Just a little bit about the drama, we're a 62-year-old organization. Our mission is we get to be a team of players where we provide time and space for writers to create the given seven-year residency. We don't charge on anything and we have three different spaces. This is one of the spaces. So not only do we do readings and workshops with the writers, but we also post events like this, forums like this. So I do want to thank Michael Hollinger, who is an alum of the dramaists, and a colleague of Harry and Bob. And so that's how this happened today. And we're thrilled to have, and we just introduced the panelists to you, Harry Power, Robert Hedges, Torban Betz, and Anthony White. Our panel is meant to have a big thank you to a Villanubian University, TCG, and of course Michael Hollinger. I should let you know that with the permission of the participants, I'm actually going to read this, this forum is being live streamed on the internet through a new great TV. So any questions you might ask will be broadcast as part of the live stream. So thank you for that. And I think the only other thing I need to say is please turn off your phones and any other time devices. And without further ado, this is over there, over here, a forum on nuclear development and production. Coming out, I'm great to see all of you here. And don't be dismayed if there are people walking in or a lot of people who got on the list, want to be here, and we hopefully will be. But anyway, we need to start getting on before it's known to whatever else is it's doing. I think what we're going to do tonight, first of all, we'd like to see this as a discussion. And hopefully some of you have experience with American developmental programs, theaters, etc. We'll talk mainly about British experience. And an article, I don't, a job interview. And we're there, all there, they're there. There are copies of American theater that have been donated. So if you didn't get your December issue, which has our article about this, there's some there, please, take them. And it's a great magazine and we're delighted to get it. So I think what we'll do just programmatically so we all understand how this is going to run. Harriet will just talk about findings vis-a-vis the article. I'm going to talk a little more broadly and more use some statistics about new writing. And then we'll turn it over to the exciting folks from Beth and Anthony Way who talked about their own experience in the UK in sort of developmental situations and just how they came to be successfully introduced writers. So Harriet, I'd like to ask, I recognize some writers in the audience because they're relatively old friends, but would you like to raise your hand if you could find yourself as a writer or a clicker? Remember, it's going to be extremely important to hear from you because it's finally all about you. It's our art form revolves around you because you're all about the same kind of business. It's interesting to be a huge dramatist because I feel like we're with programmatically and the four of us are here. Partly because of Todd Lundin. Todd Lundin in collaboration with others to wrote the book, Outrageous Fortune, The Life and Time of the American Late Writing. And both of them I were galvanized and upset by the book and I know that there were universities, generally. It's a perspective about a particular time in our country, but because both of our community lives focus so much as the record into the Bob's case. Playwright, teacher and mentor on new writing, the idea that the playwright in this country typically struggled terribly to make any money at all to help us. And when we had dual sabbaticals from the other part of our lives, we wanted to go alone and look at the new play culture over there and see if there was anything we might learn. See if the Brits did anything we did not, that would be worth thinking about. We saw 62 new plays in five months. We got to be called Anthony's Performer. And they were two of 40 artists, largely writers and also a literary manager, committed to directors, some actors, self-traumatized. And I'm pretty luck, but out of 62 new plays in five months, I would say 15 of them were fabulous and only about three of them. And so that's a lot of stimulation and it made us curious was this a fluke in five months? What fed that ecology? So I don't want to necessarily repeat it, but I guess one of the growing outcomes of outrageous fortune is that more theaters now have playwrights on staff in big positions with health insurance. That's a big deal. The fact that health insurance is common, but for people in the U.K. right there was a stunning, you know, humiliating as an American, and a powerful difference. And perhaps we're looking at the cost of a little bit of change in this country. Certainly that's something we can readily copy, but not having to worry about that as we do. There's someone in the audience that I won't name who didn't see a dentist for a good deal of a very fruitful career. There simply wasn't the money. I'm currently looking down. It's going to go up again in five years. But I know the person who knows who the person is. That's a crazy circumstance. We spent a lot of time in how I used to live. And yet every day on every block in every bus and on every in every tube station, everywhere we went with the degree of diversity in London was a standard. We heard eight or ten languages speak different. And now we're here. Day after day after day. It was interesting that that lost culture, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, this is a completely new city to me, someone who's been there on and off all my life. And it feels that there's an appetite for stories about other cultures. Now for people wanting to know that that religion of other voices may not feel frustrating. We'll hear from you, I know. But it was interesting to us how many writers of color, writers of other cultures, women were on the stages and how diverse the audiences were there. And it felt like, as we spoke to people, this is a country widely described as anxious to have a national dialogue with itself. Seeing the theater is the primary form we're doing that. Um, exciting. Um, there were a lot of people who I just saw last night just landed on our shores, is relatively new ways to get a second production of Moscow Hill and Philadelphia University. I think this is our contemporary chat, I want everybody to know the play to know it. Um, but I said, you wouldn't be here if not to give it back and rid us of what I wish we could figure out from the room. Which is, if you've been there, you know this, that when you leave the theater you haven't seen a new play, even by the strip, and in a nicely bound version. And had I not been able to buy his play, put it aside, read it two months later and realize, yes, this really speaks to me. Who would, who would be here? And um, I'm just going to figure out how to do that. It seems so basic. And all the writers we talked about said, the fact that my play remains in circulation means, at the very least, it's taught in schools, you know, people can find it, people can resurrect it. That's enormous. Now, as odd as this sounds, the other thing that's dropped us is it didn't matter what size theater, every theater in London has a bar, a lounge, food, you can bring the food in, you can bring the wine in, you can bring the beer in and these theaters. The fact before and after, the people who see them has places to be and to be in conversation. And that felt, well, it just felt too hardly to feel something. And it seemed, this isn't so difficult to do, and of course there are many theaters that have that. But that was very powerful, you know, and exactly, you could actually take your drinks into theaters just fascinated to us. And I kept wondering, is somebody going to slurp in the middle of a major moment? But it never happened. Somewhere it all worked out. Um, and that also felt powerful. So, um, okay, I guess the last thing we're going to say is that arts culture in England supplies a lot of money relative to our natural funding. I know, it makes you laugh. There's a poor choice to be at. We're going to either laugh or leave. And there's no question that at some point tonight, the notion of if you have the magic line, what would you do in order to support the right? Sadly, money seems to enter in. I think there's no way around that. Arts Council in England is looking at major cuts, and this has put in a lot of theaters on notice. And it would be interesting to see how they cope. So that's a little snapshot of five-year-old and months into prison now. As well as, um, reading, um, outrageous fortune, and hearing that taught them how to speak, um, I had, uh, I've had a number of students, students, former students who have played, produced, and it was curious to me why, say, Naomi Wallis, uh, Rebecca Gilman, who are both former students, why could they get production so easily and were better known in London than, well, Naomi Wallis perhaps not, but, uh, certainly Rebecca Gilman. Although she's had her body on the show and she's sort of known here, why did she so well know there? We went to, uh, Rada, uh, to do some workshops and that sort of thing. And, um, when I said to a person who works with writers and actors, uh, well, you know, he said, well, do you know any writers here? And I said, well, he, uh, these, you know, former students of mine, said, well, Rebecca Gilman, you know, Naomi Wallis, I don't say that, it's, the writers that make, it comes from your program or something like that. This is largely accidental and we're delighted that, who are, however, what was interesting to me was how well-known narrative writers were there. And, um, we did a survey with the people we interviewed and we asked them to, uh, suggest the top three British writers, um, they really thought we're maybe the next Tommy writers, the next top writers, etc. In the morning people, we got 29 different people, uh, supposedly the top writers in London. Now, considering our small sample, that was a large number.  I mean, this is not to say at all that there aren't tremendous writers here. There are, and they're often well-known, but still it seemed, I wouldn't say easy, but easier for those American writers to get productions there, not reads, but actual productions. So, that was another reason that we had to try and look into this and to ask ourselves, having the working writers really all our lives, um, what was, what was different about the way that, um, productions were monitored or placed when taken and seemingly so quickly got produced that there wasn't these long waiting periods when you're getting endless readings and everybody in his brother is telling you how to rewrite, uh, but really quickly, getting up. Um, our inventions are console England. Um, the, uh, I thought, you know, I might probably just share with this, thinking that that's sort of a read-it, uh, and it's, uh, about 120 pages. This is a study, one of many studies, um, that's, uh, it was funded by course console England to look at playwriting, um, across the country, not just in the government, but across the country. Um, it's an exhaustive study and while all of these studies, including outrageous fortune, you can always look at that and say, well, well, I wasn't this person who consulted her, why wasn't that theater included? You can do that and that's legitimate. Um, they interviewed, I didn't come home, but there are pages of people they interviewed, uh, for this study and the general conclusions are, um, that of the number of plays being done now in the UK, about 67% are new plays. Of that number, about 17% are adaptations, in other words, new versions of it. Um, the box office receipts, there is virtually, um, if, well, you think in this country that new plays, uh, very often are relegated to small theaters, because as the common wisdom is, if you do a new play, it's a lot of sink your theater because you will make any money. However, what the study points out is in the UK, there are as many plays produced at large stages with fairly large audiences, 200 plus audiences, as there are in small theaters. The box office receipts from new plays are as great or greater than, uh, revivals, etc, excluding Shakespeare. Um, so the report sort of puts to the lie two things. One, that, um, new plays will sink your theater and you won't make any money. Uh, statistically that's been shown by these exhaustive studies that that's not the actual case when you talk to the theaters and ask them how much they paid, what, etc. Um, secondly, that audience, um, numbers, um, are just as great or newer as they are for revivals, uh, and that is including Shakespeare. Um, overall, uh, when we, when the study looks at the UK, overall, the place of playwriting is not only promising, uh, but in fact is the dominant mode. Again, excluding Shakespeare, uh, because that's done in the theaters, so we know that. Um, if you talk to individual writers, however, about these statistics, most of the individual writers have almost the same complaints as writers do in this country. Uh, probably foremost is how you get a second production and if your play is done in a small theater in London, will it ever get another production, particularly in a larger theater? Um, that's a worry. And, um, there is a worry among individual writers that the young writers are really sort of pushing out the old writer or middle-aged or mature or established people, that there's such a premium on young writers. And secondly, that there's a fair premium on diverse voices. Now, that's terrific. Um, women writers, women writers are not doing quite as well as they had four or five years ago, but they are in fact, uh, major contributors to the writing scene in the UK. However, the emerging writers, the minority writers, etc, this is unrolling and in the view of some writers at least the privileged group. Um, there's a small theater, I'm not sure whether you guys know this theater, but it's the Angle Theater. And the Angle Theater, um, they're very interested in outreach. And, um, recently, uh, this is two years ago, they had it out in their particular neighborhood, 30,000 panelists that asked if you, have you ever considered writing a play? Would you like somebody to read your play? They pinned these up in longer restaurants, everywhere they could find, and they routinely do these plays that I saw too.  But both of them, you know, you read the life story of the writer. The writer says, you know, I work in this, I don't know, grocery store. I've never written anything in my life. And when I saw this, I thought, yes, I have a story to tell. And so I wrote the play. Now, because the plays weren't particularly finished, it doesn't mean anything more than the amount of time spent with them was very short. And, you know, a lot of passion, a lot of ideas, and presumably in the future, they might indeed become writers, who knows. But the notion in a neighborhood, which is kind of primarily a neighborhood of minorities, it was terrific to encourage those people into theaters. Now, London, compared to, say, the size and, well, the significant size of the U.S. is, of course, tiny. And we were talking about the fact that there is such a concentration of artists of every sort in London, that in most ways that's an unfair picture of the whole country. And certainly, compared to the U.S., where at my last count, there's about 15 or 16 developmental places like this across the country, not including developmental workshops, et cetera, connected with theaters. Most of the reputable theaters have what they would describe as a developmental workshop, as you know. So, comparing the London culture to this vast landscape, where, you know, we were talking about, like, how many player-winning programs, and immediately you would say, well, you can start at 100 programs that actually turn out playwrights. And then, from 100, you begin adding these additional ones that you find. But, so, in other words, every year in this country, the universities are turning out maybe 200 writers every year. And that number is pushing the available spaces and how many possibilities there are for production in the U.S.  Because, now, we looked at most of the theaters that do developmental productions. And it's about, I would say, 15 at most that really do this work. And most 15, then, can call on wonderful directors, designers, actors to get the work done. And you go into a small theater and, you know, in most cases, if you're outside New York, say, you go into a small theater and you sort of expect wildly often that the quality of production will be less sometimes. However, it's not about you in London. The quality will normally be very high. And so, we looked at we spent an awful lot of time just asking ourselves questions about this, what's happening there versus what's happening here. And it's not that there are writers or anything like that. It certainly helps, as Harriet suggests, it helps that there's so much publication for major publishers. And every play that gets produced at a reasonable size theater is going to be published. Somebody is going to publish it. And that, of course, keeps plays in some kind of circulation, even if the next production of that play is going to be in some other city outside London. So, we'll return to some of these larger issues in a bit. But let's turn and hear from these two writers about their personal experiences in the theater there. And then we'll open up and talk about American process and what's going on here. You want to start? Yeah, my experience is probably not typical. I started with an actor and wasn't getting anywhere. I'll do something else. So, I started writing plays. And in one point I had 26, I wrote three play, four play, about a year and a half. One in the writing couplets. One, which was a kind of a service he had to go to the pastiche. And another two, which was a morning in the dark. Comedy's a man who's rather up for the role of doing that. Certainly a lot. But it was definitely a silence, which was very dispirited, because I decided I was going to get up active and not really play around with what the government would do. Then after about a year of rejection, I started coming in. Some of them were very brutal. It was the Royal Court, particularly nasty national. I set my business in three plays after every single new writing in England. And got precisely nowhere. And as I said, there's some rejection into the great side of it. I'm usually leaving poetry in an attempt to teach. Do some teaching and work out what I was doing in my life, felt about lost, I have to say. And then as I was about to leave, I got a letter from our late forms theatre. But he basically really liked all of the plays, because he was the one that was particularly slobbered by all of the literary departments, you know. But when I saw it, I was suddenly all right. And I was stuck out of a bit of community. So basically, when I came back, I had already committed to teaching in six months, I came back. I met up with Anna Neville, I was a literary manager in New Zealand. He thinks the play is great. You might need to do a bit of work on it. We definitely ought to reduce his play. Thanks very much. I look back just to see if it's terrible to orbit an office waiting for the phone call from Anna to change my life and have the play on. And it can't be a year past. And another year, still writes the plays.  And another two years went by, nothing. And I thought of this stage, as if you'd forgotten about me. It's, oh no, no, you've got to be a writer of residence. And then I want to be a writer of residence and there's been Scarborough, where I finally get my first play produced. So to get my first profession to put up for the last thing, I was certain it was a long, long time. And it was brilliant. But then it all started to move on. And then I came back to London and did quite a lot of plays that had also been sorted by these literary departments, were then produced largely by actors, but nothing got the group of actors together. And we did them in sort of fringe theatres, which actually did very well in the sort of time-outs, but it's short. But there were no, there was no money, which was probably the happiest experiences of my life, and people just coming together, doing it without wanting to do it with no strings attached. So in terms of having my plays developed, I have really had that experience. And I later on suggested to me how to improve that first play. And I, I didn't take his advice, I didn't play him at all, gone on. But I did give his advice over to you, and you were talking about the structure. In terms of actually having, getting into an answer you probably know better than I would have been in a building and having a few managers working with you on a play together, I really had a great experience with that. So I have been, my last play was for Hill, which was on the I basically only just finished writing it, and the artistic director just wanted to put it on, so I was actually rewriting it to do the rehearsals, because I was going to take him a back-up hat that he wanted to do it so quickly. Normally it is, well, you've blocked your writers years and years and years before it actually goes on. So my experience has probably not been typical of other writers. There are more in the, are embraced more in the why I'm sitting in London theatres. I've been always felt slightly at home, but I still am, isn't it? So that sums up my, sums up my experience. It's a sort of huge area. When I think about this fantastic article, I think about, and I think, I think a lot of the reason for that, in a way, to kind of think that the main source isolated two people, the up-to-ticket funding that occurred in the department, in the United Kingdom, and that's when beauty companies developed beauty departments, and the dream managers, and there was a huge surge of beauty writers, particularly in the Middle Ages, writers like Sarah Kennedy, all came from this time. To speak really briefly about my experience, I did something that's not visual in the UK, that I'm not in real MA programmes in February. In a way, total experiences were true, I think, to certain of my colleagues who are playwrights in the UK, for example, right place, the instrument more. We don't tend to go to university and study the paper. Three courses that I know that the first course, possibly the first course established by English player Octavia here at the University of Birmingham, around that time when I was speaking, and I went, did my most of that course, I'm originally Australian, and from there, however, my journey was largely similar. I had a couple of plays, I wrote a series of nasty rejection notes, probably for the same people, and I wrote more, and some of the natural beauty, I can imagine. The natural beauty got this body called Studio, where it's an outside building, where they give you eight weeks, a small subsistence wage, and so I wrote that. And then they then got this play with the hands of a young, hungry artistic director in London called Walsh, and this young director just wrote and said, right, we'll do that. And from the time we offered reading a play to the production, I think it was made in four months, and there's a meaning to it, but there's a flexibility in the way things approach and you know, which enables this ingenuity. I became associated playwright at the theatre, the National Theatre invited me to become a writer of residence in 2009, which is, it's been a year there, and from there, my work, more than one production, my work, I published what they were entitled, and so I think that Paris, speaking about a circuitry of mine, companies here, companies in Australia, they're doing my work, of course they can get hold of the physical text, which I think is the policy. I'm currently associate artist, Donna Williams, which is a theatre of London, which was there, which produces plays there, and also to this international time-to-time, and I'm currently here in New York as the London University, that's kind of a horror, sort of, a horror story about me, but in terms of my experience of to talk about, which is a new play developed, the real key is that they're about short, sharp, clear, and together they're about short. Now that's not always the case, and you can find lots of, you know, I think there are pros and cons in that movement, but in general, speaking from my experience, companies like New York, and like the bottom up, where there's a regional part that might have been run, let's say, that's generally my experience. The idea of development is a kind of a shyness about the rest. The directors that I know serve, I think, China, with the idea of best development, that they can give play to the playwrights to put the thing on. There's all sorts of economics that's around that in the UK, that this doesn't happen, that the substance supports that time of activity, the norms, a lack of emotional clarity, this has to make, in my perspective, it's a play, you know, set in on it, and it's done in theatre, all the time, you know, as well, and one of these types of dry economics to put it. Come back to that, one of the things we probably should suggest, although there have been cuts, and I'm not aware of what is frightening cuts in the future, nonetheless, notion that you have an arts council, and the arts council funded this 120-page study of the other business. There was some concern that new writers weren't being encouraged because there was a premium in place on various kind of concocted theatrical evenings and that sort of thing, and then some studies were done just to find out what the stage of playwriting was, and this is enormously helpful that there is an agency that the police wants to test the waters, find out, in fact, what's really going on in this business, and to bring to the general public an understanding of the arts, because in England, at least, and never had a residence in the UK, but in England, such a large part of commerce, etc., is around the theatrical industry. So many jobs say so much merchandising is done in and around the theater so that studies are easier to justify in this broad way to find out what's actually happening, and have some government intervention, by way of funding, what funding is, and what funding ought to be. And so the notion of looking at your country and wondering how culture is doing as a government activity, enormously important now, depending on how the government drifts, might say, oh, that's terrible, that's, you know, that's very good. But just to be able to test the waters of where the culture is, where it's going, that kind of thing is, I think, enormously helpful. So there are a lot of studies that we go yet, in the course of writing art for American theater, just to see how things were going, and what writers, how writers were being, say, privileged within culture, how writers were indeed just being treated in a culture. We were interested in looking at that, because, well, there's lots of advantages to a hands-off approach, as this country's watching is, nonetheless, to look and see what, how things could be better here by the adoption of programs that might, in some minor way, at least replicate what goes on in other places where theater is, a high point of people's experience. And the second thing was, the second thing I want to just mention, we made several, we made friendships with a number of families over there, and just some interesting to try, in a very small way, with a very, very small sample, find out how deeply embedded, say, theater was in the culture, to talk about how plays were received, et cetera. Wow, this is so shocking to us, that there were so many knowledgeable people outside the theater who felt they have staked in what the theater was, and particularly why it was in one way. In a new different way than if you're in New York, where everybody seems to be attached to the theater in some manner, but there, much more of the average growth seemed to be an enormously interesting in what's going on in theater, and therefore pressure can be applied to governments, et cetera, to make sure that funding, when there was a sort of an initiative to cut funding, what I think this is like, three years ago, or something like that, or whatever. The outcry was so tremendous that, yes, there were still counts, but they weren't as Victorian as it was thought they might be. The culture then really comes from a long, long tradition in supporting live theater. That's not necessarily in our culture, but it certainly seems to be at least the culture in New York. What's on that, Eric? Well, I'll give you a little description, yes. I remember a family of non-arists who we talked about the fact that they really didn't have a lot of Shakespeare. It seemed plenty of Shakespeare, so they made a point of going to new plays, and they just sort of, I don't want to say, breathe on me, and that would be sort of my, let me spread your DNA around. Now, now that we're back, I don't find it very productive to wish that how they do things there happens here. Although I do feel that I would like to join forces with anyone in every room who could help make published versions of plays that we're going to have a career about. I want to put it out there. I want to do that. I don't want the possible to do that.  Is there a bookstore left in New York besides the drama bookshop? Well, yes, me and Mr. Yes. We also do have Soho Rep, our playwrights' and they will publish the plays that they're doing. Right, so that there are happy encounters to that to that impact. Yes, we actually were recently there, and we're now living in that history. We can get a number of good plays. Also, I'm just thinking, you know, with Chino Nights, the Daniel Talvitz, with Rise of Phoenix Theatre, where they put on a whole play in a week, they produce it, but the publisher for their they're going to follow us with the New York Theatre Experience Inc. and they have a whole bunch of independent plays that they've published there. So it seems like there's actually... In our garage movies, it's happening. Yeah, it seems like it's more possible if we look digitally than anything. I mean, if I had a play produced and somebody wanted to read it, I would just gladly send them a PDF of it, you know. So I would just make that known, even on a program, just from a playwright's perspective. Yeah, so these are the only people who could walk out of the end of the slide, came out of a book by Chino Nights, The Difference. So the playwrights, Rise of Phoenix Theatre, the history problem of producing house and hope for the best. Is it back and saying... And you noticed it's getting out. I'm just a little unclear what that journey is. Well, if we all went right into it, I wouldn't actually... I think the people best positioned to answer the question, I don't know how I can playwright, what's the journey of getting my play done? I want to invite writers to talk about it. I mean, the large... I don't know if I'm going to say that House Read Disfortunes is not loved in another's book. However, accurately, it certainly seemed to reflect the experience of many writers on the my old experience as a director of the work and a development director that many writers get invited to do reading, discourse, stage, readings, and they don't go beyond that stage. And so there's a little bit of a spin cycle that never yields the outcome. But there are a number of playwrights here. Does anyone want to speak to that? And there are people here in the position of nurturing plays. It would be wonderful to hear. Well, it seems to me, as a playwright, that one of the shoots that you have to fly through is getting the script read, and it's getting the script read by the right person. Because very often you don't know who's on the staff and who's throwing things into the wastebasket. And finding somebody who knows somebody who will be able to deliver that script to that person, I think is enormously valuable, even then it isn't necessarily that you will have a result. But at least you know it was read and you know by whom it was read. And it wasn't an MFA student somewhere getting credits by reading to the public or whatever it is. So that seems crucial. And I've also had the experience in sending things to some of the London theaters. They don't seem to set up as many roadblocks to getting read. So I have my rejection from the Royal Court. And I have my rejection from the National Studio and so on. And they actually get through. And it can take months, but you have a specific critique that is sent back to you so that you have some sense of where you stand. And that's that just to me sharpens the difference between trying to get that done here and getting it done in London. When I was writing visits to the National, one of my jobs was to sit on that theater's meeting path. And we noticed that the CDs of American plays, which we were seeing among the players, we were glad, were extremely long. And the CDs of the British counterparts, the comments on that one. And it didn't take so long to work out. The reason why the CDs were so long is because they annotated the enormous number of development processes that each player had gone through. Workshops, meetings, summer residencies, all of which was sure to really be useful. But it was very difficult to find a production. So whereas there seemed to be many, just anecdotal, our friends here playwrights here say, I'm casting, we're in casting, great! When is the winter going on? Like, oh, this is for the meeting, that picture, well, and I'm like, okay, that's, you know, so I just think that's helpful. I mean, normally, I think that's kind of, it bears out what you're saying. And as well, I think when I was verging on a bit about what was happening to me, and the playwrights, we never followed fitzames, but when I wasn't getting, there were two plays on, and it wasn't getting on, and they'd been directed. I just, as I mentioned, did them myself or did them with the director and actors. Got them on in other places, got, yeah, there was a, maybe got quite a review to that, but yeah, I've literally managed the national one since. I'd said, oh, you're talking the spawn of his career by putting his own plays on, and this public, there's no stuff going to take this seriously. Whereas for me, that was the, those experiences which made me know why I would, you know, put it in front of the audience, but I had to put it in front of the audience, and all the time they would remember I would be a playwright. So we never spawned in my career, but it also gave me, you know, a realisation that I wasn't interested by life, which was, again, playwrights need to feel from time to time, so it's difficult. Yeah, I think I'll throw a few bombs in the wall, but I'm going to see how they land. May I? I'm Ann, I'm a Tony over at Lincoln Center. I think that you're, I was reading the article in The Times this morning about the editor's comments on Betty Friedan's book, Feminine Steak, and I thought, in a way, that's the best thing that could happen. If everyone had liked your play, it would have been the end of theatre. There should be someone who loved your play. Maybe it was you, and it was me, Dorothy, and the actors who went for it. The worst thing that can happen is that everyone loves the same 10 writers, and that's all that you ever see is the same 10 writers. I do believe that, that most things are driven by economics. When we all started in theatre, there were statistics made that 5% of the American population, this is probably in 1969, 70 when the NEA was founded, 5% of the American population had ever been in a theatre. We're not a population of educated people, we're a population of immigrants. So when the Ford Foundation money started, those theatres around the country, the taper, the arena, you know, the alley everywhere, it was introducing theatre that other than touring Broadway shows and DUSA, the most people who had been to Leadville and San Francisco, which was founded by the revolutionists from 1848, so that was always an exception, had never seen before. So that's only 50 or 60 years ago. People like Adrian Hall, who founded Trinity Rap, Dallas Theatre Center, ran that for many years. When he founded Trinity Rap, he started an education program, where every student of the state of Rhode Island, okay, it's a small state, so three productions of Trinity Rap, every year they were in high school. So by the time every student of that state finished high school, they'd seen 12 plays, and that loan takes care of, I don't have to say any more about that. So I don't have to remind you that the highest level of funding for the NEA was under Nancy Hanks, who worked for Richard Nixon. There's no question about it, that was the biggest amount of pie that was ever put into the arts. That's why that building is named after her. I don't have to tell you what's happened to funding for education in theatre in this country. I mean, I'm talking about highly expensive graduate work, and so I'm talking about school children who go to theatre. It doesn't exist, and the level of government funding doesn't exist. One of the reasons that you're seeing, what you're seeing, is because the theatres, I was on a panel with my friend who has my job at the Comedy Club says, a theatre of equal size to Lincoln Center Theatre, and every year, five minutes after midnight on January 1st, they get 99.8% of their funding and a check from the government. Lincoln Center Theatre gets 0.2% of its operating budget. All federal, state, and city sources combine. That's good. I've been dealing with the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg right now, a fabulously glamorous large theatre, and they can't put on their developmental program and able because the government hasn't released their money. So I wrote them today and said, that's a great asset of capitalism is when you have no money, and you raise it, please, you can spend it whenever you want. So I think that to, I mean, I know that all of you know theatres well know that to apply for a grant, to apply to a foundation, to apply for any corporate money, certainly to apply to what's left of the NEA or NISCA, you have to write what you're doing in two years. You can't, you cannot just suddenly announce what you're doing. We're probably the only theatre that doesn't have a season. We don't have a subscription. We can say what we're doing in a month from now because we have a certain cushion. So I think a lot of this inflexibility, the reason that you're seeing the same plays done over and over is because when you say for an application to a grant, we're going to be doing other desert cities. You can put the reviews in and, you know, when we started, there was an absolutely regional character to do playwork in this country. There was the Chicago School of Writers. There was, you created the Philadelphia School of Writers. There was this Bay Area School of Writers. I'm talking about Ma'am and Shepard, you know, Tina, Irene, what she was doing at 40 Seconds with Steve Carter was doing at the NEC. And all of that, you know, there was the, I used to work at the Northwest Playwrights Festival, which were just playwrights from Idaho, Washington, Oregon, because I grew up out there. Now there's very much of a uniformity. And I think a lot of that comes from just the financial pressures that are on. So readings, which I don't think there's a soul in the American theater who likes readings, are things that one can do when one doesn't have to apply for a grant for a particular reading. You just apply or you have money and it's cheaper to do. I would, as I've said repeatedly, love to put a five or 10-year moratorium on all readings and commissions and see what happens. It's not to say you can't give money to writers who shouldn't, but the way that it's working now is coming out of very real pressures that are put on theaters that have to continue to operate. And so to say blithely, you know, we need more money.  I mean, there was no one in favor of supporting the arts. I mean, that's not quite true. But it was a complete failure. The community was not able to rally any success. And even things like Denver, which had that zoo tax, you know, was that called the arts parks and zoos tax, that the arts was hidden in the middle? So there was a little money from sales tax. That was gone. So it's not like we can look around and say, and yet at the same time, this country has a very vibrant theater community. I run the director's lab at Lincoln Center, and I have directors now coming in who are starting theaters in parts of the country that have never seen theaters before. Where is that? I mean, there's theaters everywhere. Little, you know, Appalachia or rural Washington. So it's not like the community isn't thriving. There are people graduating from colleges moving into theater. I mean, it's just, it's just, it's about money on someone.  But I think the English model is so, is so removed from our culture that I can't imagine it suddenly being transplanted here. I mean, we have no money from the government. We only have either individual contributions from audience members, patrons, et cetera, and some, you know, some foundations of work, which is basically rich individuals. Many ways around the world, I think it's a specific comparison of Appalachian armies, but they're too different.  It's when everybody kind of doesn't like it or like it, that you're in trouble. I was just going to say on this, about five, six years ago, about a year and a half ago in London, I was just, I don't know if you want to stay with me. The questionnaire that I've been left with is filling up. They're always going to fill in. How many times do you go to the theater? What kind of plays do you like? What themes and play should be? Do you like comedy or tragedy? Do you like social realism? What do you like more? You know, and obviously the artist and director is trying to do a focus group on the audience, which in my point of view, we've got to guess what the audience wants in order to fill up the housing in order to make money. And then we're going to, of course, define the writers to fulfill those criteria. Good luck. Sorry. It's a nice, nice tomorrow. Absolutely. What can you say? Well, I'm not an interesting hybrid because I'm a dual citizen. I Irish and American, and so I'm sort of there as well. And I kind of really, and I self-produced a lot here before I got into drama, this. And when I go to Ireland and get actors, we get actors from Abby, actors that sit around, I don't know, reading, and I look at people like, oh, and are we getting it out of the first week? Which is, you know, money gone, I have to get it out, which is, we kind of do it. And once I got the idea that I had, which I hadn't been happy for, they were so into it, and they were asking for feedback. They knew that I wanted to talk to them instead of that I could be told, you know, they had a part, they had a beautiful part, have any part about it, and I was really excited to think about it. And I feel like, in some ways, if you're in America, you have to play in a theatre here as a location, and over there, I think that can be a job. We all need to, so I have a player, I've never personally been in a theatre job here, but I need to be able to do that a lot. And I think that their, their benefit on both sides was so possible to not be excluded. But on the left side, because we don't have the arts council here, you can ask them, and look, and they will throw in, because you can begin to start, and you can self-produce. We're there, I did it, I think, like, I don't know how to talk about self-producing, but I thought it was a little bit of why I'm doing that, why I'm just guessing about you, but why don't you get an arts council grant? If you're not good enough to get an arts council grant, why shouldn't you take the money? Where did that come from? And look, they have, look, it's my best moment, and I did a tour over here for one of my plays, and I just, I read it, and I just ran out of all the theatres, and they all saw me, and I would never have it in New York. Because I was a little awkward, and I was, it was out of me, I wasn't saying that I had an intervention behind me, and I could probably put some of the books, and I had to think, and because they were working there, and I think they think of themselves as clear, they have to play rights in some way, that their job is to meet with the public, and that actually, they do not see their job as a thing. That touches on something which I think is largely true of accessibility, is the other thing that is crucial, and that is certainly an experience of a really impressive, um... This is about, I think, I want to talk a little bit about me, I think one of them, I think it's great to see that, I don't think it's too expensive, but we can apply for ourselves when we actually can do it. So, there is a lot to be said, a lot of work to do there, but we're now just up and going to the fact that a lot of people don't see it, and it's easy to take a concept, one thing, while we're promoting it, et cetera, et cetera. Um, but what we've got is, we don't have those systems in place, but we've got a sort of finality for some of the things called the London, um, you know, I think it's an awareness problem, and I'm sure there are people who might want to compute the things on this subject. This is a whole set, and even the approach, to not have to approach those people, is, it's a quality thing. So I think one of the, I mean, one of the reasons we want to work that out, and one of the very different things to actually do in the headroom is, is this concept, where we see why you don't see the people who don't do the headroom. People want to, well, there's a lot of times you don't get all that funny, you don't have an instruction effect, but they go, okay, I'm going to do a kickstart for the one where, you know, go to our feeders, and they say, hey, I'm going to send out a map, wherever you go, you get to come to a column, and I say, I'm going to, you know, those systems are creepy enough, but the danger of the line wants to come to the point is you don't be honest, but the danger of the line, we can now just, just, it's like a poem, very creepy, it's like, oh, I don't know why they're talking here, we need to be follow-raising them, if they're going to be watching us, and we're going to have to spray a lot of the action, we're going to have enough to follow the action, and that's what we're going to do, but they don't need to map something, like we're actually going to take a picture of them, but we should like, that's a great joke. Oh, good job. I have a couple of business questions, since we're talking about money. As far as the arts council is concerned, how does its funding happen? Is it devoted by a parliament? Does it come out of the business? How does it come about each year? What is the capitalization currently, let's say for the last year, if you know it, and from that capitalization, is it like a fund, and then the money's basically invested, and they send out a percentage of that to theaters around the country? How do they choose the theaters that it's going to? What amount can a theater depend on? How does the whole system work? So do we have product loans about this? I don't know generally, but this is, I can tell you by the rule, in terms of where funds come from, the various funds, government overall, but there's also funds from various districts, various parts, I'm not sure the rule. Technically, it happens to be, because there are several things that we know in London that get really a lot of local funding. Sort of neighborhood funding, as well as constantly arts, and that sort of thing. The other piece that I know about that, or that I've read about at least, is that different than an American model where the amount for the arts is, sort of, has to be run through the Congress and that kind of thing. When you're talking about the history in the UK of how money is spent, then the baselines are quite different. And in some of these studies that we looked at, yes, it depends on a certain degree of success and a certain degree of ability to attract various audiences. And now, one of the problems with the arts council is that they are looking at the whole country rather than the theater centers, say. And so, a lot of money is being spread in the Middle East, for example, that was not before, which lowers the amount that's in London, because like everywhere else, you looked at London and said, oh, well, London is going to get a huge, an overly large chunk of what total funding was. And so, that's been changing. And I'm not an expert in this, certainly. We are not studying that. But there's no way to take into account really what the history of the country is. And when you think that, for example, Shakespeare seems to be as alive today and over there as any of contemporary writers, the history of money supporting theatrical production is wholly different in this country. Even the national playwrights who think Eugene O'Neill or something like that. Eugene O'Neill doesn't attract money the way some of these British writers in Shakespeare being the best example do. And so, there isn't a national conspiracy to fund arts. So the national lottery contributes to the arts? Yeah, the national lottery is basically established. And please, excuse me, my knowledge of this is very recursive. I'm going to stress that of how effective it works. But the national lottery to subsidize the arts, that's how it happens. In terms of how the company is distributed, it's all arms and act. The Arts Council is not a part of the government. It is an agency, and it has local arts council that leaves the arts council. On which practitioners and peers sit. So it's absolute arms and act. However, when it's said that, there have been recent series of cuts which jeopardize particularly regional peers. But I think every time you talk about a funding, how money is spent, there is an agenda, and you can, there's an answer to your question. I mean, there are lotteries in this country that fund the arts in different states. We have federal money, we have state money, we have city money as well, that's much reduced. But when you say at arms length, I mean, each country, obviously somebody decides who gets the money. And when the NEA was set up, and one used to do panels, there were so few theaters in the country that the panels would go visit all the theaters and write reports and look at the previous reports and say, oh, this theater looks pretty good in Chicago. That's small. There are now so many theaters that there's no possible way that anyone, I mean, anyone, they can't even be visited. They've completely gone out of the business of even trying to visit them.  In European countries, you have like France and in Germany, you have the additional thing that unlike this country where every year 10,000 young actors descend upon New York to make a career in the theater, let alone playwrights and designers, everyone is siphoned off in their education very early on. So you have to apply to go to conservatories when you're 18. If you don't get one place at the conservatory in Strasbourg or Paris or whatever, you don't go into the theater. The wonderful life of theater people in Germany is because 98% of the possible people were shepherded out of the business at 18 and those who managed to stay and have a job for life. That's not how we do things in this country. Anybody can join Actors Equity and most of them do. So what the result of that is, is you have a lot of social engineering like in France, the subsidy is high and they will decide, again, who knows, the Minister of Culture, the Minister of Culture is appointed by the sitting president. So when that government changes, the minister changes and then they'll make decisions like we're going to move all the major administrations and theaters into the suburbs. And so you have these, you know, feel like in the National Theater you had to go to, you tell me, some completely, you know, an hour outside of London that you can't get to with a taxi, you can't get to on a subway. That's what happened in France. The NEA panels in the old days, they used to give you a list of states that had not received NEA grants in the last five years. They were usually North Dakota, Oklahoma, and they would say, give money to these states because all the money is going to, you know, to California and New York and Chicago and Minneapolis. So it comes with a certain price in Germany, you know, you have these very autocratic, lots of money in Germany, but very autocratic organizations where certain favorite directors are given noodles of money to run certain theaters, in some cases deserved, in some cases not. But it's not at all something that the public can vote on with its feet to say, I support this theater. It's done by Fiat, by a sort of in-crowd of other artistic directors who say, we like him, let's give him Munich, and then you get $20 million in Munich, which is a completely different way than we do business here. But it's a good question because it reflects, you know, money reflects power, and I don't know who sits on the Arts Council in England, but it's, you know, whether it's theater administrators or whether it's politicians or whatever, but it's somebody. And there's an error component of ours. Right. Terrogative start point about cultural differences. I just wanted to point out that this country was founded by the terrorists who shut down the theaters for 18 years, you know, and so here is it, and it is a fundamental difference with expectations of the cultural level here.  Yeah, it's not in the audience's DNA. It's just not in the audience's DNA here that you would, you do want people to go to the theater. I mean, just the number that you said of people in London who didn't consider themselves involved in the fear, but who went to the theater, and especially, I don't want to get this over with, but the pressure now for younger artists to go into film and TV to make any kind of money at all, and I'm sure writers are going to be exact the same pressure. It was always bad, but now it's really getting out of hand. We're a lot of times younger actors are out of the way. Don't even consider it. Don't even consider it. It's funny, right? I always love going to the most Wilson play here in town just so I can sit in the audience with black people, or if I go downtown to one of the small theaters, I love it when I'm not just sitting with kids that are just writers from NYU or where it comes from, that they're even when you go to the theater, you start to recognize, oh yeah, that's nice, that's the one, that's wrong about the crowd. Oh yeah, that's the, they have a beautiful crowd. If you can start to recognize what are these faces, the pool is not wide. Yeah, and yet it's quite this, I don't know yet about young folks going to places where there aren't theaters and founding theaters. He's very happy to me. Yeah, in Philadelphia there are 95 producing theaters. When we moved there in the fall of 1919, there were 25. And that the theater whole thing, the other night Michael Kahn was inducted, and he said there are now more theaters in Washington, DC than in Chicago. So it's a huge theater town.  I think everybody is interested in theaters in a strange way. It's not like it's completely gone out. But I don't know, you guys are aware of the fact that an agent in an agency now gets a statement at the end of every year, right at bonus time that says how much money they've brought into the agency. Now that's a new development. And so how much are you going to push your clients to work at theater X when you can push them to work at pilot B? You know, that's a new development. And if there are actors in the room, you know that you're on a pilot and you're on call for four years without even being asked to be allowed to read the script. So can you do a play when you have to be sent to Hollywood at a bonus notice to shoot? You have no control of your life. I mean, these are all new developments. That's right. There's a theater in London, a theater room, that I think the stage is probably as big as these two rocks. Seriously? And it seats above 60 people. And it's not new. Now, what's the next? Can I get a review? And I'll talk to William Hedley and just about the situation. And of course they know their friendship. And they're not happy about that. Certains guys, however, they're also not in a position to do anything about that. And no salaries, officially no salaries were paid. It's a very, very good theater, actually. And they do terrific work. However, it's, you know, for 60 people to have, in fact, support itself as a professional theater, they do wonderful work. And actors who are Americans of unions, et cetera, can work there. And there is, as far as we know, no repercussions. And sometimes, you know, an individual company will do a play there and what they'll arrange is from company covers, they will give the actors coffee or something like that. It seems to me, extraordinarily healthy, that something like that is possible. Because a lot of people get seen for the first time. And when we were there, we would almost never be there without there being agents there. Looking around at plays, looking around at actors, in some cases, messengers, so in that size of space, the design is strictly minimal. The problem is with that, in my opinion, people want to, and then you actually shouldn't forget that a lot of people take that, it's got to be occasionally forget. And then you go, I have a line. Yeah, all right. Just look at the scale. It's great. I think it's an element in the ecological landscape, but it will suck us dry if it's the only one. And you look in the audience, everyone in the audience, they're already friends with all the actors and actors. And just support each other. Yeah, that is, I mean, I don't know the term, but I know it's similar. That's how I think it probably is.  You know, the young actors in the film show us being in one way, because there's that real performance and the director's not interested. You know, so in these series, those people, and that's the scenario, you know, it's absolutely fantastic, but obviously, I don't know if I'm going to make a contract and we're going to have to make a change. You know, sure. I've had some. But without his doing that, with his experience, he's done a couple of social e-guides and he's one of the young actors out in Brompton, maybe, so, in any of those experiences. But it's that kind of, like the sense that it's going to scenario, we're going to capture that to be completely acceptable. Yeah. I think what's great about your article, and I think what was really remarkable about Outrageous Fortune, is that I don't think, I mean, I don't think anyone is happy with the situation the way it is, and that's a really good thing, because theater has to keep evolving and changing and other strategies need to be used. And so the discussion seems to be a very, a very fruitful one to throw out other models, other opportunities. I mean, the worst thing is if the thing stays in a static situation, as history moves on, and I don't think there's anyone in the landscape that says, this is working for everybody.  And so it has to continue to have ideas thrown out. And that's what's exciting about hearing what's going on in England and trying to figure out, ways of change and institutional change and change in actual process. I mean, the bottom line is, yeah, there is no change in process in the sense that you want a production. The work that you do happens in rehearsal. But how you pay for that production, how you gather the people to make that production cruise in charge, I mean, there have been wonderful developments.  Steppenwolf was such a one when it first began. I mean, things emerged. So I think the more discussion, the more ideas will come out, the more people will try and funding will find and support those ideas. So it seems a fruitful thing to be doing at this point. If we were all happy, there would be no reason to be saying it. You know, I'm going to construct by, like I'm thinking about it, what's the need for fear? It could be the outside. Tooting, I would call it. Oh, tooting. Well, using the animals, not right here. Tooting, actually. Tooting all the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm reminded as I listen to you in a book of tiny theaters that started going on, that I, you know, initially just didn't pay any attention to that I've stuck around and have grown and are doing some of the most daring and interesting work and are becoming players. And because I suppose we've all been in these conversations, which are inevitably and necessarily events in some ways about money.  Talking about some of the success stories, even if they are success stories, in spite of we got an email, the author has not to be identified, but there are some good questions in this email. Whose efforts are actually generating playwrights and plays that we remember or we will remember? From our efforts, what are the plays that resulted that thrill us that are our babies that are going to go on? And I would love to hear a few of those stories tonight before we say goodbye.  There are success stories. I just saw that we could notice that that's one of the right play that's about to be written. It's an incredible question I was going to say tonight. And the practice that playwrights like what they did with that and what was that. It was outstanding. It was kind of different. I would say Irene Fornes. I would say Irene Fornes. Yeah. Anybody ever remember Irene and her playwriting workshops? I mean, we started out with a powerhouse of a powerhouse of writers that came out of that workshop. And her methods, which were incorporated here, too. Should those be published? Should those be brought back in some way? You forget about Irene. She is fantastic. Of course. Chino nights still. The rising Phoenix theater doing the Chino nights. They're one night productions that they do a week full production and it goes up for one night. And they're a week's rehearsal. A week's rehearsal and then they're up and they just make them happen. And it's in, I think, Jimmy 43's back room of bar and they make it happen. And to me it's like one of the most beautiful things that's exactly what you're talking about. They're doing it for, the actors do it for free. Everybody donates their time and the plays are really incredible. It was part of the Phoenix theater and it had to be in the lab. And that's great. I actually, well, last night had a play. And I do the fact that on summer day had to be in New York with John Hallet and one of the people here noted and all of you in the swimming place. And people will send their things here. And, you know, pretty quickly they're kind of working in New York meeting different lines. Just, you know, when we get there late. You know, we were at a panel and everybody said, remember you actually knew the people in the side of the place. Got a few. And, you know, the students would be in the same place. And it got two months up. And people come to that stage and that stage. And, you know, that's all of the New York case. But it felt like a big part. You got the part of your role. But that's a good thing about it. You guys, characters, because I know I don't know who you think you're going to. But it was great. So, since we're here, they need the new drama. So, I mean, the library here is, you know, without that, there's so many plays that I wouldn't be able to read it. I don't think for Kate Fodor is a R.S. I don't think that is actually published. But I was able to come in here and read it. And so it's really great research. Yeah, 62 years old. It's great to see it thriving. Yeah, just the fact that I didn't want to come in to the library, we just wanted to go over a bit. It's not quite how many plays it can be, but for Americans, it's great to hear about it. That is a good sense of community here. Some guys from the R.M.R. are going to be kind of sacrosanthin here. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. There's an organization that's just, the garden, the last property, isn't one of them, called the Antimoos. Yeah. Which is an important gathering of many of them in the summer, because you guys spoke to some of them and this is one of your projects. One of your projects. The Antimoos, there was a group here in New York. They were called the Art Arts, was it? I think it's the Art Arts, model of the Antimoos. And they had to be informed really for a while. If you don't, if you haven't heard of them, probably not drifted away, but I think it was the Antimoos. The Antimoos group is interesting because they, on the first, what, three, three writers, they've helped each other. Definitely. Definitely. And, one of them, I don't know if I can remember. Anyway, they thought it would be a wonderful thing for the London writers to get together up above the pub and meet occasionally. And just talk about both, talk about plays, and talk about how you get your work done and sort of share ideas on that. So, they thought, when they sent out a word to a few writer friends, oh, never. The room was not as big, it was a much smaller room than the, you know, one of the 20 people showed up. First meeting, 140 people showed up. All writers. And all people who, really wanted to talk about how to get plays done, how to encourage more writing opportunities. How they handle budget problems, because even with the Arts Council and the money going to some theaters, it was extremely difficult from what's known to character and production. And that organization, to the best of my knowledge, many of you know more about this than me, it's still going. And there are There's about 600 who are on the list serve and you need to pass where you are to get in and have a conversation. We didn't get that. But we did hear some of the large words of that organization, or the Manifesti, which really came down to, this is not for generalizing a little, but as David Alters, one of the founders, he played a well-established matured and career writer. Not so known here, which is interesting, but really amazed, very amazed, they got there. So writers were turning in very hard tracks of script, because of this sort of insidious process of, well, everybody's going to want to get their hands on them and tell you what to do. And so I can say that he Manifesto of the Antenotes, as I understood it, through David Alters' original reading, so pieces about it was, you only send in the play you feel is ready to be done, and making that responsibility means you've done what you can, not that you never want to hear anybody's input, but that you really want everything you can to feel this work is complete. I thought that was pretty quick, pretty involved. Because the anecdote we heard is that somebody who looked up, playwright, might deliberately screw up a CD and something like that some obvious solutions to put it in so that somebody could work on it. Feel valuable. Feel needed. Justify the enterprise. That happens a lot. I'm going to give you the white light. I'm going to give you some credit for telling me. It's a great form of solidarity amongst writers and clarity. I mean, I think what you're saying is really important because this whole discussion tonight, you know, it's like everyone's waiting for someone else to do it. Everyone's waiting for the government to pay for it. I mean, I think one of the things, again, that you can get from looking back over your history is one of the key things that happened in the new play development movement was when Edward all the produced, had Virginia Wolf on Broadway, which was really one of the first big new play cash cows, four character play that ran and ran and ran. And what did Edward do with that money? He and Richard Barr started building theater on Van Damme Street and produced Sam Shepard and Adrienne Kennedy and John Boyer. I mean, that was Edward's money from people don't know this. Sorry to tell you what he did is that at the bar, Adam Mothbaugh, I was there last year because it was a very well-funded foundation. Yes. And Bob Moss, the founder of Playwrights Horizons, was stage manager for Richard and for Edward at Van Damme Street. So it was, you know, my right to move. I mean, there's certainly, you know, people in theater who could afford to do this without having to be an anonymous bureaucrat in Washington, you know. That's an inspiration. Yes. Yeah. And it's easier for me. I apologize, but I have another business question. No, you like. When you buy your tickets to whatever theater you go to, and you don't want to go to the theater box office, you want to buy them online, does each theater have its own website which sells its own tickets? Or do the theaters and go to their websites redirect you to the ticket center or do you hear so that they don't know who's borrowing their tickets? Yes, exactly. It's both. Large companies tend to have their own, but they're more about how this works for producers. But yeah, it's a little bit of a bother. Because it astonishingly, in this city and in the country, why these theaters don't understand what they need to know who is attending their play. And it's like, when I go to the Lincoln Center website, because I'm a member of Lincoln Center, and I don't want to buy a member ticket, and then I get sent over to the ticket center, I question whether Lincoln Center knows that I'm buying a ticket to the theater production. We do. We do. So you get that information from the ticket center, and do all the other theaters and producers get that information? I mean, the box office is just a money question. You have to put a stamp on it to make money every day. So it's most small theaters. We have a box office that has five full-time people. Most theaters can't afford that. And then we have 43,000 members. So we need telecharges. We just can't afford to. Well, the reason I ask them is because then, after I see the play, I'll get flyers. For the next production, right? Hopefully. But I know this. From other producers of other theaters, that their marketing is more shocking. It's very, very wrong. They're not zooming in on me as a particular theater and what my tastes are in order to target me for specific playwrights, specific production. That's one. I don't know what your experience is, but will you do this? Do you understand what's going to get sent? Obviously, because we have three thousand deaths for everyone to name. And they're a dozen. And that's where their host goes. And many others have it. So we don't have the administration to be able to go through what you came to want to do. We just target you because you're on the phone. And we'll tell you again. So I would be nice to be... I also really think we actually will look at the specific buying habits of all theater. As a consumer, I would encourage you to do that. Because when I look at the tickets that I've bought over the course of a year, you know, there's five from the same theater. There's five from the same producer. There may be three from the same director. Those people, she can keep in character. A lot of them actually do that. I get on my computer, at least, almost all the mirror theaters that me attend. We get everything from... And all the ones that you just hear. They're definitely concerned about. I got one flyer once as a follow-up to a common person flyer. I saw one of his flyers. Then I got a flyer two months later, specifically him. And I thought, well, but I put that... That was the only time. Now it's the shot time first.  I'm not going to lie to them. The designer here, when I worked with one designer, was a resident lighting designer at the New Play Theater in Philadelphia. I wonder, Jerry, if you might be applying to share having many new plays and many not-new plays, what your state as a designer is to the top of new plays? And whether those projects are in any way more meaningful? The state is really a one-shot deal. I brought earlier today a concern with new plays, that doing a new play and then letting it go seems to be not particularly supportive of the new play process. And I'd say that was the one drawback of the new plays that I'd probably worked for, is we would choose a slated play as two for a season and then put our all into doing that. But once we had done that play, we would have done no different than having done a shift for our original album or whatever. It just went on the shelf and went on the next show. And it seems like there really does need to be some kind of support for new plays beyond that production if a new play is really going to thrive. And what really, I mean, just, well, there are networks like the National New Play Network. It feels like in the last 15 years, there are organizations that are more intentionally trying to keep work circulated so that it isn't one or two. Well, I thought that the idea of doing PDFs, in other words, we probably can't get plays published here and everything in it does. Exactly. But I thought that the idea of, you know, because now computers are essentially ubiquitous, and the idea of having, you know, in a program or something, a little thing at the bottom saying, you know, interested in this play, you know, contact this website or this person or whatever to get the PDF in the script, seems like a way to give the script a life beyond the production since we won't be able to sell the book at the door. I hesitate bringing this up because it's such a different model, but I studied Danish theater for young audience companies and they have an entirely different funding source and structure, so it's very, very, very different. But one thing that's kind of fascinating, and this is also from a company creates its own work and it's almost like it's theirs and no one else does it, but the thing is that they'll do a play over the span of 10 years. They'll do that play several times. Bringing back a play is never an issue because it's considered one of their pieces. So it's a repertoire. Yeah, it's their repertoire and it's kind of a funny thing that the revival is this, you know, but it's also that element of, well, we think people will come to it and I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing, but it's just a quite, I wonder if people would ever want to, well, we'll do it this year and then we'll bring it back. I think it does happen, but I think there's that element too of how much are we connecting our identity to a work and that we really call it something like that. It's not so, maybe I shouldn't even bother because it's so good. Well, I think it's very, first of all, the idea of models in other countries, it's very stimulating to me. I didn't know the scene in Branson at all, for example. We should know this thing. Denmark, no, I think it's very interesting. It also might be interesting to bring back a play and not a production if you see the difference and making that, bringing back production is just retrading something and I don't think it could potentially do so. Whereas bringing back and re-imagining the version of the play seems very exciting. I was going to finish. I had to play on the finish but now I was completely amazed because the actors and the directors and the writers are all on the sound board. Government sound board. There's no self-controlling, there's no anti-matter milling.  Basically, you almost have seen that job in a while. And so the sort of edge you would take, you're not the only one. The actual art, go on out of the actual art. I spoke quite a few different things. Very casual, I'm not saying any sort of I'm not making a judgment about what the finish is but what art was. See the actors, they were very lucky days of my life and I don't know how to say it about being an actor. Whereas the humbles, that's just a point I had. You talked a lot about marketing and getting audiences in the theater and selling tapes. The component that particularly disturbs me, I know a lot of actors who are a lot of working actors and players who don't go to the theater and don't see anything because it's pretty good. And I know a lot of people who are working in the theater who don't see anything. Because of the expense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so as you might have not seen anything, you keep some of the price. At the same time, there is cheaper theater. I mean, I can't afford to go see anything on Broadway, for instance. But there's horse trade, there's tons of different places that are putting on Adam Sipwitz's clown bar, 12 bucks. I think it's one sort of an expector. Yeah. I don't mean ethanol, but I mean, also, I mean, you really need to see everything. If you're a working writer or you're working actor. And it's the same with training programs. I mean, kids who are at NYU or in junior have no time to see plays. Yeah. I agree. I agree. Absolutely. But I mean, if you're young, you can do link tics and student tics and obviously the ticket booth and sit in the second balcony on TV after you get in. Well, I don't know if it's going to be much more likely to go see a good night. I can't want to do this type of romance. Right. Just that I'm expecting my families to take a channel on how to do the A for A on the dollar system. There's also different cultures. So like Chicago has a professionals week and something like that, where it's less reduced prices. Or I was really amazed when I went to Signature that they would have an entire performance that people could come to work. That's like the dinner menu at Sardis in the old days. Yeah, if you had an equity card, you could get dinner for $10 at Sardis at the studio. One of the things about, say, the Royal Court, a factory that is that term, possibly, they're not throwing things out. They're doing first class productions of most things. But in some seasons, they do about 24 to 28 productions a year. And so there is some of the industry there keeping alive both theater for audiences, but also they run a terrific number of actors through those programs, designers, except that there's a lot of playwrights both in residence and people that you're just to stop simply watching. It's absolutely lively. Now that doesn't mean at all that every production you see there will be actually good. It'll be interesting, but maybe not more than that. But as a service to the profession, I mean, you think this way that writers, yes, if the play is produced, there's an amount of money, but in fact, there's no guarantee that there will be second productions, anything. So the rest of their time there is doing something else. It seems to me what I think about this after a very wrong career working with Lions, that something in the system needs to be adjusted or changed. Because right now there are too many very challenging people who get drawn off into our professions. They don't get to do what they love to do, that are often very good with doing this. For us, going all the way there, we've always went one with theater, but this last time we were over the, oh so many years, about 60 new plays. So we were going to all of the theaters. Anything which was really a professional theater, not necessarily a copy of it, although there's a lot of great theater that goes on in the house. And what a wonderful time that was, and the number of productions that we thought, what was our ultimate talent that weren't good, it was about six, and we saw over 50. And in all of this country, in any way, there's more buying in, more resources, more possibility than right now, any country in the world. And so you wonder about just the state of the theater, and I love what you said, and I tried those questions again, to that theater, and in a certain way, that theater gives us, really, a standard on which to judge an awful amount of work that's in the rest of the city. Nonetheless, looking at the total picture of what Broadway is, what you can get there, where the bulk of audiences end up, and trying to separate out which of the smaller theaters really provide a big bang for the bulk, hopefully the bulkiest blowback. You wonder what the next step is.  And that is all focused on, sort of, one person whose only job that year, regardless of how well-fated you may be, and say, etc., nonetheless may be the only thing you do for the next two, three, four years. Something wrong with that system. Something funny, really wrong. And, you know, what the chances are, certainly for us in this room, of there being a regeneration of theater as really vital, healthy for the bulk of the population, not that small coterie of people who, if you go to a lot of theaters, you can see the same people showing up again and again. It's a funny problem for this country. And, of course, before Britain, with government changing and different attitudes toward how healthily the arts will be supported, I mean, that's becoming an issue there. So, not to be depressed, but on the other hand, when you're seeing really terrific work by people, so what great, what the future is for these enormously talented people? Well, I look around this movement that are definitely, you know, the next generation, and it gives me hope to support the next, I think so, past time. Thank you all so much for being a part of this.


There are some men's style topics that really tend to divide people, and this is definitely one of those. What's up guys? I'm Brian Sacawa. You're watching He Spoke Style, and today we're talking about whether or not you should wear a watch with a tuxedo. First I want to tell you this video is presented in partnership with Crown and Caliber. Crown and Caliber is the number one place to buy and sell pre-owned luxury watches online. He Spoke Style viewers can save $150 off their first watch purchase at Crown and Caliber. He Spoke Style is used code HSS150. So wearing a watch with a tuxedo, some people say it's okay, some people say no way. So this is one of those topics in menswear that never goes away. People have been arguing about it, debating it for a very long time, and the thing is, as is often the case, there are two sides to the story here. And I have to say that both sides make some very valid points. So what I'm going to do is to talk through some of the reasons that are generally given against wearing a watch with a tuxedo, as well as some of those that say wearing a watch with a tuxedo is totally fine. And by the end of this video you will definitely know exactly where I stand on this. So there are two popular arguments against wearing a watch with a tuxedo, and the first one is very simple. It's just that it doesn't look right. And to be perfectly honest with you, I think that's somewhat of a fair point. A tuxedo is a very simple garment. It's minimalistic and it has very clean and elegant lines. And I'd be lying to you if I didn't say that there have been times that I've put on my own tux, added a watch, and then thought that the watch peeking out from under my shirt cuff and jacket sleeve just kind of threw the whole thing off balance. Reason number two is more concerned with etiquette and being a proper gentleman. So the thinking goes that if you are attending a black tie event, that the event is obviously being hosted by someone and wearing a watch would signal that you are concerned with the time, which would then be construed as an insult to the host. I invited you to this fancy party. Why do you need to know what time it is? Do you have someplace else to be other than this fancy party that I'm throwing? So I think both of these arguments are fairly reasonable, especially if you consider that black tie in its purest form is a pretty strict and prescriptive dress code. There are those things that definitely need to be right, like wearing a cumberbund. You have to do that. And there are those things that you should definitely stay away from.  But the thing is there is not just one way to do black tie.  And I would even throw in cocktail attire into that mix. So with all those variations, it only makes sense to me that some people would entertain wearing a watch with a tuxedo. But for the ultimate definitive answer of all answers to the question, should you wear a watch with black tie? I think it is appropriate to consult the man who literally wrote the book on men's style. Of course, I'm talking about Alan Flusser. So submitted for your approval, this relevant passage from Mr. Flusser's Dressing the Man, Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion. And it reads, simplicity should govern the choice of jewelry for formal wear. Studs and matching cufflinks can be made of plain gold, black enamel, or semi-precious stone. Mother of Pearl, also handsome. It is perhaps more appropriate for white tie. Fine sets of studs and matching cufflinks can be found in antique shops that specialize in old jewelry. The most interesting examples are those made between 1890 and 1930. You might also look for a gold pocket watch and chain. If you choose to wear a wrist watch, remember that the thinner the watch, the more tasteful it is. Black bands are recommended. So mic drop, I'm certainly not going to argue with Alan Flusser. And the thing I want to point out most from that quote is that he does not have any sort of a version to wearing a watch with a tuxedo. Again, and I cannot stress this enough, it's that the rules of style are guidelines. I have always been a proponent of whenever rule of styles invoke, that I turn to the one rule, which I consider to be the golden rule of style, which is that if it looks right and it feels right to you, then it is right. You can know the quote unquote rules better than anyone else. You can read more books on men's style than everyone else. But the thing is that book smarts and what works in theory does not always translate into a real world success. There's something to be said about going by feel instead of making a decision based on what you've been told you should or should not do. All right, so I've laid all my cards on the table. Obviously, I think it's fine to wear a watch with a tuxedo, but it needs to be the right watch. Now, what is the right watch to wear with a tuxedo? For me, there are a few criteria. Number one, it should be time only. Number two, I think a watch with a tuxedo should be in either yellow or rose gold. Three, it should have a leather strap, preferably black, as Mr. Flusser recommends. And finally, the watch should be on the thinner side. Now, what are the best specific watches to wear with a tuxedo? Here are five of my picks. First, I have to go with the watch that I wore with my wedding tuxedo. Obviously, not a very economical option, but one of the most beautiful formal watches in the entire world. This is the Vacheron Constantin Historic Ultra Fine 1955, a very classic and elegant 36-millimeter case size, a thickness of just over four millimeters, black alligator strap, and a beautiful gold movement visible through a display case back. This watch is pure beauty in its simplicity and one of the most elegant watches that could be worn with a tuxedo. Next is a simple and beautiful watch from one of my all-time favorite brands. This is the Alanga and Sona Saxonia Thin. It's a time-only watch. There is a pink-gold example, though it also comes in white gold. Dial is silver, case size 37 millimeters and 5.9 millimeters thick. The pink-gold version does come with a brown alligator strap, though that is easily swapped out for a black strap if you wanted to wear it with a tuxedo. Next, an all-time classic, the Cartier Tank Solo. Again, this is a time-only watch. Case size is 34.8 by 27.4 millimeters. It is 5.5 millimeters thick. This watch has a quartz movement, which means that it's going to cost a lot less than an automatic movement. So if you are looking for a classic, timeless and very versatile watch in pink gold at a fairly reasonable price point, I would definitely put the Cartier Tank Solo at the top of your list. Next watch is another very, very simple and classic time-only watch from Vacheron Constantin. This is the Patrimony. Now at 40 millimeters, it is on the larger side compared to the previous three. But for some people, 35 to 37 millimeters will feel a little too small on the wrist. This is, again, of course, an investment piece that would definitely become an heirloom in the family. My final pick is the Patek Philippe Calatrava. So do not assume that because it is a Patek Philippe that the price is going to be completely out of reach, I have seen pre-owned Calatravas in great condition for as low as $5,000. This watch is very old-school in terms of size. The newest version is 36 millimeters, though the older ones that you'll see frequently on the pre-owned market generally are around 33 millimeters. This watch does have a small seconds indicator which would seemingly disqualify it from my tuxedo watch criteria, but you know, you really cannot argue with the elegance of the Patek Philippe Calatrava. I will put pricing information for all the watches mentioned in this video as well as links to some of the watches that I think are very fine choices from Crown and Caliber. Reminder once again that he spoke style viewers can save $150 off their first watch purchase from Crown and Caliber with code HSS150. So having watched this video and heard both sides of the argument, I want to know what you guys think. Is it okay to wear a watch with a tuxedo? Leave your comments below. Thumbs up if you liked this video. Hit that subscribe button and until next time, thanks for watching and stay tailored.