everybody here, back to the Martin Siegel Theater Center at the Graduate Center CUNY in the middle of Manhattan in Midtown, it's 12 o'clock and a beautiful sunny day and the first bulbs are seen outside at the trees and the flowers are coming out. So I think we might have a cold winter behind us. It's the first Siegel talk we have here this season in the spring, we're starting our programs going to have a look at our websites. And today we have a conversation with a playwright from Spain, from Madrid, Paco Bezera. Paco, thank you for joining us. And also his translator, Anton Pujol, who is based in North Carolina in Charlotte. And we will talk about the work of Paco in general but also about the work that's currently being shown at home page here in New York City, the little pony who was translated by my late colleague, Marion Peter Holt. And so we will learn a little bit more about contemporary theater in Spain, the Siegel Center Bridges Academia and Professional Theater International and American Theater. And this is one of the many things we do where we listen, we give a forum to playwrights who are really of significance, but as we learned have never been shown in the US and his plays have been done in 10, 12 different countries. So it's a big honor to have you with us, Paco. Where are you at the moment? And what time is it? Now it's five in the evening and I am in Almería, the south of Spain, Almería, in front of the sea. Okay, do you live there or you're working there now or? Now I am at my parents' house. They live in the south, in Andalucía. Andalucía is a place of Spain. It's a part of Spain, the south. And I have not house, my own house now because I travel a lot and I live my old house. And now I am a little bit nomad. Fantastic. Well, really, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to join us. And with us we have also Paco's translator for the latest edition also, I think the Cutting Edge Spanish Theater today. Anton Pujol, Anton, where are you now? I'm in my office at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Charlotte. So you are now the translator, the late Marion Peter Hull translated some of the work, especially the one, The Little Pony. But so let's go back to Paco Paco. How did you get started to work in theater and for theater? Was it in the town where you are now? Is that your old room where you wrote the first place? Well, I was born here, yes, but my first place, I think I wrote my first professional play in 2003, 20 years ago. And you already were in Madrid. Tell us a little bit, how did your artistic career develop? How did you get started in theater? I started in theater by the Literature, because at the first I became to write theater and winning several prizes is the way. So you started as poetry and now as a novelist before you wrote theater? No, no, no, never. I only write theater. I never wrote a novel, neither poetry. I only write theater. So you went to a drama school or theater school in Spain, or did you study it? How did that happen? When I was 19, I traveled to Madrid to study in a private academy of acting. And then I started to study dramaturgy. It's the dramaturgy for years in a public school. I studied to write theater. Why did you decide to become a writer, not an actor or a painter? I don't know, it's a mystery. I really don't know. I've never read too much. I don't know why I choose writing and not acting or directing. I've never... How do you say, I've never directed any of my works in theater? He never directed any of his plays. So tell us, what were your first plays about? The Name is Venta Quemada. It's about a girl who arrived in a town, a girl who didn't speak during the whole operation. And it's a girl that arrived to a town and she never speaks one word. I read... I was discovering Alfred Hitchcock. He was discovering Alfred Hitchcock? I had seen that Psychosis had made a film where the protagonist died at the first 20 minutes of the film. In Psycho, the character dies in the first 20 minutes. I thought... I had never seen anything like that. I thought that was original. It impacted me. He was very surprised by it. I thought it would be possible to write a work, a film where the protagonist didn't appear. It wasn't that he died at the 20 minutes, but that he never appeared in the film. And he wanted to write a play where the main character did not only not appear, not talk, not nothing. And that's the first work to write a work where the protagonist doesn't exist. And that's the first play, a play where the main character does not exist. Mm-hmm. And...  A European playwright. Growing up in Andalusia. Did that inform you? What's the world you write about? Or was it a Madrid play? How did it... What worlds are you writing about? What are you interested in? He's come to realize... He writes on the rural stage. Let's call it this way. And then the other part of his plays, on the cosmopolitan stage, it reflects his 20, 30 years that he's lived in Madrid. He hears his life. He goes from the countryside to Madrid, to the urban, back to the rural. Mm-hmm. So, let's talk about a play... You won a Spanish theater award before. I die, I die not, I think, in 21. And then it was banned right away. Tell us a little bit. What happened? Well, a political group intervened in the programming of a theater. There's a public theater and a group of politicians decided to... They decided to make a choice. And before the announcement of the new season, they decided to cancel his play. Then they promised him that the following season, he would be part of the season. The director called him, the director of the theater, saying that the politicians she was serving told him that they would never allow this play to go on. Mm-hmm. Anton, you translated the play. Tell us a little bit what it's about. Santa Teresa, I think...  I think it's one of his greatest plays. It deals a lot with what being Spanish means. Santa Teresa is a historical character. And in the play, it starts with what I call the cyborg Santa Teresa, that she kind of... Her body was completely cutting pieces and it was taken to different parts of the world, and she starts recomposing herself. And as a saint, like, she was, I guess, a saint cut up. But she was a very problematic saint. She was somebody who was very honest, completely open about her ideas. Absolutely criticizing the church, the inquisition. A really gutsy character for the time. And the play starts and she recomposes herself and she realizes it's the 21st century in Madrid. She realizes what the politicians have done with Santa Teresa, which has nothing to do with her values. And then the whole play starts.  But for a woman without any means, that's probably her only solution. So that's about it. So it had a very strong reaction, which means the theater means something. We had Indian playwright Abhujak Majumbar here on some of our programs, and also his place once in a while gets banned. And he says he often wonders if theater makes a difference, if it's important or not. And he says so much happens on TV and television, nothing gets centered. My place gets centered because they mean something and they're important and they change the world. And what did it mean to you, Paco, to learn that your play was centered in a way by a progressive, I guess this is a progressive theater? How did you react? How did you react? Did you ask Anton? When this happened to me? When they canceled you? I reacted with a lot of shadow, it was going to be two years. I was very surprised. It happened to me. In the history of democracy, there weren't many cases of theater censorship. In the history of the Transition Democracy, since 1975, there had never been one censorship case. I didn't know about it, but at that time it was an isolated case. It was an isolated case, the first case. The surprise was when months after mine, there was a censorship case. However, after this... Not a single case, but 14 or 15 cases that have censored the most conservative parties. After his case, there's been a huge wave of cancellations and censorship, more than 15 plays. And a lot of issues are happening because of the extreme right, VOX. That's a political party called VOX. So, on the one hand... I mean, on the one hand, I was very disappointed that this happened, but on the other hand, it gave me a bit of calm, because all those people who could somehow think that my case was an isolated case, that I was lying, all the state of censors came to corroborate that my case wasn't the first of a censorship wave that was going to come. And then he was kind of relieved because in so many censorship cases, came to fruition, he kind of felt relieved because he was not the only case. And he was making things up. Was there an outcry from the theater community or... He asked if the theatrical community supported you, if the theatrical community complained a lot? Well, not a lot. Not really. It was a very controversial case for the people of the theater, because maybe... Because maybe my cry and my protest has evidenced the silence of many people who would have to have spoken, and since they haven't, in the end, my cry has evidenced their silence. Since a lot of people that should have talked never talked, never came to his board, I mean, that put the whole theatrical community and kind of unveiled the theatrical community. It was a manifest and they came in favor, but not too many. Not too many. Yeah, it is a disturbing sign. I think in New York we also once saw the play, I think it was called Holy Shit by Inigo Ramirez, if I remember right, where people got attacked on stage, also by the religious right wing, there were even bloody noses, but as far as I remember, it was continued. It was not a censored, it was not taken off from the stages. Is something changing in the Spanish cultural theme in the theater scene? Yes, some things are changing because we have a new extreme right party in many of the cities around, and they have a lot of power, and they're getting more powerful. In fact, one of those, one of the cultural deputies of this ultra-ultra party was the one in the Madrid assembly publicly touched on the work I wrote of Dañina and Esperpéntica. There was one of these Vox parliamentary men who really criticized his play as... Esperpéntica. Esperpéntica, no. You know, like being like a freak show, and it's not at all what it is. And it was a work that damaged the image of Spain. And it was a play that tarnished the Spanish image. Yeah. Paco, you're an internationally known playwright, right? Your plays have been done in 12 countries. Maybe you know the numbers. You're disappearing. I can't hear you. Can you hear your default mic? Yes, now, yes. Yeah, now what? So, is it better? So, Esio, Anto, where does his work fit in in the Spanish literary scene, theater scene? Me pregunta dónde encaja tu teatro. I think he's really a voice of his own. En el teatro español, yo creo que tú eres una voz muy particular. I think, because each of his plays is kind of different from the one before. There are topics. There are themes that we can... Tell us some of the plays. Tell us, and very shortly, what they are about. Venta quemada dentro de la tierra, which deals with... Which is a great play. I think it's one of his masterpieces. And it deals with the rural world where there's something happening. There's a lot of immigration problems. Immigration problems appear throughout. Problems about foreigners coming to Spain. There are problems with all kind of minorities. Then there's grooming also, which I think is also a great play, which refers to grooming. And he kind of questions. Grooming in a sense of grooming. Of somebody who goes and pretends to be somebody else to catch a minor. And I think it's a very interesting play. And he really puts... He really questions a lot of our behaviors. He questions what society deems normal or not normal. And why do we call some behaviors normal and some others not? So then there's El Señor Ye, which deals... It's a beautiful play where you have Chinese immigrants living at the bottom of and then some old Spanish women and something happens that I'm not going to reveal. Then there's another play that I like, which is... ¿Cómo se llama? Ahora empiezan las vacaciones, which is The Pelican by Streamberg. And he did a great adaptation and there was a beautiful production in Madrid. That's a play that has not been seen much, but I think it's another... It's an adaptation of The Pelican. And I think it worked wonderfully. He said that in modern Madrid and all those issues that Streamberg plays with, I think resonate very well into our society today. And then he's got also Eddie Porrey, Medea... Fedra. Which he kind of looks at the old myth with a modern prism. And I also think those are very good. And I think that's it. ¿Me olvidan alguna? Seguro que sí. Alguna, pero está bien. So he's one of the more visible playwrights in Spain. So this kind of censorship scandal, the theater taking a decision, an artistic decision to present a playwright and then taking it back because of political pressure, which is indefensible in our eyes. It's shocking. Your plays are very successful. They are shown on European stages. Tell us a little bit what theaters are... What countries, what theaters are showing it. Anton? ¿Has entendido la pregunta? Sí, bueno, que sería un éxito eso en Europa. No, tu teatro ha tenido mucho éxito. Por toda Europa. Also Pequeño Pony, Shanghai. Sí, o sea, en Estados Unidos creo que es la número veinte. Es la vigésima producción que se hace en el mundo. Esta la de Estados Unidos. Pequeño Pony's production number twenty all around the world. Sí, se ha hecho en Chile, se ha hecho en China. Chile, China. China, Italy and England. Now there will be new productions in Canada, I think. And yesterday I saw for the first time the cinematographic adaptation of The Little Pony. In a German production. Oh, that's true. Yes, they made a film of The Little Pony. And yesterday night I saw for the first time via a link, internet link that they sent me. And I think the premiere there will be in this year. Perfect. Fantastic. There is also a very good adaptation of Grooming, a movie adaptation of Grooming. Yes, there are two films about two of my plays. And I am working in the third adaptation for a new film. And now I work more in cinema than in theater because in theater after they banned me, how do you say? I have problems to stay on a stage. So is the fact that you don't have a home, you have now a nomadic existence, is that related to that feeling that you have, to that experience of being censored, being banned or not having income through theater? Or is that for you being homeless in your own country in a way? Is that a choice? Is it an artistic choice? Well, it's a middle. I have been in theater for the last 10 years. In the last 10 years? I have been in theater every year in Spain, in Madrid. He had an employee every year. And since I publicly denounced the censor case two years ago, I haven't been in theater again. And in two years he hasn't done anything since the moment that he complained about this treatment. However, outside of Spain, he's very popular. Incredible. And it's something one might expect, you know, in conservative Hungary, in Russia, Iran, Iraq, but it's shocking to realize and to hear that it's one of the most well-known writers and most respected writers from that country of Spain which has such a great tradition. It's one of the great world powers in a way, you know, going back to golden age, you know, and that it treats its playwrights in such a fashion and it's not a good sign. Paco, tell us, why do you write, why for the theater, if you did, why do you think it is important? I write theaters to question issues and so that they can make people think and that they can use their critical judgment. He never says who is he in favor of. And the audience has to choose or judge. They have to judge what's right, what's wrong and he tries not to immerse himself in that, you know, it's up to the audience. So are you a political playwright in that sense? He stresses his political persona as a person but not as a playwright. Theater is not for him to broadcast his ideas. That is quite a big statement. Tell us a bit, how do you write? Do you sit in cafes? Do you at home? Do you have a typewriter or a computer? How is your day structured? You said I write a play every year. What is your process of writing? He's always heard that some people always need to have the same place to write and they need to have a lot of discipline to write. Do you realize that his office is his head? He can write anywhere where he happens to be. Right on the beach, on the mountains. City and the town. On the plane. At the airports. Even in a disco, if he has an idea, he grabs his cell phone and he starts jotting down all his ideas. I think one of the... The opposite of an inconvenience is... What? The opposite of an inconvenience is a... a favor. I think the positive side of it is the favorable side or the advantage. Sorry. I think the advantage... I think the advantage of being a playwright is that you don't need to have a place to work. So you can write anywhere. So we can imagine you in a day in Madrid, you go from your home to cafes, at different places, an exhibition, way to an airport and you will always be writing. You know, almost like a painter who takes sketches all day long, whatever. He sees, what are your influences? Who influences you? What are your influences? Who influenced you as a writer? Who do you look up to? Well... I have a great influence on the Greeks. Greek playwrights, classics. It says some names. Euripides. Euripides, Sophocles. Sophocles. I think you don't need anything else. I think the great classics, you have it all there. All of theatre is in the classics. Aristotle just summarized everything that we needed to know. I think that we don't even need to read Shakespeare to understand what theatre is all about if you've read the Greeks. I think that reading Sophocles and Euripides... Sophocles and Euripides. Everything that we write nowadays is already in Sophocles and Euripides. So in a way, the adaptations and reinventions of existing stories you tell. Are you a Spanish playwright? Would you call yourself a Spanish player, a European? How would you... How do you see your identity? Or do you have one? The first play that I ever read was Yerma by Lorca. Lorca was born in Granada and he was born in Almería, which are relatively close cities, both in Andalucía. We both have a lot in common. I think a lot about Lorca, I mean... A lot of things in common. We're both people, we're boys, we're homosexuals. We were born in a rural town. And they went to Madrid to study and learn. And they've finally been censored. They've been both censored. And now in Florida they've censored the House of Bernarda Alba. I think it's not a matter of Spanish artistic censorship. I think it's a case that's been going on all over the world. And the proof is that just in Florida they've just been censoring Lorca right now, months ago. Yes, they've removed it from the libraries. Yeah, yeah, it's true. So we see your inspirations. Tell us a bit about the process of translating. Since we have a translator here, we actually helped to produce your play, The Little Pony. And we will talk about it later. My colleague, my late colleague, Marion Peter Holder, was a great translator, a great mediator, a bridge between Spanish, the Catalan Cedar, of course, especially. And so did you, and we all respected him, we published books with him. Did you collaborate with him and also with Anton? How are your collaborations when it comes to translation of your text? How do you think about it? He never met Marion Peter Holder. But he did have communication with him on the Internet. He had our emails, the exchange emails. He was only an expert in Catalan authors. He was the little pony. I had the illusion of doing this with my text and he asked me if I could do it, although he was not an expert in translating from Spanish, but from Catalan. Even though he was not an expert in translating from Spanish, but Catalan, he wanted to translate The Little Pony. So he saw, excuse me, go on. Permission, go ahead. So did he come and see the play? He saw the play. He never saw the play. But he read it and felt connected to it. Do you remember specific translation questions you were working on, struggling with, with Peter, Marion Peter? Does he remember that he asked him anything? Yeah, we think it's a very, very good translation. Anton, how is it for you? You translated more of his plays. You also have this ontology cutting-edge Spanish theater. Tell us a little bit, what is your approach when it comes to translating work that does come from a different country, from a different continent, inspired often by a context that is not as well known here? For me, there was a very important thing that Paco Becerra does, the playwright. And I've always been very interested in. He never attends rehearsals. He doesn't really care. He says that my theater is to be read. And that's very, very important. He doesn't care about the production. He doesn't care if it's because directing it, the actors, not important, the directors and the actors. That's not his job. His job is to write a play, to be read. And I took that in my translation as, I hope that I do the other linguistic translation. I'm very faithful to the original. But then I hope that the dramaturg, the director and even the actor, give it their own voice. Especially when you're translating into English, any phrase, if it's spoken in New York, London or Melbourne, it's going to sound completely different. So I would like my translation to be the stepping stone to create their own Becerra world. So that was my style, very, very respectful. And also, I hope that they get their own imprint. You know, their own, I mean, we know how different it is when you have different actors read the same monologue or the same text. You know, so absolute liberty for the people who envision something different. Tell us a bit about his technique of writing or the rhythm. What makes him special? Is it different from other writers you translate? Well, what makes Paco Becerra a Paco Becerra? I think he's very real. He's very alive. He always leaves you questioning. He's not afraid. You're not afraid of anything on your place. He's not afraid of anything. He really takes you to the edge. And then he kind of leaves you dangling. You never know who's right, who's wrong. And he just, for example, one of my favorite plays that we haven't mentioned, Lulu. Lulu starts with kind of a biblical retelling of the story of Lulu. And then it transforms into something completely different, completely shocking. And I think also I've seen three productions of grooming in different countries. And I've seen two productions of Pequeño Pony in Madrid and in Barcelona. And they were completely different. The Barcelona production, the production of Barcelona de Pequeño Pony was very different from Madrid. Of course, I never write, I never name the stage. I don't write for the theater. I'm a writer and I write dramatic literature. He writes dramatic literature. He's not a playwright. He doesn't write for the stage. I never talk about the stage nor how the works have to be done. There's never any indication of how that has to be done on stage. There are no stage directions. There are very few descriptions of the setting. I never write the stage. I'm not interested in the theater. I'm interested in conflict, ideas. I write about the ideas. He writes about the ideas. But not how those ideas are materialized in the scenario. But not how you visualize those ideas on a stage. And that's why I think he's so interesting. And because any of his productions will be completely different. So you come up first with a question, an idea or a painful moment in a person's life or in the history of a country and then you write a play around it. How does it originate? How do you start? Sorry? Like when you start making work. How do you start thinking? I understand that theater has to be dangerous. Theater has to be dangerous. and it has to be transforming. He has to be transforming. an рисful We have to present a conflict. You've got to present a conflict. It has to be a conflict a conflict that drags the audience and makes them think, what would I do if this? Intento que ese conflicto sea lo suficientemente angustioso y problemático, que haga que en el espectador Full of anguish, very problematic. Que haga que en el espectador se produzca una catarsis y una transformación. So there's a catharsis for the audience. There's a transformation. Y que salga distinto pensando completamente lo opuesto de cuando entró. And maybe they leave thinking completely different from when they enter the theater. También intento que todo aquello que el espectador pensaba que le parecía horrible al principio de la obra, al final... And everything that the audience thought it was horrible before. A que al final le parezca afectable. That maybe at the end it's acceptable. Y al revés que todo aquello... ...le parecía aceptable, que al final le parezca horrible. And everything that seems acceptable at the beginning, it's now not acceptable. Para que al final el espectador salga más confundido de lo que entró. So in order to confuse the audience even more. Creo que esa confusión es la que nos hace ser grandes como seres humanos, crecer como seres humanos, la confusión. That confusion makes us better human beings, makes us grow. He hates plays that give the audience what they wanna hear and what they believe is true. He hates them. That's why he never gives solutions. Somos políticos en ese sentido. We're not politicians in that sense. Somos políticos en el sentido de hacer reflexionar a la gente sobre aspectos que tienen que ver con el tabún, con las cosas que no se pueden decir y con las que no solemos hablar. Creo que escribo mucho acerca de todo aquello sobre lo que nadie te va a hablar ni en la escuela. He writes about things that are not talked about. They don't talk about it in schools, in your own marriage. Here is the last space where you can talk about what's not allowed to talk anywhere else. And not even theater anymore. Now that's very powerful, almost like a doctor and the patient has something that hurts and the doctor puts his hand on it and it hurts even more. It shows where's the pain, where's the wound, what is sick, what's not working. So it's quite impressive. How do you write many drafts? Do you work with actors to improvise in between?   How is your method of writing and rewriting? He's never tried out the text with the stage or with actors, never ever. He's a pure writer in the sense that he just writes. The draft is the one that comes out right away. Like you sit down for three, four weeks. Or is it like how long do you work? How do you struggle? How long do you go through the cafes and airports and discos? Give us a number. Hundreds of drafts. One has the feeling it's a musical composition. You know how the words and sentences play with each other. And now as soon in a minute or something, we will be joined by Kimberly Ramirez, who's directing the little pony here in New York City. In Marion Peter Holt's translation we did an excerpt of the scene. And when we did the memorial evening celebrating the life in the work of Marion Peter Holt, the audience was very touched even by the excerpts. We have a small festival that's called the Prelude Festival. And we did a full reading by just a stage reading. And again, there are people in the audience, as well as the actors felt so moved. And said, this has to be done. It's shocking that this play has not been done. It's a play about a little boy that wants to bring his knapsack, a pink knapsack with the little pony and the unicorns in it to a school. And a big problem starts off harassment, but also between the parents. We just see the mother and father talking in the living room over a couple of evenings discussing how the development of this kind of tragedy, again, that we witness. So it's the first time, if I understand right, is it really true that a play by Paco Bezera is being shown in the United States? Is that true? Yes, it's the first time. Which is also shocking and shows how isolated we are, especially giving the large Spanish population. I think in the Bronx, I think up to 60, 70% of audience, of audience, I say, of people living there speak Spanish. It's the highest, one of the most spoken languages here, but very few plays and next to some theaters who dedicated their never Spanish subtitles in theaters. So such a highly regarded internationally renown and celebrated playwright hasn't been done. It's going to be shown this weekend and next weekend a torn page, a small living rooms theater, beautiful space that Tony Torn keeps up. And I tell everybody, go and see this. You sit up close to the two actors, only 20 seats and they have no know how many are left. And we heard of some people, audience members crying after the show, people staying, writing letters. So it's quite something. I'm asking Emily, do we have Kimberly? Is she there? The director? Is she joining us? Kimberly, hi there. Tell us a little bit. You put the little pony together. You helped us to organize that event for Marion Peter. What does this play mean to you? You teach your professor of theater also.  Tell us a little bit. Why do you want to direct this play? My Spanish is very limited. So I'm going to speak Spanish in English because we don't have a lot of time. This play was translated by our dear colleague, Marion Peter Hall. It was his last translation and it meant so much to him. It was a very special project that he wanted to translate because he was primarily a translator of Catalan playwrights, but he felt so passionate about this final piece that he really wanted to bring into life and he could identify a lot with Timmy, or who in the original, Timmy's name is Luismi. I think the original character is Luismi. So very much unlike Anton's recent translations, which I also have, Anton is very careful not to change character names in the translations. And Marion felt it was really critical to have names that feel like they could be back where the source material was in North Carolina. So it's that DNA in Spanish is a very common name in the U.S. as well. Irene and Jaime was changed to Daniel and Luismi is Timmy, which is like a really common kid name in the U.S. And I feel like Marion felt he had so much in common, kind of a kinship, a spiritual identification with the source material, which was Grayson Bruce and Michael Morones, the kids in North Carolina in 2014 who were not allowed to simply express themselves. Yeah, and that kind of catastrophe, tragedy that develops is based on a real case of a child committing suicide in a school. And so we are witnessing that, but just through listening to the parents with an open ending. It's brilliant how the, in Bako's writing, how we come to know Timmy through exposition, through the dialogue of the parents, and through a portrait that is just the best opportunity for a projection designer, a set designer to create these glorious changing portraits of the child throughout. And we feel his presence, we feel like he could be anyone, anyone of our children or anyone of us. It's such a universal character and such a powerful message. I've been teaching this play since Marion passed away. And before he passed away, he really wanted a U.S. production. It was one of his last wishes. He emailed all of us. He said, someone has to do the U.S. premiere of my English translation that they did in London. I regret it didn't happen when he was alive, but of course we have the COVID-19 pandemic. And we are slowly building this from the memorial that we did for Marion, where we did a couple of excerpts of scenes. And then we did a staged reading at the Prelude Festival in the Siegel, with the Siegel Theater Center. And now we're doing a workshop in the salon of Tony Torn, who is the son of Geraldine Page and Rip Torn, two American actors. And we're slowly building this project. Can I ask a little bit about Marion? And Montgomery, how did you meet them? And how did you put them together? I met the actors at another legendary New York house of Edwin Booth, the great American actor who dedicated in the late part of the 1800s a house in Gramercy Park to the theatrical community. It is now The Players, which is a club for theater patrons and practitioners and arts enthusiasts. And we are on a committee for equity and diversity and inclusion at The Players, the actors and I. So we met kind of united by that passion already of inclusion, representation and fighting for equal rights and freedom of expression. So when the idea of the memorial excerpts came, I had those two actors in mind because they knew their commitments and their passion to begin with. Right. Let's maybe go for a moment back to Paco Paco. The inspiration of the play, did you read about the kids in Carolina who killed, tried to commit suicide or did? How did it start? Was it already in your mind the play and you looked for a request? How did the idea start of The Little Pony? I read in a newspaper the news about a principal of a school who forbidden a child who is in the school to go enter the school with a backpack of My Little Pony. It's the only thing that I've read because the news, they are not too long. It's only the principal of a school forbidden, a child who is in the school to enter at the school if the child go with a backpack of My Little Pony. And I was thinking about this immediately I thought that there are a good play there because I became to thinking what can be happen behind this law of the principal and all the play I think is all my thinking about how a principal can, how and why a principal of a school can or want, why he want to forbid this thing and how this law go to the parent's house of the children and what happened in the house and I became too great and I was one year and a half I think writing the play, I wrote the play in one year and six months more or less. And as we now know in hundreds of drafts, incredible. So is this, I want to repeat it if I understood it right. Of worldwide this is one of the top 20 plays performed on stages, you said? This is the number 20 in the world. You say production, your production is the number 20. 20, in the world. In the world, yes, it's the 20 but in countries, I don't know if it is or is 20, yes, it's, no, no, not 20 countries because in Greece, for example, there are four productions of Little Pony and in Poland, there are three productions. Is the number 20, how do you say 20? Production number 20. Production number 20. In the world but I think is the, maybe the, I don't know. I don't know the number of the country but it is a 20 production, production number 20. Yeah, now really it's an exceptional play so well written so well composed, asking the question. We witnessed these two, the parents, those two, Yeah, I thought in the... I thought in the soul episode, I thought in the soul episode, I thought in the soul episode, you thought about the absent character? Romano in the House of Bernardo da Alba. I also thought about Sebastián in the last summer of the last summer of Tennessee Williams. Sebastián in the last summer of Tennessee Williams. Well, I thought that suddenly he came to me. He came to me because the protagonist of the play had to be the absent character. He told me that the little boy had to be the absent character in the play. And I also came up with the idea of putting that picture as Kimi commented. To put that painting. That I also had to do a little bit with Dorian Gray's portrait of Oscar Wilde. Yes, Dorian Gray's reminiscences. It's very funny because in some countries they haven't read the work and they congratulate the scriptwriter saying, but a great idea of the scriptwriter who has put the absent character in a, as if it were an idea of that production, only what happened to him in a determined country. In some countries the critics have not read the play and they think that that's been part of the the director, the directors, pretty like that. It's an original idea of the staging. Amazing. Kimi tell us that it will be coming slowly to the end, but how did you decide to stage it? What did you struggle with? What was easy? What was complicated? The portrait was easy. I mean, Becerra's stage directions are so meticulous and they're expertly translated by Marion and we really followed them to the letter and we have a gorgeous projection design that really grounds the actors. The day that I brought the projection design, we found something like it just we rehearsing I think in Frontkentra's living room at the time and I brought the projection design and immediately something clicked for us. We could feel the narrative just exploding and it was, it's brilliant. The small projection is maybe like 20 inches times 40 inches. It's almost like an oil painting, a living one. Yeah, so tell us about the work with the actors and the words, what lines, what was complicated, what did you... It's been a really natural process. I can't really say that anything, I think the most challenging thing has been for the actors to transform into these characters, especially the performer playing Irene is nothing like Irene. None of us feel... We're a collective of creative people who are not gender conforming and the actor playing Irene so deeply understands Timmy and not so much Irene but they can get there through the process. In rehearsals, we did some improvisation for the offstage character because it's so brilliant that we don't know Timmy, that we don't see him, that we only hear him sound design and the portrait but we did some improvisations where the actor Marissa, who plays Irene played Timmy in rehearsal and we had some of those conversations between Daniel and Timmy about whether or not to take the backpack to school to take the Batman backpack. We improvise those off-stage scenes that are referred to only expository and I think that really deeply informed our process here. Yeah, so we'll see, we had like one weekend opening but it is something what we always try to do to introduce plays that are overlooked for the wrong reasons and we do not hear enough voices from around the world. Musicians listen to world music, it's vitally important to them and often I think the US is, it's an island, it's a gigantic big island in a way but it is an island and we do not listen enough to the voices from the world around of us also to realize that the big problems that we are facing whether it's climate change, homophobia, violence, violence against women, they are planetary problems. They are global problems and I think this place is a good reminder of the universality of this and I think it's deeply touching and so congratulations, you know, Paco for writing this work that is now being shown here. Will you come and see it? Will you fly over? I don't know. Let's see, we hope. Maybe another time, maybe someone will pick it up and put it in the next stage. So anybody who might be interested, you know, come and see it. So Paco at the very end, what are you working on at the moment? What's your, on draft 78 of what new play are you? What are you thinking about at the moment or is it film? I'm working in a film but I am working from the last 15 years in a, sorry, in a new play. In a new play that I started to write 15 years ago and I am still writing. What is it about? It's difficult for me and it's the reason is because I, it's hard and I spend a lot of years writing this because it's very ambitious and I think my mind from 15 years ago can, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not ready. It's not ready. It's not ready. I think from 15 years ago there are no ready, was not ready for, for write what is in my imagination and I think I am, lo estoy consiguiendo, how do you say? He's getting through it. Yes, he's getting through it. He's a man who returns to his village 20 years after he left or 30 years, I don't know very well. Returns to his town 20 years after he left and when he returns he discovers that everyone treats him as if he had never left. And everybody treats him upon his return like he had never left. Everybody's treating him like he had never left. And he starts thinking if somebody has taken his identity. But he, but nobody stole his identity, he really stayed. Oh, it's not really him. But there was a part of him that stayed behind. And he started thinking if somebody has taken his identity. But he, but nobody stole his identity, he really stayed. And this little part of him kept living in the town. And now when he went back to the other life, he cannot. He is forced to live the life that he left behind. So he has to live the life that he would have lived if he had never left. Amazing. Well, for sure, this is a, a scope of character. What are you working on, Anton? Are you translating at the moment? No, I have a translation commission, but I don't think I will take it. You know, I think I'm going to relax for a while. Well, so, you know, thank you, thank you both for sharing and thank you for being here. And, and I also wanted to mention them of the actors, you know, Montgomery Sutton, Marisa Kovarmi, Teresa Soroka, was assisting in the direction also is the stage manager of that show, which turns out to be the very, very first workshop production or production of the Parkour Bitsera play here in the U.S. and the Little Pony.  And so thank you both and thanks for howl around for hosting us. Emily for being such a good host, Vijay, everybody, and I hope to see you soon again at some Seagal Talks to our audience members. Thank you for taking out the time of your life to listen to this. And I hope to see you one day all in life at the Seagal Theatre Center. Thank you.


Γεια σας! Είναι Vicky και σήμερα είμαι να σημεριθώ ένα άλλο λαϊκό με το μήνυμα μου Arternal. Έχω σημερινθεί από το σπυραλ, ένας από τα πέτια και πρώτα από όλα θα προσπαθήσω τα πέτια χρησιμοποιώντας τελευταία. Είμαι προσπαθώντας με ένα σπυραλ όλον και αυτό θα προσπαθήσω έναν καλύτερο μπροσπαθό να προσπαθήσω τα πέτια μου. Είμαι χρησιμοποιώντας τα πέτια του Αλεγροακρυλικού, από Σταμπερία, στο δύο στήρι μες λαϊκός και πρώτα από όλα θα προσπαθήσω με το μήνυμα μου, το τελευταίο χρώμα και τότε θα μεταξύσω με το λαϊκό. Η πρώτη λαϊκότητα είναι πολύ σύνδυξη και μπορείτε να βλέπεις οι μπροσπαθόνες, αλλά θα το προσπαθήσω όλα τα χρώματα όταν πω. Όπως πάντα μπορείτε να βρεις την εξόγεσή των όλων τα πέτια, όπως και το number του χρώμα που χρησιμοποιώ, μόνο από το βίντεο στην εξογεσμή. Τώρα έχω βλέπει τα πρώτα από τα χρώματα και really like the outcome. Θα προσπαθήσω και να μεταξύσω με κάποιο τεξό. Θα κάνω ένα τεξό για να κάνω το μπροσπαθόνιο λίγο ενδιαφέρον. Μετά από όλα τα πέτια χρώματα που χρησιμοποιώ, έχω decided to go with the darker one. Είναι κάποιος να λέει ότι είναι δύο λαϊκό από το μπροσπαθόνιο, οπότε θα το δείξω. Τώρα είναι η ώρα για την εξόγεσή μου. Θα θα χρησιμοποιώ αυτή η καλύτερη στήρι μες Σταμπερία και την εξόγεσή μου, με την εξόγεσή μου, και θα μεταξύψω μετά από τα τεξόγεσια μου. Τώρα είναι η ώρα για να κάνουμε κάποιες πλάσεις. Θα κάνω μπροσπαθόνιο λίγο ενδιαφέρον, με ένα λίγο εξόγεσμα εξόγεσμα, και με ένα μπροσπαθόνιο λίγο, θα κάνω κάποιες πλάσεις. Αυτό είναι ό,τι έχω decided ότι η εξόγεσή μου μετά από τα τεξόγεσια was too bright for what I was going for. So I am going to make it less bright by adding a mix of the ivory acrylic paint along with the light blue that I was using for my background. I am mixing them up on my sponge and I will lightly go over it. I am not going to cover up the whole white. I just want to tone it down. I am also going to use a sanding file and I am going to make it even more distressed looking. Now this actually did erase the stamping of the text. So you will see that I will go ahead and stamp again on top just to bring back all that interest on the background. So here it is after stamping again the text and now I can go ahead and create my focal points. Now I am going to use this stamperia pattern paper that has a nice good grain pattern and I am just drawing with my pencil a very whimsical branch. After making sure that I am happy with what I have drawn I am going to use my scissors and cut it out. Once I have that branch I am going to stick it down on my layout by using my mixed media glue. I am going to use these wooden gates by stamperia which I am going to color it with aqua color. Aqua color is from the stamperia mixed media line and it is a spray but I am actually applying it with a brush to make a mess all over. What I like about this brown is that it is metallic and it gives a beautiful shine on my cage. I am going to try to touch to catch the light for you so you can see the shine there and I am also going to use the spray to add some splashes on my layout. This is going to bind nicely the background with the color on the cage. I am going to stick down the cage by using my mixed media glue and just because I like to use different mediums on my art journals I am going to use a real chain piece so this is a chain that I am using for my jewelry projects but I am going to cut just a piece I need so I am cutting it out and I am going to stick it as if the cage is hanging from the branch by this chain. Now I am going to stick this down using mixed media glue which although does not look white at the moment it is going to dry totally clear and you won't be able to see the glue at the final project. I also need a few flowers for my branch so I am going to bring in this Stamperia scrapbooking paper and with my scissors I am going to fuzzy cut a few of the flowers. I am then going to stick them down on my branch just to create a few clusters and add some interest. Of course you can always use sticker flowers or if you have a punch you can punch out flowers anything you really like. Now I am going to stick some of them directly on my layout with some glue. I am using this glue because I like it since it has a nice fine tip applicator and some other of the flowers I am going to stick them down using a foam tape at the back.  What I like about working on this Argenal with the spiral bind is that it gives me a little bit more freedom on being more dimensional just because that spiral can take more bulk and depending on the project that I have on my mind I switch from one Argenal to the other. So now I am going to go for the quote. For the quote I use these alphabets stickers to spell out free which I am going to place it inside that metal label. I am going to use the brats to secure the label on its place but first I have to poke the holes. That was really difficult to do and I was struggling with those holes because this is cheap port and it is quite thick but I was able to do it so I am using the brats securing them at the back and for the rest of the quote I am going to stamp just B I am using those alphabet stamps with black ink and to finish off my layout I am going to stick on top of the cage a little butterfly. I have fuzzy cut the butterfly from an old Stamperia scrapbooking paper which isn't available anymore but I am going to link you to a Stamperia sticker set where you can find the exact same butterfly as a sticker. I am using my mixed media glue to secure the butterfly on top of the cage and for the wing that is outside of the cage I am going to secure it by using foam tape at the back. All that is left to do is to put back the pages and assemble my art journal book. So that was the page for today I hope you had fun and got inspired and if you did don't forget to leave me a comment as well as give me thumbs up on my youtube channel if you haven't subscribed to my youtube channel already I would really appreciate it if you do so because this is the way to tell me that you love my videos and you want to see more. Here are some close up photos of today's project and if you need more inspiration here is the first page of this mixed media art journal. Thank you all for watching.


Hello, everybody. This is David Zuckerman, your Lieutenant Governor, working remotely from home as many people are, and I'm on with my 3D time a week, FaceTime live conversation or presentation, I guess, around issues and questions that folks have been reaching out to my office, as well as things I hear from some reps and senators that folks are concerned about and trying to figure out and understand. So, I'm going to jump right into a few thoughts and then also, after I address a lot of these constituent questions and information, I just want to talk a little bit about. What's next, you know, we have to be addressing the present, but we also have to be thinking about what are we learning from this for future situations and also what do we want to do to rebuild the economy. When we get over the hump of reducing the surge and flattening the peak and so forth. And just want to put that into people's minds to think about. So, I've got a lot of different constituent concerns about a range of things. I'm not going to be able to address all of them, but I thought I would start talking about the ones that I've heard more concerns about. The first one on the list is around the farmers markets. When the governor created the stay home, stay safe. They said that grocery stores are open, but farmers markets would not be allowed to be open. There are a lot of folks working on this issue all over the state. And the one thing that we know from Vermont is the umbrella organization for the farmers market association and they're working with farmers market managers, as well as many vendors to try to figure out maybe how to see if there's a way to set up our farmers markets that would meet some of the requirements of the health questions that maybe the governor and the health department are thinking about, but also be able to maintain the opportunity for folks to buy local food from their farmers. And buy food, some would argue in an open space that might be less dense than grocery stores. So that conversation is ongoing. I know that folks are working hard and discussing the possibilities of how to make sure the farmer market workers, whether they be the owners or their employees can also be safe with respect to exposure to others. There's a lot of grocery stores now, although not all are putting up plexiglass between the customer and the checkout. And so maybe there's some provision that could be put up for that for farmers as well. But there's issues like how do people take two cucumbers from the bin and not touch a third or fourth cucumber with their fingers. So how do we make sure anything that's on people's hands is not transferred to other people on that produce. So there are legitimate concerns on all sides, but I think there are also really smart creative minds and we're going to be able to hopefully get to where farmers markets will be able to be open and available across the state. Like I said, it's a way for people to get their local food and it's also a way for farmers as well as others to often make their living. I can speak honestly to that as someone who's also a farmer. We sell through the farmers market, but we also sell through a CSA. We're trying to figure out how to make sure that can be done safely and properly for our members. And then also farmers are selling wholesale to the stores and delivering and meeting with the back stock crew and the managers. And so there's a lot of points where there's contact and we are all working hard to make sure we keep supply going, but also keep it safe for all employees and the farmers and the grocery workers and the customers. So it's a really important conversation and it's ongoing and I really appreciate how many people want to see the farmers markets continue. Please know that's on the front burner. There's been a lot of outreach about health, healthcare safety and clearly we are all really pulling for and thanking our healthcare providers and working to make sure they can stay safe. My understanding is a couple of days ago, seven tractor trailer loads of FEMA or maybe it was six came in with hundreds of thousands of masks to extend the supply beyond the three week supply that we had. And so that supply being more robust and hopefully more in the pipeline now that at the federal level they're starting to recognize that this actually is a pandemic. And that work needs to be done to get supplies that more healthcare workers will have access to more supplies. But also some of those places that weren't I got a call from someone at the Brattleboro retreat concerned about the folks working there and the proximity to their clients. And the issue of making sure those folks also have proper masks if needed and deliberated by CDC and others. A big question around testing and why healthcare workers aren't getting tested and why more people aren't getting tested. And the bottom line is there weren't enough kits and I asked the Department of Health Commissioner I said, is the protocol to do minimal testing and only those who are exhibiting serious symptoms. Because that's the right thing to do from a medical practice perspective or because of limited supplies and he was quite clear that unfortunately it's due to limited supplies and they would like that far more people. We now have more testing kits and the state has expanded who's tested, but there's still only have enough kits to really test people who are starting to exhibit symptoms. I would hope that we can get to a place to be able to test everybody who may be exposed folks who may be for instance at the senior center or senior living facility in Essex Junction where one of the workers husbands was passed away. They've ended up getting sick. They were in proximity to people that live there. They are quarantining and testing the I think nine people that came in close contact with that work. But the problem is other people may also have been in contact with asymptomatic folks in the building. And right now those folks are not being tested. Now the statement from the administration is that the chance of false negatives. You don't want to test people who aren't exhibiting symptoms because then people will be falsely reassured they aren't carrying it when they may be. But I think when you look at the countries and the places that have really put this this issue into more of a box and not had it spread it much as much for testing everybody. And certainly we need to tell folks if you test negative it is not an absolute you may still be a carrier. But we could then find more of those asymptomatic positive people and we could make sure they get quarantined and stop spreading to others. So that's a hope in my opinion in the long run of why we need to be advocating and pushing hard for more testing kits more testing capacity so we can stop this spread. Not only by doing the right thing as many Vermonters have been asked to do and work from home as I am and many are you right now. But but actually do the testing of anybody so that we can start to find those people who are asymptomatic but our carriers who may well be either infecting their families or infecting coworkers even in those places where we're practicing the proper CDC guidelines of six foot spacing. I want to make sure people now know there is more testing happening around the state as the commissioner of health mentioned and has told everybody a new site opened and put me for instance. These are some drive through sites but it's really important to note you're not allowed to just go to a drives through site and get tested. You still have to get that recommendation from your doctor and or the approval of the health care professionals in the system that they're using in order to have access. So you still have to be symptomatic and you still have to get that permission from your doctor and that request from your doctor so don't just go to a drive through thinking you're going to get a test yet. Hopefully, in my opinion, that will change. There's also some questions about unemployment, particularly from an elderly services group in Middlebury, but I know folks are concerned about this all across the state. It's really important for people to know that the federal government bill has a $600 a week unemployment check to augment the state unemployment system. That's going to last for four months. And so if you are unemployed because the business has been required to close or they feel they have to close out of safety or they lay people off out of numbers and density. You are eligible for both the federal and state unemployment system. So please do utilize that and and between those two you should be actually made relatively whole because the state unemployment system. It gives you, I think it's a maximum of either 53 or 57% of your prior wages. But then on top of that, the federal government is $600 a week for up to four months. So you should be able to meet your bills, which leads me to another question someone asked, which was a landlord reached out and said there are tenants who are claiming they don't need to pay rent because of this. And we do need to clear up that rents are still do mortgages are still do what people really ought to do is reach out to their landlords or reach out to their bankers. Communication is key because everyone is trying to be flexible. A lot of landlords are willing to accept payment coming in a little bit late. For instance, if you're on applying for unemployment today, you're not going to get that money tomorrow and tomorrow rent is due and your mortgage is due. But if you tell them you're applying for those resources, you're going to get those resources. Could you pay them in six days or 10 days or 15 days? Most landlords are more than happy to work with you, but your rent is due your mortgage is due. But some of the penalties may be abated, but the fundamentals are still do and please communicate with your landlord or your mortgage lender to figure out how to make that work. But they also have to pay their bills. The landlords have to pay their mortgages have to pay the maintenance on the buildings. And some have a bigger buffer than others, but not paying for the next two months, four months or six months is actually not an option legally or from a housing perspective. I've also heard some landlords are threatening to evict health care workers for fear for the landlord of their property being contaminated. I don't believe that is allowed either. Health care workers right now are the last people that need to have their lives completely disrupted and be evicted from rental situations. When they're trying to put when they are putting their lives on the line trying to care for sick Vermonters. So we need to make sure that, you know, renters are protected and landlords are properly paid, but there's there's folks on each side that need to make sure they're following the law. I got a contact from folks about from a UPS facility, wondering why shipments are still being made from businesses that are non essential businesses or non critical businesses. It's important to understand, at least my understanding is that essential businesses are the places where in person activities can still happen. So medical providers, automobile repair shops, places where you're going to bring your car to leave it to get fixed. There's going to be an in person interaction. You still have to maintain the safe spacing. You still have to be smart about social distancing, but other businesses that manufacture things or sell things, they just can't sell in person. So you can't go to the counter at, say, one example, this is not to pick on them, but the teddy bear factory in Charlotte or Shelburne, they can't sell teddy bears at their front retail store anymore. But they can still make them and they can still ship them so long as the working conditions for those employees or our safe CDC guideline distancing. And so these are some of the nuanced questions that people are asking because these folks at UPS were wondering, how are these things still being shipped? Well, you can still order things online and they can still be shipped as long as the workplace conditions are safe and proper for the employees. And that's really important for employees and employers to be working together with those guidelines, those distancing, the cleaning of bathroom door knobs. All of those different factors need to be being addressed. And if they're not, if you're an employee that has a concern, reach out to your legislator or to my office. If you're an employer, an employer who's not sure what you're supposed to do, reach out to your legislator or my office or both of you can also whoever's in those situations can reach out to the Department of Labor. I know that right now, they're quite overloaded on the phones, but they're doing the best, but all of us are folks that are supposed to be able to help you with your answers. So please feel free to reach out. There is some requests for the Health Commissioner and the Department of Labor to give out more guidance for those employers and I know they're working on it. There have been some questions about healthcare workers and empty hotel rooms and whether hotel rooms could be made available for healthcare workers. Actually under the addendum that was put out a couple of days ago and the discussion that the governor just had with the Department of Public Safety with respect to hotels and so forth. They can be open for health uses as well as healthcare workers. They may need special permission to do that, but that is a possibility. So this person who reached out around healthcare workers not wanting to be going home potentially infecting their families and or other healthcare workers who might feel they should be isolated. Hotel rooms I believe are a possibility, but you should work with your employer and the health department and the owner of those accommodations to see what is possible. We have had a number of folks expressed concern about the relationship of children and foster care and that they're supposed to have in person meetings with their biological parents. That my understanding is there was still a court order that the request to not have those in person meetings has been denied in the courts. So currently those family meetings do need to occur. They need to follow those. But I'm pretty sure that the, let's say I'm reading it as we go here a little bit, that you can work to set up safe or safer situations. But certainly if a kid then runs to be with their biological parents while you're in that same space with them, that is contact that currently is still allowed. And we, I believe the Department of Children and Families is certainly trying to work with foster parents on this. But I know it is a grave concern for a lot of people that they may be practicing proper social distancing and they don't have any control over the family of the biological parents of the kid that they're or kids that they're caring for. And that's a very legitimate concern. And we are trying to figure out how to make that work better. We being the broad world of state government and people who are looking at a lot of these concerns and issues. So right the court order is that those biological meetings do have to continue unless there's an event as an event that arises where the child's health is immediately threatened. In which course case again there is the opportunity to petition the court for relief from that. So you should probably speak to attorneys about that. I want to briefly also talk about now what are some things we can be thinking about as we are experiencing this living at home situation and experiencing what's working and what isn't for how do we rebuild in the future. There's bound to be an economic stimulus package just like there was after Tropical Storm Irene just like they're rebuilding maybe it's not a stimulus package but the rebuilding package just like there was after the Great Recession in 2008. Big stimulus package from the federal government. So think about what things the state can be planning for and let your legislators know. Let me know. Let the governor's administration know. So that when the time comes to start thinking forward we have those ideas and opportunities. Right now one thing people could do I think thinking forward for the whole summer because this may go on for a bit is if you have land that you can grow a garden on and you haven't grown one before. I would suggest now that spring is coming I know down in the southern eastern part of the state it's probably a bit warmer up to Connecticut Valley over here in Chittenden County it's starting to warm up a bit we're starting to be able to work the fields a little bit. But over these next month or so maybe six weeks folks are going to have the opportunity to start turning over your yard or your garden. Almost like the victory gardens from World War Two. Think about growing some food both for yourself or for a neighbor who you don't have the land or maybe economically strained under this time. It's a great opportunity to take your kids if you have kids and teach them and learn yourself how to grow some food. It's an opportunity for folks to talk across fences to each other again with proper spatial distancing about tips and ideas. But now's the time to plan to grow a garden to help augment your own food or maybe a neighbor in need. How about friends or neighbors or yourselves who don't have good broadband service maybe this is coming through not very well or if you're supposed to be working from home and you're using zoom or other technologies and you've got broadband. Well now's the time to remind ourselves as policymakers how important expanded broadband is all across this state. You can't get health alerts. You can't get do your business through good broadband. How are we supposed to manage in times like this. So let's think about those opportunities and what we can do to expand broadband across the state. And you know what is what are you experiencing in terms of where the mistakes are happening as we're trying to resolve these issues all across the state Vermont state workers and state administrators are all working their tails off to address folks questions and concerns but maybe what if we had a landlord list for the state. Well then landlords could be informed of their rights as this one landlord asked me to make sure tenants are paying but also be informed of the things they can't do like threatening to those traveler nurses that they need to move out. What if we had statewide lists of certain types of professions so we could give better guidance that might mean more government it might mean more lists but it also might mean quicker response in times like this. So we need to be thinking about all of these issues. There's many issues that that I've cared about over time in terms of the minimum wage or paid family leave. How would those have helped solve or at least mitigate some of the challenges people are facing today. But we should be having those conversations so that in the future we are better situated hopefully for this never to happen again. But if even something close to this happens we would be better situated to address it. So that's my message for today. Please feel free to comment in with questions that you want answered next time. Always feel free to reach out to the Lieutenant Governor office at the Deb dot wolf at Vermont dot gov is the email address you can go to the website LT gov dot Vermont dot gov to send in an email and we will do our best to try to get back to you. Deb's doing an amazing job both getting me this kind of information while I'm trying to answer constituent calls. She's answering folks calls and emails. We're trying to look at all of the online communications. But please do reach out to us. Email is best for us to be able to respond. But we will do our best to look up any questions and answers you have and help you get through these difficult. Stay safe with your family. Try to find joy in the time you have together. If sometimes you're getting a little bit on each other's skin. Take a break. But go out for a walk if you can if there's a space for you to be able to do that and be in touch with family friends through the phone and really touch base with folks and try to be healthy and safe. Thank you so much for joining me today. We will see you on Thursday at 1030 and Saturday at 1030 and next Tuesday at 1030 trying to give these updates. Thank you.


Hey, what's good y'all? It's your boy Don from the Don Show in France. And we back when the K-pop reaction brought us back in the building again. What's popping this your boy, Jans? How y'all doing? So we back. Yes, yes. We here. Oh my God. Y'all want more good? Nah, I don't know. Okay. We got today a BTS Dynamite official music video choreography version. So back then in June last year, we did the dance practice, but we just gonna go ahead and knock out the choreography version just in case anybody that's new to the page has not seen us do that. Me and Jans can turn back to just do Dynamite official music video for our choreography person. So make sure you check it out. Make sure you hit the like button, share, subscribe. You know what I'm saying? Ring that bell. Absolutely. So let's just get right into it while I eat some noodles so I can make sure I eat some sometimes. Just can't go wrong with this. You really can't. Kill it. You see that good? See what they hit for. Okay, first of all. Yeah, go ahead. So, first of all, that camera, that wide shot. Yeah. Beautiful. We got it wide. I don't know if that's a scenery or there.  It wouldn't get to the second. We'll be ready to pass it to the videos. You're like, that wide shot. Yeah, look at that. Yikes. That's a beautiful shot. Shit. You can't even tell that it was real or fake. I mean, you could tell that it's the light is crazy. Might be in the studio. Don't be surprised. Look at that shadow. Yeah. Yeah, they're definitely, I'm glad you pointed out the shadow because they're definitely, they're definitely in the studio. Mm-hmm. And they got the lights coming down. Mm-hmm. Carter would have peed that. I remember this choreography too. Because he started over here with the solo. Got the Timbs on. Hey, dancing in boots is really hard. It's really hard. Especially you got big beat. It is the worst. Size 13 game. Right. Oh. Oh yeah. Did you see this? Yeah. Let me try this with the kick. Woo. So that could be a mistake easily. I like that. Yeah. Good transition. Yeah. The choreography matches the video. Yeah. We always talk about that. Y'all know that. We talk about that all the time. The choreography matches the song. It's so smooth, man. So smooth. Yeah. Real playful movements. Mm-hmm. Nothing too crazy. Yeah, it's always... Yeah. It's like you don't always have to be like super clean lines. Yeah. Real, real sharp. Just real smooth, playful. Yeah. And like I said, you know me. My thing is matching. There's your choreography and the texture of your choreography actually matches. And if it doesn't, you gotta go back in the lab and do that because... If they were going extra fast and like, oh my... Yeah. A battle type of choreography would not match. Yeah. It wouldn't make any sense. It wouldn't make any sense. That's why I like it. I really do. I still remember the dance practice. Good. Good transitions. But I didn't go a lot though. I would have popped for it. I think I would have more locking and popping. Yeah. I remember this for your absolute... I remember locking a lot more poppins. But it's also... It's like, it's a great song to have great transitions and clean. That's what they're doing. Yeah. Think, think, think. Ah! Yeah, good. You know, I like how they start out as a diagonal. Mm-hmm. As they're doing their footwork. This was like that. Go back. You'll see what I'm talking about. I ain't never scared to admit that I missed that. You know? I ain't scared to admit I missed it. Crazy. Hold on. Got the beat. Look at that. Here we go, ready? One, two. Nasty. That's the little things. It's the little things. It's a smooth transition. Good. Good. A. I love the outfit change. Yep, say it. I knew you was. You got the disco up top dressed like during the 70s. Beautiful. But the question is, which one is your favorite? My favorite outfit? Mm-hmm. It's hard because that checker blazer is dope. We on the same page. That checker blazer is dope and my man's in the back with the blue, with the tampants and the floor shirt. It got the chest out. Yeah. Now if I was wearing that, I had to tackle me. Had the hair. Oh yeah, with the sunglasses. With the sunglasses. You gotta have a goal. You gotta have a nice change. Yo, my man's with the leather shirt with the jeans, too. Yeah, but see, he got the sunglasses going. Nice. With what, y'all? Like, really, we watching the video, like. Hey, I actually like to sit with no jacket. With the rings, too. With the bell bottoms. Yeah. Nice. Now I can admit, I didn't like this shot. I didn't like that shot.  This shot right here, y'all.  Let me see.  I don't like that shot. As if I was a director there as a choreographer, I would have had a problem with that. I would have them. Even if it was a correct version. Because it makes more sense to have them looking towards this camera than looking at another camera. Yeah. Now, this was a scene where they were just doing random stuff and nobody, they're not, it's like them interacting with each other or something like that. It would kind of make sense to have two different angles, but since we're actually engaging with the camera, I feel like it's better to just have one angle and just then engaging with that camera at the angle. So like if they would have been turned here, and still have that angle, I would have been cool with it. But it looks like it's kind of... Yeah, at least I would have had... It kind of throws it off fast. I would have had one of the artists right here. Right here. And just it would have been his own back and they doing the movements. I know that it's sometimes it's like a parody. Or if it tells like a story. Yeah. Or if it tells like a story, they're doing that... They're doing their things staring at that camera, but if they have something in the background going off screen or something like that, until there's no like, hey, this is also happening in the background, that's cool too, but this feels like it's dead space.  I just can't do that. I'm sorry, I gotta be honest. Overall solid video. Solid video, just not my favorite shot right there. Yeah, just that shot is kind of weird. I like the poke of that shot. He has one too. But that Gucci jacket. That thing is hard. I was trying to stay away from that one. That's obvious. Yeah. What did we say? I said, we have at least one artist right here with that zone. Now it's at an angle, but that's what I was saying. I would have had that. I can't... And then switch it over like that. And the light on the outside. I think I'm gonna do some different things with the lighting. And then when it comes back to the group, switch it back to the forward frame. The camera on him, make it follow him going back to the group, like at the beginning. Yeah. I was looking at the camera shots, y'all. Fantastic to that. Hey. Let's go. In my opinion, I would have put a little more locking, but it's just what it follows. It works. That real smooth choreography. But I can't even say in front of y'all, like I didn't want to see some locking. That's a problem. You can't go wrong with pop either. That's another thing. Like, I love this shot. I love that shot. Like, don't get it twisted, y'all. It was doing its thing. Pop it up and beat the edge. Yeah, like, bro, bro. Like, don't get it twisted. Dave, they're amazing as always. Yeah. You know, just, it's just that one shot that was kind of weird. Everything else beautiful, lighting's beautiful, stage's beautiful, outfits, transitions from, not only the frame before the choreography as well, everything great. Yep. You know, it's just that one little shot that was kind of weird to me. But it's all good. Hey, I mean, to be honest with you, we can't really call it a mistake because that's just our preference. Yeah. You know, that's just our perspective. It's okay. It's a different preference. Like, you know, it's never about hate. It's about, hey, I just got a different preference. Yeah. Everybody in the world has their own perspective. Y'all may feel different. Y'all may love this shot. And that's okay too. There you go. I'm not disagreeing with y'all. Talk, talk. You know? You know, but everything else was amazing. You know? Beautiful. For me, it's, we did this last year. So we really already know the choreo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now it was just like, let's see it in that. And we watched it a couple of times because we really like something on here. We watch it again usually. Cause we really not always have time to watch somebody or somebody's band or artist and we don't like them. Yeah, exactly. We didn't want to have negative review reactions because it's easy to. Yeah. It's actually easy to hate. Really easy. It's really easy. He brought that up in last YouTube videos about, it's easy to hate. It's so easy. So we want to make sure that we make sure y'all understand.  Like, to the point where they can appreciate all the positives, which BTS has unlimited positives. Like, I wouldn't even say like, that's not liking that shot as a negative. It's just, you know, just how we see it. Yeah. To make sure that the band looks right. Yeah. So listen y'all, we got more videos to do. We're gonna knock something out before we go. We love y'all. Yeah. We'll catch y'all later. Yeah, y'all already know y'all. We see y'all soon. Peace.


want to shave her 1000 here and monkey 1000 this video is actually about her isn't it well kind yeah well what happened to her not me I don't know you gonna do a video on it too maybe well I was gonna let him know if you were to go check you out check out monkey anyhow this is from that little pock that talks to you and stuff when you ask questions I don't want to say her name because she goes ballistic she's been doing weird stuff here lately and this is one of them check it out well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well from Alexa so what the hell is that all about I don't know very strange very strange we have no idea and as you can hear she was on the phone with what your attorney yeah so so she just got off with her attorney and that's where you seen her she just hung up and I was talking to my mom yeah and her name was not mentioned and besides it wasn't it wasn't even her no that was talking no no if you guys let me know in the comments below have you had this amp what what's going on with very weird it's kind of scary weird to start talking from every but this was a dude yeah it was kind of like it was reading a child's book or something you know right and he had an English accent yeah but yeah but it sounded like he was reading a child's book and then I went don't do yeah I don't know very weird very very weird welcome to Florida we'll see you guys in the next one she buried met the man alleged I'm gone for now month what he says she's out for now y'all by the accident he says they're giving him a hard time on the neurology I wish I could help with this game but we have all had his full preparing for the big day that was not about what he's going to come from came from Alexa he said if he had rematches there I never said a word


What's good y'all it's your boy Rocks back here again with another video. So we're gonna check out WWE top 20 shocking new era returns At this point. I I don't even know what these errors are I don't know if the real some of you guys saying the last video I did with the reality era That was a real thing now. This is the new era. I don't know Whatever air is on the top of this video. That's what we check it out Don't know if it's a real thing or not at this point, but we're still gonna check it out You guys have been loving this series. You guys been showing a lot of love and support on this particular return series So we got to continue it, man I'm gonna do my part as long as you guys do your part and make sure you hit the like button down below Subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and we're gonna get it right into the new era returns for You know Every time I think his summer slam return definitely got a bigger pop And the main reason is because you know the crowds was able to come back and stuff like that So his his summer slam return definitely got a bigger pop So this is what it is the new era cuz John Cena coined it I mean he coined the ruthless aggression if you guys remember that promo he had against Kurt Angle Go through me This is when This is when I want to say Kevin Owens came out Was it yep, oh Man that pop that was so that was one of the loudest pop that year. Oh my god Yep, this is so cool This is cool Welcome back That that was a that was one of the loudest pops that year easily. I think this is when he came back Couldn't boom you couldn't boo him at this point he was un-booble for the simple fact that this was a real-life issue and It was like if you're booing this person You're really a piece of your piece of garbage because he's really dealing with this So it was cool that he got the love and the pop that he deserved from this This was an emotional moment to to hear that. I'm I'm in remission y'all. That's good Like look at that, bro And now it truly is his yard now. I love it man. She come all full circle. I'm in remission y'all That's awesome Manager It's not you That was a good feel moment the use of chance Definitely Just he's a legend man an actual Olympic wrestler and he was putting it He was putting some great feuds man fantastic feuds. He worked as a heel. He worked as a face Karen Angle was that guy man. He's still willful always forever being that guy That was a nice return Yeah, that was that was a pretty cool moment to see right Look at Roman's face. This is when I wish they would have just pulled the trigger on this, bro They should have did it. This would have been a perfect moment to do it He was over listen.  I Still think they I know they were teasing it But I still think it just would have worked if they would have never went that route and Had Roman lose that way. I think that would have been a pretty cool solution You know I'm saying brawn was hot at this moment Lies around this gimmick was dope This gimmick was so dope, bro, he's he was over It's so annoying to see how they had someone that was over everything he created worked. I Don't did y'all miss me Yes, we did you miss you now He was over too, he was over too. I like the bottle that we have now. He's much better. I love it That bottle that should face bottle that she cool.  I watched this live.  This was great This was great Kevin Owens becoming the Universal Champion was great That was so good. Oh, this is one Batista attacks. Do I got your attention now? Hey, Hunter, do I have your attention now? Michael Cole and oh my he's much better now I we can all agree Michael Cole is not as annoying and cringe on commentary But before oh my god, Michael Cole. Hey, you don't even sell He's just oh my god didn't sell convincing J. R.  So what do you have to say for yourself? Entering the Royal I remember that nobody controls The Undertaker no one Oh Here we go Yep, when I heard this this was both the Hardee's back. That was so cool. That was pretty cool, bro And they gave them the win that was pretty cool. I love it You think you know me yep Oh Someone literally tried to argue me in saying this didn't take place in Houston Ed's return took place in Houston. It took place in minute made park I remember because I watched it All the pretty cool stuff be happening in houston sometimes when it comes to wwe So, yes, I know he legitimately tried to argue me this on one of my videos I'm like, bro. Do your research google it. He came back that royal rumble was in houston I know these things Now that was an actual you can hear Michael Cole losing his voice I'm marked out because I was shocked. They I did not expect to see Brock anytime soon This was a pretty cool way to end summer song The greatest champion in wcw history Oh, yeah, this is when he had first came back This is when he first came back He was sweating up a storm He had been in wwe quite some time Yeah, that was a holy shit moment I think this is the John Cena return now the whole yep, it's the john c knowledge me You see how loud that pop was That was a real reaction I I rather take that than the plan. Oh my god. Oh my god. I rather him lose his voice Let's listen to that again. Oh my god.  Uh, that deserves to be number one. Amen This was a dope video. I enjoyed this even though. I don't know if the new era is a Real thing, but I enjoyed this video. So comment down below. Let me know What's your favorite return from the new era or whatever That is right now. My camera's tripping out is blurring in and out I need a new camera gotta invest in some better equipment camera. I got school But it'd be tripping as you see. Sorry for blurring in and out like that But comment down below. Let me know what's your favorite, uh Return from the new era of wrestling appreciate all the love and support bro to cck Appreciate y'all kicking with me and I see y'all on the next one. Peace