I'm from the Martini Siegel Theatre Center in Midtown, Manhattan, in New York City, my name is Frank Henschka, the director of the Siegel Center. As many of you know, we have done for months now, since March, actually spoken to artists about this time of corona after a break in September, we went back and opened up the conversations to thinkers, producers, curators, academics, and researchers to see what's going to happen now. What are we doing and where are we at the moment? Of course we all know today is a great day, perhaps it might be the day where we have a changer in Washington and the political landscape. We all have been always shocked, especially people in the arts, by what is happening by our political leadership, presidents who's had to inject a disinfectant who wanted to set military against his own people, protesting peacefully, and now is openly asking not to count votes, the stuff we normally hear from dictatorial countries, but we all have faced that this will be a peaceful transition of power. Artists have always been close observers of reality, of the moment, capture reality, but also with imagination in a symbolic way, but also in a real way, and they have been close to the struggle of freedom, they have been on the right side of history, that complex history, and if there's ever a time, I think, where we have to again listen to what artists say and what they see and where they have something to say, it is now where we are thrown back to our existential questions about what are we doing, where do we come from, where are we going to, and in our book at the Siegel Center, as the idea of it, Joseph Boyce, of an enlarged definition of art, producers, dramaturgs, curators, artistic directors, they are artists, they collage things, they put things together, they create communities and their work is a significant one because they create exactly that what we are missing so terribly now, and we feel what we are missing because we know about it, and we all miss being in a room, the chatter of an opening night, sounds of bodies in a room, and exchanges and thoughts, and one of the people in New York City who creates such spaces, who creates such community, who brings people together from around the world, as we try to do also a little bit in our tiny center to bridge academia, professional theater, but international global theater and American and New York theaters, this is something that our guests are so wonderfully and great, and with us today we have Susan Feldman from the great St. Anne's warehouse, where she is the president and artistic director, and for over 40 years she has worked in New York City. It's a long time, it's four decades, she has transformed spaces into cultural destinations from the St. Anne's church, yes it started there, to now the historic Tobacco warehouse, and one of the greatest producers and not present producers but presenters mostly of international work in the Americas, and the names of artists she had is almost like a who is who, John Gale, Lou Reed, Marion Faisful, they had Gregor Serginia from the Tia Varsova, Mark Rylans, Charlie Kaufman, the Cone brothers, the Donma warehouse, the great Donma warehouse, it was the old Shakespeare trilogy, the young Vic, the in the old fishes Oklahoma, remember that the great the jungle from the Gates Theater, Stephen Daldry, Dublin's Hamlet with Yael Fabre and Ruth Negas, so when the list goes on and on and everybody has been there, has seen it, we are so happy and grateful that this space got created, renovated, and barely when it opened up in a way it was put on full breaks, so with us today Susan, thank you for coming and for joining us and also being in a live conversation, I know that's different what normally happens but you know all our respect for everything you have done for the city, for the communities, and where are you and how are you doing in these days? I think I'm doing okay, it's been a long time now like since March, I'm actually right now out in Montau, I just came out last night, just to get some ocean air and to breathe a little, a little bit, I came out here about six weeks after the pandemic started, after we closed down, and you know it's really kind of life-saving for me, I've had a hard time like many people, the overwhelming sense of loss that I think we as a community and as a culture felt and feel, especially at the beginning, I had personal issues with family member, my sister's very ill, so that was a big part and that happened at the same time as the beginning of the pandemic and then closing the theater, terrible having new furlough people, layoff people, we were able to keep people through June, that was really good, you know I would say there's a lot of loss but at the same time and also I have, we lost a couple of very, very important people to us, Hal Wilner who is a music producer that had a very big hand in helping define who we became as an institution with this whole rock and roll history that we have from being in the church, we lost Hal and then Jane Willentes who created Jane's Carousel and was, I call her the First Lady of Dumbo, she and her husband David created Dumbo, Adam Maxx who was you know one of our great board members and he was the chairman of BAM, so you know in terms of the grief it's been you know very difficult but in terms of how people have come together and our international community you know there's a lot of support, I feel a tremendous amount of support coming from overseas right now with our election, it's incredible how important what happens to us as a cultural community and as a country in America, how much it affects our artists and people that we're so close to you know so I've heard from Jagarsh who you just mentioned and Emma Rice and I you know were able to do a conversation which was really nice and Paul Fahy at the Galway International Festival and Anne Clark from landmark and the Walsh, I speak to Enda you know every month or so so and then you know I get to see now that you know we're able to eat outdoors and meet outdoors it's been great you know Eric Wallin and I Eric's our general manager and I you know we had dinner the other night with Liz LeCompte and Kate Falk so you know we're able to start talking and thinking about a future and I think that that's been that's been a change so we shut down middle of March the building's been pretty much empty did you shut down or the city told you or how did it well we all yeah everyone shut down right the Cuomo we all went you know into sheltering in place and you know gathering places especially shut down so we did we thought we were going to be gone for like two weeks like many people did and it's funny because the first time I went back in was in August or something and or July and and you know there was a hamlet script there because we literally just sent the the gate Hamlet company home you know Ruth Nega and the whole team and Yael Farber so we just sent everybody home that Monday and then we were supposed to have the jungle come the following Monday and we shut on Friday so that's what it looked like when I came back in so there was still scripts around David Cologne who works with us and George Castillo our our facilities manager had kept the space really clean and nice it was beautiful to just walk in there but very sad you know that it was empty you know we had our ghost light it was very kind of dramatic so and then at one point I guess we oh I think things started to turn around professionally as a team when we when we figured out a way and got the inspiration to try to use our building if we couldn't bring people inside to actually take advantage of the fact that we're in a public park that were in Brooklyn Bridge Park and so during the during the protests we invited um Kobe Proctor to come in uh to uh project do photography projections onto our wall there were a group of guys who were looking to do sort of gorilla projections on walls and so they approached Jim Finley who was our production supervisor um and it turned out they didn't want to do it but uh but Kobe did and he's a wonderful street photographer lives in Brooklyn had incredible photographs of the protests so we we decided we're just going to turn it over um and we have a great projector um so what we did was we set it up and for three days a week for probably like nine or ten weeks uh we would just have these photo essays so Kobe's was up for like a couple of months and then and then um he invited some other people to come in and so he ended up curating a whole series and what would happen is because we couldn't gather we couldn't do any publicity um and so people who were wandering in the park which is a beautiful place to be in the evenings during the summer would just happen upon these giant projections that looked so fantastic on our building um and so that became a steady a steady thing and so people would wander and then suddenly they would be um confronted by this very political very interesting work uh that was very raw and very of the moment we had this woman Jeanette Beckerman whose work also came on and she had actually done been photographing protests um for 10 years so we had decades of protests so there were there were protests from uh you know Trayvon Martin and uh gay rights so there was a it was a beautiful essay I loved it um so that's something that we ended up doing we started calling it an urban canvas and started using our facade that way thousands of people must have seen it then they did because um I think we figured out about 300 people a night would wander by and so if you did that like 300 people a night and we did that every night for three weeks you know for like 10 weeks and three nights a week so you know thousands of people got to see that and and what I love even in the photographs because um Kobe uh and our photographer Teddy Wolfe took pictures of the pictures and so you would see um families and people with their kids and everybody interacting with the images because they were so big so they would be taking pictures with them they'd be you know imitating some of the imagery on on the screen it was um it was wonderful it was just so that kind of started us feeling like okay we're we're alive we're doing things um and then uh we also were treating our building so we uh we we uh upgraded our ventilation system you know by adding these higher level filters we an ionization system that goes throughout the whole building and um makes it safer uh because through ionization the molecules the aerosolized monoc molecules of the virus get attached to others and they fall to the ground so they don't linger in the air longer so we started to just set up you know the making this that the the room and the building safe for an eventual return um and that's um so we did a lot we did a lot to the building we're still finishing up things like wayfinding but we have sanitizers and um touchless towel things and anyway we that was a big a big effort that we also put into place while we were closed um and then uh I saw a um a porch concert that Blake Zadel who's our hubblessist sent me it was Bill Frizzle and a couple of musicians doing a porch they were doing a porch concert uh in in Brooklyn um and they were wearing masks three of them and then there were people just sitting on the street uh socially distanced and I thought hmm that looks really great we don't have uh a stoop but we have a roof and we have a balcony so we got the idea that we would invite musicians to come and play on the roof and it's sort of the same idea that the people in the park who are already there would be the people who would be the recipients of that um of that music and it was really kind of great because ever since we got down there we were always saying like how do we bring the people of the park into our building how do we expand our audience and then we're like well this was a different situation we were going to bring the art to people so that was really a great um benefit of of having such a wonderful space and being in Brooklyn Bridge Park and it's you know beautiful setting sunset under the Brooklyn Bridge so we did about 12 of those we just finished last week and we had wonderful musicians like um Bill Frizzle and uh Eli Fola and um Mark Rebo there were many many stew played um Bobby Previd played it was really fun Damon Dono and Nathan Kochi from Oklahoma played so it it it started to be something that um was like a reawakening I think like the first night it was Bill Frizzle and I remember the first time hearing live music and we were you know we were sitting on these benches underneath and we're looking up and the music started to play and it was a very it it was an incredible feeling because you could you could just feel it viscerally and then like within five minutes it was the most natural thing and people were you know kind of swaying to the music and we sort of had gotten over the shock to the system and it was the most natural thing ever so I've I really felt like we should not worry about the future you know art will always do what it does and people need it and it's not a question it's a it's a reality that people need it and they are nurtured by it and it's something that I totally believe will will return. I had a similar feeling going into the Metropolitan Museum and seeing art you know on the walls for the first time and you know their 150th anniversary so they have like the greatest hits collection on the walls so you're seeing Caravagios and you're seeing you know all the European art and then you're going into the American wing and it was uh quite wonderful to understand that timelessness you know that we always talk about and hear about but then to actually feel it and then to see people in their masks this contrast and it's a way of people being together but having to be socially distant it was it's complicated it captures the complexities of things that bring us together and yet we kind of have to be apart so there's a certain there's certain poignancy in all of that. Yeah I feel yeah so so are you worried about the future of Saint Anne's how is it for you at the moment? Um well it's we're not open I mean we can we can we've been doing these outside things we also have an art we made an art gallery out of our archway so we just finished the concerts and I don't know what the future is going to bring it I don't know when we're going to be able to open to live audiences. We we can do workshops we can do things that museums can do we can have exhibits we can do workshops we can do some film and media you know all the guidelines that have been created by the state that we can fit we're allowed to do but you know that's a whole that's a whole programming initiative unto itself so figuring out what that will be is kind of the next step. I'm also on a task force with with you know with Rebecca Robertson from from the Armory and Alex Puth from The Shed and Pat Cruz from Harlem Stage, Shade Liffcott, Leslie Koch you know we all have theaters that we would consider to be flexible cultural spaces so we've been working with the with the state to create guidelines just for flexible spaces that don't have the constraints of fixed seating that are the most dangerous I guess in the sense of COVID but you know having these big open spaces and robust ventilation systems and cross ventilation in terms of egress and exits and and ionization you know all those things I was talking to you before that we've been trying to work with the state to understand that our industry like the restaurant industry like many industries can also open incrementally we don't have to just wait you know for a year when you know Broadway can open that we all have something to contribute earlier on that can give people a place particularly artists and technicians and all the the industries that are related to our industry but there are ways for us to be able to try to open incrementally just the way restaurants have you know they don't want to put people at risk for sure and we have to pay attention to what's going on with the virus nobody wants to spread it in any way shape or form but we want to have a pathway whereby our industry can open because it was it was pointed out to me very poignantly by Mark Rebo the great guitarist he played on our roof and it you know it was the first time he played in a while and and we were talking and he said do you understand that we have no place to work that every place that we would work is not allowed to open we can't work bars we can't work in clubs we can't work we can't work and I you know I started thinking about that very very much because it's not only about the audiences but it's really about all the artists who have lost work the crews that we had to let go people lost 12 weeks of work when we closed down because the job was canceled so and all the artists in the jungle it's like so many people who are going to be coming to America and their work gone I mean it was kind of devastating it's it's devastating internationally right not just not just for us so so that's what we're trying to do is to get a pathway you know not if it can't happen right now because of the COVID problems across the country New York's doing well so we're you know we're keeping our fingers crossed on that but we want to have a pathway and we want to be able to work with the government to come up with guidelines that would make it safe with the state and the city so that's kind of that's kind of what I've been doing and my staff's been you know working the ones that are that are here are working hard so seeing all the protests the black lives matter the images of your building what you said you know normally we always thought how do we get the people from the park also to participate come inside but now so you did something for them there is something do you feel something is changing is something in or reconnecting I think I think things have to change I mean one of the one of the byproducts of the of this shutdown is that for nonprofits at least for st. Ann's you know you know nonprofits the way we're funded in particular is is through a very balanced way so you have you know you have philanthropy you know individual giving you have government giving you have foundation giving you have earned income so you have a whole balanced combination I who are we who are we serving and how are we serving them and who is supporting us in the work that we're doing so we're not an end in itself we are the means that's what I'm trying to say and so the support for being the deliverer of the services to for being the home for it the umbrella the nurturers whatever you want to call us the perpetuators you know you need that balance and so with the earned income just gone it sort of changes the the the dynamics it certainly changes the numbers so our organizations pretty much our budgets cut by you know a third to a half so that's one thing but what it also does is it gives you the opportunity to not worry about whether or not you're going to sell tickets so you no longer thinking about a marketplace you're really thinking about we're thinking about what is it we can do what is it we can give how can we how can we how can we make things better how can we contribute to whatever will be a recovery because we're not even at a recovery yet so it's kind of like how do we do our jobs without quote unquote earning it you know without making people pay for it it's not about that right now so now it's about opening opening up the doors so that's that's been a that's been a change in a good way um so we're not recruiting audiences you know we're we're we're we're assuming that the world is our audience it certainly the world of the park which is you know a wonderful it's a wonderful thing it's a beautiful park to be able to add music to it is you know and and and visual art is wonderful i think in terms of next year i mean we will probably have to start thinking about how we return you know when can we start bringing international companies back you know we put the jungle on hold that was supposed to do a whole tour will we be able to bring them back you know we're all in touch with each other the company good chance steven daudry justin uh david land so and and also the issues that the jungle is about you know immigration what's going on you know good chance is working on a um a tour of a of a puppet they have this giant puppet called little amal who's going to walk across the continent of europe looking for her mother and artists will greet her in all the different countries that they step through so little amal was based on the character in the jungle so we're trying to you know help with that and to be part of it and to keep the commitments that we feel strongly about and the causes that we feel strongly about to stay stay connected to those you know so i had an experience because we were supposed to be doing an end to wash play that probably would be going on right now so they did a live stream of a of a version of it about a month or two ago and i was able to watch it and i i actually felt like i was sitting up in the balcony somewhere either that or i was in heaven you know what i mean like i was looking down i could see my friends i could see the artists on stage and it was a great it was a great performance and just being able to be there just made it all the more immediate that we have to we have to do it we have to bring them back and they have to finish the work same thing with emma rice you know these are great artists and also you know meeting coby and and the work that he did on the projections you know we're going to keep working with him so that'll be a new relationship you know a curatorial relationship so hopefully we'll be doing projections again in the spring and and hopefully with music as well we'll be doing more outdoor performances how far we get with the indoor thing i think we'll we'll pursue it as far as we safely can and then we'll start um probably we'll start doing some workshops and then see what comes of those before we uh do some live concerts inside and and do i don't know when we'll do plays again yeah i mean we just got an email from our friends in tiara sova they were about to open the tempest and one of the actors white or the actors have that got covered they have to cancel you know the entire opening is incredible to think about you know some reopening of a season and and how much it is also in a new space they are planning so it's so much uncertainty but um and i feel very connected you know i i've i've known gegarsh for many years now yeah like 20 maybe not 20 but 15 or something and you know we did macbeth together in the tobacco warehouse before it became our home um but you know he's writing me you know every day what's happening with the election are you going to be okay it's an international community like you know they they've been in the streets there in poland like when he sent me the um the announcement of the tempest i was like i should be there i should be watching this show yeah so it is it's risky it's risky to program and it's risky not to program yeah yeah it's it's really a time where we really don't know things which is not so we are not used to it but many part of the world that's normal they do not know what how they can feed their children next week where the job is what the political situation is will there be a war or not and but for us it's uh it's uh you know it's a shocking confrontation with the reality that um we didn't expect you said um we have to feel we have to feel the empathy about it you know you have to feel in the moment like when you say how are you meeting it there's a certain amount of programming or planning you can do but i think for i think being in the moment seeing how you feel how your people feel and also feeling what the audience what people are going through yeah and the key for me is not to be demanding anything from anybody but rather to be trying to you know ease ease the problem ease the suffering ease ease the difficulty and as artists to just use our imagination because we do come up with things that nobody would thought would think about you know we do come up with solutions we do come up with ways of thinking about things that are i guess that's what creative means and it is an art and we do have a creative industry excuse me so it needs to be active and it needs to find its voices as we keep moving same thing with the protest movement to me they're very interlocked you know creating art and getting art out there in the moment and then having this this very visceral response to what's going on actual actualizing in front of our eyes has been really remarkable to me i think i think that movement has been so brave and so strong it's such a leadership black lives matter you know anybody who says you know all lives matter yeah black lives matter is is a leadership movement and it means all lives matter if one doesn't none do so that's so important and i believe that that um i think that will also change things and you for sure remember the civil rights movement you know in america i do for sure remember that where were you at that time i was graduating high school in 1966 in new york yeah i grew up in i grew up in rockaway so excuse me so i very much remember 1968 you know which one i think about now you know and i have to sometimes when i talk to the staff remind them i'm not saying it's not bad now but i'm saying it was bad then and you know we had two leaders assassinated in one year martin luther king bobby kennedy we had federal troops on the streets in chicago we had national guards on college campuses the abuse of power and the corruption was as horrific as it is now so it's not like it's not i'm not i'm not saying that from the point of view is like we'll get through it i'm not saying it that way at all i'm saying it has lasting effects and um and we have to be vigilant and we have to take care and be on the case i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm coughing so much i'm talking so much yeah you're talking yeah and thank you really for sharing and and it's important to listen to you so how did you get into theater why did you say in the time whatever you see protests otherwise you say what was your path what what motivates you then and even now what is what's your reason well when i was when i finished college like i graduated college in 1970 you studied history or just liberal arts liberal but but those were the years when colleges were shut down because of the anti-war movement so i never even had a proper graduation because the college was closed and um so i was doors were closed and no classes inside that's right and the the actual uh the actual graduations weren't held so i got my diploma but um we didn't have a proper graduation and you know the country was in crisis and the um the issue of deaths was around the body count of the vietnam war which became the big mobilizing factor and the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement were coming together um so that was a big part of that was my formative years for me you know that was that was what i graduated from into the world and i had a you know very strong uh feeling i was a i was a baby of the counterculture loved bob dillon you know rock and roll sorry and then and i understood the connection between music and politics it was very they were very connected and so that was just in my in my being and so i started working in i guess it was um alternative education in the 1970s i'm sorry i keep coughing it's terrible don't worry i'm just trying to call so you in education so you did um so so i was working in education and that was where i was sort of at first i was involved with like i was interested in change so i was working with adults and i was working with adults who have you know had been in prison and giving them adult education eventually i was working with um these uh uh therapeutic communities you know there's a lot of anti drug money then and manpower money to uh lift people up and help them get jobs and all that so i was in that kind of job training and then i started working with kids and over time i started working with theater with kids and then i decided i wanted to learn theater and so i went to study with uh gene frankle and so i started being interested in theater and he was a pretty powerful director at the time and you know a little strong and that just it just sort of grew out of that so you performed also then no i didn't perform i never i never was into performing so you what did you your your assistant director or you organized um produced well what i did was i went to work with i went to study with him and he was kind of chaotic so he kind of needed a producer so i kind of became his producer and then he needed a theater a new theater so i helped him find the theater and that's how i started meeting the landmarks people and it was the end of the 1970s and early 1980s when new york city was starting to recover from sort of like all the flight and all the the downturns of the 70s so i kind of came into that and and got involved all a group called the landmarks conservancy that was involved in trying to save uh historic buildings and and with gene we had started to do stuff in churches and alternative spaces and i really enjoyed working with him and working on that and so i took that forward i got to know a few from the eclectic conservancy and i said listen you're into historic buildings i'm into the arts if you ever have a building that you want to put the arts into let me know i'd love to work with you on that and so that's kind of how that whole thing happened they called me up about sanan's church i was living in park slope at the time uh no sorry i was living in cobble hill in brooklyn and they said would you come and help us think about how we can activate this beautiful old church that has a small uh a small parish and so i went to work for them sorry i didn't have a cough until i was talking to you frank maybe i'm nervous i don't know so that's how that all started and then you did your first the programming what an artist leader artist puppetry and yeah and even before that it was like finding out what was going on in brooklyn because at that time there were these uh cultural organizations but they were small and local and at that time people basically would go to Manhattan for their culture and harvey lichtenstein was at bam joe papp was at the public theater at that time so um in being a consultant to the landmarks uh conservancy i went to meet with bam and the public theater to say oh there's this beautiful old church in brooklyn heights it's very inspiring space it has great acoustics has the first stainless windows made in america he says you might want to work in or do have a satellite because i was a consultant wasn't looking to start an organization so um harvey harvey was interested but you know he had bam so he didn't need a space and joe papp's person said to me wear general motors you should do something there he said you should make something out of that church for the arts um so that's what happened incredible incredible story yeah and then there were all these different um arts organizations that i got to know and artists who were looking for space and looking for a support and we became sort of a catalyst for them uh to have that place hmm and um so when you invite artists what do you look for and you're also the one who brings global art is in that shop what do you look for why do you think we need to see their work you know that's actually the criteria what you just said is what i'm looking for is who who needs to see who's doing the work that we need to see and that's what i'm looking for and so when i travel or if i see work here and also is there a need for it um in other words there are many many great cultural institutions certainly in new york who are covering certain kinds of bases so st ann's doesn't need to do that we don't have to be a producer you know or we don't have to be the theater company we don't have to have a resident company because there are places who are doing that what we have to do is be a receptor and a connector of what artists are doing that are not necessarily reaching american artists or american audiences so that's the relationship that i'm interested in catalyzing so that's the work i'm looking for when i met zhegarsh for example um he and valikovsky you know they were like 30 something years old and they were the next generation of polish artists coming out of a very political history and they had been trained by christian lupa so this was this was work that to me was really transgressive and really interesting um so i became very attracted to that work and i had a similar reaction to endewash i had never heard of a language like that except for in rock and roll so there was something very much uh appealing to me about that about those artists so it's very visceral um it's emotional the the choices are emotional um i found it important to try to bring uh people and have them come back so that there would be a relationship built between them and our our audiences um i was interested in how coming to america and having american audiences could impact those particular artists i know like um denise goff is a good example excuse me but she's a very good example of someone who was in people places and things she was playing a character who was really double edged like you didn't know she you know she's a drug addict and kind of brilliant but you just didn't know if she was going to make it at the end of that play and when we saw it in london it was very very very bleak to me like too bleak um when we brought it to new york the audience loved her and loved this character and so her struggle for whether or not she was going to survive or get well was up for grabs and she told me um denise told me that when she used to go home after the show in london pretty much feel like the character was not going to make it when she came to new york and she saw how much the audience was rooting for her and found her funny and laughed and all those different things and much more outgoing she would gone she feel like the character was going to make it and then that would fuel her in terms of her herself as an actress and the character and it would inform her performance so to me that's fantastic um many times um we've been told like the donmar warehouse when they did the um the trilogy in london they first did julia cesar they knew they had something really special and and they did and those those plays are phenomenal but the critics were so harsh and phyllida loyde who's the director and k pakinam who's the executive producer it was really important for them to bring it to new york and they have said that when they got they got to new york and it got these great reviews in in saint anz and this huge welcome and sold out performances and it was a bigger arena than the little and then the way that that that we could utilize space to transform uh the prison setting that reinvigorated them and so then saint anz and the donmar became linked in terms of what was going to happen to the to the next two plays and in fact they were there for the groundbreaking uh of our of our building that we're in now and then their henry the fourth opened our building so these are deep relationships yeah yeah the show comes to you and the show buna oh yes that that returning to rents i have been thinking about that play every day during this election yeah it was incredible work you showed so significant political in the right sense and great theater and also it wasn't the it wasn't the it was a sleeper for thomas right like returning to rents and they expected it to to be a um a hit you know what i mean like they were they were experimenting with this book by dba arabon and so it's another perfect example of how saint anz programs so we get to know the show buna i had met nina haas in an elevator at a lou reed event years before and when i read about it at manchester i said oh this is something we should try to do and then we got it together and we did it and we brought them and it resonated so perfectly because it was about why was this working class german community that french community sorry that dda had had grown up and why were they voting for marie lapin why was that and he was really trying to figure this out and how did that that he was and his identity i had been thinking about that so much during this election like how is how is it that half of our country is so conservative and so half of our country is so progressive i mean i just i i don't understand how people you know could want to turn the clock back on race on gender on women's rights on progressive education on science like it's it's a mystery right but having done that piece and seen that the history of what happened in france and europe i felt like that was something that could that could organize a thinking around it that we didn't have here a political thinking about class about the politics that we just don't think that way here we don't talk that way here we we're we're we're just different so i felt like that had something to offer and also i think what it showed that there's a dramaturgine idea that is you know at the work instead of let's say a writing a play where families sit at the table and the father and the young daughter have a discussion this is a play based on a novel of a someone for real did he ever went back to his hometown to meet his parents his family who all of a sudden voted for the truly right wing with him and um and he tried to understand it was archival footage uh whatever so and then tomas went from the shop and went back with him and they took you know images videos and then under the idea they would do a documentary film and then they end up in a cutting studio and discuss the director of the sound engineer and nina husley the the the actress who does the voiceover and they discuss the work such an intelligent beautiful multi-layered idea and something yeah we haven't seen here and it's something what the booster group also normally does as complex plays like the lsd or the or many other things and they did and so it was something a contribution which we would not know about and you also gave them a long run normally it's a couple of days right yeah we gave them we gave them i think we did it like three weeks which was yeah it's a big risk and also unheard of for them because they do they do a lot of touring in festivals and but it also would also happen with that situation was dda didn't want to come over to do a talk but edward the we came over and he was a good friend of dda arabans and so he gave a talk that was absolutely riveting you know about the connection between um uh poverty and violence you know and um and and being gay and being young a young gay guy coming out and and we brought back his play the next year history of violence um and we actually helped commission it um with the shabu and we hope to bring his next one you know who killed my father which is also really interesting that that um thomas ostermeyer just directed it evo vanho directed it so there are these thinkers like edward and and and these you know deeply radicalized voices who are really really special um you know eric barryman is another a young um black artist working with um the Worcester group he did that piece called the b side which went into the prison songs of the state penitentiaries from the 60s on and you know we're going to work with we're going to work with him and kate again on on the next piece so it's not just like how do you program a season it's really like what's the long term what's the long term commitment in terms of what are people thinking about and learning about that we need we as a culture need or what i feel we need or i don't know what do you say to this idea but people say now we maybe have to but you never do the kind of the big festivals but still artists fly in with airplanes and stay in and leave right away and um and then there's also community how do you find a balance how and did this time we live and now did it change something or this is reconfirming what you always thought was the right thing to do well it makes me want to it makes me want to do and try to figure out how to do more local programming you know how to how to collaborate with um american theaters and new york companies so yeah i mean because i i'm thinking now is a very important time for us to be looking inward and for us as a culture to be talking and and writing and performing about our feelings especially especially in the in the black community like that seems very very fertile right now as a place where the white institutions need to just break down the doors you know like and you have to do it in a kind of organic way so what do we have to do let us know what do you think we have to do i don't know i think we have to we have to get involved in a very different way we just have to engage you know relate it's relationship building is really what it's about you can't just change you have to build relationships so i think that's where i'm where i'm looking and i think that's where our eric and i are looking i don't know who's talking i don't know i'm blank if we take your mic take maybe can you all uh yeah take him off the screen um or mute or mute him um yeah so yeah so i think that is also i think what you say to have long lasting um artistic collaboration but i especially i i i think what is important in your work that you do also international global uh global programming because we it's a big island america so the voices on the streets the diversity on the streets we we hardly see in the commercial theater very little and also in the plays they often seem to come from london um but i think your programming really is such a rich contribution you know towards what we call world theater like there's a world music you're so close to the music world um but also we all musicians listen to musicians from around the world to inform their local practices and i think sanctance is a place it's will be so hard to to um yeah reconnect to it it's so much funding loss audiences come back when it might take a year to open again right and i don't know what is your what what do you think what what does your task force think in case even let's say a year but how long will it take that people come back what are there any thoughts um about time yeah well at the risk of i i don't want to get into a heavy conversation about the soul sucking conversation of our current leadership i don't want to get into that conversation but i honestly believe that um that we will not get well under this leadership so if there is a change in the in the presidency um and there's a commitment to getting well i i think we have a chance so uh i i believe that very strongly i believe i believe very strongly we we cannot get well under this situation because there's no interest in that and it's a death it's a death trip so um so let's get through this election that's the first thing like the first thing is are we saving our country or not so if we're saving our country then we can start to think about how we how we recover um so that's the uncertainty one of the things that opened up my thinking and took me out of depression during this these last few months and i think opened up the door to doing the concerts on the roof was i couldn't live with so much uncertainty so i was looking for one thing i could feel certain about and that was the one thing i felt certain about that as long as this guy's president we will not get well and somehow knowing that certainty for myself is like okay so in the meantime what can we do and that was kind of like we're not going to talk about opening we're not going to worry about that we're going to just bring art to people we're going to try to make people suffering less we're going to try to have a voice we're going to try to give voice to others and that is what we're going to do and that is what our job is and so that's what we did all summer long so i'm still in that mode um hoping that if opening is the answer that's that's the answer once we know that we can recover um so i guess that's my answer to your question it's like yeah we'll get back to we'll get back to bringing artists from overseas we'll get back to we'll we'll build relationships now and we'll do workshops and we'll prepare for the summer and it'll only be a few months and we can get back on the roof and you know we will just keep our as much artistic life happening as we can if you could share what what what might be dreams like one day what you say what are artists you look up to what are people who you want to bring and in a sense of you know we might not have heard of you know who should we pay attention to what not that i'm asking about program at all but what do you think what art at the moment is um is is of necessary we have next week coming up actually going to talk with carol martin from NYU who wrote about the theater of the real the whole idea of documentary theater and i think they turn to rhymes in a way um is is part of it we're going to have nickhand from the tricycle theater in london who you will know from that that big great game and uh ruby mooray and then hotel moron from rotterdam and what do you think what what tendencies in theater will be what will it be will it be a documentary work might it be more work that reflects the quotesque and in comedy or is it will it be classics a return that we heard from many artists who are going back to you know indian classics great classics european classics but what what do you feel your global view that you have it's so interesting because we're doing we're about to stream two concerts that were kind of seminal to sanans right they changed the uh they changed who we are and and who we became you know we always say we we meet at the intersection of theater and rock and roll and so we're about to to stream the two big rock and rollers that that were made into films because we also didn't want to stream just archival stuff so we're going to do songs for dralla which was the reunion of lou reed and john cal and then we're going to do lou reeds berlin which um you know was was a piece that he had made it was an album he made he it was panned he put it away for years it was never done live then we did it live then it was made into a film i mean while it's never really been shown here so it's like i was saying to to um to lori anderson you know lose lose um widow and julie enchana who's the direct film yesterday i said it seems like we have to rescue berlin again because it's from obscurity and oh and now we're going to look at andy warhol again now it turns out it's some big anniversary of andy warhol so it's kind of interesting to me that we're going back and looking at two seminal films but these are artists that were very very committed and very in the moment of their time certainly when when andy warhol when they made the the tribute when lou and john we united to make that film uh to make that that concert and that was an important thing because he had recently


HBC Dudgers, welcome back. Our next guest is here with a very, very credible message of if you have a dream in HBC, you can do nothing but help you get there. So don't stop believing in it. She is 2017 Hampton University graduate, Khadija Doso, beautiful African name, not Doso, Doso. And she is the principal of Doso Beauty LLC. And the recent winner of $250,000 from a campaign from Virginia's own Pharrell Williams, investing in black and Latinx companies to make a difference here in society, and particularly in our community. So Khadija, it is an honor to have you on this. Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here. I'm super excited. This is obviously a big deal because it's a big amount. But for you, is it the realization of something you always visualize for you and your company because this is a dream you've had for a long time? Absolutely. Or is it kind of like, whoa, this is a surprise. I didn't expect this coming. So a little bit of both, right? Like so super excited because this is something that has been a dream since I was 10 years old. I've always known that I wanted to own an organic Goody Empire, just didn't really know how it was gonna happen or when it was gonna happen. Very, very surprised, but not surprised that we won the grand prize for the HBCU black ambition prize. Because I had a feeling, you know, that something was gonna change. Like 2021 has been an amazing year for Doso Beauty and like this was just like the icing on the cake. It's like, it's still the deal and let me know that like, hey, like this is the purpose that you're supposed to be walking in. And like you need to take this opportunity to go forth and prosper. So let's go back to the beginning, right? You said you visualize this for yourself at age 10.  Right. You grew up in Philly. How did you go from Philly to Hampton? And how did you set a course such that college was not an obstacle to your dream but an asset? Because a lot of people say, you know, I'm going to school and I know that's the right thing to do, but they feel like it's something that gets in the way of their dream. How did you kind of reverse engineer that prosperity? For sure. So even if we take it a step further, like I was born and raised in West Philly, as you mentioned, but my grandfather, he migrated from South Carolina to Philadelphia in order to be an entrepreneur, to be a masonry, right? And he did construction and built some of the most pivotal buildings all over the city. So I grew up around entrepreneurs. My uncle Marshall was actually a graduate of Hampton University as well too. And so obviously when I was a junior, he's like, listen, we got to go to an HBCU tour. We got to visit Hampton. That's my alma mater. And I stepped on campus and like literally one of my friends, he was a freshman at the time, but we're friends now. He's like, hey, are you a freshman here? And I was like, no, but I will be next year. And so I was just super excited to be there and to be to go from Philly where the crime rate was high and like I didn't see a whole lot of positivity as much in my community or college educated folks that were in my immediate circle. I was excited to see a sea of beautiful black people. That were trying to be successful and like that came from various different backgrounds and various different, you know, origins. I was excited to say, hey, like this is a great opportunity for me to learn. And so going to Hampton would have never stifled my ability to build docile beauty because like I said before, I didn't really know how I was going to start it, but I did know that I needed the formal education to understand how to build a business, right? Even after I graduated from Hampton, I didn't just say, hey, well, I'm going to start docile beauty. I said, no, like let me go into consulting so I can understand the foundations of the largest big four companies in the beauty industry, understand how they really navigate their systems, how does their operations happen? And I can duplicate that and modify and take bits and pieces from each of the different companies who are doing great things to create my own empire myself. So, you know, I'm super excited and grateful for Hampton because that formal education, that network and that confidence that it helped it just reinforcing and stealing me is what helped me to build the business, honestly. Let's talk about it a little bit. So, you know, obviously Hampton is one of our most esteemed HBCUs, but can you give us any particulars about how that network and how that academic training, specific examples of how that works for an entrepreneur? Because I think people associate college would come out and get a job, not come out and start one where you can create jobs. So how does that network and how does that infrastructure of training work to do something like that? Right, so number one, that network like allows you to have a larger network than, you know, that supports you, right?  But like, they go to B school to really see what their network is gonna be, right? Or how they can build their network with people that don't look like them. So going to a HBCU with people that look like me, with people that I knew that were in my corner and supporting me, and my dreams helped me to kind of give a bit more structure and guidance that I would have if I went to a PWI, right?  In my personal finance class. And so even having that foundation and by building my first business plan, that was pivotal because that helped me to sit down and think about like, what is this business that I wanna build? I know I wanna do organic beauty, but like what is the financials gonna look like, right? How do I kind of wanna structure it? Is it B2B to B2C or is it just B2B or D2C, right? And so understanding that nomenclature as well too, in going to HBCU, being able to have access to my professors that are also entrepreneurs as well as professors, as well as who have worked in corporate America helped to give me a lot of perspective of like, hey, there is a guided place, right?  You're out of school in 2017. Obviously you're in, you're fully immersed in your business. Can you talk about one of or some of the darkest moments in trying to build one and how you persevere through that? Absolutely. So I'll say after I graduated from Hampton, I went into management consulting at one of the big four firms. I had a terrible first project whereas though one of my actual managers was like, prejudice, right? Just flat out prejudice. And she gave me hell for lack of better terms. And so being fresh out of college and going and having that experience, I'm like, oh my gosh, like what is my purpose? I mean, I pledged Delta, like I was the president of the Northern Atlantic Pre-Alumniac Council super involved in school and so I go from that to like being at a job that's supposed to be a dream job. And I feel like I'm not doing well. I feel like I was in a really dark place. And so I ended up rolling off of that project which is a consulting term for those that know. And I was on the bench, which means that I was not assigned to a project for about four months. That was very, very difficult. In the midst of that, my grandmother who was the most important person and still is the most important person to me in my life passed away, right? And so I had to persevere and say, hey, like I could be in this funk. I could be in this state of depression for a long time, but you know what? Like one day I stayed up for three days straight with 72 hours, I'll never forget it. In February when I started the business, I said, you know what? Like I need to make my grandmother proud. I need to make myself proud and feel like I'm myself all over again. And so I was able to pull myself out the mud because the eagerness to build this empire, it literally just, it kept me awake for 72 hours. You bootstrap this business from the top and there's a lot of us who have done that, meaning that you've self-invested. You don't, you didn't at one point have a lot of investment. You didn't have advertising, you didn't have seed funding. You did this all with savings and stuff. So for those of us who have done it, kind of explain that process to folks of bootstrapping and what it teaches you about managing a business and building one from the ground up. For sure, yeah. I mean, like, honestly, I didn't have that much savings saved up, right? I just decided, I'm like, you know what?  Like, you know, you have a network here, but you have a network back at Hampton. So what's the first thing that you can kind of do? And so I always tell people, go back to your business plan to say, all right, cool. How can I begin this business with the lowest cost product that I'm gonna make the most profit off of the most margin off of it? For me, the infat was make eyelashes, right? And so I would get the make eyelashes for a certain low cost and say, all right, I'm gonna market it well. I'm gonna have brand ambassadors that are people of some of my Nios and my friends that I know they're on campus. And I'm gonna say, all right, cool. We're gonna put our return on investment, right? We're gonna try to get our return on investment. Of course, when you first start a business, you know, you don't usually see return ROI within the first three years. It's usually a deficit. But bootstrapping without any help at all whatsoever, it teaches you to really be disciplined about your spending habits from a business perspective, but also from a personal perspective. How often are you ordering out, right? Versus like actually, you know, cooking, meal prepping, all of that and so on and so forth. Lifestyle, right? Sometimes people, you know, people that I started off working with, we had this amazing job.  And I'm like, I don't got Equinox money, honey. Like, so, you know, like the paycheck says one thing, after taxes says a whole another thing. And then after I pay for my business expenses, that's completely different. And so even like choosing a healthy lifestyle and like making sure that you're being frugal about a lot of things, right? I chose to invest in myself and my business. I see that as in a full investment. So it will be times where as though I would pay for products before I paid my rent because I believed in myself that much, right? And you gotta have a certain type of tenacity and hunger about that, right? Again, no funding at all whatsoever within my first two years. It wasn't until actually the pandemic happened that, you know, I went $1,000 from the Facebook grant, right? They were supporting black home businesses and giving us like free ad credit. So that was the actual first time that I actually received funding from any person at all whatsoever. And this is last year in 2020. Started the business in 2018. And so, you know, it was difficult but I think at the end of the day, it was so rewarding because it made me more intentional about the products that I was purchasing. Knowing that like, hey, if this is my last $1,000 that I had to give for the next two months into this business, I'm gonna make it last, right? I'm gonna make sure that I'm investing it correctly and say, all right, cool. What's my breakdown of like what I'm investing in as far as the products are concerned, as far as marketing is concerned, I need a website, I need to pay a web designer. I also need a graphic designer. So, buzzening is super key when it comes to building a business in your, when you're bootstrapping or even if you have an initial investment because nobody's gonna invest in you unless you have a flushed out plan. Mm-hmm. How many years did you have to skip Hampton Homecoming? Savin' up. Honey. I went to the first one. I went to the first one because that was right before I started the business but the second one I was like, listen, catch on a couple of years. I ain't gonna make it. I've had to catch on a couple of years. I'm gonna go to something real local or say, listen, I ain't got time. I can't keep it at play right now. It's discipline. It's discipline. Was the grant from Pharrell the decombinating moment or was it part of a series for you? Like, have you had uphill moments and this was just the highest peak of them? Or was this the big peak and the only peak for you? This was a big peak for me, right? Definitely life-changing but I had several peaks before then, right? So we received a lot of press and what I really focused on when I encouraged people who are in the e-commerce world is to really understand, become very well versed in search engine optimization at SEO, right? So I have been bootstrapping with my web designer about SEO from the beginning, right? Even before Google was really, you know, as advanced and well thought out as it is now. And so I had already been able to garner press through my publicist and one of our most like important and super amazing articles that we have is from a really large and well-known publication called Madam Noir. It's a really big, well-known beauty publication. And so if you search on Google black-owned braiding hair, if you search hyperallergenic braiding hair, Dosa Beauty will be the first person to pop up, the first business to pop up in that article. Have received tens of thousands of views in direct link clicks through that one article, right? And so that was a moment that I said, wow, like I'm seeing all this website traffic. I'm still, although we get a lot of website traffic, I still have my Wix notifications on. So every time somebody comes to the website, I'm still looking like, where are they coming from? Okay, cool. Let's do those analytics and understand what's going on. How long are they staying on the website? And so that was one of the first peak moments. We also were reached out directly to by British Vogue, by British GQ and we've been featured there. And I mean, the cherry on top was really just a black ambition and really speaking to Pharrell directly in him being sincere and really saying like, hey, you were hand chosen, right? There were thousands of applicants, but like we chose you because we believe in you. That was a lot of reassurance that I felt like I needed to say, hey, I know I'm it. I know that this business is it. And my customers tell me that it's life changing, right? On a daily basis. You've changed my life. I haven't worn braiding hair or my hair and braids in 10, 15 years. Hey, I've decided to go natural because I can now wear braids, right? And their confidence has changed. They're saying like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I have a lot of male customers who use my bare products. And I'm like, wow, like I never knew how to take care of my beard. I wasn't taught how to take care of my beard, right? I need good skincare. Your shea butter, I have eczema. It's changed my life, right? Like I have diabetes. I have diabetic customers who utilize the shea butter on their feet because of the neuropathy, right? And it helps them. So I knew for a fact that my products were changing people's eyes when my customers were telling me. When Pharrell came back and said, hey, like we see what you see and what everybody else sees. That was just saying, all right, cool. We got to do this thing full time. We have to go full throttle and we got to really make sure that we're making a global impact in which we already are. Because our products are shipped around the world, sold around the world. So we're working on some really dope projects and trying to garner and create jobs in Ivory Coast, which is where my father is from. That's where that funny name comes from. And so, dealing directly with goods there, right? And like getting people jobs there and helping out with their ecosystem and all of their new eco-friendly initiatives and everything like that. That's what this is about. And this was already in the cars before I even had the idea of building Dosa Beauty. And that's the beautiful thing about it.  Talk about that process of managing a nine to five or sometimes a nine to seven or nine to nine. And then dedicating all your free time to building something. How did you press through that? And how would you advise young people coming behind you to do the same thing? So I was very intentional about going into consulting because I knew that I can go into multiple different industries and learn a lot of key components and key skills that I needed, right? And so for me, consulting meant like that I could work with those top tier beauty projects. And so utilizing my day job, I think it was really important. It still is important for me to take what I need from there to utilize for my business. I've always said that I wanted to make sure that like I was being intentional about understanding how to run a business, right? How do some of the beauty clients run the business? But hey, I've also been on supply chain companies and projects, whereas I'm learning about SKUs and about, you know, all of those different barcodes and all of that, those things and being in the consumer goods industry for my business, I need that knowledge, right? I didn't know what a GS1 barcode was until I had that project. And so being intentional about learning key skills during your day job is extremely important. And I think that sometimes people get in the weeds of like I'm not doing exactly what it is that I wanna do at my day job. So it's kind of off or not, right? And they get very discouraged, but I've had a rough time, no lie, during my day job, right? I hadn't been on a beauty project since 2019 and I run a be a successful e-commerce beauty business. But that hasn't deterred me from saying, hey, I'm still gonna take what I need from them in every other different aspects and utilize it towards my business. So I would just encourage people to stay encouraged, right? And make sure that you're being very intentional about where you place your time at, the things that you're taking from each different experience at your day job or even, you know, with your friends, right?  You win this big grant, the expectation is, okay, big deluxe apartment in the sky in Manhattan somewhere.  You're taking some time away. What is the motivation behind, it would seem to be kind of scaling back from it, when you get such a huge bump in the life of the company. Right, so was extremely intentional for a few reasons to come back to Philly. Number one, because of space, I was tired of living in a shoebox. I was living around, you know, 30 boxes, very large boxes of braiding hair in my two bedroom apartment, had a nice little office in there, but it just wasn't, I needed space. And so I knew that New York wasn't gonna be a place that I could like, you know, have a space and look for an affordable warehouse and also expand. But I needed to come back home to get rejuvenation and like get back to my roots, you know? Like there's a sense of like grit about being here. And I mean, there's grit about New York, which is what I love. And I think I've done what I needed to do in New York, but coming back home shows me like, hey, like the people need to see that you can come from West Philly, from an impoverished neighborhood, the hood, right?  They needed to physically see me here and in their space and to speak to them and to connect with them in order to be motivated because I was fortunate enough to have mentors to see that I can make it out. Some people don't have that luxury. And so like I have to put on for my city, I have to, you know, be an example, right? I don't need to be fully immersed into all of the negative things that are happening. You know what I'm saying? In the city, I mean, the crime rate is high and all the other stuff, but like they need to see that there's hope, right? And I'm the change that they needed to see.  But first, let us know where we can shop and then get into the advice for the young people. Okay. So you can shop with DOSO Beauty on www.dossobeauty.com, DOSOBeauty.com. We also are available currently on Walmart.com as well as Amazon.com and soon come, DOSOBeauty.com. So a few different plugs there. You can find literally Google DOSO Beauty again, D-O-S-S-O, beauty.com or DOSO Beauty in general, you can find us there. I can't give one piece of advice, but I can give two, right? The first is that your network is your net worth. So while you're at your HBCU, understand that your board of directors and your initial investors and your initial supporters, you're garnering that community there. Be very intentional about your circle and who you surround yourself with because they will help to propel you and you will help to propel them to be successful in your own right, right? You gotta remember that when you're building a business, you need a good board of directors or a trusted community. And there's a lot of other people that might not have your best intentions, but your crew at your HBCU and at your college, it's going to be necessary, right? The second piece of advice is make sure that like you are creating a business plan initially, right? But know that it is going to forever evolve. As you evolve as a person, as your business evolves and grows, your business plan should continue to evolve and you should change your goals and trajectories, right? Like I didn't know that I was going to 13.5x my business revenue in the first quarter of 2021. That's mind blowing, right? Like I didn't know that was going to happen. So that changes the trajectory of my business and how it was growing and how it was scaling. I didn't know I was going to win $250,000 from Feroa Williams, right? But now I have to change and modify my business plan. So as you grow, continue to grow your business plan, but also continue to elevate your mindset too.