 Hi. Hello. Welcome to Portland. My name is Adrian Bedou and I'm TCG's new Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer. And I'm Teresa Eyring, TCG's Executive Director. As you can see, we're pretty serious about our circles at TCG. This is one big circle. And when I think of circles, I think of community, I think of love, I think of passion and I think of networking. And when I think of TCG, those are the things that I feel when I think of full circle. And it's so nice to be here and share the next few days with you. That's funny because actually our logo is an orange circle. Hashtag TCG17, or we've also added hashtag love TCG17. So we're excited and I know that as everyone has, actually, you have to do this when it's a circle. We know that for so many people, you've even been here for a few days already and probably this idea of full circle and what it means in your lives has come up, hopefully. And if not yet, it will in the next few days and we love to hear what's on your minds. I also want to recognize that the idea of the circle has particular power and is central in traditional cultures and caretakers of the lands that we are on. And to acknowledge that, I would like to invite Ty DeFoe. Ty DeFoe, where are you? From indigenous direction to our stage. Thank you. So thank you, Teresa. It is good to be here at the conference and thank you so much. At this time, we'd just like to recognize the natural caretakers of the land, the folks here in the great state of Oregon of over 380 recognized tribal folks as well as the Oregon Confederate tribes. Also in this area, the people who speak the Chinook language or the Maltonoma, people of the salmon, of the sturgeon, of folks who meet in long houses and red cedar planks. But what I'd like to do is to introduce some special local guests here to us. So we can do this in a good way since we do come from circles. We are an urban community of indigenous folks. People that I've met at the Native American Youth and Family Center right here in Portland, Oregon, I'd like to bring up to this platform and stage to give them a moment to honor those folks is Clay River of the Pasimacuade tribe who's here and their student, Aldo Scott of the Nez Perce Nation, who's a junior in high school. Clay is also a cultural arts educator at the center. If they can come here at this time and just give us and offer us a blessing and song, we would be humbled to have their presence with us today to open up the conference. So I'm Clay, that's Aldo. I'm gonna fill the room with a little drum medicine before our blessing. From, from, that's a welcome song and it is a welcoming that recognizes all different people and it says we are all here as many nations gathered together as family. So I'm not going to give the blessing because as a cultural arts educator and mentor and advocate, I believe in investing in my future through my youth and that I want my youth to stand up and accept the role as leaders under all this pressure. Thank all you guys for letting me be here today and it's good to meet and see good people. Yeah, oh, yeah, but I have to say it's a whole bunch of people. But I hope everyone's having a good night and a good day and just wish everybody luck and life and just in general and just keep on keeping and do what you got to do and live by the best you can because it's the only one you got and just make it, make it best for not only us but the upcoming kids and generations. That's why this is here and just do what I got to do for like upcoming generation and all that. Thank you. Thank you, Ty and our new friends. I'm going to look this way because I feel like this side of the room needs a little love. So I'm Devon Berkshire and this is my sixth TCG conference and I just want to, thank you, I just want to build on what Theresa and Adrian shared. So we began these How We Show Up sessions three years ago when we realized that this wide diversity of conference experience that was showing up in our circle. So to demonstrate that we wanted to do just a quick bit of cultural mapping as some of you might know. So just do me a favor and raise your hand or otherwise signal if the following applies to you. This is my first TCG national conference. Welcome, y'all. We hope to do right by you. Okay. This is my second TCG national conference. Welcome back. This is my third TCG national conference. All right, thanks for hanging in there. I'm not going to keep going with all the numbers up to ten but I'll just skip four. This is my fifth TCG national conference. I've been to at least five. Okay. Now I'm going to really skip. I've been to more than ten TCG conferences. And to you, we tip our hats. So I'm going to pass it off to Adam. Hey, I'm Adam Jedlica and this is my first conference at TCG. So knowing that diversity of experience, you can see how important it is to take time to get in the same page and be clear how we can show up for each other with a spirit of generosity. I'm Hannah Fenlon. I'm the associate director of conferences. And this is my third TCG conference. And what Adam said is particularly important because increasingly we're showing up with both our personal and professional selves in service of equity, diversity and inclusion. So to talk us through a little bit more of that, we'd like to welcome our colleagues and teammates, Gus Shulenberg and Necheng, who support our at the intersections arc. Thanks everyone. Just to build really briefly on what Hannah shared. As the conference has continued to strive toward equity, that is heart space work. And when doing that kind of heart space work, we just have to take care of each other while we do it. And so a part of what we're going to be doing in this space today together is to talk about some of the ways that we're going to try to take care of each other while we do that work. So we're going to talk about a bunch of really fun things about the conference, different sessions that you might want to go to. But we're also going to spend some time talking about how we do this work, why we use affinity spaces, other things like that. Helen, anything you want to add? I mean, since there are so many new folks in this space, I think it's just touching on, you know, sometimes it's really important to come together before we move apart. So you'll really hear a little bit more about some key sessions throughout the conference in a moment. But just as you go throughout this day and the week, if you can continue to carry that with you. Thank you. Colin Devon back up. Okay, so y'all know the theme of the conference is full circle. So that draws inspiration from our host city of Portland and the maker culture here. Maker culture being sort of a network of artisans and hackers dismantling industrialized systems through a return to a more local human scale. So our question for this conference is can our most local and human of art forms be a natural partner in these movements? And this is our first major gathering after a contentious election process, although not our first gathering as our fall forum was days after the 2016 election. But this is our first national conference after that process. And that process featured profoundly different visions of our country's past, present and future. So as storytellers and community builders, how can we bridge the divisions of our country and our world? How can we create virtuous circles as opposed to vicious cycles? Feedback loops were our vision for a better world for and because of theater reinforce each other. So those are like the macro goals and our sort of more practical goals are skills building, networking, knowledge exchange for professional development, social gatherings and affinity groups for personal connection and to obviously get to know our awesome host city Portland, their art scene and to see some of their theater. So I'm going to welcome Elena and other friends back on to the stage to talk through the inclusive nature of our circle. Thank you so much. Other friends, can I get other friends here? Hannah, Selma. Thank you. Am I missing any other friends here? I think that's about it. All right. No, they're not all my friends. We're really, really eager to welcome our colleagues and friends throughout the fields of all different backgrounds and experiences and we're just going to take a moment here to outline some of the ways we tried to make our space throughout the conference a more inclusive one together. Okay. So I'm going to call out, call in all gender bathrooms. Thank you. So in order to keep creating that better world for our conference community and beyond, there are all gender restrooms on the skyline, that 23rd level and the ballroom level downstairs as well as in the conference spaces we're using in the Dunaway which is the tower across the street which you may have not seen but you will see. You'll also find gender specific restrooms on this level, the pavilion or sometimes called plaza level. We'll get to that later. And on the third floor conference level. So there are single stall restrooms on nearly every floor that of course are all gender. And what does all gender mean? That means they're for you. For all of you. So again, if you have more questions about that practice and why that's incredibly important to us as a conference staff, as a conference community, please see a TCG staff member and we'd be happy to talk further about it with you. And I'm going to move back to Elena. Thank you. Okay. I have a note here. The role of ASL interpreters and it literally says it here. Drops knowledge on how ASL interpreters are there for everyone. So this is me dropping some knowledge here in two points. We're going to have a lot of ASL interpreters throughout the conference and in all seriousness, I just want to be clear that the interpreters are not here to participate in the sessions. They are here to facilitate communication for everyone. The second thing here is that please note that the interpreters will not be offended if they are not included in introductions during the sessions. They are here as bridge for communication once again for everyone. Okay. Thank you. Space for nursing mothers. So I know from spending a lot of time, maybe too much time with my good friend Devin, that it is not easy to be in overwhelming spaces such as the conference and try to make time to nurse as well in case you didn't know she's one incredible working mama. Yes. So if you're nursing and you're here at the conference, we applaud you. Check in at registration to sign out the key to our nursing space which is on the third floor and it's a comfy space right across from our conference office. I'm going to keep the mic and I'm going to talk about older kids at the conference. We love kids. Kids ages 11 to 17 are welcome in our all conference plenary sessions. We just ask that you sign them up at registration and that you model good audience behavior in those spaces. Thank you, Hannah. I'm going to give the mic right now to Selma telling us a little bit about Ramadan and prayer spaces. Hi, y'all. Wow. So this is the second time, a second year around that the conference takes place during Ramadan. So we understand how tough this process can be to y'all and myself. But please don't let that hinder any spiritual rituals that you feel like practicing. We're setting up a private prayer space during daily prayer times at the duration of our convening. So the three prayers that's going to happen around that time are Zohr and Asr and Maghrib. Zohr is going to be around 1 p.m. Asr is going to be around 6.30 p.m. and Maghrib is going to be around 8.50 p.m. If you need to use this space, please see registration and anyone, like any staff member, is going to refer you to that place. To y'all fasting out there, a great shout out and kudos. I know it's hard and please, please, please remember to hydrate, nourish, and take care of yourselves when you're breaking your fast. This is really important to go through all of this. Ramadan Mubarak and Happy Holy Month to y'all. If there's anything else we can do, like for any other things, if there's anything we can do to make your experience more productive, please do not hesitate to find a member of this conference team and let us all know. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm now going to invite Devin up again to give us a nice little overview of the agenda. We call this part the Agenda at a Gallup, and we're running a few paces behind, so I'm going to ask my guest speakers to keep up the pace with me, okay? So, this conference, this is huge. It takes a village. So we'd like to take you through the agenda at a Gallup to do that. I'm going to call on some community partners, and that's the people who are leading some sessions and events to make brief cameos describing some of the things that are happening throughout our time together. So y'all, when I call your name, just come up and take the mic and say some quick words about the session that you're leading and why it's awesome. So trend workshops, where's Blake? Blake! Hi everybody, Blake Robinson, Artistic Director at Cincinnati Playhouse. Encouraging you all to take advantage of the trend workshops. I think the first round of those is right after this meeting. I'm participating in one with my friends from ACG Arts Consulting Group. It's called the Chicken or the Egg in Early Campaign Planning. So we're going to talk about fun stuff like feasibility studies. And facilities audits. How do you know if you are ready for a capital campaign? And we're going to use my theater Cincinnati Playhouse as a little bit of a case study because we've just embarked on a $35 million campaign to redo our main stage theater complex. Come join us in Parler A or go to one of the many others. Thank you. Excellent, excellent pacing. Thank you. Where's Brian Joseph Lee? Is he here? Hey guys, my name is Brian Joseph Lee. I am the Director of Marketing and Communications for Roundhouse Theater. I have my handy-dandy notebook here. We are, along with my colleagues from the MacArthur, the Denver Center and TCG, we're presenting a skills building workshop called 3Pass to Audience Building. It's one of those mega double sessions on Friday so we're convening in the morning, breaking for lunch sessions and then coming back for the afternoon. This is all about how you can broaden, deepen and diversify your relationship with your audiences, particularly case studies as to how we're all doing it, spinning multiple plates at the same time. So definitely come and check it out, especially we want attendees from all disciplines. So marketing, education, community engagement, artistic and production all are welcome. The more diverse the conversation, the better. Thank you. Thank you, Brian. So that's our skills building workshops on Friday, the three hour ones. Do we have someone here to talk about dynarounds? I wasn't sure if we did. Dynarounds are happening tomorrow night. Their host committee led and run. There's a whole listing of them on conference 2.0 and they did a wonderful job curating them. They're all with different hosts and different topics of conversation and they're lovely intimate ways to get to know some of your fellow attendees, especially if this is your first conference, that's a great way to get to know people. That was dynarounds. All right, lunch sessions. We have Bobby here to talk about an amazing lunch session she's leading. Hi, y'all. My name is Bobby Steinbach and I am a TCG Fox fellow, round 10. Very proud to be so. Quote, I feel like I'm dancing toward death. Quote, I used to be pretty once. At least I thought so. Quote, we are all heading towards the cliff we will fall off of. Quote, first your mama, then your mom, then your marginal. These are some of the words spoken by women in their 80s and 90s with whom I workshopped using the text of King Lear and various prompts to encourage usually unspoken and difficult conversations about aging, changing relationships with children, physical issues, and the journey towards the end of life. And in our lunch sessions tomorrow you'll hear more of the words that came from these beautiful women and see some of their gorgeous portraits. And out of this you'll have the model for what we did and also we'll talk about the piece premiering on June 25th called I Am Lear. Thank you. Wow. Even Bobby's commercial made me cry a little bit. Kevin Moore, can you top that with your professional affinity groups? No way. I'm Kevin Moore, I'm the managing director at Actors Theatre of Louisville and I'm here to give a little plug for the professional affinity groups. In my new position at Actors Theatre I hear very, very often the words but we're different because of this and I appreciate all of that but we're not all that different. This is a time for us to get together professionally with, we separate them out by job function sometimes or in some cases I'm leading the one for managing directors of theaters with budgets of five million dollars and above but it's really a time for us to get together and talk about shared challenges and shared successes and peer sharing and I urge you all to choose the professional affinity group that is most meaningful to you and attend them. Thanks. Okay, thanks. That wraps our agenda at a Gallup but we have a lot more to talk about so I'm going to welcome back my friends Adam and Hannah to walk you through something really important at this conference and that is your conference 2.0 app which hopefully you all have downloaded by now. Okay, so I'm going to ask you to do something right now that we don't normally do in a theater but we do recommend that you do throughout the TCG conference some of you are already starting to do it please pull out your cell phone you can take a picture of us if you want hashtag TCG17 but what I'd actually rather you do is open your 2.0 app now if you don't have the app don't worry someone around you will everybody who has the app on their phone please open it up look around you if folks look confused encourage them to look on with you okay everybody open it up don't worry about downloading it now there's time to download it after just try to look on make sure that you're signed into the app you probably are because you've probably been using it if you don't have it you're going to want to make sure to download it after the meeting it's available in any of the various app stores app acquisition spaces it's called TCG17 2017 and you'll see our full circle logo so you'll see that come up when you search it okay so why are we doing this one very important thing we're trying to do at this year's conference is to keep track of what sessions people are joining very simple concept very amazing data that we've actually never been able to mine so you are going to help us do that so we can continue in years to come to offer amazing programming so we really are asking for your support in what is this year our session check-in process so now that you have the app open and provided you're signed in three little lines in the right hand corner if you're on the home screen do you see it do you see it anybody see it can you point to where that is it's on the right hand side top and then when you click that the second button down will say get your personal QR code everybody see that display display personal QR code you see a QR code most of you awesome so that's it so when you're heading up to your session pull up that QR code as you're walking in your session monitor who will be a TCG staff member or one of our volunteers they're going to say let me see your QR code and they will scan your phone with their phone and we will have the data we need so again I think there's a critical mass of folks in this space who have now been able to successfully find the QR code that we can probably make a friend and support each other and get to know new people as we're always encouraging you to do at the conference alright so I hear a lot of buzzing we're getting it figured out okay so we're going to move on to the next thing but I just want you to encourage you to look on with your friends to find that QR code and if you're still having problems feel free to come see us at registration one of the helpful registration staff will support you in making that happen a couple of other things about conference 2.0 if you're confused about session types I loved Brian's mega huge session thing that he said earlier and I was like we're going to have to change skills building workshops to that because that's awesome but they are called skills building workshops and they are three hours long we have a nifty guide to the agenda on conference 2.0 that you can check out and you can see like a narrative description of all of our sessions so particularly helpful if you're a first timer you got an update on session changes in your conference booklet it was a little insert with a lot of good stuff resource for you to find out where your programming is and what the most up to date programming is at this conference is conference 2.0 so we encourage you to keep looking at that on your app or on your desktop or of course check in at registration but that's where you can find all the info you need last thing about conference 2.0 you don't have to sign up for sessions you're planning on attending unless that session has a capacity limit and it will say that in the session's description on conference 2.0 select batch of those mega long skills building workshops tomorrow so you don't have to sign up but I will say that if you do add things to your calendar on conference 2.0 it's very helpful for us as you already noticed today this hotel is maybe not quite big enough to hold 950 of us so it's helpful for us to get a gauge of how many people are attending sessions so we can make sure you have places to sit and we can make sure you have water so if you do have your schedule planned out ahead of time and you can click yes and add it to your calendar that would rock so again how to get your questions answered at this point in the conference a lot of you have been emailing me which is awesome I would not encourage you to do that for the next three days but instead please check in at the registration desk where some of my colleagues can help you out I'm going to pass it to Adam for just a few more logistical notes we're going to move away from the beautiful conference 2.0 but thank you all for participating with us in this great data experiment yeah so this hotel is gorgeous it is tall and we can see the mountains if you're up on the skyline level which is on the 23rd floor we just ask you to give yourself a little bit extra time to get up there because there are only 4 elevators and if you want to climb 23 flights of stairs go for it then we have the conference level which is the 3rd floor there's a lot of rooms on that floor as well one above and then we have the pavilion level or the plaza level which is printed in the booklet as being the floor underneath the lobby but it is the floor above the lobby kind of important that's where we are now registration is right out here all of our exhibitors, the bookstores over there and then we also have the ballroom which you can access from the lobby if you find there's escalators that go all the way down to the bottom and that's where our big plenary speakers are as well if you have any questions come find one of the staff members or go to registration oh the Dunaway and all the floors you'll be on will be the bottom floor all the suites are down there cool we are now handing it back over to Devin okay so now is the time in the agenda when I was going to give everyone a processing minute because that was a lot of information but sadly we're behind schedule so I'm just going to ask you to take your processing moment a little bit outside after the session is over because I don't think we actually have the time to do that so I'm going to welcome my friend Carmen onto the stage and my other team members to lead us through some important information about our at the intersections programming a little team building moment there so yeah we want to now talk about the at the intersections arc and before we do that get into how it works just wanted to talk a little bit about the history of it because it's always important to name history the at the intersections arc really emerges from the leadership of people of color who for a long time at the conference found affinity space on their own and then through the leadership of people like Amelia Cachapero and others that started to be formalized then that grew into what we now have the at the intersections arc and we're going to talk a little bit about how it works but what I want to be really clear on is as you get into this work of equity, diversity and inclusion language is so critical it shapes our thoughts shape action but language can also feel exclusionary so you may hear some language allyship, affinity space, intersectionality if that language is unfamiliar to you if it feels alienating to you please don't let it be this work of equity, this work of justice needs everyone regardless of where you are in this conversation so if you hear something and you're not sure find me I'll probably be running around and you may not be able to catch me but find me because we really don't want anyone walking away from this conversation right now feeling like this conversation was not an invitation to get involved and so now to talk a little bit about some of the approach I'm going to turn it over to Carmen okay thank you guys you're wonderful people I've been asked to talk a little bit about affinity groups, affinity spaces just recognizing that for some of us it might be new and for some of us it is a part of our survival so I would just could you raise your hand if you've been a part of an affinity space and one that is based on identity because I know that we have the professional affinity space just raise your hand if you've been a part of affinity spaces okay I'm going to look at your support anyone who just raised their hand I just need a couple of you to just come up here stand next to me because come up here stand next to me just a couple of you yes thank you wonderful okay beautiful let's gather together this is the part that's important because here's what we want to try to do thank you sisters brothers and sisters thank you this is what we want to do confusion about what affinity spaces are what they do we want to just try to dispel any myths about them a couple of things you know they're not new they've been around for a long time you heard for those of you that were part of the interracial leadership of color space earlier you heard Amelia talk about for over 20 years that group has been meeting and informally so it's not new to TCG and the other thing I want to just say about affinity spaces they're just not new they've been around for a long time in community organizing they've been around for a long time in higher education they've been around for a long time in corporate America they're often referred to as resource groups where women get together to talk about what it might feel like or what exclusionary practices an organization might be operating under that they're unaware of and it's also even used in Congress has anybody heard of the women's congressional caucus so you know I often say to folks who are anxious about affinity groups fearful about them it's just not that radical it's Congress Congress is using them it's been around for a long time don't be afraid and this is why I have these folks up here because I want to talk about the benefits of affinity groups I've heard them a lot I've heard them a lot over the years I've heard people say thank goodness I work in an organization that affirms affinity spaces because it's allowed me to stay longer at this job thank goodness for me working in an organization that affirms affinity spaces because you know that outsider exclusionary experience that I typically have I get to be in a space and breathe so that then I can strategize on solutions to help my organization so I want to just check in with folks who've been a part of affinity spaces and just if you want to just give just an affirmation for how they've impacted you my friend Hannah yes so affinity spaces the one thing I'll say is that they support learning without reinscribing injury to folks particularly white folks thank you there's space for joy in affinity spaces it's a space for feeling affirmed when I am feeling minimized it's a space for me where I know I'm not alone I carry a lot of people with me and I can carry that strength back to my workplace to support the growth and work that we're doing in terms of diversity and inclusion it's a space for recognizing all of the accomplishments that we have had as a particular group and acknowledging those achievements and creating a safe space to go further there tend to be more dance parties in affinity in affinity spaces that's right and food so support, family and understanding the work that we have ahead of us ditto to the dance party karaoke celebration I think it's a space to be your full self to be too much and to be way too much in spaces that oftentimes requires us to be very careful to learn and to live and be with one another to call in, to call out actively participating in white anti-racist allies for equity to be awkward and empowered thank you all Gina we're calling you in ironically enough I was going to say it to feel fully visible it's still true, it is still true okay, thank you all oh my goodness the thank you I was going to say it makes all of our artwork hella better because we know ourselves and we share it with you it was never there before thank you all so it is by definition a for us, by a space that is determined by the people who need the space really everyone in this room is a part of an affinity group some affinity group or other and the reason why we're taking this time to really talk about what it is is because some years ago when we first introduced it it was questioned and understandably it was new for folks so they just needed more context hopefully we provided some of the context the last thing I want to say about the helpfulness of affinity spaces you all know what it feels like when you are building community and the conversations that you're having are superficial they don't really get below the surface you're building community but it's like yeah okay we're kind of going through the motions the purpose I think of these affinity spaces their impact is when we have that space together when people of color or queer identified folks or queer people of color or trans identified folks gender non binary folks when we get to have that space together to talk about what we need to have D construct stuff when we show back up into the big beloved community it's a different conversation I've seen it over and over and over again we are not having affinity spaces this is official we are on the record we are not having affinity spaces in the service of excluding people folks you gotta hear us you have to hear us we have affinity spaces in the service of the beloved community because when we show up at the big community space after our affinity spaces we are joyful, we have processed we have heard, we have listened it's a different conversation it gets below the surface so we just wanted to let y'all know that we are in the service of fully operationalizing systems of equity and we want to be fully inclusive if you have questions if you all have questions about this and you need to unpack more don't hesitate to call any one of the folks that are up here and Gus thank you Carmen that was really beautiful and so how do you know if it's an affinity space or an allyship space it's a complicated relationship to the word allyship but it's what we're using now it's on conference 2.0 which you heard all about earlier and if you're not sure just ask and let's take care of each other as we figure that out we did want to share some of the sessions that we're going to be doing as a part of this at the intersections arc this is the beginning of the at the intersections arc although really it's not because this work has been happening even before this and so we wanted to create space to hear some of the work that's been happening and I'm going to ask Kelvin to start us off ATCG how are you I'm Kelvin Dinkins the general manager of 2 River Theater in Red Bank New Jersey I'm proud to represent the league of resident theaters here as the chair of the Lord EDI initiative and part of our programming is to do Lord Ambassador panels across the country in conjunction with our conferences to reach out to students in high school and in colleges and talk about careers in the theaters as viable career paths that we want to attract them and recruit them to especially focusing on women and people of color today's session that we had was diversity equity and inclusion a conversation about careers in regional theater this is our second one with TCG we encourage everyone to come and they did show up and we had a lot of students come and learn about our theaters and our practice and our commitment to diversity equity and inclusion thank you Emilia hi there the intergenerational leaders of color has been meeting for more than 20 years and it started out as a handful of people meeting under the trees people who just liked each other and we wanted to have lunch together and it grew now and the room today was more there was probably about 120 130 people in that room which is a beautiful thing to see I do want to give a big shout out to Jennifer Nelson who at that time was the artistic director producer at the African continuum in DC and she had said listen you've got all of these groups of younger folks coming together what about us older folks because we have stuff to share and we want to talk through and so then we started these intergenerational meetings and today we danced we honored our ancestors we celebrated folks that are just new to the field we celebrated those who have been working in the field for a while we celebrated the veterans veterans that have been working for a great deal of time we talked about the things that we don't talk about right and we also I think our mantra is head of a penny head of a penny head of a penny and I think you all know what that is or at least a good number if you do Tiffany hi everyone I was Tiffany Wilhelm from Pittsburgh I was part of a group of nine amazing facilitators who did kind of white affinity spaces and worked on anti-racism for white folks and because we knew we had a lot of people showing up we split into three groups we worked on why is it so hard to talk about race white fragility digging into that we talked about white supremacy culture talking about these words that are hard and challenging that come up that actually we talked about all of us all of the time and we really dug into that and thinking about scenarios and how to undermine that and then there was an action group for folks that have sort of understood those previous concepts how do you really live this how do you every day show up and be an anti-racist white person and so that's what we did it was tremendous there will be resources on 2.0 thank you Marshall Crossroads Theater Company New Brunswick New Jersey Gus asked me to talk about a meeting we had this morning where several members of theaters of color were addressing issues of systemic racism and white supremacy we've been meeting for quite some time dealing with these very very complicated subjects and I am empowered that the fact that we have these theaters of colors along with predominantly white theaters to address some of the systemic inequities we came up with an idea I'm going to ask Tai to announce it because he just his vocal he vocally says it really cool it's not a cologne it stands for Fund for Equitable Theater Ecology where predominantly white theaters will be contributing to a fund that will be redistributed to theaters of color throughout the country yo that's what's already happened it's just the start of the conference what are we doing next Isaac where are you hi everyone I'm Isaac Gomez playwright drama director of new play development at victory garden cedar in Chicago and thank you shout out to Che I don't know where he is right after this session we have a long session called beyond diversity race and cultural appropriation in casting practices that is less of a moment of catharsis and more of an action driven town hall working group to create a list of standard practices for actors casting directors producers artistic directors playwrights executive marketing development other administrative staff institutional training educational settings and directors to ensure that equitable casting practices are maintained in our communities and to create sort of a working document that all of our theaters can institutionally adopt and can we can finally begin the process of moving from a conversation that has existed for decades and moving towards action so if you want to be a part of that action I encourage you to join us at 445 in pavilion east which oh it right here you didn't even got to go anywhere just hang out thank you thank you hello my name is Harold steward I'm the new managing director at the theater offensive in Boston, Massachusetts can I get my queer and trans folks to just make some noise really quick and let everyone know that we're here I along with the amazing Lisa Mount will be co-facilitating a session tomorrow on queer and trans movement building we're interested in folks who are currently involved in queer and trans movement building who have a history of involvement in queer and trans movement building and individuals who are trying to understand what that is or find their place in the movement we envision this session as an intergenerational learning exchange with some clear action items so please join us tomorrow during lunch at the working session yay I'm going to stay on the floor with Valerie McCrae and tomorrow Friday at 1.30 with Monique who's behind me and Reagan who's even more behind me right here if you're excited about Isaac's session about beyond diversity and casting in terms of racial equity get ready for our session next tomorrow because we're talking about disability and inclusion and if you're wondering and if you've always been wondering how you can get more diverse casting happening in terms of actors with disabilities designers with disabilities we are going nuts and bolts action items so we're like thanks for showing up we're glad that you care here's exactly what you can do to get your auditions more accessible to get your rehearsals to get your performances to get your tech rehearsals to do all of that in terms of action items moving forward so tomorrow at 1.30 come join us and we'll build on all the other great stuff that's happening hey everyone my name is Joy Meads I'm a member of the Kill Royce hello and I'm Laura Safastor playwright and on the board of directors of TCG so we in the Kill Royce we're doing two things this weekend you guys the first thing is tomorrow and we're calling it it's gender equity on our stages creating a toolkit for change so we in the Kill Royce are all about not becoming so fixated on the power we don't have that we forget to use the power we do have so what we're gonna do is we're gonna start out that session like sharing some kind of like DIY gorilla rock and roll strategies that we have found effective and like building a movement for change but then what we're gonna do is we're gonna turn the whole room into a mighty brain trust and we're all gonna walk out of there with tactics that actions that we can all do to create a more just and inclusive stage that's the first one all right and I know you've all been sitting there going oh my gosh where are the playwrights right um we've got them we have 97 monologues and scenes by female and trans playwrights coming out on the TCG published Kill Royce List all right my friends so where can I get some of this where can I get some free monologue playwright action Saturday 12 15 it's a lunch grab your food grab a little box come join us we're going to be reading um monologues from this book that you're gonna be able to buy really soon and we're going to be having all kinds of fantastic actors joining us so your favorite actors and some of your favorite playwrights like hey myself we'll be reading our own um monologues I think mine is by a guy and it's weird and racist so come hear me say that um so please come it's uh what's in the room Galleria 3 yay bye I'm Claudia Alec and I am representing the Ghostlight project which launched over a year about earlier this year theaters all over the country making and renewing the pledge to stand and protect the values of inclusion, participation, compassion for everyone regardless of race, class religion, country of origin, immigration status disability, age, gender orientation sexual orientation and in that collective action um a spirit of collective action we are asking everyone to join us tonight at the party at 845 and we'd just like to do a big thanks to Portland Center Stage and Cynthia Furman who helped us to pull this together we will be doing a big group picture we're asking folks at 845 there will be hearts and we're asking you to put that heart up in the air and raise it to the sky if you want to honor um the two women who were attacked here in Portland and the people who stood up for them we're asking you raise that heart if you're somebody who will stand up as well 845 tonight um and we'll be connecting with Ghostlight project folks 1215 on Saturday to talk more about collective action in the future handing off so now I'm gonna turn it over to Devin for uh a few programming announcements and then Annalisa is gonna close us out okay y'all uh we're we're at time I know this you know this I'm really sorry about that as soon as we close out I'm gonna need y'all to leave this room really quickly we have to turn it over it's just how it goes uh okay so I have a big programming announcement a big programming announcement you need to listen to me keynote speaker Cheryl Strayed is very very ill and cannot make it tonight yes I know we found out this morning but but I'm sorry I lead a pretty kickass conference team and we have a replacement speaker for you who were just as excited about already we booked her today she is also a local author and her name is Lydia Yuknovich I think that's how you say her name she read a memoir called the chronology of water she's a Ted speaker she also wrote the book of Joan which is apparently amazing according to the New York Times uh we are trying to get copies for you and uh we're pretty excited about her so we're really sad to lose Cheryl but we're excited about her guys we turned that around today there's more to talk about but we just don't have time so some of that is gonna come into the opening plenary we're gonna give you a little more housekeeping but uh I'm gonna allow Annalisa to um actually close us out thanks thank you for having me I wanted to quickly um plug a session that we are doing right after this session upstairs on the 23rd floor in the skyline one room upstairs on the 23rd floor go up there right after this it is a session called decolonizing theater practice hell yes so we're gonna talk about what that means and and we're gonna do some plays and we're gonna have some moments of embodied practice which actually I'd like to close this session out with as well so I'd invite you the work of decolonization really is about um finding ways to become to re um rediscover our interconnectedness and break down the systems that would separate us so I'd like to invite everybody to take a hand of the person who is maybe next to them and we're just gonna take a moment we're just gonna take a moment thank you if we could be silent actually just be in a moment of silence and breathe together so we hope to see you upstairs and as um Hannah said everyone needs to get out of here right now