 Blue, back for Pharrell, my play is Crosses, and I feel like my story is so much more cheesy. More cheesy than I say. More cheesy than I say. Because I feel like when I finally was like, all right, yeah, I was in college, I majored in psych, and I literally went to my psych advisor and was like, so how do I concentrate in theater? And that was because I saw a peer prevention troupe performing, I was like, yeah. Oh, wow. I'm gonna do that, and I did that, and I was like, we're gonna minor in theater now. Those shows hit hard. I love that, I really, really love that. That's beautiful. I just directed the University of Minnesota's peer prevention orientation play, so maybe we're gonna find some theater kids and future blues. Clarence. Hi, I'm Clarence Koo. I wrote chapters of A Floating Life, He, Him. And I guess the moment I knew I wanted to do theater was it was also a show. It was not the touring production of Wicked, it was actually a community theater production of Big River in Alexandria, Virginia. And I mean, for high school, me, I was like, wow, this is so cool. In terms of the stage craft and the music and the magic that happened on stage. And the fact that it went through so many different locations on the same place, and they had to use our imagination. And it's funny, because now that I think about it, it was a road trip play, which is funny, because I'm not thinking about Charlie's play, which is also a road trip play. I love that. Yeah, so yeah, the magic of theater. Yes, Noah. When did I want to do theater? I guess, well, I did a speech and debate in high school, and I was on the speech side. So like interpretation, you got to work with scripts and perform it for an audience in a 10 minute piece, and you had to try and get them to care in 10 minutes and get them to, you know? And so I saw that and I was like, I didn't want to act. I figured out I wanted to make that piece of writing that could help move somebody in that little high school classroom. And when I went to undergrad, I took a survey where, I mean, this is an amazing class, which is like, we go around LA. I went to Loyola Marymount, and we would just go see theater. Every week we saw something different every week. So we saw black box, we saw devise, we saw musicals, we saw, and some of the best things that I've seen are we're at Atwater Village Theater. I love that, I love that play. Oh, good, thank you. Our team from Dr. Silver, Nick had to fly back to Canada today for production, and it is Britta Johnson's birthday. And so her and her sister and half the cast of Dr. Silver are currently at Disneyland. And Eleanor, of course, is preparing for tech to go into our next show. So I want to thank you all for being here and sharing those memories and those moments. I'll offer up that the first moment I knew I wanted to do theater, I was in New York with a performing arts troupe, and I watched the classical theater of Harlem do a production of the Cherry Orchard with Wendell Pearson. That man said, my God, my God, the Cherry Orchard is mine. The play, and I said, ooh, there's something going on here. I like it. I wanted us to start with these moments that we knew because I wanted to sort of, my first question to you is sort of about a theme that I feel like I've noticed picking up throughout PPF. It's nothing that we planned, but we've been touching on memory and remembering. In chapters, some people write in order to remember. We got the writing of memories and experience into story and novel. Crosses, you don't want to remember. One character says to another, children and adults hunted by their past. Coleman, you are remembering the bad. I am remembering it all. A group of siblings piecing together their memory. And of Oz, Roya is overtaken by her memories. And I actually really love the plea of connection in you don't remember graduation, this beautiful moment there. Galilee, you'll see, I remember, now you'll be listening for it. And Galilee, I remember is a group of people trying to piece together the memories of a man they loved beyond belief. And Dr. Silver, a new line that we heard, it wasn't even in the script, I had to get Nick to send it to me. He says this thing about memories anchor us to reality. We got these memories, we got this remembering. In the staircase, I honestly didn't remember it until you just told me just now how a mother is losing her memories. Why? How is memory impacting your work? Why does it matter? What are you thinking about when you start writing and talking about what we remember? I mean, I think we can all go home now. I mean, like. That's what I do, now you. Memory stumped them, my favorite version. All alone in the morning light. This is the only room where that will end. I mean, I guess this is just a purely theoretical, but I don't know, I don't know when you wrote your plays, but I think that, so I wrote Coleman the April 2020, so the first months of the pandemic. And so there wasn't, I wonder if there was something about doing a play that is deeply about looking back and kind of the, and trying to make really active the process of looking back because I was super sedentary. I wonder if just we're in this life cycle right now where we've all, these plays all kind of came out from them. I don't know, that's maybe just me, that's just a theory. We'll take it. No, this is actually, I don't remember when I started this, I just know that it's the play that's taken the longest to come to, you know, give birth to. So it's been years, I've been working on it. And I think that memory is such an interesting thing because you can't trust it, but you also need it to work through the things that you're carrying. And so like that was really important when I was working on process is like, if you have trauma and pain in order to move through it, in order to face it, you actually have to sit with the memories that you don't want to remember. And so it's interesting because also not knowing all the things, I feel like that probably speaks to all the things you were talking about. But it's a great device anyway. Come on, just the technique of it. Anybody else on memory? It doesn't make me think about why I'm attracted to theater. I suppose the other art forms and the one I write for the theater. Because theater is something that we work so hard on playwrights writing and then rehearsal and then the production and then the designers. And then the audience comes and sees it and then it's over. Like there's the run and then it's gone. And then it just lives in people's memories. And as theater people, we embrace that in a way. People who write novels, they have their book and people who do film, they have the film that you could people, generations and generations of the future can watch. And I guess we're just, we have a trust, I guess, in the present experience and enjoying it and being in it. And then just letting go and letting it be the memory. That doesn't really answer your question, but it's more like a reflection. Oh, it answered it, it's down. Noah Michael, any offers? Theater is so ephemeral, like a memory is there and then it's not recorded, you'll never see it again and then you just take it with you. And memory comes down to interpretation because we're all not gonna remember the same thing the same way. And I was thinking of Michael, you know, and your mom came. I'm like, I'm wondering what, you know, you play your mom and I wonder what that car ride is home. And she's like, I didn't say that. You know what I mean? They just, it was the same event, but maybe you two interpreted it a different way. And my professor used to say like theater is a seon and you can bring back people and you get to say something to them that maybe you couldn't say in real life and that's your own thing, that's your own memory that you get to have of them that I never had this person in my life in real life, but I get to have them here in this place. Yeah, I mean, I, well, I'll talk about the car ride. I mean, my mother has notes. She's like, mm-mm, that was not. I'm like, girl, this is my place, okay? But what's amazing about it is like, well, or, you know, what's interesting about it is that I'm, this is the play that I'm writing. I am embodying her story and I'm putting her story into my body and sort of taking on her history and my family's history and that long sort of tradition. But also, it's through, it's ultimately through my lens. You know what I mean? It's through, it's the way I process those events. And so like, people will see the play and they'll be like, well, how much of this actually happened? Even though I'm telling my mother's story, I'm still interpreting it through my eyes and there's a scene in the play that takes place in an underground party where my mother, the character of my mother is, has a very intimate moment with another woman and it's sort of, it's open to interpretation and it's, there's this deep intimacy where my mother was like, that's not how it is. I'm like, but for me, it was like, I see the way Iranian women are so intimate with each other as just as friends, as, you know, at parties, right? Like the festivity of an Iranian party. It's intimate with everyone, not just women, but also men. What's happening right now in Iran, there is this deep intimacy between people that are out on the streets and it's just like all, they're all joined together in this cause of woman life freedom. You know, it's like we are in this together and we're not giving up the fight and so I wanted to sort of bring that intimacy into the play and sort of just pay homage to it and honor it, yeah. Michael, you just opened your show and you not only perform as your mother, you of course wrote the play as well. What's that process been like? Being a writer and a performer, how has one changed or altered the other? Well, it's been quite intense and fabulous. I mean, I will say, you know, I had, I mentioned like I was doing magic and so I was on stage for a lot of my life. This is the first time I'm actually in a play of my own, you know. I have another play that I'm writing at the Geffen, which is a magic play. That's a whole other conversation. But this is, and I'm in that as well, but this is like, this was the first, I started writing this a couple of years ago and I mean, it's beyond, it's just like, it's so meaningful because I get to, I really get, I feel like I get to call my ancestors into the room, into this sanctuary. Like it really feels like being up here with 500 seats in the theater, it feels like a sanctuary and like, you know, we have Iranian women coming to the show, Iranian people coming to the show. Many of whom have never stepped foot inside a theater. You know, people will come and tell me. Many of my family members, they don't go see plays because I mean, you know, fabulous, but are they gonna see like a Christmas Carol? I mean, lovely, but like my 83 year old grandmother, it's not speaking to her in the same way. And so it's really just an honor. It's like, and also the last thing I'll say is like, they come and they'll say, you know, this part of your story is also my story, you know. And that's like amazing for these women, for especially for Iranian women coming to me. I'm like, it's so beautiful. Zora Neale Hurston says, tell a story, get a story in return. And there's always something really powerful about that. It shapes so much of the way I think about theaters, how we tell a story and we get one back. It's why we love panels. It's why I actually love post-show conversations because people just start nodding. They're like, wow. I'm like, you are moved by someone else's story. There's something really special in there. Noah, you weren't in your play, but you were in your play as we were doing the readings, right? My favorite story was last night at the bass, somebody came up to me, they're like, oh man, I really love that staircase and the percussionists. I thought he just was so good and so focused. I said, well, you know, he's also the playwright. What? So I'm just so curious, the music, the instrument, the chanting, integral to the staircase, why? You know, that drum, it's called an ipuheke and it's a very, it's an old instrument in that like, this is the same sound you would have heard 2,000 years ago. Come on. You know what I mean? It's just, they grew, it's too gorge, so they grow out of certain oblong and then there's like a head shape and it's put together and it makes this sound, that's not like a timpani, it's not a snare. You know, it's what we call kahiko. It's just old, it's old world. And so that's kind of where I want to build all of my plays from is how to honor that side and being in the play is like the rarest thing for me because I never want to be a one man show. I couldn't do it, but it was an honor to be on stage to support the cast that was already there. So it's not like, oh, go do it and I'll watch. It was like, I'm right there with you. I'm warming up with you, we're doing all the things and I was comfortable only in that like I was third chair trumpet in band so I had a music stand, I had an instrument, the conductor, the director says go, I go, but I had to just think about staying neutral on stage because that first night I was kind of like, you know, taking notes and things are going, but then my, you need to relax, enjoy it because I didn't watch it the first night. I was just like so, but then the next night I watched and I enjoyed and people said, oh, that helped. So they got to enjoy the piece when I enjoyed the piece, but it's very rare to have the playwright. It's weird. I love that you were there. We've got music, Clarence, your characters, I mean you, your characters are talking about language and you got a writer writing about the process of writing and you yourself are a writer. I'm just curious what drew you to writing about language and telling the story of chapters of A Floating Life. Gosh, I guess to tackle the idea about writing, I guess I'm just fascinated by some people feel like they need to write like this and then other people like people in my family who don't and they lead happy lives. And so I think for me part of this play was trying to figure out like why do we need to write, need to write and how do people who don't write look at us and how do we who write look at people who don't write and again I respect people who don't write. You guys are living happy lives. And so that's why I think in that play there are people who are really into like language and like nerdy intellectual stuff and people are more practical. I love that, I love that. Blue, you tackle a really heavy attack, a topic in process and the ending takes my breath away every single time. I've read it three times, seen it twice now and it's sort of it really, I mean you've in many ways particularly in the reading we got to see with Lillian Brown, a ritual of a sorts comes forward to sort of bring this sort of story forward. Why? Why'd you feel like you needed to write that story? Why'd you feel like you needed to get that out and it's been the longest thing you've worked on you said. Ooh, let me answer that. Well, it comes from a cultural place. It comes from living and being around secrets and having to piece things together to see a full picture. And I really just kind of heard these characters, these kids in my head at some point where I was like, oh, that's my family's land and these are aunts and uncles. I don't actually know because they're not with us anymore but being around these little bits and pieces and crumbs all my life and no one wanting to like talk about it and talk about something that is not just affecting the family but the country as a whole. I kind of, I just wanted to honor that in a very real way that can land and sit what's up because like you said, it's very heavy and it's very daunting to get into that play. I tell you every time I go like work on it, I'm like. And so yeah, really it comes from like wanting to take care of my people. Yeah, the body remembers. And even the body remembers even if we don't want to talk about it. And there's just something really beautiful about that ritual of release, you know and to say the thing and to get the thing out and then sending that young girl on. I just, I'll never, I don't always be stuck. The image of hands on the back, hands on the back. Charlie, you and I have talked about Coleman 72 and multiple, Charlie's been here so we've been doing lots of Q and As but one thing I haven't told you about the play that I really love and Coleman 72 is the dad basically is like, listen, you can't be no cheerleader. You can't be doing this art stuff. You need to be a doctor. Everybody's like, oh, that's so and then some but your father says a thing that has stuck with me and I will never forget. He said, you got to be, you got to have a job that so the world won't throw you away. And I have never, the idea of like, I just want you to be secure in the world so that they cannot toss you away. And the only position is that of healer. So they're like, I'm just curious, where did that come from? What are you, what are you thinking? What are you processing there? I mean, that specifically, that sentiment was, is really frankly a direct pull from my grandfather. That would pass down, I didn't hear directly from him but was passed down to my father and my father told me about how this kind of philosophy, my grandfather was grew up in two wars, you know, and came to America right after the Korean War. And he had this belief that if you are a doctor, that is, when societal disruption happens, when there is war, when there is relocations, when you are a refugee, like if you can, like a human life is always priceless. And so if you can be a doctor, that means that you will never be someone who is sent to the front. You know, that means that you'll never be somebody who is disposable. And, you know, there's a logic to that, you know? And it's, and it's- It's a logic of survival. It's the logic of survival. And so I think that a lot of working on Coleman 72 has been an empathetic exercise in trying to understand these people that I'm related to. But, you know, my grandfather died when I was in high school. I didn't get to really know as an adult. And just last night, I was at the PPF bash. There was, I was talking to a couple of people who saw the play that night who born and raised in Korea. And one actually still lives in Korea and one lives in Los Angeles. And we were, they were commenting on, I thought it was really interesting about how they thought that Coleman could have only be written, could only have been written by a third generation kid. Because first and second generations too, they're like, we're too close to it. You know, we are like, you have that, they felt that kind of translation and kind of the distance of that perspective. Which was interesting to hear. I hadn't thought about it in that way before. I love that what our elders give us to help us sort of make it through. My father was born in 1946. And so it always sort of blows my mind. I grew up in Detroit surrounded by blackness and then I moved to Minnesota. But it's interesting cause I tell you like they talk about Detroit hustle. But my father always sort of like, I ask people like what, what's a piece of advice that you've been given this is the question to you. What's a piece of advice that you've been given that shapes you? And often like my father sort of, I do a lot of work around anti-racism, equity, diversity, inclusion. And you know, I'll just say it boldly. Why people don't scare me in the same way that they, in the same way that they scare or sort of create a lot of tension in ways. Mostly that's cause I was born and raised in Detroit surrounded by blackness. And then my father also sort of just told me, he like, they just don't know no better. And so the way my father sort of lives in my brain and my dad basically told me that, you know, they can't get it together and don't expect much of them. And it's made my job easier. And there are some white folks who have got it together and thank you for that. I'm just naming though that like that piece of advice is part of the reason why I'm really good at what I do is that my dad like in 19, since 1946 is like nah, and that's been really helpful for me. It may not be something like that, but what's a piece of advice you've been given by someone that's really sort of shaped you as a writer or as a person? I told them they would be stumped and they have permission to sit in silence. No need to rush. You know, I do, I help out with traditional tattooing, traditional Hawaiian tattooing. And he's a Sua Suape. And that just means he's a master at what he does. And he told me that, you know, just pursue the cultural and the rest will take care of itself. And so I think what he meant really was like, you know, you can go for this job for the money, you can go for this job for the whatever, but if it's not serving culturally, then it's not gonna benefit you in the long run. And that's what he did. That he was, he's able to build out his life just by pursuing, you know, all of his knowledge that he has was literally sitting at the foot of other old folks and just taking that in. And, you know, he wants for nothing at this point because he just gets to do what he does and it serves the community. And so I feel the same way now where I don't do theater in Hawaii, there's not a big scene. So I do, I'm in education, I work at a Hawaiian language school just as a tutor. It's a full immersion, that means it's conducted in Hawaiian, the kids all speak Hawaiian. And I also go to the university, I went back for a second undergraduate degree in Hawaiian language and Hawaiian studies. And I felt compelled to do that after graduate school because I went to USC and I was, you know, the only native Hawaiian in the room and I had nothing to say about it. And I felt like this deep deficit to be on the A to be on the mainland and have no authority on what I'm even writing about. So I was, and my professors asked me, are you gonna keep writing after you graduate? And I said, no, I'm gonna go back, I'm gonna pursue culture. And it just so happens that I'm able to do both. And so that to me means that his advice is meaningful and works, you know. Pursue the culture. I was trying to think of something from my family and I couldn't, instead what came through, it will pop into my head is from the bestie, shout out to bestie, Abby. Which is living authentically and being unapologetic about that and coming to the work in the same way. So like there'll be times when I'll have conversations about, oh, you know, am I honoring my people? Which whether that means Jamaicans, Caribbean black people, black women, the diaspora. And I'm like, is this something that I should put in front of other people? Like, is it problematic? Should I, and she'll be like, well, does that person exist? And I'm like, you day in my days, that's all right. And if you move in the world that way, there's less space for fraudulence and dissonance. And so that is the thing that I try to do in my life and that is the thing I try to do in my work with my characters is move in the same way. Come on. Okay, so that was beautiful, both of you. I mean, what it brought up for me is expect miracles. And I've heard that a miracle is a shift in perception from fear to love. And I love what you said, Noah, about service because I feel like that is theater, to be creating a collective experience where people can get together in a visceral bodily way, feel their feelings, feel the celebration, feel the joy and to follow that. And for me, like expecting miracles, I started working on this play a couple of years ago. We had Maritz Von Stupnegel who was directing the play and absolutely brilliant collaborator. And we've been working on it for a few years and we did a reading right before the pandemic. And we were at LaMama and then everything shut down, obviously. And then I did PPF, like right when it, I guess last year. And it's sort of, we've been on such an insane journey with it, which I could not have anticipated or I could not have explained to you how that was gonna unfold, but we went to Ohai Playwrights Conference. We were invited to Sundance Institute, a theater aspen all over the place. And that wasn't necessarily, yes, like we are showing up and doing our part, right? We're doing our part. But there are also other forces at work, whether you wanna call it nature, whatever you wanna say is at work, whatever that means to you. But it's like, it does feel miraculous to be doing this play right now as there's a movement happening in Iran right now, like literally right now. And the SCR programmed the show sort of before that was really part of the dialogue. And this is, I'm actually told this is the first major production of an Iranian play ever in Southern California, which is crazy. This is the biggest home to Iranians outside of Iran. And so that is definitely not my doing. You know what I mean? I could not have said, let's do this play now, but the star sort of align. And I think it's partly because, you know, like I didn't set out to write a play about like what's going on in the moment, you know, three or four years ago. I just set out to write a play. I didn't even really set out. I just sort of like listened to this character that was in my head, like you said before. And it was like my mother telling her story. And then the miracles happen. So I, you know, I really come to believe in miracles, you know, expect miracles. And like, and then the last thing I'll say is like, it's not a, it's not like a woo woo thing. It's actually like kind of guaranteed. You know what I mean? Like if you show up and do your part and you, you know, are there doing, being of service, whatever it is, you know, like I also what you said was the rest sort of unfolds. It's, it's attractive. You know what I mean? It's literally attracting opportunities, people, and the people that might need to be there in that moment. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know who's going to be, I was just having a conversation yesterday. Like who's going to be in that theater that needs to hear this play? Maybe there's one person. I don't know, but that's not up to me to decide who's going to be in the theater. All I need to do is show up and do my part and the rest is miraculous in my experience. Clarence, Noah, any advice? You know, it's funny, I'm just going to say the first thing that gave me really good advice is Michael. Because, because 10, 10 minutes ago, we were just catching up and I was telling him that I left my job, my full, my day job. I was an administrator at a university for 11 years and I left it last year. And so I'm just like living off some savings and not knowing what my future will bring. And that was his advice, expect miracles. I love it. We're on message, baby. We'll take it. We will take it. I'm taking it, I'm holding on to that. I love it. Noah, Clarence, Charlie. Third time's a charm. Right. Fail. I'm still thinking about expecting, I think that's amazing. And that made me think of, I had a teacher in high school. I had a drama teacher in high school who would tell us, live your life as a work of art. And I think that that really struck me, which is that you can, yes, we can all write a play. We can create art. But there's just a fundamental way of engaging in the world with curiosity, with grace, with empathy, with a sense of play that is an art form in and of itself. And that idea has always, I mean, has stuck with me for years. And it's not always easy to live that. It's easy to get caught up in the doldrums and kind of a reactive fear to the world, to the kind of ups and downs of the business that comes with art and everything. But to live your life as a piece of art and to kind of have that type of engagement with a creative relationship with yourself kind of throughout has been really a meaningful piece of advice that George Keating, Chicago actor, director gave me. Thank you. Speaking of curiosity, we're gonna invite your curiosity. We're gonna open it up to the audience for questions. A few things you need to know, whether in a panel or a postural conversation, I always offer up this idea. These are opportunities for you to sort of have the courage to embrace your curiosity, which means you get to ask any questions or any ideas or thoughts that you want. It does not mean that your thoughts or questions will be answered or that they will not be met with challenge. Your curiosity is welcome, but you might find yourself being challenged in your curiosity. I may say, oh no, we won't answer that question, or I may push back against your question. None of the people up here have to answer your question. They will if they so feel moved to answer your question. Now that I've scared you enough, by making boundaries clear, I open up and encourage your curiosity. Please raise your hand and I'll call on you. There's always a dramatic pause once I open up for questions, that's normal, except my good friend in the back came through for me and that's what I'm talking about. What's your question? I'll repeat it, yes. Sometimes I'll take a question and direct it. I'm gonna toss this one to Noah first because it was untitled, then it was a small man and now it is indeed the staircase. This is my own personal thing, but a title is how you meet the play, so it is important and I always felt like the title should be the metaphor of the play. I mean, it doesn't always have to be, but it's there so that when you get to that point where it's uncovered, you know, I watched The Glass Menagerie for the first time and it was on the car ride home, I was like, oh, it's a metaphor because she's like, and then I was like, it all kind of came together and so you don't want to have a play that, I mean, a title that kind of misdirects either and you don't want it to be obvious about why it is that thing. You don't want that thing to appear on the first page or I don't know, but it is, for me, it has to be the metaphor, so my title changed because the metaphor in process changed. Excellent. Anybody else on your title? Maybe one more? I would say the same thing, like, one of my things is like, we need to make this short. I remember the first full-length play that had a placeholder title and it was like the Lorraine Hanbury School of, it was so long, it was just like, girl, you are doing too much, there's a way to capture this, to capture the essence of the play in a very quick way for people to remember and to like, when they watched you're like, oh, oh, I get it, PS 365, there's a double median here, it's a school, but also this happens every, all day, every day. Crosses, you'll discover you don't know what it means if you're not Jamaican, but as you watch the play, you sure as hell will find out and you'll, ah, get it. So like, I'm very much like, what's the shortest, quickest way to have an aha moment as you watch the play? Excellent. Gonna open up for more questions, we'll answer a few, we won't hear from everybody as we go, because we got a little bit of time. Coming to you, Ova. Questions about the journey of your pieces there? Clarence, could we start with you? Yeah, I've been working on this play for maybe about four years now. And, yeah, it's alternating between like writing by yourself and then working with actors, because I think a play is really like writing music, you know, you really have to hear it to understand it. And it's only once you have actors that you know that, oh, I've written too much. So I should maybe cut back on some of the words or something still aren't clear. So I'll move this phrase here or there. So, yeah, so for me, it's just alternating between being by myself, working with actors, coming back, working by myself and then working with actors again. Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. Clarence, and I think also like, this is why development is so important and being able to have opportunities like PPF and conferences and all of this like, it's critical. And we've been, I mentioned we've been doing Ava's. We had a number of different touch points. We had a longer rehearsal process because Maritz is, first of all, this guy's like doing like 10 shows at once. You know what I mean? Like he was doing a show at the Geffen, so we were rehearsing in LA while he was at the Geffen. After this, he's going back to Broadway with Danny DeVito and Lucy DeVito. And so like, we're like in the sort of middle of this conversation, we had learned a lot about the play working up to this point. But then it was really when we started getting into the production that it's like, okay, so now we need to think about blocking and movement and how does the character actually move and how do we interact with the audience and how do we think about this in a dynamic way. So that's been another point of unfolding and it will continue to unfold. Like, you know, we're actually taking the play on tour. There'll be a national tour that happens after this in the next year plus, which is exciting. We're setting that up now. And, you know, like Luis Alfaro, who's a brilliant, brilliant playwright, you know, family member of SCR and a literal genius, by the way. An actual genius. Like, he'll have a play published, like, done at the public. And then I'll like be talking to him and be like, I'm doing edits on, edit this out, right? I'll be like, why? He's like, no, because it's responsive to the community that you're in. So, you know, even as we've been in Orange County and Costa Mesa, you know, it's not like I'm writing the play to this audience at all. But, you know, you do find ways that different sort of parts of the play take resonance in new ways. And also the urgency of what's happening in the world also informs the play. So, I think it's always in process, always in motion. We'll stop there and we'll come back to you all. Questions? I'm coming back here, yes? Go ahead, Zaza, Zaza. Question about what happens when you change a play? Do you grieve what you lost? Is it easy? I always ask, playwrights are kind of amazing. Some of you all are like, I cut it because it was trash. I'm like, whew. Like, dang, I'm like, but you wrote it, they're like, I can write better. I'm like, go ahead, do you? I could never, everything I write, I'm like, it's brilliant as it is. It can never change. You all are like trash. But, so I'm just curious. You were just in revisions. I just, you just opened a play. There were revisions constantly. What's it like? Grieving, how do you make cuts? How do you revise? No, I'm ruthless, to myself. No, I actually, I rarely had a moment where I had to cut something and it's been sad. I'm like, yes, goodbye. Like, I just like, in, out with the old and with the new. I mean, yeah, I mean, there was a couple of days during our process where I was, there was like a week where I was bringing in like 15 to 48 new pages a day, you know. Look at Blue's face. I'm like, here's my, here's my new word for today. No, but also, not all pages are created equally in that for the, you know, like, that might be a, you have to reference a page because there's a line or whatever, but. No, I really like revision. I really like revision because I don't know, I have negative self-talk or something and I can convince myself that it's better. I don't know, but no, I embrace it. And I've never had to go like, oh my, I always feel like very, I feel like there's always like a justification and also a confidence, I guess, also, which is like, if I cut this and I think I realize I'm wrong, it's just in a older draft. I can go back and find it, you know. It's like, nothing feels permanent in that way. Just like, like, at least can change out of a cell array, like, you know, wait on the line. Like, you can always go back. So that's, which is, that's, you know. Noah, you're vibrating with that? You know, I had a, in graduate school, the last, the last, I was the first year, this was the last year's student and he'd come in and he'd give 100 pages and we'd read the thing. And then next week, he's like, oh, I did a page one rewrite and he brought in an entirely different play. And as a first year, I was like, there is no way that you did it. But what I learned from him, his name was John Alice. And he said, he just, he would strip it down. And he would say, okay, if I were to like, trash the whole thing, could I start? Like, what I, what remains from that new draft? Yeah, yeah. So I had a, I had a draft. And then, yeah, it wasn't working. And then so I went back and I said, I stripped it down and what remains. And what did remain was father was mother son. So I like, let's, let's go back and let's start from that thing. And Ola and Lani who are in my show, they know like, yeah, if I could be a, if I could do it myself, I would do it myself, but it has to work also for them and what they are bringing. And they're the ones performing it. So they're the ones that were able to tell you like, no, it's not working. And you can, you're able to take a step back and see it because if it's in your head, it's working in your head. It's always working in your head. And then you hear it out loud and it's like, I thought I had it. So let's just go back and strip it and start again. Can I say something? Oh, something that's actually really exciting about cuts is as a writer, you think that you have to go from like a, or, you know, in your first draft, you're writing it's like, I have to go from a to b to c. And then when you realize that you can cut b and then just go from a to c, it's like so exciting because when people talk, we actually talk that way, right? Like we jump from subject to subject. We're thinking that they're unrelated, but they actually are because of a subconscious link. And so when you cut the b and just go from the idea, ideas, it's like, oh, wow, that's exciting. You guys are so like, you must be amazing to work with. What's your process, Blue? I'm writing it down. I'm writing it down. No, I think like, I like to think that I'm not super precious, but I know that I'm a little precious. I'm like, hold on. My process, I'm not turning out pages like that. It takes me years. To like get this thing out. So I'm like, do you know how long I thought about this? Like so long. You need to explain to me, like convince me how this is going to like, make the play better and work in the way that I am trying to do. And then I'm like, all right, cool, I'll do it. But I will say the biggest grief I have ever had wasn't about editing. It was why I was writing and I had finished and I had lost the draft. And I had a complete meltdown. Absolute meltdown. Like literally my partner, I called on him. He's like, what is happening? Is someone dying? I was like, you don't understand. Someone did die. Someone did. All of my characters. They're dead. You're gone. Excellent. I'm gonna open up. We got time for maybe one or two more questions. We are gonna go five minutes over since we started five minutes late. The next play does start at 10.30. Luckily it's in a different theater, so we're okay, but we will end shortly. I saw a hand, yes? Right here. Okay, go ahead. Advice for a new playwright. Surrender. No. Okay, I think, so I was not, when I started writing, I got so, I'm sorry, I was an actor before I was a writer and I took some playwright classes in college and I had so much anxiety about sharing work when I first started that before I would go into class on my days at The Share Pages, I would dry heave in the bathroom beforehand. I just would get so nervous. In a way that I never felt nervous about acting because it felt more like I'm sharing a piece of me and that's so terrifying. And I felt that same way, having to sit down and look at a blank page and there's just like a, and my only advice is like, there's like a practice of sitting in discomfort when you're writing that I think is really, it's just a practice and like learning how to sit and just move your fingers and not really judge what comes out for as long as possible is I think, is a muscle that I think can be worked and it's not fun but I mean that would be my advice or what helped me was to get that down. I have a writing exercise that ties back to the idea of memory so we can come full circle. Hey. So one of the exercises we did in grad school which I thought was really interesting and fun is our teacher had us go eavesdrop on a conversation. Like you go to a public place and just listen to a conversation. I mean don't be weird about it or don't be creepy about it but you know, just like go to public place and people are talking and you just listen and then eventually there'll be conversation that kind of just like, oh that's really interesting. That's really interesting. And then you go home and try to write it and like from memory and obviously because you didn't record it because that would be creepy whether like whether you're so fun. You're actually just working from your memory and how you heard that conversation becomes what you write. So playwriting is actually about listening and also kind of like, but also your voice, right? So what you heard and how you have reinterpreted it when you try to remember that conversation will help you kind of figure out what you're, how you listen to the world. Looks like it. I transcribed a conversation at a coffee shop across the street like two weeks ago. Oh. Because there was a- You transcribed that? Yeah. Well there was two women and one of them was recruiting the other to a multi-level marketing team. Oh yeah. Nice. I just started, I literally just, I completely abandoned what I was working out at the coffee shop and just took her for an hour and a half. It's going to be a good play. As soon as I could down. Yeah. Nice. Any other advice? Go ahead. Yeah, sure. When I said surrender, I was partially joking, but also for me, surrender is a big part of it and what I mean by surrender is not giving up. It's, I've heard surrender is joining the winning team and so when you're writing and you're facing the blank page and what surrender means to me in that moment is, if I'm in a moment of struggle or anxiety about it, I'm not on the winning team because I'm on team anxiety. I'm on team fear. I'm on team, I don't know what's going to happen with this piece. I'm on team, is this going to get picked up? Blah, blah, blah, right? That's the team that I might, that I can risk being on. But when I surrender and I say, I don't know what this meant to be. You know? Universe, whatever you want to call it again, just sit still, listen and say universe, just show me what it's, show me, give me the words. You know? And I don't know, it doesn't matter for me like to what I'm asking that question really. You know? It's just like, I just sit still and listen and I know that it's in me but it's not necessarily from me. You know what I mean? It's this other thing. You know, it's like channeling. You know, when we talk about, a lot of people I've talked about today like listening to the voices inside your head. It's like, if I surrender my own ideas about what it's supposed to be, I'm a lot more available to what it is already. Cause the play's already been written. That blank page, the play is already there. It's actually already, there's a 90 page document or 120 in some cases. But it's like, it's already there. I just have to be in the space of openness to receiving it. Kind of. I know again, that sounds like, it might sound woo-woo but it's actually not. It's one word at a time. You know, I'm writing it one word at a time. I'm listening to it one word at a time. But it does sort of appear if I open myself to it. Anything blue? Oh, I was like, can I curse? Yes. Cause I was like, honestly I didn't go to school for writing. I have no formal training in writing and my advice is fuck it. Like who cares? Just do it. Yeah. No, the only thing that's stopping you is yourself and you're like whatever preconceived notions you have and because I had none, what's there to stop you? There really isn't anything. So yeah, just to be like, block it. I love it. All right, last questions are for me and they are the lightning round. All right, we're gonna walk right down the line, lightning round. What playwright do you think we should know about? What playwright do you think we should know about or a playwright we should revisit? It can be a playwright or a play. We're lightning round. We got three minutes on the clock. A playwright or a play. What do you think these people should go back and read or what do you think these people should seek out? Charlie, are you ready? Yes, I am. Go. They're related. Enid Graham is an incredible playwright. Everybody should be reading her, programming her. She is a genius. My favorite play of hers is a play called Pathological Venus, Find It. And that play is actually in conversation with who I think should be revisited in American theater right now, which is who is Naomi Wallace and onefully spare Slaughter City. Just an absolute genius playwright who is actually so prescient for the moment and she looks at the dynamics between labor and capital. I'm gonna cut you off because it's lightning round. Lightning round. Michael, look her up, look her up. Or anybody else, if you got it. Oh, my classmate is Amanda Andre and so we made a blood pact where I go, she goes. Amanda Andre, next up. All right. Mia Chang, she's the first playwright that comes to my head. There are many, but yeah, that's the first one. I love it. Anybody else? I'm John Blank. No worries. But all black women playwrights. Come on. Yes. I mean, it's so hard to name one. Luis Alfaro, I named Caitlyn Kenney, Bailey Williams, Noel Villas. I mean, I could go on. Cherry Lusai. I mean, these are people that I went to grad school with, but just plays that are just so challenging and fabulous and larger than life. And now I'm like, when you name one, then you're like, now I have to name them all. We can always, I love the naming of the playwrights. Pacific Playwrights Festival is normally seven playwrights and out of so many, many, but we know that those seven playwrights are very, very special. Their voices are very, very unique for that moment, but we make that decision, right? So there's so many playwrights and so many people out there. And I just always like the beautiful thing of calling forward the people who inspire us, the people that give us life, that give us breath, that give us memory. We wanna thank you for gathering for this panel. Thank you for being here for the 25th annual PPF Festival. Be well, see these folks in the lobby.