Again, if you're afraid to come in and out of the room, as you need to during this last session, I know you're still caught. I'm Mara Robinson. My pronouns are she, her, hers. Yasmin asked me to introduce this panel. And really, this panel came out of our collaboration in talking about the conference as we were planning it. And I haven't seen a proposal come in that had Chicago movers and shakers. And I feel like Chicago is a city of a lot of people who are politically active, socially active, thoughtful about casting, thoughtful about the choices that are going to be on stage and willing to call things out when they see it. And so we haven't seen that. And I said, I'll propose something. And it was this filler. And then as we were talking about it, I reached out to some of the great people I know in Chicago asking them to be here and speak to us about their experience. Yasmin is going to moderate this. And then we'll have some time later on for some breaking out and actually actively trying to strategize. Another thing that Yasmin and I discussed when we were doing this is how sometimes ECDs or panels happen. And you get this panel up there, but you don't really actually really get to talk to them. And we want to break the room apart a little bit so that there is some time to break out into smaller groups with some of our panelists and really strategize about, like, no, how do you make change? How do you start a project that activates people and makes them do something different or gives them concerns? So thank you to our incredible Chicago panelists. And thank you to Yasmin, who's, of course, been amazing all weekend. Woo! Thank you so much for being with us today and holding space. My name, as you may know at this time, is Yasmin Mikael. My pronouns are she, her, hers. I primarily work as a dramaturg, arts journalist, and an oral historian here in Chicago. And I would love each of our panelists to introduce themselves with their names, pronouns if they're comfortable, and a little bit about you and your practice. Hi, my name is Laurie Myers. My pronoun is she, her, hers. And I'm the founder of Not In Our House Chicago Theater community and co-author of the Chicago Theater Standards. You want me to talk about that? Okay. Yeah. Way back when, in my 20s, I knew about a theater. It was written on a wall in the Four Moats Tavern in Chicago. It's like, stay away from this guy because he will try to molest you. I was like, okay, I'm gonna stay away from that guy. That was my 20s, my 30s. Then I started to get cast as a mother in Chicago, you know, about three stories in of hearing that the sexual predator is still practicing and running a successful Chicago non-equity theater. I decided it was time to take some action and I founded Not In Our House. So we began support group action. We created the Chicago, which was called the Code of Conduct. Now it's the Chicago Theater Standards for non-equity code of conduct in non-equity theaters of Chicago that has actually been adapted across the country. And then it puts on the ground action that we hope to work with equity to try to have them change their language a little bit to be not so antiquated and to try to actually help against discrimination, bullying, violence, and sexual harassment to define it and then define what will happen if that code gets broken. So that's me. My name is President Edmund. I'm the co-founder and managing curating producer of Black Lives, Black Words International Project. Black Lives, Black Words was started in 2015 around the time of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, and the list goes on and on and on. There wasn't a lot of opportunity for playwrights, particularly Black playwrights to speak out about the various issues that were taking place within our community. And so I felt extremely frustrated and I wondered how many other Black playwrights were also feeling frustrated about the fact that there was not a way for them to speak out. Gatekeepers got a little bit. So I went to the various different theaters, Congo Square, Impact, Pegasus Theater, Black Ensemble, and ETA Creative Arts. And if anybody knows about Chicago Theater, they're super tribal, but I brought them together and we did an event at the Greenhouse Theater and we fire hazarded the hell out of that theater. And so we got even bolder and we expanded. I said, okay, we're gonna take it to the Guthrie Theater. And I called the Guthrie and I said, we're gonna do Black Lives Black Words here at Minneapolis because we needed to talk about this. And if you don't let us in our space, in your space, then we're gonna do it in your parking lot.   And then we got even bolder and we took it to London and we partnered with the Bush Theater to bring it out there. And so far we have expanded our mission to, we've served two continents, three countries, nine cities. We've expanded to doing college takeovers. So now we work with college students to teach them that not just be artists, but also activists and leaders within their own communities. So we do college takeovers. We've expanded out our mission to do, I'll take it a lot. Sorry. We've expanded out our project because we realized that it's not just important to have black artists speak out.  My co-counter is a much better marketer than mine. So we bring together artists of color, indigenous of immigrant descent, LGBTQIA and everything in between. And we bring them into a room to speak about what does the American dream? What does their America look like and is this current climate that we're in speaking to them?  And also because I'm an entrepreneur, we now have over on books for our books, for our work, our anthologies, with a network of over 300 plus playwrights from all around the globe. I am a gender consultant and dramaturg from Chicago, now working all over, but I got started in this work sort of by accident. I was dramaturging a show about, that had some trans and intersex themes that I then trans myself. And partly through the process, and I was consulting on various aspects of the production, company management and marketing and language for casting notices and all these sorts of things. And partly through the process, one of the producers that I was working with called me up and said, hey, you're doing way more than dramaturgy. We should give you an extra title and more money. And I said, okay. Just this near field was born and I'm kind of making up as I go. But what I do as a gender consultant is basically working on shows with queer trans intersex themes, being a person in the room, to lend a hand in all of the ways that it's needed. Theaters have started to get much better about casting trans actors in trans roles, which is a great start. And yet, often I'm not acknowledging the fact that those actors are frequently being put in a position of having to play out their personal traumas in a room with nobody who looks like them or has had any of that same experience. And so I am someone who goes into the room, does script consulting. Is there a sort of an HR person? Some of the same goals as an intimacy director in some ways. And then also works with marketing. With front of house I do gender 101 trainings for cast, crew, staff, those sorts of things. So that's taken me all over the place in some exciting ways. And it's been exciting to see theater companies and producers embrace the need for this and say, like, yes, this is something that we're going to prioritize. Still trying to do more of that. But yeah, it's a cool start. That's it. Hi, everybody. My name is Artie S. Hawk. I'm an actor, a writer, and a teaching artist. I'm a staff member with an organization called the Chicago Inclusion Project, which aims on bringing together peoples of different race, gender, sexual orientation, and physical ability. And I'm also on the producing board of the Muslim Writers Collective, the Chicago chapter, which is an organization aimed at reclaiming the Muslim American narrative and putting it back into the hands of our own community. We do that several ways. We do that through an open mic series as well as individual training workshops that are specifically aimed at the Muslim community in order to kind of create a pipeline of talent for a typically underserved community. Is that good, or do we want to talk more? Oh, God, okay. So how did I get into this work? I actually, I got into this work on accident. I never felt like as an actor in this industry or as my primary art form that I was asking for anything that I didn't deserve, like equal representation, even just honest representation, the ability to be myself on stage, which is what I think it's like a basic right of all artists. So again, I found it more like an accident. And all of a sudden people kept being like, oh my God, what you do is so radical. And I'm like, I'm just trying to do what that girl's doing. I'm honestly trying to do the exact same thing. And then turning around and realizing that the reason that I didn't have those opportunities is because I wasn't given the access to training, the access to performance spaces, or even having the institutional support in order to have someone say like your story matters in this way. So again, just creating those systems instructors that I didn't have growing up was something that I felt was a given. Like it just should have been there. It's nothing radical. All right. A couple of questions that I have for you folks. Speaking as someone that identifies as an early career dramaturg, I feel my ability to speak up and speak out. I am allowed to basically say what I want because I'm not necessarily institutionally aligned or don't have responsibilities that I am acting on behalf of another institution. So I'm curious when you are attached to entities in that way, if how that impacts how you navigate certain relationships when you are speaking up and if it impacts your ability to take risks because of who you are as both an artist but also who you also may be representing.    He was also a sexual predator.  So we're supposed to put up with that.   Like there's going to be 20 people in line behind me who want my job. And if I speak up and say, you guys don't even have like a first aid kit. So Chicago Theater Standards is what we're hoping to like the basics of the basics while also trying to tackle like making a safe space and making a safe space so you can make dangerous work.  Maybe no one wants to cast you anymore but I just couldn't take it anymore. And it was like, it was so egregious and that it was happening in my community was making me ashamed that it was still happening. So how do we make this support network underneath that? That's where not in our house really kind of came out of. So to try to build just the confidence to be able to speak out in the room when you see something happening in real time and just be able to know that you have a community behind you and the Chicago Theater Community is so incredible and snapped right on it. It just took one spark to say, yeah, I know that and I think it's this guy or you're talking about this guy. So to get that kind of outpouring and support, you know that there were other people that were like, oh my God, why is nothing happening over this?  And it may be that a director is bullying at you or intimidating you or you're not feeling safe or there is actual violence and that's when you have to know that it's just like, you may get fired, you may have a problem created for you as an artist, but you just have to keep going forward, otherwise why are you an artist? Yeah, I totally agree with just having to say it, even though that's really freaking hard sometimes. One of the things that comes up a lot in my work is being asked to consult on new scripts that are in development about trans themes and something that we see a lot of is cis people writing about what they think trans people's lives are, which usually involves a lot of instantly staring into the mirror at the time of the piece. Right, that's all, it's all, we don't have stories that aren't about our transitions. I don't know if you knew, but we just cease to exist, definitely. So I have had to go to producers and theater companies and say like, hey, this script that you've been underwriting that you've been working on for a really long time is irredeemable and needs to be thrown in the garbage. And that's not a fun conversation to have with someone who maybe hasn't signed your paycheck yet, but at the end of the day, and absolutely there's a privilege involved in being able to say that and being in a position to say like, yes, I also have these other jobs, so if you do hate me then, oh well, this is what needs to be said. I do also think that there's a place for, I do also think that there is enough of a hunger in the theater community right now to get things right. That a lot of people who are hiring me are hiring me to be that voice in the room and because they want me to push them. And that is super empowering and helpful and I often become the voice who's pushing, not just on gender issues, but on lots of different fronts just because I'm sort of in the role of agitator at that point, but they're all important fights to be fighting. So on that note, on the note of not giving a fuck, I think that that is a really lovely ideal and sometimes the way that those things manifest can be different. I don't necessarily have the privilege of being able to speak my mind all the time and when I am put in those positions, I gotta throw down every single hundred dollar word I know. I gotta have all of my sources. I gotta have statistics and even that I won't get listened to or will be perceived as aggressive. In fact, recently I have worked with organizations who I was, you know, as an actor, you're like a representative of an organization at the time because you have the least amount of power but you have the highest amount of visibility. So what you say comes under scrutiny and like a hyper amount for that one time when we kind of like put you on the back burner till the next time they wanna put your face on a poster, right? So when you work with organizations like that, there's like both a requirement to speak to the organization but also speak about the organization. So you're kind of put in this awful position where you have such little institutional power but the most burden to bear. And I know that a lot of people put pressure on actors in particular to not work at certain theaters because of their reputation. And I think that that's really awesome but I also wanna focus on what are we doing to kind of help those actors? Like when they're then put out of work because they can't be the most visible person in a problematic institution. And I think that there are so many times where I have tried to take responsibility for being like, yeah, I worked at this institution and I'm not sure if I should have or I have questions about the morality or the ethics of working at a problematic institution as someone with so little institutional power. And then those institutions have turned around and come back to me and taken it as an attack when I myself and my own morals have been the focus.  I certainly could absolutely never use the word fuck.  So with that, because you all are people who work in the industry, I would say like there are people who you can turn down to work with and just as many people will line up to work with you because of it. So instead of focusing on the opportunities that you're turning down and saying this is the only way, know that this no, someone's gonna hear that you said no to that project and instead of thinking I don't ever wanna work with them again, they're gonna call you first. So just keep doing what you're doing. Yeah, I love that. And I think that's a wonderful transition to talking about how when we're moving and breathing in all these spaces that there's a certain exhaustion that can set in for how much labor that we have to do that is totally outside of contracts if we get one to sign. So I'm curious for all of you who are sitting up here with me, what are the ways that you take care of yourself and how do you stay in it for the long haul? I got this, I got this. The privilege of being inside of organizations, I'm usually the one that's coming from outside and pushing in. I like to call myself a theatrical terrorist since so many people post that on my Facebook or whatever, or you're bringing stuff into it. Just one moment. For folks in the room, I want to just interact that we're a terrorist in the way that it comes up in some of our institutions speaking as a Middle Eastern woman that a lot of the times that it can be a harmful word. So just take a moment and just wanna breathe in that and not let it pass. But thank you for being the person that comes from the outside pushing in. And so for me as someone who is getting the brunt of the hits, the death threats, the messages of lies matters now in our theaters, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, what is this? Yeah, so that's something that the organizations aren't getting. They're not getting those death threats. They aren't getting those messages of hatred, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera that I am taking as the organization, as Black Lives Black words. So for me, I have to make sure that the work that I do, after I pull away from it, I find peace by Netflix, by freaking booze. But whatever it's so care might look like, you have to find, you just have to discover what it is that reading, whatever it might be, you gotta just take that and embrace it and hold on to it. Other strategies for taking care? So something that my partner says to me that always really helps me is that to be focused on the intent of action and not the fruits of the action. And one of the ways that I primarily find myself doing that is being involved in community events that are celebrations, right? So like yes, it's important to go to a town hall to a protest, but go to community events that are celebrations and go to other people's community events that are celebrations. And be a respectful spectator, right? Like know how to take up space in someone else's room, be a guest in someone else's house. But I think that when you start to, it starts to become hard when you start to think of all these little things piling up. And the best way to soothe like an angry heart is to go be with people and like share that interpersonal joy, because at the end of the day we can talk about like breaking systems and like evening out money and all that stuff, but it's about people, right? It's about this person, that person and bringing everyone together.  Cause anyone of y'all could have been a doctor, okay? Y'all chose to be artists, I fully believe that, so. Yeah, I think that focus was really important. I read an article that was a couple years ago that was really impactful on me just about the human brain's tendency to focus on negative as a survival technique. And it is so easy to do in this work to just focus on all the ways that we're not doing enough that the impact wasn't enough that.  Yeah, I think it's super important to lock down what those successes are that you've made and recognizing that even as you're pushing forward and even though you might be hitting these various obstacles or oppositions against what you're trying to do and accomplish, you're making steps forward that's opening the doors for others. I think you definitely have to keep that in mind as you're going forward. Yeah, those are all amazing and well taken comments about how to work with self care for sure. I'm not gonna lie, it was really, really, really hard. It was emotionally, physically, draining, demanding. It was a year and a half until profiles closed, but the work is incredibly satisfying. I know that we had to go really strong, hardcore for it was a couple years, and then from there the satisfying work is coming from the Chicago Theater Standards because it is a fluid document, and the training and the kind of work and education that can be done individually with companies and with persons that are experiencing difficulties. I kind of keep my head down and I do the work and I find that incredibly satisfying. I also think it's very important not to monetize it. I've never accepted any money for that work because then it becomes a job and then it becomes a resource to keep seeking so we've never monetized off of it. But I do feel that it's just stronger for me to keep my head down and just continuously keep doing the work to try to, it may not be with a bullhorn, but it is kind of behind the scenes and being able to see where I'm needed or see where my strengths can be used in the community. And I definitely see this as a process of we're all learning and we're all trying to do our best in different ways. So I very much appreciate those tips and figuring out how do we move forward in work that can be so heavy and hit us in different ways and wondering how, what can be put in place to really support us and our organizations. I'm curious since most of you, all of you have been public figures in your work, if there's one piece of advice or idea you feel that you haven't been able to share or feel that super important to share with community of artists who have interests in social change. Can you say that again? Yes. So if there's any advice you would give to artists that are looking to work and make social change? The advice that I could give is, we worked really strongly and not in three silos, but I would say really trying to create three connections with not in our house. Chicago Theater Standards or the Code of Conduct puts on the ground action for knowing your rights. And then finally we're trying to work with equity. So if there's anything that I can say, if you can go back to your equity offices because the work that we're doing is primarily for non-equity theaters, equity theaters have been interested in adapting the Chicago Theater Standards and the principles of not in our house as a movement. The dialogue is there. I think take the dialogue and run with it, but go back to your representative for equity and really try to look at your contracts if you are an equity actor. Look at your contracts and try to see in there how can I add to this document? How can I help change this document? How can I bring this dialogue forward into this document? As I think the movement, it's happening. I think it's in the air. I think the dialogue is there. I think now it's just taking it and running with it. If you believe in it strongly, it's going to create change. It just takes work. I think it's important to dream. I think it's important to, once you've started building that dream to start researching behind it and then figuring out who you can build with that dream, who's willing and able to go on that journey of that dream with you as you're pushing forward. And then from there, once you have a dream, once you've done the research about what it is that you need to do, once you gather those forces around you that will back you, I think it's very important that you stand firm in your hopes, in your dreams, in your goals and you push forward at what, no matter what obstacles might stand in your way. And I think that's something that oftentimes we as artists, we allow ourselves to be beaten down and pushed back by the various gatekeepers or institutions or our friend network or Facebook or whatever else. And I think it's super important that if you have an idea, if you have a dream, if you have a vision to make the world a better place that you stick with it and you push forward. From my perspective, the most important thing that we all need to be doing to make theater for social change is looking at and acknowledging our power structures. And looking at, I think something that's a lot of time, and this is something that the folks on the stage, no one is exempt from, but I think a lot of times what I see from folks in power is saying like, we wanna lift up marginalized voices by doing A, B, and C, but not recognizing or acknowledging the fact that at the end of the day, the only way they can truly do that is by releasing some of their own power. And by making sure that the people sitting at the table and making the decision to lift up marginalized voices are not a homogenous group of people themselves. And that's a really hard thing to do, right? Like we work in a really competitive industry. It's really, really hard to turn down a role that you're not appropriate for. It's really, really hard to, that could potentially be a role that can make your career, right? That's a really hard thing to do. It's really, really hard if you're someone who runs a theater company to say like, hey, I'm not just gonna hire an assistant who doesn't look like me, but how do I actually share that power in a meaningful way? At the end of the day, I don't think we can make change until those questions start being asked and start being asked deeply by every single one of us. And I think at the end of the day, the people who have the most power are going to start asking those questions until they are getting enough pressure to do so. So to me, that's the most important role we can all be playing to, because it's only when that power is meaningfully shared that we can then actually create meaningful art from that place. And actually, piggybacking off of that, I have two things, and it was such a beautiful segue. My first thing is that I truly believe that if you're interested in social work or social change as art, otherwise just known as any art in general, because I do think art is an enemy for life. Then your number one job is to look at your unconscious biases, especially the ones you think you don't have every single day. Everyone in this room, y'all, us, everyone. Because I truly believe that it's a way of life. No one's like, this is my social activism hat and I put it on today for my job as a dramaturg. It's a way of life. And that starts with making sure that you're acknowledging the privileges that you do have and looking to do that. I'm gonna give you one actionable way to do that. And it's to subscribe to news resources by outlets that belong to demographics that you are not a part of, non-traditional news outlets, and read one article a day. Not even from everyone. Just pick one article a day to read on a news outlet that doesn't look like you. So that's my number one. And number two is that being involved in social change requires a deep amount of empathy. And empathy is a muscle. And empathy is not selective. So a lot of times when we talk about social change, it's like us first then, and we're gonna like take down the man and break the wheel, right? However, those are also human beings. And if you choose to be involved in socially conscious work, then you need to still recognize that and treat them with a level of respect. Even he who shall not be named. Even him. And something, I'm gonna share something that comes from my religion, I'm Muslim. Since not a lot of great things get shared about Islam, I'm gonna tell you that in our religion we say that the kindest thing you can do to an oppressor is remove their oppression. So like truly doing this type of work, it's still a generosity. To be like, you're oppressing someone, stop it. It's still a kindness for them. So to think about it that way and how we can do that and preserve the most humanity possible. Because we are quickly running out of it. It's too strategizing because it's a wonderful transition into what we're about to do. So there are five of us sitting up on stage but we want groups to be about six or seven folks to find someone on stage or we have some other LMDA, Martina step in, Marin to facilitate small groups about what are strategies that we're currently doing now in our own communities and what are other ones we'd like to see. And then we'll share back as a group what we are thinking strategy-wise. What are actions that we can take? So take a couple of minutes to assemble and then we'll have about 15, double-checking my time here, about 10 minutes to sit in that group and talk through strategies. All right, go. Let's take a time now to get back to our original seats. And we're going to share out our specific strategies. I really enjoyed listening and hopping into the circles. For the next 10 minutes or so, I really want us to focus on specific strategizing. What are strategies that came up in your sessions about ways to push the envelope, make change, speak up. We're going to have a couple of mics floating throughout. Totally cool if you didn't take notes. Anything that was really sitting with you and hitting your heart and being like, yes, this is something that we can do now. This is something that we can build to. And I'm going to open it up to questions or, sorry, what you're thinking of, your thoughts, your strategies. Hi, my name is Regina. Something that came up in our group was called... Wow, critics? Well, something that came up in our group was a great way with someone who may have a different cultural perspective that maybe matches the story you're telling, while also compensating them well for that work and honoring their voices and a specific tactic, too, of honoring the voices and also saying, help me know what will make this experience invalid for someone watching of that culture and what things I can shift for theatricality just to make those boundaries really clear. And I would take it one step further and say, if you find yourself in a situation where someone in the cast is the only person of that cultural heritage and they're doing a lot of labor or even translating scripts, I've seen that happen, make sure that they are compensated when you see that happening in the room. See if you can go to somebody and negotiate on their behalf before they have to ask. Thank you so much for that. It's interesting because these are the moments that frighten me the most in these kinds of conversations, although because I'm so busy talking, I'm not taking notes and I'm like, crap! But, you know, we had a really interesting conversation about what does it need to invite voices in and not honor them?  If you are going as far as to say that we value a voice, you have to actually value the voice. And if you're doing something that someone says no to, course correct. The main thing is do the course correct. And so one of the things that I wanna specifically say as we move into thinking about our next conference in 2020 is please call me, and I've been saying a lot, just call me on my bullshit. Like if there's something that is happening, because I'm gonna try and be as transparent as possible as we move forward with that conference, like if there's something that's going on and you're like no, Martin, just tell me. I've never been a person that's precious about that. And I don't feel like we can be better and do better as an organization unless someone says, Martin, like no. But one of the things that we were also talking about was just organizational structures in that way too, because one of the things that I think is important is that if people have been elected to do a thing, then you have to trust them to do the thing. And that'll mean that about me. I meant that specifically about my executive board and even the people who are crafting this conference. I try not to micromanage because part of me is like, Martin and you know best, what is Chicago? So why would I interrupt that or interfere with that? Really my job is to listen and honor and try to put as much resource behind that as possible. So number one, thank you too so much for everything that you've done to curate this. But then also on that note, like if there's anything that we can do better, please do not be afraid to call me on my bullshit. So one thing our group talked about a little bit was the idea of within institutions very purposeful choices and actions. And so I come in Ottawa, I work for the GCTC and it is run by two cisgender white men at the moment and they acknowledge that. So our artistic director, he committed to reading the 49 list, which is the Canadian equivalent of the Gilbrom is list, is 49 plays by women of color. And the way that it's set up is that like, the agents information is there, like it's all set up. It's no excuse and he committed to reading them all and we've actually now produced three or four of them. And it's just, yeah, again, just very purposeful and clear choices and acknowledging the their own limitations, right? That's where you start, you know? We got talking about who's it for in terms of audiences and either bringing work to different communities or bringing people into this space. And in the very end, we kind of had a lot of excitement around this idea about having rules about how we're supposed to behave in theater and that there are ideas about, I think in some ways, some people have, because I've been an educator for a long time, ideas that are even more strict than we actually have about how you're supposed to behave in theater, how you're supposed to dress, how things are. And I just think that we can do more to be an easy place to be, to say yes to whoever walks in the door, to go out into communities and bring them in and make a theater that is really responsive to the people who want to engage. One of the things I also think is important about community engagement is that we don't use community engagement like we go to a community and say, we want to hear your voice. And then the moment that that project is over, we're like, nope, we don't really care about you anymore. Ever again. That's who we need you in. They are now part of your culture and honoring that too. So I just want to put that out there, that we'll remember to do that. Offer something real quick. I want to lift up something that Jeffery and Scott said in the Navigating Difficult Conversations on Thursday, which was as we approach moments where our bandwidth is really challenging, that we are at what feels like our extent, that when folks come to us with things that they want to talk about, that if we in that exact moment can't sit down and hear those conversations that you take that moment and literally schedule the meeting, the appointment, you ask who needs to be in the room for this, who do you want here? You don't need that space where this person has come to you with this concern until you have that moment crafted. And that just an acknowledgement and a respect for that complaint. So I just wanted to lift up what we had discovered in that Navigating Difficult Conversations. Round two. So on, because so many of you all are involved in the script selection process, which ends up in season planning, I wanted to offer, again, back to checking biases, the idea that while you're looking for a presentation of other cultures and groups, there might be a lot of blind spots. One of the most common ones we see when we end up talking to theaters after the fact who did a program and something harmful, rather harmful in the season, is that we hear a lot of like, well, this was our selection process. A company member found it and then a bunch of people approved. And they ran it by one or two people of color after it was already approved or already slated to be produced. So one of the strategies that we've seen happen is theaters will employ previous artists, like groups of previous artists that come from those communities to read from place they've selected or offer up place selections themselves. So that you're offering, first of all, you're continuing to employ artists that you've employed in the past, which looks great. It's great for like long-term investment, but also you're getting other people's perspectives who would actually be the people who are, the first people to actually be in contact with the art, right, the people directly. And a lot of times what I mean by the scope of representation is that we still very much see productions that juxtapose the oxidative from the orient, as in people of color who are not Black or Latinx are elsewhere, being people of color elsewhere, showing their culture.  So trying to move away from both those things and think about like the stories that are plentiful about white Americans and how we can continue to replicate that for other cultures so that they are just as important. You all have such a huge power over that. And it shouldn't wait until the script is selected and first read to happen for you to have other perspectives from that culture in the room. So just wanted to advocate for that. I can start way earlier. Another thing we talked about in our group was about the requirements, the educational requirements for a lot of hiring practices and that this came up specifically in the context of educational institutions and like hiring professors. But I think that it can and should extend to every level of a creative team and every level of an institution that it's not enough to just like put in a job description this degree or equivalent experience because in a lot of situations, one, how do you get that equivalent experience without the degree? And also you can say that, but then you get applications and you're looking at applications and there's an applicant with the degree and an applicant without the degree. And then there's the inherent bias that leads you to hire the person with the degree anyway. So a strategy that came up in the context of hiring, perhaps like less experienced directors or creatives for a theater festival was they institutionally built in a lot of additional supports about into finding the space and casting processes to enable them to hire people that maybe didn't have specifically theatrical directing experience or similar things. And I think that adding those support structures to enable you to hire people without formal education and expand the playing field that way is a strategy to apply. Also, I think another thing that's important is the fact that oftentimes when these larger organizations bring in culturally diverse or partner with culturally diverse organizations, there's a lack of trust that that culturally diverse organization will be able to handle the things and do the things that is necessary to make the show come to life. And I think one big major move that organizations can take is to trust the artists of culture to do the things that is necessary to make the thing work, just trust. We have time for a couple more brief shout out strategies. It's quite a bit of a choice. One of the tools that I found really helpful in asking questions about my own unconscious bias is the Angel White supremacy framework, which Art Equity brought to the pre-conference a couple of years ago. But it's been really helpful in not only thinking like, okay, so I have unconscious bias, what is it? But how does it physically show up in my space? How does it verbalize in my space? And also asks really pointed questions about ways that I can change that. Thank you. Sorry, what was that? The anti-white supremacy framework. If you Google it, it's free and like shows up and it's successful, yeah. Amazing. Thank you so much for shouting out all of your strategies. There were a lot of resources that came up in this time. Thankfully, our lovely friends at HowlRound have been streaming us in. Artists that shared their time, their labor, their energy to be with us this morning. 15 minute break until the next thing, so please feel free to take care of yourselves in those times. Check the schedule to see if we've had a little bit of updates. Also, on the fly, I've decided that we're gonna post a big piece of paper that we can write more strategies on if you didn't have a chance to grab the mic so we can get a little more documentation in the room and move that way. So thank you so much for your labor. Feel free to put any more words


in Wuthering Heights. Ladies and gentlemen, your producer, Mr. Irving Cox. Greetings from Hollywood, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight not only begins the 21st year of the Lux Radio Theater on the air, but we will present the first of our 20 great motion pictures of the past 20 years. Our opening masterpiece is the Mr. Samuel Goldwyn's competitive drama, Wuthering Heights. One of the world's great love stories. And as our star, a beautiful and talented Merle Oberon, we're creating our original role. And one of the fastest rising young stars in Hollywood, Cameron Mitchell. Following our play, we will pay tribute to our special guest, Mr. Samuel Goldwyn, who will tell us about his latest production, Guys and Girls. Now act one of Wuthering Heights, starring Merle Oberon as Caffé and Cameron Mitchell as Heathcliff. There's a little lonely on the rolling moorlands of England. We're in the Wuthering Heights, no jet room like Giant Specters, in the teeth of Screaming Gale. About 100 years ago, a stranger lost his way on such a night. Freezing, blinded and stumbling, he saw a glass of fickle light of an old manor house, aged and crumbling on the hillside. He knocked desperately at the door. It was also the first time that the Wuthering Heights was opened by a dodgering old button who stood staring at him. Then without a word, he led the stranger into the musky living room, where in the dim candlelight a man and two women clashed without moving. The man was tall and dark-skinned, like a gypsy, on his face the stamp of years of bitter suffering. At last, the man turned and spoke. So are you, what you want. My name's Lockwood. I've lost my way on the moors. Strangers have no business on the moors at this time of year, and no business here at any time. But I couldn't find a village. An angry guy out there on a night like this. I say I have to stay until morning. Do as you please. Take it or pardon? I don't keep accommodation. You can't. You can't. Oh, and suppose you were changed with comfort. Helen? Are you used to it? Yes. There's no other place. Well, you're used to it. You're used to it. Well, I unlocked the door. Of course. Mind you don't stumble on the traffic. You call this the guest chamber? It was one. It's a type of depressing.  No fire will burn in that great, but it can't be inclined for years. Would there be a final hug then? What's it called? This is Wuthering Heights, sir. And the tall cat downstairs with the piercing eyes. That's what a master eats, sir. And the once lovely lady who looks at him with fear. That's his wife. Yes, this is Isabella. Well, you're good night, sir. If you want anything, there's the very rope. My name is Ellen. Well, thank you, Ellen. Good night. Oh! The ring goes, the cat's broken. What is it, sir? It's a woman shouting she's lost on the mark. What's going on, sir?  Oh, but she's coming. She's coming to you, sir. Okay. She has to wait for me. Wait for me. He's not going out there in that store. I'm coming! I'm coming! Oh, but this is insane! Come back! Cassie! Cassie! Hello, it's the window. That man out there. Dad? How did he go out there? What's with that voice?  It was Cassie. Cassie? Who is she? Cassie was a girl who died. Oh, but I don't believe in ghosts, if that's what you mean. I don't believe in sands and sob in the night. You don't believe? Perhaps if I told you her story, you'd change your mind. About the death. Tell me. Tell me her story. It was the same thing that turned Wuthering Heights to the servant that was just a month ago. It was a sweet well-trip to stay there. Mr. Earnshaw was master of spying man. He dearly loved his two children, Cassie and Henry. One goons to Earnshaw returned from Liverpool with a fun boy he had picked up. A dark, saddest looking victim land with the most gentle marks and big ears on his back. Mr. Earnshaw calls for me the moment he arrives. Give him a good scutting, Ellen, and put some of him in his clothes, aren't he? closed on. Come with me. Don't touch me. Get me a note. Good now. Now. Now, son. Ellen will go through your face. Yeah, no one will ever beat you again. And you'll always have finished week. Get out of my way. Hello, father. Well, in the happy. Papa, crazy father, children, this little guest will pay us a visit for a time as long as he wants. The whole year. He's there to look at him happy.  If you let him sleep in your room. In my room? I won't let him. He's a judge. That will do him. Take charge of the labelling. And what does it mean, Mr. Inuitor? It means, I think we shall call him Hitler. Yes, come, Hitler. Ah, boy, you know that before her noontownness brought a stopper truly to life at Wutheringham. The three children seemed to play well enough together, going scamping off over the moon and the four of them climbing the crags together. But neither Captain nor can be but open and fragile anymore. And one day the children stopped opening. No, father, do you think this morning it's mine?  That's a lie, I never said it. You can't give it to him. He, he, you treat us all to everything.  And you'll never get mine. Is that making fun of you? She'll do good more than ever. Captain was 18 when he was in class 21 when Mr. Ernst was died. Good man. We never saw the evil of life in a droop who'd fit like his own son. But on the very board, kids, you know. You're not going into that room to look at my father's body. Why? He loves me more than you. Please cast your weeviling now. I'm master of bothering heights. If you want to stay here, we'd need for a stable boy. That, or get out. And that's what he did to you. You had lived under this roof as one of the family, was a stable boy. Hand up to my saddle. Very well. Sir, you gypsy beggar. How many times must I tell you? The time I come back in the morning, I want these stable scrubs.  Dirty and uncamped and ragged. You're taking away. Why aren't you a prince like we said long ago? Why don't you rest, you new weasel? That isn't what I want.  Just so I could be near you. I'll stay to the end. I'm so too much even for his great love when he disappeared. Patty found a new world in her first introduction at Lincoln Manor with Edgar Lincoln and his sister Isabella, both Patty and me. Music and laughter were there and was a sweet from modern nights. Edgar Lincoln fell madly in love with Patty. They were constantly together. Wedding one evening, Edgar brought Patty home in a porn cart. As quickly as I could, I tried to warn her. Right, I'm down from the cart this evening. Thank you, Edgar. Oh, well, then, we have the most marvelous time. Patty, come here. Excuse me, Edgar. Something wrong, Ellen? You take back. When can you come back? You said you'd stay away until... Why were you gone so long? I didn't expect to find you here. Why were you gone so long? Why? Because I'd met the men who stayed at their house. Because I'd learned to dance and because I've had a wonderful, the nightful, fascinating time.  Would you mind putting my horse up for an hour? Yes, and you might wash your hands and comb your hair, Heathcliff. So I needn't be ashamed of you before I guess. And look after Mr. Lincoln's horse. Let him look after his own horse. Captain Sello, how can your brother allow such a beast of a gypsy stable boy to act like this? Beast of a gypsy stable boy. Of course, a roadside beggar giving himself airs of equality. What do you know about Heathcliff? He doesn't even know this performance. All I need to know... He was my friend long before you. That beggar? The beggar and all he belongs under our roof. He used to do well of him. I'll get out.  Get out, I said, or stop calling those I love men. Those you love? That stable boy? Yes. How did you realize what you're saying?    Some of that gypsy's evil soul has gotten into you, I think. Yes. Some of that beggar's giraffes are mules. Yes, yes, I'll get up. Where is Heathcliff? He's gone across the moor. He's told him he's doing great. Heathcliff! Make the world stop right here. Make everything stop and stand still and never move again. Heath, the moor has never changed. And you and I never change. The moor and I will never change. No matter what I ever see or do, this is I, forever. Armed with Heather. All they can hold. We've got the world now. Don't talk. All this might disappear. Already when you're missing, then get here in a young hand who'll come sniveling back after the way you treated him. But I sent my apologies to him, didn't I? Of course he'll come home. Happy. I can't believe this came to you. Just what could it seem you were?  That's my other nature, and I still have it. It used to fly around wild, but now I can coax it into a cage whenever I want. You and the habit of entering my room. You know so much. I will, don't I? I take orders for me. Get out. Now that we're so happily alone, may I know to what I owe this great honor? He's coming. All the gentle folk dress for dinner. Why are you trying to win this fueling factory? I'm not a child anymore. You can't talk to me that way.  I'm talking to Cassie. I'm your Cassie. Yes, you are.  Cassie, Cassie, where's your heart? You had your chance to be something else. You left here once. Why didn't you stay away? Now let me alone. That's right.  But who soils your heart, Cassie? Who turns you into a cheap, vain, ambitious fool? Linton does.  Stop it.  Kneeling beside the road, begging for favors. Not earning them, but rimpering for them with your dirty hands. No. What's the matter with you? What's your scale? Kneading her more than my own life. I don't care, Ellen. I don't care if she loves Linton or whom she loves. But she'll only look at me and say mine best. Oh, it seems clear. Ellen, help me out. You know how we don't hide the door. You know your past. I want to be where I can see you, Ellen. Yes, Miss Cassie. Have Mr. Linton gone. He just left. Oh, Ellen, I have some wonderful news for you. Edgar is asking to meet. I'm to give him my answer tomorrow. Do you love him? Of course. That's a silly question. Because he's handsome and pleasant to be with. Not enough. Well, then, because he'll be with someday. And I'll be the finest lady in the county. Oh, Ellen, it would be heaven to escape from here. What about you, Miss Cassie? He gets worse every day. It would be great to marry him. I wish he'd never come back. What is that? I think nothing would win that. Well, my darling, it must directly be his beautiful whole new heaven to you. You'd better enter that heaven and take your place among the Linton Angels. The only thing is, I wonder if I belong in heaven. I dreamed once I was there. And I broke my heart with hoping to come back to earth, to the Bink Mora. The Angels were so hungry, they flung me back. And I woke on top of Wuthering Heights, sobbing with joy. So, Ellen, I suppose I really know no business marrying Edgar Linton than I have of being in heaven. But, Ellen, Ellen, what can I do? You're thinking of it together. Who else? He seems to take pleasure in being mean and brutal. And yet, he's more of myself than I am. Whatever our soul is amends us, he's the mind of the thing. The little happiness he's known, I've known too. If everything else in the world died and only his kiffer meant, life would still be full for me. Ellen, he's just taken master his best horse. He's gone. Gone? Yeah, but I say it, he's here. I'm not sure. But I think to who understood it would be great for you to marry him now. His heart frozen in her silken party dress. For weeks after she was ill, the Linton took her to their manor house and I was glad. There by the way, the strange influence that Euclid had had upon Kathy wore off. And she was happy with it.  You've been too kind to me already. If I could make you happy by just being kind, that should be enough for me. After all, what else can I give you? What else? You've given me a great deal, Elf, Edgar. You've given me your own self. You don't understand that you really knew what my life was before. It was like the moon, endless and desolate. And I was lost in time, calling for someone in the darkness to save me. I was so frightened, so terribly alone. Then suddenly, you were there. You held out your hand and led me back to a way of living I really never knew before. What you said long ago is true. There was a curse on me, Edgar, that kept me from doing myself, or at least from what I wanted to do. It kept me from living in heaven. There, Edgar, do you understand now? Kathy, my darling, let me take care of you. Love you always. Who would you? Who would you love me over? Always, Kathy. You look to be married, Edgar. Oh, quickly, quickly. It's the Lincoln home I've seen she had been to me before. I don't know what to call it after she became a sister. The only one who could not seem completely happy was Edgar's sister, Isabella. A year or two after the marriage, the three of them sat in the drawing room, Edgar and Isabella, and Kathy, quietly doing the setting point. When the door knocker sounded, when I saw who it was, I went back into the drawing room. Yes, Ellen? What's the matter? It's just Kathy. This cliff has come back. Ellen, I'm not at home, Ellen. Not at home? Darling, to whom? It's... It's Heathcliff. Heathcliff? Mm-hmm. Don't you seem the same, Ellen? No, sir. I hardly recognize him. I can find clothes. He seems quite the same. Don't worry, Ellen. I said I didn't wish to see him. Oh, nonsense, Kathy. It's been a long time. Bygones must be bygones. Yes, let it be some kind of caller. You want him in, Ellen? Yes, sir. Edgar, this is a mistake. Yes, sir. Your hands are trembling. Are they? The past is dead, my dear. Don't hesitate to smile and be nice to him, because I understand it's my wife who loves me who smiles. Thank you, Edgar. You always understand, Mr. Heathcliff. Come in. Hello, Kathy. Now, where are you? He said... Have you met my assistant, Isabella? Hello. How'd you do, Mr. Heathcliff? We are glad to see you, dear. Thank you. Well, Heathcliff, I must say, I've never seen such a complete change in a man. You seem to have proper guessed. Yes, I have. You must have found at least a gold mine. No. I merely remembered that my father was Emperor of China, and my mother, a Queen of India. And staying long in the neighborhood?  Really? I have just bought the horses, the cattle, and the moors belonging to the estate known as Weathering Heights. You mean Karris' brother, Hingley, is sold out? Yes. But he doesn't know it yet. I imagine it would be a shock when Hingley discovers his gambling and liquor debts were paid up for in mine by his former stable boy. Heathcliff, you can't have done that. That's as underhanded a piece of work as ever I heard of. If I'd known Hingley was in such financial strait that his holdings were being stolen by a stranger. I remind you, Mr. Edgelinton, that I am not a stranger. I am merely a neighbor. Now I'll say goodnight. Wait, Heathcliff. I wanted to know that we sometimes have friends who come there, I guess. Edgar and I. You're welcome to come too, but not with the old cow on your face or that old goodness in your heart. Thank you, my dear friend Cathy, for the warning. Oh, I just remembered. I forgot to congratulate you on your... your marriage. May I now express my delight? I think you've behaved abominably. What? And you too, Kess! What in thunder do you mean? Well, you could at least be civil. You dismissed him as if he did a civil. Do you consider him anything else? I find he's grown fascinating and deceptive. Really, Zephela? I hope I misunderstand. There you go. We see all two few people, and I for one thought be rude. Did she ever call the game? Edgar, I... I greatly dread what the future will bring. Oh, nonsense, darling.  That's all, Joseph. I'll occupy the master bedroom. Yes, sir. You'll stay on, of course. Thank you, sir. Shall I pat Master Hindley's things? No. Just move them out of the master's bedroom. He'll remain under this roof. Master Hindley, sir? Yes. He gave me a roof once when I needed it. Joseph, I take it he's drinking a great deal. Yes, sir. The Doctor Kenneth has ordered him not to. Give him all the drink he wants, sir. Yes, sir. A lady's waiting to see you, sir. A lady? From Lincoln, Manor, sir. Oh, why didn't you tell me? In the future, Joseph, I don't know if there's anything to say. Are you disappointed, sir? Of course. I was passing by. My horse went in. I see. I just want to tell you I'm furious with my brother and Kathy. They received you most gently last night. Your brother didn't send you with this apology. Oh, no. In fact, he's forbidden me to... Speak to me, and Kathy there. Also, for bad joke. Please. Then, in all the Moorlands, you're my oldest friend. I... I would like to be. Thank you. Ms. Newton, I enjoy frankness. You didn't come here to apologize.  Right. You came because you're lonely. Because the house you live in is too happily wedded for an outsider. Because it's no joy to ride the Moors alone. Is that right? Yes. In my dear... You... you can be lonely anymore. But I should kiss you. But... I don't know. You hated you like frankness. For the sick kids that held over Kathy, he seemed to hold over Isabella too. Against her brother's wishes, he came often to Wuthering Heights and to the scene many times the kids kept riding across Moors. Then one night, there was a party at Newton Manor. Knicksliff had not been invited, but he came as Isabella's guest. But his looks were all for Kathy. Dark, rudely look, until the guest was uncomfortable and left before the evening had well begun. Later that night, Kathy went to Isabella's room. Isabella, may I come in? If you would. Are you getting ready for bed? Yes. Oh, I'm getting a lovely dance tonight. May I sit you for a moment? Well?  In what way, ma'am? It was bad enough asking Knicksliff here without consulting or prayer.  Well, you refused to dance, but didn't I have to dance every dance?   Who are you, Kathy?  Isabella, don't you see we're using you?  To try to roast something in my heart that's dead? It's you who are vain and foolish, Kathy. He's critic in love with me.  He told me so. He's kissed me. Yes, kissed me. Tell me in his arms. Tell me he loves me. I'm going to your brother. Yes, don't you, Edgar. Tell him he's critic has asked me to marry him, and that I have said yes to him. Yes, you can't, Isabella. He's not a man. He's something horrible and dark to live with. I know why you say that. Because you love him.  You want to hurt him, destroy him, but I want to make him happy. And I will. I will. You'd say I'm not surprised to see you. Did Edgar know? He wouldn't approve. Feastless is the truth. Is what truth? Did you ask Isabella to marry you? Did you? Feastless, you mustn't do this villainous thing. She's never harmed you. No, Kathy. But you have harmed me. Then punish me. That's what I intend to do. How? Every moment I hold her in my arms. When I kiss her, when I promise her life and happiness, you'll be punished. Marry her to do that? Yes. To teach you the ways of pain and the awful hell I'm in. She's clever for anything human less than you. Don't make me a partner for this kind. Kathy, if your heart were only stronger than your dull care for the world and its conventions, I'd live silent, content in your shadow, begging for an occasional word or thought as I used to do. But no, no, Kathy, no.  You had to keep me tormented with that cruelty you think so pious. How the violent crew? You wish to be known as the finest lady in the county.  At the same time, you wanted to keep me, your despairing lover. Feastless, that's not true. Now that I am returned, had you given me the smile of love, I might have been content. But now, Kathy, you needn't think of me as your despairing and foolish lover. You can think of me as a disabellous husband and be glad for my happiness as I am for your love. House on watering heights a hundred years ago, the candle burns low in the dreary guest room. There is no sound but the wind outside and the hushed voice of the old maid servant as she tells her story. He cliff-married her out of revenge, the same revenge that made him keep him here for the drinking himself into the grave. Isabella learned the reason for her marriage to his cliff, but she was powerless to do anything. Then one day Dr. Kenneth, an old friend, came to see her. He had come that morning from Lake Atlanta. I tell you, Isabella, go back where you belong to Edgar's hut. Edgar deserved me, Dr. Kenneth. I know, but he needs you now. Kathy is greatly ill. Really? Didn't you know? But it's a matter of days now, perhaps hours. You can't be dying. Yes, fever, inflammation of the lungs, this intense cold and something else. Something else? Yes. I'd call it the will to die. If Kathy dies, I might begin to live. Isabella, begin to live.  In this house with Heathcliff, nothing can live. No, Henley. Nothing but hate that you seem to begin to live. When Kathy dies, you won't. Oh, Henry, what is this?  Of course you can. You.  Stop it. Every time you kiss him, his heart breaks with rage that it's not happening. Isabella, why don't you do what I feel you're so weak to do? Kill him. Don't talk to me. Get away.  Well, then, ladies and gentlemen, you're remarkable. Really, it's the first clearance which I've heard from you in weeks. He's just too dead. I tried to stop him. Oh, thank you, my dear wife. Your loyalty is touching. Your curses will come home to feed on your own heart. Every agony you've ever given will return. Last now, he's tripped. There's no lost or in hell. Just why do you have him here? My dear, existence will be so much less without my boyhood friend under my roof. Because you're poison yourself with pain and back. Send him away, and love will come to this house. Kiss him, kiss him. Tell me, love me. Tell me, darling. Let me come near you, please. I want you to help me, my darling. Let me, please. You'll never regret letting me try. I'll bring life to you. Life and sunshine and freshness. Put your arms around me. Look in my eyes. I surrender. Like an instant. God, why did you give me life? What is it that hunger and pain? Mr. Cigabella, yes? What's your work here, Helen? I've come from Lincoln Manor to see Mr. Cigabella. Then you'll do so in front of me. Her brother is asking that she come home perfect. Oh, so he's lost some of his pride, has he? Well, there's none gone in this house. Please, Mr. Cigabella, who needs you? What is this, Helen? Why does he need her? Let go of me. Cappy's ill. Yes. She's dying. Cappy's dying. Yes. She's dying. Look at her. You're not going to hit him? Yes, you're not. Tell him I won't. No. She belongs to Edgar. She belongs to me.  Where's he belong?   Now who speaks of hate because of my way? It's no. No. The ball's a murmur from the height, a far away and wild heartbroken moan. The wings of Lucifer beat on the night. The soul of Lucifer wept all alone. Shall I read some more, darling? No, Edgar. Will you open the window, King? Won't it be too cold? Yes. And of course, my darling.  And it needs a smell. Oh, my God. Yes, quite so. And you think you wish, my darling? Some heaven. There's a beautiful patch near the top. What castle, can't be? The castle on the moor, of course. Bring me some from there. You're in a fever, my dear. There's no castle on the moor? There is. There is. On the middle of the hill, beyond Wuthering Heights. You mean Tennessee Crane? Yes. Yes. Keep going, now. Why do you call it a castle? Because I was a queen there when you bring the havoc. If you will, while I'm gone and sleep. You're so kind, so close to me. My darling. You made me the finest lady in the county. Such lovely colors. I've always adored that belt to dress the most. What a wonderful dress, Edgar. Wonderful. When you wore it. Oh, no, please. Get in your hat. Yes, ma'am. I'll be back with a hither, you.  You found for him. All evil could have never parted us, Kathy. You did that alone.  Live without my soul. See that wild hour with poor Hitcliffe holding the dead body of the lost. Trying to tear away the veil of life and death. Crying out to Kathy's soul to haunt and torment him until he died. Then a strange voice that I heard was Kathy. And Hitcliffe went to follow her in the storm. It wasn't Kathy's, but her love. Kathy's love, stronger than time. Nothing for it. Unlucky. Who's there? It's Dr. Kenneth. Open the door. Dr. Kenneth? What's the matter? I was just crossing the moor on my way home. Did you see his face? Yes, I saw him through my carriage. He was wandering through the snow with a woman. A woman? Yes, they were walking through the storm with their arms about each other. I started to talk to them. I was nearly up to them. When, of a sudden, my horse reared and plunged. And then, then I found him. Alone, lying in the snow, Hitcliffe was dead. By the castle. By the peninsula claim. Yes. However, did you know? Your father was an emperor of China.  We have our castle now, Houston. And our land. Now and forever. Thank you, Merle O'Baron and Cameron Mitchell, for making Wuthering Heights even more memorable by your fine performance. And now, may I introduce the great producer of Motion Pictures, an outstanding artist, gentlemen and showman, Mr. Samuel Gold. This means that you took me back to the time when we did the picture together. Your performance and I were just as great as it was then. And thank you, Cameron Mitchell, for doing such a fine deep fit. Thank you. Wuthering Heights is still a great love story. The greatest of the cold of the screen certainly is. Mr. Golden, why don't you bring back Wuthering Heights? There are so many people who would like to see it. I expect to. You'll bring it back, Sam. People are always asking me when they can see it again. And to see a beautiful Merle O'Baron in a lovely luxe complexion. Luxe complexion, everything. I was introduced to luxe when I first came here from England. And it's been my favorite toilet-sever ever since. Well, that's where I'm a subject of dolls. What are you going to bring out, Guys and Dolls? In the sunshine next year, I'm preparing them now and expect to start photographing early next year. Guys and Dolls is one of the biggest hits on Broadway of the past few seasons. The right to film it must have cost a lot. I understand you paid over a million dollars for the picture rights. That's right. I did. No wonder you're so careful with the casting. He's certainly made an excellent choice in casting Marlon Brando's Kai Masterson. Will Marlon sing and dance? He will. This first time musical for Marlon can do anything for my money. And for mine. I just finished making a picture with him, and he's wonderful. I'm also interested in the girls' roles. Don't you have anyone in mind from the tabloids, Sam? I've made a decision. And I'm sure the public will be like it at my choice. And for your information, she'll have a lovely, less complexion. How about the part of Nathan Detroit? That perhaps will remain a secret for a while. Well, I know the picture will be done as only Sam Goldwyn can do it, in a way that has always set such a high standard for all Hollywood to follow. Now, thank you, Irving. Now, tell me, are you continuing with your high standard next week and presenting another great motion picture? Yes, Sam. It's one of Warner Brothers' finest pictures of last season. Edna Thurber's great novel. So big. And as our stars, we will have one of the most accomplished artists in Hollywood, Ida Lupino, co-starring with one of our most handsome leading men, Robert Stack. That should be a wonderful show. Good night. Good night. It certainly will. Good night. A great opening show. Best of luck to you, Sam, and guys and girls.


What do Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn all have in common? They are all democratic socialists. But what does that mean? Democratic socialists today argue for healthcare and housing for all. Workplace democracy, bringing power to the people, a green new deal, and so on. To those who grew up on Cold War propaganda, the very connection between democracy and socialism sounds odd. To understand why it's not, we need to look at the role of democracy in the socialist tradition and the very meaning of democracy itself. Let's take a look. Part one. What is democracy? Imagine you're back in the early to mid 19th century. There is no single parliamentary estate with universal suffrage or what we would consider to be a decent set of political rights for everyone. Not a single one.  One of the main questions confronting ancient Greeks was how should we structure the independent city-states we live in? They came up with three main alternatives, either one person rules and it's a monarchy or a minority of citizens rule and it's an oligarchy or the citizenry as a whole rules and it's a democracy. Note that these excluded women, slaves and resident foreigners as well as other non-citizens. The important thing here is who holds and exercises the power to rule, not whether people vote or not. This is important because voting doesn't necessarily give you any power. If the rich control which two or three candidates stand for election and they agree on almost everything, you can vote, but you don't really have any power to rule. Remember this for later. If you think about it, this concept of democracy is a lot less confusing than the often disjointed and contradictory ways that the capitalist media and intellectuals talk about democracy today. For capitalist intellectuals, media, politicians and what have you, democracy is still partly associated with general vague ideas of collective self-rule, a very different idea of being able to vote for your overlords, recognizing some basic political freedoms and it's associated with values like freedom and equality. The ancient concept of democracy was taken up by the radical enlightenment tradition that much of early socialism grew out of. People like Spinoza, Condorcet, Dennis Diderot, Mary Wilsoncraft, Olymp de Gouges, Thomas Paine and others. But they focused not on what ancient city-states needed, but on how to change societies on a much bigger scale. They also began to focus much more broadly than the ancient Greeks had on questions of feminism and women's emancipation, anti-racism and anti-slavery and the power of private property, the power that the capitalist class uses to oppress the vast majority of people and control the politics of capitalist society. Part two, democracy and the capitalist state. It was to prevent democracy in this sense that the American Founding Fathers designed their new republic based on the mixed political structure of the British Empire and also to some extent classical Rome. Mixed here refers to a mix of democratic, oligarchical and monarchical elements. They did so explicitly aiming to prevent democracy and the Athenian type debt cancellations they worried it would lead to. As David Graber has pointed out, to this day, there's nothing that scares the rulers of America more than the prospect of democracy breaking out. Fortunately for the rich, there's nothing like democracy in the classical sense, anywhere in the United States or as far as we know, in Europe either. As a recent study by Martin Gaillans and Benjamin Page concludes, when the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy. Who do they find does have power? Essentially, the richest, the ruling capitalist class. On the ancient Greek concept of democracy, we don't live in a democracy at all, but an oligarchy. That's one of the rather obvious reasons why liberals have had to tie themselves in knots about redefining democracy so they can use this positive label for the manifestly undemocratic institutions they want to idealize. So, understanding democracy as a broad idea of the collective self-rule of all people, many radical Democrats evolved into early socialists. The most famous example of this is of course, Daddy Marx, I mean Karl Marx. Part 3, From Democracy to Socialism The early Marx is often described as a liberal, but that's nonsense. For all of the 19th century, almost all liberalism wanted to exclude working-class people and women entirely from politics. They enthusiastically support imperialism and colonialism, and they're often extremely racist as well. The early, radically democratic Marx, by contrast, thought that all human beings had a power for conscious individual and collective self-rule. And he saw that they were prevented from being their own masters in all monarchical or dictatorial and oligarchical states, as well as under any form of capitalism. Instead, he argued for society collectively self-ruled by all of its participants in both its politics and its economics. This involved absolute freedoms of speech, press, conviction and association, and overcoming the split that capitalism has created between politics and economics.  When he became a socialist, all of this was retained, but he added a bunch of things he thought would be needed for a truly democratic economy. Basically, he adds that a truly democratic socialist society also needs to have a kind of democratic planning, to replace the impersonal domination of markets, eliminate capitalism's hierarchical division of labor, and distribute goods and services according to need. When the first socialist parties formed at the end of the 19th century, they called themselves social democratic parties for a reason, because they wanted to extend democracy, true democracy, to all of society. Traditionally, socialism was about making society more democratic in two ways. First, it was about extending people's real power to rule. All people who live in a society, regardless of class, gender, race and so on, should rule it together. Only that way can they really be free. And this should not stop at the state. It should extend to all major social institutions, including the economy. So socialism insisted that not only should we self-govern our political institutions, but our economic institutions as well, so that over time the split between them would wither away. Socialism was also about deepening the power of the people as a whole. It's not simply about extending the vote to all people, or to economic institutions as well. It's about fundamentally reshaping the power relations around us. By having workers democratically self-ruling the economy, and all people jointly self-governing society, they wanted to do away with the divisions between rulers and ruled, bosses and workers, capitalists and proletarians. This is why the rich always oppose socialism so much. They know that socialism is all about the people taking power over their society and their own lives. And that requires taking away the power that the rich hold over them. It's common to say that when you remove the privilege and power over others that someone has enjoyed for a long time, it feels to them like they're being oppressed. They're not actually being oppressed, of course. They just can't stand dealing with the people they've always looked upon as their inferiors as actual human beings and being forced to treat them as truly free and equal people. A liberal or conservative critic of socialism might respond to this point as follows. We all know that socialism in the USSR was undemocratic and authoritarian. Aren't we just redefining what socialism means now to make it more appealing? The answer to this question is of course no. The only reason that anyone could think that this is redefining socialism is because they just don't know the history of it. Socialism was always essentially about democracy. That's why the builders of the USSR like Lenin repeatedly stressed the argument that it was really democratic in some sense, even if his critics found that implausible. And it's also why the socialist critics of the USSR kept criticizing it for its lack of democracy, which they saw as essential to socialism because it always had been. Part 4 Democratic Socialism Today These disagreements were less about the goal of socialism, a truly free, equal and democratic society. They were about the means you use to get there. This is where what we today call democratic socialism really comes center stage. What we call democratic socialism today is those try not only to introduce a democratic socialist society, but those who try to do so via winning local and national elections and using state power to drive the transition to socialism. In practice, this comes down to a combination of mass movements, especially unions and community organizations, combined with a political party to take and use state power. The democratic socialists of today say they want a free, equal and democratic socialism. They're a bit hazy about what that will look like, but we have some suggestions. One suggestion is market socialism, for example the model that David Schweikart developed called economic democracy. This combines cooperatives with elected managers and major decisions being made by one person, one vote, by all who work there. Local democratic control over investment, funded by a flat capital assets tax, and a parliamentary state with extensive public services that plays the role of employer of last resort. Another model is participatory economics, developed by Michael Albert and Robin Hanell. Here, societies run from the bottom up by a combination of workers councils and community councils, where local communities are governed by community councils and workplaces are governed by workers' councils. These form federations up to the national or even international level. All delegates to higher level councils are mandated, subject to immediate recall and frequently rotated. To eliminate the impersonal domination of market forces or control by an elite of central planners, they propose a bottom up form of planning called participatory planning. To prevent a small managerial elite from de facto running everything, they propose replacing the hierarchical division of labour with a system of balanced jobs. More information about both of these models can be found in the links in the description. The policies of modern democratic socialists are much more modest, but are things that really everyone who cares about democracy and a decent life for all should want to see. They include basic rights to the things you need for a life of dignity and a bit more freedom, like universal health care, a living wage for all, better rights in the workplace, securing you from being unjustly fired, and ensuring that you have the right to join a union. It includes making the state more democratic by getting corporate money, essentially the rich legally bribing politicians out of politics and banning undemocratic corporate lobbying. And it includes plans to bring more of the economy under democratic control. That includes the control of national and local governments and under the control of workers themselves in different ways. We see this aim of workers control in, for example, Jeremy Corbyn and the British Labour Party's proposal for wage earners funds to transfer ownership to workers, and in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's proposal for a green new deal, stressing new workplaces that should be controlled democratically by workers and local communities, though the details of the latter are admittedly hazy. In response to this parliamentary strategy, left Marxists, anarchists and others argue the following. Can you expect a fundamentally hierarchical institution like the state to create a non-hierarchical society like a free, equal and democratic socialism? If you put new rulers at the top of an institution like that, won't the new social relations they are placed in, with the new interests inherent in them, change these people? Becoming society's new rulers, won't they come to not want to give up their new fan positions of power, wealth and privilege? Won't they come to see these things that are inevitable and even desirable, and as a result come to a post-transitioning to a truly bottom-up democratic socialism that would threaten their new fan positions? All of this is in turn based on the traditional Marxist idea that human beings develop through the social relations and practices they are part of, and nobody has the power, through sheer voluntary force of will, to lift themselves out of the social reality they belong to. Although these and other critiques are old, they can appeal to the history of basically all of social democracy. A whole bunch of parties who started off committed to abolishing capitalism in favor of democratic socialism ended up becoming merely the new administrators of capitalism. An important question that all democratic socialists today need to face is, how can we do better than this? How can we transition not to a slightly better capitalism, but to a truly democratic socialist society? We don't have anything like a full answer to this, but at least one thing seems certain. To counter the extra parliamentary power of capital, we need to secure the independent power of the working class in their unions and other social movements. Virtually all major reforms of the last few decades are the result of social movement outside of the state driving through change and politicians responding to that. We see this recently as well, with the Green New Deal only becoming a party political proposal, whether in the US or the UK, after the ecological movement had been fighting to bring global warming to public attention for decades. And it will only go through if movements are able to keep pushing for it opposed by and against the power of capital. If democratic socialism is to win, it will not be by just voting for the right party, it will be by ordinary people's grassroots organizing fighting for a better world.


A heroic story for Alex Smith returning as he starting quarterback for the Washington football team. Okay, gruesome injury. I don't know what it is about Washington quarterbacks. Got you, Thysman. You got Alex Smith. Why not? Let's throw RJ three in there. It wasn't that gruesome to watch it, but Washington quarterbacks have bad luck when it comes to lower body injuries. And then another one in Kyle Allen this past Sunday. Gruesome, gruesome. And I wish him the best of luck. And I hope that he doesn't have to go through so much pain and because it looked bad. But this season has been quite the season for Alex Smith returning after missing a year and a half of football. 17, 18 surgeries later, having an affection in his leg and saying, Mike, he was gonna lose his life. That's wild. And he recovered well and he wanted to continue to play football and now here he is as a starting quarterback. What a story for Alex Smith. How long is this gonna last though in Washington? That's a real question. He's 36 years old. Definitely not the future of the Washington football team. This contract that he signed in 2018 in his first season with the Washington football team the year that he broke his leg, he signed a four year, $94 million contract. That's a lot of money. A lot of freaking money. And because of that, because he's not the future of the Washington football team, how long is he gonna stay around in Washington? My opinion, I feel like Alex Smith's future in Washington it's coming to an end after the season. Now that's comes down to the business aspect of it and you've got to move on with Smith. You've got to move on. You've got to look forward to the future. I hope that Smith can continue to play in the NFL. I think his starting quarterback days in the NFL may be numbered just because of the little amount of opportunities that there are out there for starting quarterbacks. But Alex Smith, I don't see him in Washington much longer. So what's the future for Washington if it's not gonna be Alex Smith? Dwayne Haskins, he's gonna be gone. He's gonna be gone. They've already talked about listening to some trade offers for Dwayne Haskins. Nobody bit, nobody bit. So I wouldn't be surprised if after the season Dwayne Haskins were to get released. And it's not because of just because of his lack of success on the field that has part of it to do with it but it's because of his, I didn't know this about Dwayne Haskins but just from reports that I've been hearing it's because of some locker room personality issues that I'm hearing about Dwayne Haskins about how he was bragging about his stats about how he threw for 300 yards against the Baltimore Ravens after that loss to some of his teammates. It's because of that. It's because of other instances like that that Washington is just ready to move on and just wipe it clean and be like, listen, we drafted you mid round in the first round and we're done at this point. We don't believe you're gonna be a starting quarterback for us in the future. Man, what a bullet that the New York Giants dodged. Can we just talk about that with Dwayne Haskins? What a bullet that the Giants dodged. Man, they got crapped. After drafting Daniel Jones with your sixth overall pick a couple of years back. I mean, it seems like that it's working out somewhat well that Giants offense has some work to do but it's not all Daniel Jones' fault.  Oh my gosh, my fantasy season and get some receivers in there and Daniel Jones will be great as proven by last season and fix your turnovers. Yeah, you gotta fix that. But Daniel Jones, I mean, he got a lot of criticism for the Giants not drafting Dwayne Haskins instead going with Daniel Jones, but I think the Giants need what was up and didn't want Dwayne Haskins to begin with. So the Washington football team is gonna move on with Dwayne Haskins and instead might draft a quarterback for the future and it's not gonna be Trevor Lawrence based off the record, based off the positioning of the NFL draft. It's instead might be someone like Trey Lance that you draft a quarterback and it could be a project.  So leave your thoughts down below. Do you believe that Alex Smith is gonna have a long future in Washington? Is it gonna stick around after this season? And what do you think the quarterback position is gonna look like for Washington in 2021 and moving forward?