 We have a few minutes to kind of, I don't even want to say wrap things up because we don't want to have an illusion that we even really, this is kind of the beginning or the stream and the conversation that we hope will find a lot of different ways to carry on. But in terms of the activities specifically tied to this community, this is the last session. And we have a couple of goals for this time. One is to offer a chance for people to just reflect how this work, whether this work is something that you're doing personally or in an organization or it's work that you've seen on stage and you've been an audience member, how this work has changed you. So some brief reflections on that. And then we also want to allow a little bit of time to talk about what the next steps are for your organizations or for this group, what ideas people have for bringing the conversation forward so that we can take action on those. Just to acknowledge that we kicked off this meeting with this group of people with Michelle standing in front of you. A whole other topic for conversation and another convening is that of leadership transitions. And as I think all of you or most of you know, we are certainly right in the midst of that at 10,000 Things. And Michelle, this is for last season with 10,000 Things. So if we decide to meet again next year, Michelle will probably not be the catalyst for that meeting. It will be of different people. And I am not standing here as the next artistic leader of 10,000 Things, but that this work is really the one inspired in large part by the people who have really moved it forward. It is not person-centric. The ideals of the work really live on in the communities we serve and the work that is created. And for 10,000 Things, that means that it is carried forward through the staff that evolves in the organization, the artists, and the communities. So that is that. So Michelle is here in the room with us, but she is going to be inhibited. So I just want to thank 10,000 Things for the convening of this. We don't have a service organization that really serves the specifics of what it is that we do. And sometimes we go to the larger service organization and we are ignored because we are funky, crazy people. And so what I come to these things for, part of the reason to create the Shakespeare Prison Conference was recharge the batteries. Because you are out there battling, battling, battling, and you feel so alone. And the reality is that you are not alone. There is a network of people that are across the country that are doing this work. And to be able to bring people into the room and be able to connect so that when we go home we know, oh, you know, I need a little talk. So to get a hold of somebody, to just get recharged via phone is really advantageous. So blessings for this convening and thank you all for coming. I'll pick you back on that. I just started a company and I used to think companies were something that sober adults did and I realized they just had to do it by myself and do it. But the generosity of people who have done it and my ability to reach out to them and for them to give me great advice, to tell them what worked, to be really supportive was quite beautiful. So if you're thinking about either your big behemoth organization, I mean a course change or yourself as an individual, there are a tremendous amount of generous people who will give you their time and their expertise and it will be life changing. So reach out, email me, email whoever, call in whoever. I mean it's really true, quite beautiful. Yes, it would be great if we were not a each group, but actually the meaning of one of us to perform theater was that, you know, it was an endemic in that to say that it's for everyone. And that's what, not so much takeaway because I think I knew it before, but to be in a room with people who were all talking about the same thing is that I would hope that all of you guys who work alongside the big company or all of the freelance directors and producers and artists wouldn't treat theater the exact same way. We should always be thinking about the audience, we should always be thinking about the story and then what should be, you know, I mean, I know it's not the reality that people can afford in terms of the audience, but thinking like as creators, this seems normal to me and I just hope that everyone who works with not only prisons can see that thought into everywhere else because I find it absurd that it's not the norm. So we want to share our reflection about a specific instance of the work changing and the work general that we'll be fine to of this work. The question was actually asked in the previous session, I'll launch this with a specific question. For those of you who have existing theaters who have brought this model in to an existing theater, how did your organization change as a result of that? Are there things to consider as a result of that? Just a quick time check, we're not going into really in-depth discussions, so these are kind of quick reflections on that. I think it would be nice to talk to you about this. I was brought last year to kick this, the professional concept of this work at Baltimore Center State and the thing that I learned real quickly being the new kid on the block of the head, that the institution wasn't fully prepared. I had three months to choose a play, to cast it, design it, and then hear it on the road, and build partnerships and all of that. And Kwame, as you all know, is impassioned about this work. And the idea I think was resonating in the institution, but it wasn't until the actual practical work of Calendar and all of the design teams and their calendars and all that, that was fully fleshed out. So the thing that I would encourage is, if you're at those larger institutions, or even at the smaller medium ones, make sure that you have that institutional buy-in, that everybody, that it's not just me in my little department that we're all doing this kind of work, it takes the full institution to be behind this work, and it's the gift that we're giving that expands beyond these four walls that we're in. And I think the more you can lay those seeds, plant those seeds in with the institution, to get everybody internally excited about this work, and the impact that it has on not only the community, but on the main stages and all of that, I think that will make the job a lot easier, not much easier. And then I think the bigger thing is that in a year, I've heard, being new at the board meetings and the internal meetings, I've heard the conversation shift already. From, you know, beginning of year ago to board members on, okay, so what is this? What? Okay, that sounds interesting to now this year. Okay, so who's going to fund that one tour? Or how can we expand it? Or I have an organization, Daniel, and I think this thing will work fantastically. So I think the biggest thing is that it's really changed for me as an artist to bring purpose to work, in a way that as an actor I always thought I could do on stage in a role, but to actually have the focus of the work be about bringing purpose and bringing, going out to the community and having that transformative aspect is starting to slowly but surely impact even the departments of the organization. Because all the design teams now are a part of the planning. We have them now. So that now they know, okay, this is a mobile unit. They're full of enthusiasm and excitement and ideas. So I think that purpose piece has always been important to me. It's this really gratifying, meaningful sort of process. All this direct is that a lot of people have been trying to transform that kind of larger, bigger organization, but for a small organization, this work has been transformative in an incredible amount of ways. Before we started this work, we were basically a non-equity company that did one show a year. And the reason we got into this work was during a specific planning process, we identified what we liked most about our audience for an outdoor summer shaker, because it was that we thought we did a really nice job bringing a really broad cross-section of the community together. And as we were looking at growing, we were probably not doing as good a job as we think we're doing. So I think we're really committed to this idea, and the idea came to launch the 10,000 Things Inspired Tour. And from that step, it really has transformed every aspect of our organization, starting from the placing of Michelle, passionately advocating, only to do this with the absolute best in your community. So when we started out, because we were funding this program from scratch, every single grant application I wrote with us, we do our summer shows with NOAA grant, and we're going to do this with at least four equity actors and four non-equity actors. So for a small company, it has almost doubled our budget just financially. It has transformed us and what we are. It also has transformed the way that artists in our community look at our company. We're at a company just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and we normally kind of struggle to kind of get the really great, exciting action to build up people when it comes down. And now we have actors going, how can I do this work with you all? And then is how that cycle is going back to the work we started with with our summer festival. After our first year of doing the tour, I was like, oh my God, this is so amazing. This is what real diversity in audience looks like. This is what really getting everyone in the room together was like, okay, how can we make that happen with our summer show? So now we're going to be, because in our both of our two tour shows, it's going to be directing our summer show this year, so we can try to infuse some of those lessons that we've learned back to our full, open, main stage offering. And then for me, I'm starting to think, okay, how can we get those, the groups that we started with needed to, how can we get them to come to our summer festival? So it's a very old yearhouse transform of larger organizations, for all those kind of smaller ones that's out here as well, so that it can be equally as transformative. And not just in topical ways, but in, you know, that sounds insane to say that an economic driver for a company is going to be something that has been zero-earned income, you know, but it actually has been for us. So, just when this is really selfish, just for this selfishly artistic standpoint, I'm such a better artist than I ever would have been had I not found this kind of work. And it's because this great snowball, because it's because of the audiences, but then you become a better artist, so then you want to perform those audiences more and then they keep making you better, so you just can't get enough and it becomes sort of this crazy addiction. And it's, but it's feeding you in the best way because if you're not doing it for the views, you're not doing, there's no, you're just doing it for all those right reasons that you said you were doing it when you were 22. And no offense, oh my God, oh, there's so many young great volunteers in the room. You should do it for that reason. That's why you're doing it. That's what's lighting you right now. But then stay in it long enough so that you can't get over that. And then become, because I watch our actors, you know, who come through our doors and spend time with us, and I see them go in other stages. And damn it, they're better in those other stages. It's, so, we're sort of, we're affecting the audiences. We're also affecting the art. This is an incredible boot camp thing that doesn't often get to happen once you're out of grad school. A lot of our actors, I know, when we first were having some, you know, sort of that professional, they would come in and they're like, oh my God, this is what I used to love to do. This is how I used to love to work. I thought working would be like this. And then I got out and then it became a machine. And I was so busy, I didn't have time to act. So, yeah, just selfishly, you know, it's made me just a better artist. And before I stop talking, I don't stop talking no. Because I feel like I've been in my wedding reception and when I looked at pictures, I was like, oh, they were there? I hadn't even talked to them. Because I've been running around, like, doing food and doing, you know, like, big organizing shit. And so I'm looking at faces I haven't even spoken to. So I put my address on the big whiteboard out there. So tonight, I'm like 6.30 on. Come by if you want. If you're still in town, there's nothing to do. Bring by the line if you want to, you know, just hang out and drink a coffee or whatever. It would be really nice to see some more faces. So we drink and we drink a lot. I had a big event that brought you to Delaware for this show. And we're doing a lot in native theater. We talk a lot that I was caught as a theater practice. But ultimately, actually, when it's happening a lot of the time, it's like you can't be sort of smalls with producing organizations or actually get a lot of women so you can't can't do. And actually, I think one of the most significant moments on this process for me was actually just in the dress rehearsal. At the very beginning, David was giving sort of like opening, like just talking to the audience, practicing sort of like, well, we were terming jokingly sort of like the prologue, right? And some people came in late and he turned to them and welcomed them. And like such a simple action of welcoming people who are late instead of shaming them is like such like a significant gesture that defines like what this work is versus like the limitations imposed by like so much of the traditional mainstream theater culture. And I think that that actually is also reflected in like all of these little things like someone, one of the actors mentioned, how like sometimes the traditional theater audiences are less willing to participate because there's actually like a fear that you're going to do something to embarrass them. And there were a couple of moments in which, you know, I gave a note to the beautiful generous actors who was playing J. Queese that, you know, if there happened to be in all the worlds of stage a soldier or a schoolboy to connect with to see if there was a way to work into this speech and because of the generosity of the audience, she was able to get an age-appropriate person, participant, volunteer for every single one out of seven ages of men. And like that generosity, like from her to them because also a lot of those aren't things that are actually that flattering to be said about. Like on the third one I was like, oh, she's still going. What can happen now? Because she had been like teaching the little kids how to play the accordion at the beginning, and then that was a safe space for them to, and so just the openness and generosity of the culture of this work instead of like these like rules of shame is just such a significant gift that like I'm so grateful. Like I don't think we'll be able to be undone in my consciousness now. There was, I mean, I've done so many things that Michelle has not had in years, but she said something once that I think was a woman in theater group that we were having and talked about her early experiences where people would get up and leave and then her realization that like life is more important than theater. Like what we do is important, but we can't, you know, you can't, like I was just having an argument with my roommate because she was like, we shouldn't allow late seating. I'm like, if you have a child and the babysitter doesn't cry, if you get stuck in traffic, well, that comes from an immense place of privilege, the whole no-lake seating. Like, life happens, and we shouldn't deny them art. Even as much of the art as they can take at the moment because they need to live their lives. Yeah, that's one of the things that we're needing, that Tom and I notice, and Colin, the composer, is that so much traditional way we do theater has an adversarial nature between the actor and the audience, right? They're kind of set up in conflict sometimes, and that disappeared right away. And also the, just, like, at the first place we performed at, we asked if they wanted to deserve snacks, and all the snacks they served were pre-wrapped. So just word to the wise if you ask that, if you ask for unwrapped. But that became part of the show, right? And they were hungry, and there were snacks there, and so they got the goddamn snacks and ate them. And it was annoying. It was annoying, and if you were in a traditional theater space, everyone else in the space would have been annoyed at those people. But since this was a community we formed instantaneously, it was part of the show, it was part of the time we spent together, and it was really lovely. Yeah, and I don't, there's so much, like, there's so much bullshit shame that we put on people who go to shows and we're like, oh, why don't they listen like this, or why don't they, they like the themming and pussing. It just, it falls away pretty quick. John Powell from Disney, and for the people who are going to be here tomorrow, I'm going to actually talk about this piece I did, but to your point, I did a piece last July where I thought a lot about, like, the traditional theatrical experience and what's unappealing about it to me, and then I also thought about how sporting events are so popular and people are so engaged and they're so committed and they actually identify with these, you know, really wealthy athletes on a field that are so far away from them, but there's this, like, identification and I wanted to bring more of that to the arts, so I made my dance theater piece, I set it up as a sporting event, and we had snacks. We had a tailgate party and we had, like, my pirates and teens to be concessionaires and they passed out three cracker jacks and we had, you know, cotton candy and, like, the atmosphere was so festive and the idea of the other thing I've been really exploring my work is honest engagement as a continuum, so it's not just the pre-show and the post-show and it's also not just the, you know, community development workshop, but it's actually in, later in and through the performance in various ways, so it can be community members' voices from a workshop becoming part of the soundtrack or it can be, you know, your audience with pennants and flags on either side of this performance space it's set up like a racetrack cheering as you're in the middle of performing which was an incredible experience for myself and my collaborate and there was a point where I was really tired and I was like, you can tell it! I was like, thank you! I was like, I can't do it! It was just a really wonderful experience in so many ways and just all the, like, sort of all the rules that traditional Italy theater sets up, it's like we broke all of them in one shot. Not to get too effortless serial toward the model of traditional theater because there are inherent strengths in that as well but you speak to this kind of regenerative process that happens between the audiences and the artists and also just to do a little introduction you mentioned tomorrow so for those of you who are wondering and haven't heard, TCG is running a session tomorrow for some of the audience revolutions cohort so there will be some people who are staying over tomorrow participating in that conversation and if you don't know about the audience revolutions program of TCG, which really kind of, this conversation starts to get into a little bit you can certainly find a lot of great information about that program on the TCG website if you don't already know. And Gus and I are here, so. We're here! And you can speak with them, direct! From the horse's mouth because they don't want to say that you're a horse. What's your name? That's William. Is it Polly? Polly. Polly. Polly. Polly on what Polly just said about a theater in some way aspiring to the condition of sport. Like seven years ago I did a few workshops with an English director named Tim Carroll who was the Associate Artistic Director when Mark Rylams was the Director at Shakespeare's Globe and the workshops he led were wonderful and one observation that he shared in his experience with us was that his very favorite performances were always ones where accidents happened when I had another plan on spacing the actor had to take it in. We're not taking it in. It's sort of like moving further in or got alienated by the response to it. And so he had some colleagues and he's a big soccer fan and so they developed their own model of acting theater where casting was determined on the night of the performance by audience members playing rock-paper-scissors on behalf of actors. So he had one way of embracing and pushing into the unpredictability of theater and I feel like for me one of the most thrilling things about witnessing 10,000 things and all of our Shakespeare doing our work at the company has been the very nature of the tours creates that unpredictability for you and really rewards actors who know how to be permeable and know how to really listen at the same time as they're speaking and so it's been really fun to see theater performances that come closer to the thrill of I don't mean to say sports are better than theater but I think what's exciting about them is you don't know what's going to happen and a mistake could be made like missing a goal is as exciting as making a goal and someone is... Yeah, so that's been a real thrill it's just how radically it embraces I'm going to take an opportunity to just acknowledge that a lot of the... what I hear in some of the themes of what people are saying is just the theme of generosity and some of that is generosity in the organization and some is in the creation process and some is in actually the technique of acting with a generous presence and I'm going to thread that theme of generosity into kind of the next half of this discussion which is how can we as a group and those who might join this group who should be in this group but are not right now how can we serve each other going forward beyond just this conversation I think everyone has experienced this over this weekend that conversations are very free flowing and that people that you've maybe never met before have things that they can offer you and are quite willing to offer here's what I did that worked and here's what I did that didn't work and maybe it'll work for you but it was problematic in this way for us so I think that there is a lot of willingness in this room and are there things that we can identify that we would like to take action on or that might be good to consider moving forward whether that goes to the place of another convening or a technological way to stay in touch or so, yeah and one of those things that helped for us was just getting some templates when we started to work so if there are any people who are interested in this kind of work you know, any kind of Google drive or like surveys or you know the public gave us their inventory lists for set and costume pieces, you know so when we were starting out as a small company to not have to reinvent those things from scratch made it so hugely helpful for us to build like this work and you know and it gave us gold shiny stars in the eyes of the prisons because of all things that were shared with us that were already approved into work so some kind of place where we could throw up those things other people could take and adapt and use if they would want to Does anybody have in terms of the idea of some kind of technological share Google drive or Dropbox kind of thing does anyone have a rent flag on that is there any reason that that wouldn't be a good idea? I think that within that shared documents like you talked about just opening it up like so I shared the documents at my session and kind of how I approached the partnership and just from that session I'm going to go back and edit and include and keep going and that's the greatness of this session here so putting those templates up there and then also giving us a space for like commenting on some of those templates if you see something or like you try them out and be like that was great this is a different kind of like this work for us so that within the documents perhaps there's a place for discussion we'll see how some of that is done Yeah the tendency I don't know if this is exactly what you're saying but I'm going to see and expand the tendency when you put something in writing and share it for it to be a static thing or a kind of answer and it loses its conversational quality so maybe a tendency to this is like agreeing to a spirit of this is not an answer or set in stone this is kind of where we're at in the moment with language around something and that commentary would not be taken personally or not be offered in a judgmental way but that you know there's room for us to learn from each other and things would be changed and specifically I'm speaking your own language I feel like a lot of you are articulating the way I've been learning for years with better words and I really appreciate that over the last couple of days too to figure out how to be more inclusive and responsive and what I've been feeling here I think that thing about a list of some kind of sharing a list of the shows that work and some that not to say that this one doesn't work you could say we tried it and we couldn't make it work and here's why we think it's not about the show it's not a literary criticism it's a because we know what this is like here's what the limitations are here's what the opportunities are and then sort of second part is there's been a lot of talk about new works and trying to find creative ways to bring new work to this you know other companies do it all the time because it's so damn expensive they co-commissioned pieces because it's so easy they all pay for the set and then it moves here and then we perform and then it moves around so we know what this space is like it's all kind of similar what about co-commissioning playwrights who can say oh my god all four companies do my show I have to say one thing like here I wanted you to offer to all of you she's wearing five plays for 10,000 things they all work great and she said she offered email to anyone you can fund with your audience that is because this is a really specific way some people are not going to share they work really well so that would be you know teaming up so that they know that because it is a different thing it's just a different kind of writing let's just take a one minute to praise Kira a little bit she is on a mailing as a playwright in residence for 10,000 things next year will be the last year of that so I don't want anyone to think that she's only a 10,000 things playwright and that will be right on the heels of our leadership transition with Michelle Kira will be moving on from 10,000 things and hopefully in 200 years I'm wondering just to take it one step farther has there ever been co-producing where you two are each other's networks it might be a way to expand after engagements and also just learn from each other in our home on our home ground that sounds like a good idea it makes me think of like something I said she's a dancer who was traveling around the country in 2015 and a lot of presidential candidates were traveling around the country telling their American story to audiences they were seeing everywhere they were going and she was kind of keeping an eye on that everywhere she was going and she felt like next needs to be artists who are doing this and doing it in communities who are wrestling with things the way the venue hosts and the partners are in the thick of the real stuff of America and getting somebody from Florida, California you can be in a touring company together and see each other's communities that really inspired me I struggle with that we have lots coming here but the sales here is great but someone in the legislative can't do the same we can't partner but there's others if anyone's interested I've got a great show for one after and one musician they love to do again just give me a call for producing sharing productions for anyone who works in ensemble based models the network of ensemble theaters is working on a digital tool that's not out yet but it will be so keep your eyes out for specifically that if you're a network and this network I have this resource for example I work in an ensemble based theater that has a space but what we don't have is we're looking for we can't seem to find lighting designers lately the earth theater company in ensemble actually has a lighting designer in residence that works frequently in ensemble but you might need that space that they have so they're trying to come up with a way to do that so if you guys aren't with that organization maybe check it out follow that development as they're building that what is that called again? I don't know if I'm saying that correctly if you want to you can ask him on the board but it's called connector and that's the very goal is to create alternative models which we're sharing if we just guess not quite on the fully co-producing we're sharing production models but the Shakespeare Theater Association has had some success with this of getting members of each other's theaters to go to other places that do work so like if one of the actors who has done a couple of our tour shows is doing the 10,000 things cast for a show so that we can learn from each other without that folio like oh crap we're at the finding grant we're at the entire production but to be able to have artists on one company one company makes us learn and then bring that back I'm travel to artist network because that would also apply to directors and designers so that we might transfer really well musicians all my kids are adults now as of two days ago so again I'm speaking more as someone who's really interested in the model living in the Twin Cities and as a long time audience member and a teacher of social change theater and I've been really interested to listen for partnership models that are and I know Michelle speaks about and other people have spoken about the play being the thing this is not social work and this is not about undoing systems that create incarcerated bodies but at the same time I felt like the work is really softening the work can enable people to think differently to undo a lot of destructive stereotypes and so I'm just curious about I've heard other people talk about modes of partnership with institutions that aren't just about hosting but about a kind of reciprocity around this is what we do as artists we create this space of softening and how it works with your agenda as an institution whether it's as a transitional space or a more restorative justice model and how are those partnerships enabled where does the work go and especially even some of the small of the best practices around how you enter into a space and help an audience to orient themselves to the play the creation of the art the artwork that's being in the art therapy all those best practices seem like it would be useful to have a space to share so do you think that an online platform would be a lively place for discussion about that or does that discussion want to take place in another format because that seems like there could be a pretty rich conversation that goes beyond the next 20 minutes how would that how would we burden that conversation the National Nuclea Network does a thing that is sometimes more successful than others but they'll have chats and they're usually I think monthly or bi-monthly where it's like messaging director and MPN chat and everybody they're multitasking and doing other things is sort of on a live chat with each other for an hour and we'll talk about some relevant thing that we're all dealing with it like having occasional room for discussions like this where it's an hour or so open forum to just be like let's just talk about partnerships today what are some good partnerships that people have going right now what are some challenges that could be something that could work it works to vary so you're saying the MPN chats as a model not as something necessarily no, yeah, as a model but might be something we could adopt yeah, I didn't mean to cut off people do have people do want to respond to that question about partnering with community organizations it wasn't necessarily a conversation to have now but an idea of is there a forum or something I actually touched on that conversation yesterday at the touring great job yeah, for instance I'm really interested to know too about organizations who might be partnering with community organizations for office space or sharing having a desk and I know Dell Shakes has their partnership with Delaware and that's a conversation that depends beyond the scope of our time but just hearing about people who are doing some back office sharing or partnering with community organizations in that way that's a very specific way of partnering so other aspects as well I'm full of thought but it would be interesting to continue the conversation about not just talking internally but taking what is happening in these places and making sure it's known about externally and I know and I think there's a continuation of what's happened with what's happening here and this work happening in places that is valuable to get out into the general of theater consciousness and the general public consciousness I have no idea what that looks like or how we capture some of the stories that are happening in these places but I think there's something we should think about intentionally about capturing that and so on after the first two shakes of the Ripples conferences we created a close Facebook group as simple as that and just added an interesting number and that's just become a repository for information and the data that I sent out to you guys yesterday that you posted it there months ago but I knew it was there and when there are stories about programs whether it's an active gang or the O-Globe or the L-Shakes tour or whatever like those are all highlighted and then they become topics for them as well like hey I'm having a problem with this funder because they want X, Y and Z in these metrics I don't know how to do this and people just pipe in so it's very, I mean simple, quite simple, quite simple Yeah, other thoughts about somebody asked me today about mentorship Michelle has been a mentor for other organizations looking to start this model and also to directors who are looking to direct in this model as Michelle moves in on to the next phase of her activities and her life I imagine I'm thinking about how that kind of mentorship in 10,000 Things will shift and what our staff can offer in the way of mentorship as well so I haven't answered to that yet but certainly somebody asked me about mentorship and I I imagine that people can say how much capacity they have in their organizations to offer mentorship to upcoming practitioners as well Is that of interest to people on one side of the coin or the other? Looking at how to further our kind of mentorship model or how to make those opportunities known and shared amongst us kind of Things that would be helpful as practitioners that this group could be of service I would personally love to know if people have successes so a platform perhaps would be good for a platform who knows but when you have a great show share it with us and let us know how that impacted your artists, how it impacted the community let's look each other up as much as possible to another success We got a, just as an example of that Michelle, maybe one of you would probably speak more articulate to this but when we got the the it's not a quote, it's a whole letter from the inmate in San Francisco how it shakes, right? Rebecca talked a little bit about this experience of it was not just one person but it was a friendship amongst two women and one of the prisoners and we got a letter out, do you want to speak to it Eric? No, I was just going to say that Rebecca's story the other day which I think everyone was in the room for or half of you were in the room, what wrong you did She spoke about one of the women at FCI Dublin where we were performing a tempest where we were moved by Miranda and sort of in a way was Miranda in a proxy for her and she did not see Ken Marion we received a letter the next year a handwritten letter with no return address actually that's not who said FCI Dublin on the envelope but it was from this woman's friend who was sitting next to her watching the show and she wrote to inform us that her friend who had had this experience had been pardoned by Obama was one of the last part of the issue and so she was not living in Florida and that this other person who was writing this was about to be released three months later and it spoke to the impact of the work not only on the person that she was writing about but how that impacted kind of their friendship and their process together and she said that a year later she was writing about her friend's experience and this was so moving and spoke so movingly about the work that we ended up printing off that response and sharing it with our patrons and even talking about it with our funders and saying this is not our work but this is the same model of this work and we get responses like this as well as well almost every performance we perform for we get those kind of but this is a particularly eloquent example of that response that's what's sharing and if it's not from our organization along with sharing successes the best way I learn is failing forward with the successes I want to know what failures did you make along the way how are we failing forward learning from our mistake learning from our mistake because I failed an awful lot putting this showed the teacher of me rebelled against the failing so I'm just going to amend and add onto that challenges but yeah I mean it's great but you know if we do we all I've tried to reclaim the idea that failure is a part of the process and I have to fail forward we're separately on a kind of nice space of silence and I think a lot of people feel saturated so again I would gratitude again to everyone who is taking this work and moving this work out into communities who brought and are walking into the rooms that we've shared over the past weekend do you want to say anything else? Well, I was so loved with fear of failure I was getting posted on howlgown now so if you missed a session and you want to share a session with someone we'll email you all the notes that are awesome note papers have been taken can I now start and see where that goes and start sharing things and then we can move into some other things that we want to but that can be a simple idea that started but I feel I really do feel that you are all in your spirits and thank you all so much for the work that you do it really is making a difference in all kinds of ways that none of us ever anticipated so thank you very much and in all of my years of doing theater I've not come across a more generous soul than you and all of the theaters in this room who are doing this work already you are at the drop of a hat to share everything that you have learned to not be possessive of it or protective of it but to say take this and use it we could never have done what we did without your generosity and as we are all gathered here today it felt incredibly wrong because we didn't just say thank you