Casting Queer Theatre in 2026—Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) Conference 2026

Are we good to go? >> All right. So, I I will start us off with a somewhat ritualistic removal of my hunger pack um because it is somewhat too small for me. But I I wanted to start with this on today just as a a a moment to shout out our founders um I'm sorry, our sponsors and our uh inspiration um and to thank them for the free swag that they provided us with. Um so welcome everyone to our panel and our um filming of our live conversation about casting queer theater in 2026. We are thrilled to be here today. Um and I thank everyone for coming. Um I will take a second to introduce everyone in just a moment but just to start to give a little bit of context as to what we're doing. My name is John Michael Dursta. Um, I thank you for joining us today in grand ballroom two um for our roundt on casting queer theater in the academy and in the industry. Um, I'll do full introductions in a moment, but I will just start today and I'll start now by saying that I am honored uh beyond belief that how has entrusted me to curate and moderate this round table with this extraordinary panel. Um, and I look forward to being in community with everyone today. We're video recording this event to Sharon Holler on TV. So, I also want to say hello to the folks in the future who are joining us virtually. Thank you so much for being here. Nice to see you. Um, our panel today coincides with Howound's recently released Queer Theater on Campus series, which I was lucky enough to curate. Um, and I hope that our conversation today will inspire you to go to howround.com and read some of the really remarkable work that was published. Um, it tackles subjects ranging from directing queer and trans theater under Macka billboards in central Ohio to having a cosmic cup of coffee with Paula Bogle. And uh, the contributors, two of whom are my students, who I'm extremely proud of, uh, put together some really, really fascinating information about what it is to create queer theater on college campuses nationwide. Um so our conversation today can go in any number of directions and we're going to work um in a risomatic way as one of the essays talks about. Um we're going to be constellational and see where our conversation goes over the course of our time together. Um things we can talk about include how we cast queer roles to how we work with young queer actors to how the postco conversations about equity and liberation impact the way that we envision casting and storytelling. Um, as we begin today, I'm particularly interested in our conference theme of activating imagination in and communities. Um, and I'm really curious to explore how casting and querness combine to spark audience imagination and foster community. Um, we are a marvelously diverse group up here today on this side of the two movable tables as we are on the other side of the movable table as we are um online. Uh we are professors at gigantic universities and tiny colleges. We are artistic directors and freelance directors. We work on stages large and small. So I just can't wait to see where our competition goes. Um so before we get to the meat of our conversation today, I will take a moment to introduce our panel. Um I will start to my right with Barbie. Barbie pronouns are she her is a professionalbased actor, director, and professor. Born and raised in Taiwan. Barbie discovered her passion for acting in 2003 as an exchange student at Eugene. After earning her bachelor's degree from the University of Oregon, she received her masters of fine arts degree and acting from Southern Methodist University in 2014 whose scholarly interests are focused around contemporary plays written by playwrights from the piping LGBTQA communities and her classes on acting and directing will highlight this material. She's a resident artist at Artist Rep and was featured in the tiger role of the Chinese lady who believes theater should be a vehicle of social change and will always strive to manifest that belief in her work. In addition to her work at Artist Rep, she is an assistant professor at Reed College. Um, I'm gonna go down the line. So, Sarah Sarah Gayenstein is a director, educator, performer, writer, and speech coach. She's currently an assistant professor in the department of film, television, and theater at Notre Dame University. She came to Notre Dame from univer from Northwestern where she worked as a visiting assistant professor in the MFA directing program, Bill Catz, and the associate producer to the MFA acting program. Her research titled The Body on Stage: Best Practices in Directing addresses how to reduce harm in theatrical spaces while actively investigating the mind body relationship and its effects on bringing our authenticelves into collaboration processes. And as a queer theater bonus, she was one of the original contributors to the script for Five Lesbians eating a kiche, which has been produced over 150 times and translated into five languages. uh going down the line. Ashley's on my phone, so forgive me for taking this out, but I'm Ashley. We're both Italian, so if I pronounce her last name wrong, my mother will kill me. Ashley Malronte is a director, drama, educator, and editor who is utterly obsessed with stories and the people who tell them. She is senior editor and learning programs manager at How Theater Commons and formerly served as the head of theater studies at the water wall drama program in New York City's professional performing arts school. She's also a PhD student in the in theater and performance at the Kuni Graduate Center where her research focuses on theatrical adaptations and revival, the economics of theater, directing practice, and the performance of race and whiteness in US modern drama. Uh, continuing down the line, Bo Frasier is a two-time Jeff nominated director, producer does work in London, Chicago, New York City, Baltimore, and more. Currently, they are artists and residents at Baltimore Center Stage, where they have launched the Trans History Project, a revolutionary national initiative to commission 10 plays by trans and gender non-conforming playrs about TGNC history in partnership with breaking the binary theater. In Chicago, go directed for the Goodman, First Floor, Boho Theater, Filament, Mudlark Theater, and produced project of Victory Gardens, Rivendell, Pivot Arts, and Sideshow. Favorite directing and choreography credits include the all trans sold out Chicago production of Tick Tick Boom, Wonderboy by Jana Jarrett, on Kelly Fire, hit the wall by Nick Holder, and the off West End premiere of The Dinner Party by Neil Simon, and their ensemble created music theater rip on Check out Seagull entitled Constitin at Dixon Place, which I really want to talk to you about after, but it is today. up. And uh finally, Stephen Walker Webb is a Tony Award nominated and Obie award-winning director, playwright, cultural worker, and educator, and the artistic director of Baltimore Center Stage. His work has been commissioned by the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Black Theater, and he has been produced on and off Broadway. Select productions include eight number on Broadway at the public theater, Dun Powder, at Paper Mill Playhouse, which is coming to Broadway this fall, as Wanted the Musical, which I can't wait to take my students to see me. Um we're at one and two of the new group black skate plastic stage and fair of for television. He has written for the Emmy award nominated comedy of Miss Pacho and BT Walker is also the founder of hundreds of thousands and arts and advocacy organization makes visual the suffering and inhumane treatment of incarcerated mentally ill people. He's the recipient of the Francis Grace Award, the Lily Award, awarded by Grammarly Grammarly Skil America, and he is a 2050 fellow at the New York theater workshop. Um, and just very briefly, uh, my name is John Festa. I'm a theater director, drama director, a director and assistant professor of directing, and I'm head of the musical theater program at university. Um, I do play drama, new work development. Uh my area of focus is queer liberation and I'm currently in the middle of a multi-year queer community building process and endeavor which I've been leading in which we've been excavating last queer plays which I previously read about how round. Um and if problematic but liberatory apocryphal mid 20th century queer theater is your jam I want to talk to you. Uh okay enough of that let's talk. So I started today or sorry before before we started um I asked everyone on our panel to bring in a case study. My prompt was can you think of a moment when questions around casting and querness intersected in a complicated exciting challenging or liberatory way? How did you handle the scenario and how has it impacted your work moving forward? So I thought I would start there today. Um I'm going to invite everyone to open the conversation and I'm going to gleefully turn over my prepared remarks. there's nothing else prepared not about to come. Um, so I open us up from here if anyone would like to start us off with an example of a time where queerness and casting intersected in interesting or challenging or productive ways. >> Oh my gosh, >> I'm looking at Would you like to start? >> I'll start. Um, so I joined Reed College back in 2020 and um, the first show I directed on campus was a play called The Last Croissant by Veronica Joe. They're a non-binary playright based in LA and they also have a theater called Attic Collective and they're absolutely amazing. And the show is tricky because there are two characters that are playing the opposite gender in the show. And I had a trans student that was really interested in the role of Frederick. That means a female actor playing the role of like a male character. And she was um She was really worried about her gender identity being mistaken in the role. And so I made sure as we're casting the show that she was working closely with our costume designer. So there was like there wasn't any sort of like facial hair on her because she just did not feel comfortable with that and we were very careful about the whole process. So she felt confident playing the role that she was playing in. >> Awesome. Thank you. We could go down the line. >> Um, I think the the example I can think of uh was directing the wolves at Northwestern for my MFA directing program. Um, and a student, a non-binary student asking if they could audition. And I said, "Well, of course you can audition." Um, male presenting but still working through their identity and and how they were. It was fascinating because it is a show that calls for female presenting actors. But the thing that it actually taught me in terms of like casting sheets is to open the audition sheets is to open it up in terms of saying what roles do you want to audition for? What roles don't you want to audition for? And I find that by doing that it breaks open break breaks open my casting process in terms of inviting anyone that wants to audition because I don't I mean it was an MFA it's an educational setting like why not take risks or not even risk like break it open let's see what we can do. Granted this performer was not right for the role only really just because of like what I was looking at for what their skills were. I worked with them the year before. lovely. But it was like I was like, "Yeah, let's see it. Why not?" And because of inviting that, I felt I felt like it broke open how I was my own unintentional limitations of what I might think of something in terms of giving agency to the actor to tell me what what could what could be. Uh, and I found that to be liberating. >> I'm so glad you brought up auditions. This is something I want to for the rest of our conversation. How do we clear auditions? This question of what is the audition process? And in particular, in many different environments where we get >> three minutes per actor, how do you clear an audition process? >> And I and I help by also saying what don't you want to audition for and give the agency particularly in educational settings where students feel like they're being put into boxes or need to feel like they see themselves in one way where it's like, well, what what if we look at it in a different way? Particularly when we're not being or making money off of this production. Like why the job is for me to teach them how to pursue teach them to break open the process and like let's start from the ground up versus being told who you are and what you will be eligible for. >> As we think about where our conversation goes, I want to really put a pin in this question of who can audition for certain parts. There's a legacy of that question. There's a history of that question that is steeped in white supremacy and steeped in an important long history and I think as we're theater makers that is really really crucial. Um, I think I want to take the queer casting uh conversation lower in age because I've done a lot of work with high school and middle school students um where oftentimes like we're thinking about queer casting um like sexuality is is nent and informed by like home life for these students. Maybe they're performing for the it becomes like a a really fraught situation where maybe they they would like to audition for a particular role or be considered for a particular role and that is complex at home or celebrated at home or complex in their classroom the next day if you're in a school environment. So I think having heard already about auditions and about um costumeuming a little bit, I've asked questions on audition forums about what are you comfortable wearing on stage. past like a middle school level production of um Legally Blonde Jr. and I'm like, who wants to wear a skirt? Who does not want who's comfortable wearing this jumpsuit? What are we um like and hair as well? Um but the thing that actually comes to mind is a a high school production of Carol Churchel's Mad Forest that I directed, which on its face is not a premier casting decision. Um but in my uh at the school I was teaching at in the Waterwell drama program um it was a production entirely for the junior class and I had a couple of students come into the auditions and similar to what you were saying Sarah um say can I audition for this role? Um so I had one student um who's a sizz girl um say I want I really want to play. She's a Hungarian character. we're already doing like Romanian Revolution with 16-year-olds. Um, and so we're already going to be doing a lot a lot of thinking together about context and learning together. And she was like, I I'm really interested in this character of Yanu. She's a kind of outsider Hungarian character. Um, and she really did not want to play a female role. Uh and by bringing her into that role, it created an interesting dynamic in the cast. Um where what had been written as a heterosexual couple be or a heterosexual coupling became queer. Um, and this like kind of boy cub fratty group um of a few of the characters also wasn't necessarily queered in the same way as the relationship was, but it it upset an inherited gender dynamic in this play that was also hysterically based um in a way that ended up being really fruitful and rehearsing um and I think unlocked a little bit for some of the students but also So, frankly, caused some of them to shut down. Some of the other 16-year-olds in the room were like, "Oh, I didn't sign up for this particular dynamic." Um, and so navigating that over the course of several months with youths um was a really informative process. >> Yeah, that's there's a lot in there. Thank you. And the query are all proud of >> I can't take credit. Um, I was going to talk about my own translation, but this had me think about something else. Um, uh, I directed Hit the Wall by I Culture. Um, also my MFA thesis production at University of Iowa. Um, and for those who don't know, it's a docu drama rock concert about Stonewall. Um, and it we were as you do in universities, it's like you are 10 productions are auditioning at the same time and there's a form they fill out and we were not allowed to change the board um because it was an online thing and there just wasn't, you know, support. Um, and specifically around Stonewall, there are characters that I wrote that could be interpreted as trans characters, but are a little bit open-ended purposefully by Ike. Um, but then it came to like when I was writing the character descriptions for each show, I wanted to make sure that certain uh people of certain identities felt they could audition for roles. So there is specifically um what I interpreted as a black trans woman and a white trans man in the show. Um but because of the language of the character descriptions, which again I was not allowed to change, um I called back a young white trans mask human for this character. Um, but the character description uh was so much lesbian and this 19-year-old did not know the history around the terminology and how so much led to a lot of gender non-conformity. Um, and they were extremely upset by what they interpreted as being considered only as a lesbian. Um, and we had a conversation and it was great. Um, and they turned out to play the role beautifully because I wanted to I really wanted to display that history of gender donor even in 1969 before we had the terms before we had um transgender and non-binary and everything. Um, but it just like it made me really think about what are we writing in character descriptions? How are we saying who who can audition, who we would like to see, and who is eligible for a character? um and like these systems and universities that we can't change um which is challenging. >> Thanks. I haven't clocked the number of times we've talked about the form the form that you have to fill out when you audition and the ways in which that creates complications. >> Yes. >> Um first like thank you for having me. I feel I feel blessed to be at this panel to be listening to you all. Um and even just just thinking about Ashley how you were talking about um the ways in which you're creating safe and challenging and brave space you know with high school students and like how like those kinds of spaces and rooms and questions and opportunities were afforded to probably any of us. Um, and so like it's like heart opening to know that um that there's just so so many light workers and love workers paving paving the way for the next generation. Um the the kids are going to be just fine and I always like uh am reminded of that whenever I'm in the presence of the the coming generation of artists. Um, I think like for me like queer is is is it's not my it's not just my sexuality or my identity. It's like my methodology and it's my practice. It's like how I move through the world. Um, you know, like if people who were Christians thought about Christianity as a practice as opposed to as a religion, people who were Jewish thought about their Judaism as a practice, you know, or you could put it, you could feel it any religion, you know. So um when I started um when I found like Buddhism or when Buddhism about me maybe um I uh I I I was going around calling myself a Buddhist and then I was listening to honest like I just am just forever trying to see how I can sit under his tutelage even though he's going on. Um but I he gave a really good talk about you know Buddhism being a practice and that no one can actually be a Buddhist and it's something that you practice every day. Um and and and so this idea of clearing the um the audition room because I'm because I'm practicing how to be a good gay if you will um a little bit every day in my life. Um, uh, structures hate to see me coming. Like, uh, oh my gosh, I can't tell you how many times I've, um, been in Pearl Studios or wherever, whatever the craziness of Time Square, 42nd Street, where those or all those like rehearsals are, I mean, auditions are. New42 hates to see me cut because like and a producer hates to see me cut a little bit too because like um if you give me a a call sheet and there's 15 or 40 people I'm supposed to see in an hour, everyone knows you're in trouble because like I start an audition process with the game. When when when an actor walks into my room, I'm going to treat them just like it's an audition. I mean like not an audition, but it's a day rehearsal. It's the first day of rehearsal. So I'm going to play a vol game. Um, and that's going to take >> Oh my god. >> I just somewhere wild or something. >> But but it is that that kind of energy, right? which is um I think it's queer energy like even even saying I'm just going to walk around the room a little bit and like giving people space to um to bring their querness um and to like we need to queer the word queer in the way that we think about it because like all of us are a little bit queer I hope I don't want to live in a world where people aren't queer and but but in the the direct response to that is um I was working on I guess the law yeah I was working on uh the good with TYC and um I was being trained at that time. Um it was early days for me. It's like maybe over a decade ago. I don't know what time it is. Um and my the the joker was training me um their name is Sulu and they were there executive director of um TMYC now. Um but they were um like the associate executive at that time. And we were working at the Ali Fornate uh center in Harlem um which is a home for um LGBTQ uh plus like displaced youth many of whom have been you know thrown away or run away. Um and we were building a play about housing insecurity um in this young this young population like you know like 15 to 21. It was like a mixed bag of ages and and um varying experiences with the arts and with theater. Um and at that time I wasn't even really hip to or aware of uh what I think of as this non-binary revolution which I think is quite beautiful. That's causing all causes me to question so much in um in our society. And I the the pronouns, naming the pronouns was at that time really it felt very new. Um and my first encounter with that was at the California troop. We're sitting here on our first day and there's a young woman who um who said that their pronouns were they, she and um and then the next day she said her pronouns were Mr. Bunny. And then the next day, so our pronouns changed every day. Their pronouns changed, his pronouns changed, Mr. Bunny's pronouns changed every single day. And one day their pronouns were cloud. And then I realized that I was not only dealing with like a truly free spirit, but I was also dealing or in encountering someone who had a different kind of neural neural pattern, right? They were not neurotypical, if you will. And so their scene partner um was a queer man who was sis and was very at the beginning stages of his coming into his identity. And it was quite challenging for him to be opposite someone who had a different identity representation every single day. It was a [ __ ] show. Like it was like the most amazing explosion of complications I've ever ever experienced. And the entire rehearsal process had to adapt to a character whose gender identity and sexual that whole it's like I'm Mr. Bunny today and then I'm someone else tomorrow and like pronouns were brought into question every single day. Now mind you we are like on a three-w weekek rehearsal process where we have to put this ball play up this bowl play up in front of elected officials in like three weeks. Um, and um, and I I I remember having a moment where my understanding and my patience was tested and I walked out of the room because I didn't know how to hold the space. Um, and my walking out of the room as this acting as the person holding the container created a kind of vulnerability in the space where everyone came down because I think sometimes when we as facilitators, as leaders, as teachers, um, directors, whatever your position of power is, sometimes we I know I can't perform being okay um, and can perform form trying to be this container and my inability to be the container in the in the moment cleared the space in this really beautiful way where everyone was like, "Oh, we kind of need to like get our [ __ ] together a little bit." Um, so that we can see each other because we're not the person that's trying to help us see each other. >> And um, and Sulu was there. food and leave the space because they're just incredible. And they were so sensitive in not trying to fix the disruption. I didn't explode. I didn't scream. I just took a moment. And when I came back, the way that we held that space as a community was so different. Um I don't know what I learned about that. Um I just know that I experienced it. >> Yeah. >> You're you're using the word queer as a methodology and then unpacking the ways in which queer was a methodology for you during that process. I think that's so relevant to so much of what we engage as both professional artists and as as academics. Um, I will share, you know, I won't point to a full case study for me, but what I'm taking away from what everyone said is my case study is a situation I've had three times in which I've had I rate queer students in my office or sometimes not in my office and getting a second hand who are furious that I've cast a straight student in a queer role. um said state said straight student has already been in my office crying and coming out to me and is not out at large and I'm facing that tension there. I'm also old enough to know that E Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal were not the first choices for for Brokeback because straight actors wouldn't play gay at that point. So I'm old enough to be carrying the memory of it is it is a detriment to play queer. So it is a it is a complicated situation when we are holding that for ourselves as you were holding that room and as we're talking about all these things we're holding during the process and also simultaneously needing to take care of the actor who feels unrepresented because their queer identity is not being honored in the roles that they're getting cast in and also remembering that the closet still exists. The closet is is an extremely powerful force and and all of those forces are at play as we're casting. I wonder if other folks have uh ideas about queer methodology, queer as a verb, queer as a process that we use whether we're casting or we're in rehearsal or we're thinking about how we use identity in in what we put on stage. How does queer work? >> I feel like for me um because I'm formally trained as an active produced before I became a director. I feel like so much of the time I felt so limited by how I'm perceived as an individual that as I'm casting my plays, I'm always thinking about my trans actors. I think I forgot to mention that my actor that was playing a male character was a trans actor that was really worried about their gender identity to be mistaken. And I I mean like both of the shows like directed at um Le College have trans actors because I feel like they are actors, right? This is what they're called to do. So I'm going to have a trans actor playing a a man that it doesn't specify if they're sis or not. And I don't feel like that should be the limitation of how I see this actor, period. I just feel like the society is already trying so hard to make us feel like we don't we shouldn't be here and shouldn't shouldn't exist based on I don't I don't know your racial heritage or your gender identity and I just do not want to be that gatekeeper for my students. >> Thank you so much for that. >> The number the frequency with which I'm sure many of us hear the word gatekeeping >> is it exists in so many different in different realms. >> I I actually have two faculty members in my department here right now. Um and I think he's saying when I come from Northwestern and Notre Dame, which are two very uh different theater cultures in terms of um I would say familiarity with like what's going on in the theater world with like new plays, things like that. in terms of Northwestern having 400 theater undergrads and Notre Dame having like four like majors, theater majors and um both wonderful sets of students but different different culture of learning. I would say the Notre Dame student I find to be more differential and very curious about what's going on but not as well versed in terms of when I would say c things like um we see white American theater and sometimes they're like wait what what is that and you're like oh wow okay even though some of them I do know performed it they just forget so what I would say is like at Northwestern say one of the last classes I taught before I moved on was a class of 15 students and 12 of the 15 identified with they them pronouns I have encountered two in my classes at Notre Dame I've now taught several courses and in my thinking it's like that's just not possible like that's there you're not there's a there's an environment with which and I don't know if it's and I'm still new there I don't know if it if it's the school it's how they've been brought up it's and I'm not disparaging Catholic Catholicism I'm Jewish I don't I'm still learning a lot about it um but the culture with which they are in does not invite a querness and so I'm I'm still learning I I don't have an answer to it but like how do I create a space and I do see it somewhat happening with which students feel like the department is a place where they can be themselves and that they can be open and I honestly the things you're saying like games I do a lot of games because I find that it helps them like be more childlike like remember play and then remember who they are and then like loosen up a little bit and that we're all just kind of we have no idea what we're doing. And I think by doing so, it it invites them within that room, just that room, not the school, but just that one rehearsal room or classroom to just be themselves. And and I'm still that's what my research is. It's like how do we invite the actual person into the room? Um, and I I do say games and joy like uh and like humor tend to let people breathe a little bit and I'm still looking. Yeah, I think a lot about um I'm a very process driven director and like all my friends were trained was like for my personal mission was like how to figure out what is the right process for a right show but also like how to how to set up the room the rehearsal room for the most creativity. Um, and like I've sort of like formulated a my own like foundational querying of the space in I think obviously degendering most things of like saying friends instead of guys like I I'm not from the south but I do say y'all just because it's gender neutral. Um, >> and really like I I personally hate the rigidity of table work. Um, and I think that there for some people um, you need the basis, you need the foundation of the discussion, of the analysis. But like I'm there two rehearsals maximum because once you are up on your feet, you can learn to be free. You can learn to explore um, because the body and mind are so connected. But I think that a lot of especially actors in training get so stuck in their head because they're being taught so many things and learning to create their own creative toolkit for themselves as a performer. Um, so like yes, games and stuff, but I'm always like always having to be quering quering the space and quering the process to get the most creativity. Um, I come from a devising background. Um, well, musical theater and devising um, which are clashing a lot. Um, but from the devising I I'm I'm always a director that thinks of myself as a flat waiter. Um, and that is very much like if actors have ideas, >> I want them to say that we're going to try it. >> And it's not even if I I think it is the worst idea ever or like it really doesn't work. Half the time I'm like, wait, that's genius. Um, so it's clearing the process is a huge thing for me once the casting happens >> and letting a space where there I I do work with a lot of young actors and like this the closet is real. >> Um, and just letting people explore and learn to be themselves. I want to pull like this is not an example from my own practice but something that feels like we're asking like I love like how does queer verb um like queer ass process um I want to shout out in my how roundness um a really wonderful podcast called gender euphoria bo has a great episode just saying on the most recent season um but it's hosted by Nicholas and Savar and the second season is all on um queer intimacies and Nicholas Nicholas has a great episode where they invite on um Jason Pancrret who's the author of a play called Seahorse that Nicholas directed as well as the uh actor who played the lead in that whose name is EMTT something emittskiowski I apologize Emit if you ever see this um and it's a really wonderful episode I highly recommend it but something about um process that is coming to me from that episode and and from Nicholas's process is that they worked with um like they put themselves in direct relationship with a number of different like organizations and groups in their community as a way to source um collaborators and make connections. And I think that sometimes when we start at casting, we start at audition, we say these are actors who are coming to us, we are erasing a bunch of work that can happen before that. And the the particular bit I want to offer um that I learned from Nicholas in this episode was um having a bit I think it might have been on the form although I think that actually the auditions for this play were more conversational interview style um was saying oh and if you're not if we don't have a role for you on stage like what are your other skills? Mhm. >> Do you want to just do you want to be in the room? Like if this is a room >> for you and we're saying this is a room for you, but this thing this being on stage is not the way that we can have you in the room. Do you like sound? Do you What do you think about cause? like are there other ways to be in community with someone who's approaching you as an actor or are there other ways to activate community that is not already explicitly casting itself as actor and I think that's another way to reshape process I tag on to that yeah I asking like are you interested in front crew design anything like that especially so that folks know that like this room is open to them and when it comes to games or checkins Everybody in the room is invited to participate. It's not just for the actors. And that's another thing that I actually speak with the actors about is who's on your group chat. We mentioned this um in another panel I was on, but the group chat or whatever it is, the acting, whatever, I don't know about it, but everyone should be on it. Everyone that's in like it's not just for the actors. Those are not the only people because as we all know as you produce theater like there's a lot of people that make this happen and the the soundboard off is just as significant as the lead role and I think they tend to be excluded because it doesn't count and I think that that actually opens it up to more collaboration and like shared space where people everyone feels like they have a voice. They can also opt not to participate, but the the imitation is there. >> I'm thinking a lot about what we said about um childlike play and joy. And I I wish for me that my directing career is almost exclusively what we would call queer theater. Um either because of who wrote it or at subject matter or both. When I think about what I would describe as the gayest production I've ever put up, >> it was your good Charlie Brown. It was because we just played. We played the entire time. I introduced students to ideas of the psychedelic brain and the ways in which a three-year-old's brain can imagine anything. And we just played for two months. And at the end of it, Sue were calling it our big gay multicultural year. Good man, Charlie Brown. And it was just an absolute tonic because of methodology. And we, you know, we played with gender in in passing. And there were some interesting ways in which we we thought about that. Um, and it certainly didn't look like a traditional production of that show, but I don't think that anyone walked out of that theater saying, "What a great night of queer theater in the way that they did with many of the other plays I've directed." Um, or what a terrible night of queer theater with some of the plays I directed. But there is a methodology there of joybased childlike wonder in the room that I think is just really, really unique to us. See, I was thinking about yesterday during the plenary when you talked about um doing the Gila and the B and putting 19 they were fifth graders >> freshman. Yeah. Putting 19 high school freshman on stage. Um and I was thinking about your stage manager. But also just just the idea of what you and Ken Matt talked about yesterday, do it anyway. >> Yeah. >> There's a thing we're going to do. We're just going to do it anyway. >> That to me is a queer methodology. That to me is very much rooted in our ancestors throwing bricks at Stonewall and our and and Sylvia River as y'all better quiet down speech. This idea of I'm not supposed to do this but I'm going to do it anyway. That to me is a queer methodology. It's a queer theater methodology and it can manifest in any different number of productions. I feel like the the borrow from what you said Sarah about um you you were speaking you you the my three favorite words came out of your mouth which is I don't know >> and we all just kind of everyone laughed for a second we relaxed because like for me like that is that is how I queer a space um is like if I enter a space and I admit that I don't know two things always happen one it creates cha chaos because what happens is everyone else has an intelligence and a genius that's not mine and they all have been waiting for someone to admit that they don't know so that they can fill that void with what they know >> and then and then like then I if I don't know and everyone else knows then I it almost stops rehearsal because everyone has to try to help everyone wants to help >> and then the second thing that happens is um others can sometimes war because they want their genius to be honored over everyone else's genius. And then there becomes this moment where I can say I don't know what I'm doing in this moment, but I do know the only way we're going to solve it is if we make space for everyone else that's working through it. And and for me, like that is the exact opposite of how I've been trained as a director. >> I've been trained to be precise. I've been trained to be efficient. I've been trained to feain knowing and so like it is the most and then I have to unpack what it means as um when I'm leaving a room that is we're burning I had a producer say to me once when I did this I literally very wealthy producer came up to me and said you know that we're spending $10,000 a second and you don't know what you're doing. And and it was the one of these moments where I had to I really had to I was confronted by my own identity. Okay. Oh, I'm a queer person. Oh, I'm a black person. I'm my representation me. It is a radical act for me to stand in the middle of the room and say I don't know. And I think that women also confront that. the courage that it takes to say, I'm gonna put down the mantle of whatever I've had to navigate to get to this place and I'm gonna be human and I'm gonna say I don't know and I'm gonna let it be messy and I'm going to I'm not going to apologize for that. And so, um, Bo and I in a process together right now, but where the identity, like the play is about gender and identity and and race and sexuality and and saying I don't know in that space has led to the most just explosive moments and practicing not knowing and holding that. Um, but it comes back to my grandmother. I'm I talk about the mothers the mothers that I've had over and over but my grandmother my mother's mother used to always say leave space for the divine leave space for the divine and and what and what she was saying that I don't know if she was if she knew she was affirming for me that God is like this really weird weird oblong thing in the sky but like um but what she was saying is that like at the end of my knowing and the end of the person that's opposite me at the end of their knowing The divinity is in the middle. And so like if we both enter a space knowing too much, we leave we cut out the opportunity for something truly divine to happen. And so for me, how I queer is I leave with not knowing. And it gets really uncomfortable. How wonderful is that? You know, we get to be uncomfortable for a living. You know, >> I always like to say I know how to direct a play right after it opens. Yeah, >> I'm like now I'm ready to direct this play. >> Um, but can you talk a little bit about the trans history project that we're working on and either how it connects to this conversation or just plug it because it sounds so fascinating. >> Yes. Um, so I'll give a little history. Um, so when I uh came out as trans fe non-binary, uh, it's very late in life. I said it was my second coming out. Um I you know we had no examples of that growing up and I actually like really felt that my uh upbringing in musical theater was actually quite oppressive for gender identity um and harmful and like I think that is the reason why I was so repressed and did come out so late. Um, but when I did come out, I literally just did a quick Google search on like the history of transness and gender conformity. And there is so much information. And there's there are examples of cultures across the globe for centuries that have accepted and sometimes revered people who were a third gender or not not conforming to societal gender norms. Um, and they were fully accepted. And I then started brainstorming like what what do I do about it? Um and my first idea was to like get 10 playrs to write uh 10 vignettes in one play sort of like assassins style um assassin musical style of like play sorry of like just telling these different stories from all cultures and I pitched it to my friend who's a brilliant playwright C. be weaker. Um, and they were like, "We deserve better, dream bigger." And I was like, "Great." So, I was like, "We're going to do 10 plays instead of 10 vignettes." Um, and I was very, very grateful. Stevie, uh, I had this to Stevie like a month after he started at BCS, um, to commission and develop these 10 plays about trans and gender non-conforming history. Um, and Steve was so gay. We green lit it. We got um a very generous grant from the American Theater Wing um for $100,000, which is gone real quick, but it uh it started this and we are commissioning and developing uh new plays. Uh we are in we just had the first cohort. There's a cohort of five playrs. Um and one of my missions of this project was to get not only paid trans artists but um get trans artists into theaters and pipelines which they were not previously uh able to get in and introduce them to theaters. So while we ECS is the commissioning theater we are paying commission um and we are developing two of the 10 uh we have partnered with regional theaters across the country where they are in charge of the developing of the play. Um so cohort one has rattles uh off Broadway in New York. Uh we have Diversionary which is one of the oldest LGBTQ theaters in San Die or in the country but they're in San Diego. Roundhouse in DC and Long War in Connecticut. Next up uh in cohort 2 is East West Players um Native Voices and Actress Theater Global. Um, and we just uh did our developmental reading of Missy Maritest um which is a brilliant play um by a writer who had never written a play before and just pitched like this idea that we fell in love with. Um it is a it takes place in a a fictional but maybe not fictional pageant where trans women from the Latina dot are competing to prove their womanhood for citizenship. So, it's like it's obviously very timely, but it starts off really really campy and fun and then just like punches you in the gut. And we just did the reading as Stevie was like, "I'm so disturbed in the most beautiful way." Um, so like we're telling these histories of these real people who, one of the research items that Yono did, the playwright was found, um, Juliana Martinez, who was a real El Salvadorian woman who in 1959, I believe, was arrested. Um, and the one tiny article in some newspaper that we found said Juliana was uh, in jail for crossing the borders of gender. And then like obviously that carries so much weight within that statement and that is sort of like been a huge inspiration for the piece. Um and yeah at the moment we are going through the applications for cohort 2. Um we will announce that in August um and it's yeah it's been an extremely rewarding and uh taxing but awesome process. Yeah. >> Thank you so much for sharing that. That's so exciting. Um before I bring us back to this question of passing and we have time for some audience questions as well. But I also I just want to leave space if there are other um if there's conversational threads that we want to continue from the panel if there are other things that this has made you think of other pieces that feels like oh let's get to that before we move on. I just want to just echo um what both like being in deep partnership and community collaboration with both like I like what you've taught me while we're working together is that um representation without power is just decoration. >> It's just the core >> and um there were there were things that ways that Bo wanted to move at BCS projects. B was a part of the season planning process and things projects that Bo wanted to to spearhead and to champion and and the calculus of a season of the capitalist of just an institution is the craziest thing and um so when Bo and I kept trying to figure out how to make space for Bo and protect space for Bo to show up and their fullness um and it was hard and and when Bo walked into my office it was like trans history project I was I felt so relieved I don't told you. I was like, "Thank you, God." Because here here is someone that I can stand beside you with, behind you if you need me, run ahead of you if you want, where however you want to deploy me, but also to give you like to not even give you, but to support your full power >> so that you can build your own queen, you can build your own, you know. And so watching the trans history project flourish and bourgeon under your just your gifts and your vision has been like such like I just feel blessed to be able to be ride a check out of you and it's been like let's let's how can I how can I how can I how can I show up and um and and and that's been the thing for me is like making sure and then like watching how you hold space and curate rooms for the all for for for other trans artists. Like it's just it's really it's really special and it's it's just beginning and I can't wait to see like the way the that the theater, the American theater and hopefully the the world is impacted by what's coming out of your your heart and out of your mind. But like your leadership is incredible and I just like to thank you for teaching me and being my friend. um as you're building your visual authority. But I just had that that was in my head. >> I can't wait to put these plays on our syllabi. >> Yes. >> One actually one of the goals which we have not quite figured out how to manifest but I want to publish all of them like an anthology two anthologies. Um and with that I my dream is to send it to every theater department in the country so that each student can see that there is a place for them in this industry. >> Um so yes if you if you all know publishers let me know. >> That's beautiful. >> Yeah. >> I want to go back and see that great quote representation without power is just decoration. That's uh this segue couldn't be more perfect. >> I I would like to get into something a little bit thorny um and talk in particular about casting. Uh I'm one of the readings I assigned to all my directing student is is Matthew Chapman's article sane glass managerie in which he talks about seeing a production of the glass managerie um in which a black man plays the gentleman caller and it's not addressed through the drama turkey or the production at all what it would mean for a black man to show up at the windfield's house. Um, I feel like we are at a moment where we are having complex interesting conversations about the ways that we cast racially, the ways that we cast in relationship to ability and disability, and in some ways the ways in which we cast in regard to gender. Um, the conversation around casting queerly is more complicated and it's thorny. Um, and I'm I'm curious to talk about this today. I often hear from my students and I wrote about this in my the hall around an equivocation between color conscious, colorblind casting and casting queerly. And in the same way, and I and I talked about this in the article that a student told me that to have a straight person play a queer role would be like having a white person offenses. Um, we wrestle with that as academics. We wrestle with that as professionals. So, I'm curious how we think about the ways in which we cast these queer roles in relation to both legible and illeible identities. Um, and in particular, I've been really inspired by what we've talked about today in terms of how queerness is chaotic. >> But I also experienced some push back to that chaos in particular from my students who do think sometimes more in terms of demographics and in terms of statistics and in terms of boxes that can and can't be checked. Um, and sometimes assume that someone's process of identity is complete by the time they get to college. Of course, that process is never done. Um, so I'm I'm curious how people think about this. How do you think about the ways we cast queer roles today in relation to what actors are bringing to that audition process to the ultimate production before? >> Thank you. I'll just stay right here. >> One of the things that I've had to wrestle with with like as a director and obviously through a transition project is um you can't control how an audience is going to perceive something. >> Um but you can do your best as a casting director, as a director to ensure that the people who are ready for it see it. Um, and I always say that like within this um uh very um my journey to progressiveness and journey to um uh getting people to be open-minded. Um and I grew up in Indiana which is like reddest of red. Um I'm always thinking about who in the audience is not ready for this. Um, and I had a professor once say that your job is to get an audience member from A to B and not A to Z because they're not ready for that yet. Um, and I think I believe it was Levina Judani who coined the term identity conscious cast in >> um, which is hard um, because it is not legal to ask someone >> are you queer? >> Are you trans? Um, but and this is where like when I talk to young actors, if you are comfortable, be as open about your identity as possible. Um, on your websites, on your backstage profile. Um, because I think it is important to tell these stories with the correct people in the room to build these stories. Um, and so we were just casting Missy America and we were we're casting a workshop in the fall and we're thinking about who to cast and everything. And it is a it is a little bit of ticking boxes as in the baseline for the player at Yona is that these characters must be from the Latina experience. Um, and then certain characters must be trans femin or trans women. C. One character is a trans man or trans mass human. And actually through this reading, we found that a character that was originally written as a cis male drag queen. We were like, what if it was just a larger than life cis woman? And that's how we did the reading. And that is now Gloria Benovas who played the part is brilliant. And that unlocked actually a a different narrative that we wanted by uh purposefully casting a sis woman in a role. Um and my ethos was sort of like if a role does not have to be played by a sis white able-bodied human, why are we only casting those people? Why are we only calling those people in the room? And I believe in like casting energies versus type. As type as as I in musical theater, type was forced upon me. And I like never saw someone in musical theater that looked like me. Um that wasn't the butt of a joke. Um and type is so harmful. So I'm I am constantly advocate working against type. And like I saw a beautiful production of this adaptation of Romeo and Juliet um where Juliet was a short plus-sized black woman and actually how rare we see plus-sized black women be uh seen as romantic >> and desired. Um and like it's so important at this moment to do that and tell those stories. >> Yeah. looking at that art. She has a really great article, how round article about two. Yeah. That I signed for my directing students on identity conscious casting. >> Um uh something that is so true though like how do we it is like the sometimes it feels weird because I'm like am I snooping on this person by looking up their social media and like I'm trying to sift through stuff. Something I ask and I don't I've only done it for educational shows, like for in educational settings, is I I'll add a section at the bottom of the casting sheet. Is there anything you want me to know about you? Um, in the same way that I do it as a first assignment with my students of the is a second grade teacher would uh it's what I what I wish my teacher knew. And so I'll have them sending me like a sentence what I wish my professor knew. And sometimes it's you know that I have football practice still right before this and sometimes it's something big is going on and it's really helpful out but in terms of the energies too I totally and and you said it as well is like the um my audition rooms are a reflection of my rehearsal rooms I'm not tricking you like I want to know that you want to be in the room because that is going to matter more particularly in Tiana when we're there like that I want the show to happen And I'm not sure I'm going to be able to find the right identities in terms of representation. Now granted, I don't want to do something that is going to be misrepresented and cause harm, but if I'm not able to find the perfect people for it, can I find the right energies of the people that want to tell the story so that the audiences that need to get from A to B and need to see that B exists can actually have that experience and the students can have that experience. And that is that invitation of like hopefully I can learn something from is there anything you want to tell me? But also like by being in the room which also comes down to read the play, read the play, read the play. And it's a lot of these students like where I'm like they'll get into the room I'm like how we you cannot audition without reading the play because you need to understand what the context is. You need to understand what we're talking about. And if you're not doing that, you're doing a disservice to yourself and a disservice to the room because there shouldn't be surprises of what events are happening in this play because that's on you. And that is something that I try to harp on. And I that does come down to like limitation of opportunity. There's not a bunch of shows that happen. Um but but we're in a school so like you should read your homework, especially if you're going to commit eight weeks to this. So yeah, >> I always find that it's challenging as a a new play director. A lot of in the industry, you don't get sent the script on the show and I've really tried to combat that when whenever I am directing a show. >> We're like casting directors don't send out the script to the agents >> or if it is specifically new play have access to the newest draft. Um and that is a practice that I've really tried to shift at least in my work as best as I could because they're so important. >> It's so hard. I mean, I've definitely auditioned for new plays, but there's no script and it's gone great or it's gone. >> But if there is a script, by all means, please read it. >> Yeah. >> And from a consentbased perspective, how can you consent to the material without reading it? >> Yeah. There is material that some people it's not appropriate for some people to be in some place for any number of reasons and and there is no consent based culture if you don't have access to it beforehand. I say that to my students all the time. This is first you're deciding to audition for the play, then I'm deciding whether to cast you, then you're deciding whether to accept. So you actually have twothirds of the power here, but that has to be rooted in the full understanding of what it is that you're auditioning for. That that part is really important. >> And that's why like that audition room should be a reflection of what the rehearsal is so that you don't come into rehearsal and I'm like great, now we're gonna I don't know points for 60 minutes and you're like what? you know, like uh and you know, or you're I'm going to play a game and you're like, "No, I don't do games." And it's like, "Well, that's why I invited you in that audition >> to see what I was going to do." So, I'm not suddenly being like, "We're doing a >> naked as you like it." >> Don't want to see that. >> Not doing it. >> I I also, and this is just making a thorny question, Nord, I'm not about to offer a solution. I apologize. Um, I I don't want to let this topic go by without like >> we're talking about it artistically, but there's also like a kind of like structural and economic thing that's here, which is like we talk about representation being decoration if there's no power attached, which is a beautiful way to put that. Um, like a script is also a hiring document. And so when we're thinking about the um the way that queer casting comes to bear on a production, it also comes to bear on the life of the artist who's receiving a paycheck for the next six weeks if it's a professional production, who's receiving points toward their health insurance if they're equity. And so there's and and who perhaps has a family or other like caregiving responsibilities, communal ties, who maybe has to um travel to your regional theater in an area where they don't feel particularly welcome. So, there's a lot of different uh considerations that go that I'm not particularly expertly equipped to speak to, but I am very aware of that I think attend to this question of representation in casting and that make me want to find ways that are both well that are legal and welcoming and also um equitable ultimately. and and that enable actors, particularly queer actors and actors of color, to have a thriving career because they've been paid before, >> right? And not just here's a reading and here's 20 bucks or whatever. like not just the the scrappy things where you're able to a kind of more communitybased casting model, but the the bigger paychecks that let you then take the passion project. How are we protecting that? Which is where like a queer casting maybe maybe even gets flipped. Um where I understand being as honest as possible about identity in like a website or something and then I I don't I worry about that one casting director who's going to look at your website and then not consider you for like the leading man or something um and flip it in a way like I just there's there are regressive forces and there are economic needs and I have trouble like I said more thorns no solutions I just wanted to put those structures into the space. You bring up something so important here because we have no social safety net in this country which means that the two words equity and weeks are so dominant within how decisions are made for so many human beings and and within that I I think that sometimes identity has to take a backseat. I mean my equivalent of that is tenure. I'm working towards tenure and my health insurance and my family's continued access to medical care is contingent upon my achieving tenure. which means that some of these things that we are talking about here are idealized in some ways. There's there's no way around that. Um and at the same time we put forward so many of these models for just like queer nonsas here today and just such such festivals and and joy. I do feel like maybe this is becoming structural in some ways. I do think we are moving towards situations in which this can be more structural whilst recognizing that the these practicalities are real and they're very very challenging. >> If if we zoom out even a little bit further though I I was sitting here thinking about and I was trying to I was like did Octavia Ebola say this or did Audrey Lord because sometimes I get their brains their not their writing but their thinking crossed in my brain. Um, but I think it was Audi Lord who said, "If I if I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into your definition and then eaten alive." >> And I think that like we're we're living in um her like something Lordian is happening in the world around identity and also but liaring if I'm going to make a word there. Octave Bellow was from the future. But um but this idea of like I think I think that we live in a time where identity is, I'll speak for myself, identity has become exhausting. >> Conversations around identity has become exhausting. Living within a defined identity has become exhausting. And I and and and that's why I call it I think it is a revolution. And I'm I'm I'm I feel blessed to be alive during this time where I'm having to navigate the exhaustion of identity because we are collectively dismantling something >> like and I think that like for so long like you talk about race, you talk about sex, you talk about gender, you talk about class, like we come we all come from a people who were so uncarful about identity. so like so unkind about identity and now we're living in a time where we are so intentional and even the people who are oppositional to us and when I say zoom out the people who would never come to a conference like this who like don't give a damn about theater people who are literally in the white house trying to dismantle the revolution like they are intentional they are as intentional about identity as we are so much so that they are when when you're watching the news and they're mocking us they're intentional They're studying it so they can then mock it. That's intention. And what they don't realize is that they're learning it as they're studying it to mock the back of us, which I'm also grateful for. Oh, you're learning something. You're really having to like study that. And so like, so what I all that to say is I think that we're going to move from our Lordian butler time. Eventually, we won't live to see it like King said. Like we're on he said my favorite speech by him is like, I went to the mountain. I've gone up the mountain top and I've seen the other side. I'm not going to get there with you. >> You know, it's it's it's Moses before. You know, it's like I'm not going into the promised land, but like I can get you to the edge of it. And I think that like this exhausting kind of like meticulous like boxes inside of boxes inside of boxes and try to like my specific, it's nuanced. Eventually that is going to break. It has to break and hopefully it breaks forward and it breaks open and and it and it breaks to a point where like I think about Maya Angelo who's like a mother god to me and she says I am human therefore nothing human can't be foreign to me. I think about um borderlands laasa and I think about gloria du was saying like we didn't cross the border the border crossed us and I think all these identities are borders that crossed us right that have colonized our bodies and cut us up and like and eventually like the boxes and the boxes and the boxes will become so so like we are trying to liberate ourselves through language that only further every circle we draw to identify ourselves cuts us off from other parts of ourselves even as we try to liberate. And it's something that like I'm really mindful of and I just I don't know. I just I'm I'm I'm hopeful for a generation that is coming and then the generation beyond that generation where like equity weeks and like like how we like go into an audition room and how all how it like all of that is dismantled because people are just like we are human and nothing human can be foreign to us. Because the other thing too is that this floating rock that we're on, it's about to it's going to decimate us anyway and bring us like I guess I'm a little bit of an athropessimist in the sense that like like we're arguing and trying to figure out not we're not arguing but we are arguing about who we are and eventually we're going to realize that like we all need the same water and then we'll be able to make theater that's really free because because we'll be struggling just to survive which is like maybe is the destination the the beginning of the liberation. This is why like I have to draw because my brain is insane. I don't know. Somehow it's connected to what we're talking about. The the the idea that like we're trying to define ourselves so we can be free and we just I don't know something there something there that I hope that I'm making sense when you watch this. >> Shut down. >> I'm going to resist uh biting this conversation here. I know we have folks here and if there are questions or contributions that folks unfortunately we can't reach out to our our viewers in the future but we love you but if there if if folks in the room have questions or contributions or anything that you'd like to add to our conversation we have time for that and please feel free to introduce yourself to begin in whatever way is most appropriate for you. >> Um hi I am I'm Kirsten Polland. I am a professor at the University of Illinois at Champagne. Um I'm not a practitioner. I'm a performance historian and um we are a BFA only program. So all of the undergrads they come through me. Um so my question really is about supporting my students in the department >> um and helping my department um take these issues as much as they can. I I'll say as much as I can. So I think one of my questions is I'm talking about the academic setting and I recognize that you're not all academics. Don't mean that. But thinking about the academic setting, one of the things I'm wondering about is what difference it makes and how to mitigate the difference that it makes um to have or to not have queer directors and queer designers in those rooms as well. And I I asked this question. There are three out queer members of the faculty. One of them is me. And I don't look especially queer because I have been with a man. I'm a I'm a siswoman. Um and I have been with a man for 30 years, but doesn't mean I'm not bisexual. So anyway, so I don't, you know, there's not a lot of models for my students among the faculty. there's not, you know, an opportunity for my queer students, whether they're designers, >> whether they're actors, whether they're playrs, dramatists, whatever. There aren't a lot of sort of elders within the department for them. What are what are tools that I can give my students to help them mitigate that so that they're spending their time in rehearsal or in design studio working on their characters, working on their acting, working on XYZ instead of working on explaining pronouns or working on you or being in those terrible positions of your director says something that's deeply wrong and offensive, but they are your director and therefore >> anyway, >> I I just want to just the fact I'm a director and a drama attorney. That's my area of focus. I have not done anything that has done more for queer students than teaching them queer theater history. >> I teach an elective on queer performance during the AIDS epidemic in which our students study plays and protests that were made starting in 1980 about the AIDS epidemic and the ways in which queer people saved their lives during this epidemic. And I universally have had students afterwards say, "This class did more for me as a queer person than anything else I've done on campus." And that wasn't about them on stage. That wasn't about making space for their identity and performance. It was simply connecting them to their ancestors. Um I if you're teaching performance history, you're already doing it. It's already happening. But I I have not found anything more effective than putting them in touch with queer theater history um and and everything that's come before and in particular the non-majoritarian forms of it, introducing them to Miguel Pinto and telling them and teaching them about how he got a play of Broadway that he wrote in his prison cell at a introducing them to that that lineage. Um that's how we take care of that's how I take care of my students. >> Thank you. And I I will say that that is, you know, I want my students to come into my performance history classes and find themselves in a thing that they thought they would never find themselves in because their history couldn't be more white and boring and eurosentric and straight they think. I will also add that I feel like there is a lot of power in having cultural competency like if especially if it's a queer play and um you have a queer director or a queer costume designer it helps them feel comfortable in the space because I have trans actors that have told me that well our costume designer would say things like oh it's just really hard to costume stra trans men and I'm like what what's weird about it because you don't have the same like if you don't have a wide enough range of sizes that would like fit my actors like it just when there's no sensitivity to that I think it can be so harmful for the students. So that's just my two sense can I say like that like I love that example because that's that's what like that's what you go to college for >> and that's what you go to the rehearsal room for and that's what you that's also what the audiences go to the theater for. So I I appreciate the curiosity of like actually like why like and put put language to it. And so I just want to say like thank you for like like my question back to you is like how are you caring for yourself >> as you care for like the the complic cuz like I grew up in Waco, Texas. So it's like like me going into spaces where suddenly like things can combust because like I come from a culture of like hyperch Christianity and like compression of ideas and thoughts like the liberation of the of like the those moments is like how I've found language to define myself. And so like and I know you already know that, right? And so it's like so like it's like the the the young people those kinds of moments that's the whole point. And like even in this rehearsal process that I'm having right now, which is like making me want to bang my head against the wall, it's the hardest thing I've ever done. It's like I'm also I know that I'm like the first student and I have to remind all of these really smart artists that they're the first students, too. And if we can't have these uncomfortable combustions, then like then then the audience doesn't get to have it. I don't know what my subscribers are going to do when they see this play. Like I have no idea. But it's like I think that like and that's what I was trying to say about the identity of it all. This friction of this moment that we're in is the it is the point. It is the point like all like it's the very point. And so it's just like we're we are the point of the spear. And so I guess I love that, you know, you're asking that question and I just like am being mean so much care towards you as you continue to like hold space for like this next generation to continue to ask questions like there and the fact that it's happening in your classrooms and in your spaces means that you're doing something really good and like >> just want to hold space for that. >> I'm a full professor. um 10 years ago, being a full professor is an even more beautiful thing just in the sense that I am I'm exceptionally fortunate. I worked hard, but I'm exceptionally fortunate to be in the position that I'm in. So that there's not a lot they can do to me. So I I feel like that gives me that so then I have that responsibility to advocate for and take care of my teams. >> Yeah. And as your panel pointed out, I majority queer like heavens to Betsy like it's just we're not hopefully they will be in the professor rooms and in the director rooms soon but right now those are still not the authority is not always. Anyway, thank you all for your for your care on this. I'm excited. >> I think we might have time for one more question. just on something I try to and this isn't necessarily in terms of like direct relation but uh in the rooms that I'm doing two things that I try to make sure the student maybe three the first is the not apologizing which I do a lot I try to and I always forget at the end of every semester is that you have to like uh essentially you're supposed to every time you apologize, but it's like a piece of candy that I'm supposed to give in a jar and like we get a big box of candy or hopefully no candy by the end of the semester for every time we apologize. And I'm always the first to do it. But the the two other ones that I think help to uh invite stepping in it, which is I think what we're all so scared of is um Dr. Crystal Chanel Trescott calls it uh speaking in draft. knowing that we're always speaking in draft. I'm sure other people say it as well is that like we don't we're not planning what we're saying. We don't know what we're saying. If we had it all planned out, it would be speech and it's not. And the second is um mistakes made without malice. is that like let's leave room for that grace to to to really remember that like if I say the wrong pronoun unintentionally or if I do say something that hurts your feelings that impact over intent like I had that impact um but that know that like it's coming from a good place and I try to think about that especially with students in a more conservative university that are coming to theater classes that I'm like oh you're interested I know you have a question because you wked into the space. So like I have to give you grace or like let's create a room or I give you grace to step in it. And I do think and this comes back to community agreements with but that have to actually be used not ones that are just like a checkbox but ones that are actually employed. Um but that's a whole another panel. Awesome. Um, I think maybe to wrap us up in our last home, I would love to go down the line and just ask everyone to share briefly something you're excited about that's about to happen in our query world, in our world at large. Is there is there a moment that is on the horizon? Is there a thing that fills you with excitement, optimism, joy? where we're going >> so much. The thing that I just like I always ask myself like I'm making it a practice to ask myself in the morning like like literally like what if what if we are in a cultural revolution? And I think that I'm sitting with that so much these days, like like quite literally like what if what if this is the cultural revolution? And like I'm not going to be here 100 years from now, but I think when people look back at um when we look back at this time, like this year, Baltimore stage, we programmed more women writers than we ever have in the history of art in one season. Um, and I know that it was unconsciously a response to the election. Like it wasn't like it was also just deeply who we who we are. Um, but like like what if like just what if we are in the culture like what if this is the revolution and I think that like we we look at the 70s, look at the 60s and we talk about like the courage that it took for those people to navigate all of that to reform our country. You look at the civil rights movement. You look at postreonstruction. You look at the civil war, whatever. You pick any moment. And there's all these cultural revolutions and there's grace given to people. There's criticism given to people. But like the courage it took to get up every day in 1893 and live your life in a time where people were redefining themselves. We are in a cultural revolution. And um and I think that's cool. and like to try to be a super I want to be one of the superheroes and and and and and it's not about me like having a legacy, but it's like about like every single day and so then also giving myself grace because I know that I'm living in revolutionary times and that that's not that's not a thought. That's our reality. We are living in revolutionary times. And you've got to remember that when you put on your cape, even if you're just talking to a small room of people, like we're living in like I asked that question like when I walk through a rehearsal room. What if what if what's happening in this rehearsal room today is a part of the cult room. What if >> anyone else want to share? I'll say that I uh I got to do a reading of Sarah Mentel's in the Amazon warehouse. Got to see it. It's getting it's getting published. So, I'm so excited. I'm also directing Sarah's play Fight Call in the fall at University of Portland. So, I'm so thrilled and I'm such a huge fan, huge fan of them and they're just awesome. Sarah. >> Michael Sarah. >> I actually want to um thank you for bringing Sarah's name into the room before because I realized before I said um a script as a hiring document and that I was quoting Sarah actually from the program note from the Play Horizons production Amazon warehouse parking lot. And I and I didn't realize till after I had finished speaking that I had neglected to site. Thank you Sarah. Um, and because I'm already speaking, um, I'm, uh, personally going to be, uh, teaching in a new place this fall. And so I'm excited about beginnings. I think you're asking like what is a I in the spirit of like always not knowing and and feeling like we're not living after the end, but in fact like before a a thing that we don't know about yet. I think the beginning of a new semester coming next month like promises that. the beginning of a new theatrical process promises that. And like I'm excited to not know, but to go in like hopeful, which I think is also a thing. We can just do what we make up. >> Not to pander, but I'll wrap us up by saying I'm excited about theater. And in all honesty, I just want to share with everyone if there's a if there's something you're working through that's challenging, in my experience, writing writing about it for how is the best way to make you a better artist, better thinker, better contributor. Um, so I again thank you to How for this opportunity. Thank you to activist and thank you to all of you for joining us today. We are unfortunately at time, but this has been such an invigorating conversation that I can't wait to assign to my students next year to watch. Uh, and thank you all so much for being here and thank you for joining us today.