This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Blaine Teamer: I'm, you know, a lot of people are feeling very isolated from their artistic community. And you do have to during the pandemic make an effort to connect with people. And then when you do connect at Zoom and you're not touching. And there's a lot of people who don't have families and who are by themselves. And I those are the people I check on. How you doing? I worry about them the most. Especially my writers. So I'll reach out. I send emails. How you doing? And if I feel like I need to, I'll call them. If I feel like, okay, they're in class and they're, you know, uh during the break, I can hear them talking to each other and they're talking about how hard it's been for them. And so that's when I start calling because I worry about them.

[0:48] Blaine Teamer: Hello and welcome to the Afro-Existential Podcast new six-part series entitled Creating Art in Crisis. I'll be your host, Blaine Teamer, as we explore and share with you how these unprecedented times are affecting creativity and how artists are processing and finding solutions to take their art to the next level.

[1:13] Indira G. Wilson: Hey, Blaine.

[1:14] Blaine Teamer: Hey Indira.

[1:15] Indira G. Wilson: Good to see you.

[1:17] Blaine Teamer: Good to see you and welcome back, everybody, to this special edition of the Afro-Existential Podcast. And a wonderful interview of Sheree Adams.

[1:27] Blaine Teamer: So the interesting thing about this interview is that Sheree, the pandemic hit, it really kind of upended everything that she had been doing, the work, work with her students. But she was able to pivot very quickly. And so I'm watching this interview yesterday, and it was this woman who was had a restaurant, and she had to shut the restaurant down. And she could not do outdoor dining. So she had set up the outdoor dining in the tent, yada yada yada yada. Spend all the money for all the plexiglass and pay the tent. I don't even know if she did all that, but clearly she was outside with tables and a tent. Right. She had adjusted. Well, so then they had to shut down again. And she, you know, they then cut to the reel of tape where she's outside pointing to her table, and she's like, Oh, this is such a slap in my face.

You know, how is this unsafe? And you look right over the parking lot, and there was a movie crew doing a movie, and they had craft services out in the parking lot, and they were still able to continue business as usual.

[2:45] Blaine Teamer: Right. They had their table set out, and for everybody, right, right, right. Yeah, and everyone who's for in the Midwest and not on the coast and in the movie business, craft services is the food. So basically, it looked like a restaurant across the alley from her restaurant, right? And she could not understand how hers was unsafe and theirs was safe. Right. So then she starts, she goes, you know, my business is not set up for takeout, and then she lost me. I I just couldn't figure out how you can set up the tables, put up the tent, but you can't do takeout. Meaning, if I wanted a doggy bag or if I didn't finish all my food, wouldn't you just give me a container to put the food in, and then I would take it with me? Right. Is there something about restaurant takeout that we're missing? Right.

[3:44] Blaine Teamer: And so they then, in a very teeny teeny thing, they said the movie crew, there's a whole like department that tests you're they're doing your temperatures. There's this whole kind of process around it that you probably wouldn't have at a restaurant. So it wasn't like that was the difference. And I was just surprised that nobody pointed out to her, like, hey, you know, there's a person that's taking temperatures, they do this, they have to come in, everybody has to be tested before and after they go, they've been working there for a period of time. This is kind of a different, like that's why they're able to do it. Totally different industry, right? Totally different industry, different setup, right?

And so this goes back to people who you know, you know, Sheree, like I said, Sheree was able to pivot very quickly, and some people are getting stuck in 2019. Like this is how we've always done it, and this is how we need to do it, and this is you know, I can't do anything else. And I think dur during this series, what we've been seeing is there are the people who just like, okay, this is the new thing. I gotta move, I gotta change with the times, we gotta do something different. We can't do what we used to do.

[5:07] Indira G. Wilson: Well, can I add a little bit to this? Because I saw that myself in Dare to Wonder if what she may be suffering from is pivot fatigue. That I also think this interview with Sheree kind of will speak to in a certain type of a way, because Sheree is a very resourceful person, so she has a lot of built up, built-in reference points to move forward, I think, in this pandemic. And I think that the woman in the red, the restaurant owner pivoted once, you know. And actually, she's probably found herself pivoting. If you ask her, I bet she's probably thought, oh, I've had to pivot, pivot, pivot, pivot, right? But but the fatigue of the pivoting, the fatigue of the unfair treatment, that all she can see is this unfair treatment across the street is blocking some maybe something that's very obvious.

I think that we may also add in and consideration as we listen to Sheree, this idea of pivot fatigue. Like, how many times do I have to pivot? Hi, you know what I mean? And I refuse. And maybe through the Sheree interview, it'll open up some blocks. For people. For people.

[6:31] Indira G. Wilson: I can't think of a better reason to have to continuously pivot than people are dying. Like I read a stat where it was saying that basically, if you look at the number who have died from since the AIDS pandemic of like 1982 to the present. So I think that I think the COVID cases are like 271,000 in the United States at this point. The whole 30 years of AIDS, it was like 500,000. The worst year was 50,000 people. You know, we're in this time where a lot of people are not wanting to wear masks. And for various reasons. And they don't want to be forced to have to wear masks. And it made me think of I don't know if everybody is familiar with this story of the story of typhoid Mary. That chick. And how she infected people with typhoid.

She worked in New York from 1900 to 1907. She worked in, she worked as a cook in the New York City area for eight families, seven of which contracted typhoid. It turned out that Mary was going to the bathroom, wiping herself, and not washing her hands. And then cooking people's food. Now that you have heard the story.

[7:59] Indira G. Wilson: Anyway, so she worked for several families in New York, and they all ended up with typhoid. Even after she was told that she was the spreader, she continued to go from house to house and work for these families and making them all sick. Right. And so from that, we America people learned that there are certain precautions that you need to take when cooking food or preparing food or serving food. And people wash their hands now in restaurants.

[8:56] Blaine Teamer: Right. There's, you know, there's no law that you can really enforce because how can you really tell if somebody did or not? But we want to just trust as good Americans who are clean, hygienically clean, that we would do that so other people would not get sick. It's just an um good thing to do. Right. And so I could I want to believe more people know that masks can help prevent the spread of an illness. Right. That you know, there's no law that says you have to do it, but just to be a good citizen, a good American, the to look after other Americans, because that's the American thing to do, allegedly reportedly, that you would want to just wear a mask.

[9:46] Indira G. Wilson: This level of radical stupidity is nothing new. We were founded on this. That doesn't surprise me. That doesn't surprise me at all. There's nothing ever that was passed in America that everybody was like, yeah. People didn't want to wear seat belts, people didn't want to have to have uh car insurance. People didn't want to have to have the mandate for the health insurance. So many people don't sign up for that dag on health insurance, they don't even need the mandate. You know, the the the people wait, let's go back to the Mayflower. The people that came over from the Mayflower, well, damn it, they didn't want to follow the Church of uh Christ or Church of England, they didn't want to do it, they wanted some freedom, and they came on over here.

They didn't wanna wait and leave for until it was uh spring. Oh no, they started crossing in the fall and then got here and was like, gee, dog, it's cold. No, they didn't want to wait, they wanted to go, and they wouldn't shut up where they were long enough to be able to stay in the Netherlands for a few more months. They wouldn't shut up, they just complain or complain or complain.

[11:00] Blaine Teamer: Listen, Melissa, right. And then they didn't want to wear a mask, they didn't want to wear masks, and then they gave small was it smallpox or the measles to the Indians. Take these blankets for your beautiful land. We don't take a blanket, you know, all this scratchy wool instead of that soft cow skin he've been s walking around here for centuries in. No, and and some smallpox because we don't wash our hands, and we only believe in bathing every month a month. Can't use any of it, but no, seriously. I honestly, seriously, the I I need everybody to quit. I need everybody to quit and to and stop acting like America. It honestly is not built on this level of defiance, it is somehow tied into American exceptionalism, American greatness.

This is the type of self fulfilling destiny that Republicans use to justify their not being any uh snap program or welfare or public assistance. It's just the exact same thing. It's like you are solely responsible for yourself and therefore shouldn't pay taxes. There's like this is a been circling around for a long time.

[12:20] Indira G. Wilson: Therefore, you have to make people do stuff. Every word is true, I swear it. Like, remember, we are the world, and everybody just started sending money in to help the starving kids. Like that's what we needed a long time ago back in. We needed a song.

[12:35] Blaine Teamer: I was gonna say that I have a great appreciation for you giving people so much credit that Americans are all about thought and helping people, and that we're this some American way. And I actually think that there are a lot of people that are selfish, and we probably should have framed this more towards the selfish people and really did the things to trick their minds, like a song. Didn't nobody want to help the children of Africa who were starving and have been starving for years, and somebody and a couple of people got together.

[13:14] Indira G. Wilson: Yeah, they came out and said, There's a choice we're making, we're saving our own lives. It's true. It's still just you and me. And the money just kept on coming in.

[13:27] Blaine Teamer: Yeah, the world. More money, more money, more money. Are refusing, and I think this has been the problem these last four years. We're refusing to accept that people are easily guided by a cult of personality. They can be easily the mind, you and I talk about things like cognitive dissonance and implicit bias. Right. All things that are real, people have them and don't even know they have it, don't even know they practice it. But the mind is a very malleable thing. Right. But just to be a good citizen, a good American that to look after other Americans, just wear a mask. Sometimes you need a hook to change a heart. Now's the time.

[14:18] Blaine Teamer: And give it to him, Blaine.

[14:21] Indira G. Wilson: With the masks.

[14:23] Blaine Teamer: On.

[14:25] Indira G. Wilson: With the masks.

[14:26] Blaine Teamer: On.

[14:28] Indira G. Wilson: I wanna hear you say.

[14:33] Blaine Teamer: Pit it.

[14:33] Indira G. Wilson: Pit it.

[14:39] Blaine Teamer: And then you can remix it.

[14:41] Indira G. Wilson: We wear the mask.

[14:42] Blaine Teamer: I got the mask.

[14:44] Indira G. Wilson: We wear the mask.

[14:45] Blaine Teamer: We wear them daily.

[14:47] Indira G. Wilson: Shalling get.

[14:49] Blaine Teamer: And then on top of it, ask them to send five dollars.

[14:54] Indira G. Wilson: Like your homeboy in the White House currently.

[14:58] Blaine Teamer: He's singing a song.

[15:00] Indira G. Wilson: He has a hook.

[15:02] Blaine Teamer: Like he understands a hook.

[15:05] Indira G. Wilson: It will lock her up.

[15:07] Blaine Teamer: Stop the steal.

[15:08] Indira G. Wilson: It they and people are like, boom.

[15:11] Blaine Teamer: You know, they're not even thinking.

[15:13] Indira G. Wilson: They just sent this money monkey money.

[15:17] Blaine Teamer: Like he's the worst human.

[15:19] Indira G. Wilson: Like he's not even the worst president.

[15:21] Blaine Teamer: He's like a really unimaginably bad human being.

[15:26] Indira G. Wilson: Bad leader.

[15:28] Blaine Teamer: And since he lost, he's made 27 million dollars.

[15:36] Indira G. Wilson: To go to go help him help the starving children in Africa.

[15:41] Blaine Teamer: Where does that money go to?

[15:42] Indira G. Wilson: I wonder.

[15:43] Blaine Teamer: In the fine print that's not so fine that people agree to.

[15:48] Indira G. Wilson: It is to fund the lawsuits to stop the steal, right?

[15:54] Blaine Teamer: Right.

[15:55] Indira G. Wilson: And left over and pay and pay off any outstanding bills, including like stuff at Mar Lango.

[16:03] Blaine Teamer: Like it, it really says it.

[16:04] Indira G. Wilson: It's like, there's no, there's nothing.

[16:07] Blaine Teamer: I'll give him one thing. He's transparent as a mofo.

[16:11] Indira G. Wilson: So I think the takeaway from this podcast is if anyone is listening, Dark Child, Babyface, you know, babyface is oh, come on, Beyonce.

[16:22] Blaine Teamer: We know you're a fan of the Afro Existential podcast.

[16:25] Indira G. Wilson: I told you that.

[16:26] Blaine Teamer: Because you're our ruler, you're our leader.

[16:27] Indira G. Wilson: You're our yes, yeah.

[16:29] Blaine Teamer: You're a viceroy.

[16:31] Indira G. Wilson: You're a viceroy, the queen.

[16:32] Blaine Teamer: Of Afro existentialism.

[16:34] Indira G. Wilson: You are the guiding light.

[16:36] Blaine Teamer: Now's the time.

[16:38] Indira G. Wilson: Before inauguration, help your old Uncle Joe out.

[16:43] Blaine Teamer: Get everybody together, not together together.

[16:46] Indira G. Wilson: Right.

[16:47] Blaine Teamer: Coordinated.

[16:48] Indira G. Wilson: Coordinated.

[16:49] Blaine Teamer: Information.

[16:50] Indira G. Wilson: With the masks on.

[16:53] Blaine Teamer: But people needed a little, a little, a little rhythm and a hook.

[16:58] Indira G. Wilson: I think.

[16:58] Blaine Teamer: Right.

[16:59] Indira G. Wilson: Right.

[16:59] Blaine Teamer: Right.

[17:00] Indira G. Wilson: Well, one person that that got the the hook immediately and pivoted very quickly, was our next guest.

[17:11] Blaine Teamer: Stay with us. We'll be right back after a short break.

[17:14] Alistair Justin Black: Ladies and gentlemen. Hello. It's Alistair Justin Black, host of Theatre in the Black.

[17:24] Alistair Justin Black: Have you listened to a wonderful audio play? Deadweight. A judge, an Afro existentialism.

[17:35] Alistair Justin Black: The art of appreciation is lost in this world of dog eating dog.

[17:39] Alistair Justin Black: Perhaps it's just a question of style.

[17:41] Alistair Justin Black: If you uh listen to what you say, go to a website right now and see how you can win the Afroexistential crisis.

[17:53] Alistair Justin Black: Little Black Hoodie. Just go. Go to Afro EX Podcast.

[18:04] Alistair Justin Black: Go today. Your roots will like you.

[18:08] Alistair Justin Black: And that's no lie.

[18:14] Blaine Teamer: We are so happy to welcome our dear friend Sheree Adams to the podcast. Sheree is a steering committee member for Director's Lab West, as well as the producing artistic director of the LA Writers CENTER, where she develops new work with local writers.

[18:29] Indira G. Wilson: Hey, we get right into this interview. So enjoy.

[18:45] Sheree Adams: She created the Lincoln Center Director's Lab. Because she's a dramaturg, she's super aware of plays getting readings and workshops, but not getting produced. She felt like and still does feel like, I think, that directors drive productions to get produced. So she gathered playwrights and directors and and she started this. And then there were um about five alumni from that lab who got together and thought we should have one on the West Coast. The people from that group that affected my life the most are Ernie Figueroa and Kathy Kilburn, Andrew Sachs as well. They started the Director's Lab West. It's been at the Pasadena Playhouse. They're a huge partner of ours. Half the time it takes place at Boston Court Theater, so they're a partner of ours.

And then our sort of big overall partner is the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation. And the idea that they came up with in it very similar to Lincoln Center, but not so much focused on getting work produced, but just providing a place for emerging mid-career directors and choreographers to be in the same room to learn things, to share ideas, but the biggest part is community because directing's a very lonely job.

[20:01] Sheree Adams: It can be. Whatever it is, stage manager, producer, maybe the stage manager's a little bit of a kindred soul, but at the end of the day, you're always alone in that room, and now you're surrounded by a type personalities who do what you do. And it was their first time experiencing that. So I'm curious to know when this pandemic started, and you guys realized that this was in danger of being canceled. What was it like when you realized, okay, we're not gonna do this in person?

[21:14] Sheree Adams: Well, we I have to say we were in denial for a really long time. What we did first is we pushed it back. And we thought, okay, we'll just it'll everything will be fine, you know, in June. And I remember thinking that. So we just pushed it back, and we had already picked the 50 directors and we contacted them and we're like, not to worry, you know, we're just postponing it. And then it became super clear after a period of time that nothing was gonna open, and the Pasadena Playhouse was closed. So we didn't we couldn't be in person any even if we wanted to. The institutions were closed. So it was just a necessary shift. When we started talking about going online, we had we had a a steering committee member named Diana Wyan, who, you know, she's a millennial, she's super connected into tech.

So she was sort of the one that was like, Oh, it'll be fine, let's do it. But there's a few steering committee members who just were like online, just felt really huge. And I was sort of in the middle. I thought, oh, I'm scared of the tech too, but gosh, it'd be great to have community for these people. So Diana spearheaded it, and so we went into it not knowing what to expect, but feeling very this is new, this is exciting, let's see what happens.

[22:34] Sheree Adams: And that's sort of what I found about the pandemic in general is that things have really opened up in terms of of what I do. So, what we ended up doing is usually it's a 10 day event. We ended up doing eight days. We went through the process of how overwhelmed do we want to be, and decided eight days would be great. And we called it director's lab West Connects because we the whole point of it was connecting into our alumni and to new viewers. And we did one a day live streamed and then archive, they archive them, and then they're available to see on HowlRound and our Directors Lab West website. So if you missed it, you could still see it. And so it was stressful because it was the eight days in a row, but what we did is we all the steering committee divided up the days that they would host.

So I only had to host one day, and I'm terrified to speak, you know, in in person, let alone let alone online, you know, with my face on Zoom. I was terrified. But you know, you just you just have to you just have to work through it because this is I think going to be the future for a lot of a lot of theater moving forward. And we found volunteers and we really lucked out in that capacity. So yeah, so that was the process. It was really, you know, uh, it was a huge discussion about it, it was really old school versus new school, but we we felt urgent about a couple things, urgency of connecting community, urgency of connecting alumni specifically. We felt very urgent about discussing the future of the American theater.

That was an urgency for us. We wanted to form panels of people who could do that, who could talk about what's gonna happen. Are we going online? Is that still theater or does it become something else? Right, all of those things we felt an urgency to discuss. So, as we planned our theme and booked our guests, we had those things in mind, and then another big huge thing that was urgent to us was diversity, black lives matter, all of that. We wanted to talk about that and bring in as many diverse artists as possible. I think we'll keep the online aspect, even when we go back in person to some extent.

[24:54] Blaine Teamer: Were you able to achieve any similarities in content from what you did in person to what you did online?

[25:02] Sheree Adams: Yeah, I mean, like our set normally we would do a panel. The panel would talk for an hour, maybe hour and a half, and then they would take questions from the from the director. So it was similar. People pre-registered, they could spend questions ahead of time. So the questions we were asking came from the community. We were like, there's gonna be mistakes, there's gonna be problems, embrace it. It's just the way of the world now. And I have found and learned the hard way that I have to say, you know, PST, EST, like give all the time zones, you know. Yes. But it it was what that's one of the big things that happened. There's always sound issues. So, you know, that's gonna happen, and we just accepted it from the beginning, and you know, you just gotta let it go. I would say that that those were the the kind of cons, but the pros are 6,500 people saw it.

[25:54] Blaine Teamer: That's incredible.

[25:56] Sheree Adams: I'll be curious to see the increase in application for the next one.

[26:00] Blaine Teamer: Oh, that's a good point.

[26:01] Sheree Adams: I haven't even thought about that. We don't have a social media manager, we don't do any of that. So so yeah, you have to sort of hear about it. But now I think you're right, the reach was larger, and maybe there'll be more uh people interested. And budget-wise, so you've always kind of had like a set budget for when it was in. So was this more economical?

[26:23] Sheree Adams: It was more economical. We did have to pay for some things, but at the end of the day, the budget's so small, and we really use it to honestly, we use it to feed the directors on the first day. Our 20th anniversary, we did a rebranding and we spent money there. But at the end of the day, we just don't have the money to spend. I find it very encouraging how although some theaters have had to stop live programming, they haven't stopped providing content and and just want to stay in their audiences world and life. And and and I think for the same reasons, I think it's about community, but it's also about staying relevant and from people who run theaters. And you know, that's what I did for seven years until the pandemic hit. I ran a theater in Santa Monica. And so I'm empathetic to people who run theaters and have to keep them open, you know. And I think the ones that are waiting for people to feel comfortable enough to come back were sort of missing the mark.

[27:37] Blaine Teamer: We're going to play a piece of the director's lab, Les Connects with Sheldon Epps. Shrey, can you tell us a little bit about Sheldon?

[27:45] Sheree Adams: Well, Sheldon Epps is the former artistic director of the Pasadena Playhouse. He brought in the lab originally and gave us our home. He's the current president of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation. Sheldon just accepted a position as artistic director of Fords Theater in Washington, DC, which is a historical. I mean, honestly, it's a great fit because both Sheldon and the Fords Theater are s are historical and legendary. It's actually the perfect fit. But what we asked them to discuss is sort of the institutional perspectives on the pandemic and how it's affected the institutions, to talk about the how connections are now being made and how support for directors and choreographers is being provided at this time and how they think that theaters will move forward.

People, lovers of theater are out there who are going to want the work that you do. So get ready, be ready to tell those those stories. Don't let your creative muscles atrophy, because uh that hunger is going to be there strongly, I think. People are gonna want to feel safe, they're gonna have some trepidation about it for a while, but but once they start to eat again and find out that it's okay, they're gonna want to do more and more of that. You know, if you can if you can re take this time to rethink all of that and really restart the engine, then this might have been useful.

[29:15] Sheree Adams: The theaters, which have been challenged even before this pandemic, may, to use what is becoming a cliché now, come out of it better as a result of not being stuck to the old way of doing things.

[29:35] Sheree Adams: You know, I think back to those who started the regional theater movement, Zelda Fitzchannel, not in advance, Gilmore Brown at Pasadena. They didn't have any models. You know, we follow the model of those theaters that were started in the 60s and 70s. They just said, I want to make a theater for my community, and I don't want it to be like Broadway theater. I want it to be something that reflects my community. And they just went out and did it. To a certain degree, I think we have to think that way again right now.

[30:13] Blaine Teamer: So, Sheree, I would like you to describe yourself as how you would describe yourself as an artist.

[30:21] Sheree Adams: I am an advocate for playwrights. I would say that would be what I consider my main role. I'm also a director and dramaturg, and I use those skills to help writers, primarily playwrights. And, you know, years ago I started with a group of people a theater called the Road Theater, and I was really young, in my early twenties, didn't know what I was doing. But what I did do that came out of that is I met a bunch of playwrights. I started a reading series there and developed new work, and that's where it kind of started, I should say institutionally where it started. And I continued after I left the Road. I went to grad school in Cincinnati, which endeared my, and I came back after getting my master's in directing from the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, and I directed a lot, but I really cared the most about new work and working with writers to develop their pieces.

And I call myself an accidental dramaturg because when you're developing a new piece, you have to be a dramaturg if there's not one in the room because sometimes things don't work or you need to change certain words or what have you. And so I really enjoy the process of working with the writer with input from the actors and maybe even a dramaturg if they're in the room. But I enjoy the process of new play development with a group of artists that all participate in the process. And so that love and that my drive to direct new work led me down a bunch of paths. But the biggest path that it led me down and that has continued to this day is the LA Writers CENTER, which is an organization I founded in 2006.

And basically we offer classes, it's a small consortium of writers. There's about 40 people, but it's also dramaturgs, directors, and actors, and we all work on developing new work together. And there's classes as well, but the main thing we do is in the classes is develop the pieces.

[32:28] Sheree Adams: So when the pandemic hit, we had been doing this in person. And when the pandemic hit, I immediately put our classes online, but also noticed that the writers for the most part were unemployed at this point, had lost their jobs, their day jobs, and felt really compelled to provide programming for them, to provide classes for them, again, to create community, to make sure that everybody stayed connected to each other, because I think that's the lifeline. So besides putting our regular classes online, I decided to do a webinar series. And I have an advisory board, and I called them and I said, you know, can I interview you and ask you a series of questions, and we'll do a webinar and it'll provide content for the writers.

So I interviewed Mark B. Perry, who's been a showrunner for 30 years on a lot of different shows that go back. I think his first show was The Wonder Years, and one of my favorite shows that he worked on was Brothers and Sisters. And so I interviewed him, and we called it content created by writers for writers. And that was a concept of this webinar. So I did that, I interviewed a few different people. I interviewed a manager who manages writers, and he actually did a pitch session for them. So that was a session where the writers came in and pitched to him, and then he would refine their pitch with them. He would say, let's get your pitch where it should be. So that was the first thing I did, and then I was like, okay, that was great, that went really well, but I'd love to do more.

So I felt like during Mark Perry's interview, my takeaway was how kind and knowledgeable he was, and I thought, okay, kind and knowledgeable, that he'd be maybe a good teacher. So we started this pilot class which has been very popular, and what I've heard from the writers is that the pilot class and the Monday night class have really saved them during the pandemic because they have a sense of community because they're working on projects, they're creating, they're gonna come out of the pandemic with scripts, with original programming, with, you know, so they're creating these babies that they can maybe develop with whomever, theaters or, you know, any streaming or what have you. So that's a huge thing that came out of the pandemic, adding more classes and also how generous people are in the industry right now.

I was able to call people and go, hey, will you talk to my writers? People who don't, I mean, or if they are working, it's different. And so I was able to ask them to participate or talk to the writers or mentor the writers or whatever it was. And so that was a huge thing that came out of the pandemic too. And I don't know that will last outside of the pandemic because they're all gonna go back to work. Yeah, but I hope it will. So accessibility to mentors was a huge one, the pilot class, and then the Breathe series in the, the Breathe and creating art, you know, art. And then we decided as a sort of when Black Lives Matter came around and it was a huge crisis, and we were all going through it together and talking about it in class.

And all of these nonprofits and companies were sending out sort of like how they feel about sort of their mission for Black Lives Matter. And I thought, you know, I don't want to do that. Like I can send out an email that says, yeah, we think Black lives matter, but at the end of the day, I want to do something. I actually want to show that we, you know, what we do. I want to call to action. So we decided to create a series called Breathe, and it's basically the reading series online with Hal Round. Hal Round agreed to work with me. And basically what we do is I chose scripts that my writers have written about their BIPOC stories. Some of the writers are BIPOC, but my main criteria was that they're BIPOC stories.

BIPOC is Black, Indigenous, people of color. So we're doing a play by Mark Ewing, who you know, called Villains, which is a new play that he just wrote, and we're doing a play called Chasing the Wolf, which you also know well by Nathan Singer, and then I'm actually looking for one more play because we don't have one for December. So I'm still looking for that. But you know, the process is getting easier. You know, and those plays are smaller casts, so I'm not so scared.

[37:10] Blaine Teamer: Crazy. Well, I feel like this pandemic was tailor-made for you.

[37:14] Sheree Adams: It is in a way. Yeah. I mean, you know, with a focus on community that you know you seem extremely invigorated, like extremely every day it seems motivating for you. That's very refreshing, you know, because I've known a lot of artists who have felt very stilted. You know, at first they felt like, oh wait, I haven't been home this much. I'll have time to create, and they got into their creating mode, but then the worry of the pandemic began to weigh down and financial worries began to weigh down. I'm feeling like people are sort of coming back a bit right now.

[37:53] Sheree Adams: I think I, and I think it's also my psychology. Like I'm one of those people who's really good in a crisis, and I just am. I talked to somebody yesterday who has COVID, and my first question to her is when do you need groceries? You know, just whatever, like what, like I, whatever it is that you need, I will show up and make sure you have it. And that's just the way I've always been. I'm just, I'm good in a crisis. A lot of my writers are going through, I mean believe me, I have days where I get it, it weighs really heavy on me, and I'm super aware of the gravity of the situation right now, both politically and with the pandemic, everything. It's more important to me to make sure my friend who has COVID is okay, to make sure that my writers have enough programming and enough projects.

Important to me. But I do let myself have the moments because I feel like I have to go through the process rather than push it aside or push it down. But at the end of the day, I get back up and make it try and make it an exp, you know, writing is something you can do anytime, anywhere. You know, writing will flourish during this time. Whether people write about the pandemic or not, writing will flourish. There will be a lot of material coming out of this ready for people to film or to produce. You know, I just feel like it's something I, when people say, I don't know what to do, and I even if they're not writers, I say you should write.

[39:21] Blaine Teamer: For the writers that you work with who are blocked, what do you, what's your advice for them?

[39:30] Sheree Adams: So, okay, so my, I haven't found that to be the case. I found that they're flowing right now. But in the past, I have found it to be a case. And so what I found with writers' block, it actually writer's block becomes a lengthy conversation because usually when writer's block is happening, there's something that they're either lying about or that they're pushing down or they don't want to confront. What I have found is that it's a psychological thing. So I'll have them call me about what's going on with this P, you know, and then at the end of the conversation, they seem to be unblocked, but they do need to talk to people about why they're blocked because it is a psychological thing. It's a real thing, but it's created by not wanting to tell the truth or somewhere in there there's a lie that they know that they're not, you know, that the truth needs to be gotten to.

And that's what I have found clears it up. I guess if you're having that, I would talk to somebody about the project. And if you have a teacher, that's great, or another writer, but there's something in the project that's keeping you from moving forward.

[40:40] Blaine Teamer: Well, I have to say that I think in a time that the biggest takeaway for me right now from this conversation is that one way to stay in a space of creativity is to be in a spirit of giving. And Sheree, you have really, really exemplified that. And that has certainly changed my frame of mind. So we want to thank you so much for joining us.

[41:09] Sheree Adams: Me. Yeah, we never know. I never know what we're gonna get out of this, but I tell Blaine all the time, if it ain't helping nobody else, it's helping me.

[41:18] Sheree Adams: This is your way of giving back and staying creative.

[41:21] Sheree Adams: I think so. Yeah. I think so. I wasn't even sort of thinking about it like that, but it is definitely been very motivating and therapeutic and very helpful, right? Especially getting into this series of creating art and in crisis has really created an interesting focus for I think I, I don't know what's sort of important to me and how I'd like to give back. I'd like to see a way through this with as few people being harmed as possible. Cause I know that there's another side to, I know there's another side to this, and I want the artistic community to lead it. We have a lot of healing to go. You know, we got a lot of processing to do after this very traumatic time we've been in, not only of the pandemic, but politically, you know, socially, and I know for a fact that art can see us through.

[42:21] Blaine Teamer: I think so too. And staying creative is gonna save people right now. And it's just, it's so fulfilling to come out of a situation where you have all this material and all of this stuff to share, and you're able to express yourself in that way. It's very fulfilling. So I hope, I hope that there's a lot of great material that comes out of it.

[42:47] Sheree Adams: I think there will be too.

[42:53] Blaine Teamer: That completes another episode in our creating art in crisis series.

[42:57] Sheree Adams: It's all finished. I finished it.

[42:58] Blaine Teamer: We hope it inspired you as much as it did us.

[43:01] Sheree Adams: Well, what do we do now?

[43:03] Blaine Teamer: You can also visit us at AfroX Podcast.com.

[43:08] Sheree Adams: Afro e X podcast.com.

[43:15] Blaine Teamer: Join us again for our next interview with another artist who is creating art during crisis.

[43:20] Sheree Adams: Now humanity can profit greatly by that.

[43:23] Blaine Teamer: And then would be able to cure brains damaged by insanity. Control all emotion. In one word, resolve all the unknown concerning men.

[43:33] Sheree Adams: Until then, have a great day on purpose.

[43:36] Blaine Teamer: Yeah, yeah.

[43:37] Sheree Adams: Alright.

[43:37] Blaine Teamer: And pivot.

[43:39] Sheree Adams: Pivot.

[43:39] Blaine Teamer: Now pivot.

[43:40] Sheree Adams: Pivot.

[43:40] Blaine Teamer: Pivot.