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[0:05] Jan Svendsen: Welcome to the Broadway Gives Back Podcast.

[0:07] Jan Svendsen: I'm your host, Jan Svendsen.

[0:10] Jan Svendsen: This podcast spotlights Broadway actors, shows, and organizations in their pursuit of social impact and philanthropy.

[0:17] Jan Svendsen: Join us as some of the brightest lights on Broadway share their stories about their favorite charities and how they got involved, and the people and the causes who benefited from these philanthropic efforts.

[0:34] Jan Svendsen: You know the names: Hair, A CHORUS LINE, Hamilton, and many more.

[0:40] Jan Svendsen: For over 65 years, The Public Theater has shaped the stories of tomorrow.

[0:44] Jan Svendsen: The Public by the Numbers.

[0:46] Jan Svendsen: Founded in 1954 by Joseph Papp as one of the nation's first nonprofit theaters, The Public has received 59 Tony Awards, 184 Obie Awards, 55 Drama Desk Awards, 58 Lortel Awards, 34 Outer Critic Circle Awards, 13 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards, six Pulitzer Prizes, and so much more.

[1:11] Jan Svendsen: Artist-driven, radically inclusive, and fundamentally democratic.

[1:21] Jan Svendsen: I'm so happy to have The Public Theater's Artistic Director, Oskar Eustis, Board of Trustees Chair Arielle Tepper, and Associate Artistic Director and Director of Artistic Programs, Shanta Thake, here with me today.

[1:40] Oskar Eustis: Delighted to be here.

[1:41] Arielle Tepper: Thank you.

[1:42] Shanta Thake: Thank you.

[1:44] Jan Svendsen: So earlier this week, you announced your intention to return to the Delacorte for free Shakespeare in the Park with Merry Wives.

[1:51] Oskar Eustis: I could not be more excited.

[1:54] Jan Svendsen: We need to. Any more details on this?

[1:59] Oskar Eustis: Well, we're planning to begin performances on July 6th. We have a lot of hoops to jump through and permissions to get and procedures to lock down, but we think we can do it.

[2:12] Oskar Eustis: What we're sure of is that we will be presenting a completely safe experience for the audience and for the performers, and all of our efforts will go into ensuring that that's happening first and foremost.

[2:26] Oskar Eustis: Then we're also going to deliver an incredibly joyous show set in South Harlem in contemporary South Harlem among the African diaspora in South Harlem. And I think the city will just get a chance to celebrate itself.

[2:41] Jan Svendsen: I can't wait. I will be one of the people sleeping out overnight to get tickets.

[2:45] Oskar Eustis: If you see the channel, we might be able to hook you up.

[2:48] Jan Svendsen: No, I don't want to cut in line. Um, but if you see me in line, you can bring me a cup of Starbucks coffee.

[2:54] Jan Svendsen: I was so excited. So, Oskar, I was thinking about this this morning. The last time I saw you in person was on March 6th. We were at The Unsinkable Molly Brown with the Miranda family, and we were standing at what was then a buffet, which now I don't think would ever happen again, and eating cheese.

[3:15] Jan Svendsen: I hope we didn't eat that much cheese because four days later I was in the hospital with COVID. I spent a week in the hospital, and the theater actually shut down while I was in the hospital.

[3:26] Jan Svendsen: So I'm glad you escaped from our last encounter unscathed.

[3:31] Oskar Eustis: Oh my god, Jan, I cannot believe this. I am so glad you're okay. I'm sending you a virtual hug through the airwaves here.

[3:40] Jan Svendsen: I'm just blown away that you were in the hospital four days after we were at that cheese board. And we had just been talking about the plague. And we talked about the story that Shakespeare wrote his most prolific and important works during the plague.

[3:54] Jan Svendsen: And I've noted, and I've thought about this a lot throughout the last year about that conversation we had, because in fact, there's been so much creativity this last year. But at the same time, the shutdown has obviously been devastating for almost everyone in our community. And I just wondered how The Public emotionally and professionally has ridden the wave over this past year.

[4:16] Oskar Eustis: It's been incredibly hard, Jan. And it has for everybody who's listening to this too. This year has been unique in the last century, and even really more. There's been nothing like it. Our industry has been hit very hard. Every theater artist has been unemployed since March 12th across the country, 100% unemployment.

[4:37] Oskar Eustis: There's theater workers, technicians, directors, designers, stage managers have been unemployed, and of course, we've had to furlough a large chunk of our staff. So that's been incredibly difficult.

[4:49] Oskar Eustis: The positive news is that our philanthropic base has stayed with us to an extraordinary extent and helped keep us alive. And we've been able to keep producing work in this digital time, which I'm really, really proud of, and I feel like really carries the values of the theater.

[5:06] Oskar Eustis: Now, will I be happy to be back in seats breathing the same air as other people? Yes. But still, we've managed to keep our work going, and I think we've got our heads held high.

[5:17] Jan Svendsen: And I heard that you sent out relief payments to hundreds of freelance artists.

[5:24] Oskar Eustis: We did, and I just have to particularly shout out to Ari and the board who were unbelievably supportive in the idea that we don't just have to take care of the people who are on our permanent payroll. We have to take care of the whole ecosystem of freelance artists who actually make up the heart of The Public Theater family.

[5:46] Oskar Eustis: So what we've done hasn't saved anybody's life. It's helped people, but more than anything, it's also been our way of showing that we know that you are part of our community and we still care about you.

[5:59] Jan Svendsen: So nice segue to Ari. Ari is chair of The Public's Board of Trustees. How has the board rallied to keep The Public going?

[6:07] Arielle Tepper: Gosh, you know, Jan, I have to just start by saying I feel so lucky to be a part of this institution throughout the past year because obviously we know the pandemic's been hard for everybody, but I have to say that I feel like the institution has rallied together in a way that, well, first of all, we've never had to in this kind of—we never, no one has ever been in this kind of situation before, but we really have come together in a way that was totally unexpected, I think, or at least unexpected by me.

[6:40] Arielle Tepper: I mean, you know, last March none of us knew how long theater would be down for. And just facing these challenges, we've really been able to problem solve together. It was the board's job, we really felt from day one to keep as many people employed as possible, support the digital and virtual work that Oskar, Shanta, and the team were doing, and also making sure that we were being fiscally responsible to the institution.

[7:06] Arielle Tepper: So we were, you know, kind of juggling that through the entire time to make sure that everyone was sort of doing what they can. So when Oskar and Patrick brought up supporting the freelance artists, because to be honest, we don't really have that communication with them. I mean, we knew obviously from what was going on, but we didn't really think about all of the details because that's just not in our day-to-day.

[7:31] Arielle Tepper: And when they came to us, we were so heartbroken. And as we talked about it, it just became clearer and clearer how long the theater was going to be down for watching so many people in the industry and the freelance community dealing with the loss of employment and stability. And I mean, the board really couldn't imagine not supporting this.

[7:54] Arielle Tepper: And we know how lucky we are as The Public Theater that we are a bigger institution, a bigger theatrical institution, and we do feel really lucky, sort of feeling like a national institution that we do have the ability to say, hey, we're here and we're gonna help people that where the institutions might be smaller than us, or the people just don't have anyone or anything to gravitate to. So I feel really lucky that we've all worked together to do that.

[8:26] Jan Svendsen: And Shanta, as Associate Artistic Director and Director of Artistic Programs, you oversee growth and development of many of the artistic programs of The Public, including Public Works and the Mobile Unit, under the radar, Joe's Pub. I just wondered how have you adapted any of these programs over the past year?

[8:46] Shanta Thake: We have adapted all of them quite significantly. Actually, we were just talking about, you know, when we were doing our sort of year a look back at a year ago, and probably about the time you were seeing Unsinkable, we were in the conference room putting up white paper and thinking about who do we serve, what's gonna happen if we're shut down for a week, two weeks, what's sort of the core of each of these programs and who do we need to, what's the type of programming that we could pivot to digital in that moment?

[9:19] Shanta Thake: Of course, not thinking that this would be anything longer than a month. But we had spent a lot of time and even amidst the eye rolls of my own staff saying, what are we doing? This is ridiculous. This is, you know, we shouldn't be planning for this, we should just be doing the work that we have to do in front of us. But that was really invaluable time spent together so that we could go back to that and say, okay, this is the core of what Mobile Unit is and needs to be. This is the core of what Public Works is and how we have to show up.

[9:52] Shanta Thake: So we pivoted to for Mobile Unit. We were literally about to go into our first class, this workshop on hip hop versus Shakespeare in Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and just changed that into what would be a digital offering. So we made those into digital classes with supplementary materials, and now those are on the Department of Corrections tablets, over 5,000 tablets where people are doing those classes in real time in a community that's so hard hit by COVID.

[10:25] Shanta Thake: It's been incredible to watch this program that was meant to reach, you know, 20 to 30 individuals that were incarcerated, is now reaching thousands and hopefully more. So there have been some silver linings amidst these moments of the way that we were moving to help our community. We could sort of continue really clearly on those paths.

[10:48] Shanta Thake: And that's continued through Joe's Pub, virtual programming, Public Forum duets. We did a series of Brave New Shakespeare videos using—we have a whole new curriculum of ASL Shakespeare that's online. We've really been able to dig deep into some of our community relationships and bring forth a whole level of curriculum and materials that we'll be able to use for the years to come.

[11:13] Jan Svendsen: Yeah, like you, I do believe that good comes out of bad. And it's interesting because I think this whole virtual digital world that we live in right now, a lot of that we're going to gladly throw away. But a lot of it I think we're gonna keep. And we've seen the benefits, and I think once there's some kind of equilibrium, you know, I think there'll be, you know, a use for both the in-person and the virtual in the world of theater, which I don't think we had as much before.

[11:40] Oskar Eustis: No question.

[11:42] Jan Svendsen: Oskar, back to you for a second. The other big thing that's happened in 2020 is the Black Lives Matter movement. And the theater industry has come under some much-needed scrutiny about its racial practices. And I just wondered how The Public has been dealing with that.

[12:00] Oskar Eustis: Well, we've taken it very, very seriously, Jan, and led by our BIPOC staff, and over half our staff are BIPOC, both before and after the furloughs. And they're an extraordinary group of people, and they really held up a mirror to us as leaders and put our feet to the fire while holding up a mirror. I'm gonna stop with the metaphors now.

[12:24] Oskar Eustis: Really said this time we have to examine fundamentally our practices. And to me, as an aging hippie, it's been incredibly upsetting, yes, but also just inspiring, just feeling like, okay, I've believed myself politically progressive literally all my life, spent all my life thinking of myself as a progressive person, working for progressive goals, and look at all the stuff that I haven't examined deeply enough. What an opportunity to do this.

[12:59] Oskar Eustis: And so we've made real structural changes in how we operate. We've got a plan for how we're going to come back as a more anti-racist, more egalitarian, juster society, theater, and not, you know, it's absolutely driven by issues of racial equality, but it's not confined to that. And the thing that I love is that this movement is forcing The Public to organize itself internally in a way that more accurately reflects the values that we've always talked about on stage.

[13:36] Oskar Eustis: And that feels like a watershed moment for the public.

[13:39] Jan Svendsen: I'm really proud of our staff. I've been asking all of the guests um a question, and at the end I'm gonna do some kind of compilation of the answers. And I usually wait for the very end of the podcast to ask it, but I think it's really relevant right now. If you could wave a magic wand um over Broadway and theater, and um when we come back, what changes would you like to see, or you think are the most important changes when when theater reopens? And I'd love for each of you to answer that question.

[14:11] Arielle Tepper: I I can start, I guess. Okay. I would love us to live in a world. I mean, Oscar just talked about all the work that he and the staff have been doing. And in addition to that, the board was lucky enough to be part of the cultural transformation that we've been working on, that the institution has been working on. When I mentioned earlier that we've all been working together, that's obviously been a huge part of it. We created an anti-racism committee as part of the cultural transformation. And I think that you know, I personally have learned so much, and it's changed my life in ways I couldn't imagine personally and professionally. And so when I think about what I would love to see in the future of theater, um, I would just love for it to be uh more of an equal playing field.

I mean, I, you know, growing up in in the professional theater, starting out, you know, when I was very young, and here I am 25 years later, I mean, I just think about how difficult it is for people to get in, to get to be a part of it, to you know, be a part, we're very insular industry, and I I've always felt strongly that you know, when people get off the bus, they should just like feel really welcome to be a part of it, whether it's Broadway or off Broadway or or anything, because I think that the people who are in theater and work in theater really do it because they feel like it's a family, and it's so hard to get in that family, but once you're in, it can be really amazing. And I think that if we as an industry could really create a place where people feel like that all the time, that would be that to me is one of the definitions and of what theater is, and also I think part of the reason that we all do it.

Um, so that would be an incredible thing. And I think, as far as as far as the public is concerned, I really believe that the production that you're gonna see in the park this summer will have been produced by a team of people that have all been through a lot together and have really come out on the other side of something.

[16:31] Shanta Thake: Shanta, how about you? Building off what Ari just said, I I do hope we're walking into a world one where people really see themselves as a part of a theater community, that theater is central to how they think about the world. In this time where we haven't been able to gather together, that they are looking to theater as a place where they can see their community, that they can heal with their community, that it doesn't have to be this thing that is only for special occasions, but really feels central to this is how I move through my life, and through that, also I'm hoping that this time really instills in us as a country and society the value of what it means to work in the arts and in live theater particularly, but that this is this is a profession that these are a set of individuals doing work that requires payment and uh a true place in what it when we look at how our society functions, that we need to value our arts in the same way that we value our other industries.

I think the theater actually has a golden opportunity right now, which is that when we come back, we have the chance to prove what we've long said that theater is unique in its ability to bind communities together, that theater and democracy go hand in hand, that theater is fundamentally a democratic art form. But if we're going to take advantage of that opportunity, that means the doors have to be flung open, not only for audiences, but very much for audiences, but also for where we perform, for whose story gets to be told, for who gets to decide whose story gets to be told. The combination, you know, in a way you could look at this pandemic, the essential feature of it was that it made the theater stop.

We do the one thing that has become unhealthy and illegal, which is to gather in groups and breathe together and cry together and laugh together and fill the air with particles. And we've not been allowed to do that. We've had to retreat for a year. Now, when we come back, can we demonstrate that we actually matter, that we actually have a healing ability for this terribly fractured company? And if we do, I think this could end up being an incredible gift to the theater because it's forcing us to be our best selves.

[19:04] Oskar Eustis: Absolutely. It just reminded me, Ari and I got to know each other after 9-11. And that's when we became friends. And the theater was very healing at that point. Um, and uh the then mayor Giuliani, I hate to say his name right now, um, but he you know reached out to the Broadway League when I was working there and said, You've got to get theater up and running. And um we we worked really hard to do it, and we put together a whole program and and Ari was part of it. And you know, I remember you were in my office area, and you were just like answering phones, and it was so crazy, and we were editing together and doing things we had never done. But in fact, to your point, Oscar, it was all about the theater being this healing and this this central force that helped um energize the rest of the city and the rest of the nation, and I think actually the world.

Um, and I I hope you're right that we can do that again. But but in order to do that, we have to fight the ways in which we have mirrored some of the worst tendencies of the dominant culture. And like the whole culture, we've drifted in the way of becoming a commodity that can be sold. We've drifted towards serving the wealthiest and not the least. We've drifted towards the kind of division of those who have and those who don't have that the whole American society has drifted towards. So now is the moment where we have to dig our heels in and run in the other direction and say, no, the theater isn't about those values. The theater is about the values that this country was in danger of leaving behind of community, of collegiality, of equality, and fighting the racism that's at the root of the American cancer, fighting the great divisions of wealth and great divisions of resources that are the root of the American cancer and going towards that, which is the better angels of our nation. And if if we don't do that, we got nobody to blame but ourselves.

[21:06] Arielle Tepper: Yeah, I think we're all saying very similar things about how we all want to be together. And, you know, the what's incredible about the public theater is that we produce the best theater for free for all. And I think that that is something that if we do it right this summer, it's gonna take theater as a whole really, really far. Because I think we can help everyone see what we all believe in.

[21:40] Oskar Eustis: I think you're right. And as I said in my intro, you know, the public is fundamentally democratic of the people by the people for the people. And um, if ever there were time for that, and your leadership, I think it's now. And you should also know that many of my other guests, I would say most of my other guests, um, had very similar feelings about um, you know, specifically addressing the systemic racism and um and having more equity and equity not just um on stage but in the audience and accessibility and in the storytelling, and to your point, who gets to tell that story and what you just said too, which is who decides which story gets told. So that's you, Shanta, right? You'll be making some of those decisions, yeah.

[22:28] Shanta Thake: But it but it's exactly right, Shanta, in the sense that you know, one of the real things that we've looked at is that this is an institution that has always been collective in its ideology, has always talked about us being together, but has always been run by a unitary semi-charismatic figure or real charismatic figures like Joe Papp and George Wolfe, and then me. Um, but that structure is the wrong structure for a theater that stands for what the public stands for. So we have absolutely started to share decision making authority with Shanta Thake, with Mandy Hackett, with Sahima Lee, with Juviga Tolani, with a staff which is broader and they're brilliant people. And that diversity of voices in the decision making is something we've never really had before. And now we do, and I think it's going to make a real difference.

[23:29] Jan Svendsen: Again, the public is sort of this is what you guys are about in many ways. So I think this should be an easy conversation. But I want to start with you, Shanta. And, you know, in addition to your day job, my understanding is you're also the co-director of the World Music Festival, Global Fest. So one of the things I have noticed in my career is that the idea of being charitable is very different in different communities. And I wondered if you could just discuss the differences that you've experienced in that with regard to the theater community and the music community.

[24:06] Shanta Thake: Yeah, I mean, I would say in Global Fest, and also, you know, I ran, I was the director of Joe's Pub for 10 years while being at the public. And the music community in general, you know, is new to philanthropy. It has existed in classical music and jazz for a long time, but the systems to support music are just not really that, they're not in place. So Global Fest seeks to address uh global music as part of that because one, it's incredibly expensive to bring in music from around the world into the touring market of America, but also incredibly important to bring these voices representing cultures from around the world into the touring market of America and incentivize those stories and that type of uh social diplomacy that we are soft diplomacy that we often talk about at the public as well.

Um, but how do we really show the value of what it means to have artists and stories from around the world in our communities across the country? Um, so that's been really beautiful. But in Joe's Pub, we've been modeling, you know, how to take artists that live in a music sphere whose entire livelihoods have changed dramatically over the rise of the MP3 and how their sources of income have dried up entirely in the last 15 years, and introduce them into philanthropy, into models of creating theater, introduce them through our commission programs and our working groups to this idea that there are residencies, there is support for artists out there. Musicians just don't have access to them most of the time. So that's been a lot of our work in Joe's Pub continues to be a lot of that work, um, and Global Fest as well.

[25:52] Arielle Tepper: Ari, you are not only a Tony Award winning producer and the founder of the Tepper Center for Careers of Theater at Syracuse. Um, but you've also you're a CEO of um what should we do? And I just learned this. You're one of Cosmo's fun, fearless females. But you are. And I guess a twofold question to you and the subject of philanthropy, and you know, you are a true philanthropist. So I wondered, you know, what kind of advice would you give to fans of the public um or theater goers um as to how people can be philanthropic? Um and I also two part question. Um, because of your um your background, you know, what advice would you give to women who are looking to make a career in the theater?

[26:43] Arielle Tepper: Um I'll start with your first question. Thank you for that. Uh first of all, I would say that, you know, support what you love in every way you can. Um I think that, you know, for me, uh, I was very lucky to grow up around philanthropy and uh giving back was extremely important to everyone in my family.

[27:07] Arielle Tepper: So I was sort of whether it, you know, was volunteering as a kid or, you know, making financial donations. So I think for me, I would suggest that if you have money, donate to the things that are important to you. If it's education, then paid internship programs, so every student has the opportunity to work at the Public Theater without worrying about getting a paying job. Is it our mobile unit, which brings theater to those who can't come to us, or is it a program like the Tepper Semester? The goal of that was to help college kids transition from school to life, which was a need that needed to be filled. So I think that, you know, for me it was really finding something that you could that you were passionate about that would connect you to an organization.

Cause I think one of the difficulties is that if the person who is being asked for money or is giving money isn't really doesn't really have any passion or feelings for the institution, then you're really not going to establish a long-term relationship with that institution or with those people. And I think that one of the key things to philanthropy is having everybody feel good about it. So you don't want to be in a situation where the people receiving are feeling bad or the people giving are feeling bad. And I think that especially in the world we live in now, it's really easy to do. And I think that you want to make the people who are receiving feel good about what's happening and be a part of those decisions.

Because I think otherwise you sort of lose all the equity work that you're trying to do. So I think that's really important. So that's what I would say for fans of the Public. And then as far as people as women looking to create a career in theater, yes. I would say the first thing that I usually tell people, young people is get a job working for someone that you respect and want to learn from. And remember you're not gonna produce a show on your first day. No task is too small. I was in charge of filing, and they gave me the opportunity to read every piece of paper in the office, which taught me so much. I learned everything from contracts to budgets to marketing to advertising. And you know, if I had been there and I said, Oh, they want me to file, like, you know, sort of would sit there and be really annoyed about it.

But instead, I think when you're young, you have to find a way to say, Oh, wait a minute, there's something pretty amazing to just being here. And I always tell people, you know, study everything you can in school. If you have that opportunity to take classes that aren't theater classes, that's incredible. Go do it. You know, travel, read books, meet new people, be willing to try new things because I think that's how great art is created. Great art is not created in a little bubble. Great art is created by knowing about the world. And then the last thing I would say is don't be afraid to fail and trust your instincts. There's nobody else is gonna sit and spend as much time thinking about your projects as you are.

But you know, but you also really have to listen to others and listen to their opinion, but you have to remember the last word is on you. And I think the biggest mistakes I made were not trusting my instinct and saying, Oh, that person probably knows better than I do. But really, when you sit back, it's you know, this the work is your child. I mean, you're creating something out of nothing, and you're the parent, and it is you're the one at the end of the day who has to feel good about it and be able to share it with people. So I think that's you know, I think that's my that's my biggest advice, probably.

[31:18] Shanta Thake: Shanta, do you have anything to add to that? What was your experience like and what would you advise? I mean, that was pretty spot-on, I think. Yeah, I have a very similar experience of being at the Public from when I was very young, right out of college, and being responsible for answering phones and really looking around and saying, what else can I do here? You know, how can I be of help? And through that, gaining so many incredible relationships that I still have and gaining a deep respect for the organization and having them get to know me through the work that I was doing. So I would say finding a great mentor, but also don't be afraid to mentor others, no matter what age you are. I think really seeing yourself as the center of your own community and figuring out who you can be mentoring at the same time you're learning from somebody, I think is really important because women come up and they think they're not expert at anything, they think they don't have anything to offer. And to be able to see yourself as somebody who has something to share at every point, I think is really important and not diminish your worth in the room.

[32:32] Jan Svendsen: Thank you, Ari, and thank you, Shanta. That was some great advice for everybody listening here. I really appreciate it. I want to talk a little bit about why this podcast was created. You know, I was thinking about the theater industry, and I was thinking about philanthropy and social activism and how there's this intersection. Oskar, I want to direct this question to you, but can you talk about the concepts of philanthropy and social activism and what they mean to you and to the theater community at large?

[33:05] Oskar Eustis: Every day we try to do better than we did the day before. Philanthropy literally means love of human beings. And so, what philanthropy to me is holding up an alternate model of measuring success. It's saying that success isn't measurable by the marketplace. Success doesn't mean turning, creating a commodity that sells for more than it costs you to make it. And our society wants to turn everything into a commodity and wants to make the market the measure of everything. What philanthropy says is no, the love of human beings is the measure of everything. And you know what? That's a better measure. And it's not, that's not a political statement. That's a human statement, that it's a better life if you're living off the value of your human relationships and your love for other human beings.

And when we have all of our philanthropists, from the people who make very large financial donations to the artistic philanthropists who work for us for much less than they could make in another industry because they love the theater. All of those people are saying, hey, wait a minute, there's a different set of values that we want to have in our city and our society. There's a different way of expressing worth. There's a different way of relating to each other. And that in itself becomes a kind of political statement in the broadest sense of politics. That in itself becomes, you know, not a right or left statement, but a statement that human beings matter more than money does. And I just think that's a that's sadly a pretty radical thing to be saying at this moment in the United States.

[34:47] Arielle Tepper: I'd love to add to that, I think that I totally agree, Oskar. And I think that the great, that's one of the great things about theater is that yes, we need your money, but we need you. We need you sitting at our audience laughing and crying. We need you shouting out our work on social media. We need you bringing your friends to the building or to Shakespeare in the Park. You know, every single person I meet is either a donor, an artist, or an audience member. So no matter what category they fit into, and maybe it's more than one, we need you in our community. We want you to be a part of us. Right. And I tell you you can feel that viscerally at Shakespeare in the Park. There is something different about an audience who hasn't paid money to be there.

They know they're getting this great piece, but they're not getting it as an object they bought. They're getting it in relationship. So they're affirming their own relationship to the people on stage and back from it's a gift exchange. And that gift, boy, what a beautiful basis to build society on is the exchanging of gifts with one another.

[35:58] Oskar Eustis: In an interview with our mutual friend Steline Volandez, who's the editor-in-chief of Town and Country magazine, she called you her theater Jesus. You're my theater Jesus too. She said, hearing you talk about the power of art and theater to change the world could convert anyone. Well, Oskar, you've converted me and many others. Oh my gosh. Well, I certainly know that there's many, many people who wish I'd died at 33 and would be very happy to be referring to me in the past end. Oh my god. No, theatrical Jesus, my communist parents are rolling over in their graves at this moment. You know, listen, it's just it it's just I say that they said I believe that I've experienced, and then a lot of other people have experienced too, which is that the theater, something special can happen in the theater that can reshape our way of looking at other human beings.

And you know, I've said often that democracy and the theater were literally born in the same decade in the same city in Athens in the late 6th century BC. And that's not a coincidence. They were made that way because the theater is a crucible for creating democratic citizens. Because the theater requires that you empathize with other people. The theater requires that you believe the truth comes in the conflict between different points of view, not in one point of view dominating. And the theater reinforces the idea that anything that you experience is deeper and bigger if you experience it as a collective. So it's fun to sit on my couch and laugh at a movie. It pales behind what it's like to be in a theater of 2,000 people laughing at the same time.

Or I weep when I watch things on the movie screen. But when I'm surrounded by people who are simultaneously grieving, and we know that at that moment in Hamilton, when they sing Quiet Uptown, that we're grieving for that specific boy, Alexander Hamilton's son, who's died too soon. But we're also bringing all of our own griefs to this collective site and mourning together. How beautiful is that? How powerful is that? How life-sustaining is that? And it's our job just to make sure everybody gets to have that experience, and all of those experiences, the experience of being on stage, and the experience of being in the audience. And that's that's what that's what the dream is. That's that, and the beautiful thing about working at the Public Theater, which is the theater that I've wanted to work out since I wandered into it at age 15, and it imprinted me like a little baby duck.

And I went, that's mother. That's what I want to be. But you know, since the great thing about the Public is that the demand of democracy, the demand of inclusion can never reach an end. There's never a point where you go, well, that's it, we're inclusive enough. Nobody else needs to be included, or well, that's it, we're democratic enough. Never. It's got a constant pen number of you've got to expand, you've got to include more. And that is just a vivifying place to work.

[39:17] Jan Svendsen: Wow, Oskar. That is a perfect way to end this podcast, even though the Public's mission is never ending. I want to thank all three of you for being guests here today on Broadway Gives Back. I'm so grateful. Love you all.

[39:30] Oskar Eustis: Thank you so much, Jan. This was fantastic.

[39:34] Arielle Tepper: Yeah, thank you, Jan.

[39:34] Shanta Thake: Wonderful.

[39:35] Jan Svendsen: Thanks for listening to this episode of Broadway Gives Back. Broadway Gives Back is part of the Broadway Podcast Network, produced by Dori Berinstein and Alan Seales with Brittany Bigelow, and music by Eric Becker at Broderick Street Music. Special thanks to my producing partner, writer, and friend, Jim Lochner, and to Katie and Yo at BPN, Julian Hills from the Bulldog Agency, the Charity Network, and to my fiancé, Glenn Weiss, who is always my consultant. If you like what you hear, don't forget to subscribe and rate this podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. You can also follow Broadway Gives Back on Facebook and Instagram at Broadway Gives Back Podcast and on Twitter at Broadway Gives. To learn more, visit BPN.fm slash Broadway Gives Back.