm really grateful. But. Yeah. Thank you, but it's nice of you to clap things but actually it's our duty. It is. So it's not a clapable thing. No, but it's why I'm saying. No, but. We're having a thing now. I just have to say. Whatever personal impetus I have to address that issue largely inspired by you. I mean, what I've learned from this woman over the last several years from the first time I saw your play and being able to see many productions since and talk to you at length as an artist, as an activist to educate me as a person, a citizen is that's how it works, one conversation at a time and you have this extraordinary gift to be able to reach thousands and thousands of people and have those conversations over and over again in ways that open people's minds. That's what it's all about. It is. It is.