I'm a dramaturg based in New York. I co-founded Beehive Dramaturgie Studio. I'm director of New York, a king company of Broadway. And I also work as a freelance dramaturg. I'm gonna sit and open my notebook to the page of my notes, all right? Yeah? Right, so welcome to this panel in practice new play Dramaturgie. So I'm gonna give a brief introduction after which I will mostly stop speaking and let these people do a lot of the speaking and let you chat with us as well. So when I was thinking after last year's conference about the sorts of discussions I find most useful in a future gathering about dramaturgie, I started to think about how grateful I am for opportunities to learn from other dramaturgs and how rare those opportunities are. Applicable tools that I can take, I think about moments in passing with dramaturgs like John Diaz and Janice Parran and James Leverett and people who I've just picked up such useful things from that I hold on to this day and how that's so much easier for actors who are in rehearsal with each other, getting to observe each other's processes, directors get to assist each other, designers get to assist each other and you can see the work that designers do on stage. Rarely dramaturgs get to be in the same room with each other as we're practicing. It's so hard to point out to what dramaturgs are doing on stage. So I was trying to think about opportunities, how we could recreate an absence of actually observing each other in process, could we gather in a conversation for 90 minutes and share something useful and applicable about our practices with each other. So that is the goal, I have no idea if it's possible but my selfish curiosity has led to a session that I hope will be useful to all of us. So I brought together these four folks that I really admire. Some of them I know them and how they work a bit because they're going to chat with them, some of them I've really never had a substantive conversation with, but I've admired them from afar and they did respond to my cold calling now and agreed to chat about their work. And so if this is successful, we will sort of all walk away with something interesting that we can apply to our future dramaturgical processes. So I challenge us all to be as specific and thoughtful as possible and thinking about what we really know that we have gathered over the course of our careers that we can share with each other. So they're going to give a brief introduction to each about themselves. I've asked them to chat just briefly about what they're working on now and one aspect of milk play dramaturgy that they feel they're specifically positioned to talk about something that they're passionate about and one aspect of their practice they've developed. That will lead us into a discussion about how we approach a variety of familiar new play dramaturgical challenges and then I'd like to open it up to conversation with you all, questions from you, strategies you've developed and that will take us hopefully to 90 minutes. So if you can just go down the row and if you can give your names and what you're working on now and just a couple of minutes about an aspect of new play dramaturgy that you'd like to speak on. I shouldn't sit here. Hello. Hi, my name is Martine Green Rogers. I am the president of the literary managers and dramaturgs of the Americas. I am an assistant professor at the State University of New York at New Pulse and I also am a freelance dramaturg and my current work right now, I think there's sort of a two-fold thing that's happening in my academic life. A lot of what I'm doing is trying to teach students who are either because they're being forced to or because they want to learn more about dramaturgy. I should probably clarify that. In the theater studies tract, all the students have to take a dramaturgy course so whether they continue to keep taking further dives in their dramaturgy is dependent on whether or not they are interested in it. So everyone ends up in the introductory course and then after that, either they come back or they don't. And part of what I do there is try to teach the students how to interact with a living playwright. And so I usually arrange to have, we dive into a play. I usually end up asking a playwright friend of mine who might want lots of horribly unsolicited feedback. Or maybe I should take them back. It is solicited because they signed on to do the thing with us. But we're really interested in having a conversation with a bunch of students about developing a play. And then I also, in my freelance life, I work very closely with the Great Plains Theater Conference and I think in some ways my reflections will deal a lot more with that work and thinking through that. And then I also, a new piece that I'm gonna be working on, I'm going to the Texas Black and Latino Festival in San Marcos and I'm gonna be working on a play with Robert Bernati and Melissa, whose last name I'm blanking on right now and I apologize Melissa if you happen to be listening to this right now.  And essentially to sort of address some of the things that we're talking about. One of the aspects of the new play Dronator G that's really meaningful to me in thinking about my work with Great Plains is really about the idea of who has access to these new works. And I mean that on numerous levels because the Great Plains Theater Conference is located in Omaha, Nebraska. And so thinking through that's not necessarily the place where everyone thinks, oh that is a hub of new play activity but it actually is in this really amazing way. And what's meaningful to me about that is watching a lot of it, especially to me, writers of color and trans writers find a place where they can incubate, they can work and not necessarily have to worry about the pressures of who is in that room looking at me right now. If that makes any sense because I think especially when people are delving into scenarios and delving into stories that are especially personal, like the thing you don't want to have happen is feel like there's this pressure of oh my goodness. And it's weird because I think people do come to Great Plains Theater Conference who are interested in developing new work but I think there's also a lot of space to just create and not have to worry about oh my goodness who is listening as I create. That makes any sense. And that aspect of it is really meaningful to me because I've been working very closely with Kevin Lawler and Scott and of course back to forgetting someone's last name and all members of Scott's last name. Thank you, Scott working, thank you. Been a luck to rescue. Working with them very closely to really interrogate because part of, I should probably also clarify, part of what happens at Great Plains Theater Conference is that there are anonymous submissions but the question is how do we combat issues of bias that can happen in those types of scenarios and so I've been working with them very closely in order to make sure that we are eliminating places where unintentional bias from the first round of readers could keep plays from marginalized groups and from ever actually making it all the way to a round in which we get to look at it if that makes any sense. So that has been really meaningful to me and that is probably also where my strong philosophical stance is in terms of the work, like I'm about access. That is something that is very important to me and you'll probably hear it again and again and again over the course of the next few days as I talk about things that are even happening within LMDA, access has always been a thing for me who gets to be where, when and why. And so that is where a lot of my energy is and lies and figuring out how do we open up doors as opposed to closed doors. And I think in the way of developing a clear practice, essentially a lot of what I think I do is I am reading for potential of story as opposed to like an Aristotelian sense of how a story is being told. I think one of the things I've also been doing is really like this sounds terrible but in some ways like schooling, it's got on like different types of dramatic structures and how those are important in terms of storytelling and we were really thinking about that quite a bit as we discerned which ones and we actually instituted a new role, especially for all of the, say in general, there's like a ranking system and like anything that gets a certain score or higher automatically like comes to the three of us but we also started doing a just plain out review even if it's quickly of all of the other ones just in case things fall under because someone's like well I don't like it because I don't understand the story that they're trying to tell and maybe it's because they don't understand the structure that they are using in order to tell their story. So going back and having doing things like that really helps to bring in a certain place and it's actually really worked out well and that we have now, there are quite a few plays for example that ended up at the festival this year that if we had not done that review would not have made it and there are brilliant stories there are several dramaturgs in this room who are aggregate plays here that can tell you that there are just amazing stories that ended up there that share and it is weird to me to think that some of those stories might not have made it if we had not made that shift, if that makes sense. So anyway, I'm gonna stop talking now, dim. You're so amazing. You really are. I just have to say now to start with, Hi everyone. My name is Emre Thoromann. My pronouns are she, her, hers and I'm the director of literary development and dramaturgy at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. I've been with OSF now for about three seasons going on my fourth and at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival I have the opportunity, which I really love to build a cohort and family of dramaturgs for our 11 main stage shows. So in my role I do dramaturg productions and I also very much believe that the individual relationship between a playwright, a dramaturg or a playwright or a dramaturg and director is very sacred and very unique. So every year I fight extremely hard for a budget to hire dramaturgs based on playwrights and director's interests. Also because I believe in hiring dramaturgs. More dramaturgs need to be paid for what they do. So that's a big, big thing in the play development and the way I look at it is I often feel like when we talk about new plays there's often these very deep conversations that we have about the specificity of what's the right pairing with a director and a playwright what are the right pairings for designers and dramaturgs are not always considered with the same value construct in that way. So much of what I am trying to push at the festival is how do we look at the value of a dramaturg as a true creative team member that is involved from inception through fruition in design conferences in every part of the process with that type of thinking. In addition to that I also run a new play incubator at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival called the Black Swan Lab. It was started by my predecessor and mentor, Louis Douthith who yes, big shout out for Louis, yes, yes, yes who is in week four of the Play On Festival in New York. Let's give her a lot of love. And it was a lab that came out of the process of we're a repertory company with about 90 to 100 actors, 11 shows a season and with the repertory model there was deep inquiry and curiosity of how do you develop a new play lab in that setting that altogether supports actors being able to talk to playwrights and playwrights being able to develop work without performance pressures or feeling like their plays are auditioned. And I will be the first to say having been in Oregon I recognize the geography of where you are in Ashland you were very far away from cities. And so it was also a deep investment to say how can we take advantage of the natural environment and the area that we have to cultivate a retreat for writers and allow them to connect with actors and be able to hold those conversations that are around the development of the work. Over the past couple of years I've worked with playwrights and we saw a follow on the development and curation of the writers group and Louise also has been hugely informative in how do we mentor writers and mentor actors in how they have conversations around and play development. So that's definitely something that I care deeply about. In terms of the philosophy of new play dramaturgy today the first thing that I'll say which very much aligns with Marcine's incredible philosophy and thinking is I think so much of American theater cannot deny is on the foundation of white supremacy. And when you look at new play dramaturgy it is often judged by different formulas that go towards a Western aesthetic and structure. And so with new play development I feel like one of the most critical things is how do you look at it with a lens that does actually support values of inclusion and equity and how do you analyze plays from a perspective that can globalize storytelling and really support a writer's authentic voice. So I take deep responsibility being in an organization that's 84 years old where we have definitely promoted white supremacy and we have to now dismantle it and be held accountable for it. And so much of the new play dramaturgy that I really look into and that I push the organization towards is how do we look at who are we included who are we not including where does unconscious bias lie and what are the ways in which we can really support an authentic voice from a writer. So whenever I'm building a relationship with a writer and it usually is a relationship that starts a year and a half to two years before their play makes the main stage or if the play is in development multiple years I always ask them about how do they like to write? What is their process? What is the environment that they like to write in? What are some of the resources that they benefit from? And what are some of their dreams for how they see their play coming to fruition and we build a relationship from there. Those of you who know me know that I also very much believe in a culture of food around new play development. So there's not a single workshop or reading that doesn't have two tables filled with food because we need nourishment when we're worth in plays. And so I think that it is that with the caretaking that's part of that new play dramaturgy that ultimately can support the writer or the ensemble in the development of their work because really as a dramaturge you get to be a fantastic steward and advocate and ultimately I think for writers it's such a courageous and very isolating situation to hold a play in your head and then put it out on the page. So how can there be support in saying I recognize this and I'm going to give you the space and the time and show respect and value and operate with an analysis that can allow you to bring that play to its best possible potential. That's that, I'm going to pass it to Skylar. Hi, I'm Skylar Gray and I'm the director of new play development at Victory Gardens Theater here in Chicago. We, what we're working on, so we just opened, if I forget, Stephen Levenson's play but we also just announced our ignition festival. Thank you. So I was looking at potential schedules all day on how a Tetris game of rehearsals can work with three spaces and six plays in four days. Which sort of brings me to what, when you ask that question, a lot of what I think about when I think about new play development but also new play dramaturgy being at Victory Gardens is new play development through the lens of curator and producer. So a lot of my work as both the resident dramaturgy at Victory Gardens, the director of new play development, I'm in charge of all audience development and I'm the line producer on most of the shows. I split that with Kenobi Jones. And so a lot of the work that I do with new plays is deeply rooted in the organization in terms of how we curate both our season and our festivals but also how we pair everyone from directors to dramaturgs to even the production assistant, like who is in that room. A lot of that falls to my department. And so what I like to think about a lot is how we're talking about new play development both with our audiences but also with our staffs and what the responsibility is when we're bringing in playwrights working on new plays who are interacting with our staffs who are also the ones who are communicating their vision to our audiences and what those audiences are bringing in perception wise into the reading. So it's all just a giant cycle. And so a lot of what I have to do is everything from scheduling it but also working with marketing in terms of how are we talking about this show because the worst thing is to bring an artist into your space and they read a brochure which went out 20 years ago and there's nothing they can do about it and they go, oh who's play is that?  And so much of what it is a victory garden since we are smaller is everyone has a hand in the new play process but also making sure that they know how to communicate that. And then when we have audiences in whether it be for ignition or the world premieres we do a lot of that is helping that giving them the resources to go into the play so they can appreciate where the play is at that point in its process. So when we are talking and we are having talk backs which we have after every single show at Victory Gardens is do they know how to talk about new play development if it is a world premiere and what's happening in the preview process or the playwright is with that process. So then our audiences are also coming to see the shows having a better understanding of what both new play development is but also what the future of American theater is in can be. And a lot of that is when we're looking for plays sort of what you were talking about is what excites me most about that when my philosophy is on new play development is that we're in an age where anything is possible and people are doing those plays but it's our responsibility to keep that going. And so when I read a play that's four and a half hours long and has a cast of 10 and say oh we may not produce that. I have to check myself and say oh actually maybe we should produce that which we're doing next year. Was one of those plays that I saw and was like there's no way, like there's no way we'll ever do this. It's too big but like that's what's exciting about new play development is anything is possible. Once I'm able to step back and say I have to keep those barriers out of my mind otherwise that's sort of what we're putting barriers on the whole future of the American theater and then these plays happen and we're like oh where did that come from? And you're like oh I got that three years ago and I said like oh I had a kid in it so we'll never do it. And like what are those barriers that we're keeping us so well? Kids and animals? People are like nothing good. But what are those barriers that we're putting on plays and how can we break those down? Just on a basic level. So that's where a lot of, I'm sort of rambling right now but it's like the eye of the curator and the producer is just sort of integral to what I do at VG. Hi, my name is Amy Jensen. I'm a freelance dramaturg based in New York City. For the past several years I've been working on shows that are TYA pieces and different festivals. I've also been working on pieces that are puppetry pieces with some good friends who are designers and directors. And when it's writing about my philosophy I felt like the biggest thing that I come back to over and over again, the role of questions in the creative process I think is generally an accepted importance. We recognize that questions can bring up a lot of openings. Questions can invite creation. Questions can invite a lot of things in the room itself. It's a rewarding experience to have asking a question and then having that lead to other thoughts and insights. Recently, director, divisor that I was working with texted that I love her questions and I always hate them at first. They make my brain fizzy and force me to think. And I like the word fizzy. To me it has an idea of synergy to it as well. And a catalyst, and I think those are great things. It's also a little bit, it's a good humbling moment too because as much as I want to say like, great question, that almost always what happens is that thing leads to that thing leads to that thing. So that now we're like several blocks, if not miles away from the first question that I asked but we're at a really great spot where the person who has the answers has found them themselves. And I've also personally found that I think questions are incredibly important for my own practice because I need to be thinking, I need that in a way that you're talking about breaking up your own assumptions. I think questions push me to think beyond the first comment, the first analysis that push me to think, well what is the way that I can present this or think about this in a way that's not, that leads opening in a place to go that pushes me. Sometimes the questions come easily and those are nice, sometimes the questions just fall to the side in their dubs and some of the questions take quite a while to get understood, like what is that? Where is, what does that question? And then sometimes they don't fully come. And that process I think is really important for me and I feel like there's question pushes me to think I still have more to learn in my practice. I appreciated, Ms. Ungelman mentioned a book that I guess is written for business management called More Great Questions and its thesis is that there's a pattern in asking questions that we start out with more of the why questions and then you ask more of the what if questions and then you ask more of the how questions. I thought, oh wow, the thinking of questions is also fascinating to me. And this past year I've really resonated a lot to interviews. I really personally care a lot about interviews and oral history and was talking to some oral historians and learning how they put together what they would call blueprints and the way they spoke about doing a pretty exhaustive outline essentially the things that they needed to prepare insisting that once they've done all of this exhaustive work not to write down any of those questions because that would make them feel tied and a little bit less improvisational in the moment of the interview but that they would be able to be drawing all of that with them and I thought, oh that sounds also quite obviously dramaturgical. So it's something I'm looking forward to trying out in future projects and so, yeah. Thank you all for those thoughtful introductions. So the next part of the session we're gonna jump into some questions I developed with these folks and with Jackie Goldfinger who couldn't be here but was instrumental in organizing the session. So these are some questions about new play, dramaturgy challenges that we come across and I would love responses that are both practical and philosophical. Amy, so since you brought up that book you read which isn't specifically a dramaturgical text I'm curious about more books that have been instrumental to the way you think about dramaturgy or your freelance practice in general they can be specifically dramaturgical or not and yours was called More Great Questions and maybe we can have our notetakers start to put some of these titles on the tab. Yeah, what that one is or I think a more beautiful question, I'm sorry, it's by Berger or something like that. I'm now feeling, I think, while I don't necessarily always use, I mean some of the books as you asked this question is like, well how much do I actually pull that one out? But I think things that have informed thinking include the Eleanor Fuchs article about the plants. Is it to a small plant, small plants? Yeah, I'm sorry, yeah, I don't know what this is. Visit to a small plant, is it to a small plant? They ask so many questions and I think sometimes it feels like, well that's not practical to ask all those questions in a project but I think sometimes it's just a perspective thinking of where you're stepping in and out of. I think too that being aware of other processes that as you spoke of different structures besides the Aristotelian ones, although by and large I'm very much working in a story structure that functions along those to have come across viewpoints and very over these work in redefining what centers work and the idea of William Forsythe's choreography just where it re-centers what the floor can be, where it re-centers all of these things kind of make me feel like, remember everything is shiftable really. You have to keep that in mind. I feel like while it's less directly about the artistic process, I've recently enjoyed the book Thanks for the Feedback which is about how we receive feedback and I think as someone who has often given feedback without necessarily understanding the emotional work that comes in being on the receiving end of feedback, I think I appreciated that perspective too. I'm ready. So I will co-sign on the Eleanor Fuchs article for sure. Also Blank by Malcolm Gladwell because I think in terms of thinking through how we make snap judgments about things, like I think in some ways as readers of New Text, there's always like that bit of like, I feel like or, you know, and really asking ourselves to go back and rethink through like, how are we making these judgments about what is of value? Is useful? At least it was to me. I also think, even though I don't think he's here yet, but he'll be here soon. Michael Chandler's book Ghostlight is a good one, especially in terms of thinking through, especially as we get new types of structures, like some of the questions that he asks about like dual protagonists, things like that are super useful in thinking through new structures. So yeah, those are my thoughts when I'm sticking to it. I will probably not remember everything that I want to say. So hopefully there'll be a follow-up where we can share more resources, but a few that come to mind. I, when I first started studying dramaturgy and what Shelley Moore was one of my professors in dramaturgy and the resources that I received were really widespread. And then from college, I also spent some time studying with the city company and then also was with Double H Theater, a fantastic ensemble in Asheville, Massachusetts for several years. And during that time of the study with the city company, I started reading Anne Mogret's blogs, many of which, you know, the philosophy and the ethos are now in a number of books, but I, she particularly had a blog series that was very focused on the construction of storytelling, which I found incredibly meaningful in terms of thinking about what's the story and how we tell stories. And then also during my time with Double Ledge, the company is, there's many different practices and training methodologies that the company holds, but one of which is the practice of Grotowski's Laptorium. And I was very inspired in learning about Grotowski's dramaturg, Luke Wood-Flaxton, who was a company dramaturg and wrote an incredible book, Grotowski and Company, that not only shares his own dramaturgical process, but documents the narrative and storytelling of the company. And what was particularly meaningful in that moment is as someone who has gone between being a production dramaturg to a company dramaturg or resident dramaturg or institutional dramaturg, I'm always so curious about those different threads around, you know, how you dramaturg for a project and build relationships with writers and how you also support the dramaturg of a company and the narrative of a company and the way in which a company programs and how the trajectory of programming can be supported and thought about. And this book was so holistic in the way in which Luke Wood talked about how he was charting the company's philosophy and training as well as serving as an individual production dramaturg. And then I will say I also, I always look for, you know, similar to what Amy was sharing, I always look for ways in which I can respond to feedback and criticism, how criticism can be generous and also transparent at the same time. And so the practice of Liz Lerman and what she speaks to in terms of, towards a critical response has been informative. Oh, oh, one more, one more. The final one that I will say that I have to say, both applied to my process dramaturgically with thinking of new play dramaturgy, but also to many other facets of my life was a book that my former mentor David Dower introduced to me called Switch by Chip and Dan Heath. And the book is about how to make change when change can be hard emotionally, physically, structurally. And what I love about that book is when thinking about new play dramaturgy changes inevitable, you know, change is perhaps the only constant. And the way in which we respond to change as dramaturgs as other collaborators is something that I always consider in the process of collaboration. And the book itself talks about different strategies and opportunities to invite change and to receive change in a positive way in order to help build a process. And it was really eye opening in terms of thinking about not only how do I navigate as a dramaturg, but how do I respond to actors and other collaborators who see a change in a script and view that as a negative and actually get that shift towards positivity around the process of change and evolution? We don't all need to answer all the questions. We don't all have really strong answers, but...  What up? But what I have found extremely helpful in my process is we partner with a lot of social justice organizations here in Chicago and so I go to their talks and watching how other community organizations here in Chicago are asking questions of the people within their community, but also the way their organization partners with the same community I think I know and what questions they're asking that same community has been incredibly informative to my process. But that's not a book, so sorry. Thinking about the way that you sort of get to know a new play you're developing, this is privileging text-based work. So aside from reading it a lot of times, aside from asking questions of the writer about what their intent was, we know about that. Are there other things you do for yourself as part of your practice just to get familiar with the work? This isn't not for the benefit of the writer or the team, but I'm trying to figure out my connection to this play. Is there a specific kind of research you do? Is there specific questions you ask yourself? Is there a specific kind of structural outline you do for yourself and the answer might be no or completely depends on the play? But I'm curious. I have something. For me to be honest, I think some of what I'd like to do is experience the world of the play if it's possible at all. And so this doesn't sound really wild, and it just actually was also kind of a bit of luck in that I was already planning to do something like this anyway, but I remember working on Hannah the Dragon Zebo as a research dramaturg at OSF, and I was like, well, I have an opportunity to go to South Korea if I want to, so let's go. And so I actually spent some time actually doing things, I mean, it probably looked like the silliest person on the planet, but it was actually really helpful in the room, so when the dad has to bike up the hill, I actually went to that space and actually tried to bike up the hill just to see what would that be like? And in some ways, some of that actually sort of infiltrated the production that we did in terms of thinking through, like where's that point where she realizes that she's being lied to about where he is in that moment because he's not necessarily behaving in the way someone would if they were actually doing that thing that they said they were doing. And then I'd like to experience things. There's a play that I worked on over the long time ago that was set on a roller coaster, so I was like, I wonder what it'd be like to try and have the kind of conversations that they're having on a roller coaster. And so I forced my poor spouse who hates roller coasters to go on some with me and see if we could have conversations about the things that they were having conversations about and what would that actually, like try to just experience the world of the play. So I mean, that's not necessarily like a text thing, but that's kind of one of the things that I'd love to do to see like, what does it feel like to be in those situations? And I think it's actually more for my own process than necessarily, like sometimes that information becomes helpful in a room. But usually it's just about like, what is this? Like, what is it about for example, like plummeting numerous like feet or like miles or whatever in the air? Like what is it about that might bring existential crisis of some sort? That one needs to reckon with one like higher power. Like what are those things? So just trying to experience that has been useful to me if possible, I know it's not always possible. Like I got lucky that I got to go to South Korea at the same time, but I was never given that play, but you know. That's awesome. Yeah, I love that. And I think there is something for me too that always thinks about the journey of a play being one that is truly a sensory experience and how do I look at my research from what I'd lean from the page to actually imagining and dreaming of it theatrically. So in those opportunities, I do try my best to find different aspects or facets of the research that can be informed by activating a piece of the world or trying to see a piece of the world or taste it or smell it or connect with it in some way. So I was working on a play that was specifically dealing with the setting in Walt Disney World and had the opportunity while I was traveling just to go to Walt Disney World and kind of feel what the energy of the play was and what it was speaking to and what its commentary was. So I love those elements where you can actually start to feel the world in a very real and rich and human way. Another practice that I have for some projects, but not all, but I worked with a director who loves to chart a play through an image storyline. So when they're constructing their vision for a piece, they will find images that capture the essence or the feeling or meaning of a play and they will string them together in essentially their own image PowerPoint or board. And I was working on a piece that was hugely imagistic in terms of the writer's desire for how it would be depicted on stage. And so I ended up doing that as a collaborative research project with them, which was really informative to just think of how you, what is communicated through image and what you witness through the visual narrative. And that was meaningful. And I'd also say this, when I was working with Double Edge Theater as their dramaturg and as an associate producer, Double Edge always starts their process of building work, which often takes about two years as they work in a laboratory setting. They always start their process with no text or vocalization of language. And so they have a training methodology where you essentially start to physicalize your body to manifest ideas or a question or point of storytelling. And then as the dramaturg, you have the opportunity to both train with the company and then also observe the company and see what images you can pull out for storytelling. And that was hugely informative of someone who before that time was working strictly text-based and really looking at plays in terms of, what I was leading from the words on the page and being able to say, what if we start with image and physicality and then build a text from there? I don't necessarily enjoy doing scene breakdowns like French scene breakdowns, but I find when I haven't done them just for myself, I regret it. It's just, I think, just forces me to pay attention to more detail and time and things like that, that I just need to have that facility when I get in the room. I mean, I think other than the rabbit hole that we all go through where you Google something and then 20 hours later, you know, emerge and you're like, I don't know how I got to this thing, but I was into it the whole time. Aside from that, something that's been really neat with the last two commissions we've had VG is we actually bring in the playwright and then they get to meet with people who are doing the work here in Chicago, and then they go off and they write their play.  So something that we shifted up is now all go with the writer to have all of these meetings. So I'm getting all of that, not only am I getting the facts and the information and the personal stories, but I'm also able to capture the emotion mentally of how it is told and in what lens it is told because sometimes I'll hear something and I'll be like, huh, interesting that they said that, but then you see how they say it and it's totally different than it was recounted in the game of telephone. So that's less text-based, but it's more like doing the research with the writer. Of course, we're not always able to do that and that's a very nice process but it's not always feasible all the time, but being able to share that root knowledge from the GACO has really shifted how we're able to have those conversations and then holistically bring in those same groups to then talk about the play during the play and you've seen those people talk about their experience and then they get to talk about their experience two years later, that has been really neat. Again, not text-based, I promise I read. We've talked a bit about visuals. I find that when I'm working with playwrights, sometimes I get stuck in a loop of conversation about their play, bringing some visual representation of the structure of the play to them can be very useful and so I'm curious what that process has looked like for you. We know the post-it note version, the index part version, we can move things around. Sometimes I've sort of explored with playwrights about when you put their play on, the Aristotelian scene chart, what it looks like or put another scene sort of structural chart what it looks like. I'm wondering if you've had experience. I know you brought up the images for each scene. Any other sort of visual worlds you've sort of used to represent to writers what they've already made that have opened up conversation. I'm a little ashamed to admit this, but I've had some gift conversations with playwrights. Like in that, just when you're playing, you maybe feel like, you need sometimes like something that has happened in pop culture, whether it's like a SpongeBob moment where he covers himself in sand and you're like, that is how I felt because sometimes convey it a little bit more than be trying to like express that, if that makes any sense. And so I have been known to do things like that. I've also been known to send a playwright things, images that have been conjured for me. What I mean by that is like if or lists of, and not in that I think they are similar, but I read something and it makes me think of like songs. And so I've charted a play and song before in terms of like my emotional journey reading it. And I think especially for this particular playwright that actually worked a lot better than trying to chart it any other way. Like, because I think it was a play that was meant to go on an emotional roller coaster and sometimes it's not always easy to like explain that emotional. But if I can translate it into a different art and say here, this is the, here, have a mixtape. Because we don't do mixtapes anymore even though I feel like it's a lost art. We should hand people CDs. Like a mixtaped and be like, listen to this. This is what I felt. I curated this specifically for you. But like, those are things that I do and maybe that says a lot about me as a human being in terms of how I process new work, but I'm always doing weird things like that. It was probably my, or maybe not, during my playwrights crazy. In times when we, in the process, specifically worked on the structure that way, I found that it helped for it to be movable. So in a devised piece where, I don't know, there were probably 100 post-it notes all over the wall from different ideas and images and then together as a group, we were organizing them and tossing the ones that had the ideas had disappeared or whatever. And I think that that helped later conversations in a different situation where it was literally putting the pages on the floor to look at some specific scenes that had some great similarities, wondering about their structure and that that representation with the director and me and the playwright enabled that to be a conversation where we could actually ended up switching how things went. But I think part of that was because it was movable, it was changeable and it was something that we did together versus I don't know if I would feel this same thing would happen if I just gave someone a representation. I read an article recently about in which I guess a dramaturg had taken to someone in the script and said, well, I changed this for you. Of course that did not go down well. And I think it's the ability to move and shift and see it at the same time is helpful. We've talked a little bit about the role of audience engagement in new play dramaturgy. And so I'm curious about how you think of the audience side work on a new play versus a revival of a play and in any context where an audience is coming in, might be a workshop or an audience is attending or a world premiere, what is your responsibility to the playwright and to the play differently there from when it's an established work? I mean, I think the big thing is for us when we are doing something like Ignition which we allow the playwrights to write literally up until the audience walks in and then they can still keep passing post-its if they want. But what the audience is seeing is a snapshot of the play. This is where the play is at this point. This is the way we intended it. The playwright did not go rogue and decided to keep writing until the last minute. This is the nature of how we incubate new plays here. And what that means is what you're seeing right now is just where it is right now. And then what is obviously great and many of us will know is when they come see the world premiere that you do a year and a half later, they're the first to dramatically come up and be like, oh, he changed this and he changed this and then it moved over a year and then I saw that and that was in the reading. And you're like, totally. And I think part of that is setting expectations that what they're seeing is organic and changeable and movable and malleable.  So when they go to the kid's graduation, they're like, I remember you at age three. It's very much the same sort of thing that once we know that this moment will shift this person's experience for the rest of their life, this reading will shift this play's life for better or worse, you never know. But you were there at that moment and people really pay attention. And that has been very instrumental both in getting audiences invested in new plays for us but also in terms of being able to communicate with playwrights that what they're going into is they're sort of talking about what hit them as opposed to what they didn't get. And yes, those conversations are great and I don't know what they're having when they see the playwright in the lobby but what they're giving are supportive whether or not they have questions. It's coming from a place of love in the hope that the play continues on this beautiful journey as opposed to us saying, okay, it's done, who didn't get what? It's like that is the most damaging thing to a play let alone if you don't give those expectations they think it's done or they think that this is it. And they have thoughts and we're in a world of talk backs where everyone has thoughts and they want to share those thoughts. So it's letting people know what space they're in but also letting the playwright know that you know what space you're in. And it's that that's really set up audience engagement in terms of new plays in both an investment and an understanding of where we are. Kind of to echo that. I feel that playwrights, many of them I've felt like they've appreciated understanding what people have experienced more phenomenological or whatever you want to call it. The images, the moments that have resonated that they take away that they feel keep with them and live with them. They're much less, most of them have been much less interested in any analysis of what does it mean along those lines of getting it or reading it the semi-logical whatever experience and that there's a lot of intellectual joy and pleasure in that kind of analysis and reading but that generally for a new play that is just less of a help at that point. And I think that gets to be tricky because I've heard several times when people will introduce a talk back afterward of well, this is a new play. So what you say will change what the writer is going to do and I've heard many comments where people then feel kind of empowered to essentially tell people what they should change. And that's, I don't think that's a constructive thing. I think it's always been interesting when I'm helped asked to help the playwright or be participating with a playwright and figuring out exactly what questions do you pose. I've appreciated that many playwrights are ready to run that. They have an idea already but it's useful for them and what isn't useful. But I do think that there's a way that along the lines of helping the process and the audience knowing that just your experience and what resonates with you that is a gift. That is really a gift. You don't need to analyze it for it to like be what the playwright needs. They really want to hear what connects. I will also echo both of you shared. And I think that I love this term gift because I do think plays are gifts and I do think that the way in which an audience can actually be connected to a play and recognize it as an incredibly sacred and special opportunity to witness a world premiere is absolutely a philosophy that I know I try my hardest to just enforce with an audience. And when I'm talking to audiences, I often talk about the reality of a play finding itself through multiple productions. But how can you expect a play to fully find itself in the first production without the ability to actually be able to discover its relationship to an audience and for a writer to be able to take a longer journey with it. And so it really is building in that sense of how can we treat this as an opportunity as opposed to a platform for what you were not seeing or how you need to fix something or make it prescriptive. Whether writer is open to it, I also do love to contextualize and share the process because I think ultimately that is a very human to human connection with an audience and a playwright to say, what is the context of their process? What is the root of inspiration for a work? And where has it's journey been? And where is the playwright going with it? So we do have a number of different panel conversations that we have the Oregon Shakespeare Festival where writers, if they are willing, can share more of the process-based work so that that is part of what informs an audience's relationship to it. And recognizing that this is a moment in the present, but not necessarily a moment of permanence of how the play can live and breathe. And then the final thing with Black Swan Lab, we do not have an audience for it. The lab is constructed so that there is no audience and we are around the table witnessing the work. But we have a body of actors who are always part of the lab reading cohort whenever we have a reading. And as an actor, if you are not reading in that particular day, you are still coming to the lab as a listener. And you are still responding in the post-reading conversation that we have the Liz Lerman structure for. And that is also a great opportunity where I realize that is a form of audience engagement from the actor in terms of they are not participating directly in the reading process, but they are responding and they are actually part of the audience for the work. And much of that training is looking at how do we look at an actor's dramaturgy with the sense of you are a listener and a responder, but not someone who is attempting to change the play towards your benefit. So how are we thinking more openly towards the writer's process and their sense of development and holding that together? I think in some ways I also like to use audience engagement literally.  And so if I have a choice, I will always sit in the back of a house when a reading is happening and watch people. And a lot of times what I will do, especially in terms of a practical and try to solicit feedback that is helpful, besides obviously just having a conversation with a playwright and asking them what is useful, I will also, if I notice, for example, that there is a moment where you can collectively see everyone's butt clench. Because it's amazing what you can kind of read when you watch the backs of people. Like, if everyone goes, you can see that happen. You will also see moments when we will start to slide in to a play or lean in. I will ask questions around that. Like, you know, where's that moment in which you felt your body physically lean in? You know, and why? Because I think that in some ways that's a good thing. Like, what is it about that that just made someone lean in? I know, especially like, I know that I've watched, for example, Amritha Watch Me Watch a Play, in which I'm gone. Because there's a moment where my brain is like firing on multiple cylinders. Our good thing is just like something has been activated in me. And I think those kinds of reactions are really great to mind sometimes in these conversations in order to, hey, keep them positive and useful. But then also, what is that thing that people are, or not? Because I think that what's also been interesting in conversations are those moments when you see like, maybe half of the audience lean in, but then you see half of an audience lean out. So have we really hit on some nerve where like, some people are like, yes, give me more. Some people are like, whoa, we've got, you know, and where's that line? What has happened? I just created that. I love those kinds of questions. And poking at an audience in order to make conversations happen. We've talked a lot about programming and selection process. And drum and turks are often in a good position to advocate for improvements and expansions of those. And so I'm curious about the moments when you faced your, and Skyler talked a little bit about this, about like, oh, I have this barrier and I've removed it, have there been moments for yourselves where a way of thinking about programming or a way of, or an awareness of like, oh, I know this body of plays and I'm missing this body of plays. Like when you've reached that moment, what has that been and how have you moved yourself through it in a way that might be useful to share in a room? So I think in my experience, some of the root of what you're asking is also, to me, I find genuine joy in selecting plays for fun things. And so, one, if I find myself in a situation where I'm getting tense about it, then I know something has gone awry in some way until it's about, in some ways, dramaturging myself and saying like, why have I lost joy in this thing that I know that I genuinely find joy in? And sometimes that is outside influences about what people feel like we need. And I find that a lot of the way that I personally try to figure and navigate some of that is about asking, like I just dramaturg the situation as our asking questions. Like, okay, you're saying that you need, we need this for our season. Okay, here are numerous plays that do that. So if you're saying that none of these work, what is it that they're not doing that, you know, what is that thing that I'm missing? And so I can potentially ramble that. I'm gonna keep thinking more, because I'm gonna stop rambling about that specific thing, but I feel like I have a lot of thoughts that are coming to the surface and they're not coherent, so come back to me. I mean, what I've also learned is, in curating and producing a season or a festival or whatever it may be, sometimes the best way to advocate for a play is to not let no stop you.  Um, but what I mean by that is like, if you get a no and you really believe in a play to just say, okay, it's out, like, what does that mean? And then to keep it on the list, on your consideration list, or however you do it, or in your drive, or your Google doc, or whatever it is. Like, if you don't get rid of it, it's always there to remind you what you loved about it. And when you're having those conversations of like, oh, well, we found five that we really agree upon, like, we're missing something, it's so easy to say, well, six months ago, we wrecked this play that wasn't right then, but like, here it is.  But like, those plays that I truly believe in, the longer I keep them on the list, and the longer I know why I kept them on the list, is like, instrumental for me to know like, that's what's stuck with me. And that, it has a lasting impression. And so just keeping things even annoyingly on my own, on my own documents, has just been so helpful in terms of like what those barriers were at that point, or what we were looking for at that point, and what we're now looking for. And those plays, it's amazing how often they haunt you and find their way back in. But when they do, it's even sweeter because you know that this was a play that affected you for three years, four years, or you pass it along to a colleague and they're able to do it. And you just watch that the play continues to haunt you. One challenge that I was thinking about with that question, Jeremy, that we face at OSF is when we're programming, we typically start reading plays about two years to a year and a half before they're actually in rehearsal on the main stage. And we have a process where we have a large body of company members across every single department, all those two are part of a reading group to curate the plays. And so this past year it was 60 company members who were all reading plays on a curated list and responding to their desires or interests of curiosity with the play and also sharing their critical feedback. And particularly with new plays, what I found happens at a place like OSF where you are looking at a season that is balancing many different genres of plays and everything from Shakespeare to contemporary work to world premieres is the way in which world premieres would be criticized against plays that have had five productions and not recognizing the variance between for the broader reading group, the state of a play and how can we look for its potential and possibility. And so much of the conversation had to become about how do we invite the writer's voice into the process so I would get feedback from the writer about the state of the play and their process to be able to share with the reading group and how can we start to look for the seeds of the ideas that we hope to grow and what we're committed to in terms of supporting the development of a play and seeing that potential. Because ultimately it's inequitable if you're comparing a play that is in its first draft to something that has had 27 drafts and yet when you have readers group and they look at the plays they're gonna say well the 27 draft that's the play that we should produce because look at where it's at well that's a great play. It's like well how do we chart potential and so I think often the advocacy becomes one of possibility and then holding accountability and responsibility for following the play through once it's committed to. Once it's programmed we then have the responsibility to make sure it is properly resourced and supported and developed in a way that allows it to move into a successful production. And I think the other thing that came to mind as well is just in a programming cycle there's always a sense of risk taking that should be held as with joy and desire and I know often when communicating with other departments at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival we usually have these great and necessary debates about a play's potential within the season but we're also trying to predict that a year and a half before it will actually be shown. So how we consistently check ourselves in saying we may have an idea of what it will be like in production now and we also have to accept that we are taking the risk and we desire the risk because we have no idea what it could be like a year and a half from now and allowing that and a great example from this season we worked with the 1491s we commissioned them for American revolutions United States history cycle and when we programmed the play it's five ensemble members of the 1491s who created this incredible piece called Between Two Knees that really charted from wounded knee the battle of wounded knee to the occupation of wounded knee over the cycle in a highly comedic style if anyone follows them on YouTube you'll get a sense of what their aesthetic is and when we were looking at programming they had an outline of the play they did not have anything that they had written but they said this is where we're going here's our outline and we had to take responsibilities of organization to say we believe in them as artists and we're going to commit to building this outline into a play and allowing that to be what we are responsible for in the collaboration. We've got about 20 minutes left I've still got a lot of burning questions on my list but I wanna open this up at this point too if questions have developed for you that you'd like to ask each other if questions have developed for you that you'd like to ask them or if anything has come up that you've been like ooh I've had a strategy for that and I'd really like to share that with the group this would also be a good time for that so first off is there anything that as we've been coming up there doesn't need to be like oh I would really like to ask this group how they tackle blank? I have one that's a hard question but I really, I want, I have to learn from my colleagues here and if you play dramaturge a process when you're working with a playwright or ensemble director and the director is highly dramaturgical and involved in the writing process how do you navigate as a dramaturg those moments when there are director, playwright or ensemble conflicts? Like what is the balance in terms of how you navigate that relationship? I mean I was just thinking about a situation where something like that happened and to be honest you actually do this in a different way but food Yeah I'm getting everyone to go because I think sometimes especially when those conflicts are happening sometimes it's because people feel like they aren't being heard and sometimes just like breaking down like this idea of like okay well at least I know now I'm being heard even if the thing that the outcome that I want is not happening at least I know that people are listening now I don't know, like I usually saw I tried to solve things with food so yeah, that's all I got Well as some of the people who worked for a playwright director what I have actually found is the more, like initially in my mind it's like oh my god the director is asking too many dramaturgical questions like we gotta shut this down like once I was able to sort of settle into the idea that those questions can be 20 times better than any question I have and can be 20 times better than any question the playwright has asked themselves I think like having those open conversations and giving the playwright the agency to say like oh that's actually not what I'm interested in and being there for them when they want to have that conversation but also being open to the fact that these questions can be amazing has been extremely crucial both for me but also in the process is you're not the smartest person in the room they probably aren't either the writer is but they probably are gonna ask a question that the writer hasn't thought about in either a view and that's why there's three of you as opposed to just two of you and so that's been really liberating in terms of approaching those from like oh that's what do you got, like what question are you asking and that's, it's just been it really is a lot of stress too because you just let yourself up the hope from the beginning I also feel like if the stakes are ever low enough to try the other thing it will either work or not work and you know when you're up against time that can be stressful but like let's try the thing that there's conflict let's try one version of that and see where it goes and that's often been a useful way to like then come around to well actually I don't to all see that that was or was not the answer so yeah anything from the group you know I see Danielle and then quick yep Hi, Martine one thing you brought up at the beginning was about combating bias and anonymous submissions in like the reading process and I'm wondering if you could just speak more about that and what you've done at that work where? Yes, so number one I just wanna let you know that we are actually both Jenna, Rodgers, RVP for EDNI and Phaedra, RVP for programs have been working on actually putting together a resource in order to do that so that will actually be something that will appear on our website not too long in the future so number one there's that so just know that these are my thoughts but then I think in some ways we're also collecting best practices that will eventually be your resource that you can tap into but essentially part of what I do is in some ways it's like pretty much drama told you 101 but in some ways if I'm getting resistance for example about a particular play like sometimes like even just with the process I'm talking about maybe two of us really love a play and another person doesn't love a play the question then becomes okay what is it about the play that you're not responding to? Is it an experience? Is it outside of your cultural competency and therefore you feel like I find that sometimes the conversations and this is not necessarily like a great play theater conference issue this is just sometimes the issue in general if it is outside of your realm of understanding people will say well that's not real and you're like okay but what experience are you bringing to the table to say that's not a real thing and asking those questions not obviously doing it in a respectful way but asking the question like why does this not feel real to you? And I'll be the first one to back up some stuff with some facts so like if you say that the story doesn't make sense to you okay here are other stories and other forms that go along with the same narrative okay so now that we've established that this is a real thing what is your issue with the play? You know what I mean? And I mean I know it sounds like I'm being like sassy you with this but it's not actually like the process I'm very kind I promise but that's like the heart of it which is like let's get back into what are those things that you're resisting asking those questions and then I think also one of the things that I think is always just really important is to like get people to confront their own either lack of cultural competency their own lack of understanding about gender those things and so I've been in situations where I've asked people to do a little bit of research on their own and the reason why I say that is I think the act of making someone do it is far sometimes more enlightening to someone in a process, in a journey than to say here breathe these things because I mean I think you know I think maybe some of this is also just like me being a university professor and I know that sometimes I hand people stacks of things to read in and then if it's in a pile and it never gets touched again and then it starts to collect dust and maybe becomes the fire that burns the whole building down so and I mean that both in a physical and in both ways asking people where they are like where are we when we have a conversation about what plays are important to us at any given moment like why are we for a particular play and it's interesting because I just had a similar experiences in an educational setting where I was asked to be a respondent to some plays and there was a gentleman who'd written a play that had a very circular structure but the program itself is very much about a linear motor storytelling and so it was really interesting watching even the other students talk about it because they're like this play and then I was like it's brilliant what are y'all talking about and it really was about having a conversation like what is it, this actually does a circular structure perfectly so if we're talking about a well-made play this nailed it so what is the resistance so I think it's really just about interrogating that and as we put together that resource page I'll make sure that we or when I say I'll make sure I will politely ask Jeremy to make sure that as our VP for communications to let people know that that resource exists so hopefully we'll do a little blast about that so in the vein of I mean Jeremy kind of saying that this is meant to be a panel about conversation and learning and teaching to each other I'm just curious about kind of your thoughts on how we can continue to propagate this knowledge and kind of more tangible avenues for learning and teaching I know obviously there are like fellowship programs for Gramaturgy and graduate school programs and things like that but I was just curious about whether you have any thoughts on what other ways there are to kind of build this knowledge within the community you said this I mean, that's what Jeremy did you know I will say this more as a philosophy as opposed to knowing how to activate it and hopefully that's something that we can build together but I do think in response to this of it you know I always find LNTA conference is so meaningful and enlightening in terms of what it means to hold Gramaturgy as a collective and be able to share practice and you know I said earlier that playwrighting can be very isolating dramaturgy can also be very isolating as well and in terms of you know when you're often the one dramaturge on a project or the one resident dramaturge in a company or however you know your role is held and so there is you know curiosity for me in what are more ways in which we can have cohort building knowing that there may not always be access to physically be together but are there other forums or platforms you know and I know this is something that's being discussed with LDA in terms of you know from the listserv to other forums that we can actually hold around topics that we can have and then I also I'm really curious about other forms of training methodologies you know I do consider myself a lifelong learner and I feel like I had this gift of you know at a point in my career the number of internships fellowships and then suddenly the mentorship does not feel as supported even though I desperately need it still you know regardless of what my position title is and with new play dramaturgy I've especially found such benefit in being able to learn from playwrights and so this is actually something that Luis Althar and I have talked about you know can there be new play dramaturgy you know training sessions of some kind where dramaturgs and playwrights kind of co-lead sessions in different regions so that it is actually shared in that conversation and that's something that I think would be very exciting I actually did get more practical than I thought I wouldn't but thanks to Luis Althar who reminded me there was a practical way I've also had the thought in the past couple of weeks since Jeremy was talking about this or at least I'm curious about my own not owning but being more reflective about my own work I'm kind of curious if I mean rehearsals are long and days are long and so the idea of going home and writing a log in terms of what I've done or what's happened doesn't necessarily sound a lot of fun but I think it might be really instructive for me at this point in terms of just being a bit more aware of what it is and I think that also might lead to potentially being able to share and discuss it more because those things I mean especially when you go to a festival and it's a very short period of time things happen really quickly and then I find that I don't remember them I had ways back that I played one of an actor who had been in a work festival that I'd worked on messaged me saying I loved that article that you shared during the festival and I hadn't even remembered giving it out and I was like I'm not even sure which article that was he was like it was brilliant thank you but I think that it might be an interesting way to see I mean the production notebooks I remember when I was reading those that those are kind of a narrative often of the entire experience of a piece which I think is curious but what would it be like if I write about my experience and with whom could I then share that to get their feedback or might reflect about it or be able to communicate I remember one time at a festival someone said we're signing you a dramaturge to shadow you and I felt like so that was a little bit tricky to feel really empowered about but I think maybe with a bit more reflection it's a little bit easier to then connect with people and reflect back really quickly another thing in terms of a tangible thing and this is literally just something that it's in its infancy that we've been bouncing around but we've been talking about starting a drunk dramaturgy series which I think would be amazing so speaking of like sort of tangible ways you can get some dramaturgs to talk about what they do in all sorts of ways that and we've also talked about on a sort of like flip side thinking about more open access in terms of dramaturgy like we were talking about using the SUNY platform because SUNY has open SUNY and maybe like creating some content that could be like sort of creating essentially like dramaturgy modules on for example all different types of dramatic structures things like that and having that as a resource that can be done and part of me wants to do that in conjunction with dramaturgy because that would just be awesome like drunk dramaturgy while people are trying to make essentially get a bunch of dramaturgs together and give them a synapse with the past president they but I'm talking about right I'm just gonna talk about Jillian Walker who is a New York City based dramaturgy has made a patriarch where she actively chronicles what she's doing for new play processes and if you pay like $5 a month you basically get a behind the scenes look at what her dramaturgical process is like I think that's a really fascinating way to earn money for your dramaturgy and also she's brilliant and fully deserves every single penny that is donated to her Patreon so Jillian, J-I-L-L-I-A-N Walker is in the act of walking I would like to go and look out there but first thank you Skyler I have to say I think what you said is so important you know it's almost like being the canary in the room and understanding that maybe this isn't the time but I can't tell you how many of my favorite dramaturgs have held on to a script because that is the time and all of a sudden everybody knows now, now so you must have a memory and I'm so glad you said that and Emyna you said something about methodology and how do we teach it as an old fart please guys never stop learning lifelong learning and you can't bring the world into the room if you're not constantly alert to the world and we have many more problems with scripts than understanding the patriarchy and a thousand other things I actually think this is and this is why I'm forecasting teaching sorry but here's the answer to your question if you want to know a good way to teach your students how important it is to be the person in the room who can bring the world in the room pick ten plays and pick ten lines a line from every play that if they don't understand what that line means you probably should not be dramaturging that play and I'll take I'm just going to pull something random if you're doing Hamlet and you don't understand the difference between using rapiers which they would have used in his time or using broadswords which they would have used in Hamlet's time and how that changes the scene because now there's no tip with no point to come off which means that you do not discover that somebody just went after you with a sword with no tip which means they're trying to kill you because there's poison on it and if you do it historically accurately it changes the whole thing if you don't know that you can't help your director if you don't know from man for all seasons the line, the bitch that got over the wall you can't do that because you don't understand why this great man's best friend is trying to get him to go along with Henry VIII and say it's okay for him to not be careful getting more so he can have a divorce because if you don't know that one of those six wives is that guy's cousin that's why he turns on his best friend because he wants his, I mean, actually she's his niece right? You understand what I'm saying? There's stuff there and I'll make this so pick those lines because you can't really understand what's really happening in that room if you don't know that there's, I'll go back to that play there's a reason why you know, you have this brilliant man who's one of the nicest people in history but doesn't want to give up his Catholicism for Henry VIII and yet he's rude to his wife just really quick, gotta tell me the answer she's his second wife most people don't know that and she's not a superstar figure out what that line in the play means and then they'll see how much they can't help if they don't really know the world of it's our job guys we're at time, I saw some other hands but I'm excited that that means that the conversation can keep going, thank you all so much thank you all for sitting here


I hope that it's not much of a stretch for you to go from a homologous structure like the arm and to carry that back to how did we get that arm? We had to have genes telling us to build an arm. So I hope it isn't a stretch for you to go, but if my genes are saying to build my arm like this and the lion's genes are saying to build its arm like this, might we have similar genes? And the answer is resoundingly yes. And I hope you already knew that. I mean, think about your kids, think about meiosis. Those folks or critters that you are more closely related to, you are going to share more genetic similarities. If you look at chimpanzees who are really closely related to us, we shared a pretty recent common ancestor.  So we shared a recent common ancestor. We literally share 98%, probably more than 98% of our DNA. It's identical. What? Our DNA is 98% identical to a chimpanzee's DNA. Does that blow your mind? 2% makes us, us, and chimpanzees, chimpanzees. So hopefully, you can accept that we can start sequencing DNA of critters and that provides evidence of evolutionary relationships. That gives us an evolutionary tree, a cladogram, that tells us how things are related. If we were to make an evolutionary diagram, including all of these critters, we really couldn't use forearm or arm anatomy as a characteristic to distinguish between them because they all have very similar arm anatomy. Does that make sense? But we could go back and look at their genetics. Now, we would expect that, you know, mutation is going to happen over time. And we'd expect that the longer, the farther away our most recent common ancestor is, the more time we had to go through meiosis and mitosis and mutate and change to be different from that ancestor. You'd expect to be more different from people you're less related to. We can quantify that. We can count bases and actually see it in action. Wow, that's awesome. And then determine relatedness that way. All right, that was a giant, like, this is what macroevolution is. This is the evidence that macroevolution has taken place on our planet. Now, I would love it if you started exploring, like, what was the evolutionary process that happened in critters on our planet? And wouldn't it be cool if we had critters on a different planet that we could look at and see what their evolutionary process was? But that's another whole issue. Until we have that to look at, I'm leaving now and going to bed. So it's been lovely. Give yourself a high five with your homologous structures. And I'll see you later.