[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: Welcome to Disability Empowerment now season four. I'm your host Keith Mafigonsini. Today I'm talking to Lou Morel, the board chair of the theater Breaking Tube Barrier.
[00:00:34] Speaker C: Thank you, Keith. It's good to be here.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: So let's get some background on who you are and what brought you to or how did you discover feeder Breaking Through Barriers before we get into your role as board chair?
[00:01:03] Speaker C: The simple answer is a much longer answer. But the simple answer is back though about 20 years ago when I was chairing Emerging Artists Theater, a couple of our members were also members of Theater Breaking Through Barriers.
And so I knew of the company, I had met Ike, I'd seen some of their work and it was Christine Bruno who was was at both doing work with theater Breaking Through Emerging Artist Theater. So I knew of her work. And that's also where I first came across at Brunstad, just black and flesh name. But I knew of the company.
But then in the interim I was chaired another not for profit called the American Birding association.
And when that term expired, after the nine years I went to get back into theater. And number of people in the birding and environmental community are acts are very active in the earning community. Just happens to be. And some of my contacts said, they said pick a theater, any theater you want, you'll be on the board.
And literally in the not for profit world. And I said, I know of the theater. I know the theater speaks to my heart. I know it's work, I know it's mission. And Ikea just passed away here before. So I wrote an email to Nick Fasali, a cold email, and said, hey Nick, I'm available. Wrote back in 30 seconds.
Literally it was just an email. And he wrote back and said, yes, let's sit and talk.
Some people to be from the theater world. Some people know me from the not for profit world.
My expertise is governance. So it was so I knew the company. I went to get back in the theater and I wrote Nick.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: So you mentioned Christina Bruhl.
That's very interesting because I became aware of theater breaking through barriers in 2019 when you guys put on Public Servant and she was in that. And Anna Lance, who also starred in that as well, was had judge been in the Arizona Theater Company's production of the Diary of Anne Frank. And I was on the board of Arizona Theater Company and I would see a show every year they do a trip to New York, see Broadway plays. I happened to be there. And so we were seeing Tootsie and Anna was sitting Right next to me. And she told me about the next show she was going to be in and she mentioned that it was the disability theater company and I should come along and see the show.
And that was Public Servant and my parents and I went to that. And then I immediately got introduced to Nicolette Friselli after the performance and we hit it all like, I mean that's the type of artistic director we have at the theater company. Very principal. He knows his stuff and he can spot talent whether it's in the non profit realm or the artistic realm, entertainment realm. He's very, very good at spotting and collaborating with talent. And so that is how I became aware of theater breaking through barriers.
And it's because Anna Lance was catched alongside Christina Bruno, who I got to know after the performance as well. And so I really came and became aware of theater breaking through barriers because I was on the board of another theater company and I was trying. And I hate that I wasn't able to get the two theaters to do a Quartz country or Quartz production collaboration because that would have been fantastic.
But so that's how I became involved with theater breaking through barriers. So small world.
[00:07:30] Speaker C: Yeah. No, it would go back, I guess the first time is probably around 2003 or 4.
This other company with Emerging Artists theater and that company, which I chaired for six years, kind of filled a gap when there was a. When certain other theater companies had kind of not.
Had failed in some of. In the lbq, the LBQT world and others. And at that time theater breaking through barriers was still more focused on work with hearing impaired.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Yeah, we had a different name then.
[00:08:18] Speaker C: Different. And it was just changing in 2000 to incorporate all disabilities.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:25] Speaker C: And I had a friend who had been on the board of another not for Profit. I had shared for 15 years in the seat in the entitlement area for seniors. And she in her latter part of her life became an actress and she introduced me to emerging artists theater, which led to being introduced to Becca Brunstetter who likes. Who has always been a friend of Christine's and she wrote Public Servant for Christine.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: Okay, I didn't know that, but I'm not at all surprised.
[00:09:01] Speaker C: It's. It's a small world within when you. When the people. So you know, and then you've. You're on a board of another with two actors and actresses who are very active, have been on the boards of the Audubon Society and the like. And you know, so the cross.
The cross cultivation.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Yeah, it's something. And at that Time I was concerned because I.
I wanted both theaters to collaborate, but I was so new to being on boards that I was really scared.
Could I join the boards of two separate theater companies?
So I got involved with the Playmaker Intense 6, which this was right before COVID hit the year before. And I thought it was a one and done because then the world changed.
But that the Playmaker Intensive, I'm sure other theater companies do it. They may not call it that.
Maybe they don't. I don't know. The bond I'm trying to make kids. That is one of the activities, programs, showcases we put on that judge from a viewer point of view, immediately attracted me. And then I got.
I got cast in the third, I think, after Covid. And you did it virtually and now hybrid.
But. So, yeah, it's a very, very small world.
[00:11:42] Speaker C: You know, you mentioned the intensives. I think what you have to do is kind of look at the whole.
Intensives have been.
Have been around for a long time, but they changed with COVID before and with. And with many theater companies. Their first level to introduce the new play, to get new playwrights involved and new actors involved. They do the intensive. Normally you're sitting in a room, six or eight plays are red, and you may select a couple, they may go forward, the intensives. But in that case.
And then that tied up to 2018, you were also allowed, if you were a full Off Broadway company like we are, operate under what they call letter of agreement, to operate under the showcase codes of actors.
And that was the next step where people like Beckham, Sam Hunter and others wrote for those. Yeah, it was a step above. It was after the intensity, the first step, certain things moved to showcase. Also. New plays were brought at the intensest. And. But in 2018, Actors Equity stopped allowing what we call the letter of agreement companies, theater companies who were operating under letter agreement to be able to do plays under any other code. So. And it stopped right at the. At. Right. In 2018.
So part of our ability to do short plays was curtailed.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:17] Speaker C: And so in two. When the court. When. So you're doing the intensives and other things to try to introduce new playwrights and actors. But Covid allowed us to do something else, allowed us to take the intensive structure, create work with up to. We've worked in seven or eight intensives with 300 actors and playwrights. No one does that through their. Through their initial programs.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: No, no one.
[00:13:49] Speaker C: And we. And we decided to do it using the Zoom platforms. Nick was quite creative in this and present One probe, one play a night.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:58] Speaker C: Which was of 10 to 20 minutes in length, maybe sometimes a little longer with talkbacks, at least introductions afterwards. And then as they got established, we said, let's. And we were able to go back to live theater after Covid. We said, well, let's do what we used to do. Let's do a selection to place and present them all in one night at the end, you know, as part of the intensive. So the. It kind of grew.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:23] Speaker C: And. But they are. They are workshops.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: Oh, they all work.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:32] Speaker C: Yeah. So what they. What they allow you to do, you know, what that allowed us to do with the intensives, is to open up and work with actors and playwrights who never work with a company. Many something. Many hadn't ever worked with the company. Many had.
Almost A third to 40% are people with disabilities.
But this was an opportunity that they've never had before, that we worked with people in the intensives that were all over the world were participating.
Can't do that in a New York intensive. So it opened up a whole new. It's the first level, we like to say. It's the first interview. It's the first chance for us to see. For Nick to see new actors who work with new playwrights, and then they move on.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: And the third show I did, I acted opposite a actor in France.
I mean, what other theater company would be able to do that? I mean, it's. Judge.
[00:15:48] Speaker C: It's amazing. The intensives offered the opportunity. Now, the short play festivals, which were done under the showcase code of Actors Equity, allowed us to even do more. That was where people in the theater community can come in and see the actors. That's where Greg Mascala got his first introduction. Introduction. That's where Lopez got his first introduction. And this led to them getting moving up and getting other roles and getting their Equity cards.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:17] Speaker C: TBTB is the development theater, not for new works, even though it does a lot of new work and a lot of people. But it's a development theater and access for people who have actors who have disabilities. Professionals. These are not new people. These are trained actors. Some people have been. Had the disabilities been from birth.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:44] Speaker C: Or coming along. Some have been due to accidents, disease, and they've had to change careers and they've had no opportunity. We've had Broadway dancers who have been members who danced major shows who, because of accidents or illnesses, lost the ability and they wanted to stay in theater.
And so in the latter part of the careers TBT offered. It offers the Opportunity. And it offered the opportunity through starting with the intensives, moving to the short play festivals, moving up the next level to be on a full Off Broadway production.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: I mean, what.
What?
Sorry, what did you say?
[00:17:39] Speaker C: No, I just said it's a full. It's the whole sequence if it works. That's why it's so important for us to be able to work with Actors Equity and get back to being able to do the showcase or developmental short play festivals in an Off Broadway setting, but not in a. Under the letter of agreement, which is the same thing that all the major theater companies operate under from Signature. We're operating under the same rules that Signature does, for example. But we're 500 a $400,000 company and they're a $20 million company.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:20] Speaker B: Yeah. So what do you do outside of your board chairmanship?
[00:18:32] Speaker C: Well, I've been retired for 1919 years which is.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: Wow.
Wow.
[00:18:39] Speaker C: Yeah. I had spent 30 for 35 years in corporate in internal corporate finance for a major financial institution in really governance structure, capital markets. M A work for the company itself, not for clients. My only client was the company.
But at the same time I parallel oh. Which is now 40 some years plus in the not for profit world. Parallel with things. You're using the same disciplines in terms of working with the not for profit. So while I and my fields of interest in not for profits have been everything from theater and music to environmental with the Wildlife Conservation Society and the American Birding association to working with a group that dealt with a social. A social worker model, working with seniors.
So it's been a long and it's always been more in the governance structural point of view and it's been at the chair level most of the time. So my wife says I can only Chair 1 not for profit at the same time and stay married. So it's linear.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: How did you and your wife's mate.
[00:20:04] Speaker C: Carnegie freshman year at Carnegie Mellon University.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:20:07] Speaker C: It's Carnegie Tech at the time.
And then when we graduate the day we graduated became Carnegie Mellon University.
So we've been married 50, 54 years. So.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: Wow. Congratulations. What's your secret?
[00:20:26] Speaker C: Friendship.
[00:20:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Communication friendship.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:34] Speaker B: So.
[00:20:37] Speaker C: So outside Keith the interests stay. I mean, you know, I've still do interested environmental world and birding theater.
By the nature I could be a political person. But by the nature of if you're going to be involved in not for profits, especially if you're working with grants funding, you have to be totally neutral in your life.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: I.
[00:21:05] Speaker C: Not. Not in your beliefs, but in your life.
[00:21:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: I'm beginning to realize that as I start my own non profit next year which will be seed lay house in one. The video cats that show to give it more legitimacy and because it hasn't been a hobby since season two. It's my real job. It's what I'm most passionate about. I do acting on the side. I work on boards on the side. This is my main job.
[00:22:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
It becomes the main job. And especially if you want to set up a not for profit or structure.
I'll also do master classes on governance.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:22:14] Speaker C: Of not for profits. And when you start talking to people and they just very few, very few people really have a good understanding of the structure of a not for profit. Especially in the not for profit theater world. And the disciplines are no different than if you're in the corporate world. And of course a small not for profit has different characteristics. Mid side not for profit and then the big guys. But we all operate. We have the same regulator. Not for profits are regulated by the IRS. In the States. There are someplace around a million and a half not for profits registered.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:56] Speaker C: This country, most of them. And there's. They're all done under what's called a section of 501C.
[00:23:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:03] Speaker C: There 29 different parts of 5019C or 519 501C. Three. Which.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:11] Speaker C: It's a charity and it gives us the ability to raise funds and people can get tax deductions for what they contribute to us. But we're mission driven and we have to follow the mission.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: And that's exactly what mine will be. It's about following the mission of promoting advocacy and important empowerment to conversational podcasts and video cats.
There's no agenda here besides that. It's highlighting a person or group and giving them another plot form to advocate on. There's no street cred, no back room guilds, none of that. It's judged. This is what I was born to do. But if we had met in 2018 and you had told me, oh yeah, you'll be doing this and you'll be on different boards and you'll be a part time, very amateur actor. I will be like one. Who are you? Are you feeling okay? I think you got the wrong guy here because I mean, even though I'm from New York, I was always an audience member. I mean my, my parents.
Oh. I'm lucky enough to see a lot of Broadway shows and I saw Phantom Lamid in Cap not in the Auto. Probably Cat's first because I Was child.
Had I not seen those three Broadway shows, I don't think I would be interested in theater.
Those shows really hooked me in. And then my love for Shakespeare came later on, several years later. But that was my introduction to theater. It was through those three musicals that really carried me to today, I think.
[00:26:27] Speaker C: My interest in theater, well, I started reading plays at a very young age, probably as a young teenager. So the voice of the playwright was very important.
My love for musicals, my love for Gilbert Sullivan. Yeah, the first play that I saw was in a summer stock, there's no Time for Sergeants. Yeah, the comedy first. But we have seen the starting, the first real musical that we probably have seen, actually. I can't remember.
I know the first Gilbert Sullivan was Mikado with. With Green in it. The Doily Cart was doing a tour in the US we saw them when I was in high school, Baltimore.
But I also always had a love for music and would be going to concerts. So music and theater were always a part.
But many of the performing arts, you know, I've been on the board of a music ensemble as well as theater.
So it's always been part of my life. And so. And the voice of the playwright is what draws me into working with theater companies.
[00:27:48] Speaker B: And so theater.
Well, the whole world has changed thanks to Covid, but particularly theater and the way that we operate as a theater company has changed going forward. What do you think are the biggest legends ads, theater and entertainment, and particularly continue to evolve in this new normal that we find ourselves in?
[00:28:38] Speaker C: I'm not sure how much of a new mode it is.
I think that technology is going to change the way productions are done, and technology is going to change the accessibility issues and make theater more accessible and the performing arts more accessible, both for the performers and the audiences.
It also will allow it allow to reach out to audiences who don't have access to theater and the performing arts in their communities.
So you're going to see more of these technology, but the voice, the playwright and the live theater is an experience that's not going to change.
And it's. And I think.
I think it's more prevalent in many European countries and around the world. Theater is probably. Live theater is probably more.
It's probably outweighing the technology.
When I say, you know, not, you know, the use of the zoom technology that came up for before COVID we're continuing in some form here, but I think that live theater and regional theater is still going to be a major part of the scene. The issue is funding. Yeah, the issue is funding. And in today's world there's so much money available for charitable giving.
One of the areas that is declined in the performing arts, the percentage and the amount of money going into performing arts is less. And maybe that's due to what's its cost. It's not a matter of lack of money because with the various rules and governance about how foundations have to give what big businesses want, needs still do for social responsibility, they're giving but the performing arts component is lessening.
Part of it's probably due to the fact that technology has made certain things more accessible.
And you know, when you're paying for cable tv, I don't need to give a travel contribution to a performing arts theater. But.
And you're seeing it right now in many theaters curtailing their programs that if they did, you know, four or five main stage productions a year, they're now doing two or three. Yeah.
Part of it's due to cost. It is expensive even on the. For a New York based theater company to mount a.
An off Broadway show.
[00:31:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:31] Speaker B: Or a Broadway show for that matter. It is really expensive.
[00:31:39] Speaker C: Expensive. And the various rules, I mean part of my governance presentation is the difference between commercial theaters and not for profit theaters and the structure in terms of, you know, if you're going to invest in a broader Broadway theater, it's very risky. A Broadway production, it's very risky. But the tax deductions are there and are valuable to you.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:04] Speaker C: In a not for profit theater you're dealing with, the funding comes mainly from foundation grants and other contributions. That's you're going to get a tax deduction for your contribution. But that's limited. Doesn't have the same power.
Now there are theater companies in the not for profit world have created some very interesting models that allow for joint venturing and angel money to take to be develop incubators of shows such as the Atlantic Theater Company. It's a great incubator. It's probably one of the best incubators around a theater company. Like theater breaking through barriers is not. It's not its purpose.
Not its purpose to be an incubator. Its purpose is to be an a. To offer opportunity for people who have been excluded.
[00:32:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:59] Speaker C: In the past. And it offers opportunity and it's different from other companies that have dealt with lack of opportunity.
In many fields there was always an opportunity to be an actor. Whether it was in a regional theater company or an ethnically based theater company. You could be an actor, you had opportunity, couldn't get access to Broadway or To the upper levels. That's changing the disability world. You had no access, you had no ability to perform.
[00:33:34] Speaker B: No.
[00:33:36] Speaker C: And that's what I envisioned. And what's happening is that we have been leaders in providing opportunity.
We're so, you know, we see many more opportunities coming today, but it's limited.
It's not to the same extent that what a theater, like theater Breaking Through Barriers has done. And part of our work is not only working here in the US we were very active in helping to establish the first such company in Japan. Work with actors with disability, collaborations of that part. You know, they know we're not. Deaf west, don't have the funding or structure, but people mention, oh, Deaf west, that's number one company that deals with actors with disabilities. Second company. Oh, that's tbtv. It's a world of difference.
[00:34:28] Speaker B: Yeah, World of difference. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's the comparison that it's like, well, if they can reach this level, which they have, but they won't always like that, why can't you? Well, comparison. It's.
[00:35:05] Speaker C: We can get foundations and others to fund what we do in the theater world. It's very hard for us because we don't emphasize disability.
We simply say we are actors and playwright, represent playwrights and actors who happen to have a disability.
Disability is second. The person, the actor is first.
[00:35:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:30] Speaker C: And in the field of disability funding, there's a lot of money available for organizations that work with disability and less to come to an organization who is not focused on any specific disability, but is focused on access for people who have to have in the perfect. Who are professionals.
[00:35:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:58] Speaker C: Not training actors, not training playwrights. Working with people who have. Who have. Who are on the float, are professionals. They've done it educationally, they've had experience, and they haven't had opportunity.
[00:36:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:16] Speaker B: Like, I mean, so where.
Where do we go from here?
Where we are right now, how do we proceed?
[00:36:34] Speaker C: You know, we. We can continue to be who we are, but that does. That's a limited. That's limited in terms of exposure, the company itself, by what it's introduced, in terms of accessibility for actors and accessibility for the audience are now being incorporated by many of the theater companies who are the first to do the total captioning, the play, the whole thing.
And so that type of advocacy still need to be an advocate, continue to do our work. And our advocacy is by presenting works with actors with professionals with disability, integrating them into a.
Productions that are not just with actors with disability, and to get audiences to come and not have a negative perception of disability. They come.
We do not get audiences because people hear, oh, it's a company that works with actors with disabled people. It's not going to be the same quality.
But you know, Keith, from what you've seen.
[00:37:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:47] Speaker C: Quality.
[00:37:48] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:37:51] Speaker C: And it shows. We have had situations where actors have said, well, I've never worked with an actor with disability. What's it like?
And they've said no to us and then they work with us and they say, wait a minute. Yeah. Certain accommodations have to be made.
[00:38:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:10] Speaker C: If you're, if you're working with a sight impaired actor.
[00:38:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:15] Speaker C: You work with the company, with the stage managers. Everybody else knows what they have to do to make cues.
[00:38:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah.
[00:38:25] Speaker C: And that's.
[00:38:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:28] Speaker C: So for us, we need to be able to be in a position to produce more. We need to be able to get back to being able to or showcase work or developmental work in an off Broadway setting and be able to do more than one main stage production a year.
And, and we need to actually outreach to wider than the theater community in the disability world.
We need to get to move to for our own funding.
We have to go to those foundations and such who have supported actors like yourself or Grave Scholar or the like over time.
So that's where we have to move to. We have to widen our scope of access to the funding, the foundation world, to the theater world.
We're already well within the Off Broadway world. Nick is voted a legend Off Broadway.
[00:39:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:36] Speaker C: For all his work. I mean, you're dealing with 30 or 40 years experience in theater.
[00:39:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:45] Speaker C: And so my job, the job of the board is if the job of a board of a not for profits are the fiduciaries, they're not managing companies, managing the company. That's the responsibility. Now if you're a small not for profit board is becomes a management board because they don't have anybody to do the work.
[00:40:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:09] Speaker C: In the big guys like, you know, Signature or Roundabout or Public Theater, they have staffs of 50, 60, 70 people running the company.
For a company like TBTV, which is in the middle, small, you don't necessarily have the expertise to run a company.
So our boards become hybrids.
[00:40:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:32] Speaker C: As you know, world of find of accounting for not for profits is counterintuitive and the expertise in within a not for profit on that field is scarce. You don't have people. And so you have to. If you have a board member who understands not for profit accounting, they will work more closely, they'll cross the Line at the request of the. The. Of the executive director.
Board should never manage a company unless it's asked to by the ma. By the managing director, by the executive director. Our role is to re. Is to protect the interest of the stakeholders, which is the contributors.
If you're a member company.
Members of the company. Such as if you. If you have a membership company, the members are your contributors.
The.
The actors, in part, but not as a governance structure. Yes, we're representing the actors, but as a board, we're not representing the actors.
We have to make sure that what we do is we have to ensure compliance with, mission, govern with all the rules and regulations that are there and to provide help to provide the funding. That's the role of our board. So from the board level, we're there to be able to provide the resources to enable the company to grow.
And so we work with Nick, we work with the others in terms of what's the plan, how do you get there, how do you resolve the issues you're facing, such as dealing with regulatory aspects that are. That could negatively impact you to come up with creative structures that enable funding to provide help, to provide the resources you need to grow.
We operate on a very thin ship.
We have our artistic director. Nick is also our executive director. Ideally with the company that's slightly higher, slightly larger, you would have a separate executive director, separate artistic director. There's inherent conflicts of interest.
[00:42:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:56] Speaker C: And by having Nick on the board, not necessarily in many cases as an artistic director on the board, but because you need to work together in terms of policy and structure, you need everybody's voice at that level.
[00:43:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:12] Speaker C: But you know, you never want to have the board step. Step into the artistic side.
[00:43:19] Speaker B: No, you don't.
[00:43:21] Speaker C: You don't. That leads to eventually disaster. And you've seen many theater companies, the not for profit world, go out of business.
[00:43:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:32] Speaker C: Because of the inherent conflicts.
So the board's role is to make sure those conflicts don't occur.
[00:43:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:41] Speaker B: So most recent production was New Simons. I Ought to be in pictures.
That's not a very well known play of Simons.
What would you like doing? A Not totally obscure, but what's unknown work of a right village. So a titan of American theater. What would you like putting on a show that isn't well known?
[00:44:41] Speaker C: I think you have to go back to what the companies can do.
If a play is in the public domain, you can do it. It's easy to do. But when you're dealing with a place play, I mean, and if you're Commissioning your play like we did with Becca Runsteader or Sam Hunter's, you know, the play we did by Sam Hunter that these are known playwrights and the writing play specifically for us, that's one thing. But when you're going back to the ending Shakespeare.
[00:45:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:15] Speaker C: Trudette. Other things.
But if you're working with other playwrights to do other plays, you have to get the rights to them.
[00:45:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:24] Speaker C: And the people who control the rights are going to look at the company and they're going to look at saying well, what do we think is going to work? They're not going to give us. They're not going to give theater breaking through barriers the rights to do the ad couple.
[00:45:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:42] Speaker C: Most likely we tried first to get the right think about the rights to Prisoner Second Avenue.
Whether that would be an appropriate play or not. Because you can argue. But the decision is Nick. So Nick came up with a series of plays he thought we could get the rights to that we thought would have an audience based on Neil Simon and that where we had a reasonably good shot at getting the rights and when we could afford to do them.
[00:46:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:16] Speaker C: You know, if you did a year before we did. I mean Neil Simon's play had a three character play.
[00:46:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:29] Speaker C: That's affordable for a theater company of our size.
And that has to go into the. When an artistic director's director recommend making his recommendations thinking he has to think of what the theater can afford to do and figure. Neil Simon, the play was. Was had a very successful run the first time.
[00:46:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:55] Speaker C: It's the. The one of its actors actresses won the best supporting actress. It was turned into a movie.
[00:47:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:04] Speaker C: It was considered. Neil Simon considered one of its favorite plays. Oh goodly dedicated to his parents.
So you had a play which you thought was. Yes. It was not well known. It was considered in the middle of. Of his place, you know of the canon.
And he thought that Simon, you know in itself was. Would be able to draw. And it did draw. It did draw. It did draw for us be our second most successful play in terms of drawing. The most successful play we ever did was the Uninvited Guest in Agatha Christie because was never advertised as being involved with a company with disability.
[00:47:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:48] Speaker B: But although God of Carnage, which we did the year prior of the season prior I thought was very well attended. And you had big names in the audience and we did and we had, we had.
[00:48:11] Speaker C: We had big names come. Part of it was interesting the Carnegie Mellon connection. But that's because of come of the actresses actors in it Trustee anyway.
But again it did not do as well as Simon. But it's surprising.
[00:48:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:31] Speaker B: That it.
[00:48:34] Speaker C: And even. Even the Becca Brunster which should have. With Becca's name and run and the cape was running at the same time.
[00:48:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:41] Speaker C: You don't get it's. It's, it's the mess. How do you get the message people that you're coming to see a professional theater company who happens to be working with actors.
[00:48:56] Speaker B: So what in your viewpoint, what does TVTV need right now to continue to flourish, continue to reinvent itself, continue to promote and advocate for of all abilities to be taken and valued seriously as gainful employees?
[00:49:40] Speaker C: Two, two, a parallel course. One, it continues to need to do the work it's doing and it needs to expand that. Needs to be able to get back to more showcase productions to take to continue with its intensives, to have that as the first rehearsal level basically to develop and select and then move it into.
If you're working with 300 actors, playwrights over time with the intensives, a short play festival works with 30 to 40 main stage works with 5 to 15 depending on.
In terms of stage managers. So it's. You need to be able to continue to move wide opportunity and to provide opportunity means you need to have funding. You need to be able to widen your funding base within the theater community and outside the theater to people who recognize what you're doing.
We're not going to be, we're not going to offer, we can't offer the financial benefits to an investor. We have to deal with people who are working in the. Both in the theater world and in the disability world to fund this. To do that, we need to build an infrastructure. This was the founder's company. When Ike founded the company, which means Ike and his friends, they got together, they created a company. He had a purpose. As more and more actors got involved in playwrights such as AR Gertie and the like, the thing had to move. So Coppa solved disability. Well, you had to build an infrastructure to support him. Well, in founders companies that doesn't necessarily happen until the founder passes away and begins to do it.
I recognized early on with his illness that he needed to trans. To move the company to the next person. And he offered it to Nick to run the company. Yeah, Nick had no experience in running a theater company. He was an actor, he was a director and he used learning on the field and he was student enough to know he needed help. And when he saw somebody who had the experience, he jumped at it. And we've Been able to bring in people who've had some of the experiences in the, you know, like with. With some of our other directors who have, you know.
Rich Aldershindow was the CFO of Snapple. I mean these are people who know the accounting and finance world. He also has works with many other not for profits. And his daughter got her start with us. Kira Allen, who is an actress with disability. Yeah, but she didn't know anything. I mean her mother brought her to one of the intensives when she was 18 years old. She appeared on a. In a showcase production written by Becca Brunstetter. The next thing she knows he has a movie role. Yeah, but theater roles are still not open very often too.
[00:52:48] Speaker B: Yeah, but that, that.
[00:52:54] Speaker C: But you bring the board. You have Sue Fertziger, one of the best development people around is she now is head of institutional development for Playwrights Horizon. These are people who know the seal. They're not. Who are the exact. Who can help us. We don't have a deep pocket investor.
We have people who know the theater world and know the disability world.
We have very, you know, actors who are well known.
[00:53:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:25] Speaker C: In the disability world and you know, when you see them on Law and Order, no one knows they have a disability.
[00:53:33] Speaker B: No, no, it's.
[00:53:35] Speaker C: But so, so, so we need to build an infrastructure which requires funding that can one have our own. We need a development director. We need to be able to widen funding. It can't rest with the artistic training. We need to be able to create this dual component.
Managing side. Managing the business, artistic side within the company. So Nick can do what he does best, the artistic side. He's one of the best directors around. I mean, I mean he, you know, if opportunities came for him to wreck another show, a Broadway show or a major off Broadway show, people should jump at him to get it.
[00:54:14] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:54:17] Speaker C: But he is a one man shop basically from the management.
We have three part time staff members with working with Nick.
Two are, two are within the disabled world.
[00:54:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:54:36] Speaker C: So we have not only a mission to work with actors with this, we have a mission to work with people with disability in our structure.
But we know. So we have to reach out and build that infrastructure which needs additional funding.
I mean when Nick, when a person like Nick is running a company, company like tvtv, that's their only job.
[00:54:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:00] Speaker C: They've got to be compensated for that.
So yeah, we run at a basic operating budget before you start of a couple hundred thousand to cover the salaries, the office space, everything else we need and probably Most of the. Some of the intensive work, but you need another 200,000 or 250,000 to do an off Broadway show.
[00:55:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:55:27] Speaker C: And that is. That's a difficult nut for if you don't have a board that has access to a lot of funding.
So, yes, we need to build the infrastructure in the company to allow us to grow, and we need to develop the board to get more people involved who may have access to funding sources both in the theater world and in the disability world and in the corporate world.
This is a board who loves the company, standing company, and it comes with great experience.
[00:56:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I do.
[00:56:11] Speaker C: I have to say, you know, I can say you're not going to find for many, not for profits, our size, level of experience on the board, those of us like, like myself, we're getting older and a lot of our contacts are not.
Are not there. So we need a younger board.
And, you know, and it's there. I mean, I. For me, the theater world, I can personally say being on boards, being involved in the theater world, being involved in the environmental world and inverting and other things has widened as you get older. It's not the narrowing, it's the widening of your friendships and scope.
So I'm going to continue, even though I've told them three, three years, when you're 81 or 82, that's enough.
[00:57:09] Speaker B: So in case there are any aspiring advocates who are also interested in Theta and advocacy and want to become more involved in Theta in general, what would be some action points or some advice you would give them? Let's say they're just getting out of college and really want to get involved in this type of work. What would be your advice to them?
[00:57:59] Speaker C: See theater.
[00:58:01] Speaker B: What?
[00:58:02] Speaker C: Come. Yeah, see the theater. Come. Don't be afraid to come. Don't be afraid. I mean, we have few people afraid to see actors with. They're worried about their own mortality, their own life.
[00:58:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:18] Speaker C: They don't want to recognize. I mean, as Nick says, this is. The disability affects everyone.
[00:58:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:58:28] Speaker C: It's the one thing that you have no control of.
[00:58:33] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:58:35] Speaker C: And I think people should read his speech that he wrote for World Theater Day a couple years ago. It's online.
It was supposed to be a live event, but co. Covid intervened. So it's only a tape today, but it is a. It is a powerful speech about theater disability.
And we have to continue to work and. And do collaborations with other theater companies.
If we want to do a collaboration with Theater X and we go to them and say, okay, to Do a collaboration with us. Us. We need you to commit to working with actors with disability. We need you to be able to work here. It could be a shared. It can't be.
Oh, you know. Well, we want.
We want to use your name because it's connected and we'll use one or two of your actors. No, it's a sharing.
[00:59:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:59:37] Speaker C: So we have to be able to.
And we have to work.
It's easy to say, let's work with other companies who work with disability on a different level, but.
And that may be good to be able to take them and help them move to the professional level, but we have to work with our. With our actors and say what? We work with the companies that are working with the general theater world.
We have to work with collaborations. For example, if we do a reading series, Signature, which, as you know, we're working on, it's not quite there yet. To do some work with Sam Hunter's plays. Sam wrote what I think is best. My opinion. I've read a lot of Sam Hunter's work and seen him number. I think the play he wrote for us, the Healing is the. Is the best plays that he's written, but it's not going to be performed very often because any of the characters are actors.
Yeah, disability is part of it, but it's a. It's a strong play. Sam knows the company and hopefully someday he'll write another play for us.
But we have to raise our profile not only within the theater community, but outside the theater community in the realm of people who work with people with disability, provide opportunity. That's one reason why I've worked so hard to work with the Rusk institute at.
@ NYU Language in the Medical Hospital. Rusk is one of the best physical therapy groups in the world, and they work a great deal. And Russ felt Dr. Ruska's philosophy about people with disabilities is the same as ours. They're not limited. And so we've worked very hard with them to try to get to work with their groups. And this year here we. There's a group that. It's called Leap. It's their amputee group.
And these are all people who have. Have lost limbs.
And we've gone and went and had a session with them. We thought it'd be 15 minutes of the first part of their monthly meeting. And it was the whole hour.
And it was an interchange between two of our actors who are people with thought slims, and to share the. Share experiences, to share advice.
And you found out that a number of those People in that group, a couple had access to the theater world, were interested.
So it's. We need to take what our. What we're doing and taking that to people who, in the disability community and show this is opportunity.
You're. You're not.
You're equal in this. You're an actor. You're equal. You're no different than Meryl Streep is no different than Anita Hollander in terms of.
[01:02:58] Speaker B: So I like to think that both advocates with disabilities and those who have yet to discover or embrace their own disabilities listen and watch this program. I'm not naive enough to think that each group, in groups within those groups, take the same thing away from each episode. So, as my guests, what do you hope that advocates, actors, playwrights, stage managers with disabilities take away from everything we talked about in this episode? What do you hope that those listeners and viewers who haven't discovered or embraced their own disabilities take away from this episode?
[01:04:12] Speaker C: I think they need to take away that the opportunities are there.
I mean, what we do is says the quality is not effective. Quality is the same.
The opportunities are not there. You've got to be able to provide opportunity, and therefore, you've got to support those organizations that provide opportunity through advocacy, through and working with those companies and getting.
And going to see the work.
Seeing the work and saying, oh.
[01:04:52] Speaker B: It'S.
[01:04:54] Speaker C: Why. Why am I being limited?
I mean, you know, as I said, our actors have come from. All from.
They've learned it. They're. Most of them have learned their. Their craft by acting at university level, at regional theater, theater level, at Broadway level.
No, we're. We're off Broadway there. In the TV world, working with us will provide an opportunity, and we have to provide those opportunities.
And we have to become, for other companies, a source for companies that. That do not. That are not, I. E.
Any theater company who works to say, come to us and say, oh, you see what you've done. We're trying to integrate into our field, actors with disability into our plays. Okay, we'll help them. We don't want to help you integrate. We want you to say, any role is open for an actor.
And if you've got a role that's been written.
So, for example, you take, oh, feeling Play, which I'm just blanking on, which the actress is blind.
It was just done again this year by Irish Rep.
It should be played by an actress with a visual impairment.
We have actresses who play that role off Broadway who work with us. If you're going to cast it, don't cast A role that is where the role is a character with a disability. With a person who doesn't have the disability.
You know, you've got to get other theater companies to recognize, to open up and say here's the, here's the world of actors.
I mean you can see it that the name ones who have got, who have done it are now getting continual roles. But there are thousands behind them who are just as good.
[01:07:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:07:18] Speaker C: And have got and have had experience but not accessible. But have not had access.
Yeah, we're providing access. We've got to provide the opportunity for others to see them gain that access.
We can only do that through production by being producing.
[01:07:41] Speaker B: If people want to know more about TBT and how to get involved with the incredible work we do.
How would someone do that?
[01:08:00] Speaker C: If they're interested in working with the company as an actor or playwright, go into on the website wwtbt.org and contact Nick Selly.
Nick, he's there. If you're interested in getting involved on board level, contact me.
Send. I don't want to get all the res. They can send them to you and send them to me. But if they're interested in the board, board level, drop us, drop a note to us. I will say look through our contacts. We've been able to get some great organizations to help us in our projects. We're working with one of the major law firms in the world, DLA Piper, on a pro bono basis on working with us on some of our contract issues, policy issues.
Work with us if you're interested in the organization to contribute to us. If you want to contribute, just go online and contribute. If you want to find more about the board and opportunities for the board, be on the board.
Send in your resume to, to Nick and he'll get it to me.
I think there's a, I think there is a, A a email address for me on the T on the on tbt.org also.
But in fact what I'll do is I'll check with Nick to get that address and then you can add it in later.
[01:09:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:09:36] Speaker C: But if you're interested in working in theater working and if you know of people who have been hesitant about getting involved in this field and I will say to people coincident theater, we offer an opportunity to get involved in theater without that economic risk of a Broadway world.
And I know many young. I know I've run across a number of producers who are active in both sides in the Off Broadway in the not for profit side and the for profit side of theater.
If you're involved in the for profit side of theater. Come talk to us for the not for profit side.
Hey, we're here. We're a resource for you as much as for our actors and playwrights.
[01:10:43] Speaker B: Well, Lou, I want to thank you for coming on and sharing so much of your candor and personal history with TBTV and for the continued incredible work you do on behalf of TBTB and making theater at all levels more accessible. Ball all that.
[01:11:20] Speaker C: Thank you, Keith. And thank you for being on the board also and giving us your expertise as an advocate.
We need advocates and. Yes, and we need the advocates to open up airways to us yet.
[01:11:38] Speaker B: I would shocked to hear I would be youngest board member. Not that young, but I think we need more advocates of all ages because you never know the type of connections a board member. They may not have the financial connection, but they may have the promotional connection.
[01:12:16] Speaker C: You never, you never, you never know who you know. One of the first, one of my first mentors in one not for profits and development side said, write down your list of people you know, then write down what they're interested.
[01:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[01:12:32] Speaker C: One of the things if you go to, let's say when I was chair of um Stop for senior services, you go to a foundation work foundation for grant and they say, well, we don't quite cover you, but I know these three institutions do.
[01:12:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:12:52] Speaker C: And that's the same here. We can go to one of our major funders and say, okay, we know you're going to be able to fund us xyz, but who funds what we're our particular area of operation and what our mission is. Who do you know in the field?
And that's what we have to do. We have to widen it.
And yeah, we need people, younger people, younger contacts.
[01:13:24] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, we do.
[01:13:27] Speaker B: And I look forward to seeing you in December when I'm in town again. And I look forward to seeing and helping out create a more accessible future of TBT and theater in general in 2025 and beyond. Thank you, my friend.
[01:14:00] Speaker C: Thank you, Keith. Take care.
[01:14:11] Speaker B: You have been listening to Disability Empowerment. Now I would like to thank my guests, you on Legender and the Disability Empowerment team that made this episode possible.
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[01:15:14] Speaker C: RA.
