 Welcome to the Martin E. Siegel Theatre Center here at the Graduate Center CUNY and to Prelude 21. Start making sense. It is our annual Theatre and Performance Festival celebrating the work of New York theatre artists of ensembles and it's hard enough in normal times to create work for the stage and for spaces inside and outside but in the time of corona we all are faced with exceptional challenges and we are here to celebrate again the extraordinary achievements that come out of the New York theatre community. It is time I think and we feel to start making sense to ask questions why are we making theatre but also how are we producing it and for whom. And this is a great investigation again into the mechanics of making art in New York City and we also invited theatre ensembles from around the U.S. from Detroit and Cincinnati and Lewis and Philadelphia and New Orleans to join us and this will be extraordinary. Look into what is on the minds of artists right now. Now we also have many panel discussions. We have an award which we are giving out to honor outstanding members of the New York theatre community so I would like to all of you to join in and get an insight of what is happening. Welcome everybody to our listeners especially back to Prelude NYC the great At least we think of a prelude festival that is taking place annually since almost 20 years now dedicated to the work of a theatre at the forefront of the experimental work emerging artists but also season one so it's a discussion, it's a prong of works in progress and we take the standard art is what is at the center of theatre it's not just entertainment, it's not part of the commercial world and we here at the Martin E. Seagal's Theatre Center at the great Graduate Center CUNY in Metelmenheim we use this festival as a moment to celebrate the work of artists. It's very, very hard to create art, any kind of art, it's very hard in theatre especially in America but now in the time of Corona of course there are additional layers of complexities. Next to our invention of chain curation where we ask this time not just one or two curators to compose the entire festival we ask curator to nominate one artist and to nominate another curator and the next curator nominates one artist and another curator so it was an open forum, kind of a division of power of the curator and one of the additional ideas we had for this year is to really look away from the center from the metropolis and as some people say from the metropolitan cultural supremacy that the big cities radiate and then as if you're not here, you're nowhere and your work is not of significance, it's not important, it has never been true I believe strongly so, so many work has been done outside this was Kortalski where there was Ginu Barba, even the great theatres in Paris of Peter Book on the outskirts of the city on Monterre but especially in the time of Corona we learned that so much work is done, important work away from the big cities actually people moved away, moved outside and in these panels we explored in the previous days whether it was of care, self-care, of healing, of connecting to communities connecting to nature, taking care of yourself, your family, your parents, your children this is something that was discovered but I feel ensembles who have worked in New York in America's region have made those decisions a long time ago and great work has come out from that we know that and we should know more about it and in our Segal Talks where we spoke with over 200 artists from over 50 countries, so many put up that we should go work slower, take our time like slow cooking, get outside the big rush spaces and there's a worldwide movement and not just here in the US, towards decentralizing work how it is also with us in Germany, some Britain, France, in India, in the Americas and so we get a little insight today into the minds, the working mechanics of making theater how does it really work, what are the challenges now, why did they create these pieces that they are sharing with us now, so it's a fantastic and unique opportunity for also an honest conversation, for an exchange, they all, it's my guess it's the first time they all together in a Zoom talk so I'm just going to welcome and read the names that we have with us Jareena Sab, Jake Hooker, Benjamin Kamp from the team with Sunshine Performance Corporation Mildstrom Collaborative Arts, Natalie Green from Magmumpin, Adil Mansour and Paul Cruz from Hedge Arts Collective, Kara Martinez, Indy Mitchell from Loud Theatre and as you can see they are from Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Detroit, Austin, San Francisco Philadelphia, New Orleans and it's a fantastic reminder for all of us you know that as Hans-Tis Lehmann the great thinker about theater said theater is a big house and there are many many rooms not only for styles but also for everywhere in the world so we are really proud and honored that you participate, that you took your time to be with us and at that moment now also we would like to acknowledge the Lenape people upon whose land we are here together today, it's a Manahata as someone reminded us yesterday and we pay respect to the Lenape people and ancestors past, present and future thank you, thanks for howl around again for hosting at Andy Tanvi and Cactus Juice in Mumbai for helping us to put this all on and I'm going to start with Adil I will ask everybody to give a short introduction before we come closer to the bones and meat of our conversation so Adil where are you now and tell us a little bit about it Hi folks, grateful to be here, thank you Frank, thanks everyone for the invitation my name is Adil Mansour, I use he, him, his pronouns home is on the ancestral lands of many indigenous folks including the Adhanai, the Hopewell, the Mananga Hela, the Seneca, the Lenape also referred to as the Delaware and the Osage and many others aka Pittsburgh I am primarily a theater maker, theater director and I'm one of three folks working with Hatch Arts Collective which is what brings me to this room today Hatch is many things, Hatch is me, Paul who's next to me at least on my screen and Nicole who can't be here, the three of us have been making theater in Pittsburgh since 2012 from scripted work to devise works to a little bit of media practice and the projects have ranged from a show about four chickens and the gay couple trying to take care of them to a three-year investigation of fracking and environmental justice within our communities so the work ranges and that's me checked in Fantastic, thank you so much, Paul Thank you, Frank, yeah, thank you Adil also for doing most of the talking about Hatch My name is Paul Cruz, I use he, him, his pronouns While I am in Pittsburgh right now for a wedding, right now I'm actually living near my bio-origin family in Minneapolis which is on the ancestral lands of the Dakota and the Anishinaabe people Yeah, I work with Hatch Arts Collective, I'm so grateful to be here Thank you so much Jake for reaching out to us My work with Hatch is primarily as a playwright and then my work in the world is also as a playwright and a media artist And so yeah, thank you so much Fantastic, Kara Hi, I'm Kara Martinez I'm coming to you from Austin, Texas which is the lands of the Comanche in Tongkawa I work for Fusebox Festival and in particular I direct a project called Live in America And Live in America is a new festival that is imagining festival as a justice-oriented space for enriching communities, uplifting histories and building a shared sense of stewardship Right now we're working with communities from Vegas, from Albuquerque, New Mexico the Diné Pueblo and Apache people, El Paso Juarez, New Orleans, Detroit, Sumter County, Alabama, San Juan and Northwest Arkansas Incredible, it's a great festival you create, they have been there and it's fantastic and it's good to be reminded of it. Natalie Hello, my name is Natalie Green, I use she, her pronouns I am based in San Francisco and I am the artistic director of the Device Theatre Ensemble, Mugwumpin Mugwumpin was founded in San Francisco in 2004 by Christopher White, Joe Eslach and Denmo Ibrahim It has had many iterations over the last 17 or 18 years, what is math? Mugwumpin has long been San Francisco's weirdo devising people and one of the things that we've noticed at this time in our trajectory is how impacted our work has been by our collaborations with various designers and how, especially leading up to the pandemic and in pandemic times we realized we were really creating design forward work where we would actually the initial collaboration would be with a video designer, a lighting designer, a costume designer that the seeds of a work could grow from strong design ideas and then we could build the rest of our performance around those ideas and invite performer creators into the mix to create things with these strong design ideas or ideas about audience performer interactions and how sort of immersive and interactive work could really drive the creation of new and original performance we love site specific work, big weirdos over here and forgot to mention that I am here in San Francisco on Ramaytush alone land and a land that has seen many gold rushes and many different eras of people coming through with new ideas and really San Francisco is a history of change the land and the people here and the artists and the ideas have always, you know, one on top of the other we are built on layers and that is literally geographically, metaphorically, creatively layering and layering and layering Fantastic, we look forward to you also much more in the discussion and thank you Natalie Benjamin Hello, hello, coming to you from the beautiful city of Philadelphia which is the ancestral home of Lenny Lanafe among others I'm from Team Sunshine and one of three co-captains as we call ourselves Founders, we started in 2010 and we also make devised work from scratch and some of that has been small duets and some of that has been 100 person battle scenes done in parks currently we're working on a couple different pieces that explore working with communities in different ways we're trying to be outside a lot and recover from a totally shitty time to make theater woo and yeah, very excited to be here, thank you so much for having us of course this is great to have you with us, Indy so great to have New Orleans with us Hey, hi everyone, my name is Indy my pronouns are they and he and yeah, I'm calling in from New Orleans also known as Balbancha the place of many tongues I'm excited to be here I wear many many hats in the world and I'm here today representing Loud, the New Orleans Career Youth Theater Ensemble Loud is amazing I've been co-director of Loud for about like four or five like five or six years now we yeah, have done a lot of different things and our goal is mainly to create new work that's completely devised by our ensemble who are all young folks between the ages of like 16 and 21 to create new work with them and to also be doing some political education alongside so the work informs that political education and political education informs the work yeah and we can talk more about it later but I'm excited to be here excited to see new and familiar faces fantastic, thank you thank you, Shereen thank you, I just want to say first off that I am experiencing a little bit of lag, I hope you're not but I am, but I'm just going to push through it okay great so again, my name is Shereen Aza I'm co-director of A Host of People we are on Anishinaabe land which is the Council of the Three Fires the Ottawa, Ojibwe and Potawatomi peoples colonally known as Detroit, Michigan A Host of People is a multi-racial theater ensemble, we make devised work that looks at the past to talk about the present in order to imagine a more just and celebratory future to give you a little bit of texture of how that manifests we really like to play with both the head and the heart and the light and the dark so we'll have a whole spectrum of really sort of serious dark materials and then maybe we'll break out into a song and a hustle in the next moment, so we really sort of paint that entire spectrum in order to bring the most amount of people into our work yeah, I'm so like Indy said I'm so excited to share the space with so many friends and colleagues from around the country I mean this is really sort of where my heart lies outside of Detroit is like the connections that we make across the country so I'm excited to be in conversation with all of you, thank you Thank you, thank you Jake, you are also our curator tell a little bit about yourself but also what happens in your mind when you invite these guys Hi everybody, thank you so much for being here it's so great to see everybody yeah, so my name is Jake Hooker, I am the co-director with Shereen of A Host of People in Detroit and so Shereen gave our land acknowledgement, thank you for that and I am also the curator of this and I think that's a funny sort of concept, this idea of curation I don't consider myself a curator really It's your first time it's probably not my first time but anyway yeah, so this grouping sort of developed out of my PhD dissertation which I wrote at CUNY grad center and Frank was on my committee, that was very nice and so as I thought about, as Frank reached out to sort of say are the artists we want to kind of touch base with out around the country, not based in New York you know, there's some sort of for me low-hanging fruit because I've just been working with a bunch of folks in my dissertation but not all of these folks were a part of that and that was by design so a few folks here were Team Sunshine and Hatch were as well as Maelstrom collaborative arts who are in Cleveland who were able to join us today and Goat in the Road in New Orleans was also a part of the dissertation but I wanted to sort of choose a few of those artists and a few new artists and so actually I'd like to take just a second to sort of talk about my thought process around those selections because I think that one thing that's evident here is well, I mean I guess this happens when you're a curator right, this really reflects my taste loves and passions right, I love all of these people and all of their work but I also love to think about, I love ensemble so all of these folks in one way or another are involved in ensemble making and ensemble thinking I think and so that was one thing, a lot of these folks although not everybody maybe identifies as divisors although maybe everybody on the screen in some way or another considers themselves divisors and part of that was thinking about place and so I wanted to choose folks that were really working with the place that they are based and the communities that they're based in and devising obviously gives us a framework around making place that's kind of making work that's connected to place and so that was a really important part of thinking about who to ask and you know wanting to get a range so just to talk about some specs of this group, McGwampan is the farthest from New York and they are the oldest company that is in evidence in this little pan U.S. group grouping we have and then to say you know Kara is not necessarily a leader of a member of an ensemble or a current well maybe you are you can tell us about that but working with Fusebox and this amazing live in America project that I felt really has a spiritual ethical relationship to this pan USA a curation moment but also sort of I think a lot of the things that a lot of us are thinking about being in community as Shreene said a lot of ways outside of the artists in Detroit who I know and love this is my community these folks that are working outside of and I hate to we talk about decentralization so I don't want to you know at Freyland festival which is a intrinsically New York based festival I want to sort of acknowledge that and also not just differentiate ourselves from what is New York or that kind of bugaboo that is New York so so that was kind of like the thought process around this particular group of folks okay you know go ahead Frank thank you Jake just mentioned the word and I know it's important to place making so before that do you all know each other you all and so you are in a way a community Indy you don't know all of them but I know some folks but still it's a wonderful to know that it's such a a sense of community I should say like one organizing kind of element to this is a lot of these folks come we come into contact through a couple of national organizations like the network ensemble theaters so all of us are not all of us but most of us are members of that of NET and we sort of intersect in that way national performance network is another out of New Orleans who a lot of us do get in you know sort of traffic through and NIFA New England Foundation for their it's another organization that a lot of us have been funded by or have a relationship with and these are three organizations that I think are really really crucial to helping to create infrastructure for folks that are not in New York especially people that are making experimental performance where there is not a lot of infrastructure for experimentalism yeah and and that is a quite semi so when it comes to to making place how is that at the moment in general but also in that moment of Corona the last year this year the work you create here tell us and share a little bit of what's on your mind. A deal maybe again we start with you yeah I'm still kind of sitting in that question I mean we have spent the first seven years very specifically making work with in and about Pittsburgh consistently responding to our communities all three of us have very the founding members have very different relationships with Pittsburgh but at this time at this point I've been there for anywhere between 20 to 10 to 20 years and the last two years we've all kind of scattered in a lot of different ways so I went to grad school even though it was in Pittsburgh it did not feel like I was in Pittsburgh anymore Paul spent time in Austin and Nicole started working with Net a national organization so even though we still had ties to Pittsburgh the work kind of started to explode out of it in different ways so hopefully we're making a lot of mediated work so Paul's working on an audio play I put up a virtual performance Nicole's working on a digital archive and so all of a sudden I guess our place is this internet we sit on which is perhaps a shared experience for a lot of us and place right now for me is like my mom who I don't get to see a lot place is the memories of my father he passed away seven years ago I've been thinking about him a lot attempting to have a conversation with his ghost whatever that means so he has no relationship to place in certain ways so maybe the internet times are doing that to my brain I was like what I have to share right now at a very writing and draft writing and draft here for a time we thought the internet is not a real place very long and now it became the only real place for a while but we are getting back Indy how is it for you how is it filmmaking theater performance ensemble work in New Orleans give us a little update how is it yeah I mean as everyone I'm sure experienced on this call and around the world it's weird it's just weird and I don't know how sustainable it is if I'm being honest but Loud has been using this time to do some more internal work so we've always pushed ourselves out there as a youth centered adult supported organization and the pandemic has given us an opportunity to sort of like slow down and really like reconsider what that meant so in the past a year we've staffed up in ways that we've never been able to do and have hired four new youth staff members who then we spent a lot of time like prepping them getting them ready getting them oriented getting them confident getting out new curriculum and the plan for the next semester and yeah and then they're like the plan right now is for them to run the whole shebang which I guess will start in January right now because Hurricane Ida happened we were planning to have auditions in September late September early October and the hurricane definitely like took us off track for a little bit so we had to push things back a little bit more and that's the thing that I'm learning from this pandemic too is just I don't know letting go of these expectations of like what am I supposed to be doing in creating and in what timeline and giving myself grace and all of us grace and time and space to actually slow down so remember that none of this is normal and there maybe is no normal now and like having to wrap your brain around that is really hard especially when people's safety and health and well being is like yeah is at the center and the core of it all so like as much as I wanted like just jump back into a studio or into a rehearsal room with people and have shows and make new work and stuff I also yeah I don't want to die or like get anyone else sick or like have like the audience get sick or be from exposure and stuff like that it just doesn't feel safe like keeping with vaccines and everything but I'm really excited about the internal work that we've been able to do and and in part is because of some of the like financial support we were able to get that this year but the year before the pandemic even started we got like a really awesome grant from alternate routes like a renewing three-year situation that's able to like help sustain us during this moment and yeah and in general people have been like really awesome when it comes to like fundraising and stuff but yeah it's weird it's actually kind of funny and weird to be on here for a while because I've still like pushed myself to be like yeah usually I would like invite one of my younger staff members to sit in my place but I talk into Jake and because of time and stuff I was like okay I think it's better this year for me now but yeah but thank you for joining us giving us an update Benjamin in Philadelphia tell us a little bit about making how what's the real what's the reality of creating work there at the moment yeah I mean it's it has its ups and downs Philadelphia has actually pretty incredible devising scene it's a kind of happening place for that kind of experimental theater like everybody's got a cabaret act so that's very cool and it's it's felt really lonely the last couple years I mean that getting together and being being that devised community is one of the things I really love about Philadelphia and so yeah it's felt lonely team sunshine kind of looked around and briefly explored the possibilities of doing work online and doing audio plays and and we looked really hard at it and then we were really tired and we had families we were taking care of and we were like I don't think we're gonna do any of that and we decided that we just weren't so we kind of wiped wiped out all of the performance hustles and that they're slowly coming back and the way we're mostly doing that is is small and slow and trying to figure out things that are COVID-independent so the last work in progress showing we just did was with a very small audience outdoors and it was a piece it's a piece that's designed to be outdoors it's set on a loosely on a father daughter camping trip and so we said okay that's the piece we're gonna work on but it's it's been tough and partially we're finding that we're slowing down we're also experiencing some slowing down and some questions around sustainability for ourselves the the slowing down is not costing less so there's a real there's a real universe of like okay cool we're gonna slow down we really have to take care of people actually that costs a little more than than just do it using our volunteer hours to make the work so how do we talk to foundations about what it means to slow down sustainably we're just kind of dipping our toes in work in progress showings thinking about doing our work in like in phases we're gonna show this phase of the work we're gonna do this phase of the work instead of saying we are going to premiere work on this day because who knows there could be hurricanes there could be there could be more COVID so we're trying to be a little smaller in how much we promise yeah the great theater maker George Tabore the Hungarian one said anyway work he does is work in progress he's just forced to stop on one day to have the opening night so exactly exactly and that's not how that's not what we've been doing that that's a new it's a new for us so Natalie in San Francisco give us a little update about what are you thinking about doing work how hard how easy is it do you get support I think it's been hard I think it's been hard on everybody in different ways San Francisco is a place where interdisciplinary work has been really welcome I I originally moved to the Bay Area as a dancer as a young dancer and I worked in the dance theater community for a long time before I decided I wanted to figure out how to be an artist without being an athlete and that's what took me towards devising and when I found mugwump and I was like okay good this is my home and one thing that's been really interesting for us stepping off of the producing cycle during the pandemic is just having deeper conversations about our sustainability as a company so I really appreciate hearing from Indy and hearing from Benjamin about you know how do we take care of ourselves and each other so we actually we realize we're nearing the end of our life cycle as a company because we are not necessarily sustainable and we really feel like it's important that that theater and device theater acknowledge larger movements towards better labor practices so when we look at the demands both from we see white American theater but also from all kinds of social movements that we're experiencing that we're in the middle of how can we really honor and acknowledge that we need to treat people a certain way we need to treat our labor a certain way we need to honor and understand what our real capacity is because I feel like we were always with mugwump and like the little company that could and we were so consistently doing shows that were a little bit bigger than what we could really handle and that that aspirational quality is a part of what made our company so special and at the same time it meant we've been running on burnout for a long time and it's been so special to do shows that we're just a little bit outside of our reach always doing things that were just a little more ambitious a little bit of a crazier idea than the last time but you know 17 years of doing that has a way of helping you dream big and also at this time the pandemic allowed us just to slow down and go is this healthy and sustainable for us now that we're mid-career artists it feels different in your bones so we're still in big conversations about what to do with this and how to be real and respectful both with our history and with our capacity and often you know see theater ensemble music bands they get together and they play time nobody knows how long the bands last and they just play together as long as it's right and feels right and it's such an enormous effort a carer all the changes we saw or failed Black Lives Matter you know the Me Too movement, Dear White Theater you have a little overlook of regional theater and Jake said you might maybe you know most of about it you know if it comes to some only US what do you detect what do you feel what are people thinking how is your work changed and what are you doing different I mean I don't I don't know I mean I'm pretty practical about the power of white supremacy I hope things like Black Lives Matter Me Too movement will make a difference but white you know white capitalism white supremacy is real and powerful so I'm not gonna put it like a rosy glow I mean I think you just do the work that helps your community and you survive inside that labor as long as you can take try to take good care of yourself and that that is kind of the challenge in Austin you have a city that was really productive and devised work in the early 2000s remix we're making tons of work Refraction Arts which was the company before fuse box salvage vanguard rubber rep and then often gentrified it is a gentrified city and it is very expensive to make work here and so it had already slowed down prior to what was happening in COVID in these regional or these social movements I think what I try to think about in scholarship or if I'm working in a regional theater or working in fuse box or live in America which is like getting a this idea of how do we unmake place how do we uncouple place from dominant history and that when you do that labor which is messy and it can be hurtful and it takes a lot of energy when you do that labor then you can maybe begin to remake systems but until you deal with the dominant history the dominant system like that's that's the key into how I think about like changes in regional theater effectiveness of social movements effectiveness of a little festival in Austin uncoupling place from dominant history and naming who wasn't included in that history do you pick up things from the companies you invite and work with is there a change in themes, new styles or anything you detect so the communities we work with have their own leadership teams and every leadership team has selected for itself what it wants to program how it wants to budget how it wants to create artists fees like it's contextual material the thing that I can tell you across the communities I worked with none of them self selected into standard theater or standard performance practices or older Richard deeper histories and that's where they want to head in Albuquerque they don't want to do experimental performance they want to talk about an experimental pow wow as a structure and even that is an experimental it's like kicking it back to history that was erased and that's kind of consistent across the board working with artists in New Orleans they don't want to do a traditional play they want to talk about street and porch performance and so part of it is just reorganizing my brain in the way that I've been trained to think about theater and performance and recognize that that thinking has a history and that I've got to disturb my own practices around how I understand theater and performance thank you that's so good to hear what is out there, Cherine how is it in Detroit are you welcome is it gentrified can you do your work is it growing is it shrinking what's new what are you thinking wow I just want to there's so many things I can echo about what people have said so far but I'll try to add more I mean I think one of the things we arrived this is our tenth year in Detroit and I think that a host of people is made up of a variety of people that are Detroit natives that have been here from grown up here and some people that have adopted Detroit as their home I mean now this is the point I've lived in Detroit longer than I've lived anywhere else in my adult life so it is does feel like home to me but I do feel like there is it is a city that welcomes collaboration but at the speed of trust as Adrian you need to come we came very intentionally listened and sort of found our way into the way that we're collaborating in a very interdisciplinary landscape I will say right now it feels hard and I think everybody feels that way it feels hard to feel connected to our community in a way that we have not felt before it feels hard to I mean I've been listening to a lot of podcasts that have like verified these feelings like in the beginning of the pandemic when we were in lockdown it felt somewhat better because we knew what to do you know there was like very clear you can't do anything and now in this very gray moment it feels harder to know that we are taking care of everything our people our work all of that in the way that this moment calls for I know we need to push ourselves a little bit but also we need to make sure that we're taking care of anybody we when the when the pandemic started we had two shows in development which is a companion piece to our last show which is supposed to premiere at the American National Museum in December I'll talk about that in a second and fire in the theater that is a devised piece that is about free speech in the digital age so we went totally virtual online to keep the development of that going I will say last week was the first time we did an intensive on fire in the theater and in three days of being in person we got more done on that show than we had throughout the entire time on zoom it was super productive it was super joyous people reconnected to the material we had great conversations on zoom but they just weren't like getting to that next place of how does this manifest into live performance for us and then with Kilo Batra so that was supposed to premiere in 2020 fire in theater was supposed to premiere in 2021 we sort of really had to stretch our idea of what devised theater could be because we engage two writers that were supposed to be in the rehearsal room with us devising together and because of how we had to move everything online we basically had the writers write the piece themselves and conversation with me which is very outside of our process and that is we're going into rehearsals for that next week and it feels like the hardest producing and making we've ever done like there's not just like practically we spending more money or spending money on tests weekly that we didn't have in the budget we're dealing with a variety of comfortability with being in the room together and it's manifesting in ways that are you know how do we take care of each other in the room what is our behavior going to look like outside of how are we going to change our behavior as individuals outside of the rehearsal room to try to make everybody feel safe and just how and for me as the director of the piece how am I staging it differently which is a interesting another level of of art making right so there's a lot of things to think about. A lot of things and it's a moment I think and Katan you're at linkedons in the theater said you know we go next week into rehearsal I haven't done it in the year and a half it feels so strange about it we heard from one of our curators said at their place half the staff two times the performances they normally showed up you know and prices go up for audience members there's extreme pressure they do more now all of a sudden plus all the concerns so it's a strange moment important so it's good to hear from you I would like to ask a question I hope and with an honest answer because a lot of people are listening in should I go to a city should I join or should I create an ensemble Jake made that a point that you know this is one of the great things you can actually do in this society you know go out create a new community find a place redefine a place unplace a place but then place it again through your work is it worth it what was your idea have you been able to realize it and is it worth it so I'm going to stand out a little bit of it because that's also what people would like to hear you have your pioneers in a way you went out but pioneers also get the arrows in the back but still and maybe we start with Paul and you know so how would you answer that question I think I'm going to take a couple firm steps back from the pioneer metaphor yeah I yeah and I think Frank you know that question too implies that we were coming from other places all of us which I think is definitely not true for everyone here and I can speak for myself when to New York there are lots of New York connections I was surprised was also one of the reasons I put the panel together you two Jake's work there are strong connections you know to a city where a lot of people stay where everybody comes from somewhere but you went a lot on a meant path and I should say for myself I definitely did not grow up in Pittsburgh I grew up in western Wisconsin but a thing I would say about making work just for me and I think this might be true with a lot of folks here is that it's deeply personal and deeply about personal connection and community and so I moved to Pittsburgh because my best friend moved here I guess this way on the screen a deal and so looking out if folks are watching who are also theater makers and artists a thing that has been hugely important for me is finding a community of people with whom I connect and relate finding sometimes an unhealthy codependent family with whom I can make work I think I'm way more interested in that than going to a new place and recreating that place like I think I found that certainly outside of New York I don't personally have a ton of connection to New York City but it I think it's about like looking around where you are which is something that happened a lot in the pandemic is that my geography is all in that all of my friends who I knew in other places I was suddenly in relationship with more on a regular basis more than I was before but I also knew my block better than I ever had before I knew who lived on my block I would like through front porch culture it would start waving it you know so the relationships kind of shifted in that way for me so anyone chime in yeah sorry go ahead oh yeah so yeah I just wanted to sort of echo some of those things that I'm hearing out there and you know but this I laughed pretty hard when you said you know is it worth it and you know I think you know I think it depends on what the it is right that you know for me and I'm speaking as a myself and as a founder of a host of people less as a curator for me you know Ensemble has and creating our Ensemble company and really you know intentionally putting these folks together has really been everything to me I mean it has helped create a framework not just for my art practice and the fact that you know like as artistically I do like a bunch of different stuff but not just what you know I don't locate myself in a particular area so Ensemble's been away from me to do that just sort of practically speaking but also you know having built this family together and you know I mean you know so like thinking about is the Ensemble worth it is sort of like asking is family worth it you know you know it's like it's got its problems right and but you know I think for me anyway that the process and during COVID times we all like it as Indy was saying we did a lot of internal stuff a lot of rethinking about our internal structures and kind of developing new ways of even thinking about the Ensemble itself and that felt that has all felt so generative to me and so I'm actually getting sort of emotional you know so that's really where my heart's at but the question I think that really becomes what why it's such a dumb question why like now why are we doing the work that we're doing and I think all of us obviously have to answer that very independently but for me you know I do see the structure of an Ensemble in a place like Detroit which doesn't have a lot of this type of making but is a very interdisciplinary landscape you know the building of this Ensemble has been way beyond just any given piece and so that to me is you know I think that's worth it for me I can only answer that has been really worth it for me well beyond just like making a thing but do I think everybody should rush out and start a new Ensemble in a new place that they don't know anything about no I do not you gotta know your place right like literally Ben what do you got I'm just gonna say I want to like note similarities that people are tired people are tired and this work is incredible and I think I would also say like if you want to have the best artistic relationships of your life like it's there's something about the creative language of doing an improvisation with someone you've been working with for 12 years that is incomparable that's like a truly precious creative opportunity and also I just hear I'm hearing exhaustion from y'all and from other people I'm talking about is like people are really tired so I think I agree with everyone reframing the question of kind of is it worth it but I will say that I would love to get the word out to the foundation universe and the government universe that this is incredible work that's doing incredible things that's that is way under supported way under supported and has relied for an incredibly long time on volunteer hours donated by artists that's what we're all really doing we're donating our time and people burning themselves out and missing opportunities to have traditional families or do the things that they want to do in some cases so yeah it's under supported but it's also god it's such an incredible it feels so good ultimate first I mean I also want to say that we just had an ensemble retreat with our with eight people of our ensemble this last weekend and talked a lot about the evolution of a host of people and and it's interesting a lot of the people that have been in Detroit their whole lives like there still is that New York pull and I want to honor that as well and I spent six years in New York and I spent nine years in Seattle and now almost ten years in the trade and like the the I do think there is value of like the New York experience but I don't think it's about the quantity of the work that is in New York like I think I think it's the for me one of the things that has been so liberating leaving New York but I did have that experience was that there was something about the New York thing that made me feel like I had to make work in relation to what was going to be the it thing in the downtown theater scene I feel very liberated outside of that system to respond to me and our ensembles artistic instincts of our own and I felt and I've seen almost everybody's work in this room and I have felt that like statistically it's so interesting I've been moved by all of your work so much more than like the amount of and I've been moved by work in New York too but like as I moved away like what that that unspoken thing of people doing it outside of New York was is there's a an honesty a sincerity and a tenderness that I think is now coming into New York work in a way that I think has been happening outside of it for a long time and I think part of the pandemic has been letting people open up in New York of being like we're people that can be sincere on stage and even an experimental work that I wasn't feeling as prevalent in the years that I lived there and how I mean as an additional question but please the connection to the community to the place how other cities how open are the arms and do you do you feel you are part of the fabric or do you make a difference how how are you how are you experiencing in general but also of course in time of COVID how are you experiencing this how are you all experiencing this moment um these are such interesting questions Frank um they're really making me think um and yeah so I am originally from Virginia town outside of Richmond I moved to New Orleans in 2013 um and yeah I made roots and seeds here and in those first two or three years of moving to New Orleans um I didn't make any work I wasn't really in any ensemble I didn't do I and there's a couple different reasons one I got sucked into like some like party thing and like it's been that for a really long time which I think draws people into New Orleans um and it's an interesting weird energy or whatever and then a few years later I was like oh wait what am I doing I'm supposed to be making stuff um and so I don't know this is an interesting conversation for me because I feel like I don't know as a as like a black queer and trans person it's hard to figure out like where am I supposed to be or belong or something um and I find and I found myself coming like a person coming from a smaller rural town um going to larger cities felt better for me but I've never been drawn into New York and I think it's because New York thinks that it's the center of the universe so even these questions being like very like like should you move and I'm like are you actually like asking like should people go to cities and start doing ensembles or are you asking to people from New York who aren't doing well or should people go to these other places and to like I mean both of those answers to my answers to both of those is no like don't come to don't come to New Orleans don't come to Pittsburgh don't come to Austin like as like all these people have said these gentrification is a major like thing that like I think we're kind of like mentioning but not really talking about the impact of like what is the work um that we're doing and how our work as artists impacts gentrification because it starts off with like the young artists and the young queers and like the young whoever the young like professionals coming in but then eventually we get pushed out too but like we started it you know what I mean like acknowledge that like people on this call like we have such a huge um I don't know like we have like we we started and like yes we're looking for a place and yes we're looking for like you know our community to make our work and there's nothing wrong with that but also I think it's important for us to acknowledge that like these places exist both before and after us and without us and without our art you know what I mean and so like um I don't I don't know if it's important for us to even talk about like does this place welcome you with like arms or whatever because no matter where you go it's going to be work you can't just like enter into places and think that like you're the first person to think of like making weird performances on the street like everyone like so I guess um my my the thing that I would love to like you know leave with people is like if you're going to move to new places like we all do we're all looking and searching and stuff just be intentional be aware of like what space you're in and like and also be intentional like and how much space you take up who's been there before you who's been doing work before you how do you how does your work fall into the lineage of the work of that place already um and then also thinking about like how does your presence there impact the work that's being made impact the community that's being made as well too because the other thing I really noticed about this call too is like yeah it's great that we're all not in New York but we're all still in major cities I'm like shout out to the rural homies who are out there making work because like they exist I mean I know that they exist like there are people in like Kentucky there are people like in like smaller outskirts of like Georgia and like all of the places like not just the southern states too so yeah thank you this is great though this is very interesting I wonder if like I am right Andy thank you so much that was so I just want to just like lift up so many of the things you said it was really really uh needed thank you yeah I just want to echo that don't move to Austin please don't do it it doesn't need you unless you have a lot of resources that you want to share and and that you want to like do some reparations with um and also just think about as you as as you go into those places what are your habits of thought like how is your ensemble functioning a little cult like and and how do you break up your own habit of thought who's not in the room with your ensemble and how might they make you better if they were in the room and I just think of New York is that it's like a very distinguished art cult and it's great and you can go in and get what you want from it and then you can leave and there you go yeah no I think we should have a very very strong um regional theater system which there is as you all point out you're on big cities and in all places in all towns as there are actually in many places around the world and even the smallest towns go to the Catskills and there's a town of a thousand people and they have a little opera house and this is what makes um life um enjoyable to celebrate life we ask the questions society works through um it's um um it's problems and you look at it and stage and it's a model for something you look at it you see it so I feel um what you guys do is so essential and important and um perhaps so if I give you a more provocative question but I think it's uh missing and there should be a variety of theater offerings because that's device classical you know international global or through native uh indigenous cultures and often hybrids forms coming out of this thing one it's not missing it's not missing it's there it's there it's not supported in a way it's not in the forefront it's not being presented in New York it's not being presented sometimes in like mpn or like all these other like regional places too but these things are there like that's the point like I was trying to make before like the the assumption that like whatever we're doing is so special and new as if like people haven't been doing these things already yeah and they're there currently yeah long long project from the fourth foundation you're founding the funding the theater system but still be here how complicated is what have you learned in your work what have you learned these are experiences if anybody you know does that what's available for you for anywhere in the world but what do you feel you have learned what is something special about the work of your ensemble in your place I'll just just to say just really briefly I mean I think part of it for me is like is learning you know I think I'm still very much learning and unlearning a lot of things that and I I want to just yeah like I said both what Indy and Kara said I think was so important and that you know I mean I'm a white man that came to Detroit an 80% black city to you know make work and so I need to now I try to acknowledge as much as as is possible but also you know I just all I can say is I am it's far I've benefited by far more than Detroit has benefited from my presence right like Detroit the communities that I've gotten to work with just made me a better person not a better artist a better person and part of that was you know I really need I was like really into the you know New York downtown theater bubble I mean I was I was the bubble and I were what and so breaking out of that bubble was really crucial for my further development so yeah so I want to say you know and also just what Indy pointed to about the partiality of some assemblage like this right these are just some companies in some cities doing some work but I do want to say I think it's emblematic of a network and a web of folks all over the place that are making work like this and like other things that are unsupported and the key for me is those folks that are making work in you know in relationship to their communities and to the in their worlds right so yeah so I'll pass it off to somebody else I think a thing that I'm constantly learning and the work that I do is one to remember that it's not just me it's not just about me and my needs my comforts my desires my name and big lights or whatever my name on grants like it's not just about that it's like there's so many other folks who are being touched or impacted by all the stuff and the work that I do and that continue to touch and impact me to continue to like motivate me to do the work because yeah it's been a struggle through this pandemic to stay motivated to do anything but yeah make art um and and yeah and I think this thing that I am learning constantly through this work um and I see the world is like starting to catch up because of like COVID it's just like the importance of like um yeah of like the importance of treating people like whole humans who like need things who need to like be taken care of who need to be fed who need to be like paid compensated well who need support with rides who need support well with like I don't know maybe professional support who maybe need a new computer like all of the things like like to center I'm learning the importance of re-centering like people and human needs and everything not just in the work that uh the creative work that I do but also like the organizing that I do and um and just like the day to day living that I do so I can't just like take things out on random god who's being a jerk um behind the wheel like trying to remember in all of the moments that like people are human and um and deserve to have their needs met I'm gonna speak in draft to borrow a phrase from a deal because I don't want to ask this as a question it's something I'm thinking about like do we think that because our work is unsupported that there is a brokenness in the way arts funding is working or is it are we just making visible a brokenness in kind of our communities and our society like is it is it because white supremacy and capitalism are working actually and maybe the arts funding is working exactly as it's intended to be and what we're trying to do is to work around okay so that's the statement part the question is I mean how does that impact us yeah I mean if you work in an under-resourced community and you go in and whine about your arts funding I mean that is like the first I'm like oh there's some privilege and entitlement right there I don't have enough arts funding like that's like I'm dead in the water if I go into a community and do that given all the different um you know they're resourced in people but maybe not resourced in money and so I think that that as artists we have to like step back and acknowledge the privilege and entitlement we interspaces with and one thing I'm trying to think about right now is how are our producing systems inherently barriers to access um requirements for documentation expectations that it's all just documented anyway even especially when you're working um with rural communities people who don't have the resources to document what they're doing um that these folks will come in and speak art speak in the way that you understand art speak that um they'll have established writers that they write contextual language the way that you want like that that those those um those are I'm thinking a lot about like how we ourselves create barriers in our own producing technologies and trying to question my own habits um around that ideally what's what comes to your mind yeah I mean it's a question Paul and I and Nicole talk about a lot um and so my brain right now I mean I'm listening to all of us talk about how necessary care and rest are and we know this and we understand this as human beings as caregivers as artists of course and one thing that's been true in a lot of my experience care and rest seems afforded to folks with resource right it takes like inherited wealth massive amounts of stolen inherited wealth to have access to consistent care and rest and the kind of resource it takes for me to have like even three days available for me to just be with myself is like astronomical having grown up very poor and that inherited wealth is really really visible in a place like New York where the amount that it takes to simply make rent here and to start to be involved in the arts community here and the kind of wealth and access that that requires and yes there are folks from many diverse experiences of income making work all over the place that is like a given yet I can also acknowledge how much wealth is necessary for that work to come out of like openness and like what happens to my mind when it's available and then that dovetails with the reality of thinking of like so okay if it's not inherited wealth is these like huge huge large scale grants you know things like that you know give a single artist $250,000 or $600,000 and those come out of and all the artists that are getting those grants especially recently I'm so excited about there's also a reality that those are like often closed nominations or gets and those nominators are some of the best curators and thinkers and writers of our time but often those folks are located in New York or other large cities and it's the people they know it's the people they run into and then those become geospecific and so okay so the alternative to inherited wealth are these large scale grants which are also then still somehow like closed off and how like all these amazing people in these talking about and parts of Georgia that I've never been to how will they ever be in a room with someone that will know someone that will know that curator that's like I love the thing you're thinking about how do I get you support and that is exhausting and that makes me want to just like go to bed and I think that's why ensemble is addictive especially for folks coming from marginalized spaces or under research communities it's a manifestation of mutual care right like me and Paul and Nicole no we don't have access to a ton of resource we have what we have but like I love these two people a lot and we like laugh a lot and that's like space in my mind and that lets me make work about my mom that's like sincere and there's a lot good there but it still isn't helping me pay my rent and so those are the I don't have that's what I have to say and I'll stop there. Benjamin I was just thinking about I expect our our mug weapon representative is still having internet issues but I'm just thinking about then laying the company down and that's super brave I mean we've talked about we keep checking in and going to a point and either saying okay it's done or handing the keys to some young people and saying please drive goodbye and that yeah it's the thing that even that foundation money comes from a dark place so I'm just thinking about the kind of systematic redistribution that would bring resources to those people I think for us we are thinking a lot we've sort of we think about all of our work as an experiment so everything is an experiment we're always trying it out so this is always everything's in draft everything's in work and progress it's always an experiment I think the thing we're thinking about right now in terms of community and interacting with community is thinking about each piece as having a really tight family in it and thinking about naming like three to six individual people that we want to be in conversation with and kind of narrowing the scope in that way and that's feeling for us like it gives brings purpose to the thing that we're doing in a way that it can feel yeah I'm hearing people think about who are we representing and who represents us and even the word community means everything and nothing so we are thinking a lot about how are we making that specific for ourselves how are we artistically in conversation in that way and I think the question around support feels enormous and systematic and I don't know what the solution is and now I'm wondering maybe I'm too being too inspired by mugwumpin but there is something incredible about the artistic family that gets to be built and we're trying to think about how are we including a very specific community in that feeling of family as we're creating depending on what the piece is about I'm not sure what question I'm answering anymore but that's the things I'm thinking about as we're having this conversation Kara are you concerned what do you see is that nationwide going up as we know there is so much leader being done all across the US in some ways but the funding is decreasing especially in the time where people say we have to feed babies, people in hospitals, people are sick why art and all of it at least what I hear foundations are actually also shutting down how do you pick up from your network or do you feel that support out that that wasn't because people say that actually is important what I know just to be like Frank is that if I build a network that includes wealthy white people I will find a way into a resource or grant land or the conversations that Adil have mentioned that are I've said in those conversations they're like sealed off in secret and that yeah that's how it works I am the beneficiary of an enormous amount of grant funding from the Walton Family Foundation and my job in thinking through it's dirty money in the US it's all dirty money is someone mentioned this earlier if I receive those resources then how do I effectively send them back out the door to the greatest extent that I can and the conclusion that we came to is working across the nine communities we work with and allowing each of them to determine the spending on their projects their policies, their own budgets their own project proposals so that I am not imprinting on them my expectations of what production or productivity looks like in their work but Adil named it that's how the system works it's how the curational system works in festival circuits it's a very similar group of people who are making decisions about what circulates in festival systems I've been lucky to have a big education I've been lucky to be in rooms with people who had a lot of resources or have and have a lot of power and so I just think about as who I am in the world how can I tactically navigate those systems to re-dispersed resources to people who can't get in that room and who don't have access to these resources I want to name a tension that's definitely come up and hatch and care I think in our conversations too and it relates to care because how in doing that do you also then care for yourself and sustain your artistic practice and your life and often that looks like paying yourself you know and I'm just I don't know I'm curious how other folks navigate that tension the tension of paying yourself sorry I don't know what you're talking about I don't really want to answer this but our dog is barking because there's things happening outside so if that becomes too much just start waving at me and I'll just shut up you know we three months before the lockdown it was the moment that we decided to have our first staff person for host people come on full-time me and then the pandemic hit and that was very scary because like we took a jump we haven't had a staff person we've been paying everybody by project and the lead artists or the co-directors and the producer had not been being paid I get paid I the way that our language holds out is I get paid I am an employee of the company I work for the ensemble it's not just that's how we frame it I get paid at the same rate as everybody else $15 an hour it actually doesn't come out to $15 an hour because I work about 60 hours a week so there has been we addressed this sort of at the retreat this last week of how to Jake will you please take over can you take over thank you yeah we bring Trin on of course during the pandemic also meant that we we were able to we transverse the pandemic pretty well because Trin was doing so much work in the care and feeding of the company during that time but anyway we went to this retreat and had this retreat and sort of talked about that structure and you know tried to allow or have our ensemble kind of opt into the ways in which the budget gets sort of allocated and sort of think about you know group transparent budgeting in addition to you know we have a core ensemble who gets kind of an additional fee outside of projects and those folks it's been a real experiment trying to figure out how to make that work and we had folks kind of opt into thinking about what kinds of activities what kinds of tasks could they take on within their capacity that would equal the fee that we were able to offer them and you know so it's just one way of us thinking about how to allocate funds you know I mean one of the things that's great about ensemble to be honest is you know that we can kind of take some of that wealth that dirty money and redirect it to folks that ultimately wouldn't have access to that money and you know Trin is always talking sort of like you know open the door so that folks can kind of learn some of these processes I mean I guess one of the things I want to say and everybody might disagree with me which is good you know it's like all of these things being true but for me at least the answer for me is not less art you know I mean maybe less of certain types of art and more of the better types of art but I don't know I don't want to suggest at least for me to be like well we're all backed by dirty money so what we're doesn't have validity right I think art is important I think it's valuable I think it's important I think it's I think it can be transformational it's not always it's usually not but it can be and so you know the people in this call do for me represents you know a certain kind of hope I just want to also add that like in regards to the funding we have started to add the ensemble care line into our budget and the last we put a small amount last year or no we started 2020 and so this is the second we've had in our budget and we have yet to be like questioned by our funders like they haven't pushed back and I was expecting more pushback of being like how are you using this ensemble care which is like the way we're using it right now is like some sections that people they just need to access money for mental health they can do that if they need to access money we're putting in like a lot of our work deals with really triggering material like how do we put days in our process that like we like do yoga instead of rehearsal we do a sound bath instead of rehearsal like we also have it as a community care so we can volunteer instead of going to rehearsal that day to give ourselves make us feel like we're back in our community so like this is the ways we're trying to subvert the funder like the funding system that we do find ourselves in is how how are we taking that money and doing something else with it that is a part of our art making it absolutely is it absolutely is a part of who we are in the world and and how we manifest the work that we do we have about 10 more 10 more minutes and I think we have so much more to talk about I think this could be a week long panel to learn for me too to ask even better questions but let's talk also a bit about the work and that's being presented maybe Karab for you have a little overview but all of you can chime in the work the project tell us a bit what is it what are the ideas and the stories or what will they take place or you all feel inspiring at the moment where you feel this is actually something of significance and we also picked you of course because you feel that work what you do is of real importance maybe you should go and see it but tell us a little bit about what what are the projects what are the thinking what's the thinking behind what's new and unusual I think in terms of the live in America and its work what I mean it is like all nine communities are doing radically different work and I but the thing that maybe is connecting their habit of thought is that they're not particularly worried about the boundaries of form and structure so from Vegas we have like an installation that's made of cardboard and it's about spectacle and there's queer clowns and then you're moving through it and then you go outside and there's a pantsless cowboy barbecuing and leading a community barbecue and that's performance in Vegas and then you have a queer pow-wow coming out of Albuquerque out of where El Paso it's folks who are thinking about what it sounds like to be in the crossing process because you live in both oftentimes folks live in both those cities simultaneously and so it's that crossing of borders and race has a particular sound so sound and performance are merging Puerto Rico is a really queer country there's a lot of Missola oil involved Detroit has a lot of protest music that they've selected coming out of Detroit Sumter County, Alabama is throwing a homecoming it's storytelling church music barbecue New Orleans is doing they're bringing in a porch where every surface is playable it's from Music Box Village down Portion Street performance and so the thing that I have learned from all these communities is that I bound my own thinking a lot in narrative and form and when you don't magic happens so that's what I'm seeing happening Thanks yeah all of you chime in but your own work of stuff you've seen where you feel this is inspiring so let's go next so the work that we're sharing the loudest sharing here it was like our first virtual performance that we did so it's made by the ensemble who started in person and then we went through the pandemic and they're like okay well we're going to keep going or not I gave them the choice or I didn't give them the choice we talked about it and folks decided they wanted to continue making stuff and so we made this show at the end of the year it was like really timely like this show premiered like maybe like right before all of the uprisings happened and so it was like awesome to yeah just to like see them dreaming and thinking about like the future as it was also happening now as it had also happened in the past like a big thing that we do at Loud as we try to incorporate some sort of historical research component in our semester at some point whether it's like into being like a true seed to the show or just being a thing that we use to talk about I don't know awesome people who are queer who make art in the past we just it could be a tool for representation that's what I should say yeah but it feels like really important for us to be looking back as we're still continuing to look forward to so yeah I'm really excited for this new group of folks who are going to take on this like hybrid world that we're trying to figure out now like the balance of meeting in person versus not and how we can I'm not really I don't know what that's going to mean in terms of performance like I don't know if we're doing an in person thing I don't know if it's going to be virtual and sometimes that's really scary but also is really exciting yeah I can quickly get hatch started and then toss a t-ball hatch is presenting three like segments of three different pieces all through the co-founding members are currently in the midst of doing family centered like documentary work ish I've been adapting Sophocles is Antigone as an apology to and from my mom working with my mom on a new play I'll use Nicole's word to describe her project her words she says that she will share brief examples of work from sprawling personal and family history the work is probably about anticipatory guilt memory loss anticipatory grief memory loss severe guilt and bad geo websites and Paul has a piece that's part of that as well of course yeah I've been drawn a lot to audio work in the pandemic it's for whatever reason feeling more live to me and so I I'm working on an audio play right now directed by a deal called once removed and it's me exploring the I've learned recently that I have a gay relative who died during the AIDS crisis and it's laying his life next to mine and then the project is expanding this fall I am right now in the middle of a bunch of interviews with queer folks who grew up or are living around where I grew up in western Wisconsin and hopefully going to expand this into an audio series maybe a podcast I just want to plug Adil's I'm gone to I'm obsessed with this project it is so beautiful I cried so hard and also Nicole's project which she intends for no one to see so no Nicole I know you're watching yeah yeah so Team Sunshine is working on a few different shows each show has a lead artist and so all three of the co-captains are kind of guiding a process so we're working on a piece called your optimism is not required which is about parenting climate grief and race there's it's set outside on a camping trip and there's a father and a daughter and we're intending to cast a teenager in that role it's being written and to eventually incorporate a teenager and we've done some work in progress and it's been really beautiful part of it is that the audience is very small and they're sat in a circle and so it's secretly just a campfire where everybody gets to feel connected to each other and make eye contact again which is which is new and then Makoto Harano is the lead artist on a piece called the great American gun show which is right now in research phase having conversations with gun owners a lot of them in Bloomsburg Pennsylvania and also Asian Asian and Asian-American identifying gun owners and non-gun owners about gun culture and safety and gun ownership in America and then Alex Tora is the lead artist of the piece probably called Yanto or hear my cry which is about queer Latinx identity and it's early stages so it's going to be incredible but we don't know that much about it yet but it's going to be amazing so we're in the research phases of each of these pieces and developing how each of these pieces is in conversation with a specific group of people and how those grow over time it's probably going to take us like six years to make all those shows so 2020 whatever that is we will oh shoot sorry can I say one more thing we're working on another project that I forgot and then if I don't mention it would be foolish we have another project called the sincerity project which is a 24 year iterative autobiographical piece about an ensemble this is the fourth iteration so there's two years between each iteration each piece responds to the last two years so the last two years shit has gone down and things have changed in a cultural conversation so that ensemble is growing and changing and we have a guest director this time but that piece is in December so if you're anywhere near Philadelphia in December come check it out it's going to be cool great I know Sharon you have to leave so maybe Jack say a little bit about what you guys are working on and then we will come to an end of the panel I can jump in really fast okay so Hila Bhattra and death more radiant will premiere at the Arab American National Museum in December and it is looking at women and queer people of Arab backgrounds histories and identities from Hila Bhattra's time Cairo in the 1920s to today very excited about that I am busyed as one of the writers who is also prelude artist so check them out if you can and then fire in the theater is as I said is looking at free speech in the digital age and we're sort of trying to ask this question especially as most of our ensemble comes from marginalized communities how do we balance safety and free speech and expression is a value that we have as artists in one idea how do we hold both things to be as important and how do we take care of each other within that question well thank you and as you all could hear now this is significant work it's deeply engaged it's vibrant and it is something we all should pay more attention to and I think also in case funders are listening people are thinking where do resources go I think this is a place where a change should take place there is a lot of talk about change but one of them also is to really encourage and fund and bring more resources to this work that's happening anyway but as we all could hear really needs support for the service they do to the communities and they make them a place so it was a great privilege to have you guys with us and a very good reminder to keep also our minds open here at this digital center and sometimes a little bit more what's happening in Europe or Asia than what's happening in America and we shouldn't it should be a different way and the work you know the fuse box festival does is fantastic and I think everybody who loves theater should go there and say this is a place where you can also go instead of going to Avignon or another festival so thank you all for being with us today we're going to give a two o'clock award to Shade from the National Black Theater in Harlem for the work she has done for the New York theater community and for running the collision of theaters of color the authority of them then tonight at 5 p.m. Hillary Miller we'll talk about the 70s with her colleagues she's a great researcher and teacher and writer but the city the changes it went through and sorry for you guys it's again about New York but as Jake pointed out we are the only festival that actually gives a place for New York artists you know that's not a place actually for the artists of New York celebrates the work so a work in progress so Hillary will really talk and look and what does it mean how can we create meaning of this radical change when New York was also knocked out a bit on the floor and tomorrow we will have three sessions about the CUNY theater as one about New York cultural institutions the cultural services how we can create perhaps a festival and also with some curators to get idea if we need a festival at all we feel a summer festival where also companies like yours could come how would that look like what does the city really need so we're going to go through that and tonight the great Sybil Kempzen will show her work at 7 o'clock online and I also encourage you guys to invite her bring her over she also moved outside New York and Hudson towards the Hudson Valley and lifts that distance and is creating work there so thank you all for taking your time and energy and we admire you we really think that the work you are doing is of significance and it makes us all part of the civilized world in the world that was dreamed up of mankind I think is to share ideas to create imagination and so many problems we have now is because there's a failure of imagination how life could be different but I think every one of you and everyone who works with you and everyone who comes to your theater imagines a better and a different future and theater performance is a place where that can be done so I went a little bit over time I hope my team will forgive me but it's just three minutes but still we are a bit under pressure so I have to say goodbye I want all of you to come by to the Segal Center when you are here please do say hello and if I'm anywhere close to you I will also come and see you and maybe also have a longer dialogue so thank you again Jake for making us aware that there are things we should look at that we should also consider in the new times we live in and that perhaps now that idea of that experimental theater shouldn't be localized by location and perhaps this is also one of the advantages of that digital age we enter that you see now we can talk so thank you all thanks for howl around again for hosting us it's such a great privilege to be with a great institution and Thea and Vijay and then the Segal team, Andy and Tanvi of course that cactus juice in Mumbai for making this happen and to our listeners there's so many offerings out there for you to take your time listen in what our friends and colleagues have to say from around the country is important to them that someone listens and also for us that you have the interest maybe there's something inside there for your own life and for your own work how to make place, how to connect because they're giving us examples but it's ultimately about also you the listener and how to create a more meaningful life so thank you all and goodbye and I hope to see you all soon in person bye bye thanks y'all I appreciate it