Hi, I'm Lindsay Owens, associate artist centers. I'm here I'm here hard on the art of Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum which has been which has been to let the legendaries play for the last of the last five years, five years. This is a landmark forum for the first time in our time in our his project was asked to present procedures written exclusively by women or women. Artists we were challenged challenged both and in my heart by artists and audience and audience address real long standing hands on the nail right male writers stages the result result lecture lecture premieres masterwork, that's because this beautiful very moment in time all creative, creative, fired firing firing artists today today, in just a moment you will play right play right but first look for the half the staff. They want to thank you for your support. We are We are thrilled to share this with you we'll see you at the theater theater.
Hello, everyone. Welcome welcome. Hello, hello. Hello. My name my name is Andrea. May I have a station that you're here launch launch this icon icon and Mark and Mark or stores in
Orem so without further ado, I want to let the legends introduce themselves. And we'll start with Jane Jamie and we'll pass it over to you to say hello to the to the audience and anything else you would like to add?
Well, I'm glad there's an audience. That's great. Do we get to see the audience? We get questions on your list.
You won't get to see them. But any questions that come through I'll have and I'll be able to filter them in our conversation.
Well, I said before, I should have waited until we had an audience but I'm going to say that I don't know everybody's reputation and the reviews and and your success but I haven't seen your shows and I intend to during this run by saw her first show and couldn't believe how she conceptualize the idea of doing accounting just like you do. But I want to say that about art because I have I know her work and I know her brilliance. Hope to get to know you all through all this. So I really want to I really do want to know what you're doing and I will see all your work during this
Thank you Jane, we'll pass it to you Anna.
Well, Jane, that was very kind of you. And of course, I know somewhere in here we're going to talk about paths that were broken and your path your work. Jane has been so much at part of making the past for the rest of us here your work with Lily Tomlin and of course I will never ever forget those shows and particularly search on Broadway. So thank you for the kind things that you said about me and like you I don't know the work of the rest of the guests and I'm very much looking forward to seeing the work at the taper and proud to say that well I guess I don't know I can I'd say I'm proud of the taper. I guess I can say I'm pleased that they are doing such a season.
Thank you, Joey.
I feel proud to be with this group. Even though I haven't seen work. Let's let's talk about it. Because
well, I'm Joey and I'm one of the people whose work neither of you have seen. It's fine. Not say add on to what Anna said Jane about how I think about face and eye. Being children and looking at your work and Lily's work and and the sensibility a queer sensibility a queer dramatic protagonist you pet you, you did pave the way for us. So thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, and and I can't believe that we're on the same zoom and it's an absolute and utter honor. And I so look forward to sharing what we're doing. And thank you Senator theater group for taking on the challenge and doing it it's, it's a dream come true, actually to imagine a theater saying we're having a non male season. And it's so dangerous and so wild. And it's so exciting and I just can't believe that I'm part of it. And thanks for it. Thanks for putting us all together.
Thank you. I love that these introductions are mixed with affirmations. That's my way I like to be introduced to faith.
I'll just keep going then because oh my god. I do this now. So we'll just keep I mean Jane Yes. Hero comedy hero. I got the privilege of seeing search on Broadway and Anna I got the privilege of seeing Twilight and air tea and and more and I can't wait to meet you, Larissa and hear about your work. I know at least two cuckoos over here, Joey and MJ. But we're we're I should say I use they them pronouns as well. I didn't. We didn't say our pronouns but just just for everybody to know here. So excited to be part of this. This group, this group of people in this this group of work
thank you, MJ
Hi everyone. My name is MJ My pronouns are here they I am also just stunned to be sharing a season with these people. I mean, Anna was one of the first playwrights whose name I ever knew when I was a senior in high school fires in the mirror was one of the first place I ever encountered. So I yeah, I admire you I admire you all so much, really, literally writers, co writers. So, really excited, really excited.
Thank you. I'm very
Yeah. Yeah, I'm not gonna say really excited. We'll be on the Gabrielino Angeles. Not only not only have a new, new playwright and a playwright, but also a really, really long time long time. I mean, I'm really happy that happy that so many, so many different things in one season, which is really, really just a thrill. Be proud to be in their season. Thanks.
I want to throw in a throw in relation there are moderate moderate, she was actually my student two or three years ago. And she's she's heard me say she's one of the best us I've ever I've ever had.
And now, I'm like in the love fest. I appreciate you all so much. And again, it's an honor to be moderating this conversation. And we are missing one of the other incredible playwrights Lynn Nottage who's played Clyde's will be a CO production with the Goodman she's actually in tech right now the Goodman so she's getting the show ready to come to LA so we have a video from her saying hello to you all. I will show you now.
Hi, I'm Lynn Nottage and I'm really excited to be back at center theatre group sharing my play, Clyde's which is very much a dramedy about creativity and resilience and mindfulness community and the healing power of really delicious food. The pieces is inspired by interviews that I did with the formerly incarcerated in Redding, Pennsylvania some years ago and really began to take shape when I encountered this one beautiful man who found inventive and inspiring ways to uplift and heal his community. And in that moment, I realized that I wanted to write a play that leaned into optimism, and I really look forward to sharing this work with your audiences. So thank you.
There's Lynn Gloria smiling face.
Absolutely. So
we're getting into the conversation now, which I'm really excited about. And there's so much to talk about, but instead of talking specifically about your plays, I want to talk about your journeys. We've all kind of mentioned who we who were inspired by who's played we saw where and I think that this moment, this is really marking the moment that so many different moments, so many different journeys have led up to this historic season at the taper. So we will talk about your plays specifically and musicals a little bit later. But I want to start off with just talking about this moment. And so my first question is inspired by Anna who always taught us to look at definitions to understand the etymology. of a word. I was like, landmark season, landmark season at the table. What is landmark mean? Let me just go back to the dictionary and just like get the truest Ross definition of the word. So landmark is an event a discovery or change, marking an important stage. Or turning point in something and I was really inspired by this season at the taper, your all plays being programmed together as being a turning point for the American Theatre. And if it is, I will be and many of us will be very better off because of it. So my first question to all of you is, how does it feel to be a part of this season alongside women identifying transgender and non binary artists? And to add on to that, if this is the turning point in the American Theatre, where do you hope this means we're going so how does it feel to be a part of this landmark season? And if it's a turning point, where do you hope that means we're going or feels called to jump into that first?
Now it's a big one. Like, I want to see everybody who's here, that's the first thing I have to do. And I really want you all to talk about your work. I'd love to know. Set for me, I'd love to know everybody's age. Do they mind saying so young? I know they are young. So right here
yeah, I love that. You're thinking me as a young in I'm about to turn I think 50 either 57 or 58. I'm unable to follow so I'm not that young but fun to be a young and I'll just say that this that this moment of marking our journey like putting a mark in the land, and saying, to me, it's not just about oh, we're going to make sure that we stopped centering sis men. Yes, that's a great practice. But I can't even begin to imagine what it will mean to the audiences of people who are not sis men to begin to see white sis men or sis men just to begin to be able to see themselves and seeing themselves and, and think about the screens and and not have to see themselves as an object to find themselves in the theater. And I just can't wait for people to get to buy the whole season and come to the whole scene. And recognize at the end of it, that all of the theater they've been seeing or most of the theater they've been seeing or much of what's been called the Canon has made us feel see looked at but not seen talked about, you know, but not communicated with and it's it's just it's more it's just so exciting to to be able to call it out and say it a season with no men. You know, non men not men. It's so dangerous to say that we barely have a way to say it. But if this isn't a turning point, it will become something that will be easier to say. And you know, who our artistic directors will be able to say up? Yeah, we're having a non a non men season where we haven't had you know, we haven't had we were having you know, 10 non men seasons in a row. You know, the kind of reparations the kind of space taking up that all the rest of us need. To be able to, to write and to find ourselves in the theater. It's unimaginable. I mean, think about faith and I growing up on musicals, like hair and Fiddler on the Roof at Jesus Christ Superstar performing in Gilbert and Sullivan plays with our family, dreaming of musicals, but somehow never believing that we were able to the artists, it took us decades and decades and decades and decades, to get to a place where we feel that we can center our voices.
Did you all start all of you in the theater or were you did you have a television background?
Once we all introduce ourselves and what we were doing, like very slightly so Jane, we're doing and yeah, yeah.
How about we start because yeah, James brought up a great point that we haven't all seen each other's work. So Lynn gave us a little bit of an introduction to Clyde's so how about we start there with if you want to share your age, by James request, please do but about your about your show. Go ahead. We want to start with a transparent musical. Yeah, yes. Well,
I'll take it since my sibling Joey just I mean, transparent for Dane and Anna transport was a television show on Amazon. That broke ground what 2013 Joy 2014 about a family whose parent comes out as trans which is based on our family. So that was a television show we won. On a globe. We won an Emmy in acting and different things like that, and I think was right around the time where television was streaming. Amazon was one of the first after Netflix. Joey knows so much more than I do. But since I've got the mic, so that
all the streaming awards. Yeah, Amazon. Streaming awards before Netflix. Yeah. Transparent.
Yeah. So we that was about four seasons. And then we have the the this great journey of making it into a musical which is Joey's been the writer. I've been the music person and it's been a dream of mine since the show started to see to see this in a musical voice. And, you know, I'm 58 and trying to look 13 over here. So, to Joey's point, you know, we've been doing this forever, but it's you know, this is when it comes to comes when it comes so I've I'm from a comedy theatre background, Second City and work in education here in Boston and the arts, and I feel incredibly lucky to be to have found MJ who we I've followed their work and he's come along with us and we're just we've got to get a fun year coming. Yeah, so that's
that's that's it. I'm David.
Yeah. And I'm the you know, the I don't know the interloper in the Solloway sibling hood, in the transparent musical. I am also working with them on on telling this story about a family where a parent is going through a transition and many other things happening to family members and their community members all around them. And I am a playwright, primarily I learned playwriting actually, Lynn was one of my teachers at Yale School of Drama. And I this is my first musical and actually, you know, thinking about this change this landmark as as Joey was talking. I was remembering that when I was an MFA students and I'm 36 that when I was an MFA student, 10 years ago, we joked that it was not the Yale School of Drama but the Yale School of Shakespeare and checkoff because that was that was what we learned. That was what we studied. And I'm just sort of like thinking of this is this this is a landmark moment, I want to remove the F because we actually have the power in our selves to make it a landmark moment. Maybe it would be a different cannon that that our students are taught and that's really exciting to me.
The rest How are you thought about fake until you make it? Yeah,
yeah. So yeah, I'm, I'm a playwright. I started in film and TV briefly and didn't like it for the represent the poor representation of indigenous peoples, which is what I write about. So I've been a playwright full time for about 15 years now. But this year is kind of coming up as a big year because I'll have my first Broadway show and then the show and two others next year. But yeah, it's I don't I don't know if I mean if y'all want to see this is this is vacant right now. It's a whiteboard app. I just lost my screen so whiteboard with a lot of stuff that I'm still I have they've commissioned, they announced it before it even started writing it or new it had a really a concept. So um, so I don't even have a full draft yet. Um, hopefully, by the end of this weekend, I'm gonna have my first full draft and we're gonna have a reading in a couple of weeks. So yeah, so I can't tell you much about it. Except it's funny. I do a lot of satirical comedy. And also, I was really kind of stuck on the fact it's been almost 10 years since transparent came out. That's incredible. I can't believe that. We said that faith that's what how does it almost 10 years. Amazing. So I'm thrilled to be here with you all. MJ and I have a million people in common but I don't think we've ever met in person. Yeah, I don't
think that's right. I've admired your work. Yeah.
And yours as well. So I'm thrilled. But yeah, so I can't tell you much about it. I have not finished it. I had to turn in a weird draft for a grant application last year last week. That was like hilarious and not even close to done. Because I had finished it and then I went back and changed everything. And so that's what you just saw on my desk here is me changing it all again. So I'm excited. I'm thrilled that summer theatre group not only was willing to, you know, take a chance on letting me do this. But also, you know, letting me not know what it is and just trusting me I'll say that's a huge gift but I've never been given before is to just have someone program a show that I haven't even conceived yet is kind of incredible. And something that's not done very often, especially in a large stage like this. So I'm really honored by that and and honored to be the first Native American playwright on tape or stage ever. Just that's a bummer. But also Yay. I'm gonna stick with the VA. And it's kind of a bummer for them first, in 2023. But yeah, so that's, that's, I can't really talk about the show because I don't, it's still being written. There we are.
Well, thank you for that. Alright, so we're gonna talk a little bit more about the triumphs and tribulations of the first a little bit later on, but thank you for starting that off. So with Trent a transparent musical and faking until you make it we have two world premieres right. This will be the first time that audiences will get to see these works. On stage. And then with Twilight Los Angeles in 1992. And the search for signs of intelligent life in the universe. We have plays that are coming back to us reimagined new actors, new directors, Anna Jane up let's start with Anna, can you talk to us a little bit about I think we all know Twilight, but we can always be reminded of what Twilight is about and why in this moment, it's coming back to us and the importance of that. Well,
Twilight Los Angeles is about what's variously called the Los Angeles riots. The the uprising, the revolution, and most of the politicians called at the events in LA to be sure they didn't say the wrong thing. And I went to Gordon Davidson, the late Gordon Davidson, former head of the Mark Taper Forum invited me to come to Los Angeles to interview people about the riots and I went there a few months after and talked to 320 people all over Los Angeles and and wrote the play and in fact, it was in previews when right before a second trial of the police officers who had be a motorist Rodney King, and not going to jail the way that people expected them to. And, you know, I was invited by the Signature Theatre that does people's former work, to do the play I wanted to do with other actors with five actors, which I did. And then I think that what's I think the matter of race in America is always relevant, but what's particularly relevant in a landmark way perhaps, is that due to the pandemic, the opening of Twilight in New York was delayed and so before it was in rehearsal before it was anywhere near being produced, we all witnessed the murder of George Floyd. And, you know, the reason we even knew about Rodney King was that a man was George holiday was on his balcony testing out a new camera. A new video camera and happened to be there while Rodney King was being beaten by four cops. And now of course, with the murder of George Floyd, we wouldn't know about that if it weren't for the cell phone. So in some ways, I would say part of what brings my work to the theater is, is technology. But I want to say that I what I hope is the case in terms of the landmark is really different audiences. And I think that the work that everybody here is doing is likely to bring new and different audiences to the Mark Taper Forum. We all worry about what will happen to the theater, as it ages. So I do think just looking at this group of you that what we will offer the Mark Taper Forum is an opportunity to rejuvenate audience that I hope they'll take advantage of our presence in order to do that.
Yeah, the people that will see themselves as you said, Joey, who will feel not looked at but seen, not just like that, but seeing I think is what you said Jane, can you can you tell us a little bit about search and in the history of search and where it is now.
All well, I've rewritten a lot of things. I think there's so much that happened during that time. We focused a lot on the woman's and, and now abortion, all of the subjects now seem to be worthy of re examining. I've been doing a lot of rewriting and I still feel demanding Lee a lot of things still because I feel I just watched the news coming down here. It's just so terrible. Not Trump and everything. I can't a moment obsessed with it. You know, it's so brilliant what I did. You know, taking the news and the concept of doing I still can't figure out how you did the show. When I was so true, so real. And so things that we seen, you know, and and yet it gave another depth to everything it gave us a chance to look at things in motion I'd thought of your concept. Because
I need my concept
No, I still think it's just gonna be Richard Richard Richards you know, everything we know now we're all like, couch potatoes on our like I did something about the climate thing. And I feel like was that cheating to go back and I don't think so. I picked something that's open ended. That can be you know, revisited. Like like, stuff from now on. You could have something every week and I don't know if you could do it when you're trying to production and everything. But but it gives us a chance to reexamine and I've learned from rewriting some of his stuff how, how it's so great when you can go back and include what's happening today and have a vantage point or at least he's not going to love me after this and be the director because we keep giving her new things and she's wonderful. And Cecily apparently can learn anything. So I just keep on doing a new show. That's a different thing to examine what you've written, you know, I don't know that this isn't going to help anyone else but it's it's good for new writers do all hero. Another voice or something? I hear a little bit of
there's an echo a little bit.
Yeah, okay. Okay, you sound great. Well, I love what you're saying about reexamining and how continuing to come back to the work I always find this interesting. And I know you all know this as playwrights, the way in which a play whether it how many years ago it was written and true to that moment. How it can keep finding itself to meet the moment how it can keep being true to the moment and you're like, Oh, I wrote this 10 years ago, and 10 years later, it's still like it was written yesterday. And I think there's something about kind of the collective amnesia that we have as people going through the world experiencing as Jane has said the news. We've got one thing here one thing here and we kind of forget that things have happened before. And so when we have these plays that allow us to revisit and we're like, oh yeah, I mean the struggle for civil rights right? The struggle for Native American Rights for indigenous rights, like it's like the plays help us remind that the struggle is ongoing or that the fight is ongoing or that some of these issues have been a part of many generations before us. And for me, it kind of brings me some it makes me feel like I can fight because I know that people before me have done it. It doesn't feel so brand new doesn't feel so like it's just my generation. So thank you all for, for reflecting on your work and what your plays are about. I want to I want to jump to the first because Larissa, you said the first and we all kind of had the use of the yay. And then the the dam, the dam of being the first and 2022 which continues to remind us of how far we have to come. And when I think about first I think about folks like Lorraine Hansberry I think about justice cantante Jackson, I think about Audra McDonald. And I think about all these people who have experienced what it's like to be the first and with that have experienced the joy and the celebration and also the struggle, sometimes the vitriol of being the first that you experience from people who may or may not be ready. And I wondering if you all could reflect on moments in your career, where you were the first or one of the first and what it feels like to forge a path that hasn't been forced before. Lloris, I want to I want to start with you since you brought it up to us. What is it? What does it feel like?
Yeah, I mean, I don't have to look back I have look forward next year, three out of four of my new productions. I'll be the first either the first Native American on the stage with first name American woman, like I'll be the first Native American woman in the history of Broadway that we know of, I will say that we know of because I guarantee you there have been others but they just weren't for various reasons. Weren't identifying in that way. And same, you know, two other major stages are gonna be on next year. I'll be the first Native American at all, which is, again, who NDA. I tried to focus on the AAA but it's hard It sucks. It's a real bummer that that's the case and 2023 You know, this is stolen land and yet no native person has been allowed on these stages. I mean, it lets me just reminds me how endlessly how far behind American theater is and they like to think that they're so progressive and liberal with it, um, and yet, incredibly far behind in representation of indigenous peoples for sure. You know, we have a handful of native folks getting produced in the next couple years, but it's incredibly low. So it's hard. I will say the thing that you know, I was in a half of my work is done with Cornerstone Theatre Company. I've been with them for 10 years doing community community generated work with indigenous populations and with my collaborator, Michael, John Garces, and you know, we were just in somebody in a at a college with a bunch of Native students, and one of them said how they would love to have have a B so that the next one doesn't feel like they have to be perfect. And I just and I was like, you know, I still the first thing has to be right and reviewers don't like my work was annoying because they didn't like it. So you know, it's, I'm doing this for 15 years, and I still am the first all the time and I still feel like I have to be perfect at everything. Because if I'm not, they're not going to hire another one because I'm the first one and I'll be the last one and you know, I'm gonna screwed up everybody else. And, you know, that's a super self centered way. I'm an only child obviously, it's a super self centered way of looking at the world. But um, but it is you know, it is a pressure you feel constantly and you constantly feel like you have to make sure you know, I'm the good native that they invite another one in. And yet I'm still called difficult so called all these things because, you know, I'm always fighting for my community and society, next people and make sure we're recognizing that you know, I stand on the shoulders, you know, of so many others. Just so you know, there's, you know, just that constant trying to represent everybody, when you're the first and the only. It's exhausting. And I can't imagine what it be like to just be a white male writer. And just, like, just write shit and like, do it. Like, maybe it fails, you don't care and you don't have to bring anybody else with you. And you don't have to answer no community and like, I love all those things about my culture, but I can't imagine just writing something. Like that's just crazy. I've never been given that opportunity. To just, I mean, just write and not worry about how it does or who I'm representing or who after to speak to afterwards or who I'm responsible to. That's just I can't imagine how freeing that would be. That's hasn't happened yet.
Thank you for naming that. That weight, that weight of representation. It's both an honor and a weight you still feel it as you're not work and I'm wondering does that resonate for? For Fe for MJ Joey Anna Jane about being that first feeling that weight? Yeah.
I mean, I love what you said Lewis about like, first that we know of I think about that all the time with trans things because we actually have so many trans ancestors who didn't know were trans who were in the closet or had other names for how they expressed their gender identity or just like never had the language or framework to realize their true selves. And I and I always want to honor them. I really resonated with a lot of what you said about feeling like I have to represent or speak for everyone, because I guess, I don't know, I don't know about first but I've had a lot of times when I was the only the only person in a in a program or a fellowship or a season or or, you know, the only one Well, I I thought that I was probably the first because of the level of sort of like microaggressions and unpreparedness that the theater had towards me. But I think the thing that that I think about the most when it's happening is who why someone gets to be the only is sort of like I'm sitting there thinking like this is ridiculous because there are so many talented trans writers out there that like I could name them for an hour and still not name all the ones that I admire, you know, so So why am I the only one here and it's because of this like, desire to sort of like tokenize which means that that they sort of like that but like the the industry wants one person to represent everyone and so it's sort of like always tips towards like the how to say it like the least intersectional or something you know, like like it like, I'm white. I come from like a certain amount of class privilege. I got to go to Yale School of Drama like all of these things, I think are part of why I've been able to be like the first in the only trans writer in a number of spaces. And I like feel that viscerally when I'm in them. And so you know, as a result, have like, always wanted to, to, to sort of like constantly be wearing this thing of like, I can't speak for everyone. I can't speak for everyone. I can't speak for everyone, which is really, really exhausting. So I really echo what you said about that. And then I think another aspect of it that I felt is this, like constant need to prioritize other people's growth of my own by educating them so I don't get to actually have the experience of like being a playwright in rehearsal, because I'm having to educate everyone about what this play is about how to talk about this character, how to talk to me how to talk about me, and it just, you know, it can use up all your energy and the options are kind of like, well, I can educate them or I can have a really bad time and a bad production or I can leave it. So that's one way that I've really felt it.
You you feel fearful, you must in a way, what's happened politically and how just just what's happened politically it seems so dark, what's happening? Does that motivate you more? Why? To work and
someone else want to answer?
Yeah, I'm happy to to just talk about this moment, Jane. And you know this. There's a writer named Olivia laying and she says fascism loves a binary. And so in this musical, we're going back to Berlin right before Hitler rose to power. And we went there a little bit in transparent but but going to the Institute for Sexual abuse in Charlotte, where Magnus Hirschfeld was really defining trans science. You know, they knew all this stuff that we're all trying to get people to say there's more than two genders. There's such thing as both. This was known 30.
Germany was futuristic in what they were doing, and that's why I just sometimes when I read so much dystopian so many things that, like science fiction is so dystopian and and I think so much similarity in what's happening today. Fascism is the right word. Fascism, right?
It's yeah, our dark and I know just my husband, you know, with MJ riding with faith riding with me writing with all of us writing from a trans perspective. Then people will come. I'm hoping that people will walk out and they'll just be like, Oh, I got it. Like, I love trans people, too. Like it's okay. To take a stand for these non binary kids or for this person who, like, I really want people to be shifted in their belief that they think they know what this like kind of woke you know, whatever people think about trans people that were part of some like woke joke, you know, and to end to not only make a play that says we're real but to faith to be writing songs that people are going to be singing in their car on the way home and then somebody else singing they're gonna say you have to go to the play like it is that it is the reason I get up in the morning Jane, the belief that you know if we can make the art that addresses this idea of fascism, but does so through art, you know, through through music, through song through writing. That's really the only the I think the only way to keep going at this point, you know, to believe that our voice matters
it's hard for me to believe that it's just a few years to become what we become. And I feel like we have become, you know, in a dark place and we're just loving what you all are doing is very important.
Well, it was Toni Cade Bambara. I'm gonna mess up the code just a little bit. But so the role of the cultural worker or the artists is to make the revolution irresistible. And in some ways, like when you talk about you know, singing the song from transparent in the car and it being passed to pass on to someone, you know, you're kind of singing the revolution without them really kind of knowing it. And so, I do see that in all of your work as making the revolution and the many revolutions that we need to get to get to a more equitable, more just space that happens in each of your work. And I want to talk a little bit about, you know, your work and meeting the moment and politics and revolution because it shows up pretty glaringly in Twilight, but when you were coming to LA and doing these interviews, did you have a sense that you were recording the moment that you were archiving, that you were a part of that a part of the history that you would become a part of the history as you were gathering these different interviews?
Well, of course, because the city was, was still in shambles, so in a real way, you know, buildings are still burnt. To go to learn Los Angeles, you have to go great, great lengths. So I went from Simi Valley to Nickerson Gardens to Beverly Hills and so forth. So yeah, and then this second trial that people forget about that George Bush, called a second trial federal trial to review what he's four police officers have done I went to that trial. And everybody was afraid there was going to be another riot. In fact, one of the people who I traveled around with was a young at the time. Reporter at the Los Angeles Times Hector Tobar. Now he's village a prize winning author and in fact, in revising the play for five actors, I included him I'll never forget him calling me to say, you know, you got to get down here is going to be another riot and have a gas mask for you. At the same time, something that I want to point out, you know, this word intersectional I do think you know, you say, Joey that fascism likes that which is binary. It also likes us to be divided into different camps. And one of I think the most moment I was so grateful for when I wrote Twilight is that I got a call from two Korean American students, graduate students at USC, called me and they said, we heard what you're doing, and we know you're gonna get it wrong, referring to how I suppose as a black woman would represent what happened in the Korean American community. And so they said, We think you're going to get it wrong. And here's the important part. They said, so we want to help you. They took me around Los Angeles, but where I couldn't possibly have gone places I didn't even know about churches that were underneath huge churches that were like underneath what looked like just a small store. They translated for me, there's no way I could have had that part of the story, you know, a story this, this the vast, vast metropolis. I couldn't possibly have been able to meet that community and so I think it's really important that even as we protect our landmarks, that we also try to meet the people who are willing to travel from place to place. You know, and then you know, something that keeps coming to my mind is about courage. Right, real courage and Jane, you may remember this. It's something I came across when I was doing research for a project that don't you know, those rabbit holes maybe a year ago, and it was Lily Tomlin on The Dick Cavett Show and there was some male television star on the show, and he was talking about what he owned and in talking about the things he owned, he said he owned his wife. And Lily Tomlin said something like you own your wife, and she said, I have to leave the show. And she got up and she took off the set of national television and did Cabot and this movies television star kept talking as though she had not done
that's wonderful point. No, because I was demonstrated that up and of course it turned up. Because you're right. That's the point that they didn't really honor what the her outrage at all. They didn't know you're talking. But we all saw. Yeah, that's wonderful. That's a wonderful thing to bring up because I hadn't even I hadn't even thought at that point that they went on talking as if nothing, you know, they just let her I mean, it was surprising to all of us. And I don't even remember all of that because I was kind of disturbed that she'd done it. But then of course afterwards it was heroic. It was wonderful. And I think she's walked off with a few shows that maybe not as political.
You know, Samia does that but I'm glad you brought that up because she was always kind of proud of that. You know, after settling down, and I was proud of her too. Although not
a nation of selling yourself in those contexts.
No. No. That was gonna
mention, I was gonna mention a cultural critic. Her name is Lily Lou Faro. And she says that what's as you know, even more dangerous to female artists, and trans artists than the male gaze is the male glance, meaning nothing. That reminds me of what you said and about this moment, you know that they just decided that Lily's outrage was they were going to glance and then they were going to return back and I feel like when you mentioned Larissa, that you've gotten bad reviews, like my blood starts to boil. You know, I want to write to every one of the papers and say, Where are the indigenous people on your staff? Who are your indigenous reviewers know, when women and trans people and anybody who's outside finally gets there aren't made we're faced, you know, with a male industrial white sis male industrial critic, critics world, and we're still having our work seen through the eyes of people who actually don't feel comfortable sitting in our shoes for a couple of hours. It doesn't feel good. If you have privilege and you set yourself center yourself all day long to not see yourself. We know that. So So then, male reviewers will review if they would want to hang out with a protagonist or if they think they liked the playwright. Or if they think like it's, it feels like I'm immoral, actually, you know, for major newspapers to not have trans people and not have female critics, black critics, indigenous critics and to really do a non men, you know, a couple years of criticism. I'd like to see that and see what would happen to our work if we were getting great reviews because we weren't having to prove ourselves, you know, white supremacy patriarchy sis normativity
Joey I love that mentioned. No Go January.
Well, I'm just gonna say I love but you talk about the multiple levels of where this exists, right? Because there's, there's the programming, there's the show itself, then there's the critics and there's the producers, you know, there's levels to this. And each, each kind of action is kind of chipping away at what has been centuries and centuries of exclusion and what I what I love so much about an exclusive a season program exclusively for women, or an end for people, not non male people not in the binary is that. You know, this is I'm gonna go sidetrack a little bit but forever go watch his big brother. A year ago or a few years ago, there was like an All Black Alliance formed and it shook the brother world up and there were a lot of people were like, well, what would you do if people formed an all white Alliance? And the people have to be reminded that all white alliances were the norm. Men, men seasons have been the norm and we just accepted that things can exclusively one way and haven't thought to reimagine that things can be exclusively the other way. And so I think it's really exciting. It's a new precedent. It's a new way to say that this is the norm to have a season that does not include a man that is all women, and it's all non binary, and it's all trans, and it's all native, and it's all black. That can also be the norm it can be the way we operate. And so I think it's it's just a really exciting again landmark Turning Point juncture, and what is possible, and what gets
out of you have to mention that it took a man to make it happen. And that what Jeremy should should inspire other, you know, men to say, to give up their privilege and to demand that people, center non men, only men can do that. We really can't hear
Your word. Your word glance is a very important word to highlight, because I'm 72. And so I've watched these moments, these landmark moments of cultural revision, and they don't last very long. And so the question is, how do we leverage this moment, so that more people can participate? And so that we get a hold of parts of the structure? And, you know, for me audience is one of those really important parts that we look at even though it you know, you I had a whole institute at Harvard for three summers just on because when I did Twilight on Broadway, the whole audience was white, right? So I gave up three summers and the months in the year to create this thing. Maybe I could have been writing another play. Maybe I could have been, you know, learn French, I don't know. And so, back to the rest of something that you're saying there's all this work we have to do when the paradigm is shifting and and it's only a glance. So maybe one one thing for us to think about is who can we collaborate with, you know, who, who even outside of the theater can we bring in to try to really make a cultural shift that isn't just about regional theater or movies or TV?
I love what you said and about things not lasting, and about figuring out that someone asks a question about how do we sustain this? How do we make sure that it's not just one incredible landmark season that was so cool, and never been done before? And then not then again for years and years to come? And so I think that is a really important provocation for all of us here on the screen, and then also audiences who are watching now and who watch this later, how can we sustain this? How can we sustain it? How can we sustain this cultural revision this turning point, and make sure that we don't turn back that we don't go back to what has been done before? And there's I don't know if it's going to be answered right now in this moment, but it's important to think about how are we as Joey mentioned with with Jeremy, how are we activated? As allies across identities that are that indirectly affect all of us because all of us are in community with each other, whether we like it or not. So we are all being affected by one thing that affects another person. So I really appreciate that as kind of a lasting moment for us to end on is how do we stain this landmark? How do we turn and not turn back? We are in our final closing minutes and CTG has a season preview that they want to share with the audience. But before we do that, I want to thank all of our incredible playwrights for your time your generosity, your spirit, your knowledge or wisdom, for your work to come and to come and to come. Yes, Ron. Thank you so much. And we're gonna watch that season preview and we will be out your time today everyone YEAH.
