Since there are only three, I'll put one just in case. Absolutely. Hi, what's the book? What's the whole thing? Some nice public transportation. Yes! Liz Lerman gave me her book. Welcome, everyone. Hello. Thank you so much for coming tonight. Thank you. My name is Josh Costello. I am the artistic director of Aurora Theatre Company. And on behalf of Aurora and Shotgun players and Z-Space and Calling Up Justice and Theatre Bay Area, I want to welcome you to our space. This is... Yeah, we can do it with a round of applause. Thank you. I'm going to hand it over to our panelists and get the conversation started. But just first, real quick, I want to say this. When we announced this event and when we announced our commitment to the community, which is something we post in our lobby and on our website and in our programs, we get a lot of questions from our audience. Our audience is not shy about letting us know what they think. And some of those responses and questions are very positive and some of them are negative and some of them are very confused. We've had a lot of people asking, why are you doing this? Why are you talking about something other than the art? And does this really happen that much in Berkeley? Really? And so I want to just address that real quick as just to frame this conversation a little bit. Yes, it does really happen in Berkeley and yes, it is really important. I believe that a theater is the storyteller for its community and I believe in the unique and visceral power of theater to change lives and strengthen communities. And that can only happen if people come to the theater.  And so I think it is incumbent upon theaters to listen to people when they tell us, I was made to feel unwelcome in your space. It's really important that we listen, that we believe them, and that we take action. And so I'm very pleased that we have these partners who all agreed that this was a conversation that was important to have and that we're able to put together this amazing panel to talk about it.  So thank you. I'm going to turn it over to our panel. We have Sean San Jose, very area theater legend of Campo Sando. Claudia Alec of Calling Up Justice, who is a big expert in these issues. She's been consulting with us and working with our board and our staff. And I'm really excited to have Claudia here. And Lee, Rondon Davis of Shotgun Players, they have been the dramaturg for our production of Exit Strategy earlier this year. And they are an expert on this stuff as well. And Lee, I think, is going to be moderating this panel. So welcome you guys. Thank you so much. And I'm going to hand it over to you. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us once again. We're really excited that we're having this conversation and being able to share space with all of you. So to kick us off, we're going to do some group agreements. And there are not rules necessarily, but things that we suggest to make the conversation as productive and respectful and thoughtful as possible. So one thing that I really love is speaking from I, me, my perspective. So like I just said, I love this activity. Not everyone in this room loves this activity, right? So that helps us avoid generalization, speaking for people who may not be represented or misspeaking for someone else who might be sitting right next to you. So that's really important. And we'll try and remind you of that very kindly and gently as the night goes on, in case you forget, which you probably won't. Yeah. Claudia, can I hand it off to you for it? Sure. I was asked what would be a good group agreement and I said one of my favorites is Wait, which is an acronym for Why Am I Talking? Aren't I talking? Some of y'all are going to have some really good questions and ideas and there might be reasons of shyness that you don't want to speak, but ask yourself that question and help us hear from everyone. We want to hear from all. Wait. Do you have any group agreements you'd like to add? Okay, I have one more then. So we are live streaming right now and I love that there's a larger conversation happening online when there's a hashtag, so I will be plugged in but present and possibly tweeting or checking out what other people are tweeting during the conversation, plugged in but present. I promise not to go on Facebook though and just have a random conversation. Yeah, and we invite you to engage with us. Our hashtag is welcome to our space. You can tag Aurora or any of the other participating theater companies, but you'll see there's someone from Aurora who is doing a great job kind of keeping track of this conversation. If technology, that's how you like to engage. So that'll get us into our first point, the definition of microaggressions. Does anyone, do folks in the audience, know what a microaggression is that might be able to share out their definition, what they think a microaggression is? Yeah. Ooh, that's a really way of making that bite side. Small things that we say that may not feel so small to someone else that has an impact on them, so thank you. Any other thoughts about what a microaggression is? Maybe a definition that you've heard or have come up with for yourself? That's all good. Well, I'm gonna give it to Claudia to give us her definition of what a microaggression is. What I love about language is that it's giving us the tool to talk about something very complex, so this one word holds a whole lot. Instead of us getting into the minutia of me talking about what a microassault is, a microinsult, a microinvalidation, I'm just gonna give you a quick nutshell definition of it. But ultimately, we're gonna be talking about what we're talking about for the rest of this conversation and knowing what the word microaggression is, that's not actually the important part. So, the term was created by a psychiatrist and Howard University professor Chester M. Pierce in the 1970s, and in the height of all ironies, he received just massive microaggressions when he suggested that the scholarship used to describe insults and dismissals that he regularly witnessed non-black Americans inflict on African Americans. A lot of folks in the field were like, oh, that's nothing, we don't need to worry about that. What are you even talking about? So one of the biggest parts of microaggressions is that they're really easy to dismiss or to deny. Psychologist Darryl Wingsu defines microaggressions as brief everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to certain individuals because of their group membership. Does that feel like it gives more clarity about what that word... I feel like we gotta talk about what we're talking about, though. Can we get some examples? Yeah, all right, cool, yeah. So I'm going to speak again from my own perspectives. I don't claim to be an expert in any of this, but I am an expert of my own lived experiences. So for me, when I was asked to be a part of this panel and what some things I might be able to talk about are complaining about gender-neutral restrooms. That is a microaggression. There are spaces who identify as non-binary or trans, folks who have the privilege of being cisgender. They can really hurt folks in our community that are gender non-conforming or trans. So a bathroom, a line that may be longer or a bathroom that may not look the way you expect it to, may be a safer space for someone and a minor inconvenience for you, a space for someone who identifies as different genders. Also, policing audience members' behaviors is another thing that happens a lot in theater spaces, and that can be microaggressive behavior, particularly when we're thinking about racial dynamics. So I have one example here at Aurora. I was dramaturging a show, Exit Strategy, and an older white patron decided to scold me on how loud I was laughing at parts of the play that were very funny. How many of you saw Exit Strategy? There were some funny parts in that play, yeah. So I'm here as a member of the creative team. I'm paid to be here, and someone talks down to me, and it scolds me on how loud I'm laughing at a play that is supposed to be funny. And I'm an employee here, and I'm made to feel unsafe in my place of employment. So that's an example of a microaggression. Do you guys have any other examples? One of the... Good evening. No. Remember, we were just having a conversation, too. And I think one of the things, too, that I'm thinking about in terms of microaggressions is we've all of a sudden got really a micro... we're talking about interactions in the theater with it. But microaggressions, for me, come as a person of color as anyone that is other than anyway. I think microaggression is great because it has that reference to it to remember where it came from and how long it existed. But, to me, I've always experienced it as it's just another strand of racism. So othering and prejudicing, whatever terminology we want to use. So I think we're going to... we're going to poke it down in terms of how it exists. I imagine most of us are theater people. So how we interact in the world of theater and things like this and lotings like that or coming into or out of it. But it's only an issue in here because it's a major issue in real, actual life. So in much of the work all of us do in theater, we're trying to reflect the real world in these pretend spaces. I think we're also trying to address this real world really daily, sometimes minute-to-minute issue for some folks inside of the theater.  That's an interesting thing about how we observe or respond to a play. Once we walk out of here, it's still going to exist. It's still a problem. So I think it's important to drop that back in there too. I love a dashiki. I think they've got packets in the front, beautiful colorful prints. I love a dashiki. I rock dashikis a lot. And recently in a lobby, a very lovely person came up to me and asked me where I was from. And I was mystified because I've actually never received that specific micro. I've received so many. But it was a fascinating exchange because it allowed me to say, oh, because I was like, I'm from here. And it was really honestly just me mystified. Why would you ask? And then she reminded me, oh, you're wearing an outfit that to someone else might read as, I'm potentially from a different country. Although that doesn't make any sense to me because I wear dashikis all the time and I bought them all in the United States. So it was very confusing. That was a microaggression, a racialized microaggression. But the one that I often get is folks being like, like, oh, what happened to you? What's up with your leg? Oh, what did you do to yourself, girl? Which is never a pleasant conversation or a chill conversation to have in a lobby or a public space.  But what if it had been like a car accident or some traumatic story that I'm being asked to tell? I get triggered every time somebody asks me to identify my body. I'm like, we're not close friends like that. Yeah. And it's important to recognize that all of us can perpetrate microaggressions. Like I have done it myself. I own that and I'm working to be better. And so this is not just a statement that it's just white people that commit microaggressions. It's just straight people or cisgender people. All of us can do it. We're all based in implicit and bias, basically. So one of the next things we want to talk about, connected to that, is the difference between intent and impact. People that perpetrate microaggressive behavior are not necessarily bad people. Like all of us in this room, we're all good people and we make mistakes. And sometimes the things you say, you may mean it one way, it's perceived or the way it lands on someone else, may be harmful or hard or traumatic to deal with.  And it's hard to figure out when that will or won't happen, but it's all something we have to learn and do together. So a lot of the responses we got to this event for some of the people that had the more negative responses was that these young people are just too sensitive and everyone needs to lighten up and take a step back. And this is from a person who identified as an older white Oakland resident. I'm presumably with the best intentions and their own ideas on how to solve this, but it's more than that. It's more than young people being overly sensitive. It's more than folks of marginalized identities being too PC or too cranky about stuff. We should all just let it go. It means someone's emotional and mental and sometimes even physical safety when microaggressions are being perpetrated against them. Do you have anything to add, Fran? Well, I'm thinking of that really lovely... there's a video that has somebody getting a bunch of bee stings. And that's supposed to be a metaphor for microaggressions. And it felt like it made a lot of sense to me because in the micro dose, it doesn't feel like a big deal. In the micro, it's like, oh, that was a weird thing that just happened, but then if it happens all the time over and over again, there's a cumulative effect. I'll sometimes have conversations with my Lyft drivers about the intrusive identifying question of where are you from and asking them how do they deal with it because I'm curious, I want to find out how other folks deal with this as well. And a lot of them explained to me also that this was about power dynamics where they the driver recognized that their passenger was not trying to be mean or bad to them. It was just groping for a conversation. But they as the driver did not have the ability to interrupt that without endangering their ability to do their job. So I feel like that's a part of it too. Like when it's audience to audience member the power dynamics might be the same but if it's an audience member who's been attending the theater for like ever and has such ownership of this space that could really make someone feel like they don't belong. And for me, walking into a room that is predominantly older white folks where I don't necessarily see myself represented and the people that are listening and attending is a little bit nerve wracking. I had to address my own bias coming here today because I'm going to be honest with you I was emotionally preparing for the worst. I've had some not so great talk back and panel experiences where I have been truly traumatized and deeply offended and I was just like, I don't know what I'm going into today. I emailed all of my theater communias like y'all I need y'all to come out because I don't know what's going to happen. But I have bias. I assume the worst of people in this room that actually are probably here with the best intentions and I think you showed up tonight for this panel on a Monday night when you could be at home not doing something else that you maybe enjoy more and you're here to learn and listen and that was unfair of me to assume that about you and I think those assumptions are at the core of microaggressions we're just assuming we're going off of what we think we know about the world or what we've been taught about the world and sometimes we have to dig a little bit deeper. Although, and I wouldn't give you time to speak because we're talking a lot. I don't want to dismiss the fact that sometimes folks do have ill intent. Like sometimes they're doing the microaggression because they know they can get away with it. It's that person who comes up to you at the party and they're smiling and then they say something that's just really offensive but they recognize the social mores of the scene won't allow you to react and somehow it makes it bad if you the person who just received the insult react like whoa that was insulting then that person who did it somehow can scold you for raising your voice or behaving inappropriately. So generally people have good intent but ultimately I don't think intent matters. It's impact that matters. Well... This isn't a conversation part I think you're covering it well. Thank you. Well we have a question a couple of questions for you. How many of you feel like you have been the recipient of microaggressions? Show of hands. And if you don't feel like raising your hand that's also okay too. You can answer with your spirit. How many of you feel like you may have inflicted a microaggression onto someone else? Yeah. It's like a real universal thing that we're all struggling with and working through together. So I appreciate you for being here. But we're going to kind of breathe through some of these conversation topics and then there will be time for questions. So please feel free to take notes. You may have received the note cards. If you want to run and grab one you're welcome to and jot down questions because we'll have time for both the written ones and also any live questions that may happen. So the next big question is how do you avoid microaggressive behavior? And the answer is... Thank you Josh. Do you do, Vanna? So how do you avoid microaggressive behavior? You can't. You simply can't. Claudio, would you like to share more? I made a joke about it. I said you could stay at home but then you'd also have to stay off the internet as well and not watch television. Yeah. But I do think the better question is how can we as a group maybe identify some of the microaggressions that are taking place in our spaces and how can we not avoid them but create the capacity to respond to them. Vanna, do you want to speak more to how to respond to microaggressive? I feel like I've got lots of answers because I've been thinking about this for a long time but I also sense that the audience the human beings who are in this space we've got a room full of experts here. We have experts in audiences, experts in theater making, experts in leading, experts in talking about theater. I would like to hear, I would love to hear from them but I will let you all know that I'm a gigantic nerd and I did bring my 3Ds and 5Rs of how to respond because I love alliteration. But I'd rather hear from the audience before I give my, my here's a list. Any thoughts on how to respond? Yes. What is that situation to be safe for everyone if I say something? If I might have a great response there's been an endangered person being microaggressive again and more.  If I can't, can I do something if I take the person to the side and I just get a couple copies if I take them to the side and just read with them but it's something I'm really pushing myself to do more and is he something, I mean I couldn't sign all over is he something to say something without terrorism? I know. Thank you. Yeah. Any other thoughts on how to respond to microaggressions? Yes. What are two specific examples of microaggressions and a number of specific things that happened here in the space that people thought that they were unwelcome and I think specific examples of what happened here to fingers talking to the president about microaggressions? May I respond? Yes, absolutely. I'm thinking about the American Theater article that Dominique Morrisso wrote about her experience. Was it at the public theater in New York? Which audience she was in? She wrote the article. I think actually she wrote the Facebook post and we all were like, yes girl, that's exactly what happens. Yes, yes, yes to that. I think it was a similar experience to the story that you were telling where she was audiences and another older patron decided to instruct her how to audience correctly and what they were really doing was instructing her to not do call and response to a play that required call and response and teaching her her audiencing, her black performativity as an audience member. So I go to the place of specific examples are useful but they don't have to be about this specific theater. I just had a great conversation two days ago with folks in museum culture and we were talking about how sometimes the literal physical space can be a microaggression. Like sometimes the signage lets you know you're not welcome, that's the basis for you. And sometimes the fact that it's all stairs and I just go, oh this performance venue didn't have me in mind. Okay. And it's kind of a microaggression that the space is doing. I'm in the same world though, I love examples but I feel like there might be more stories that we could hear from. I don't know. If you feel comfortable, it's for you. Yeah, you decide. Okay. And so they have with signage that said anyone of any gender is welcome to do that. If you have a single gender restroom they are heard the fact that this is a theater with like a hundred people on full spectrums and this is more emotional but I would add that. So I'm in the stall in what used to be the women's room because they don't have journals.  I'm like slamming the door into the space. And I'm here like not having seen this but having heard it and like having so many trans folks and like so many trans and so many who don't have and I was really good. I was still shaking thinking about it but like I came out and I was like right, so it's just because she then starts buffering up you know to her friends you know just like I'm fine with how anybody identifies but like I don't want to share that with men because they're gross you know and they say oh I'm so liberal so you're fine with the being gendered as long as you personally are the judge of who is which gender I just don't know I just don't know I just don't want to be under that so I just don't want to be under that and I still have not properly figured out how to speak to that leader about how they could have created a space to allow there was no such thing as being inside the restroom like if you see someone and you think I'm wrong in his restroom mind your own business or I'm not on the nail list they're making me know that I'm not saying hey we're going to send a big old restroom for this reason if you want to participate you have to sign up and you left it to the audience to figure out how it would be better and clearly they weren't up to that it's a great point thank you and I think with that I mean that's what challenges I want to make sure the integrity of the room is whole I'm not just I see you changing the reasoning I want to bring that conversation to a meaningful place and I'll let the change pour out of that rather than here's the change we're doing and try to backfill because I think if we have to lead our audiences we have to lead our boards we have to lead our communities on this journey some of us myself we've been privileged to go ahead and see that the journey is long but some others haven't and so we have to hand through that and so I think for me as I'm hearing that story it's like what could I have done at my theater could we have had sharing about this and helping to protect the space and prop the door open I don't know what I'm saying but that's the more holistic change that has to happen and then the icing on the cake comes later so that's what I'm taking away from your story and from my own experience just quickly there's a Lutheran we're live streaming and our audience complain they were like we can't hear the other people talking and you have now witnessed a microaggression there's a Lutheran church on College Avenue on the restroom there's a sign that says roses are red, violets are blue genders not binary this restroom's for you and it's very clear so thank you for hosting this I don't want to get emotional but I am because theater is a place of creativity and welcoming and invite people who I identify with I identify as black and that's part of my family and I have Latinx and when I have friends say I do not want to go to a theater where I do not see myself reflected or I don't feel safe I'm not going to be vulnerable because I don't want to be policed it crushes me so the practices that I find in the theaters that are trying to be open and welcome people of color to their theaters to make it more accessible for folks that may have income issues to have the excuse that only people who are getting their tickets purchasing their tickets off of Gold Star or some other way have to provide their ID to get their tickets is not acceptable and I've had that happen in multiple theaters even when I buy tickets for my family and friends and I'm not using that for my ID the younger ones who are darker skin get asked for their ID the lighter skin people don't so I would recommend that no matter whether you're a subscriber or whatever that every theater if you're going to have pickup tickets you ask everybody for their ID if you guys just split that you can both talk into it thank you well a lot of the things that I've been hearing kind of go to this point of how to avoid microaggressions is by being intentional with your choices so in the terms of that restroom it was a great idea in theory but it lacked intentionality in that it lacked the forethought of what do we do in the moment who can people go to if they have questions or don't feel safe for whatever reason and the important thing to keep in mind is like yes you may not like the smell of this new bathroom or you may not like having to wait in a longer line but it means that someone feels safe it means that someone feels seen and validated in their own identity and experience and what we should be doing is looking out for the people who are most vulnerable in our communities that's what I try to do I think of all the ways that I have privilege or I'm able to walk through life with ease without having to think about certain things that may take time to think about the people that may have more difficulty in various aspects of life whether that's physical differences whether that's their gender expression or gender identity all of these things we can take a little bit of time to be empathetic and compassionate for people who may just need a little bit more support yeah, so thank you or another alternative to that asking for IDs thing is don't ask for IDs right? there are people in our communities that cannot provide a form of identification so are they excluded from theater experiences? how do we make our spaces more accessible? how do we make sure that as many people as possible can come and engage with our work and walk out feeling having a positive experience and a positive transformation in the same way that we all are able to like accessibility in terms of ticket costs, a lot of theaters are moving to pay what you can models or if no one turned away for lack of funds models that means no matter how much money you have you can come see theater and that can, it's difficult I understand as a theater maker to raise those funds or to figure it out but there are a lot of great organizations and people in your communities subsidize that all you have to do is ask providing information and context for institutional changes I hate it I walk into Target and they move something around and I cannot be here right now but also I realize in the example of Target it's probably to sell more things but sometimes those changes are to make someone feel more comfortable or open up our space a little more for a group that may not have felt as safe there so all of these things, so sometimes you're getting frustrated or I find myself you know a little panicked about the change and I have to like pause and give myself a reality check and think about who may be benefiting from this thing that is new and a little bit uncomfortable for me and you gotta face that discomfort with compassion and bravery and just all your gumption so take the next step and be a part of a more welcoming world so I definitely don't want to lose the really beautiful comment that kicked this conversation off I regret us not having the microphone ready when you were telling us that story because it was a really great example of what are some of the steps you need to do if you're going to respond as an individual but I did want to highlight something that was really gorgeous about this exchange around bathrooms that's more institutional so this is a performance and all the world's a stage and if you're trying to change that in real life performance maybe you're doing staff trainings maybe you've had a lot of gendered microaggressions happening in your workplace so you've decided to do the sexual harassment training the problem is does the audience go to that training who gets to go to that training so we're setting up the circumstances for a performance how are we being really thoughtful about what we are setting up within that performance so you told me a story of a of a sign that let folks know not only is this a gender neutral bathroom but do not police others genders and also it was cute and had a rhyme to it that was very cool so I'm curious about that institutional way of just to perform better in the space I mean I think that there's two big conversations we're having one is personal experiences and personal obligations dilemmas but then also the question I was asking us as we sort of talked about this is it's on the the host if we throw in a party if I'm inviting you in my house I'm going to set the tone for the rules the five, the tenor the temperature whatever you want to call it so part of that I would say almost entirely that is on the host because I'm not going to have someone come over and be like you can't do that unless I say hey in the crib we don't wear shoes could you do that or not do that so I'll jump you're like okay that's kind of a small minor example and state I'm not going to tell anybody when I invite them to show that we do but you've got to act this way you can't act that way our rules are you can't do this you can't do that I would never throw a party like that I would never have people over to dinner like that so part of it is the cultural experiment we've got to get in there and think but I think there's two things to work on all the people that are with organizations lead organizations or have the heaviest thumbs to push through suggestions for organizations have to have one big conversation so that there is a science that we are we're going to put a thing on the bathroom because we believe in that or to your example one that obviously didn't work well for you over there where you go there's no rule you do the same because there's a huge divide between people making changes and how it happens in the bathroom or how it happens at the door if the person in front of the door is beginning to know whatever executive means there's going to be some delicious things so it's on us that invite people into a space to sort of set tone off top and then I think the hardest is that I think that's a much easier conversation it has a lot of work but it's much easier conversation as opposed to what you're bringing up what you're bringing up I feel both of you on that I don't know the answer I especially don't know the answer to what you're saying I don't know what to do either I also think it's about empowerment I don't know what to do either if I'm in this space unless someone is crazily out of pocket I don't know how to go like hey you can't do this or that I mean that's some kind of policing too so I think all of this ran into we've got two conversations to have and I think there are many theater makers and people from theater organizations in here and I think we should be following that they're experiencing this I'm going to put this all together and put it to those people and then there's one that I think is a much more open ended I don't know what we do kind of conversation to I would say in response to your thinking about them I wouldn't go to a place like that seriously no if you treat me like that if you treat me like I'm their fucking I'm not going to be doing it and I'm sorry to use language but that's a microaggression to me when you say that but you've got to do this I don't have to do anything Jack I don't have to do anything to anything you're saying and I shouldn't have to do anything and that's where the aggression for microaggression is true well I'm going to correct you that's not a microaggression having an anger response is not a negative thing it's a good thing microaggression is someone telling me you've got to do something that not everyone else has to do and that's where I would say I will check you on that if you're checking me I'm not some badass I'm going to check you I go home all ahead I feel bummed I feel bad I feel weak I feel left out I feel not included so that's what I feel like but I'm saying in terms of addressing it I'm saying there's a personal way there's an organizational way a personal way I'm going to be like you what the heck to do or I'm going to be like an effin or organization I'm going to go we don't allow that policy that policy is bullshit that says you can't we're going to do this to a certain number of people and we're not going to do it to other people they have two lanes that I think we have to deal with as theater people as people people I'm also wondering how we can get rid of the weird shame that's attached to microaggressions because that's what stops us from being able to recognize them and solve it as a problem for instance we had an audience member who asked like should I even name the theater it took place when this takes place in every single theater every single one we can have a contest and maybe some folks on HowlRound can tweet us and try and tell me about their theater but I think it's every single theater in all the museums as well so how can that theater set up the circumstances that allow you the audience member to have your really smart idea about how they can fix what was failing because they were trying to do a thing you witnessed it failing you had some really good ideas so they could potentially improve it but how can how could they invite you to give them that feedback hello it's like an echo what you just brought up about shame I'm here actually because I've been going to a live theater at Berkeley Rep Aurora ACT as a subscriber with my grandmother and then she passed I check over and I've observed the same microaggression in myself that I want to act on but I don't because I feel shame towards this vulnerable population which are typically elders and when they're fumbling around with the hard of hearing devices and on top of that the other part of it is I'm really nervous and it hurts racing as I talk about this that's why I'm here today actually to bring this aspect to light of theater experience is when the people who are hard of hearing are talking quite loud during the performance I'm entitled and I have some shame around that too that it should be a social etiquette a certain level of quiet and I want to say something I want them to stop talking but I don't talk to them directly I go to the theater staff but in my experience having been a subscriber the same typical people that I notice making the loud comments during the performance and then also like with the rapper sometimes too that's an aside it's mainly the talking and fumbling with the sound devices and I don't know what to do because it just really upsets me and frustrates me but I never talk to the people themselves because I feel like I don't have a place to do that since I have empathy that they're hard of hearing and they should have an enjoyable theater experience too and they're doing the best they can oh this other audience member seems to have an answer I am very excited hi so my husband is profoundly hearing impaired and my father is severely hearing impaired there's a category my husband is essentially deaf in his left ear actor has been going through increasing amounts of hearing aids, has a cochlear implant now in his right ear I mean this is extensive and it's been going on since he was 30 one of the things that's a huge problem for us well first of all the assisted hearing devices only work for some people you have to turn off and remove your hearing aids in most cases to use them which means they have very little feeling, body feeling for the volume that they're speaking at they really don't know I get this all the time with my dad and my husband the second thing is open caption performances are few are between and very few theaters do them open caption performances are a miracle for the audience members who can't hear well for people who are in the deaf community for the family members of those people I'm lucky if there's one show one showing per performance that's happening of a particular play that's open captioned they're very very rare and it strikes me as odd because they're so useful the other thing that happens with that is in some places like Berkeley Rep not in the main stage in the older stage which I love that space we were seeing I can't Treasure Island maybe and there was an open captioned performance and the audience seating because for open captioned performances you get special seats so that you can see the captions better the audience seating was on one side one of the funny sides as you first come in on audience right and the open captions were being projected up onto the wall on audience right which means you cannot read them and see the show at the same time at all and I've had that happen multiple times I actually found the grant information and sent in a request for Berkeley Rep to get the grant for open captioning devices and so for example down in San Jose, Broadway San Jose they have every show has a Saturday performance that has two ASL signers like automatic guaranteed it's wonderful yeah this is a huge problem and just for contrast in Oregon Shakespeare Festival they use open captioning not only for English speaking audiences but they will have open captioning that's in Spanish for example it completely changes the dynamic of the audience it completely changes who comes to see the shows it's wonderful and I don't understand why there isn't more of that if you it doesn't have to be a very expensive technology at all it's also important to remember at least I try to remind myself in these moments like I have mesophonia so chewing sounds like if somebody's eating a snack they like make me like nauseous and like physically uncomfortable but I recognize that it's a me issue and that's hard to like come to terms with right so I have come up with coping mechanisms for myself so sometimes that just means I have to move farther away from someone and you know do that kindly I'm not glaring at them and huffing as I do that like the woman did when I was laughing too loud she got up and moved mid-show huffing the whole time she's talking too loud so it's a me issue I take that and I just quietly find a you know a discrete time to move myself I bring your plugs to things a lot of times and I also remind myself that theater is a communal experience like I could sit at home and watch a movie and be by myself if that's what I wanted to happen but for me part of the beauty of going to theater is sitting in an audience of living breathing people experiencing the same thing at the same time it's the only time that thing happens and I have to like remind myself of that and fill myself with a little bit of grace and fortitude and say like I come to theater for this reason so that I can share space with folks of all abilities and all different blocks of life and it's really really hard and I appreciate you for bringing up that question and acknowledging that for yourself this might have some resonance thinking about there was this video on twitter where a woman sitting in a seat and she leans back on the airplane and the guy he's in the back one so he can't lean back so there's no room he's incredibly uncomfortable and he starts to like push the seat and then there's this huge conversation where some people are like oh well that was obviously wrong and others being like no she was obviously wrong she should have asked if she could lean back and I said you know who's wrong the airline set up a situation where there would be conflict between two passengers and it shouldn't be on the passengers that fix that really but I do want to remind myself in the audience though that we are talking about power dynamics so it's complicated you can have conflict between two audience members and that might not necessarily be the thing that we're talking about right now microaggressions we're just trying to figure out how can we make our spaces the most welcoming to marginalized audiences I'm also leaning into your question that you started us off with which was how do you or maybe this was a question that was sparked by your comment which is how do you set the conditions for the right kind of party we all know that we don't take off our shoes and put our feet on the back of the seats in the theater or the airplane we don't do this that's bad behavior how do we know how do we communicate what those behaviors are supposed to be audience hey I can try it loudly one group of people charged with that task are ushers who are usual in many theaters not all are volunteers who do it once in a while but we have every season I usher here I usher at Berkeley wrap I've done it for many years we get a packet of instructions about what our role is and what we're supposed what problems we're supposed to take care of as well as how to welcome people into the space it's really explicit it sometimes puts us in weird positions now the house managers will often often say if you're uncomfortable doing some of these things come get us but that isn't they're running around like where are they especially Berkeley wrap which is huge and so we're the ones that are supposed to figure out if differently abled people are comfortable and have everything they need and find the language to ask that you know and we're the ones who are giving out the assistive listening devices and trying to figure out how loudly to speak or not or like working interaction with the line forming and we're the ones who are if we're sitting next to someone with their smart phone and they're texting and they're doing stuff during the show if we're supposed to take care of that problem if it's right there but in the middle of a show it's kind of awkward and it's like how big of a problem is this and do I want to alienate somebody who just paid to be here who feels okay doing this thing it's really there are and then watching my other fellow ushers which span run the gamut of like rule followers versus more flex you know so it's like there are the ones who are like these are the rules do you understand these are the rules please you must do this thing and I'm like oh this is embarrassing and then I'm like the ones that are not quite right either so I just I'm just throwing it out there that in many places these are volunteer people who are actually put in sort of weird positions sometimes and it's not always easy to figure it out I am sure I have said the wrong thing to people like giving out the assistive listening devices I was saying I was trying to gauge like how loudly to speak because if I speak really loudly then people like that's not helpful for take offense you know or if I say do you have a hearing aid because there's relevant instructions if you do when you're giving one of those out then people take offense do I look like I need a hearing aid I'm like okay how do I phrase this in a way it's like having to do it in real time for a job I do like once a year you know because we all switch off jobs so I'm just throwing that out there is that is one of the groups that is tasked with trying to figure this out on the fly in these spaces and it's not always so easy actually I find that giving people an option often works so example in a theater where people are texting if a measure came up to somebody and said so if you need to use your iPhone if you could step outside and do that then you're giving them the option of stopping it or stepping outside and then taking shoes at ACT in the conservatory I had a response for you about the audience interaction of like noise level I used to work quite frequently at a deaf theater in New York and one thing we used to do in the box office especially for hearing patrons was to give them the disclosure just so you know the audience might not be the type of audience you're used to it might not be a silent kind of house so we used to do that specifically for that theater and some questions I wanted to ask were do you or something that's come up in previous discussions about inclusivity for me is or responses rather that I've gotten has been when inclusive practices are when certain like leadership see inclusive practices maybe not necessarily being used for their purpose sometimes those practices stop so I'm wondering if in the room if people think that inclusive practices are contingent upon their continuation are contingent upon people using them for their intended purposes for example if you get your open caption funding and grant if no open caption tickets are bought would your leadership be upset or stop funding that or for so how do theater organizations and artists empower their colleagues and budgets to plan for these practices as well really important to talk to people why things are changing let people know and be a part of the conversation about that and if they have ideas for improvement like that's great that's what we want to open up or if people are confused or don't feel okay with something we can engage in a dialogue I also feel like it's about responsibility like what you just said about if closed caption performance tickets aren't being purchased we don't just give up on that cause we figure out why those tickets aren't selling who do we need to reach out to and I know for a lot of theater companies especially the ones I'm involved with capacity is a huge issue which makes it difficult to further these initiatives or dive in as deeply as we want to but I also think that we are a bigger theater community it's not just us making the theater there are ways for our audiences our board members our supporters to get involved in meaningful ways and if we create opportunity I personally feel that if we create opportunities for members of our community to get involved we can get a lot more done and that's what I personally champion the organizations that I work with and I think it's really important cause there's a level of commitment to those things as well that if it doesn't work you have to spend more time and more money and more manpower on these things and that's stressful if you're running a non-profit organization I have experienced that but also it just means someone else is able to access your space and feel welcome in it and that's really important and I really want to call out Composanto because every time I go to a compo show I feel like I'm at church I feel like I just walked into my auntie's house and that is a space that I feel really welcome and safe in as opposed to even some of the theaters that I work at I feel safer there and that's because I see people like me I see stories about people from my community or see people that look like me on stage in the audience and I feel like my presence is valued and welcomed and I also there's a dynamic people are invited to experience the piece of art the way they want to experience the piece of art so at a compo show you may have people calling in response you may have people like clapping and snapping and there's no rule on how to enjoy and experience this piece of art and so I want to call that out because compo is like doing some major work and making their space inclusive and also they do work all over the bay area too which is not always possible for those of us that are paying rent on a building but it means that you're in different neighborhoods and you're making contact with different people and allowing different people to access their work if transportation is an issue so I think that's really dope and I just want to call that out yeah I'm hoping we will have a chance in this conversation to maybe surface some best practices some things people are already doing because we've got a diversity of theater representatives here in the audience but I also want to make sure we didn't skip any comments or questions that were happening I really appreciate this conversation because in my experience how I think about this is that a lot of that racism and prejudice is systemic and so you see it in theater policies you see it in the language and marketing about who is invited into your home and who is not into your space and so part of it for me is thinking of how do you first have a conversation within your home about what those shared values are and making sure that everybody who lives in your home is on the same page about those values but then also how do you then project those values out into your community into the folks that you're inviting into your space so maybe that's in your emails when tickets are going out letting folks know these are the resources that are available in our space this is where you can find them maybe that's in how you are marketing or pushing for your ushers to make sure that your ushers are actually reflecting the community that you say you want in your space maybe that's also in the fact that you do train your ushers to understand that hey what do you do for your community values because I think of it as I've called it before institutional violence where folks will utilize somebody I don't know if you know there was a story about a group of folks that were on a train in wine country and somebody complained to the folks that had authority on the train and that group was kicked out for being too loud and somebody kind of did some preliminary work maybe that person that was used to do that institutional violence of throwing those folks off the train would have never responded in that way and for reminder for myself when I'm in theater spaces to remember my own privilege and where I'm coming from to humanize the people that are around me because sometimes having a conversation with folks about what your needs are and what their needs are is a place to start instead of just being like oh well I'm going to tell the usher that this person is eating inside of the theater and that's against the community standards like and I want them to be thrown out well maybe that person has a blood sugar issue that you're not thinking about and so I think those are the things that I think about is community standards and setting and how often and how you iterate that how that then works into the folks that you invite into your space that you hire that you look for for volunteers and so I think about a lot of what is the history of some of these theater spaces and how do you recognize that when you're inviting folks in and you're trying to say this narrative of like this space is also for you to recognize what is that history that people are carrying deep down of all the messages that they've heard you say before to hear now what you're saying now Thank you. I go to the theater quite a lot and I go to many different kinds of theaters and entering a theater is much more like a social contract it's unstated but it is a contract when one goes to see a Shakespeare play if people were talking behind me I would turn around first I give them my glare and if that doesn't work I might look for an usher because getting up to look for an usher is disturbing everybody else around me on the other hand if I go to something that's a comedy or something light something like you're describing where part of the fun and part of what you expect to do is to be laughing out loud to be calling out well that's acceptable to therefore and I think it behooves all of us to know what we're getting into if we're going to see a Shakespeare play we're going to behave so that everyone around us can listen to every word because it's not that easy on the other hand if we're going to see a raucous comedy we're going to laugh out loud and that's okay too so Shakespeare has comedy I don't mind laughing but if I can't understand words and that's what I'm there for if people are distracting everyone around them I don't see anything wrong with calling it to their attention that's just the way I behave I'm sure that message is if a host doesn't tell me we're doing Shakespeare this year and it's different then out in the open we want you to be here and I'm going to come in there and I'm going to be part of everyone part of my responses I go ahead oh my god and then you flash on me because I'm talking because we have two different expectations it's not necessarily the funk between you and I but whoever says it up above that says come on into our space if you say come on into my space then I'm going to come into your space you can come into mine and I'm going to be doing something that you might like tonight which has happened to me that's how I got into theater then okay I get the rules you gave me the rules I don't need to be so general but it's like a dinner party you come into dinner party hey man don't be bringing all the fast food in here we're doing it different just bring yourself I would take I would not only personally take issue with the person trying to check me in a space that you and I both have tickets for but I would also question the institution itself if the institution has done you one thing until we need one thing then we've got a problem we've got so many good audiences well I want to say just one second we have as many people a chance to respond as possible I was the recipient of that glare and the way it made me feel was awful I felt condescended to I felt not necessarily your glare let me clarify that but I was the recipient of a glare and within the context it was a little bit different but I felt condescended to I felt embarrassed I felt humiliated I felt like didn't deserve to be here in the space and your intention is that you what I understand your intention to be is that you're just trying to hear and understand Shakespeare but what is received is that I am less than this person who's looking at me and where you're coming from and being able to hear and understand what's going on especially in these dense plays or classical work but intention is different from perception and that small thing can really just fuck up somebody's day and it's hard to know but I just wanted to share that was my personal experience with that and I saw a couple of other hands in the space that I want to give can I raise your hand yes my friend here and right here I've worked at a couple of predominantly white lead theater companies in the bay I've been here 10 years I will not call them all out because I love them all there's nothing wrong with the organizations however just kind of tying back to some things people have said previously what Sean's saying it's clear inviting to the party it's on you as the host me being a black house manager in the bay areas kind of an anomaly so when people walk into spaces they're not used to seeing me being the welcoming face so for one of the theaters that I'm at the show we're doing right now is all people who look like me and I will tell you those grandmas and grandpas cling to me when they walk in the door but there are other places that I've been where they don't look like me and they don't know that I'm actually there to help them feel safe as well so it's also on the organization to hire people who look like the audience you want to bring in because that's going to really make sure that the message gets out there that you want to be loving and welcoming to everyone that's how you make sure that your social etiquette gets passed on the people you hire reflect who you want to bring in that's going to change the dynamic of what's happening in your lobbies in your bathrooms and in your office conversations sure hi hi so I run a Shakespeare theater and I don't want to I really appreciate your frankness and sharing how you experience like a broad range of work so I don't intend to be specifically in response to you but I think it's interesting that you Shakespeare as an example there because there's plenty of evidence to suggest that Shakespeare's audience is number one were not particularly respectful of each other's attention and that when you look at the text it's like important information is often repeated three times in three different ways to ensure, Shakespeare wanted to ensure that his audience has understood the important points of the story I say that because I think just to connect with a few things that people have been saying here tonight thank you again for that it's this notion that I think this idea that theater has always been like a temple that theater has always been a place where people arrive in a space of obedience and peace and quietude that it's a space where we encounter something divine but actually when we look at the history of theater there's a lot to suggest that it's kind of the opposite of that and that it's largely a consequence of our institutions that have over these many many decades and generations of audiences transformed the way we think that people ought to behave in a theater and so I think in that way it's just very fascinating, it's very interesting to think about sort of like we have an aging audience and because we have an aging audience hearing can become an issue of some audiences and so we find that there's been perhaps an increase in efforts to


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