Welcome back, everyone. In answer to the question, Cleveland really? Yes, really. Yes, right? Oh my god. Our hosts have outdone themselves, and our conference organizers have taken us on a deep dive, and we're coming up with amazing moments to take home. I was a mess yesterday during the story, Core Plenary. Right? Oh my god. I mean, I watch a play, and perhaps at the end, I will have an emotional experience, perhaps not. But in just two minutes, I was suddenly having a cathartic experience because the voices were authentic, and I related in such an unfiltered way. It was a real lesson in storytelling, as was my session with the ball of energy and wisdom that is Paula Vogel. That was great. With all the tragedy that has unfolded in the last year and this week, I have to believe, like John I say, in the hope that comes from the human spirit, and believe that we will come together as a people to say we are not that country, and we must do it soon. One of the values that I share deeply with TCG is activism, a generosity of spirit that appeals to our better selves. It has been the underlying agenda throughout, and I'd really like to thank our brilliant, brilliant staff. And I'd like to acknowledge the members of the TCG board who has supported our staff and thank them for their service. Could you all stand, please? Stand, lights, let's see them. Thank you so much. I have an action item for you all, and you can help us with it in the next few days. The NEA funding will likely go to the floor this week, and there is a good possibility there will be a hostile amendment to decrease funding. So please, please respond to action alerts that will come to you in the next week and urge your members of Congress to oppose these moves and to hold the line on NEA funding. So please. And now, I'd like to introduce my friend, an exquisite writer, performer, activist, and all-around cool dude with an enviable name who will give out the Theater Practitioner Award, Mr. Will Power. When our children and our leaders and our elders are being murdered in the streets and in our churches, the immense body of work that this person has created and is still creating becomes more vital than ever. Through her legendary solo performances, through her directing and producing, through her leadership, she has had a profound impact on the arts. And through her artistry, she has sparked essential conversations and created bold action against injustices that occur in this place we call home. For almost 40 years, she has been performing, touring, and adding her critical voice to the American arts movement of the 1970s. I'm going back, y'all. The 80s, the 90s, and the 2000s. Her Medea project, which works with incarcerated women through theater, inspiring and encouraging them to tell their stories, thus building bridges amongst separated communities and healing the storyteller along the way, has become an iconic institution unto itself and has drastically changed the entire culture of the Bay Area for the good. Now she is taking the project to South Africa and other places, working to help empower and give voice to oppressed women across the globe. What's more, her artistry has inspired and influenced a generation of playwrights, spoken word artists, and social justice workers, including me. Over 25 years ago, in a black box in the Tindalline, I saw her perform her mesmerizing solo work, Big Butt Girls, Hard-Headed Women. Yeah, and sitting there, I thought to myself, oh my God, what is this? Eight years later, she was directing and teaching me as I created my first solo work that put me on the national stage for the first time. I have learned and continue to learn so much from her about performing and writing, as well as how to be a sustainable artist in America. Just last year, she directed me and several others in a piece called Blessing the Boats at the Public Theater in New York. And after all this time, I'm still learning from her and still saying to myself, maybe one day I could be half as good as her. Maybe I could be the her for my generation. Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for the great Ro Desa Jones. Thank you, thank you Will Power. Thank you so much. Oh my God, for those powerful words.  So, thank you Will. Thank you so much. And I forget how much I've done, thank you. I'm an old broad, come on, I'm an old broad, I forget a lot, okay? Big thanks to Teresa Eyring for just handing me this honor and for the hardworking staff at TCG. Emilia, Defina, Annabelle and Matthew to name a few. And I'm honored to receive the Theater Practitioners Award.   And I still wonder, well, what does it all mean? Who is art for and where do we all enter? It was Martha Graham who said, people from California believe anything's possible. I'm from San Francisco. Jimi Hendrix cautioned me. It gets a little lonely on down this road, he's saying. Yet it was Bob Marley who insisted, instructed, stay alive. I was sent to explore the autobiography, starting with my own life, my own family, gathering around the proverbial campfire to share demand and resign the American character, insisting on a place at the table telling the truth and teaching goodness is the price of the ticket. Of course, let's not forget Hunter Thompson who reminds us, you buy the ticket and you take the ride. What a ride it's been. Life is a dream inside of a dream, ladies and gentlemen. And Bob Dylan promised, I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in your dream. So we gather here as theater artists to celebrate that. And I must thank the folks that God gave me, starting with Idris Akamor, the executive director. He would love this, the executive director of Cultural Odyssey, my partner in crime who encouraged me to quit my day job and make my life as an artist work, he'd say. Quit your day job. We began to make theater in his living room. He loved performing and he loved my stories. We put the words and the music together spiced with the politics that danced and performance music was born. We traveled the world, Amsterdam, to Vienna, to Berlin, to Moscow, South Africa and back and then America beckoned. I was sent into the dark dankness of prisons where I taught the art of storytelling, bearing witness, testifying and exploring ways that speak to the hard truths of our lives and it's been so romantic. It's been romantic, yes. Life affirming and ennobling as well. Working with women in lockdown across the world, assisting and giving them a voice to share their stories has been priceless. And the Medea Project Theater for Incarcerated Women was born and continues to thrive to this day 25 years later. And all my love to my daughter Sandra Lee and my granddaughter Chas Nicole who've always been there to remind me that mom, grandma, you have a full rich life. And to my brother Bill who said, if we can't share love, let's share information. And big love to my big brother Azelle who assured me that even in our dreams we are alone, sis.  Daddy also taught me that the heart is its own compass. And all you gotta do is listen, honey. And my sister Jihari, that ancient voice who tells me over and over again that girl, God is trying to tell you something, Ro. All the above advice has helped shape my theater and gave light to my dreams gate. And so here this afternoon, I thank TCG who has been one of those elements in my life that has kept the light on on earth, giving me a path home. Thank you TCG so much for this honor. Thank you Will Power. Thank you to all of you all. And remember, politics don't work. Religion is a bit too eclectic, but art, art could be that parachute that catches us all. Thank you very much. Thank you for this honor. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Rodessa, for your words and also for all of your work leading this field forward. It's now my pleasure to introduce our closing plenary panel, Artistic Leadership, How We Change the Game. We created this panel because we wanted to talk about the game changing power of theater through a conversation among five visionary artistic leaders. Through that conversation, we will not only be inspired by their artistry, but discover opportunities for collective action to address challenges facing our theater field and the world. How can we create a better world for theater and a better world because of theater? Please join me in welcoming Gregory Boyd from the Alley Theater in Houston, Michael Kahn from the Shakespeare Theater Company in DC, hometown hero Laura Kepley from the Cleveland Playhouse, Mina Morita from Crowded Fire Theater in San Francisco, Nigel Smith from the Flea Theater in Manhattan, and our moderator, Mr. Jim O'Quinn. Well, welcome to the final stretch here in this remarkable conference. You know, I can't compete with David Alkinson and Woody King. I wasn't around for the very first TCG conference, but it seems to me that Terry Nemeth and I who joined TCG are about the, almost precisely the same time back in 1982, have been to far more than 25 of these. I just can't imagine that's all there were. But the truth is that there hasn't been one of them that I can remember that produced as many good laughs and considering the session yesterday, a measure of tears as well as this conference has. But this session that we have here today, which is about groundbreaking artistic leadership, I can't imagine that it's going to produce many laughs or tears, we'll see, we'll see what. But I think it will bring together a lot of the ideas and things you've been thinking about and talking about over the past three days. I'm gonna give very brief introductions of these folks. These artistic leaders, some of them are veterans and some of them are brand new. But they've been handed the task of talking about productions, people, initiatives that have changed the game in their theaters and their careers. To my left is Mina Morita, who is artistic director of Crowded Fire Theatre in San Francisco. She's made the rounds in her hometown. She's worked at Berkeley Rep with their Ground Floor Project, which I'm sure she'll talk about. She's been a freelance director at Shotgun Players, Bay Area Children's Theater in other places. To her left is a man who needs no introduction at this conference, but I will say that Michael Codd has been artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. for the past 29 years. During that time he's been handed the 2012 Regional Theatre Tony for his work there. He teaches at the Drama Division of Juilliard. Since its founding in 1968, he's a legend in his own time. Beside him is Gregory Boyd, a representative of the same generation who has been, he's celebrating his 25th anniversary at the Alley Theatre in Houston, where he's produced over 100 productions of a wide-ranging repertoire. He teaches too. He's been at Carnegie Mellon Williams College University of Houston and the University of North Carolina. Beside him is a fellow I just met, Nigel Smith, the brand new artistic director of a remarkable company in New York called the Flea Theatre, which is organized differently than almost any other theater in the country that I know of. He'll be telling you a lot about that. Nigel has just, he is talking about making the rounds. He's worked at incredible number of venues in New York City. He works with the great Taylor Mac. His little bio I noticed had listed him as assistant director on three of my favorite productions from the last decade, which I have to mention, the wonderful production of Fila that was on Broadway, the off-Broadway production of a delightful play the 25th annual Putnam Counting Spelling Bee, which was a fabulous production. And then he worked with Tony Kushner on the masterwork, Paraliner Change. So for goodness sake, what a record. Just great. Filling out our panel in the far left and bringing us home to the city that we've been experiencing this week is Laura Kepley, the artistic director of Cleveland Playhouse. She's a busy director who came to Cleveland in 2010 as associate artistic director coming from Trinity Rip in Providence. I have to mention that Laura worked on the development of just a plug here, a wonderful play Jordan Harrison's Marjorie Prime, which appears complete in the next issue of American Theater Magazine. And I discovered this morning at another session that she's married to the remarkable and handsome playwright, George Brand. Who are you? So that's our team today. These artistic leaders have as I said, been handed the task of talking about game change. And I guess we'll start with Michael Kahn. He told me I wouldn't start. No, I changed my mind. I think your arrival at the Shakespeare Theater was a game changer in itself. I mean, the Folger was in trouble at that time and you arrived into a city that was about to close its only classical theater, is that right? Yeah, it just was. The people who were running it was a university. Didn't want to pay for it anymore. And so it was going to close. And so there was a community that wanted to keep it open and they brought me down to talk. I had decided I didn't want to be an artistic director anymore. I didn't want to look at a budget. Didn't want to look at the idea of working in an intimate space, which I'd never had the opportunity to do in the other jobs I had interested me. And so I took the job, thinking it was a short job. But also, I said very clearly to the board, I was very flattered and honored to be asked that they should know that I was not interested in saving a space or saving a building that I didn't think there was any need to have a classical theater unless there were the research of the artists to be able to do the best work they could do. And that if we couldn't do that, I didn't see why it should be there. And that was a good attitude for me to have because I had left a theater five years previously where in order to save it, I did things that I didn't believe in. Like plays I didn't believe in, co-productions I didn't believe in, microphone I need. I can't repeat any of that, so I hope that got some of it. And so I swore to myself that I would never do that again. And I guess I'm here because I've been doing this all my life and I'm a good example of how you could actually have an exciting and fulfilling and overly dramatic crisis-ridden thrilling existence if you stick it out and continually feel that your job is not to make a success, whatever that means. And I thought the discussion yesterday about what success was quite valuable. But whether you and the people you were working with were doing the best work, you knew how and find a way to connect that to the community you work in. Thank you. That's not the answer to your question, but that's...  I want you to talk a little bit about the Zimmerman verdict project that you've done. This is a very different kind of theater than the classical theater Michael's talking about. And this is just to emphasize the incredible diversity. We've got a wild of a lot of people who have been working with us who have been working with us who have been working with us and we've got a lot of diversity. We've got a wild diversity of kind of theaters here. And you're coming to The Flea, which is a... I mean, the Zimmerman project, you'll tell you, it's almost like pop-up theater in immediate response to what's on the news. Is that going to work for you in a theater like The Flea, which is a more structured situation? Absolutely. It's got to work. Tell us about it. We've got to work because we have to do the work to be done in the moment. And as a new play developer, there's an intrinsic value to making and reflecting and creating and stepping back, much like the sculptor's process. In order to get to a play that resonates, it will become a part of the canon that will be produced multiple times around the country. But sometimes, we have to put down that work and do what our country, what our neighbors are asking from us. The organization you talk about, Willing Participant, came out of a need that me and my collaborators were finding that we couldn't make work that was aesthetically pleasing in a quick enough way to hit the pulse of society. And so what we've done is we tried to simplify the process as much as possible and to act as quickly as possible. So I'll use the last several days as an example. On Wednesday night, there was an atrocious massacre in Charleston, South Carolina. And the same thing happened when the verdict for George Zimmerman came out. That was a disaster. Many of us felt it as a massacre. And so this happens. And so we pick up our bat phones and I text with the other ring leaders and say, hey, we've got to make something right now. This is at the top and forefront of all of our minds. We as artists need to be part of the dialogue. And so we then craft an email. We send it out to our constituents. We believe highly that the performance begins at the moment of invitation for all of those folks who are marketing, wonderful marketing, and producing folks out there. The very first time you tell the story to someone else is the beginning of the performance. So we sit and we craft that first email and we send it out to our constituents. We posted it on Facebook and all of our networks. We might pick up the phone for those people who aren't using email. And we say, come and meet with us. We've got a framework for facilitating conversations that will lead to an artistic response. We spend no more than four hours together in a room. Tomorrow at 2 PM, we will be at the Flea Theater. This is how the Flea serves its role in this mission. And we will meet in one of the theaters.   And we will start to think, as activists and as artists, thank you Odessa Jones for the great leadership and modeling. And we, yes. So we'll spend that four hours really wrestling with the issues. My job as one of the ring leaders is to bring in the materials and to bring in guidance that will allow us to dream and to dream poetically as well as socially. And then after that four hours, we'll have come to some thesis, you know, around the Zimmerman verdict. It was that the lives of black men in this nation are not being respected. And we will have come to some symbology that works around that thesis. So we thought at that moment in our history, it was about the hoodie. And it was about us as a nation all putting, all taking that on and saying, we acknowledge and are affected by the atrocities that happen around us. So the ring leader stepped back after the meeting and then create a form, a container for that piece, for Trevon. The form was a procession into Times Square. So once we've built this, we send out another email, join us for the response. So join us a couple blocks away from Times Square so the police don't know what we're doing just yet. We meet there, bring a hoodie, bring two, because someone might not have one. We will all put on this symbol. And then one of the things that I think is most important about our role as civic activists as theater, because when we create on our stages and inside rooms, we wanna create a whole event that our audiences responding to and engaging in. But when we're in a more activist role, our job is to make sure that there's room for multiple perspectives and multiple voices. So we created an action, a response that led us in procession to Times Square. We formed a line. This is all in silence. We're using the poetry of the body in this piece. We have our hoodies on. We line up and we take a pose. And so the prompt for the pose is show a pose to the passersby that says respect the bodies and lives of young black men. Now the individual participants in this get to choose what that pose is. This is where their voice enters in the piece. We hold that pose for a minute. We walk across to the other side of Times Square. There's a line as a mass of bodies. Take a new pose. We do this moving back and forth for 35 minutes. This is a direct action, a direct intervention. It's a poetic intervention. But what's I think really exciting for us as theater makers and performance makers is that our audience will be wherever we are. If we make thrilling, important work that is charged with the issues that we're all wrestling with, they will stop. One of the things we consider in this model is what time of day does it happen? It doesn't have to be at 8 p.m. So we said 10.45. The Broadway shows are coming out. So we'll get this wonderful cross section of America. Yeah, that's a long, I'm done talking. Explain how the flee is organized differently than other things. Oh, yeah, so the flee, which is great, is we have this resident company. We have this resident company of young performers who are pre-professionals. And my job is twofold. One, it's to give them work that's going to challenge them and that's going to display their excellent young artistry and to invite in professionals and directors and casting directors who are going to cast them and make sure they don't need to volunteer at the flee anymore. I was just talking with Mr. Khan backstage and my producing director and I were having a conversation the other day. And if one of these young actors is still in our institution in two years, we've not done our job. And so half of my job is getting them out into the field. The other half of my job is developing their voice as artist. And so I think that the kind of work that I've done throughout my career, which is not wait for an institution or not wait for a play to suddenly get produced, but to actually say, all right, this thing has to happen now, is one of the things I have to offer to these young artists. And so the flee is a site, is a site and is an opportunity to let them be a part of this practice. Well, that's one kind of company now. Greg Boyd can talk about, I learned talking to him the other day that he joined ACT American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco at the age of 16. And they had a company of 42 actors at that time. Has this imprint of the resident company idea been a game changer for you in your time? Yeah, it certainly changed my life. In the late 60s, Bill Ball, the great Bill Ball, brought his company ACT out to San Francisco where I grew up. The idea of seeing 42 actors doing 16 plays in a season 11 in rep, I said, this is what it is as far as I'm concerned. And then something happened that changed that early on. In the midst of all that work, Bill found the time to let the Geary Theater be the host for the world tour of the Royal Shakespeare Company as a Midsummer Night's Dream in 1972, directed by Peter Brooke. I'm not alone in claiming that production is a life-changing experience, it was. But not for the reasons that I think everybody who knows it or has read about it or looked at the pictures might think. It was a clash of company cultures. It was the Royal Shakespeare Company trained in a certain sort of way, living in a room now or in a place now, where a bunch of American actors who were trying to forge an American style of acting that wasn't based on a kind of British classicism, wasn't based on a Methody kind of mumbly, whatever the cliches are, and finding something else. Because Bill would do a wide variety of plays, Tartuffe followed by six characters, followed by a new play. If you look at the pictures of a Midsummer Night's Dream, I'm sure many of you have seen those pictures. What you see are the wonderful design my Sally Jacobs, the bright costumes, the white box set, all of that. But what was important about the production was the way it sounded, not the way it looked. I had never seen actors deliver any kind of text so fast, so clearly, and with such sexual charisma.  And Richard P. Slee's music contributed to that. So they were there for three weeks through IRC. And we had this kind of clash of company cultures between the ACT actors, all of whom I admired and looked up to and loved, and these Brits, not all Brits, or not all what we think of as old Vicky kind of Brits. Because Brooke was already on the way to create the most multicultural theater company that he later, of course, developed more deeply in Paris than elsewhere. And these actors who had been home in Stratford and in London were now on this very long world tour of great American cities, great world cities. And the questions they asked to the ACT actors were, what is it like to be an actor here in this place? And that's what I began to develop, what a company is. The term, the acronym that a lot of us are familiar with is Lort, L-O-R-T. But that doesn't mean League of Regional Theaters or League of Repertory Theaters even. It means League of Resident Theater. And it means simply, or what I learned, I thought simply, was that the artists live in the community for whom they perform. Very simple. I felt guilty, sorry. I felt guilty today when we were all talking about how long it's been since we've been to a TCG conference because for some of us it's been in a double digits. And I didn't want to say why earlier. I'll say why now and sorry just to take the moment to do it. It's because I got really upset the last time I was here because I heard someone describe Peter Zeisler talking about the founding of TCG. And one of the sentences he used was, before 1961, it was impossible to think that a theater artist could have a life in Providence or Louisville or Minneapolis or San Francisco or Houston. And I don't know how good the institutions have been doing at putting artists at the center of the work. You would never see a modern dance company change over its entire roster of dancers between concerts or a symphony hire new musicians for the next concert or a ballet company. An actor said to me, a traveling actor said to me, you know, all this talk about artistic home. Artistic home, what does that mean? Well, for a home to have a set of siblings for eight weeks and then another set of siblings for eight weeks, it's not a home, it's a halfway house. So it got in my blood early. I'm obsessed with this idea of company. We do a lot of plays at the alley, probably way too many. But there are 17 actors that are with us all the time. They don't do every play. They do some of the plays.  And then there's a mix in some productions influenced by the RSC and ACT living together for that time. And that's just the way I think it works. So I don't know if it's a game change. That's what the game was. And I think we need to get back to that. Thank you. Laura, I talk about what game change means for you here in Cleveland. Well, first of all, I feel like we're just in the middle of so many game changes here in Cleveland. And I just want to acknowledge and thank all of you for coming to Cleveland and being a part of this incredible game that we've had here the past three days for really coming in, meeting us. And I think our councilman made it pretty clear. But you being here in our city matters.  Your being here will also change the future of our community here in some ways.  I mean that. I think I just want to share with my fellow colleagues here in Cleveland. And I hope you have a similar story of how many people have come up and said, Cleveland is amazing. I am having such a, I didn't know. Cleveland is amazing. And I hope that a game change that will come from this is that you'll take those stories back. And with the young people who you work with, that Cleveland becomes on their radar. Oscar Eustis was on stage yesterday and he was talking about Bohemia. He just sort of briefly said that idea about Bohemia, that time where you get to explore, sort of really find yourself as an artist. And I was fortunate enough as a young artist to have that in Chicago. And I'm so proud that I see that happening here in Cleveland. So I want to put that out. And then just to switch gears just a little bit, because I feel like I kind of have to. It's been an amazing game changing time for Cleveland Playhouse. I was lucky enough to arrive at a time of tremendous change. Founded in 1915. When I arrived in 2010, that was the last year in what had been our home for over 88 years. So in the five years, since 2010, our organization has geographically moved. Our business model has changed. Our collaborative, some of our collaborative practices have changed. I hope that our partnering and our role in the community is beginning to evolve and change and open. And then, of course, there's been artistic change, huge change in our education programs. And I'll stop the Cleveland Playhouse commercial right now for a second. But I just want to say that when I was looking at Cleveland in 2010 to see America's first regional theater going, saying, you know what, if we want to survive, if we want to make work for another century, we have to make this tremendous change, this big game change. We have, and I feel now at the end of five years going into our centennial season, we are just now beginning to really start the important work, the important change. And I know that I have been so moved. At this conference, and I will, you know, the work that's being done and making that pledge that we did in the last session, it's so powerful. I'm sorry, so I thank you. Well, Mina, that leaves you. As I said, you've made the rounds in San Francisco working at the Ground Floor Project at Mercury Rap and Shotgun Players and so forth. How's your leadership of this new company going to work? How's it, what's the watch word for you? I first want to acknowledge all the ancestors and all of the great leaders on whose shoulders we stand, on whose shoulders I stand. And it leads me to think about the first mentor and great leader that I had a chance to work with at Berkeley Rap for the last six years. When I started my artistic fellowship there six years ago, one of the first things he said was, what is your world view? Because that is going to inform everything you make and for whom you make it.  He grew up in the 60s and he was, you know, he was reared then and for him, the regional theater movement was about creating a home for artists locally. And it was about really separating this idea of commercialism or capitalism from the theater. And so I had the great pleasure of working side by side with him in the creation of a new program called the Ground Floor at Berkeley Rap. I got to start it with three other fantastic leaders, Madeline Oldham, Megan Pressman, Karina, Furenza, Ingrisola, myself, and many others. And it was about following the first creative impulse of that revolution. And it was about creating a space for over 100 artists for anywhere from 13 to 18 new plays in development at any point in their process, from just an idea to a completed script. And the space that we created was a space for failure to be okay, for that to be all right, for it not to be connected to any kind of product, and that if somebody was to ask for anything, for any kind of design element, for a collaborator in the moment of creation, we would provide that for them. We created this incredible program where I learned how much it meant from the simple thing of handing a prop to a new play development room where they were trying to figure out how a specific puppet worked to getting singers for a new musical. I mean, it was the entire range of that. And I carry now with me that idea of creating a safe space, the idea of an artistic home truly, into my new home, which is crowded fire. And the timing is really quite perfect for I think both of us, because what Marisa Wolfe, my predecessor and artistic director had built with Tiffany Corthren before I arrived, is a space where we're looking at championing culturally diverse voices, provocative voices, and really the idea of developing a canon for the future for our current generation, and to make a space, to forcefully make and deliberately make a space where that work can go at its own pace where the artist is the center of every question that is brought forward, and that the organization is in existence for those artists. And rests upon also the shoulders of our resident artist company, and our staff, and our board, and that there's a sense of entrepreneurship and innovation that hopefully we can design that is separate from this more capitalist reality that we live in, because ultimately the thing that changes us, the genetics that need to evolve is for us to step away from that, while still understanding, of course, fiscal responsibility. I'm not saying throw that out the window. But to really, I feel like that is my torch that I carry from all of you into the future, that it is a space for risk, it is a space for everyone, and it is a space for art that is going to reflect our humanity. So wish me luck. We'll talk amongst yourselves. So. I'll go for it. Sure, I'll go for it. So one of the things that comes up a lot is that protecting the risk and the failure in the space for the artist to do the work they need to do. And from Diane's lovely introduction of Miss Jones to the conversation we've been having up here around our role as activists, as game changers in our communities, as the artists who are going to like the fire. You know, I've found myself throughout this challenge, this, I literally think of it as a challenge, through this conference, finding myself, this conference has been a challenge. It's been challenging me to think about where are our resources going? You know, I was up at the Ideas Fest in New Haven recently, and there was a whole section sort of roped off that had special back covers. It had two giant signs that said, these are our proud donors. And so they got the oligarch, oligarch had got the prime locations in there, and everyone got to look and see these really wonderful people. And I think that part of our job as artists leaders, while being fiscally responsible, is to say to those people who fund us is what you get instead of that prime location, you actually get to sit at the back and look at the people you got to fund to sit in those prime locations. So yeah, so how do we have that conversation? How do we engage in that, and that the value is in that you're helping the whole community experience? I've thought about this recently, I was not, because I, we've just done a play that, you know, probably the board hates. Oh, Mr. Mike. We've just done a play that probably the board hates, you know, but I'll get away with it because I've been there so long. But the truth is, is that that's not a good answer. And it came up the other day with the staff, and I thought, why don't I, you know, we talked to the staff that, but I thought, this is a complicated issue for the staff this play. So why don't they come and talk to me, and we had a lunch. And I was surprised, you know, there was two or three people from each department. And I said, well, let's talk about the production. And I wouldn't let the dramaturg talk to explain it. I just said, you just talk, and whatever you say is okay. As a matter of fact, it's actually important. I want to hear it, we all want to hear it, and discuss it. So somebody, so one of the young women said, well, I didn't like it. I don't like it, it's not an answer for anything. That's not enough. I mean, we're used to it always on Yelp and everything. I don't like it. It's not an answer, and it doesn't enrich anybody, including the person who says that. So I said, well, let's go further. They said, well, I liked it until this happened. And I said, okay, I think that was a large theatrical moment that could indeed make you very uncomfortable, but you said you cut out when that happened. I said, well, why was that? And she said, well, I just, I couldn't deal with it. I said, well, okay, why do you think it was there?  Why was it there? And she began to think that and other people in the room started talking about why it was. And when it was over, we never got very far past that moment in the flight in an hour, as to they began to think past this yes or no criticism to some deeper understanding, perhaps of trying to understand the work in context of the work and not just in context of their own. So I thought this has to be done with the board because the board who, and I, you know, Lord love them, they're pretty damn good board and I've known the other kind. I thought we never get a chance. So of course we put their names on chairs because we never really give ourselves the chance to, well, some of us do, but not enough chance to force them to be involved in the audience. And maybe this question of really, let's just talk about something that happened, that you objected to or something, is a way of encouraging a different kind of dialogue and a different kind of immersion in the art. And so they will, because I think that finally they have to have pleasure in something other than just the fact that they've all met each other in different corporations. So that's one response. What I hear too is why are we afraid, I knew we are, but why are we afraid of risky or edgy work? We shouldn't be. Right. Anything worthwhile, I mean, nothing worthwhile is embarked on without fear. So I hope for myself that I'm scared half to death all the time. Because what I've found when you do difficult work or work that people object to for whatever reason they object to it, I'm sorry to sing this song again, but in tough plays, it's the actors in the company who have helped the audience through that. I've seen those actors. I own those actors. I've seen them in that Shakespeare player, that Arthur Miller player, whatever. And now they're in this play that I don't quite understand and I'm not at all sure that I like. But they're there to sort of help an audience, or they can be, sort of there to help an audience into difficult or challenging work. And that's something I think, well, I don't want to go there. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. All right, if you want to. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. If you want your audience to own your theater company, then they have to have that sense of proprietorship. Thicker thin, fair weather or foul, hated it, loved it, like your ball team, you know? So they're like the Astros, or as I like to call them, the Disastros, we're having a great season this year. But they're owned somehow by the, and they can say to the actors afterwards, you know? I don't know why he or they or you pick that. But I loved you in this. There's a mitigating factor when they own the artists somehow. We did two plays, two new plays by Rajeev Joseph, that were from Cleveland, that were tough on a lot of people in the audience. And then I asked Rajeev, because he had been around a lot, he had seen the company actors, they weren't in the first two plays that we did with him. But he had seen the actors, and then I said, right to play for them. So he has, and it's a fantastic, powerful piece of work. And I know, first of all, the audience, even though they saw the first two things and maybe didn't, you know, weren't so comfortable with some of it, they own him now. And they look forward to the next Rajeev Joseph play, even though it was sort of an uncomfortable event twice before, and it's gonna be, I think, the thing to have, to invite the writer into the company and to let the difficult work be, what's the word? Let me take you by the hand into something that's a little bit more challenging that you might be used to. I'm not saying it very well, but there you go. No, you did. Laura, you are pioneering some education work that you wanted to talk about today. Tell us about that. Sure. Cleveland Playhouse has been a lead agency in the United Way wraparound strategy in our community. And yes, there was a session on this earlier today, but I think that that has been, part of the game change at Cleveland Playhouse is really to go look at our core values and say, how are we putting those in action? And what do we mean when we say we're serving the community? And what does that look like for us? And I know this is a question that I would think that many, many people are having. And thinking, for a long time, the thinking had been very broad. How many students are we reaching? And of course, that's so important because sometimes that one touch, that may be their one touch with theater, so we have to go broad. But really looking at where we want to go deep. And I'm gonna give a shout out to our director of education, Pamela of DePosqually. And she really has been the pioneer behind this and being a part of it. And I also want to give a shout out to Nina Domang, Nathan Lilly, and Jocelyn Prince, who are the people who are embedded in those three schools. So I should explain a little better, actually what I'd really love is to have them explain it to you. But so those three folks who I just mentioned, they are every day in the schools. They are, of course, compassionate theater artists who are interested in remaking education. They are in the schools as a theater artist there. They're also to connect the students with social services. They are running summer camps at those schools that are, and their commitment is to the schools, the communities the schools are in, the caregivers. And they're creating a summer camps where there haven't been summer camps before and then also coordinating all of the social services needed to support that. So that means lunch at the camps. That means in the winter, Jocelyn and Nathan telling stories about handing out more gloves, needing more coats, getting more food bags, because there's more food bags. And so Cleveland Playhouse has been very fortunate that we can align with the United Way to do this work that expands, well, I shouldn't say expand, that the work that we have a responsibility to do in our community. And again, that idea of how can we continue to go deeper and deeper, because that's our responsibility. Let's take questions from you guys. We have microphone people, I believe. And here's, who wants to talk to these artistic directors? Oh, boy. Identify yourselves before you talk. Hi there, I am Sunmi Shulman. I'm an independent artist and also a Fox fellow with Moor Performing Arts in Minneapolis. My question is, from this conference, what are each of your commitments, one thing that you're gonna change this year? One thing. This is my first conference. And I get to be on stage here in front of all of you at my first conference. I've been, I'm honored and it's been thrilling. It was completely unexpected and I'm so inspired to not always consider that I'm just looking for mentors for myself as I create space for the work and for diverse voices, but also to look at those who are coming into our field, that every opportunity that I can is to make space for the people who are coming after us because that is the only way that we will continue to affect change. In terms of the work that Crowded Fire is doing, what I love about it and I will continue to do is to walk the talk or do the work. Since 2009, we have done 100% of diverse work, either people of color, women, or queer identifying playwrights. And I'm going to continue that work and then build more space for that work to grow so that it can continue to then feed the rest of our community in San Francisco and hopefully nationally. I had made a commitment to myself for the next three years to the theater to bring directors, quite young directors, who had worked in small theaters but had a passion for certain kind of material to our theater to work as directors on the big stage. I was given that opportunity on a job path and when I was quite young and it meant a great deal to me. And I committed myself to a group of directors. And what I've come to realize and through this conference and other conversations is that I have to help the staff of the theater understand different ways of working by different artists. And that while I felt very good about welcoming people in, as we start this, the complications that often come up when somebody wants it a different way and people have not used to that, it's my job to try to help the culture of the theater make it possible for those artists to work. And that's a lot bigger, and that's just a lot bigger than say, come on in. So I've learned that. I think I do. We're about to open a new theater building. We've been off site for the past season.  We're all thrilled about that. It's not just a new theater building. It transforms everything about the way we've been doing the work for a long time. It's been hard in the past to really do a new play by someone who has never been a theater director by someone who, we have two theaters, a 300 seat theater and an 800 seat theater. It's very hard to put a new play in the 800 seat theater in a subscription series that has to have 36 performances if that play is not by Edward Albee or Tony Kushner or Teresa Riba. So the idea is to offer the new plays and the playwrights who work with the company the opportunity to use the big stage if they want it and break the tyranny of the calendar. Instead of doing 36 performances, we do 10.  Couple of weeks later, come back. Do it again.  It's really scary because as Dean here, it's really scary because you're taking the subscription model and you're sort of twisting it but I think they'll come with us. I think they will and you get to offer them the writer all the resources that you have if they want to use that, if they want 20 characters, if they want the big stage, then let them use it. However, like what Michael just said, it's I think, and this is what I've learned over the past couple of days, it's going to be incumbent on all of us who try to lead at the Alley Theater to explain to the staff a new way of working. They come back to a new building with a lot of things that we couldn't do before but that's only there in order to facilitate this way of working and making new plays much more part of the company repertoire of the theater that I work at. Thank you. I've just been four weeks on the job so everything feels like a change. But I came into a culture where the staff really just wanted me to go into my office and then come out with ideas and things for them to do. Which as my directing training, it's very much about having a very clear vision and galvanizing those folks towards that. But yesterday I was in the leading leadership for 2042 and I realized that I was missing an opportunity to have a deeper engagement with some of my staff members. I have an audience engagement person, Ellen, who is phenomenal and she's a dramaturg and trained as a dramaturg. And so as soon as I heard that, I started throwing plays over to her and get her feedback. But I now know that actually I need to go back and more deeply investigate everyone on the staff and make sure that we're all have ownership over the seasons that are being planned. Can I just jump in on that because it's really what you said is a clear way of saying what was bungled in my thinking.  And if that... Then I learned a different kind of attitude to her kind of way of thinking about it from Brooke in his book in which he says, a director is a guide at night that does not know the way. But so many people are dependent on guidance that they look towards that. But it can't go without saying in this centenary year of Orson Welles, his definition of a director, which is the person who presides over accidents. You've helped me, my friend, Laura. Very much, and my book is full of commitments. But I feel like before, I'm just gonna be very asked before, I can sort of state that honestly. I feel like these past three days have made me think in profoundly different ways. So what I can say right now is that I am committing to investigating and inquiring how I can continue to understand and do the mission. The mission of our theater. Well, folks, that was one long question, but they're telling me that our time is up. So I want to thank these artistic directors for a wonderful conversation. Shall we exit? Y'all can go. You can go.  I was supposed to ask Michael Khan one extra question that I forgot, which is to talk about next year in DC, right? So I'll leave the stage and he'll tell you about that. You're not going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere, okay, okay. So I didn't answer his first question because he surprised me. But actually, this is a thing about DC. When I got there 100 years ago, there were five theaters, two of them were about to close, and over the years, through a lot of work and connection with the community and all kinds of really innovative ideas about what to do and how to do it, and with whom there are now 60 theaters in Washington DC. And one of the really interesting things is that in many ways those theaters are collaborating with each other. And although you won't be there, but next fall in September and October, every theater in Washington DC is going to premiere for their first play of the season or second play of the season, a new play by a woman playwright. So that also means you're gonna get 50 new plays on your desk next year of dramaturge. But we're very pleased to announce that next year's TCG conference will be in Washington DC. And one more thing, a lot of those 50 theaters will be having plays and we hope you'll come to see them. Thank you, Michael. We're so excited about that. So before we leave, we have one more visionary game changer to honor. Can you move over to theater too for me? Sure honey. That's okay. Center stage please. When Peter Zeisler and Lindy Zesh looked to hire an editor for TCG's newsletter in 1982, they may not have realized they were bringing on someone who would transform the story of our field forever. You see, there hadn't been a general circulation magazine covering the theater field in decades. And so in 1984, American Theater was born. Under Jim's leadership as editor in chief, American Theater has published thousands of articles and over 150 full length plays. He has transformed that little theater newsletter into an award winning champion of theater and arts journalism with a print readership of over 50,000 and a new online version garnering over 100,000 page views a month. Many leaders in the field have spoken movingly about the first time they were featured in American Theater and under Jim's restless commitment to truly reflecting our diverse field, the magazine has helped launch careers by championing emerging artists and young companies. He also made sure to honor the voices of our veteran leaders and artists in a culture obsessed with the new hot thing. While he may be retiring from running the magazine, we won't let him escape completely. He'll continue to write for AT. If theater holds the mirror up to nature, Jim's American Theater has given us our own reflection, showing us a diverse and evolving field made whole by our differences. Jim, words are not enough to properly thank a man of such eloquence, so we're going to turn to music from a fellow lover of New Orleans, Lisa Mount. Oh, stop it.   You know the end is near when they invite out the consultant with a banjo. Hey, Jim, you're kind of a saint. And this is a single on y'all. You'll get the chorus fairly quickly. It's not hard. When Jim O Quinn goes marching out. When Jim O Quinn goes marching out. Oh, Lord, I want to be in that number. When Jim O Quinn goes marching out. He's tried to be completely fair. That must be why he lost his hair. Oh, Lord, I want that number. When Jim O Quinn goes marching. Who will know where the commas go? Or scare people by sleeping on the floor? Logs in that number. When Jim O Quinn goes marching out. Sing the chorus with me. When Jim O Quinn goes marching out. When Jim O Quinn, since who knows when, outlasting Peter John and Lisa is still in that number. And when Jim O Quinn goes marching out. When Jim O Quinn, that number. When Jim O Quinn goes marching out. When Jim O Quinn, if you would like to rebut those statements, you would be welcome. You know, when we had the 25th anniversary party of American Theater Magazine, the TCG staff surprised me with a present. They didn't tell me what it was until the event itself. And the present was Taylor Mack. I had my own drag queen for a day. It was amazing. Can you beat that? But this is lovely. Thank you very much. And I appreciate it all. And the magazine is in great hands. I'm absolutely delighted that Rob Kent has become my successor. And we'll be working together on the September and October issues. And some great things are in store. And so thank you all for that. The tradition at TCG of giving outgoing board members a copy of the American Theater Magazine cover with their picture on it. And so what we have for you, Jim, is your very own American Theater cover. But look, I'm wearing Sam Shepard's hat. All right? Yeah, and this is a brilliantly photoshopped version of the very first issue of American Theater with Sam Shepard on the cover. Thank you, Kitty Suin, for making that happen. The fabulous Kitty Suin. Thank you, guys. You're back. Say goodbye. We've come to the end of our three-plus days together. We've danced with pink elephants and dined with donut trucks. We've laughed with Baratunde and cried with Dave. We've taken selfies with chandeliers and played pretend beer pong on parking decks. And we've had so much fun that the Cleveland host committee is founding a real estate company to house all the conference attendees who plan to move to Cleveland now. But before we go back to our desks and our overflowing inboxes, I want to acknowledge something we heard over and over again. Stories matter. The stories we tell matter, and how we tell them matters, and who gets to tell them matters, not in some abstract theoretical way, but in how we live together and how we live together and the truths we dare tell. And maybe they matter even more in theater, because the way we tell stories is through human beings, human bodies alive together in the same place and time. And just as we know that the consequences of our culture stories of hate and exclusion have been inflicted upon human bodies, so we must believe that the healing we need, the liberation we long for, the justice for which we fight, must be brought about by stories of love and inclusion, told by human bodies alive together in the same place and time. And this matters even more now, because of so many acts of hate, such as what happened this week in Charleston. Our time together now ends, but the work continues. Let's please keep in touch with each other and hold each other accountable for the promises we've made here. And let's be allies for one another and lift each other up when we call out for help. And mark your calendars now to join us in 2016 with Michael Kahn and everyone in Washington, D.C. And thank you. We'll see you across the street for a party.