 should be there post a video or wherever it appears Derek but it is at rice and beans THTR and you hashtag cafe onda which howl around has provided us with which brings the the discussion to a larger context to what's happening to Latino roles across North America right now yes and apparently Stephen Adley Gurgis is watching us so Stephen we really really really hope that you will make comments and questions if you feel comfortable doing that so the first thing that we want to do so first of all we don't want to spend a lot of time talking about all the controversy around the open letter and the facts and the information in the letter we really want to move on rather quickly to the larger issues that interest us but we do acknowledge that we will have to spend some time clarifying some stuff about the open letter and what led us to write the old matters to write the open letter to begin with so maybe then or do you want to start Alexandra had heard about it separately and then I had heard about it separately when someone asked me if I was upset about the casting of motherfucker with the hat and I didn't know at the time I was like oh I should I be and so they said well you should read the play so I read the play and then oh okay why should I be mad and they told me what the task wasn't oh all right I know why you asked me if I was mad because there was Latino parts that weren't cast at that point Alexander and I were meeting every once in a while just like in passing and talking about this it kept coming up between us and how we felt we needed to do something as young artists in the city and and to raise our voices as Latinos towards this so we didn't really know how so we reached up to Carmen who at that point I mean Alexander had better a few times I'd only met Carmen twice and frankly you didn't scare me but it more isn't like a skip skip as someone I admired and respected their work and was scared for them to you know be like oh you're a Latino which is a problem on a whole other issue that I have and so we reached out to Carmen and the three of us had a meeting we sat down and we talked about the whole process and Carmen at that point told us that she had I guess backtracked before that Carmen had sent to the message that there was casting at the generalist of our hall to be done and that she urged all her Latino people that she knew to audition I received that message as well I chose not to audition because of the way that the information was conveyed whether intentional or not I I didn't want to audition for a part that wasn't open and truly open as the way I felt in Reddit and I saw the equity call it that said some parts cast but I never read that the Latino parts were open so I I felt I couldn't submit for a part that wasn't truly open from my perspective and I didn't and so that's where Alexander and then we met up with Carmen we talked about this process because she had been in conversation with the folks at haberdashery about the casting and she had been prepared to to write and comment on afterwards after the show I got up about the roles the Latino roles in the show and how they were cast Latinos and I felt that I just I couldn't let it go on without letting people know that that had happened I guess that those parts I've been filled with non-Latinos and I don't know why I can't tell you why I just did and it's something I've been working towards embracing this side of me and so I raised my voice I said no we need to take action beforehand and then they agreed and so then we went how do we do that and a letter I guess I mean then we talked about the Jesse's open letter that happened and so at that point we reached out to real Canadian theater and we said well how did you guys go about how did how did you approach reaching out to the Jesse's with your letter and they met with us and we talked and we're still formulating whether or not we were going to do this letter and as we spoke with the Canadian theater we decided it was a letter we needed to put our thoughts down on paper so we sent it to have it actually in the fire hall and then start collecting signatures at that point Donna's let us know that she wasn't in the country and at that time we weren't sure if we were gonna hold off till she got back and then we did we wanted to wait for her to get back so we can eat with her to publish or send it out to to press and then while she was away about three four days after we sent to have it actually the letter we met with haberdashery had a big meeting with them went back made a commitment to the letter and then waited for Donna to come back had another meeting with Donna which had a meeting with Donna when she got back from her vacation in which we talked about having an open forum possibly during the run of haberdashery but all dates just we're not we're not available during the run to have a talk back afterwards or on their dark day we felt that we wanted to have it on the stage where this was happening and so then we decided we needed to have a forum with all of you here beforehand went out so whether you choose to go see it or not to go see that you have some more information or if it makes you curious to go see it which is great because we're not seeing to not go see it but then you wanted to raise the issues of Latino parts of our cast of the teams that's where we are here and the reason why we want to do this now as opposed to we know that there's going to be another forum in late February or mid to late February is because our opinion is that for the last well quite a few decades the theater community across Canada has been having this discussion about diversity in the abstract and it's always talking about the future so in the abstract we talk about oh there has to be more diversity oh we have to cast more people of color oh et cetera et cetera et cetera sometime in the future and we thought well that's working a little bit but really not a lot considering that the last equity senses states that 46% of equity members believe they are not fairly represented on stage we thought well it might be a little bit revolutionary which is a word that I might actually do it before the show goes up and to reference a concrete example of this happening right here right now and what can we do about it as opposed to some theoretical situation sometime in the future and that's been very very scary and I've been doing this for 25 years and it's been scary for me I can only imagine how scary it's been for there on Alexandra so I just to make it super clear something that you said we were told directly to our faces in writing face-to-face and on the phone in June that the play was a hundred percent cast with a non Latino without any Latino actors in those roles Francisco who's here tonight so I'll let Francisco speak to this was cast in November when the third supporting Latino role that person stepped down for personal reasons and that's when he was brought in if that person had not stepped down there would be no Latinos in this play and that is the issue that we are having very specifically before we move on to the to the bigger issues now Jane maybe you I know that Francisco you wanted to say something Francisco the person the only Latino was in the plane he said he wanted to say something at the near the beginning because so not intimidating no no yeah I wanted to speak because I mean so Francisco here but this month it'll be 40 years since I've been in Canada Vancouver and I arrived as a political refugee with my parents so I am Latino and I'm Canadian and I have an accent still and I embrace it and I'm in the motherfucker with a hat really there's only one person to bring you always have to and that's even Andy Gurgis for writing an amazing script no so really amazing a beautiful script and obviously the wonderful actors that I'm working with in haberdashery tell him up with it and Johnny's here from haberdashery and he'll be able to explain much more than I can because I wasn't at their inception so I mean it's it's really a thing of the way that I see it is someone love the script because it is a beautiful script any of you know the script or have seen it and Steve Lobo who's not who's not here who's a man of color I guess he went about and got the right so haberdashery and I would love John to speak because I like I said I'm not part of haberdashery in their inception but I from being in there which has been great I know that they you know got the right sort of got the money they're doing three or four jobs at once besides producing and acting and publicity and all that stuff now speaking with that which is haberdashery is a new theater company and I and I think this is not about I think we're all not here to throw stones or blame any one person or any one particular reason why this this meeting is going on it's about communicating conversing finding solutions getting ideas because we're all artists and that's what we're about we're about communicating we're about finding new truths and new ideas and new realities and new experiences that we all for my you know the beautiful faces that I see we all have different histories and different stories within the theater community so I chose to be in the play like I was approached by Carmen in June saying because Carmen and I did do this plane Calgary this was having Calgary and we both had parts in it and Carmen called me in June and did you know did you know that they're doing mother fucker with a hat like no no I had no idea and then she said it's it's a group of actors that have gotten together and they're producing it and it looks like the fire hall has come in to co-produce it with haberdashery and I said no no I haven't heard and she said the departure all cast and as far as we know there are no Latinos in the cast and we know that they're partners so haberdashery will have a you know we'll talk about how their process wasn't casting whether it was they started out as a co-op with friends and said hey let's do this play and I believe that they tried to set it to the arts club in red for a few theaters hoping to see if someone would help co-produce it they should I speak them and get a little bit more accurate yeah yeah I just I just want to say because I I have felt because I'm Latino I'm in I'm in the play and I came in knowing that the process had not been at some point that there was a general addition because I'm always reading the you know CBA for auditions and saying oh is there a play that I can audition for is there something you know most of us are always looking at that email saying well can I audition for something that would be great for me and I never did see it again the process is of the casting John will well I guess what I yes yeah of course but I just want to preface a couple of housekeeping things and then and also to say that I think this is the prelude to a forum discussion right so we're getting a little bit of background and we've had an opportunity for Pedro and Carmen to speak a little bit about how they came to it you have a very eloquent context for for your involvement and I think and I really appreciate how high-level everybody's referring to it as like these are the series of events without too much emotional color but to them I think is is great that we're keeping the tenors that way and I think if you if you want to get to the forum so yeah I could just briefly maybe try to shed some light on the Genesis and how this all came about slightly regard the regardless of the letter which I know there's discrepancies on both sides I like that's been said and done yes Stephen Lobo is a man of color he's Middle Eastern and Portuguese I believe he was in an acting class always looking for material to work on because what parts are for Middle Eastern or Portuguese slash Portuguese guys he's a man of color he came across a play called motherfucker with a hat so somebody said hey you should do this play he went out and got the rights this was about two years ago to be quite honest and he carried it around in his back pocket for at least over a year and walked around with it and read it with an acting teacher and then read it with a couple of other people and he read it around town he had different casts and people he wasn't sure what he wanted to do but I think he was you know trying to find who did he want to work within this project he then found Lori Treolo which I think everybody knows Lori Treolo would love to be here but she's doing a co-reading series tonight and they got together and they went out and they they started trying to find some cast and how many Latinos they approached or didn't approach that's been a big scrap that's happened so I'm not even gonna go there there was an offer that happened to a particular actor who was Latino in Toronto and he couldn't do it it was obvious though that this was gonna be a co-op they were thinking about let's go do this on black box so on and so forth so you know Lori can speak for herself but she went out and did the search that she felt was comparable to having a search for looking for particular roles of Latino Brian Markinsen is the director he came on board people started getting excited okay now we have a director so now it's like okay really great they called me asked me if I wanted to play the role of Ralph Ralph is a multi-ethnic role I read the play I know these actors I was hungry to do another play so I said yes then as we started to get more momentum and excitement and falling in love with the play different Veronica's came in and out different we read it different times at different people's houses and we just started to get more and more enthusiastic and we said hey what if we go to the arts club and we read it for them do you think they would want to put this up it's a little bit risky it's called the motherfucker with the hat but you know who knows right I mean maybe Bill Miller who loses mind so so we had heard that car you know and listen we obviously have been hit with a perfect story right like we got like totally this is the tipping point this is something going on right because my best one of my good friends not best friend one of my good friends in Toronto what a dora war for playing Jackie and he's an Italian Canadian and I didn't hear any blowback right I know that there was a production in Calgary with Carmen with the lead actor Jackie playing he was Middle Eastern and like we just didn't hear of this blowback so I think it wasn't in our psyche as much as it should be as much as it obviously will be from now on as much as there is an understanding that is starting to obviously come to light which is why I'm really here to be quite honest because I get cast ethnically I don't get cast at all usually so I play different roles and I have played different roles and I have played Latinos on television and film and if I don't I don't have a career so but so we get together and we have we go read it for the arts club and they really like the reading we heard that Carmen had approached the arts club at one time to do a production of it as well we heard that so we weren't sure that they would bite but they did maybe because we have a little bit of television queue because some of us are on TV film I don't know maybe it's business so we showed up and we read and we thought we did a damn good reading but they passed and then we went to Ron Reed at Pacific and he really wanted to do it but his theater is below a church so he wasn't sure that he could swing so we started going around and then we went to the fire hall we read it for Donna and Donna being you know the beautiful woman that she is and someone who you know we'd love to be here too as you know as you know she's out of town she started to she started she started to show some interest and we started getting excited because we were like oh my god right like maybe we'll start a theater company maybe we'll maybe this will be sort of like something we'll do and we'll bring in all these actors and we'll bring in all these people that want to work but then we heard some stuff about some stuff was started to circulate about no no Latinos and so on and so forth and at that time there was when we read it no there was no Latinos in the cast no official no so they have generals and they did a bunch of stuff like that because it was a thought it was far away enough that we all have television and film careers that we kind of knew that this was going to be a mercurial process we didn't know when it was going to open when it was going to get done all of that slowly it started to come in more and more real people were dropping out some guy got a job with the Toronto TV series I think Alessandro Giuliani came in for a minute he left but like we were just we were circulating this around and as we started to move forward we started to hear that there was a tremendous amount of unhappiness in the community and our lead actress who we love here's a Gorski it became a big problem and we all know our company was about to fall our company fell apart and she bailed out of the part and she said go and find the Latina actress because I can't do this I can't take this amount of vitriol I can't take this so and I realized that there are going to be people in this room that think I'm full of shit and that's okay I can only tell the story that we have and the story has been the same and it's not going to change because it's it's our truth she legitimately left it was a big fight there was a lot of tears because people have felt that people felt that they had done their due diligence Laurie Trio feels that she had done her due diligence so that happened was the casting imperfect yes was it chronological no was it unorthodox yes I mean we were a co-op with a thing in a back pocket you know we kind of didn't do the right fucking things to a certain degree in order for it to be properly executed but she left and there was a cast being held and I know Carmen read I believe that Allison read and you know people think that casting was bullshit people think that that was a bullshit casting that no way where they replaced and it's not true because I'll be honest at the time there was some stuff going on and we were upset with each other and we didn't like you very much you know we didn't but we sat around and we said what if Carmen comes in she's the one for you guys like because I wasn't involved in the in the in the casting casting director the guy had the rights to do that so I wasn't and we sat around we go and we go God bless me so I sat by my phone and they had their casting session and listen I'm an actor man if I got every part that I ever read for it wouldn't be here you know I mean it happens right I mean like so I got a waiting for the call waiting for the call and they said you know and I don't want to put a lot of pressure now on Kira having to be Meryl Streep starting Saturday but they said we're fucked because my son's here and I'm swearing a lot but I am doing a play and I said what do you mean and they said it's Kira it's got to be Kira it doesn't work otherwise it's whatever the reasons are every production is different I know Carmen did a production of it and wanted a war like I get that it's like it's the chemistry it's the combo it's the whole thing whatever it is I wasn't part of the creativeness of that I just was getting the word back so we begged her to come back she's going through a personal crisis right now in her family I don't want to be responsible and maybe talk too much about it but it was very difficult that's why she's not here she had to fly out of town and then we went into rehearsal and then the letter came out and while we were in rehearsal the letter came out and the letter said that we were all white which we aren't which we weren't at that time Francisco just wasn't got on board and and so you know it was an imperfect situation and I'm a little bit floored by it all I think we all are I think I'm here because I really really honestly want to know where this new line of demarcation is like I want to know am I allowed to play a B and C or I mean I do I'm in rehearsal every day and I'm looking at a poster of Mambo Italiano starring Francisco Trujillo so like is that gonna happen anymore or not am I right now just talking like some dumb white guy that doesn't know what's going on that's one dumb white guy to another yeah that's kind of the genesis thank you for your yeah no I don't think it's a great segue because I mean I think it's we might be beyond us to think that we're going to get to any quite so clear answers but I think that should be the tenor of the conversation is to try to like you say something is in the air and just before I go on there's a couple of things first of all just that microphone is for the webcast so you do not have to step up to anybody else is so inspired if anybody really doesn't want to be seen on the webcast they should make their way over to this side of the room I tried to do that before we started but there has been people trickling in so I just wanted to say that you're sort of implied your consent if you're kind of over on this side or come over here if you really want to be on camera and so I think it's a really great segue into what I'm hoping will be a fruitful kind of forum discussion that's moving on from the details we've we've heard sort of the accounts anybody who's been following the various some really smart and interesting and sometimes at odds and even acrimonious discussion and debate around the issue we won't necessarily rehash all of those things unless they come up as part of the you know part of the discussion I hope that it will all be sort of fruitful and sort of a more elevated discussion and just before we start that and just to lay down a few kind of notions around the tenor of the discussion some of you may be asking you know who is this guy you know why is he here and why am I moderating this and I'll enter that in reverse order I I'm here because Carmen asked me I have no you know right to be moderating this but I do have some experience I'm here also because Pedro is someone I respect a colleague and a friend I'm also here because I'm part of an interracial marriage and I have children of mixed heritage and as such have a personal state in the future of this discussion I recognize that you know some may hold a utopian version of the future where we have all homogenized to the point where this discussion is though is is moved but we don't live in that state right now in this time in history and and like you're mentioning you're mentioning it is in the air I mean there there's some examples that have already been mentioned that I wasn't aware of but there was an issue about Aboriginal appropriation at the art gallery recently there was the unplugging in Toronto which was the source of a lot of controversy and and I want to echo what Carmen said that I think it's it's really important that we're having this discussion now because we have had discussions recently in relation to the Jesse's for instance and while those are very important discussions they tend to remain in the realm of the sort of the general and the academic and sometimes that can certain things can get lost while important discussions can happen there I think it's also important to acknowledge that this was precipitated by a specific event that it is specifically around the Latino community and the Latino experience which is different than the Aboriginal experience then the African Canadian experience it has its own nuances and so while I don't think anybody should be limited to using examples from other areas I think it also is worth mentioning that we should acknowledge what precipitated this event and I spent the bulk of our time talking about that as such I think it's good that we all recognize our own privilege and heritage in this room this is a place to speak but it is also a place to listen I say that particularly to my white friends in the room when I was talking to Carmen when she asked me to do this at which point I thought this was gonna be like 12 people around the table in my studio so we'll talk about that later but you know she she mentioned that there's likely enough argument within the Latino community around what defines a Latino for other folks to be chiming in and giving giving their view on the matter so just that is just as an example of you know take take the time to listen and don't always jump up to speak until you maybe just take that moment to sort of say I don't think I was going to go over you know a brief and very cursory recount of what had happened on sort of the most kind of mundane level of it I think that's already happened I don't think that we need to do that I have here with me a series of questions that's been compiled from Facebook from people who have called Carmen from the different discussion groups people that and I will refer to that if I if I have to we're also following a Twitter feed so if there's questions that come up along the way we can chime those in I have a feeling that we won't want for questions but I'd like to kick it off with my own kind of you know stupid question I guess it should be a place that's hopefully safe that people can feel like there are no stupid questions we'll see but I'll ask my own you know stupid question because you know I realized while we were sitting around the sushi joint up the way that I don't think that I was entirely certain as to what to find a Latino and so maybe I'll ask Carmen and then open up to the floor to both questions and answers the discussion as to what defines a Latino is it a race and ethnicity is it what is it yes and just to add to what you said before I would also like to ask the men in the room regardless of your color to let the women speak that would be really nice so what is a Latino well it depends who you ask and again let's only have the Latinos say what they think a Latino is it is not a race it is an ethnicity and it is a culture so Latinos come in all races there are Latinos who are literally like the Aryan nation you know blonde blue eyes and as dark as you know my sweater and everything in between so it is not a race it is an ethnicity what we've been hearing a lot on Facebook and all over from all kinds of people is but why is it a problem that the motherfucker with the hat the original cast that is pre Francisco doesn't have any Latinos because Latinos is not a race so anybody can play them and that is a really really good question so even though we are not a race we are an ethnic minority and we do get erased all the time we are invisible on stage and on screen precisely because it is very hard to define who we are the latest equity findings I think somebody an equity could probably correct me is that I think 29% of girls on Canadian stages are played by women a lot of those roles are not don't even have speaking parts of those roles 3.7% are played by women of color if you now try to get specific as to how many Latina and Latina Latina women of color get roles I think you know where I'm going with this so one of the reasons it was upsetting for us is that for example the Latina lead in this play which almost never happens is being played by a white woman that is an issue for us for the reasons that I just explained in terms of Latinos being a race I know for myself that sometimes I read I refer to us as the Latino race where do I get that from I get that from the Chicano nation which is in California and I have a very I personally have a strong connection with Chicano's and Chicano's referred to themselves as Larraza which means the race and it has to do with Chicano pride and the mix of blood that Chicano's are is something that I can identify with as a person who I myself am of mixed heritage that is to say indigenous and Spanish which is what Chicano's are and because I am a proud Latina I do use that Latina race or Viva Larraza language even though it's not a race so women first please if anybody else wants to say what a Latina is or if they want to completely disagree with me and say you're full of shit I think that would be great I think I want to introduce myself briefly and very excited excited to see so many faces and participants in this conversation Latina Hispanic Spanish get confused a lot in popular media and in popular culture oftentimes for example a pet peeve of mine is Taco Bell commercials with flamenco dancers mixing cultures and this is okay and it's not because it's culturally inappropriate and it's missing specificity so I am born in Australia my parents are Chilean I lived in Italy for five years and I've been here for ten years I consider myself international but I am Latina I will keep I'll try to keep a running order of who's talking so I'll keep my keep scanning around if I catch your eye I did so you first and then and then back I am not in any way competent to comment on who does or does not qualify on being Latina or Latino what I would like to comment on if that's okay with with UJ is the invisible to me issue in the room that Carmen has touched on which is we're talking about jobs and this is where things always become divisive anyone who knows me knows that my file my causes gender equality and any time that I look at an issue I look at it through the end through the lens of gender equality to go back to the question of how to move forward I would like to point out that in my opinion the the argument that has been flowing on Facebook has unfairly pinpointed Carmen as a target and I was quite astonished to find out that in fact Pedro is the person who said we have to say something so this to me is part of the problem I realized that this this issue has been raised of an entire community who is not seen is not considered for jobs but this to me is very very unfortunate I have stayed out of the fray because I have enormous respect for everyone who has is involved with with this project either raising the consciousness of the community and that things were not done as inclusively as they might have artists who have fallen in love with the play and and want to struggle to bring it to life and bring it to a city that desperately needs it I do feel on her bound to point this out and to say I stand with my sister Carmen she has done nothing other than raise an issue with the community that needs to be raised and I will not stand by and hear her demonized in any way she Oh I'm so old I figure everybody knows that I'm just Dean Willis actor I feel as people who make theater produce theater they should always ask the question who is missing in the audience who should we be speaking to this has been a problem where I feel that there that theater is about community and it has excluded or ignored communities and not try to bring communities in to see the theater and then I hear we can't get an audience well I think it will work have to work harder and book to get those audiences there and do plays that really speak to those audiences that's one thing the other thing I have a question about because when you're casting Latina okay I know that there's different cultures in the Latin community they all have different cultures just as in the African Canadian African American American or whatever the black communities there's a difference between people from the West Indies you know in culture okay but as an actor I think that I can play somebody from a slightly different culture who is black or if you're Latina and you're from Chile or you know so I just want to ask you how do you go about looking at casting when you're looking at the Latina community and also you know just in general because I feel as an actor I should be able to play I don't want to limit myself but I don't want to take away roles so it's been a dilemma like me too so sorry are you asking me oh you're asking everybody yes I'd be happy to speak to that being a Latina actress and understanding the nuance of your question for me cultural specificity and a blood memory or access to a certain culture is an important part of beginning that work which being Latina I am culturally aware enough of the differences between an Argentinian culture the Chilean culture Peruvian culture and so if it is my job to interpret a woman of any of those countries I have an accessibility in terms of what Stella Adler would call blood memory so there there's my end if we start drawing lines specifically about because I'm not of that origin I'm not all that culture we would all be very limited into the work that we could do and it would take away a big part of what it is to be an actor and to be an artist so that's that you know that's the best answer I can offer you in that and I would never want an artistic world where we can only play what we are you know that sort of defeats the purpose if I can offer up a statement from somebody who's not in the room which is here a kind of gala that pertains to this which was interesting is that we seem to have a fairly well defined idea of that that blackface is not okay that yellow face is not okay and it's interesting that we when it comes to Latino culture that seems less clear yeah I don't know where the line is but somehow probably through discussions like this we found our way to that perhaps I don't know so I'm gonna go over to you just want to see one quick thing to answer I would start if it was if we are talking about the motherfucker with the hat so let's talk about that for just a second I would start by auditioning people who identify as Latino as opposed to if I'm not Latino trying to myself figure out was Latino or me going all that person's Latino and that person's not Latino who am I to say that I would just put the calm out and say I'm looking for Latinos and the people who show up clearly identify as Latino so I am going to believe them and I will seek those people out whatever it takes for many reasons many of which have to do with what Christine had to say right already three point cent only three point seven percent of women of color are on Canadian stages almost none of them are Latina so why not give these people a chance and let them identify whether they're Latino or not yeah yeah I just wanted to add that I saw the letter that was meant to have a dash because it was on Facebook and he used the word vitriol and I I thought it was a very respectful letter I thought it was a had no anger in it I thought it had a simple question for the company which was we would like to know where in the casting process or Latino's cult and if you weren't able to find them then I think this is part of the discussion here would be what what can we facilitate within the artist community so artists of color know when there are additions and producers and directors know where to go so they can get a hold of them because there are so few roles available and even more for women one Latino woman in that play so I think that's sort of where we want to go so if you ever dash we didn't have the tools to go while we need to look at Latinos and they didn't know where to go this is where we want to go because Latinos I did another polemic play which was in the arts club which was in the Heights another Latino base then again I was the only Latino and there was a wonderful Filipino dancer who was incredibly talented as a dancer and a singer and he had just given up going to auditions he said I've given up said I go to auditions I get to the third and the fourth audition and they just said oh we just found somebody different and he knew what he was hearing so he had given up even showing he didn't even go to the audition of the arts club for that show so people of color end up giving up going to auditions so we need to here find a way that the people who are out there and who have given up can be accessed and reach so I think this is part of the discussion is how do the invisible become visible and known and have the opportunity but I didn't think the letter had vitriol at all I thought it was just sort of asking for an explanation and and I think you know you said you know that the process was we started small established company not even knowing whether we were gonna have a backing or do it in a basement or in a church so I think there was not a sort of the the regular process of casting but there were some issues which is what we're discussing here but I think it's about looking how to have those tools so I'm sorry I don't know you're there but Patrick Smoggy so the question was relating to appropriateness casting mentioned that one of the main issues is that the actress who has been cast is white and I find it interesting that we're having a discussion about the nebulous definition of Latino Latino and how that that category becomes a lot of racism so I kind of extend that question to that actresses whiteness do you know what her ethnic heritage is no I know that she's not Latina because I've asked that question many many times before we even wrote the letter and when I first started having the conversation with Stephen Lobo in June but he phoned me to talk about something else entirely and that's when we ended up talking about this and that's when he told me that the entire play was cast and I asked him directly are there any Latinos in the play and he said no and I've asked that question more than once just to make absolutely sure that you know the information is correct precisely for that reason because the woman might be white but she might be Latina so I don't know that's why it has the question right and I was told that that she is not otherwise we would not have written so the second part of my question is when we're talking about appropriateness of casting when the issue is really hard to define is you know castability or how an individual presents right because regardless of your ethnic heritage the world is going to see you and place you in the category of Caucasian around Caucasian and I can say with confidence the woman in question doesn't present 100% of the time around her as strictly Caucasian so is the question mark of her ethnicity is that disqualified for playing anything related to any of this together than like you know she doesn't present that and I face that question all the time I think that this is just a question that came on through Twitter and I think that I'm not sure if this was your meaning but I I do think that white folks do need to look at possibly their ancestry as part of the way of understanding their privilege and that was sort of the the notion of the of the Twitter thing too right it's because it's not like white folk lack culture and anyway so that's that was sort of a comment that came through on Twitter there well I think the other issue bringing up that other people might want to talk about is that I think this is a very big difference between the film world and the theater world is this notion of passing so and so can pass for such and such and so and so can't pass for such and such regardless of their true ethnicity so I mean I think those are their big issues they're complex and maybe I'll see I don't know if Omari if you had were you next if you write comment on that or something different to me as a writer and also as an educator as an as a Latina the issue comes down to power and if we look at our society today in Canada we cannot say other than this is a society where white people men have hold the balance of power so it is our that allows certain groups to be visible or invisible and it's up to those groups those minority groups that do not hold the balance of power to fight for achieving at least a little bit of that power I also like the word revolution a lot so we need to revolutionize the society by making our space and by making our demands heard if there is a K that has three roles that are for Latinos it doesn't fit in my mind that somebody producer enthusiast who fell in love with the play wouldn't go oh there are three roles for Latinos let's see you know maybe there are three Latinos that can play this role well wouldn't that be novel you know but why doesn't that person ask himself that question because he doesn't have to he has a lot of power he can play himself he can play somebody else who is not Latino you get and the question doesn't even come up the question doesn't even cross his mind so it is our role as Latinos and from any other minority that is here in this country to bring up that question and to bring up the issue and to fight for those spaces that we don't have and that we have been making for ourselves in our case over 40 years it has taken over 40 years for the Latino community to start getting the presence in this country we Chileans were the first community from Latin America to arrive in big numbers here in Canada we kind of open the way to others we have longest we have humans we have Mexicans we have people from all over Latin America now artists writers of all kinds you ask any of us hasn't been easy oh it's okay right no it has not been easy it has been hard to forge your way in a country which is dominated by certain ethnicity by certain class by certain gender is not easy to make your way so that's why I'm an idea for example has created her own place because she couldn't find a place where she could see herself right so we have to create our own work because otherwise we're not very visible and we have to look at nicely right oh let's wait and see if this white man is going to offer me right a little space in this project oh oh oh he didn't see me oh too bad right no it's about time that we turn things around and that we start demanding our place because we have a place and we have the time we have the education we have the training we have the world with all to be seen and to be heard so having said that we can't find the members of the national center so that's a common answer the average question and we're going to go Omari David Melia so first of all I'm super lucky because the lady who just spoke happens to be my mother so I'm very lucky to have that woman that woman raised me all right so to answer your question the trend right now in 2016 maybe I'm being too you know wishful thinking here at the trend in 2016 is that when there is a role written for an ethnic minority you will go to the actors of that ethnicity first that is what you will do we believe very strongly that if the mother fucker with the hat I'm talking about Vancouver maybe some that somewhere else that wouldn't happen okay if the mother fucker with the hat three black characters they would have gone out of their way to find three black actors if it had three Asian characters it would have gone out of their way to find Asian actors same with First Nation even if they didn't believe in that they would have gone out of their way because they know there would have been a bit of a problem people would have spoken out right so that's what we're talking about as Latinos that we are so invisible that it's okay for people who are not Latinos to play us and then to get very upset when we say hey you guys that would have been nice to have been seriously considered and I'm just going to keep going back to what I said before in terms of percentages the fact that only 3.7% of women of color are on stage right now when there is an opportunity to play a romantic lead for a Latina right now where we are 2016 you start by looking for a Latina that's where you start in my case I would then go to okay what's the next step a woman of color can't find a Latina there are not in Vancouver I don't have money to find one in okay I'll go with the women of color before I go with a white woman it has nothing to do with how good she is with the white woman I'm not even I don't even she might be Meryl Streep we're not talking about how good this white woman is it is a given that she's good otherwise she wouldn't be in the play those are all great actors we all believe they're great actors so that is my belief we are not in a post-racial society in which we are all equal if that exists please tell me because I will move there right now right now we are not that is why when it's culturally specific especially when it's a minority but an ethnic minority that's where you begin to cast and you go out of your way to find those people you don't just go hey you guys I'm looking for somebody you go out of your way like David C. Jones did with Heather's musical he wanted 52% people of color and he went out of his way to find those people why because this Filipino actor that Francisco was talking about if he had seen the call for Heather's the musical he would have said I'm never gonna get fucking cast in that thing so I'm not even gonna bother anymore that's why David said no everybody I actually want 52% to be people of color he went out of his way and he got 181 amazing auditions for people of color but he did his job he went out and looked for those people myself I didn't sign the letter from the Latino community but not because I'm not philosophically down with the cuts which I absolutely am I just answered some structural questions about this specific case and the nature of this production and I'll put out the room there maybe someone asked me I feel like there's been issues being played here where the genesis of this production from what I understand was a co-op right a co-op by definition and wrong is a group of artists coming together and saying we these people want to put on this piece that is fundamentally different from a company like the arts club that's receiving federal funding through Canada Council getting the rights to a play and putting the call out to have the best people come in for it right now I'm not saying that co-op doesn't have the same moral obligation to fulfill a certain amount of diversity casting and I'm not saying that if I saw a production go up and I wasn't down with the way the show was cast I would support them but I think it is a different thing and one of my major issues with the beginning was I just didn't understand why this wasn't being discussed that this wasn't you know the man you know speaking in the capital TM getting the rights to something with tons of funding going we we're excluding people getting this this the Genesis was certainly as a letter writer in this it's even that question you're asking we as a group of fans decided we're not playing to have three Latino characters and none of us are Latino none of us are Latino in this room but we feel we can play Latinos that's where I was like okay even if it is a co-op I want to jump in yeah I'm not saying there's also been the issue of ground place which is obviously horrible and wrong right but to quote the playwright himself he has said ideally it should be Latinos in no he says Puerto Rican he said Puerto Rican so he said ideally there should be Puerto Rican in the world I would stand next to Latino and of course I do and personally I would never cast a play with Latino anything but Latino myself personally but the playwright did say if you cannot do that it is okay to have a white cast if you do not do brown face right and I don't understand what that has to talk about until we see the rehearsal that we don't see someone doing a very broad offensive stereotype the playwright himself has said the ideal would be having Latinos but it's okay so much not disrespecting the culture yeah and we never we never questioned the fact that that they were going to do brown face or that they were going to appropriate our culture and play Latinos on stage it was the fact that in play where there are three Latino characters there were no Latinos brought in that that was that that was that's the from absolutely an issue but I will say by the time this issue was brought to me there was Latinos in the play and I felt like my public that wasn't mentioned which is one of the reasons why I felt like I couldn't it was in the letter that there was a Latino in the cast when she broke down and dropped out of play I know this was a real thing so the only thing I'm asking is how do we get as a community all of us not just to send anyone out how do we work towards constructive solutions that include people who are trying truly trying the best but fucked up without it becoming this adversarial thing which I felt like it kind of became a social media that never formed us I just want to finish the answer the Genesis was a co-op but it is a firehawk production no just to be clear just for clarity I'm trying not to speak to you I'm sensing the hostility to start to rise I don't have hostility I promise you I just give my back we are donating we have to give all of our pay back to the production in order to be able to do the play and we had to go on and we went on Indiegogo as you know to raise money for the play and to raise money for a recovery house because we believe one of the larger themes of play is addiction which everybody can play it's about addiction so we're donating some of the money to recovery so there's no there's it's still co-op in the sense of that we have she's presenting us God bless her but we are paying I won't give you the numbers but more than we have so we're all having to give our paychecks I just just before a carbon chance to speak but I just want to say you said a lot of things there and I just want to sort of break them out what I'm here I'm here a couple different things one is the intention of the play right I agree that's something that's that that's interesting to discuss and I think what Pedro's bringing up is also that there also is the own stand the standards of our community and those are two different things sometimes they align sometimes they don't and so I just wanted to say just so you brought the idea of conflating so just the idea of separating out the issues for those that would like to discuss them further I would like to speak and then just to then we're going to go to David he's been waiting for every patient for a long time and then we're working our way around and you are on the list after David there's a lady back here with Lee Ringletts who has been trying to speak for a while okay that's human yeah and I use that name intentionally because I'm here in my spirit flesh and not in my need suit in my need suit I work in the area of culture as a bureaucrat and I work in the area of bureaucrat culture as a bureaucrat because as who I am at hardness here in the last 25 years is a performer I'm an artist and I got out I stopped acting because I couldn't work I couldn't even work in Vancouver I did lots of work back when there was awareness of black people in film and TV in the early 2000s I don't work anymore so you know that's a place I don't I don't perform anymore and now because of my job I can't perform on a theater stage because a lot of the people in this room are my clients having said that I would like to suggest that when I talk about I don't I I increasingly do not talk about white people because it's tricky I do talk about people who appear to be a European descent I think that's really critical when an audience member who is unsophisticated doesn't know the details the back and forth behind scenes casting of stage, film or TV and they at me when I'm sitting at home next to them saying you know I see people who appear to be of European descent and when I see brown faces in whatever spectrum I identify them as not being of European descent that doesn't mean that they aren't right there's lots of there's lots of African descent people in England for example I think it is important when even in the case of a co-op that that be kept in mind I think I understand the having done lots of co-ops early in my career I understand and I appreciate what it is to be passionate about a work and want to produce it and going back to what Carmen has said 3.7% of people on stage are women of color like I don't work so if a play is selected that has an opportunity for a person of color and the people who are selecting are or will be interpreted by the audience more than likely to come on we're all smart people like we can split this until us but come on as people that are of European descent I think for me there's a kind of fraud going on these kinds of conversations for me have been happening since I was a teenager 15 and getting into theater this exact conversation like this isn't new it's tired I don't actually understand just understand why it's a thing I actually don't there's actually a piece of my brain missing about it so I don't have to say no Maury but I find it difficult to give a pass people that appear to be of European descent are the majority persons that create and interpret culture worldwide and I think it's really important when there are opportunities for people of color to be involved that they are involved in whatever way I have a course of view that I'm not saying it should be and I'm saying that in terms of like so even in the case of this production which was originated as co-op there's an instance of from the map and talk which is about Martin Luther King that stars a white man as a person of European descent as MLK you know if co-op decided it's an amazing script and if a co-op of people who appear to be of European descent did the same thing I don't care if they're a co-op they're still not going to pass just because they're a co-op and so I'm not convinced that there isn't still a kind of obligation and as artists what we do is interpret the world around us that I think we've got some more obligation to reflect it in some ways the people that hold the power that are the arts club for example or the fire hall are the people who have the opportunity to make the key decisions they have a higher burden and we who come together to tell stories we have another burden because likewise what are we doing? what are we doing as artists? we're not reflecting the world the world as it is is not a burden if I can interject with a tweet from Camilla Diaz Varela I want to be a part of a theater community that holds members accountable and supports each other when we fuck up you know I think that kind of sums it up and I'd also like to give just one shout out because Cherioune my partner is the woman who crunched the numbers to arrive at the 3.7% she's not here she's not here because whatever we can't pull her out of the house at the same time these days and I also wanted to just say one thing we're planning to go until 9 o'clock that we still have lots of time but I just in the interest of everybody knowing that this will end this too soon she'll pass so yeah there's a long list David's been waiting for quite a while so I got the whole system I originally raised my hand when Francisco was talking but other things have come up that I think relate to it this community isn't really one community it hasn't been since I was about 20 there really are about 8 different communities in Vancouver there's like a couple of film communities and there's the People Who Do Bar and the Arts Club and there's 3 or 4 small theater communities and blah blah blah some people overlap but I think I was trying to parse this whole thing as the stuff was flying back and forth and listening to gossip and etc etc and I was talking to one of my best friends who was an Aboriginal playwright and actor and I said well one of the things I'm hearing gossip gossip gossip is well they asked Carmen to suggest a bunch of people and to only suggest to herself I've no idea if this is true or not it doesn't matter to the story my friend said it's not her job and she said because for myself as an Aboriginal actor I am constantly being asked who all the other Aboriginal actors are I'm being asked to tell everybody who my competition is etc etc she actually said fuck that so I realized part of the problem is that none of us really know who all is out there and she had also gone off a little bit about at one point when somebody from one of the somebody from a company of color was talking about stuff and she said this person knows nothing about the Aboriginal actors in town how can they speak for actors of color so when you realize how many different fractured Balkanized communities we have in this town one of the problems is that how do we do exactly what Carmen said which is certainly if you know I mean I personally wouldn't even know how to start with this particular play I wouldn't produce it I would just beg to be in a different apartment but if I was to do it the first thing of course I would want to do is say who are the actors who identify as Latino and then the question is where do I find them and I have this really terrible thought that I feel kind of horrified to suggest because it actually sounds kind of creepy but maybe somebody can make it better which is I feel like we need a database that's accessible to anybody who's cast and which basically says here are all the actors in town who identify as trans here are all the actors in town who self-identify as female here are all the actors in town who identify as black but also West Indian or whatever so that when you're saying I want to try to find somebody my first thing I'm going to do is go to try to meet everybody who can authentically claim to speak for this community and I do believe in the blood thing for the first time in my life all my friends are constantly going to shows and going why the fuck was that Chinese person being played by somebody that I know was in Chinese and for the first time in my life I do it I never get cast as Jews once in my life but I watched a show not long ago where I was actually horrified by a really fine actor playing a Jew and it was just like in a million years in a million years I will not be able to use that guy as a Jew and it was a show about identity and I was just like first thing I'm saying why the fuck was that very fine actor in that part I was horrified I felt sick so I don't even want to put somebody in that position again the number of times that I'm trying to think about who the actors are that I could think about for a project and two months later it would be I'm just thinking in terms of a practical starting place or aren't making this mistake and so that nobody has the excuse of saying well we couldn't find anybody would be to say is it possible that somebody might be the arts alliance or somebody might be willing to take this on as an actual thing and is that a really stupid idea because if people think it's a stupid idea it's a great idea interesting idea no stupid idea okay so yeah yeah I'll respond and then I have really windy David so David you'll be pleased to know that my company Visual Visions is developing a database we've been working I've been working like even before the Jesse stuff there was other things and I said a database would solve all our problems and I was the same thing people were calling me and asking me to recommend people for their projects and they never asked me and so I said if I'm going to do this work for free I might as well do the real thing because I don't know everybody either right but I do want to say it's hard work getting the funding New World Theater has when they found out I was doing it they gave me some money the Hammer Foundation just gave me some money but can council just turn me down yeah and so it's going to be difficult so I'm just trying to get the word out if you know have ideas about or want to somehow partner or you know find ways because I think what the jury response was oh it's a great idea but you're a small company and we don't believe that you can do it yourself why don't you get a bigger white organization to help you and I am partnered with the GBPTA I very specifically wanted this to be people of color actually having control and say about who they are how they're going to be presented how we educate people about when they come in and access that information so that there isn't this kind of thing well he's brown so he can play anything there needs to be an educational component to that database I'm not just going to put it out and say you know go to it it's also going to have there's going to be a lot of money because you're going to have to maintain it yeah I'm working with a digital media company who knows what they're doing and knows that we want it to be we're working on self sustaining law but I mean to build it it's very expensive right so that answers your question so we all need to find ways to support this project say you're going to do it in French and you might get money from the Canada Council also I happen to be if it's in French and English if you get English part of the country if it's in English and French you jump to the top of the list it sits in the back okay equity and inclusion is a big part of it's not that simple I'll just say packed so I happen to be the president of a big white organization who just did a strategic plan on equity and inclusion being a priority and they're revamping their entire kind of digital portal as well and I think we should talk great Amelia what's your name in the packed non-mark Patrick you said about the line of identifying as white and passing and I guess I just wanted to say I felt pretty affected by the comments in terms of that I know I'm white I know the privilege that I was born with and taught I know everything I saw on TV my whole life is white and I know that it's my it's my job to describe it as hard because I guess I'm scared it'll wrangle it but it's my job to step down and say I want ballot, I want equality and so I'm not going to take the job and that's for I need a job just as much hard of my life as more than me whatever I do because I'm white because I don't have that experience in my heart of knowing blood, heart, I don't and you do and so that's the difference and that's what I'm trying to that's what I'm trying to navigate as a friend and it should not be the boss about it but to just go and I just wanted to say that to you guys like how do we know I know and just real quick I emphasize with you but in this case the actress in question did do just that step down because of that but also she's not nearly as fair as you and so she is not she does not necessarily appear to be on your team but she knows you she knows you that's the question but is she white? is she white? I thought that was the conversation that it's not that kind of drive but no is she of European descent is her mother and father she doesn't know her entire heritage she might have a role in her which is apparent in her future she has a lot of European family's been in the United States for these five generations and they haven't kept tabs on where their lineage extend she doesn't appear to be white that's not your first question she's constantly asked what is she? I think the complication also arises and we don't have to talk about it now but eventually sometime maybe getting there and it might not be in this meeting actually but what it is to be an actor what it is to train as an actor and to create range as an actor and be able to play different roles that I'm interested in understanding as well as I move forward because I teach acting as well and so people are coming out of acting school and wondering what is the new again line of I know you look this way and you're this or you're white and you can play these roles so where's the career part of it I understand the social political aspect of it all of that but we are talking about creating a film television at the end but we're not talking about looks opportunities but it's I didn't say but I think the characters of say this particular play also have to be oh I'm sorry did I say something offensive if we can bring it back to the order of the conversation and also to acknowledge I think one of the things that's been offered I think in a number of different ways including what Amelia just said it is hard for me to look and see where you came from but I think that we do on some level and that is complicated in the world of film passing is a very common way of talking about it but I think there is something that is pretty cut and dry which is that we do know in our hearts how we identify and I think that how we identify is kind of at the root of what I'm hearing from the Latino community is what they want respected is that passing is one thing but why don't we start with people who identify and I think that part of part of the solution and I think what you're offering up Amelia that is pretty straightforward some people maybe it's harder than others but if each of us takes on the job of self identifying and that could be a multifaceted thing and for some and for others it would be more straightforward that's going to do some of the work you know and taking responsibility for that and not just seeing what we can pass for and I know it's tempting when it comes to casting and roles and I'm not necessarily in the position where I have to go after roles and I acknowledge that as more and more of a producer but to keep the conversation moving forward in some sense of fairness I think we have Mindy next and then David C. Jones and then I have Cam Yar well no there was a list that was even before before believe me this goes way back and then Jane I know that Jane Neiman also is on the list so we'll go after Cam Yar and you're still on the list and then but that's the next three but I am keeping a list and it does go back to Mindy my question actually was very similar to Jill Harlitz which was you know the question of a group of people coming together who are a co-op who have cast the play amongst themselves the difference between that and an organization that is funded by our province by our city by our nation and and I think that is also complicated in this particular case and I don't know all the details but I don't know when things were cast and I cast all the nuances which I think are hard and I don't know them is that I do think it's important when we talking about a community that is different facets and my understanding of this group and I don't know is that a lot of them come from a film background and in a film background that's not true we all come from a theater background as well but I know what you're about to say that's a lot of film work that there is a sense in the film world I think of playing different passing so I'm not I don't want to say that that makes it okay but there wasn't a mistake made and I think it's important to bring up the problem I really do and also I think it's important to have a passion in this situation that people come with their own preconceived ideas and notions about what's okay and what's not okay and that I'm constantly confronted that with myself I'm constantly with Amelia saying where is my privilege where am I not privileged because I'm a mother and I'm trying to balance that part of my life where are all those lines and it's so complicated but I think also to speak with Mowen Omari said how do we have these conversations in a way where we appreciate when people are making an effort and when we see our only line spots we all have the line spots we all have the line spots so how do we see those and go yeah fuck that's my line spot that's totally like I don't know anything about that and now I need to get that and then as the other person on the other side of that go great and we need to talk more about it and we need to understand it more but I guess I feel like I want to I just want to encourage myself to do that because I'm not always good at that either sometimes I communicate fuck my name was broke briefly just acknowledging that there's not a ton of time left and I'd still like to try to get to a wider variety of voices would be good a wider variety of voices would be good that's okay I don't even have to speak for discussion that's okay okay I'm here you're up no yes sorry David C. Jones okay so two things really quick this is one of the things that I discovered when we were producing our show so the information I got was told to be by someone at the company so I believe them to not be crazy because what I do is I call because I've done it before and I went hi I'm thinking of doing this mega musical one of them does an equity co-op what do we do I was told that equity co-ops don't exist anymore as they were in the past and now called artistic collectives and I said ah what does that mean an artistic collective they went ah it means that artists have put together a show ah does that mean I have to find all the artists or can I hold editions yeah no it's no longer a co-op where it has to be all people who come together an artistic collective can actually hold auditions and I'm like okay I just want to be super clear and I do an artist collective where everyone is the like-minded person coming together on this project but I can actually audition people and because when the co-op model you couldn't do that no that is what you can do and I'm like okay you sure and I'm like yes okay that's when the auditions come out which is the new term for co-ops we're doing an artistic collective and I have book rockets equity co-op where that's how we did our auditions and so it isn't a co-op artistic collective art actually so that's I think a different thing because if people think of co-ops the way they used to be and it's pretty positive and that's this person on the phone with crazy that actually would say yeah they don't kind of just like that the other crazy little thing I'll say really fast I'm shaking the clock right now sorry and I try to talk really fast one of the things that I've talked about when I was in elected but one of the things we've got to stop saying open to all ethnicities on our audition calls because no one believes right so when you're doing an audition calls the movie calls will say person of color for this role and if you're doing it fast then you go open to all ethnicities no one's going to believe but if you put Amanda in a color you're going to have a line up down the block nothing would really really play Amanda you have to fuck up just do that you're like on what you said I want person of color you won't have a problem people aren't showing up for the audition you'll have a huge crowd I think at this point we're going to sorry we have a rebuttal over here well I mean I think I think we're going to move on to Kamiar because I think those are two interesting pieces of information that weren't particularly contentious if we do need to make that make sense there's time after we'll get around I'm sweating like an athlete my name is Kamiar full disclosure I'm here sitting between Carmen and John because when it comes to like Cristina so eloquently did defending Carmen's right to be the remarkable activist that she is I'll put my neck on the line anytime at the same time John reached out to me and I think the fact that this man came with his son and showed so much heart by being here is also very admirable and worthy of mention so some might call me a fence-sitter I like to think of myself as a bridge builder and no one's done it better than these guys who have just actually showed up and I think in some ways it makes the actual details of the letter and what haberdashery did or did do as an entity irrelevant and makes what's coming out of this conversation which is illuminating to someone who's been active in the world of diversity and fighting for it you know I don't think until today I even really understood or thought enough about what Latina means and I've known you since we were in our 20s so let alone Mr. White Guy whoever that might be right so thank God that finally this conversation is happening we all have a lot of prejudices that constantly inform everything that we talk about I heard them tonight assumptions we don't know what juries of Canada council go through and discuss I've heard a lot of prejudice here from a primarily theater crowd about film I think some of the most amazing shit and some of the most progressive stuff I see it in Babylon like Bindi Kaling's show Sopranos is one of my favorite things that I ever saw and this is where I agree with John I watched Sopranos yes I like to see an actor pretend they're Italian-American and there is a relish in seeing someone succeed in doing that but if predominantly in the Sopranos they weren't Italian-Americans I would have been really pissed off but I'm not even Italian-American I think that authenticity that they brought to those amazing roles made it something else that it couldn't have been and I get irritated by color blind casting as well as well as color conscious casting you know what sometimes I want to go see a German play and I want to see a German person play a German play I don't want to see a person guy play a German guy sometimes it's okay it depends on the context how do we start I think it's really brave to watch so many things you're talking about the personal responsibility I don't want to put the responsibility as someone who's been a producer on an actor who's a woman who barely can get work in this city and the older you get it the more difficult it gets and then all of a sudden you have to make a burden of making that choice as well the choice has to come with the power and when we look at the power and we look at where the funding goes and we have to look at all the power it's easy to blame the arts club she's not here I will say this to her as well I want to hear Donna's side of this as well because those of us who say we fight for diversity and have been doing it for a long time we got to make sure when we're in power we walk the walk as well so yes this is an honorable man he's going to stick up with that but you know once the fire hall got involved we changed the game a little bit and I think let's not point the picture I like what you said ma'am about blind spots until we're all willing to have personal accountability for our own prejudices and we all have them I know damn well that I do my wife who's white but also has aboriginal heritage pointed that out to me several times then we're lost so if we can move beyond and acknowledge that looking back is not useful looking forward and what I see here God if only five people had showed up tonight that would have really depressed me look at the people who came out and people were afraid people were going what's going to happen is there going to be fisticuffs you know I want to see Donna and David hut tonight you know like no but you know it doesn't matter people say all sorts of things in the heat of the moment what's the actual actions that we took place and the action that I see tonight is a lot of people came out Carmen's been very clear she's never changed her word from day one she stuck with it a lot of people came out people from haberdashery came out we're having a wonderful conversation and thanks for everyone there's about 15 minutes left so in light of there being a little bit of confusion about the order of who wants to speak can I ask people who would still like to speak to raise their hands and for those who feel like they don't need to speak or their moment has passed to lead their hands down so and yeah if you have spoken already if you could maybe put your hand down as well that would be great so I'm going to go clockwise we're going to reset a bit we're going to go around this way to the back here and finish with oh yes that's good so in the interest of time it requires some discussion I don't want to limit that but at the same time if we could keep it moving forward and keep responses to a respectful length and I'll ask those that put up their hand to help me and others to not have themselves in in the middle so we'll start with them thank you so once again my name is Valerie Singh Turner I don't know if I mentioned that earlier I am a director and I have been an advocate for cultural diversity for more years than I want to admit to so the thing when I talk about cultural diversity and the issues surrounding it I always like to connect it back to the artistic side of things because a lot of times we feel like cultural diversity is separate from the work we do as artists and as artists of Asian descent I do not have the privilege to separate my culture from my work I do not have that privilege but I also want to talk about the artistic respect and integrity for the person who's not really in this discussion the writer the writer's intentions what the writer wanted when he created in this case the mother fucker in the hat I had wanted to know why he decided there were no characters in the center of his play what was his vision of that why did he want to create that world when we make plays we create a world and I just wanted to read out a portion of a letter by the president of the dramatist gil written on November 18th 2015 because there were many things like the the mountain top when someone cast a white European descent man as Martin Luther King there was another I think a latino playwright who had written a play that had two South Asian characters from India and white actors were casting that in those roles it didn't find out about it until they were almost ready to produce it and there was a big sort of fight also in social media got unpleasant but he took away the rights and the play had to be cancelled and he also mentioned another production of the mother fucker with the hat in Hartford where again white actors were casting the latino roles and so I just want to quote play licenses clearly state that no changes to the play including text, title and stage directions are permitted without the approval of the author casting is an implicit part of the stage directions to pretend otherwise is disingenuous when a play is still under copyright directors must see permission if they're going to make changes to the play including casting a character outside of his or her obvious race gender or implicit characteristics to do so without meaningful consultation with the writer is both a moral and a legal breach one may agree or disagree with the views of a particular writer but not with his or her autonomy over the play nor should writers be vilified or demonized for exercising it this is entirely within well established theatrical tradition what's more it's what the law requires and basic professional courtesy demands I just want to put that out there for us to think about again from the artistic thing what is our vision when we decide to put on a play when we decide to write it and when we decide to cast it that's all I want to say with that thank you for bringing the playwright into the room and I believe the playwright is possibly in the room just in case the playwright is in the room should I read what he wrote regarding that space that was a different that was not by the playwright can I ask that we stick to the speakers list because we're stretched for time in there and I think that was a thoughtful comment about the playwright's rights in general and given the constraints of time I just want to start I would like to hear what he has to say at the end of the word because I think it's a very important thing we should all hear it is from the playwright of Motherfucker it's important to be heard the room should I read it I would prefer to hear John with all due respect several people who've been waiting I understand that you've got a point you want to make I will stay after nine o'clock to hear it but I think it's important that the voices that have not been heard be heard and then this is the voice of the playwright that can also be posted on Facebook on his page and these opinions can't be heard after we'll spend so much time discussing let's just go around and let's continue in the order and we will come back to this so I have a few things that I want to say on this topic I've been sitting and listening I think everybody brought up some of the important interesting and important points so I just got back from trip to New York and I saw two plays the first was the Jin game with James Earl Jenner and the second was the color purple and I have to say that that was the first time that I've ever seen not only one play but two plays with all the black cast and I think that it's important to see a representation of yourself on stage or on screen I also watched the Kennedy Center Honors and two of the people who were on this year and some of the people who spoke to all of them both mentioned how important it was for their audience to be able to see someone who looks like them on stage and I think that as much as it's an ethical dilemma or as much as you should cast the plays appropriately for ethical reasons I think it's also just to give people a chance to be seen and to make the erasure you know people have already touched on the subject of real intent and I will post on Facebook I read this article a couple of days ago from it was an interview with Lin Manuel he just did Hamilton and that's blowing up on Broadway right now he basically has this commentary on a very little intent and race and casting so I think it would be interesting really for everybody and the last thing that I mean I realize now that we're kind of short on time but if we have to do another one of these forms I would think that it would be as much as discussion is important action is more important and speaking for myself I know that I've had peace conversation about race all the time so I'm going to be on the baseless and it's top is cheap so it's like what are you going to do? we're going to go here and then right behind you so my name is Barbara Chirino I'm the executive director of the Gravel Island Cultural Society so I come from a different perspective although I started in theater 30 years ago in New York I started as a lighting tech and then went on to become a stage manager off off Broadway and taking tours across the United States and then I came to Vancouver theater completely changed from a different perspective but now working on Gravel Island where we manage four theaters I see theater companies that come through all the time and there's one question that many of them have in common why are there no people here? how come we are not selling tickets? what is it that we have to do? what change do we have to be a part of? how do we promote? the one thing that a lot of people are forgetting is that the stories that I see that are being told here on a large scale basis are not reflecting this exactly the business part of show business the people that make up Vancouver want to see theater but it's not the same audiences that were going to theater 30, 20, 15, 10 years ago people women who were over the age of 40 that are single, divorced have children men that are over the age of 50, 60, Latinos and yes, I actually I am a Black Latina from New York City so I also relate to that as well but there are a lot of stories that is what we're all talking about people want to see stories that they can relate to and going forward and it's something that I've done that has been successful on a large scale here are community collaborations so if there are two companies that can essentially collaborate together to pick a project so let's say it is Carmen's association collaborating with and together you pick a project that then Latinos will then come for casting color will come for casting people will come for casting for your production company but it is a collaboration that starts at the beginning so you decide who's going to be the director you decide who's going to be the producer you decide what sort of characters are going to be in that play that reflect the new population of Vancouver so you can sell some goddamn tickets because that is what is about people want to see stories that they can relate to and so you're not constantly going and feeding that same old list I mean art club is great they got subscription plan that's really fantastic but every time I go it's lots of times it's the same people and a lot of people want to translate that into black people don't want to go see black people black people don't want to go see black people black people don't want to go see black people they don't see them there because their stories are not being reflected but if we combine if we combine the depth of what we have you know and we look at it culturally and collaborate a true collaboration because this conversation is going to continue going on forever until we look at a plan to move forward and looking at it from the artistic point of view also from the producer's point of view because you want to sell those tickets and there are lots of people out there that want to come and see a show but they're not seeing any properties out there with stories that you know look there's somebody in the play that looks like me oh I want to take my child there because there's somebody in the play that looks like her or looks like me but those stories are not being selected and there are places coming out of Mexico, New York Toronto, George C. Clark I stay in Canada to play for him here at the college about 10 years ago completely culturally diverse and George Clark has now become the poet laureate for Canada and he is in Toronto so if we want to move forward we can look at Blaine who did this it's a great learning experience I think everybody here is really responsible it's really fantastic because you're taking responsibility for fear that is why we're here we love what we do we've wanted to exist and we've wanted to be sustainable but if I see Chekhov one more time it's not that it's now it's just that there are new stories there are new stories we all have fantastic stories so bring these companies together come with a collaborative effort from Chum and do you think Canada Council won't pay attention? oh yes they will do you think that the City of Vancouver won't pay attention? but you've got to bring some new stories that reflect who Vancouver is now that's all I have to say good evening my name is Martin Johnson and I'm working in the law in Vancouver since 2002 I'm a patron of the artist I'm not an artist but I've lived in a lot of different places I moved here from Los Angeles and I've been challenged myself increasingly over time with the plays that I've seen productions that I've seen both here and some that visited here and how overwhelmingly white they are that is not to take away from the quality or the artistic talent that's on the stage but it's to talk about the way in which white supremacy is enacted in where we live and the fact that we don't challenge that if I were to put on a play and had all female parts and only men played them people would wait to question at the very least and you know I think it's wonderful also to see things like King Lear all female cast right? so people say what can we do that's different that's revolutionary that's transformative what's going to make it viral I can't go to plays now with all white cast I wouldn't do it I was invited to go see what was it, the Christmas play originally Jimmy Stewart all white that's a wonderful white cast it's not to say anything bad about white people it's not about white people it's about the structure of the way in which theater is performed in this city we have to transform that we have to open up our hearts and minds and transform them if we had all male stages all the time with maybe one or two women in it people say oh my god how can we do that so we have to it's an intelligent plan to really make this happen stop justifying, explaining well the poet said this the playwright said this and this and that come on people can be imaginative we can imagine ET we can certainly imagine a black person we can talk about a different kind of role a Latino person or an Asian person or an Aboriginal person we can imagine creating a lot of space we can't imagine a person who can actually have a plan on how to find a role a counselor, a companion a police officer he's over here he was not here I was going to come anyway but I just wanted to know that I actually got to see the call from the equity office asking because they wanted to make sure that everybody here knew that diversity and it was really an important issue for our association and maybe we have thought into it too late but we are actually doing something a lot of us out there people have just been saying this is what I was going to say so I'll be as succinct as I can and also I get so overwrought about this I've been watching this I've been a part of this for a ridiculous time 20 years at least and the one that happened to know that Jesse's feels different in some ways so a couple of things there are a couple of great articles from the American Theater Association magazine that are I've posted a lot of people on Facebook read it because the thinking is so clear not like mine it's so objective and dispassionate and yet clearly articulated I found it very helpful why did I ever think of this I've always hated the term color blind casting but can we all refer to it and in some way Joe and you do as well it's about conscious casting and about changing our consciousness so I don't know any of the people who are involved in Powered National Theater in San Francisco I've been paying my dues so we know who we are for me it's not about what happened I think what happened is sad and unfortunate at every level and it is great at the level that it's given us the opportunity to have this conversation and to go forward and one of the most hopeful things for me was what you said John and I think I wrote it down properly it wasn't in our psyche as much as it should have been and as much as it will be from now on and for me that's what this is about and I'm a person of privilege and I have to constantly be acknowledging my own blinkers and my own, you know, the things I think I'm not I'm not oppressing somebody I'm not stabbing on somebody and I am but if we're all doing that if we're all being as conscious as we can if we're all nudging each other and saying what about this, what about this what about looking at a different play rather than a play that is telling a story from a culture that we haven't heard of what about if we're doing Shakespeare or we're doing Chekhov opening the doors to a wider casting than the one that we think traditionally we're going to change and for me it's not about what is politically correct which is another term I know it's not just about social doing the right thing but a number of people have said this and I just want to underline that it's about doing better art because I am Jewish and we have a lot in common with Italians but we're not Italian and if I were a better actor and I tried to plan an Italian maybe I'd get some of it but I probably wouldn't get well you just walk on the stage and you have because that's who you are in the same way that I as a Jewish woman in Holland who was 82 years old played King Lear he didn't have to act to date each other he just had to see who he was and I was just wondering how actors played Lear when they weren't the right age and that's how I do I get as of staff about the fact that I see 30 year old women playing 60 year old women when there are so few roles for women for other 60 so I do love the fact that we don't have to see Latino or Latino actresses you know so we are a country that deprives its artists of the funding to do what we should do so we're all believers and there's not enough work for anybody so we either say fuck that and find a way to to open the door so that there are more opportunities for everything because I think what breaks my heart about this is there's an actor of color who is probably marginalized also about not able to do things quite because he falls in love with it but he doesn't think about the fact that when he's going through that he's ending up marginalizing other people and so but part of that has to do with the fact that there isn't enough but there could be and if we were conscious and we made more noise like this and we made more noise with our audiences and we made more noise with this age 2015-2016 government so we get more funding and more support we could start doing more work all around and that is the start of the consciousness it starts with saying I'm not going to walk out this morning or a few people have done enough and so that's my old comfortable way of working I'm going to stay in a place that makes me slightly uncomfortable because I really don't know what I'm doing and I'm going to stay as conscious as I can and I'm going to hope that anybody around here is going to remind me to be conscious that is action heart's changing that's as much action as breaking down walls as well so thank you very much so in the interest of time it is nine o'clock I wouldn't Jane mentioned this article in American Theater I was going to read a bit of this I won't but I encourage you to read it because if you go online it's part of American Theater Magazine it's called standing up for the playwrights against colorblind casting and it sort of cuts through the bullshit in a really nice way because it sort of says yes it's a complex nuance issue but there's a few things that we all should know by now and so it's a really great thing to read and I'd also like to say the interest of action I'm not going to go anywhere I represent an organization that is interested in this question right now I'm going to a board meeting in Toronto in a couple of weeks and I would love to hear anybody that has any ideas that might be actionable I don't know if Valerie has to go anywhere I don't know if Jane has to go anywhere there's other people in the room that represent different organizations and interests I don't think we're going to rush to leave the room but I would like I think it is time to bring the conversation to a close I would like at the end of the conversation as part of the end of the conversation to give John one last chance to speak you don't have to necessarily read the playwrights intentions if you don't want well this is why I suggest that it was just let me finish let me finish the ending bit but I would like to give you a chance to speak and sort of have your final piece that hopefully I think in the tenor of the conversation just a second you didn't finish the circle I did not finish the circle I apologize to all of those I did not finish the circle I'm just going to say that I think we did have a time living on it we've already blown over it we're going to stick to it I am saying that we do not have to leave the room that the conversation can continue what I'm proposing unless you rush me and it pulled me over before we see people start to trickle out and the conversation slowly fizzle I would like to give have a daffry chance to have some parting remarks I'd like to give Pedro and Carmen a chance to have some parting remarks and then at that point I will relieve myself of my duties and this room I'll stick I live here kind of so I'll stick around I'll stick around to keep this space open until the last person leaves and John's not trying to have the last word he's actually trying to give the playwright who actually took the time to be here not everybody is on Facebook guys sorry, but I think we should that's why I think it's important that we now we sort of I know we're truncating the conversation but it really could go on all night I want a chance for you know this production is opening up shortly I'm sure it's going to be fabulous and now it better be yeah but it is important to acknowledge that it's important to acknowledge that the purpose of this conversation was not to submarine the production the purpose of the conversation was to talk about these issues and I do congratulate everybody here I think we largely stayed like on talking about it in a bigger more holistic and forward thinking way and that's no small task especially considering how we got like some of the things that happened since we got here and other people have summed that up more eloquently than I have but it is worth acknowledging and so if you would like if Stephen is listening thank you Stephen for a beautiful play and for listening the only last word I want to have personally is that I'm really glad that I actually could bring my son because when he talked to me about it I said this is an education, it's time to get an education and maybe 20 years from now you'll remember this meeting, you'll remember you know what I went to this meeting and it was about this topic and that topic and maybe you'll become an activist or you'll become something that way so I appreciate what has happened here as difficult as it is to be walking in this door today and difficult knowing that I gotta be on stage in a week with all you guys with your judgmental attitude looking at me going I'm not actually I'm safe on that level of ethnicity with the character but so we were very panicky at one time because we started reading online that Gergis would shut us down because of the Hartford situation and we were like you know going to rehearsal freaking out because we're like what are we doing about and one of our cast and we were like we're gonna get shut down and he wrote this and some people on Facebook and they saw it and some people are not so I'm just gonna read it and this is please please please not to be interpreted as me trying to get any kind of understanding of what's going on and what's going on and what's going on and what's going on and what's going on and what's going on and what's going on and what's interpreted as me trying to get any kind of like last word or last like I just found out about this yesterday productions like this one get licensed by the DPS the plays publisher I have an old friend who's involved in the production I spoke to her yesterday at length I believe what she told me I think the process may have been imperfect but I do not believe this is a situation like in Hartford which in fact it's nothing like Hartford I also told her that if need be I go out to Vancouver and do a talk back and open it up to anyone in the community who wants to engage there is still such blatant non-inclusion and institutionalized racism in our society and in our theater and clearly it must be challenged and changed and smashed to pieces but also at some point down the road we probably do need a better definition of what white people means three of the five characters in my play were written as New York Reakins the lead actor is I'm told Portuguese, Italian and Middle Eastern the woman playing Veronica some kind of Anglo but offered to step down and the third New York Reakin is Chilean and it's if wrong shit went down there's no excuse but also this is a production in Vancouver the total Latino population there is about 1.3% I don't know, I don't live there I don't know the talent pool I only know a little bit about the genesis of the production I'm willing to learn more but it feels like a situation where there has been perhaps some contempt prior to examination there's definitely no Puerto Ricans in this production but it sounds to me like a cast of multi-ethnic actors mostly from New York City which may have said who just wanted to do a play spent two years trying to get it off the ground and are now doing a two-week run in Vancouver again, I'm willing to learn more and especially if you're from Vancouver please feel free to reach out to me and come into it in the meantime I support the actors and the production and I hope good comes out of both the production and the controversy that's fewer than you that's great that would be great I think that would be I don't know if Stephen is even watching or thank you very much for that commentary I do need to say that I was disappointed that you made a statement about this production without talking to us first it would have been great if you talked to both sides before you made a public statement like that I know for myself I am a playwright if I heard about a play of mine happening in Norway and there was a big article about it in the major newspaper of Norway saying that an ethnic minority was protesting something about the play I would definitely speak to both sides before I made a statement so thank you for your statement and I am disappointed that you didn't do that and I want to thank everybody for coming tonight and there's so much more to say from my end Alexandra who's probably already chewed out her entire lip and all the Latinos in the room I wish that Latinos have spoken more because it was called a conversation with the Latino theater community or with the Latino community I was so happy that African Canadians with their technology here spoke, I love it when that happens and I really wish all the Latinos who are here tonight who really wanted to speak and who told me that they really wanted to speak would have stood up and said everybody else shut up this is my conversation and you are here to witness it I just wish you had done that more that's all thank you everyone ish I'm not the youngest artist in this city it means a lot to have you all count when I decide to speak up on something and to have support and to have counter points and it warms my heart to know that moving forward as an artist in this city that these conversations can happen and I've come to a point where I'm no longer afraid to speak up and that when it does happen I'll go around for hosting the live stream and Playwrights Theatre Center for letting us the equipment everyone here at PL let us be in this building especially a new world who has rehearsal tomorrow in this space so if anyone does want to stick around help reset that would be great thank you oh and Steven for tuning he did check in on twitter that he was listening so thank you for everyone's being in Steven for listening to this conversation