 Thank you. Thank you. Welcome to everyone. Thank you for joining us and making the time to learn about the NTP creation and touring grant process. We're happy to be able to provide this. My name is Keita Sullivan. I am the senior director senior program director for theater at NETA for a visual description. I am a middle aged, native and black woman with gray hair, more gray than I'd like to admit. And I am sitting in front of a background that shows my homelands, Montauk, New York. It's land, it's water and it's sky. I also reside on the lands of my kin, the Nipmuc, Wampanoag and Massachusetts people. And hi, my name is Derek Schwartz. I'm the program officer for theater here at NEPA or one of the program officers for theater. I use he, him pronouns and I am also calling him from the land of the Massachusetts, Wampanoag and Nipmuc people. I am a youngish white man with kind of some like scruffy beard situation happening and rimless glasses and a flower print shirt in front of a blurred green background. Hi all, my name is Leilani. I'm not sure that you can see me since we're looking at the slides, but if you can, the visual description is white skin, long dark brown hair that sort of matches into the brown shirt, coral lipstick, bright red glasses and large 90s print inspired headphones. Thank you for your patience as we are getting started. Hey Leilani, who are you in terms of NTP? That's a great question. I am the other program officer and I also use she series pronouns. I realized that I was multitasking and didn't complete the intro. I'm a lifelong resident of Maple Nation on Turtle Island, originally hailing from Wabanaki Confederacy lands known as Maine, currently living in the Misatuk or Mystic watershed in the lands of the Pena Cook Abinaki specifically. Thank you all for joining and welcome to welcome to our session. In the interest of disclosing my pronouns as well I use Nakam in my language or they and she. So what are we going to do today? This information should be useful whether you are new to NTP or a seasoned veteran of the NTP process. We hope we can provide you with the information you need going forward with the creation and touring grant application. And this session will be recorded and available on howl around and the NEPA website. This session is designed for general questions. If you have specific questions related to your application, NTP is offering office hours, which you can sign up for on the creation touring webpage of the NEPA website. And on that page you'll also find the recording to this webinar. It might take give us a little bit of time to get it online, but it will be there soon. Yeah. The topics we will be covering in today's webinar are who is NEPA which stands for the England Foundation for the Arts so right off the bat using an acronym there. An overview of the National Theater Project. We're going to answer what does a creation and touring grant support will go over NEPA's EDIA statement, the criteria and eligibility for this program. What is a development partner? That's a common question. The timeline which for those of you who are applying for the second time or more will notice has shifted. What and who are the NTP advisors? What is the application process and what are our most frequently asked questions? We'll go over the narrative question overview, work samples, and then have a Q&A. And before we go into the NTP grant, we wanted to just give a little bit of context about New England Foundation for the Arts. NEPA is a service organization that also acts as a funder investing in artists and creative communities. And the language from our website is NEPA invests in artists and communities and fosters equitable access to the arts, enriching the cultural landscape of New England and the nation. NEPA accomplishes this by granting funds to artists and cultural organizations, connecting them to each other and their audiences and analyzing their economic contributions. NEPA serves as a regional partner for the National Endowment for the Arts, New England State Arts Agencies, and private foundations. And it's worth noting that even though National Theater Project is run by New England Foundation for the Arts, we are a national program. The folks who are invited to apply from anywhere in the United States, and we define the United States as all 50 of the states as well as Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the District of Columbia. The National Theater Project for development of artists led ensemble and devised theater work while extending the reach and life of these projects. And does this through our funding from the Lead Funding from the Mellon Foundation and additional funding from the Doris Duke Foundation. NTP was created in 2010 to explore if the National Dance Model could support devised and ensemble theater. In the beginnings, we gave six grants for creation and touring. We gave four to five artist development grants for a handful of finalists who did not receive the creation and touring grant. It included a cohort meeting between grantees and advisors and travel grants for presenters to see supported work. Today, we give 10 grants for creation and touring. We give artist development grants to all remaining finalists. There continues to be the cohort meeting between grantees and advisors. It's one of our favorite parts of the grant. And we continue to provide travel grants for presenters to see supported work. The National Theater Project is able to give 10 creation and touring grants. These grants are given to U.S.-based devised theater ensembles and individual artists who have identified collaborators. Projects vary greatly in timeline, scale, and touring interests. All of these projects must have one committed development partner, but the nature of those relationships varies greatly depending on the needs of the project. And we're going to come back to what a development partner is later in the presentation. The total grant award ranges from 80 to $130,000 with some portion of that money allocated to development funds and the rest allocated for touring support, which again we'll talk about in just a second. After receiving the grant, grantees must submit a tour plan to NIFA within two years that outlines where they will be touring the work with NTP subsidies. And we're just going to break down how that work or how that funding is split up a little bit. So NTP funding is divided into two categories, the creation and touring. So after our grant is awarded, NTP staff conduct conversation with grantees and NTP advisors to decide how to divide the grant money into those two buckets according to the needs of the individual project. The project is different. So we really base those numbers off of conversations with you, but typically we'll allocate about $30,000 to $80,000 for creation. And that money is issued pretty much as unrestricted payments for the artist to spend at their discretion. The remaining grant money is set aside as artists directed allocations, which will be distributed directly to presenters. The funds can support up to 50% of the artist fee for any given engagement. That money is paid directly to the presenter, but the funds are released at the discretion of the artist. So in other words, you would tell us how much of your touring subsidy you want to give to each organization that presents your work. This funding reduces the cost the presenters who want to present your work, which can open all sorts of possibilities for how the work towards people use different strategies for allocating that funding. So some folks might give large subsidies to a handful of presenters, or you might decide to give smaller subsidies to every tour site. That funding is intentionally flexible and the NTP staff and advisors are available as a resource to help grantees decide how to split the money and offer a reference for how other artists have used the funding in the past. In addition to helping you tour in new ways, we hope this funding can help subvert the power dynamics that often exists between presenters and artists and give artists more agency and power in those negotiations. We also recognize that this kind of negotiating requires labor, and we do have a requirement that all NTP funded projects have a designated tour coordinator who will negotiate directly with presenters. To help reduce that burden, NTP provides an additional $10,000 on top of your grant funding, which can be used to support a tour coordinator and or touring support, as well as other general operating needs. That money is released in full when you receive the grant and you are free to spend it however you see fit. So in other words, even though we say the grant is 80 to $130,000, it's really more like 90 to $140,000. Hi all Leilani speaking again. Before I go through the eligibility slide, I just want to acknowledge that we don't have our live captioning up yet, but it should be up momentarily. Thank you to our captioner Ariana, who is working on getting an alternate captioning method available to us while we deal with some surprise limitations to my account. Circling back to the actual presentation eligibility, the applicant must be a US based theater ensemble or individual artists with identified collaborators you heard Derek, give the description of us based for the purposes of this project to hear it again later on. As you can see on the screen above, it is also available on our website. The applicant must also have nonprofit status or a nonprofit fiscal sponsor. For the purposes of this grant, we are using the definition of nonprofit that is a 501 C3 organization or a tribal government. So if you don't have a 501 C3 status or fiscal sponsor in the preliminary phase, it is not a barrier to apply but you will need one once you're in the finalist phase in order for funds to actually be distributed to you. For going again for the eligibility you need to have one committed development partner relationship, we will go into what a development partner relationship looks like in just a minute here. Funds must be allocated among your tour sites within two years of receiving the grants. You must be able to fulfill the requirements and reports that go with the report with the grant if awarded. Returning artists, meaning folks who have received NTP funding before NTP specifically, all NTP supported presentations have to have been completed, and it has to have been one year since the last NTP supported presentation by completed and last presentation on our end the funds need to have been allocated and distributed to the locations and to the grantee. That was a lot of information we do have the Q&A coming up after. Types of projects not considered unfortunately we cannot fund everything. So, these are the projects that are not eligible and will not be considered projects focused solely on children and family theater. Your project can engage children and can engage families and many of our projects have in the past but they cannot be focused solely on children and family theater. Projects by solo artists. This is when we get questions about because this is a co-equal devised process, we are totally okay with one single person being on stage as long as the other folks generating the actual project or co-equal creators and partners in the work and performance. Projects must be based by lead artists who are here in the United States so any projects developed by lead artists who are not US based as defined in our criteria section are not eligible. Any projects that do not meet NTP definitions of devised, ensemble or tour slash touring, you can get more information in the criteria section of our website. Next, I would like to go over NIFA's EDIA values statement with you all. NIFA values an equitable, diverse and inclusive world which we interpret as all people having fair access to the tools and resources they need to realize creative and community endeavors. We acknowledge structural and equities that have excluded individuals and communities from opportunities based on race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, class, age, geography, culture, nation of origin and language and we strive to counter those inequities in our work. NIFA believes in a diverse and thriving world and art sector and as part of that one of the values that is not yet captured in our written statement is the importance of intersectionality in individuals, art makers and our experiences of art and theater. In the spirit of transparency, which for me does align with having an equity, diversity, intersectionality and accessibility stance. We are in, we are heading into a process of strategic planning during which we will be continuing to evaluate our values statements and practices. So this statement may evolve and change even over the course of this application cycle. Now to the stuff you all really want to hear. I'm going to move into the criteria specific to NTP creation and touring grants. I will read this word for word because this is what you will see when you go to fill out an application. And the questions that are asked in the application derived directly from these criteria. And also what our advisors will be looking at when they score your application. This criteria is available on our website and we suggest you have that open as you fill out the application criteria one NTP creation and touring grants support the creation development of us touring of new artists led devised ensemble theater works. To illustrate excellence in the artist practice. NTP uses the following definitions in consideration of grant applications ensemble, a group of two or more people committed to working together over time to develop a distinct practice and body of work devised. This is a process of co creation and joint discovery that prioritizes generative artists, which may include but does not prioritize playwrights and directors. It is iterative and results in original work for tour and touring sharing of the work in multiple locations or formats, including in person performance, virtual performance or hybrid modalities. NTP creation and touring grants support work that contributes to the cultural aesthetic informed diversities of today's theater. In other words, why this project, why this ensemble and why now. They demonstrate meaningful partnerships with organizations that are involved in the development performance promotion engagement and or touring of the new work. They center engagement with and for communities and audiences via the works process and performance. They also demonstrate a commitment to sharing the work with communities in the US via a tour. And one big question that we get every year is what is a development partner and a development partner is fundamental to making this work happen. Over the last 13 years that we've been doing this that the stronger the relationship is with the development partner, the more likely it is that the work is going to come together in a way that feels successful for the artists. So development partners provide a variety of resources during the development of a project, and sometimes continue that support into the touring of the work. Additionally, open ended about what can constitute a development partner. So some ways that a development partner might contribute to the work is through providing residency space, virtual platforms, audience for work in progress and other offerings, whether that be virtual or in person administrative guidance or support marketplace advocacy for planning assistance, leveraging of additional funds for the project, and much more. So I think a question to ask yourself is, what are the gaps in my application and how can organizations outside of our ensemble fill in those gaps and give our project the greatest chance of success. The development partner is not required to present the finished work at any time, though many do. It is understood that the need and level of assistance between development partners and artists varies from artists to artists and project to project. But NTP believes strongly that partnerships greatly benefit the development and distribution of devised ensemble theater. And something important to remember is that the development partner does not necessarily mean a presenter or a presenter, or even an arts organization. It can mean an incubator space, a service organization that works in a community you're hoping to reach, or any number of organizations. The next thing we're going to discuss is our timeline. So the timeline just acknowledging has shifted for the first time it is open in the summer. Usually this has happened in the winter in the past so we recognize that this is a shift. The current timeline is as follows July 2023 inquiry application is available on our website that is the phase we are currently in it is also known as the preliminary application phase. So July 27 2023 at 1159pm Eastern is the inquiry application deadline. That means the application that is currently available on our website is due in fall at this time and no later fall 2023. And by fall 2023 it really is later fall early winter applicants are notified of preliminary decisions. The finalists are then invited to submit in the full proposal round, also known as the finalist round and are paired with an NTP advisor who serves as the projects advisor during full proposal development. The final deadline for the final application is February 14 2024 at 1159pm Eastern to be clear on those last two points. And by fall 2023 through February 2024. That is the finalist round, and folks will be notified if they're moving on to the finalist round, following our first panel meeting during which our advisor panel will be selecting the project that move forward. This panel is referred to NTP advisors several times. So, who are these people making these decisions. NTP advisor panel is composed of 12 individuals representing presenters producing theaters festivals and service organizations they are theater artists. They are scholars, community leaders and former grantees. The selection of advisors take into account geography, gender, cultural and racial equity and includes new and established leaders in the field. These advisors guide the project selection and serve as consultants and ambassadors for the program. The final application process so again that will be following our panel meeting in November advisors provide critical guidance to the applicants in proposal preparation and toward development finalists will work with an assigned advisor on their final application. This advisor panel aligns with NEPA's EDIA commitments by shifting all four decision making from the purview of staff to an intersectional and rotating committee of field leaders. A list of our current advisors can be viewed on our website. I would like to offer here the note that that list of advisors will be shifting in coming weeks as some of our advisors rotate off and new folks rotate on. Okay, so now we are going to get into the nitty gritty of how to actually fill out an application on our website. So you can access your application from NEPA.org that's nefa.org by clicking grants and programs and navigating to the NTP creation and touring grant page, which looks like this. This is also where we list our criteria and post links to the question and answer session and office hour sign ups. So we recommend spending some time on this page. And we definitely recommend looking through the criteria and the eligibility before you start an application. From here, all the relevant links will be on the right. In addition to accessing your application from here, you can sign up for an office hour spot to talk with the NTP staff one on one or preview the application narrative questions without having to actually start an application. When you are ready to work on the grant, you can click apply now to start a new application or resume my application if you have already started an application and need to return to it. If you use the apply now button, you will be starting an entirely new application and none of the information you previously entered will be there. So once you have started an application and saved it, you should always use the return to your grant application button. So working either apply now or resume my application will take you to our grant portal login, which looks like this. From here, if you've used NEPA's portal before you can go ahead and log in. If you haven't filled out a NEPA grant in the last few years, you may need to create a new account. Just to note about that, I think about three years ago we upgraded our grant portal, but unfortunately the user accounts from our old portal do not work on the new one. So if you find that your old login info from before 2019 isn't working, that's probably why. If you have any questions about that you can always contact the NTP staff directly. Particularly you should contact me about questions with the portal, I'll share my contact info, all of our contact info at the end of this slideshow. And as you're creating your account, keep in mind that the system will not let you use your email as a username. So just keep track of whatever username you use, if you lose track of it, again email me I can look that up for you. Now remember your password, you can click on can't access your account in order to reset your password. And once you create a new account or sign in with your previous login, it will take you to the grant application. And this is what the application will look like. So as you're filling this out, please remember to save as much as you can. If your computer crashes in the middle of an application and you lose information, we unfortunately can't do anything to help retrieve that so please please remember to save. I think we've all been there where you lose a project halfway through, and it's extremely frustrating. So you'll be required to hit save before moving on to the next tab of each page. Once you save, if there are required fields you haven't filled out the system will give you an alert which will show up at the top of the page. If you have opened an application form but don't have time to finish it in that one sitting you can enter project title and save the document with just that field filled out. Once you have saved the application with the title, you can always go back to the application form where you sign into the online portal and hit the return to my grant application button, and it should be there just how you left it. Once you're filling out the narrative questions, we highly recommend working in a word processor, as opposed to working directly in the application, as this will help with formatting and you won't be at risk of losing your work if your internet goes out or anything like that it's just a more steady consistent way of working we found that being said if you're working in a word processor be aware that things like italics and bold will not appear in the application. You can paste it into the portal. So just note that formatting things like that will not be pasted over. When you're returning to your application. There's, it takes you to a kind of confusing page. So once you sign in, it will take you to a page that looks like this. And our system automatically separates grant form into three categories requests inquiries and reports. This application the preliminary application we refer to as an inquiry. So in order to return to your application, you will need to click inquiry on the left side of the screen, and then you should see it pop up there. If you wish to review the narrative questions beforehand, they are available on our website, as Derek showed you. All of our questions are designed to give our advisors a good representation of your work and project. Those questions for the inquiry application are. Please describe the proposed new work. You'll have about 2500 characters for that. Describe your devising development process and how this project meets the NTP definitions of devised and ensemble theater. That's 1500 characters. Please describe what excellence means for this project as defined by your artistic practice. What is your overall desired impact for the project. Please provide any other information you think would be important for the advisors to have to fairly assess your application. Again that is another 1500 characters. Thank you to the collaborators and creative team. How does this project contribute to the cultural aesthetic and form diversities of today's theater. In other words, why this project, why this ensemble, and why now. This is section five, the key benchmarks in development and estimated schedule of completion. Briefly describe your relationship with the listed development partners and how they will contribute to the success of the project through development performance engagement promotion and or touring as defined in the NTP criteria. This project is about communities and audiences this project is being made with and for and how you envision connecting with them. Also, as you are answering these questions, please consider that while some advisors may be familiar with your work. Most will not please complete your application with this in mind without assumptions of what the advisors may or may not know. The element of your application is the video work sample requirement for this first round of application, you can submit work samples from any streaming platform you like. That said, video and YouTube links have seems to work best and with the most consistency, but you're also welcome to use Google Drive Dropbox or whatever works best for you. Keep in mind that the final application you will need to submit a downloadable work sample, but you don't need to worry about this for the preliminary application. If the video is password protected. Please remember to include the password in the application. Please also note that NTP advisors will be watching these videos privately and on their own devices. If you have access to video clips with subtitles we encourage you to use those. Keep in mind that if the audio is low quality or includes unintelligible dialogue, the advisors may miss important details. Next, advisors will be reviewing the application on their own time between when the application closes in September and the panel meeting is in November. It is really important that you do not take these videos down between when you submit the application and when the advisors need to discuss the preliminary applications. The same thing is true for passwords. It's really important that if you submit it without a password, you don't add password protection because we won't have access to that or don't pull it down. A little bit more information about the work samples themselves. As part of your application, you will be asked to submit at least one video work sample, or you can submit to shorter work samples. One or two, the total combined time for the videos can be no more than three minutes long. In other words, you could send in one three minute clip, or you could send in two one and a half minute clips, but you should not send in two three minute clips because that would be a total of six minutes. While we wish we could allow longer submissions, the advisors do need to be able to go through all of the preliminary application, so we do need to limit the length. If your clips go over the time limit, please include clearly labeled few times. When you are submitting your work sample, there is a spot to explain the sample and this is a great place to write any information that you hope the advisors will keep in mind as they review your sample. For example, if you are using a sample from before the pandemic, you could explain in this area how your work has changed or how you see it changing. If you have specific questions about this, we encourage you to sign up for an office hour session with the NTP team so we can discuss the specifics of your application. As a general rule of thumb, your work sample does not need to show the work for which you are applying, but should show a recent work from within at least the last four years. The Pfizer panelists will be watching these samples to get a better idea of what to expect from your project. And so we encourage you to include a clip that connects to the proposed project in some meaningful way, if you are unable to send a useful clip from the project. Work samples are an excellent way to fill in gaps in your application or convey elements of your work that is difficult to put into words. One of the few restrictions we put into place for our video samples is that promotional videos and video montages are not accepted. So if something has been built as a promotional video or as a commercial, it is not. It doesn't need our criteria and by video montages we mean don't submit a three minute slideshow of still photos or gifts. It does need to be three total minutes of actual video content. That brings us so I had sort of jumbled around my info so I'm just going to give a second for folks to read this slide, because this is the first slide I was talking through. Great to all of our grantees look. And then second to last slide is our contact us information. So it is incredibly important to us that you bring us your questions during your preliminary application process, and I strongly encourage you to bring us your questions sooner, rather than later things like office hours are available on a first come first serve basis. So we want to be able to help you give us enough time to give you time. So you can reach us via phone or email, and you can also schedule office hours from our website the link to do that will be up following this meeting, and I'm posting it here, you can go ahead and schedule a preliminary office hours session. If you do ask that if you are reaching out please reach out to the name listed first and last Derek shorts and Lailani Ricardo team I'm realizing we have my name misspelled on this slide. There's an oh at the end of my name. The email address is spelled correctly though so you can go ahead and copy it from there before reaching out to Peter, who will be on intermittent leave this summer and early fall. Again, you can email or call. We strongly encourage before doing that that you fully review the landing page on our website, and you can also sign up directly for office hours for one on one calls. So we're going to just throw up our final slide here as I thank you all for joining us and always thank you to our funders the melon foundation and the Doris Duke Foundation on behalf of NTP team which is myself Derek short and Peter Sullivan. Thank you for joining us today. We're going to shift into a Q amp a mode for folks who have not done a webinar before there is not the functionality for attendees to turn on their cameras the only cameras that will be able to turn on our panelists but you can use the q amp a function at the bottom of your screen to submit questions, and you can use the chat. If you have difficulty with typing and need to ask your question verbally please raise your hand so that I can work on getting you on needed. I didn't realize that the old had dropped off of your name. You know it wasn't wrong the last time we use that slide. So I think we edited something. So I'm looking at the question and answers we already do have some questions listed. I, the first question we, we addressed a little bit, which is how do you define children's theater and why is it ineligible for consideration in redefine children's theater as theater that is focused specifically on children and family theater. We don't want to say no, you can't have that as part of your project, but at the time that we were given the funds to start this branch program we were told specifically. This was not about children's and children and family theater. So that is one of the restrictions that we have on who we can give money to. So again, it might, it cannot be solely focused on family and children's theater but it can include that. I'm also seeing a question that says can a development partner also be the fiscal sponsor. And I think the answer is yes and no the development partner can be the fiscal sponsor, but they shouldn't only be the fiscal sponsor. So we don't consider fiscal sponsorship to be a considerable development partner. But if you have a development partner that's supporting you in other ways, they can also be your fiscal sponsor. And I have a very similar answer to another question of can a development partner also be a presenting partner. And it's the same answer where you can present your work, but they shouldn't only be presenting your work they should also be assisting in the development of the work. Looking to do you need at least one committed touring partner for preliminary application stage. So if you have a committed touring partner, that is awesome. So what you can do in the preliminary stage is an outline a plan, a narrative of what you anticipate touring looking like that can vary a lot, especially since we do accept hybrid applications and digital tours. And so what a committed touring partner looks like can vary a lot. So you need to articulate how you plan to tour where you plan to tour and roughly when you plan to tour, but you don't need the same level of commitment as you would from a development partner. Answering a question from the same person. This is Leilani speaking the grants are going to be announced in spring of 2024. The grant when it can begin and the subsequent first public production is a little bit in flux, in that it is a creation grant. And so you need to be still actively creating when you apply so you can have something that has started doing some performance before the actual grant is awarded as long as you can demonstrate in your application that there will be meaningful creation happening, not just performance. That's why that's a little bit mushy generally we advise and the strongest applications have the first performance happening within six months of whatever season it's due so we anticipate roughly may late May early June will be announcing so we would anticipate within six months of that the first performance is generally the strongest application. I see another question. Can the requirement that work samples be less than four years old be waived or adjusted with respect to the pandemic disrupting creative trajectories and I think we might have misrepresented that I would say that the four year old. That is more of a guideline or requirement we're not going to say that your work sample is ineligible, because it's more than four years old. We will say that work samples from within the last four years, we have found to be most effective and most beneficial to the application. If all you have is work samples from before for you from more than four years ago, you can definitely go ahead and use them. But if you do have something from within the four last four years that you think meaningfully conveys what your project is trying to accomplish. We have found that to be more effective and more helpful for your application. The important one sorry as questions are submitted it sort of jumps around so they may not be in order. Yes, the criteria of divide ensemble and touring as defined on our website under criteria. So that must meet all three of these bullet points 100% they are the baseline of eligibility, they are the foundational criteria, they are the core non negotiables it must be defies ensemble and tour or touring. I see some other questions sort of around that same one preliminary applications very pretty wildly including in the pandemic. I can offer that in terms of the volume we're anticipating right now. These sessions usually have about 30 or 40 folks that sign up we had 75 sign up for this info session today. So extrapolating from that I would anticipate a smooth 100 preliminary applications, potentially more potentially less because you can edit your application right up until you submit it's really hard for us to gauge. Folks start applications and don't finish them. So that's sort of the best I can give you there. We will be award date so because there are some questions around development timeline I'm going to just circle back to make sure that was clear. We will be awarding the grants. In spring 2024 we anticipate that being in late May, or early June. So in terms of your timeline, you will need to have both the creation and the touring, I can offer that we have some projects that are still touring, or still using their touring funds now that predate the beginning of the coven pandemic those tours are ongoing that circumstance has led to the creation timeline being extended, a slightly more common timeline is anywhere from 18 months to about three years, but projects take the time that the work takes the important part is the creation and the touring have to both be part of the process. I just took a few because they were near each other so I'll shift over to to one of you. Can we have multiple development partners or mentioned that in the application absolutely. It is very, very helpful to your application to have that Derek you wanted to add something. Oh no I was just clicking that you were answering that sorry yeah I was just trying to keep up with what you were saying. And if a project was a finalist in the national dance project but did not get a final award is that project still eligible for NTP. Yes, absolutely. However, I will make it may try to make this clear, we recognize the intersectionality between dance and theater. And this is however a theater application. So if you don't at least explain how it falls into theater. It will not be seriously considered. That is, we have had applications from folks that we actually knew were dance theater, who never mentioned the word theater once in their application. And it was reviewed, and the question was asked, isn't this a dance application. So you need to be very, very specific about how this falls into into the theater role. That was actually two questions. Very bouncy. Can touring happen both inside the US and outside of the US. Yes, it can happen. The lead artists, the ensemble actually submitting the application must be based in the United States. We not only will accept applications both inside and outside of the US we have had several folks receive the grant, including one of our current grantees, Yankee Bayesian. Which is touring both inside and outside of the US. The one thing that I do want to note for folks who are interested in an international tour is we are the national theater project and so how our touring funds the portion that doesn't go to the creation of the work but the actual sharing of the work. The allocation of those funds become slightly more challenging if the majority of your partners are international. That means your national stops, and I do encourage folks to review our definition of national because NTP does recognize all of the territories so I have had folks ask me recently, if that counts as an international tour and they're actually talking about a US tour. Oh yeah, go ahead. Just to clarify to add on to what Leilani said is that the tour. The money's, the tour can happen both inside and outside of the US but NTP tour subsidy can only be used for the US portion of that tour as defined by our website. I see a question, how many hours are anticipated for filling out the inquiry section. And honestly, I don't know how much I can answer this because I think everyone works at really different speeds. I will say those questions that we went over the narrative questions, we anticipate that being the hardest part of the application. That is where you will spend most of your time the rest of it is kind of simple answers which shouldn't take too much time. You know yourself best. So, figure out how long it takes for you to answer those questions I think everyone is really different and it also depends on the capacity of your organization. I see a question what is the development timeline after a project is selected. Are there stipulations about when work begins, premiere date, etc. And this is another one where for better for worse the answer is kind of it depends. The one requirement that I think way Lonnie talked about is that at the time that we award the grant, there needs to still be considerable development on the project happening. So, usually but not always that means that the work premiers after the grant is awarded. We have given this grant to projects that had already premiered, but those were projects that were doing considerable development between tour sites. Oftentimes they were site specific work that was really redefining itself as it toward. So it's not a hard rule that it can't have premiered before the grant application, or before the grant is awarded. But if the work premiers before the time that the grant is awarded, there will be some level, there will be some burden to show that there is still development happening. And then we have funded work like that. The other the other dates that we have are really guidelines not requirements. We do require that the work that you tell us where the work will tour or where you will use your funds your touring funds within two years. And that every project really is different and has a different timeline. So, we have found that work that will be ready to premiere within the next six months to a year, tend to be the most competitive. But again, projects that have different needs require funding at different times in their life cycle, and our advisors are very aware of that in the panel process. So there's a question here does opera fit into the term theater. You will notice that we do not define theater. And that is because we all come from different traditions certainly in my tradition dance theater and music would not be separated out from each other so. Yes, opera can fit into this program and in fact. I'm very proud of the fact that we have supported parable of the sewer, as well as Wayne shorter and Esperanza spaldings, if it's an IA. So, yes, opera is definitely theater. And you will have to talk about it within your application. We're also looking at the level of engagement with presenting partners audience. Peter, can I interrupt you for just one second to add on to that. Absolutely. That when talking about opera, or talking about dance slash theater, or talking about any discipline that you have a question about. Yes, as he does emphasize you're going to have to call it theater, you're going to have to explain how it is theater. The three immovable are devised ensemble and tour or touring. So it needs to be a devised opera devised by an ensemble that is going to tour. That is the, that is the fourth thing so there have been a couple questions on this specific genre or subgenre of fit. The answer is, yes, as long as you as the creators sincerely believe it is theater, and it meets those three specific things that I've just I've seen a couple of sort of genre questions and that's going to be the answer, whatever word you sub for opera. Absolutely. Some really simple ones. How many tour sites locations do you need for the grant. In the past, we have had a general, I wouldn't say requirement but preference for three performances within at least two different states. However, we're also talking about some areas count as a tour within themselves. For example, if you were trying to tour Alaska. That would be a tour in and of itself the amount of travel you have to do to get across Alaska is the same as if you were traveling within the contiguous 48. So, some, some tours could be Hawaii specific, for example, again, the difficulties of traveling amongst the islands in Hawaii are tremendous. For tour sites. I would aim for three, three tours three sharing two states at a minimum, if you're, let's see what's the if the proposed project has some funding through another grant does that disqualified for this application. Our grant cannot support the entirety of the project, we hope that you that you will be able to leverage this grant and get other funding we've seen that happen many, many times that by getting the NTP grant. It has enabled more investment in the project. Let's see what I had wanted to answer, which is if we have a group of artists working together for the first time. Should we submit samples of our individual work, even if it wasn't necessarily devised, or specifically representative of the kind of work we're looking to make with this grant. So this is challenging in that the goal of the work sample is to exemplify the project and what that is going to look like. So if you don't have let's say there are five artists, you don't necessarily have to be demonstrating all five of you working simultaneously. I will say that if you submit several, you know, small chunks of individual artists that isn't necessarily going to convey an ensemble. So this may not be what's implied in this question, but work samples do not have to be polished performances, they can be polished performances and we are happy to accept polished performances. But if you feel it most significantly represents what's happening with your new ensemble to show a high quality rehearsal video, that is completely acceptable if that is, you know, to demonstrate your devising process. We want to see what the work is going to be. And there's no one answer for exactly how that's going to look best for your group. To the questions for if there are a difference between an ensemble and a creative team. Sorry, before you move on, can I just say one more thing about what you were just talking about. This is not directly answering the question but for artists who are working together for the first time I also just want to point you to our definition of ensemble which does stipulate a group of artists working together over time to create a body of work, which does not exclude people who are working together for the first time. For artists who are working together for the first time, you do need to show that there's some intention of working together beyond this one project. Because by our definition of ensemble, it's groups of people who are creating multiple pieces of work two or more pieces of work together as a group. That ties in perfectly to the question of is there a difference between an ensemble and a creative team to answer that I have put our definitions of ensemble divides and tour slash touring into the chat, and I will read them out loud. An ensemble a group of two or more people committed to working together over time to develop a distinct practice and body of work devise a process of co creation and joint discovery that prioritizes generative artists which may include, but does not prioritize play or directors is iterative and results in original work tour slash touring is sharing of the work in multiple communities, locations or format, including in person performance virtual performance or hybrid modality. Creative team doesn't have the same kind of consistent definition which is why we provide our definition. If your creative team matches this definition of ensemble and is devising in this way. Yes, if by creative team you mean a traditional Western proscenium style team where there is a director and a playwright and a sex designer and they are distinctive entities who have more creative authority than the actors who are sort of hired as employees and that is a different thing. So, again, I can't define for anybody on this call or anywhere else how you would define your creative team ensembles devised tour and touring. We are at a time check. So, he didn't Derek maybe if you each want to take one more really quickly. I will drop the in the chat right now I'm dropping the link to our web page. I think some of these questions are in the creation and touring in the eligibility and criteria section. And you all do have. I have already shared the link to have a meeting with us. I can really quickly answer these two questions of can the fiscal sponsor be a university answer is yes. And are you able to submit a different work sample for the second application deadline. Again, the answer is yes. And we actually recommend using a different work sample for the second round. The last question remaining is the level of engagement with the presenting partners audience, how in depth should the engagement be specifically if the institutions do not have a relationship to your target audience. That's a very difficult one that often is the relationship between you and your presenting partner, and what they expect you to do and what you expect them to do, and that should be made very, very clear as you are talking about it. If they're interested in presenting you there must be a reason for that. And so I think it is a conversation that needs to be ongoing. What we have found is that community sourced community engaged community powered work is the work that is most successful within the NTP program. And so they're presenting partners out there who under understand your work and and can help you with that engagement. If you don't plan on having that kind of a presenting partner, but have a community partner. That is also acceptable as a presenting partner, a community partner can be a presenting partner. Suggest that you talk to the NTP team and ask questions about those partners and that relationship to get a more clear understanding of this it really is a project by project issue. And we've, we have seen all kinds of iterations of presenting partners and we're happy to help with that. Before we log off for the afternoon I just want to say a couple of quick specific thank yous. Thank you to Nikki who is our current ASL interpreter on the bottom of my screen. Thank you to Josh who was our initial ASL interpreter. Thank you to Ariana who is our captioner and to found a solution for us. Thank you to the who you all would not have seen or heard, but who is on the staff at how will round and has been helping me to facilitate this whole thing functionally as tech backup. I want to thank all of you for attending and for your patience as we tried to get things up and running in the most functional and accessible way. And thank you as always to my team. Final reminders, everything that we discussed in the slides is available on our website the criteria eligibility, the definition, the deadlines, even the timelines when do I have to have the project touring, etc. All on the website. You can also contact us via email or phone or schedule a 30 minute preliminary office hours session with either myself or Derek. Thank you all for joining us this afternoon. Thank you for your applications whether they are in process for forthcoming and thank you for the art that you put out into the world, we are all the better for it. Have a good afternoon. Happening. Thank you all. Thank you.