So we're going to have a conversation here obviously about the subject and towards the end we'll have a session for some questions and at that time there's a microphone in the middle there if you want to have a question if you line up behind the microphone. We'll take those. So I want to introduce our renowned panel of writers. First we have Carol Hall and I'm just going to point out some of their work that is relevant to what we're discussing today. I know Carol recently wrote the lyrics for an adaptation of a children's story called a Christmas memory which is based on a it's a Truman Capote short story. It's a classic story. It's not really for children. I mean it's not a children's story. Right right it's a little it's sort of based on his his his childhood a little bit. And also I know Bessito Horos in Texas was actually an adaptation of a Larry. That's not a children's story. But well but it's an adaptation of Larry King's book and he actually wrote the libretto for it as well. Wendy Holzman wrote the book for Wicked which is an adaptation of Gregor McGuire's The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Doug Wright as as many of you know has written several adaptations of actually documentary films if you don't know where some of these things have come from. Grey Gardens was a documentary film hands in a hard body musical was a documentary film as well. He also did the adaptation of A Little Mermaid the musical version for Broadway which is adapted from the animated Disney film. And David Ives down there is many you might not know this for the last two decades. He has adapted 33 librettos for city centers on course series in New York which includes the revival of Wonderful Town. He also co-wrote the book for the musical adaptation of the film White Christmas. And actually many of David's plays are adaptations of Venus and Furze based on a 19th century German novel. And School for Lies is based on Molière's Missing Throat. So a wide range of different styles of adaptations. And as many of us know I think probably the most compelling thing about adaptation is the fact that a story exists in some form. And sort of the thrill of that is what we do with that story of how we get to play with that story. So the first question I want to throw out to our panel here is for you what excites you about adaptation? And what do you find as sort of the greatest challenge with approaching adaptation or working with adaptation? Any takers? No I was just going to say Winnie and Stephen Schwartz just finished the most extraordinary hour of talking about wicked. I can't even imagine what else you could say. I'm going to find something. I know me. He's amazing. He was great. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.  I was just going to say that I don't really draw a line very much between playwriting and adaptation. They're sort of the same thing for me. But I take my inspiration as always from Shakespeare who if you asked him probably would have said that his job was an adapter because 35 of his 37 plays were adaptations of somebody else's material. And he didn't do too badly on the other two. But it just seems to me I love adaptation because it takes, I find story very hard and I love to have somebody hand me a structure that I can then play with. For example when I, just to throw this out, when I did The School for Lies which is a version of the misanthrope, I actually did what I call a translaptation which is to say that I translated it and adapted it. Partly because I never thought that the misanthrope worked very well. And so I was interested in that play because I thought it never pleased me. And so I just thought I would fix it because Moliart wasn't around to tell me any differently. So I reworked it that way. But it's taking some of the load off of you I would say, adaptation. I think just saying what you just said is really key, at least for me, is when you were talking about writing something that annoys you or upsets you or makes you angry in some way. And I don't mean that when I was reading the novel of Wicked that I was annoyed or angry, exactly. But the idea of the novel was so thrilling to me. And there were ways that he did the idea that I felt combative about. And I do think that there is something about writing where you sort of go, I'm going to show you or I'm going to show you what I think it should be. This is something very aggressive. And I do think that I can barely be on the panel, I think, because I've only done it once. I've only done one adaptation. I would like to do more. But I do think that there is, for me, it was almost a relief not to read the novel and go, oh my god, I wouldn't change a thing. Because how would then I proceed? Whereas what it was for me is I was flooded with ideas of things I would want to do a little bit differently. And that's, to me, a better place to begin. But I don't know. I have a footnote to what Winnie says, which is that I say this to my own shame and embarrassment. So turn off the cameras. But when Wicked came out, somebody came to me and said, there's a book called Wicked, which might make a good musical. And I read and I said, it will never work. I said, it is absolutely impossible to turn that book into a musical. And so I went off to Molière or something. I don't know. But so bravo, bravo, because I think it's a brilliant, brilliant adaptation in every way. And I think we were led greatly by, just what I'm saying, our likes and dislikes. It got very personal very quickly. We were in a conversation, obviously, the two of us, Stephen and I. But it was all about, well, what do you just love in the book that you have to keep? And what do you not like that we don't want to have? And I remember those as the very beginnings of the conversation. It was all very personal and a response. And I just don't want to see that or I do want to see that on stage. Just regarding when you're talking about the original authors and things like that, when you're doing adaptation, do you feel an ongoing obligation to either the author or the source material or whoever created that first version, whether it was a film or something? And does that affect, are you aware of it at all times while you're writing? Or is it something you have to let go? I curiously felt less of an obligation with two of my adaptations to the original authors and more the potential audiences because both pieces were beloved cultural artifacts. Working on Grey Gardens and working on The Little Mermaid. And Grey Gardens is a celebrated and revered and deeply subversive documentary that is held to almost Biblical standard by a vociferous and enthusiastic group of gay gentlemen, usually of a certain generation. And Little Mermaid is a beloved animated film that is cherished by tween girls. And those two demographics have a lot in common.  And so I felt enormously beholden to what were very concrete and loudly expressed audience expectations about both of those works. So the challenge was less honoring the Maisel's Brothers or the brilliant Howard Ashman and Alan Menken and their screenwriters and more about trying to use the material that would reinvent it so that it felt fresh and satisfying and like a new journey but at the same time did not rob it of any of those elements that had earned it those ardent fan bases. And that was extraordinarily challenging and honest to God. We had birthday parties of little girls come to Mermaid in tiaras and tails and we had legions of men in snoods at Grey Gardens. So it was, they were shockingly similar but it was playing against expectations already engendered by the pieces themselves. I myself love a dead author. First of all, you don't have to share any royalties which is of course our main point as playwrights, never share points. And I've been adapting not only Molière, I've done actually four French comedies and I've loved it, I've loved working in that form partly because these plays are 350 or 400 years old and they need help, you know, for our culture. So I feel that it's incumbent upon me to make them speak to today. I did have an experience of being asked to translate a French play by a living author who will remain nameless, Yasmina Reza. And I did not really, I didn't really enjoy the experience and I can't imagine that I'll ever do it again. But you know I should say I did it partly for the wrong reasons which is that I was asked to translate this play and a superb cast of actors including Zoe Caldwell had already been chosen to be in it and John Turtur was directing and so I wanted to be in the room with those people I didn't want to be as much in the room with that play and so I found that experience rather grueling because I did feel it incumbent upon myself to honor what she had written because she could sue the living hell out of me and probably would. And so I was in a bit of a straight jacket and I hate writing in a straight jacket so that was, it was quite instructive in many different ways. I think in my case, if I haven't spoken to it yet, in my case it's very, very simple. I had loved the Truman Capote story from the time I'd read it which is when I was a teenager so it was quite old story. And usually when you mention Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory people sort of gasp, they go, I love that. And so I knew how many people loved it because every time you say the title people go, and I wanted to make them alive. I wanted it to be alive in a way, I guess you're not sure who's going to be reading it but if you can see it and hear it then you've given them a new kind of life. And in the case of the best little whorehouse in Texas, that actually was not a book. It was an article in Playboy Magazine. And Larry L. King was a, he's now deceased, he was a fantastic journalist who kind of came to fame and glory in the 50s and 60s during the time of when magazines had really rich, wonderful, journalistic things happening. And the person who brought me Larry's article was my friend Pete Masterson who is an actor and director whom I've known all my life from Texas. Larry L. King was from Texas. We had all gone to see Vanities which is a Texas play by Jack Hefner. And at dinner afterwards, after Vanities, I said I've always wanted to do something about Texas but not the kind of thing where people have their thumbs and their suspenders. Just really about the craziness of Texas. Doug and I shared not only Texas as a background but at different eras we shared the same high school. So I know that Doug knows about craziness in Texas. And it seemed very political. So we set to do this event because it made us laugh at Texas. But it also made us laugh affectionately. And it just feels like I wanted to have those two children somehow. The whorehouse and Christmas. Something, Winnie, you had mentioned this before just a little bit. This whole idea of what to keep, what to throw away. That process of taking something and editing it or in Christmas memory. It's a short story so I'm assuming you have to add. And things like Doug Grey Gardens, the documentary is the second act of the musical. And so you created this first act that didn't exist. It's those decisions of how to take this germ and what to do with that. What to take away, what to put in, how to shape it into something that is different from the form that's originally in. Any thoughts? Well actually, I never had a better education as a playwright than the 33 musicals I adapted for Encore's. At the time that I started adapting the musicals, I don't know if you know the program, they do concert versions of forgotten neglected or underrepresented American musicals all the way back from the 20s to the 70s or 80s. But when I was asked to do my first Encore script, I had seen, I would say, six musicals in my entire life. Two of them were Sweeney Todd. And so I knew nothing whatsoever about what I was doing, which is usually a nice place for me to start. But the reason I say it was a great education was because in adapting these 33 musicals, basically what I had to do to make them concert versions was A, to strip out props because the actors were going to be carrying their scripts in their hands and reduce the scripts to about two-thirds or three-quarters of their size because the accent was on the music, because the band is on stage. And so every one of those 33 adaptations was an exercise in what I call literary ventriloquism because I had to take this book and make people feel that they had seen the whole musical when actually they had seen two-thirds of the book of the musical and heard all of the music. And so what I had to do was sometimes collapse scenes or join scenes, cut characters, make scenes move more swiftly, and yet not ever let anybody notice that. And what that meant was that I had to think my way into the way this play was written, how it was written, who wrote it, what the style was, and to basically impersonate Herb Fields or Oscar Hammerstein or George Abbott. And so I learned an immense amount. And I would say that adapting French classic plays was a breeze after adapting Juno by Mark Blitzstein. And so I highly recommend taking something and trying to just take an old play that, you know, find an old play and take a pencil to it and see what it's made out of. It's a great exercise because actually what you find is that everything gets better. What happened at Encore's is that a lot of people would say, I can't believe that this musical is never done. And the fact is they hadn't seen the musical, they had seen it with the book stripped down and it's almost always the book that's the problem in musicals. And so that's part of my adaptational and playwriting education, really. This is slightly different because David's talking about adapting plays in musicals and I would say if you're adapting a documentary film or a novel, you're serving two masters and those masters are sometimes at odds with one another. One, of course, is the underlying work itself, the novel or the film. And the other are the very particular demands of the theater and the three-dimensional space and what the theater does well and what it doesn't do well. And in the case of Grey Gardens, my dear friend, the composer, Scott Frankel, invited me to his home and said I wanted to do a musical based on this film and I said it won't work. I said what's most compelling about the movie is its cinema verite quality, the fact we know it to be true. And if these women become larger-than-life figures in a musical, it's all about artifice, it's not nearly so interesting. And I said it also is completely non-narrative. The film itself which chronicles the Beale women, a mother and daughter who lived in a 36 room mansion in Long Island that was overrun by cats and debris and happened to be related to Jacqueline Kennedy. The film, there's no story. It's just raw footage of these two women interacting in an increasingly destructive dance but it's purely psychologically driven. There's absolutely no narrative and no story tension. And so I said to Scott that musicals kind of thrive on storytelling. You can't do an ambient musical or a character portrait musical. You just can't. And I said, without the building blocks of narrative, you don't have anything. And so Scott was resolved to get me to do it. So he went out to dinner with the lyricist Michael Corey and they were having dinner and they were saying, beginning, middle, end. Beginning, middle, end. How do we find that in this material? And on one dinner napkin Scott scrawled 1943 and on the other napkin he scrawled 1977. And they both looked at each other and called me the next day and brought me the napkins. And I said, I have to do this with you. I have to do this with you. And because I think that good adaptation is rarely about, as I think Winnie was suggesting, fidelity to the source. It's about reinventing the source to fit the new medium. And I would go so far as to say, I think a lot of us, all of us have probably had the experience of going to foreign countries and seeing our work adapted and translated. And even as the author of the underlying material, I'm always grateful when the translator or adapter has felt sufficient freedom to do not only translation but cultural adaptation as well, to take those things in my text that may or may not readily translate to the culture in which the play is playing and come up with correlatives that do. So sometimes as a writer when I'm applying license to someone else's work and feeling guilty about it, I remind myself that in my own experience it's one of the things I'm most grateful for in the adapters and translators who do my work overseas. So a good adaptation isn't only serving the source, it's also serving the form. And that's the constant tension. Carol, do you have any thoughts on your one, like I said, that's taking a Christmas memory, which is a shorter story, and how did you build upon that story? Well, it was begun by... It became a full-length musical. Yes. Yes. And the reason I haven't brought it up, frankly, is because it's taken a little respite while we have an amicable divorce from our producers. And now that's all done. But that's why I'm sort of speaking of it as if it's a child's been sent away for a while. But we're back on track. And what was the question? What did you say? In terms of that's a very... I read the book. It's a very short story. Yes. How do you make that a full-length musical? Well, Truman wrote that story after he was grown up. And that gave Dwayne Poole, the book writer, the feeling that if we see him as a child and a grown-up, that that can fill in a lot of the space. Dwayne had done it without songs for television and then wanted to get the rights to musicalize it. So we were lucky to get that. From that came Larry Grossman, the composer whom Dwayne knew and admired and he called Larry and asked him to participate. And Larry called me and asked me to do lyrics. I love doing just lyrics because Whorehouse was music and lyrics and my pop songs have mostly been written music and lyrics by me. It's less lonely and more fun to be in a room where you're writing with someone else. So I was delighted to start with lyrics. And I think it was that, this view from his adulthood coming back to tell us the story. Because the story is all told, it's the child's life. Yes. It doesn't start with an adult and go back. No, it does. There's no adult. There's memory, but there's no adult. So that's how we did that. And banking off of musical theater, which we keep talking about quite a bit, is the relationship between you and either a lyricist or a composer. I think one of the challenges is always ending continuity and storytelling when you have multiple people telling the story. It's one thing to just be the playwright and write the play, but do you have any methods or specific ways of approaching that relationship or any stories in terms of how to have a good relationship and keeping the continuity of the story that you want to tell moving forward when working with more than one person on it? Well, with Stephen and I, it really was such a conversation and so much talking, literally just talking back and forth.  They think they know the story, they've got a story, they can't remember what's the story. What are the elements of the story? I have this little list that I brought today to show Stephen, because I was looking at my old, old Wicked Notes, and I have something that says things we love, and then there's a little list of things we love, meaning like it obviously came out of a conversation of things we don't want to forget that we want to be in the musical that we love. And just in terms of what's the story, so we would just talk, talk back and forth so much about what we felt we had to have, what things we didn't quite even want. And then of course, he was saying in the previous panel, I had been mentored by Arthur Lawrence at NYU, and Arthur would always tell us as a book writer, your job is there to serve the songs and the songwriter or writers, and you provide book, you provide it like you would put wood in a fire. And so Stephen wanted to work that way too. That was natural to me because Arthur had given us that as his credo. So I would just write a lot, quite a lot more than ever got into the musical. But it would provide a jumping off place for songs. So that's really more about musicals. Any other thoughts, gentlemen? Next, Doug, a question about Hands on a Hard Body. I think it's so much fun for me to think that both you and I wrote a musical about an event in Texas. That seems strange, but interesting to me. Your event became a documentary first and then a musical. My event, as it were, was an article in Playboy Magazine. It seems to me that you probably had more to work with story-wise since you came to the documentary. Did you take things from the true event that then could be added to the documentary part? Or did you musicalize the documentary itself? We took liberties. Essentially, we had eight central stories that were in the documentary that we wanted to tell in the musical and adapt to them accordingly. But we also only had the life rights to eight people. And there were originally 25 people in the competition. So we created two composite characters and used them. And again, we wanted to serve the spirit of the film. But we didn't feel an obligation to the letter of the film because, again, that was a documentary film. And we were creating an artificial theatrical event based on it. So we had to make all kinds of concessions and considerations in that regard. And we also met the original contestants who'd appeared in the dock and used a lot of raw material that they gave us to flesh out the story in a richer way. And as David was saying, one of the glories of adaptation is you're kind of given a story. And we were given the story in the documentary. But in addition, it's a documentary about a contest. So you have all the rules of a contest. You have people. You have why they're entering. You have what the challenge or the conflict is. You have their ostensible reasons for needing the truck. You have their human or poetic reasons for needing the truck. You have a winner. You have people that fall ill. You have people that betray other people in an effort to win. So not only do you have the raw material of the dock, but you've got all the logic and all the intrigue and all the natural narrative building blocks that constitute a contest. And so that was one thing that for us made it feel really ripe for adaptation in the first place. And I guess I was sitting here thinking about some of the questions I was raising about what do you include and what do you not include. And I kind of think it's the same thing with adaptation as it is with simply writing an original play. And that's that the first thing you have to do is sit down and write all the really good parts. Write the scenes you cannot wait to write that are the reason you wrote the play.  Because it's the connective tissue and it's the earning the next moment that is actually usually drudgery and at the end of the day you don't need. So it's like adaptation and playwriting. It's just just write the good parts. I would build on that by mentioning that when I worked on the misanthrope and as I say it's a play that's always vexed me because it's one of those great plays that never satisfied me. It always seemed to be a comedy that left out the comedy somehow. And never quite worked as a tragedy. And so when I sat down to work on it basically what I did was I kept reading it over and over again in French so that I didn't have any English voice of this play. And then what I did was I took just as you do with the movie I made index cards of all of the scenes in the play. And then what I did was I laid those out on my dining room table and then I wrote all of the scenes that I thought were missing which is sort of what you're saying. And the scenes that I wanted to write. For example one of the things about the misanthrope I've never, you know, my attitude basically is how would Shakespeare tell this story? And Shakespeare would never begin with the two people in love. And with these two extremely odd, interesting characters in love I want to see how they manage to fall in love. And so I wrote out an index card, they fall in love. And so that was part of it. And so I just started laying out the scenes that I felt were missing and gradually I had my dining room table entirely filled and I actually could start writing.   But that's basically how I did it was by constructing it like a movie and making sure that the story was absolutely airtight and also I could track how every, I could track that every character, which I didn't feel was true in Malia, how every character had a part in this. Because one of the things I firmly believe about a good play is that everybody is implicit in, is implicated in the story. So that if one character pulls a strand somebody else twitches somewhere else. And so I wanted to make sure that even the smallest characters in the story were tracked through it so that everybody was affecting everybody else. And so that was the process of adapting. The misanthrope for me was really taking a story that had always fascinated me and just thinking, well, how can I tell this in a way that will satisfy me? I think I'd like to open it up for questions from all of you. We have such a variety of people up here and I'm sure you have different questions. So if anyone has a question, if you'd like to go up to the mic in the center and line up if you'd like. And if it's to a specific person, please let us know or just to the panel in general and the way we go. Hi. This might be most appropriate for Doug, but when adapting somebody's life or actual events, how do you deal with that and then what's, you know, you talked about life rights, what's the sort of life right situation, what's the statute of limitations, dealing with the states, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? Yeah, that's a great question and a complicated one. As far as life rights and what's required, consult a lawyer, don't ask me. But it's a general rule that a public figure or someone who's a pronounced part of the historical record, you can write about private individuals who don't have a public presence. You usually need to get their life rights and they're also above and beyond what the law requires. They're moral questions. Whose story are you telling? Why are you telling it? What is your obligation to them? Are they living? Will they have to deal with repercussions from the work that you've made and what do you owe to them? So those are all necessary questions. And I found, I said this in my last session, so I'll be brief, but I have a kind of sliding scale when it comes to writing about real people. And when I wrote about the Marquis de Sade, I felt enormous freedom to invent aspects of my story because with Sade, there's a long tradition of writers appropriating them to their own purpose, from Yukio Mishima to Peter Weiss. And if you go to the library, there are 12 great biographies on Sade that'll set you straight about the historical record. I'm not a biographer. I'm a dramatist. So it's like you don't go see, you know, the new Disney movie Plains, and then pilot an aircraft. You know it's a story. And I think it's the same thing. It's like you go see a play about a historical subject or a historical figure. You haven't been reading biography. I think most of us are smart enough to know genre. And I'm not a biographer.  When I wrote about Charlotte von Malzdorf, she was a completely unknown figure. There are no biographies to correct errors in my play. Nobody knows who she is. There's no public dialogue about her. I knew that my play was introducing her to an American theater going audience. So in my sliding scale, I had a much higher standard of truth and to invent something about her, to create an event that never happened. That felt dubious to me because there was not any opposing force waiting in the wings to correct me. So with Sade, I took a million liberties and with Charlotte almost none. With hands on a hard body, because many of those people were living, it required an open dialogue with them. You said this racist remark in the movie, your issues with race are important to our storytelling. Can we use that aspect of your experience because it's crucial for the fabric of the play? Some hard questions, but some necessary questions, and when fully educated about our intent, almost all of them said yes. So those are some of the issues, I think, that arise. My question is addressed to Doug, too. It's a question about multiple adaptations. The game of the Drew Barrymore, Jessica Lange, HBO, Grey Gardens, and I don't know the timeline sequence of how your musical fits in with that piece and how successful you thought both of them were. We had a very warm relationship with Michael Sooksy, who wrote the screenplay and directed the film. Initially, he went outside the house a lot and into the village of East Hampton and all that, and then after a few visits to the musical, it became a much more contained story. That said, it's a story about public figures, and some of the things that happened are documentary facts, so we couldn't claim any infringement by him, and I think both, while the musical came first, I think both projects had a useful conversation while they were in evolution, and then I have to confess, and this is perhaps an odd admission, but I had just spent about three years of my life dancing with those two irrepressible, crazy, Herod and reckless, wonderful women, and I wasn't quite ready to see them dancing with a new partner, so I didn't watch the movie on HBO, and I have not seen it. It's my understanding that it's quite good and was a real triumph for the actresses involved, which gladdens me, but I felt a little territorial about my ladies, and I just wasn't ready to give them up, so I'll watch it and appreciate it someday. Thanks. My question is actually for Mr. Ives. When you're doing translations, do you feel that you want your voice to stay out of the translation, or do you feel like your voice is an essential part of the translation, and I asked this because I recently read David Mamet's adaptation of Chekhov's Three Sisters, and it's very clear that it's Mamet translating, as opposed to, you know, he uses his modern sense of dialogue. There were some moments where it was like, okay, here's the Mamet speak, back and forth, back and forth, like, okay, now it's Chekhov.  They changed. So, yes. What you're asking is the great question about translation. I find it impossible to stand in a corner when writing a play, you know, and pretend I'm not there. And so, I try to find projects where I can use my voice rather than hide it. It's partly why translating the Yasmina Reza play was not terribly satisfying, was because I was just, I was limited as to how much I could inject myself into it. It's why I love translating French classic plays, for example, because they happen in everywhere land. And so, I can make them into plays of mine, basically. In fact, my translation of the misanthrope is called, you know, the printed copy says, by David Ives, adapted from Molière, because it really, there's more of me, or 51% of me in there. But what I find, you know, the Chekhov question, I think about probably, you know, six times a week, because what I really find hard is to contemplate translating Chekhov and translating realistic dialogue today. You know, I'm very happy to create speeches of characters in 1635 in verse, in a structure that I have come up with. But the challenge of the diction of an author, Chekhov, for example, in our time seems to me almost impossible. I've never, frankly, heard a good Chekhov translation. I always just, something always makes me sit up, you know. Like, I saw a translation of Chekhov this year where somebody said, cool. And you are suddenly taken out of, you are taken out of 1895. And the challenge of Chekhov is that Chekhov is, as we know, we love him because his world is so real. But one of the things that makes it real is that he understands in his time the social relations between everybody and that those relations and marital and love relations are written into the play in a way that language is going to bump up against. And so I am very happy not to be David Mamet facing Chekhov because realistic, you know, realism is so hard. You know, plays in English date within a week.  And so it's very hard. For example, you know, I said this in an article in The Dramatists, but I think when you're translating the play, you have to do the playwriting work first and then the translating work. For example, you have to immerse yourself as you would in your own play in these characters. And if, in Russian, it says da, if the character says da, does that character say yes? Does that character say yeah? Or sure? Or uh-huh? Or nod? Or say nothing? Or write? What is the correct translation of da? Or what is the correct translation of we? You know, and so you have to understand what the diction of the character is and then you can translate. And in realistic plays like Chekhov, that is immensely hard. And so that's kind of my truncated answer to a wonderful question. Thank you. Thank you. This I think is towards Winnie Holtzman, but it could be to anybody else about translation and adaptation with another person. What are, what did you think were the advantages and pitfalls? Because particularly Winnie, it sounds as if you and Stephen were really from the very beginning adapting this together. I mean, even though he was writing the songs and you were writing the book. Yes, it was, it was, and then, and then truly when Joe Mantello came in and also our producer, Mark Platt, who was extremely, um, influenced us very strongly, story-wise. He worked with us on the story very strongly. We did not lift, for those who haven't read the novel, the brilliant novel, that Gregory McGuire wrote with the amazing idea that the Wicked Witch of the West should be her own, should be a heroine who has a backstory that you don't know about and all of this a genius idea, but that we did not, we did not have a structure actually from that novel. We, we needed to create our own structure stealing things from the novel and stealing most importantly that brilliant idea. But, um, but, yeah, we, you know, this has to do with the nature of collaboration and, uh, I'm, you know, I've done a fair amount of that and I certainly collaborate when I'm working in TV, which I've done a fair amount of and, um, I'm excited by it. You know, obviously if I'm, if I'm in a room with Stephen Schwartz, first of all, who's forgotten more about musicals than any of us will ever learn, um, you know, I'm just happy to be in, I am just happy to be in that room. I mean, to sort of jump on what you were saying before David. It's like I just need to be in that room because I figure I'm going to learn something major. I'm going to get, I'm going to get better. It's that old saw about if you play tennis with someone who's better than you. Well, I did play tennis with someone who's better than me and I did get a lot better. Um, so, you know, it's, it's, you know, I'm not sure I'm answering and I'll be honest. I mean, there are always moments in any collaboration, at least my experience is where you really wish you could just be alone. And, um, uh, I am, I've definitely experienced that and, and I recently wrote my first full-length play by myself and it was a really good feeling. I really, really needed to do it because I've been collaborating a lot in my life and, you know, it's nothing against collaboration. I guess you just kind of need, you were speaking to that and I think, at least I do. I feel like I didn't really answer your question, but maybe I did. Well, I mean, it could have been for Doug Wright too who has adapted both by himself. Sorry! It's for everybody. I mean, it's about the nature of translation and adaptation by yourself versus collaboration and what part does collaboration with living colleagues have versus the dead author? If you're, if you're in a situation working with living colleagues and trying to... It is best to work with living colleagues, by the way. In the room itself. I was going to say that the dead are less confrontational. But in what respect have they contributed toward the process and has that been a good thing and in what respect are there things that you, things that you need to do to make sure everybody's vision is the same of what you want this translation and adaptation to be? This might sound perverse, but I don't think it's that different. I, working on, say, Grey Gardens with Scott Frankel and Michael Corey, we were in constant dialogue about what the story required and ways that we could best serve it and I had the great pleasure of adapting not often produced Strindberg play for the La Jolla Playhouse about three years ago, Strindberg's creditors, and I felt like Strindberg and I were engaged in the same kind of conversation and it was never just about me and my control. I felt like there was always attention between me and him and trying to push through to the best idea between us. When I'm simply writing a fresh fictional play of my own design, I feel that total godlike freedom you do alone in a room where you're inventing people to punish them in fabulous ways that hopefully leads to some kind of raw human truth and that's the power trip. But every adaptation I've done whether it's been with living collaborators or a dead author has felt like a conversation among parties who are trying to serve a third thing. I'm afraid we're just about out of time, so let's take one more question. I was very interested in the construction of Venus is it Venus Infer? Venus Infer. I wondered how you did that because it's not exactly an adaptation but in the sense it's sort of layered where you're doing parallels and stuff and I just wondered how you constructed that. In two seconds what I will tell you is what I basically did was I basically adapted the book Sakhar Masak's book first as a play for several actors in period just telling the story and I showed it to Walter Bobby who is a great friend and collaborator of mine, we've worked on many projects and he said what do you think and he said I think two things first of all it doesn't feel like it has anything to do with the contemporary world although the relationship between these two people is fascinating and it's and this kind of erotic relationship shown literally on stage can only be hallowingly hilarious and so he said I don't know what you do with this and so I went away with that and I was so fascinated by these characters that I let the play sit for about five months and they just wouldn't let me go and so one day I took my play and I crossed out everything that was not drama and I had basically a bunch of scenes from these two people in 1870 and for some reason I just started writing a playwright in a room looking for an actress to play this part and nine days later I finished writing it and so that was how that play came that's why it's sort of layered the way it is thank you very much everyone thank you our panel enjoy your evening oh me too


Hello, I'm Steve Nunn, President and CEO of the Open Group. Welcome to Toolkit Tuesday, where we highlight the various components and leading experts of the Architects Toolkit, a collated portfolio of the most pertinent technology standards for enterprise architects. During the series, I'll be calling on a number of recognized experts who will bring their particular insights on how to most effectively use the various tools in the Architects Toolkit. We'll have a mix of interviews, panel sessions and pre-recorded presentations along the way. While all standards of the Open Group are designed so they can be adopted independently of one another, the greatest value for an organization can be derived when they're used in unison, for some of the parts should be greater than the whole. In the Architects Toolkit, we have collated a portfolio of the most pertinent ones for architects, together, all in one place. For most of these tools, certification from the Open Group is also available, so practitioners can demonstrate that they have the skills required and recruiters can take the guesswork out of the recruitment process, all backed up by our Open Badges program. Welcome to Episode 6 of Toolkit Tuesday, presented by the Open Group. Glad to have you here today, wherever you are in the world, I hope you're keeping safe and sane and I hope that there are some signs of life returning to something more normal than it's been recently, wherever you are. But the most important thing today is that you're with us and we're delighted to have you and we have a great session today, Ask the Experts. But before I get there, just one thing I want to say, something we're quite proud of at the Open Group. September 30th, so just 12 days ago, we celebrated 25 years of the Open Group and we'll be continuing to celebrate 25 years of the Open Group, particularly at our event later this month. So do look out for that, but a lot's been done over 25 years and we'll have a little retrospective look at what we're currently doing and look forward from all around the world, as this event will be. So we're very proud of our global reach. So just a few housekeeping things to make sure that you get the most out of today's session. You'll see in WebEx there's a chat function. Please use that to chat amongst other attendees. One of the fun things we like to do is just have people say where they're joining from. That's always interesting and anything else you want to share there. If you want to share a question, you can also do that in the Q&A panel. But today, I'd rather you actually went to a different way to ask questions, which is slido.com. It's not an app. It doesn't require a download. Any internet-enabled device will work. Go to slido.slido.com and enter the event name is Toolkit-Tuesday. So Toolkit-Tuesday and that will let you in. You'll be able to ask questions and polls. Obviously, we only have a limited amount of time. So I can't promise everyone's questions will get answered, but we will certainly do our best. So with that in mind, I'll move straight to introducing today. Oh, one more thing. Sorry. Just to get the biggest impact or to be able to see and hear the panelists correctly. If you look towards the top of your screen at the layout, there's an option to see or not see participants without video. If you make sure it's not checked or clicked, that way you'll be able to see just the panelists and the people who are talking today. So without further ado, I'm going to introduce our panel of experts. Those of you who've been attending the series earlier will have seen some, if not all of these. But I'll start the introductions. First up, Terry Blevins. Terry is owner and operator of EnterpriseWise LLC, where he provides strategic enterprise architecture services. He's worked in the computing industry for over 40 years now and is currently a director of the Open Group governing board and a fellow of the Open Group long time contributor. Welcome Terry. Glad to have you here. Next, Chris Frost of Fujitsu. Chris has worked for Fujitsu since 2005 in a variety of technical leadership roles. At present he's the principal enterprise architect within the global delivery unit at Fujitsu, which provides standard services, technical guidance and support for the global Fujitsu group. Inside the Open Group, Chris led the Togafajah Working Group during 2020 and is contributing to a number of current architecture forum activities. Before Fujitsu, Chris worked for EDS, which is now part of DXC, on several large contracts for the Ministry of Defence in the UK. And in earlier years, he worked for Ford Shell and a small startup software house called Shamrock Marketing. So welcome Chris. Glad to have you back. Next up, Paul Holman. Paul is an IBM distinguished engineer and chief technology officer for the industry sector clients in IBM global services. Responsible for technology, strategy and industry architecture for the automotive, aerospace and defence, oil and gas, electronics, industrial products and construction industries, wide range there. Paul also represents IBM on the Open Group governing board and is co-chair of the Open Group architecture forum. So welcome Paul. Glad to have you here. Next up, Chris Ford. Chris is CEO of the Association of Enterprise Architects since 2016. He's based in Shanghai, China, and he also holds the post of General Manager Asia Pacific for the Open Group. Chris is also responsible for enterprise architecture services in the Open Group as vice president of enterprise architecture, including our Togaf and ArchiMate standards. Chris has deep expertise in enterprise architecture as a member, representative and chair of the architecture forum in his past. He is instrumental in driving the successful development and launch of Togaf 9 between 2007 and 2009. And last but by no means least, Andrew Josie, VP of Standards and Certification of the Open Group overseeing all certification and testing programs here at the Open Group. He also manages the standards process for us. Since joining the company in 1986, Andrew has been closely involved with the standards development, certification and testing activities of the Open Group. He's led many standards development projects, including specification and certification developments for ArchiMate, Togaf, POSIX and UNIX programs. He's a member of IEEE, USENIX, Floss UK and the Association of Enterprise Architects. So we have our experts, welcome everyone, and we'll start off our reminder questions. Please go to slido.com and they should come to me and I'll see them. But let's kick one off with, oh, here we go. Okay, so here we go with the first question. So maybe I'll direct this towards, let's see, Chris maybe with your AEA hat on and perhaps your Open Group hat on. What type of skills do you want to see in successful enterprise architects? Is it familiarity with new technologies or the ability to abstract them and present them or the knowledge of frameworks like Togaf or something else? What do you like to see? I know the AEA is involved in the professional development side of architects. So what do you see there if you can kick us off, Chris? Hi, Steve. Thanks for the opportunity. We recently conducted a survey of the AEA membership in partnership with McKinsey and the Henley School of Business. And one of the interesting things that came out of that survey was, yes, all of those things are important depending on the nature of your role and the nature of your company. But one of the things that came forward in that survey was the need for flexibility in the enterprise or the architects, no matter what role or specialization they have. But also the development of soft skills, the ability to communicate, to relate to others' situations, and to synthesize problems and solutions. That's a great summary. Thank you very much. Anyone else want to add anything on that? No obligation to because we have limited time and multiple questions. But what skills do you like to see in architects? If not, then I'm going to go to the question that was bound to come in and one we've covered to some extent. Maybe Chris Frost, I can name this one at you first. How does the TOGAF standard and traditional enterprise architecture play with Agile? Yeah, thank you Steve. Questions that grapple with quite a lot. So I mean the short answer to that is very well indeed. These things play together very well indeed. I presented on the topic a number of times and the points I often sort of open with is that any sort of large project, no matter what you're doing, needs some sort of architecture, whatever that might be appropriate to that particular project. But it's having those sort of patterns agreed up front as to broadly how are you going to structure this solution? What are the major components? How are they going to interact together? And those are the sorts of things that we would define in an enterprise architecture for an IT-led solution. And whether you deliver that in an agile way or in a waterfall way or whatever form of delivery you're using, you need a certain degree of architecture up front. And it's very interesting that most of the agile at scale methods that there are around things like safe and disciplined agile sort of acknowledge that quite explicitly. So yeah, these things play together very well and architecture is just as vital and enterprise architecture and things like TOGAF are just as vital now in agile delivery as they always were. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else on the agile topic? I'll join in if you can. Okay, I've had to switch camera again. No, you're looking at cool. Okay, great. So just sort of following up on that. I think one of the things that we've noticed a lot over the last few years has been that constant question of how do you work with agile delivery in solution development in particular? I mean, there's business agility and how do you do architecture itself in a more agile way of course as well and all those things are topics that we pick up and have some guidance around. But if I just focus in on just solution development, actually architecting and good practice in architecture is kind of a constant thread. What really changes is probably the way that you do it and the amount that you do it and when you do it and how you engage with the teams that are doing the delivery. So it's much more of a people, a behavioral change than it is a content of method change. So so there's plenty to learn from on all sides, I think. And but the actual content adapts really well. You just have to learn how to sort of make make that work in the organization that you're working with. Great. Great point. Great point. Thank you. Next question. Yeah. Okay. A slight switch from from Togeth but still still enterprise architecture related. You know, maybe it's one of you, Andrew, I think I'm learning how to use alchemy and I've heard people mention the exchange file format. What is that? And how could it help me? Okay. Well, this is a way to basically when you create a model, it's a way to be able to share your model between different tools. There was always a challenge when we set off with with the argument language and other other similar tools is how you if you actually put a lot of effort into investing in model development, how do you you preserve that investment? And this is one way that you can do because it actually frees up the that investment so you can move between different types of tools. So for example, you might start and many people do start with the the free open source argument tool that's out there called Archie and perhaps do some modeling there and then start to move the tools to move the models say sorry to commercial tools. It's basically to preserve the investments. If you are modeling in the argument language, you know that you're not going to have to re invest each time I always used to think of it as before we had the exchange file format. It was like cave painting. We could basically do our models and it was but it was like painting on the walls of a cave. We had to sort of hack the cave down or something. He was the rocks out before we could move them but now we can actually take models from tool to tool and you can share models. That's the great thing you can now share models. We're starting to see models shared in repository. There's the argument community that's formed out there now so people can go and exchange literally as it's called the exchange file format. It really is about exchanging models, exchanging ideas. There are also other things that we've seen other other applications using the file format to analyze models in different ways as well as actually sharing them between tools. It's a great enabler really everybody's starting to share tools you'll start to see from the open group as well you start to see example models that come out so there are no longer just paper standards. We've got a model that you can download what we call an executable standard now that you can actually say for example with the aviation, the commercial aviation reference model we've got. Not only is that a paper standard but you can actually download the corresponding argument model same with several cases that is we've got banking, arch-assurance, argumental, we've got several industry sort of models that you can download and I know that we've got more in development all the time. So it's about basically making standards work as we say in the open group is actually getting more out of our standards. Yes we do. It's been our tagline for a while hasn't it. Great summary thank you Andrew. So next question I'm going to go to you on this one Terry if I may. I see the benefits of enterprise architecture. My manager has pointed me at the Togaf standard. Where do I start? Okay so number one where you start is to make sure you're fully educated in the Togaf model, the architecture development model. But where you start within an enterprise working on architecture for your boss is I would say implement or execute the business scenario method. The business scenario method helps you identify the major pain points in your organization and gets you right there working on those pain points and getting an agreement with all the constituencies on those pain points. And starting that way working on people's real pain makes you relevant right from the get-go. Right. Great answer thank you. Anyone else want to chip in on where to start? It's a common topic I know that involves all sorts of things. Steve I just pick up on one thing just to build on what Terry was just saying. So absolutely right sort of starting in that business layer and starting to look at what the sort of business problems are. And one way to sort of help you through that is I don't think that the questioner said what particular industry they were involved in. But there are amongst the open group standards a number of reference architectures that have been developed for various industries not for all it's true but for some. And they can just be a great way to sort of think through you know have I covered all of the aspects of this particular industry that I'm in this particular organization that I'm in. Really just to make sure that you don't overlook any important aspects. And in particular if you're in the actually in the IT industry itself as part of an IT services organization perhaps then of course we've got the IT for IT model the IT for IT reference architecture. And that's absolutely fantastic way to sort of methodically work through the whole organization and start to look at what capabilities we've got in different areas what might be the pain points what might be the gaps where do I need to work on where do I need to focus on. Yeah, you know it's true that the reference architectures have certainly been something that our membership in the open group has been keen to work on over the last probably decade or so it's the logical next step from the the more sort of generic industry and technology and not stick approach of togaff it's a good point, good point. So, next question. Why does togaff not suggest use of any specific tools. He wants to take that one. No volunteers. I will go for it Steve. Chris is all trying. Good. Excuse me.  Togaff provides you with a framework to us to assess and execute on solving a set of problems whether they're technical business oriented, a combination of both or, you know, information, whatever, whatever the problem spaces. And while there are clusters or centers of gravity around tooling in enterprises. The framework isn't prescriptive about that because if it is what it may be being prescriptive about maybe the wrong tool for the problem in the situation you're in. So, the, the assessment phase leads you to a set of conclusions if done effectively that identify the nature of the tooling or the approaches you should be taking without presupposing those things up front. Now, of course, you do have an inventory of those things. Everybody does. Okay. But trying to assess that is really the key point rather than saying, here's the laundry list of things that you need to, you need to have classes of tools are much more likely to be addressed in that way. If you agree with that. Chris and then I think Terry is wanting to chip into. Yeah, so I think that the point I'd add to that is I'm very glad actually that toga doesn't isn't prescribed against any particular tool because you do need that choice depending on the type of problem that you're facing. The reverse is is different in that there are great many tools out there that implement or enable toga in various ways have got various aspects of the framework embedded within them. And there's a lot of these tools out there just go on to any search search engine you can quickly find plenty of them. And really part of the skill is in figuring out which is the appropriate tool for my particular problem and my scale of problem because just like any set of tools, depending on the scale of the problem you're tackling, you might need a different tool.  You're tackling some immense organizational problem with lots of businesses involved, lots of activities, you might need a top end and therefore probably quite expensive tool. So you need to bear to make those choices. So I'm very pleased actually that toga isn't prescribed against any particular one. And as Andrew said, people often they might start with a less sophisticated tool, maybe an open source tool and then move to one of those more, more robust commercial tools with more functionality. Yeah, that's a great comment. Terry, you wanted to comment. I just wanted to simply say a quick answer is why not because by design we chose not to at least in the early evolution of toga. And it was kind of for all the reasons that we're stated above, but mainly because we knew the tools were going to develop over time and they're constantly getting better and we want to enable that that competition. But no, we don't, we intentionally decided not to recommend tools to be tools agnostic to enable open competition. Right. And we do have some, some certification accreditation programs inside the open group. We do. We do. Don't we, Steve? Shall I just talk about this? Yeah. Yes, we do have tools toga for nine tool certification also argument tool certification. If you go to our website and go down through the certification tab, you can find a register of the tools. And it's interesting when you look at the register, they all have a very detailed conformance statement because, as I say, a tool could be for, for, for a little or for a lot of that what's covered by the standard. So you can actually go and evaluate each of the tools that is on on the register. A very detailed conformance statement you can look at to make your own assessment of which tools might be suitable for your problem. Great. Thank you. All right, we'll move on from tools. This one's got your name all over it. Mr. Holman. Do you have an EA mantra?   And anyone that's ever worked with me will be able to tell you what it is to be honest. So I think that's why it's probably recognizable. So, so my mantra is in enterprise architecture space. We worry about three things V I E and they stand for viability integrity and extensibility. So the mantra behind that is that everything else. You shouldn't be worrying about as much. And the reason I put that in is I actually. And, and, you know, Mayor Culper, historically, see an awful lot of people working in enterprise architecture roles who have a huge amount of experience. A lot of knowledge have probably, you know, learned through experiences, good and bad along the way. Try and actually end up redoing solutions that they see coming their way. Try and actually impose their thinking. And often it's that could be good because they're thinking is better, but that's not really what they're there for. In my view, that's what the solution architects there point to work with them, especially when we come back to that agile question earlier. The things that you can worry about over and above that that don't get picked up at the solution level are just one. Will it work viability to integrity? Will it damage anything else when you put it in? That's kind of you're worrying about the entire estate and extensibility is. Well, nobody else actually is checking if all the sufficient doors are left open for that kind of future need across the piece. So that's my mantra. Just worry about those three things. And genuinely, there are people that I've worked with who printed out those three letters and stuck it on the wall above their desks when we used to have desks in offices. So I put that as my mantra. Good for you. Thank you, Paul. That's a great, great explanation as to why as well. Anyone else have a mantra? Terry. Architect for value and enable those that make decisions. Great. Simple as that. Always a good one. Yeah. Yeah, easy to forget sometimes in the, in the scope of some of these projects, but great one nonetheless. Now, let me see here. This is probably going to be our last question. And I'm just trying to call it up here and it's eluding me, but from, I just read it and I think it was how can one, how could one use the Toga principles to can't find the question. Come here. To streamline stream line processes across an organization, multiple processes across an organization. How come when you use the Toga principles to streamline processes across an organization? Anyone want to take that? Great.  So that would become a principle for a given organization. And I think the original text said to standardize process. You're quite right. Thank you. And so one would create that, that principle for that organization and how you would implement it would be through the, well, how you sell it is through good rationale for doing that. And how you would implement that is through the implications of those principles. So the implications might be that every organization must have their processes. There must be some governance to ensure the standardization of the processes existed. But you would go through the method behind Toga principles to implement that for an organization. Great. Thank you. And essentially it's what it was designed to do. So that's great. Anyone else have a comment on that? In answer to that question, a quick one from me and I think this is just a gentle sort of corollary to it is. As soon as you ask the question, one of the things when we were tying it back to one of the questions is about where do you start and adding to that I would put context in because when somebody asked me to standardize processes, my first question in my head is why do I want to do that? Because the first thing I want to check is, is it actually the right thing to do? Because with the standardization can be beneficial. But what is my motivation and my rationale? And that's how I would use the principles is to genuinely go back to the, what is it I'm trying to achieve? And then and then why to make sure that that standardization, which sounds like a good idea on the face of it, actually is honoring the intent. Right. Great point. Great point. Anyone else want to chip in? If not, then folks, we are going to leave it there. I always feel with these panel sessions that there's so much, so much more we could ask and so much more you could you could impart but but we have to be respectful of people's time and across across the globe. So, thank you to our experts today. Paul Holman, Terry Blevins, Chris Frost, Andrew Josie and Chris Ford. Great job guys. Thank you very much. And importantly, a great thank you to everyone who joined us live and if you're watching this afterwards on demand, which many people do, then thank you for taking the time to do that. So, basically, that's that's it for for episode six, but please join us in two weeks time. That's November 2nd. So you don't have to work that out where my colleague Dr. Palab Sahar, general manager for the open group in India will be leading a session on digital government strategies and citizen centric EA. And if you haven't heard and even if you have heard about the great work that's being going on there and enterprise architecture in India at various levels of government, then Palab will help us through help us through some of that. It's a it's a great, great story and and guess what a lot of it's based on our Toga standard. So we've reason to be very proud of that. That's it for today, folks. Thank you from me. I'm Steve Nunn, President CEO of the open group and delighted you could join us. Have a great couple of weeks and see you on November 2nd. I hope take care and that was talking Tuesday. Bye bye.


Now, we're gonna say bye to you, but not before. Listen, you're mentioning all the stuff about Mahomes. A guy who has done really well against the Chiefs is on next, but a guy who's never sacked Patrick. And you cannot tell me that if Patrick isn't 100%, the DJ Reader is gonna get his hands on him and bring him down. I can't wait, right, DJ? Oh yeah, what's up, what's up, man, what's up, dude? How y'all doing? DJ, what's happening, man? Nothing much, man. Nothing much up at the facility, hanging out and getting the lift in. How y'all doing? Hey, doing good, man. I can't wait to see y'all get after once again this weekend, man. I'm excited about it. Y'all boys up there in front, hunt, man. 9192, 94, 98, all y'all boys get after, man. I can't wait to see y'all go to work this weekend. Hey, man, we're gonna get it after it. The guys will always go get it, man. Yes, sir. All right, Darius Butler, we appreciate you. We'll talk to you, and I can't wait for it to see you at Radio Row in a couple of weeks. DJ Reader won't be able to be on Radio Row Super Bowl because he'll be playing in the game and he's gonna stick around and tell you why. Next, don't miss it. Back to throw on second and five. Pumpfakes, now he's gonna launch a deep down field. Oh, excuse me. Really? Defensive tackle DJ Reader graded out as the highest among bangles in their crushing defeat of the Buffalo Bills on Sunday. You know, it was not surprised for me and we're lucky to have him right now joining us in his seventh NFL season. Third with the Cincinnati bangles. The should be all pro defensive tackle of my guy, Grave Digger, aka DJ Reader, hey. What's up, what's up, what's up, Kay? How you doing? DJ, I've had about four coffees here in New York this morning, but I do not need them. I am so excited for this game. You're lit. 100%, show me where you are. Are you at the facility? Yeah, I'm in the facility. I'm in one of our equipment guys in this little office. Sam, it's my guy right here. So he's got a cool little poster behind me. He's got like a little wall of fame door right here. Hopefully I never make that door. It's a couple of X names. So I don't ever want to be on there, but Sam's my guy. So he let me use his arm for the interview. Did you show up at the facility bright in the earliest morning to make sure that all those fans got their refunds yet? Oh, I don't know if they got the refunds, but I was here this morning ready to go, man, because I got another week. So hopefully they can exchange those tickets for something, though. I know they don't get back to processing fees, though. They be holding processing fees. That's on them. That's on them. That's such a good take. I love that. You took care of business against the bills. That's not even like the right thing to say. Y'all killed it, dominated. I was on a plane. I was the poor person next to me had to deal with me. I had champagne. I'm going crazy.  But everyone talks about offense. This was so defense. I scream Coach Lou's name all the time. I'm always talking about you, but to hold the bills, DJ, to 63 total rushing yards and only 10 points. Then they were running all over everybody all year. How were you guys able to do it? How did you do it? Man, you know, we got the mastermind Lou back there. So he's going to get us in comfortable calls, but it's just really a team effort with us.  They going to come and tackle. And when it's in the pass game, we're going to do our job of clogging up the holes of getting pressure while also being decent at our rush lanes and being disciplined. And we know that game going to come sooner or later. But a lot of people just can't be disciplined and Lou, you know, it's something Lou preaches. So I really think that's what it is. Well, I want to talk about Coach Lou, but I don't know how I handle this because we want to give Coach Lou love, but we don't want to give him like too much love. So he leaves us.  Well, hey, I know how you feel. It's, but that's one of those things of progression, man. And, you know, we got to give him all the love because he deserves it.  Coach Lou and some of the best shape of his life right now. Like he trains, he works hard. And he tapped in with the guys, man. And as a, as a person who plays for him, I can't ask for more out of my D coordinator to really trust in us the way he do. And really, like it's the process he trusts. He don't come over to the sideline. He not yelling at us. He not honest like that. He, he talking us through everything. He a real teacher of the game and then, and being able to study under somebody like that, this is a true blessing for show. DJ, he's doing some special things over there. It's all of you are top five defense, three wins over Patrick Mahomes. Nope, who can say that? Then you hold Josh Allen, like we were just talking about, to their lowest point total the entire season. So many other awesome, prolific, well-paid, big names, guys getting interviews, all this stuff. They've tried, they have tried and failed to contain these top curve backs in these big games. What is it? Give me like one thing that sets Coach Lou and his game plans apart. He got a lot of smart guys. We have a lot of smart guys in our defense and what he trusts us to do the different looks and disguises, I think he's went out there and really hand picked his defense the way he wanted it. And he got, he has exactly what he wants from his defense and he trusts that process. He makes sure we know we learn so much and understand how to get there, how to go about the game and never give up on it. He got the right group of coaches. He got guys who were like, every coach in our defensive staff cares. They presentations throughout the weeks are awesome. Like I take notes and all over the, I never get bored listening to any of them talk about the game because they study it so much. There's a lot of good people in this organization on our side, especially they really help us learn the game. You do a great job with that for sure. There's a lot of DCs or even offensive coordinators that are really good at that. But then when they make the head coaching thing, it doesn't work like they're just, it's okay to be a great defensive coordinator. It's a great to be a great offensive coordinator. How would, cause I like that you're talking about his leadership, how he is with you guys. Cause that's what matters as a head coach. How would coach Lou B as a head coach? I think he'd be awesome, man. You know, I wouldn't say that about a lot of DCs cause it's hard to, for some, the offensive guys to respond to defensive guys. I think Lou does a great job of just talking to players. Whether that be offensive defense, especially anything. I think he could be a great coach of men. So I think he'd be an awesome head coach. The way he lets his team hold leadership, but he holds you to that standard. He's not gonna let you get away with it.  So I think that's huge when it comes to understanding coaching and with all players. I think he'd be an awesome head coach. I love to hear it. All right, let's go back to this game really quick. Cause I'm watching and I could not believe that I was hearing these bangles fans in the crowd. It does not happen in Buffalo. And then I could hear it. I know you could hear, but let's make sure everybody doesn't listen to this. Take a listen. It was like, it was crazy. I was like, I'm good. Hold on, there it is. I do think right now, the biggest difference is I heard it. You've got to get the ball out of his hand. You heard it. Talk me through this. What did this do to you? I went out there for the first drive and usually, you know, this silent went off as on the field. I went on the first drive and I can't hear the call from Logan. I'm like, I come out to the sideline after that three and I was like, it's kind of loud out there.  We lived out here today. And I was like, oh man, it's up. We about to be on them.  We can take it up from here. And we did, man. The guys really, we stayed on it all night. A lot of communication. But having that fan crowd, the way it was, it was so loud out there, Kay. Like it felt like the first playoff game here in the Ravens. As loud as it was usually as we on defense. But it was nowhere near as quiet for the office as it should be. Talk to them. Talk to this Bangles team that's booking flights to Buffalo that's probably come into burrow head. We'll get to that in a minute. Talk to these fans and how they show up for you. How much you need them. I appreciate who they nation, man. We appreciate, y'all keep turning us up because y'all give us life. Y'all give us so much life. And we playing for y'all. We not trying to let the city down, the who they nation down. So we out there playing for y'all. We appreciate y'all support all the way. That's from the heart. Y'all do everything for us. Y'all do us this energy to go out there and play every weekend for sure. We see y'all in the Twitter threads. We see y'all on the Twitter threads. We see y'all everywhere having our back. And we appreciate it. We got y'all back too. Let's talk about these Twitter threads because you are hilarious. But it's not even just you. And I don't even know. Like I don't know who's in charge of these guys y'all tweeting. Nobody has any notes for y'all. There's no class you took. I don't know what's happening here. But let's start with this. Zach Taylor, I thought it was super interesting in his press conference.  And I would just like to know from you what has been working? What has been motivating you? Just, I already know who I am as the person, the player, man. But it's just always funny. I read Twitter for comedy. I read Twitter all day.   You got no time for sensitivity on Twitter. They ain't caring. But I read through it and I find some motivation. I might stick with it for a week. I might hold that little piece of my heart for a week. Because I need it. I need that little extra push. Like I said on the tweet, motivation is already free. But it feels good when you see somebody going out there saying no chance. Like those aren't even takes you should have. Like I, as a person, I've never counted just everybody out. I've never even been that type of person. When I see those type of highlights, I'm like, oh man, that's a perfect one to hold on to right here. That's a good one. That's a good one to hold on to. And you know, it played in my favor. So that's really what it is. I go to see what they say about me sometime. So I'm going to say you're welcome because I handed you that NFL face to Eric Weddle, zero chance to win. You tweeted about it. But we, I think we have the tweet, which I loved seeing because it all makes sense. The motivation is working. I mean, I'm sure the handling of the playoff format also is motivating you guys even though it doesn't even matter anymore. But would you like to thank Eric Weddle right now? What would you like to say to Eric Weddle? Oh man, appreciate. Appreciate the just zero chance, Eric. I just appreciate that. The amazing player, amazing career. You know, you got us in a Super Bowl last year. I love watching you as a kid, especially with the no gloves was crazy to me. But okay, zero chance, bro. You know better than that. Come on man, zero, come on, dawg. We was just back here. What, what you, why would you even say that to us like that? You know those bad takes. You know that's bad locker room talk. You don't even go out like that. You smarter than that. You wouldn't do that as the head coach of your high school. I know that. Oh, oh, I love that. He'll be on our show. I'm very curious to see if he'll come and double down and pick the chiefs, which I would love nothing less. That's okay. He probably will, that's all you know. Listen, people are counting out this team. They did it. A ton of people did it last year. Y'all made it to the Super Bowl. This year, you know, it's a different team, different season. No two years are the same. I get that. Does this squad you have right now, does this squad pass the Super Bowl bound vibe check? Really think about it. Is it a better team than last year? Is there more chemistry? How does it feel compared to last year at this time? I think there's more chemistry in our team and everybody here, a lot of people here were on that Super Bowl run. I think there's more chemistry on our team than just in general, because everybody's more comfortable with what we have going on. So yeah, I think, you know, we do take care of business this weekend and you'll see some pressure on us. But I think it's a special team just because of the group. Everybody's gotten older. Leadership's gotten better. So like you said, there's just more of a bond. The locker room's different. Everybody's in there. You're not coming off that weird COVID year. It's not the first year football. It's expected and it's exciting. And everybody's new year to this fun. It's a fun team. I wish everybody could be in our locker room because people wouldn't talk the way they talk if they were in our locker room and saw us together, saw the guys, saw us at practice all the time, saw how we interact with each other, what we're like on a day to day. We don't get that type of coverage so people don't see that. But if they did see it, I think their opinions about us get a lot different. Do you think you have a better perspective because you spent time with the Texans and you came there now and then they embraced you?  The Bangles don't make moves like this. The Bangles don't bust out the checkbook and wrap their arms around anybody and then you became the highest paid nose tackle at the time. So what is that locker room like? You're saying we never know. What is it like? What makes it unique based on what you had with the Texans? That's awesome. You know, being in Houston, it was a great experience for me and I learned from a lot of great guys, a lot of pros, man. I was blessed to be in a locker room that was kind of similar and especially on a defense side, we just had chemistry. Coming here the first year was the first year was really different for me. And so it was kind of like, oh man, then you kind of get into that next year and you just kind of see a brood. Guys in the locker room spending time, everybody's not rushing to get out of here. We're playing ping pong. And not just some people playing ping pong and you got quarterbacks on there, specialists on there, defense line, office line, everybody's playing cards together. It's not, nothing's divisive about it. You see guys hanging out with each other that you would never think hang out with each other. We're all in groups and cliques and group chats. We talk all the time. So it's just different and it's super competitive. We got a young team. So guys over here, I can beat you in flipping quarters. I can do anything. They're competitive about it all and it all starts from the top. Our quarterback's a dog. He's a dog back there.  And then what we bring on defense is just a special, just a special teammate. I'm happy to be a part of it. You saying he's a dog and y'all renamed, I don't know who it was. You can tell me who renamed Arrowhead or Burrowhead. I need to know who was it. I don't even know who said that. By that, I don't know who brought that one out. That's funny. All right, that's a good one. Okay, but you run things on the defensive side. What is the defense's relationship with Joe Burrow?  We see that. He is a killer, cold-blooded to every defense.  Is he, how we see with you guys at practice? And do you like it? He played cards with us. We play pool. We play ping pong in there. We go in there. We shoot the basketball. We got a seminar. So Joe's always around. And he embraces the defense. He talked to us. We all talk all the time. It's not our locker room. Everybody can see each other. You can sit in our locker room. You can see a guy all the way in the corner. So it's not like you can avoid people. And he's got the first locker to the right when you walk in. So he talks to everybody. He says words you might see. It's so interesting. You might see a scout team guy during camp. Be over there. A guy who's a undrafted agent. Joe got a little chest thing set up in his locker. He might come over there and get beat. I don't see him lose too much in chess. He's super good at chess apparently. They all wasted their struggle with him. So he's really good. So they'll come over there and play with him. And he's just that type of person. He's very open. But he's serious about the work. And he got that attitude and that dog and that confidence in him that you love to see in a person. You're somebody you don't always ride with. Like if he'd leave me anywhere, I'd feel good with Joe Burrow in my corner. Yeah. I want to squeeze in a couple more questions. I want to get a couple in about this game. But since that locker room is so open, I got to ask you, have you heard the name Justin Reed come up this week? Nah, I ain't heard nothing this week.  He had another bad take. Can't get that type of bullshit board material, man. And then no right, not know the names and numbers. But J. Reed, my dog, man, he a great player. So we'll see him this weekend. I'm sure they're excited about this. I'm sure he's excited to see them too. I can't see any fouls from Chase. You've got to go talk to him in that locker. I don't want to see anything between Chase and Reed or whoever. No, no, no. He didn't cool down. Good. So listen, so we don't know about in the homes, right? And I'm sure you guys, I know you guys are preparing like he'll be 100%. But if he isn't, let's say if he's not 100% explain to me, help me understand like what does that mean for you going into this game? Man, don't change our game plan. Our game plan to go back there and get after them and you know, lock them up on the back end. That's the game plan. I hope they get changed as much as what we have going on. He's a dog, man. It can say whatever it's going to say. Patrick Mom's a dog. He's one of the best players in this league.  And I think when you get out there, even if he not 100%, it's when I go home, he going to try to make the most plays out of everything. So I don't expect nothing different in R&D. DJ. No matter what. What's up? DJ, you're telling me, if he's not a half step slower, that you aren't going to get your hands on him? Oh, we're going to get after him for sure. That's not changed. That's going to change whether you dare or not. I don't think that that's going to change our game plan. He's amazing. You see some of the stuff, he's still going away with one leg. I seem to go back to him. He had to do a skip on the same leg to hand the ball off the other way. So I mean, is it going to change much of what he got going on? Yeah, I mean, that's what I'm saying. He's a ball player. He's a ball player. He a gamer.  I hopefully, maybe I'll show up at Borough Head this weekend. We don't know who called it that, but it wasn't you, and that's all that matters. We got to go, though. We got to go. We got to go. Our show's over. Our show's over. I'm getting in trouble. They're yelling at my ear. DJ, you're one of my favorites. You know that. We'll see you. I'll see you in Arizona, my friend. All right, OK. I'll see you. Bye.