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[0:02] Christine Toy Johnson: Welcome to season three of Talk Back, the Dramatists Guild podcast about building the theater we want to see.

[0:08] Christine Toy Johnson: I'm your host, Christine Toy Johnson.

[0:11] Christine Toy Johnson: This season is all about collaboration.

[0:15] Christine Toy Johnson: We literally cannot make theater without one another.

[0:18] Christine Toy Johnson: And after more than a year of so much isolation, we're celebrating some of our partners in art making and exploring many ways in which they collaborate with one another.

[0:29] Christine Toy Johnson: In our first episode, we'll talk about the journey of bringing a culturally specific show to a predominantly white institution and the inherent challenges and opportunities.

[0:39] Christine Toy Johnson: Our guests are Rehana Lew Mirza, Rohi Mirza Pandya, and Natasha Sinha, who are working to bring Bhangin' It to its world premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2022.

[0:50] Christine Toy Johnson: Bhangin' It has book by Rehana Lew Mirza and Mike Lew, and music and lyrics by Sam Willmott.

[0:57] Christine Toy Johnson: I asked our panel to start us off by telling us a little bit about the show and how they each got involved.

[1:03] Rehana Lew Mirza: Hi everyone, I'm Rehana Lew Mirza, and I am one of the book writers for Bhangin' It, a musical that's going up at La Jolla Playhouse in 2022.

[1:15] Natasha Sinha: Hello, I'm Natasha Sinha. I'm a dramaturg and producer of new work, and on Bhangin' It, I am involved in a dramaturgical capacity.

[1:25] Rohi Mirza Pandya: Hi, I'm Rohi Mirza Pandya. I am on Bhangin' It as a casting and cultural consultant with SRC Partners.

[1:33] Christine Toy Johnson: Welcome to all of you. I'm so excited for you to tell me all about your show. Rehana, do you want to start with telling us a little bit about the show and also how you all came together as a team?

[1:46] Rehana Lew Mirza: Yeah, so Bhangin' It, I had actually started writing as a screenplay in my early 20s. I was obsessed with collegiate Bhangra competitions. So I would basically trade writing classes for tickets to a show and housing in somebody's dorm room just so that I could see this cultural dancing in competition form. And so, you know, Bhangin' It came out of the idea of sort of the backstage drama, but also the very compelling dance moves that I myself could never really do. So it was out of desire to sort of try to do that, I guess in some way, even if it wasn't physically, it was, you know, mentally in my head I was doing all those moves. And then eventually my husband Mike and I met Sam Willmott, the composer lyricist doing the 24-hour musicals, and we wanted to do something more substantial because we didn't kill each other writing all night long together.

So then we thought, okay, Bhangin' It could be that. Natasha came on fairly early on in the process, I guess, as we were trying to develop the story, because initially we wanted it to be sort of a Bad News Bears meets Bring It On or like a Pitch Perfect meets Bring It On type competition. But then as we started to paste on some of the identity issues and cultural issues onto that structure, we started to realize that there were some real pitfalls in terms of the meta-narrative and what we wanted to say and how there can be some demonizing that we don't want to be doing. And so I think Natasha, I think we asked you to come on board as a dramaturg during the Springboard process, which was like the Jerome Robbins Foundation had funded a dance workshop, and as a dance call, it was so important to this piece to get the physical language of it right as well.

But we had before that process, we had only had one reading of it through Ryan Bett, and that was like somewhat of a real awakening of like, oh my gosh, we have to be really careful with what we're saying. So we really need to get somebody on board who has an outside eye to all that.

[3:59] Christine Toy Johnson: Before we go on, I'd love for our listeners who might not know much about Bhangra and the culture that surrounds it. Can you give us a little bit of background about that?

[4:09] Rehana Lew Mirza: Whenever people ask me what Bhangra is, I like do some terrible move, I try to like show them, and it always looks really bad. So I think it's probably better coming from someone else. But Bhangra is about a mixed-race girl, Mary, who competes on a Bhangra team, but then feels like she doesn't fit in there and starts a ragtag team of her own, and it launches this whole cultural identity journey. And Bhangra is basically a Punjabi Indian dance form that's done in collegiate competition, but it's morphed into sort of a multiple, like, you know, wedding dances or like with hip hop. I don't know if this is really dated of me, which is why I'm pausing, but like usher to sample some Bhangra in his song. But yeah, okay, I'm gonna stop now.

[5:02] Christine Toy Johnson: Okay, thank you, Rehana. Natasha, this would be a probably a good time to ask you how you came to be a part of the team, and also to give us a little background on Bhangra and how it resonates with you.

[5:17] Natasha Sinha: Yeah, I mean I've known Mike and Rehana from around the theater community for years, of course. And so when they reached out during development wanting more eyes and ears on it, it just sounded so exciting. I think there's a lot of stories that are out there or getting picked up or feeling like they need to be created that really explore other kinds, other cultures than we usually see, but oftentimes with a weight that feels like it's the only way to get into a story that isn't familiar to white audiences. And this is just really exciting that it was so fun, that it was rooted in Bhangra, something that, you know, a this dance form that for me personally, my little brother was in college and he was in one of these teams.

He would get paid money to dance all around the country while he was in med school. And it was just so wild to me as a person who's been in various parts of the arts for my whole life, but not really dance. And it's always been something that I've been really intrigued by from an outside perspective. So it was really exciting when Mike and Rehana reached out about this. They really wanted to make sure that what they were aiming to tell through the story was actually being told and reaching the audience the way that was intended. And I mean, about Bhangra, what I also love about it is it's a dance, but it's also it's like a workout. I mean, you could just Bhangra your life away and not have to work out ever.

It's very intense, it's really fun and like life-giving to just watch it even. And so that kind of energy feels so right for a musical, for a big musical. It just feels like this was waiting to be made into a musical. And the way that Rehana and Mike are putting it together is just incredible.

[6:56] Christine Toy Johnson: Speaking of it being a big musical, there are a lot of cast members in this show, right? And so I want to ask Rohi, how did you come into the project and how has it been for you to be looking at casting such a large, beautiful company of actors?

[7:14] Rohi Mirza Pandya: SRC Partners is a cultural advisory firm, and we came on board as the casting and cultural consultant. Clary Jensen and Davis is the actual casting directors of the show, but SRC Partners is a cultural advisory firm. And with my business partner Sandia Jane Patel, we really believe that representation matters both on stage and on screen. So we try to help companies, predominantly white companies, to really get that cultural aspect correct and accurate. And also casting-wise, we're reaching out to the communities in a large way in order to break down traditional barriers of theater. For instance, for this particular show, we made it really simple as possible for folks to just send in their materials.

We did a huge open call nationwide; hundreds of people submitted, which was amazing. I think that most people would never get this chance normally if they didn't hear about it. So I think that that makes it a little different bringing in somebody from the community in order to try to reach the community casting-wise.

[8:20] Rehana Lew Mirza: This is Rehana. I just want to chime in absolutely. I was pretty insistent on getting a cultural consultant on board for Bhangin' It, as well as being pretty insistent about getting a dramaturg on board that's South Asian, that's steeped in both musical theater, which is its own world that I'm still learning about, as well as South Asian culture, which is its own thing as well. So it's like there's a lot of learning curves, and I think, you know, we've all been there where we've seen casting calls and been like, that's not for me, right? Or we've seen show blurbs and we're like, that show is not for me. As a member of the community, this is a show about the community that's not a show for the community.

So I think the language of it really matters, and for me, being able to take some of that off my plate, knowing that I am focusing on creating the story that I want to tell, because, you know, it's not a story that's going to be for everyone. I always say this, that with any non-culturally specific show, like it's assumed that there's going to be a specific audience for it, and that some people are gonna like it and some people aren't gonna like it. And then there's so much pressure on a culturally specific show that everyone must like it, or that it must speak to like every person's story, because there's such a dearth out there of stories. And so for Bhangin' It, we just really had to be very specific about it and then get the people on board that could help us do that. And for us, it was Natasha and Rohi.

[9:49] Rohi Mirza Pandya: Rehana, I think that is so smart, and I can't actually believe that we don't all do this from the beginning because it makes so much sense to have a team that you can collaborate with and bring forward. And I wonder if there were any specific conversations that you had with your producers about bringing this specific team with you and that they were part of the package, I'm assuming.

[10:19] Rehana Lew Mirza: We would just kind of repeat ourselves a lot. Like, oh, is Natasha available? Do we know Natasha's schedule? Like, oh, do you think Natasha's gonna come with us? You know, every step of the way. Yeah, instead of asking for it, you know, we were really specific about like who we wanted, you know, and even with Rohi as well. I was like, you should meet with Rohi, you should meet with Rohi. I know she's my sister, and that can be considered nepotism, but she's, along with Sandia and along with her husband Kitash, I've been doing marketing and consulting for, you know, a good couple decades. You want people that do their job well, you know, on your team. You want your people that not only get what you're doing and let you do what you need to do, but then have their own world that they operate in, and they do 110% in their arena as well.

That's kind of like what I want in my world, and so that's how I advocate in institutions that don't necessarily always do that. They don't necessarily have so many people, and there's always a thing like too many chefs in the kitchen. But I'm like, there's several kitchens going on here. Do you know how much food we have to make?

[11:35] Christine Toy Johnson: That's a great, great analogy. And I think I imagine that it would take the pressure off of especially a predominantly white institution from thinking that they have to know everything, which of course they can't, nobody can know everything.

[11:50] Natasha Sinha: So I I'm hoping that this becomes really a common practice that we who are creating culturally specific pieces feel empowered to bring a team together.

[12:01] Christine Toy Johnson: I'd love to know how you partner with one another when you're doing a reading or when you have a new draft, how do you each work with one another?

[12:10] Natasha Sinha: I'll start with Natasha. I feel like this is constantly evolving, and now as we're moving into bigger steps for the show, I'm really excited to see what that will be. A lot of what we've talked about is really how to prime folks for the story that's coming up via the beginning of the show, right? Like that is one way in. And that is true for honestly for most shows that are being developed, and especially for musicals, there's a lot of talk oftentimes about like what is the opening number? How are we establishing what kind of show this is so that people can take in the rest, focusing on the right components as like the primary ways of getting story, of getting information in? So story development in general, which embeds a lot of the other questions about culturally specific this or that, right?

For example, like Rehana was saying, part of it may be who we assume the audience is. Are we explaining for white folks? That tends to be a default, whether or not it's actually stated. Are we only talking to folks from the South Asian diaspora? That tends to be what folks assume is the goal, or is it a blend while centering the brown folks? Who is the choreo audience we want to be speaking to while also welcoming others? There's a lot of conversation in the show about who is enough of a particular racial identity to claim it. And I mean the show does that in a way that's so entertaining with like sneak attack meaning and really interesting stuff that it brings up, but it does it through again, like so much joy and dance and humor, and it's just incredible.

But like, is an Indian and white young woman enough of being from a particular culture and how we show that, not just tell it via dialogue? How do we like feel the dynamics of it, feel it in the songs, understand it in the pacing of various storylines? I think a lot of our conversations really begin with questions and come and just you know, asking what a particular line or relationship or dynamic in a scene might be about and the way they pile up and the accumulation of various events in a play, right? So, for example, in this in Bhangin' It, there's this main lead who identifies as Indian and also as white. What does that mean? And does she feel Indian enough? This is something that's discussed throughout, and how much how does that sort of also interact with the rest of her Bhangra team, which she leaves, and this is not a spoiler alert really, but it's a thing that sets us up into the rest of the show.

But what does that mean in terms of those dynamics and feeling part of a community or not? And then creating her own community, and then what the definition of that is. So really getting into the questions behind the storytelling choices that have to do with culture, that have to do with various parts of the umbrella of a particular culture because there's a lot of nuances, there's a lot of different stories within one umbrella, and that's something that we're really wrestling with, which can be tricky when so much of theater is created for and by a white lens. But that's what we're really trying to keep discussing and keep in the air throughout. And there are white folks on our team too, right?

So it's and that's I think that's very it feels very intentional and organic and right to me because the whole point of having these conversations and telling the story, I think is to really honor various identities and how you sort of feel like yourself within that fully, fully yourself.

[15:29] Rehana Lew Mirza: How about you? How do you interact with the team? How do you partner with one another?

[15:34] Rohi Mirza Pandya: Yes. So I mentioned before Calarie Jensen Davis are the casting directors on this show. And helping as a casting consultant and that reaching out to the various communities. I work directly with Amy, the director, and she's very aware as a white woman, she might not have the same views as somebody like myself would bring to the table. So it's been a really lovely collaborative experience as far as coming to the table with either lived experiences or experiences that we can share with the team as far as bringing in casting as well. We try to bring in everybody from the Punjabi and Sikh communities so they can be seen so that we show a very accurate and authentic story, but the show is for everybody. I mean, the story is an American story. That's the biggest thing that we want to come across. So while we are making sure that the show is culturally accurate and authentic, we also want to make sure that everybody will be able to see the show and enjoy it.

[16:37] Christine Toy Johnson: We're going to take a quick break. More from the team behind the new musical Bhangin' It when we come back.

[16:43] Natasha Sinha: And we're back. There are so few stories about South Asian individuals being produced on our stages, even in 2021. I asked the Bhangin' It team about navigating the pressures of representation. Here's Rehana.

[16:58] Rehana Lew Mirza: Yeah, I mean, I think it's hard because you know, everyone going into this show, South Asian and non-South Asian alike, are feeling this sort of pressure because if you look at it, the last and only South Asian show on Broadway was Bombay Dreams, which also was not, you know, it was not about an American team. It was about again chasing back to like Indian dreams of becoming a Bollywood star. I think it's problematic to try to make the show about everything. Nobody wants a story about with everything in it. It's just it's too much. If you try to do that, actually, people would turn away from it. And yet the ironic thing is that I think there is a sort of an underlying expectation to do that.

Sure. I mean, you know, I'm sitting around for five hundred years looking for a protagonist like me, and then you know, and I haven't gotten it yet. And I feel for people when they come see Bhangin' It, there are gonna be people who watch the show and be like, Oh my god, I competed in a Bhangra team and I don't see myself in the show. And I'm gonna feel bad. But there'll be hundreds of other people who come to see the show and you know, may or may not have competed on a Bhangra team and will see themselves in it somehow. I used to think, Oh, I gotta change everyone's opinions. That's why I used to write. I have to change the world. And then I was like, wait, that's billions of people. That's gonna be real hard to do.

Then I realized, oh actually I write for the people that can connect to it and how do I start curating that audience, those people? How do I start forming that connection and start speaking directly to them?

[18:39] Natasha Sinha: Hi, this is Natasha. I just wanted to add to that. I'm unsure if there's really any way to do that anyway. Like to represent every brown person, every person from the South Asian diaspora in and I don't think it's like, oh, can you do that really well? Are you good enough of a writer to do that? It's not even about that. I think it's, you know, like Rehana was saying, I think it's hard for those of us within a community to not fully identify with a show that finally comes around but doesn't quote unquote represent them if that happens, right? And I mean in general for many of the stories that are coming out, especially in the past several years. But would any white artist be asked to be representative of every white person?

That sounds so ridiculous when we say it, right? Because we're humbled with stories. I mean, I grew up with so many stories that were all centered around folks who are white, and so much so that we don't even recognize it as a defining factor, whereas something like you know, something about the South Asian world suddenly brings to mind Bombay Dreams and Monsoon Wedding, which are yes two other musicals that include this community, but beyond that, like I'm not sure I understand what those similarities are. So I think what we actually need is just to lean into multiplicity of stories, that this is one of many stories.

[19:56] Rehana Lew Mirza: Yeah, I think you backing off of that too. The South Asian American experience is so both specific and completely different, even under the Asian American umbrella, right? If you look at how diverse of an experience that can be in terms of our backgrounds and cultural norms and within and you send narrowing on South Asian culture too, it's so different. And so I started really thinking through like why is this so hard to try to capture like a generalized experience? And I'm like, oh well, this makes sense. And my mom like wrapped a sari a certain way, and a different family is gonna wrap a sari a different way from that. And each one is gonna insist that their way of wrapping a sari is the right way to wrap a sari.

So, like you can't actually represent wrapping a sari on stage for everyone, right? And then what I'm trying to do as an artist on top of that, I'm not trying to just wrap a sari. I'm like, hey, what if we were to take the sari and make it out of a flower bag and then weave in some gold threads and like do all this strange things and then wrap it? That's not a sari anymore. Like, well, I don't know, maybe it is. And so, like the reason why, like also the presence of Natasha and Ruhi, along with our other collaborative teammates, like Ruj Vajia, choreographer and Deep Singh, who does the percussions and additional music composition, who are all South Asian, but we're all so different, and we all will argue to the death about like where we come from and what we believe in.

And that's good, I think. And that's what actually makes this project so different than other ones because I think there's this false equivalency that agreement means right, or that agreement means good. And for me, I think Sam actually said it like when everyone's arguing and everyone's unhappy, that's how you know you we've discovered something. That's great.

[21:51] Rohi Mirza Pandya: I mean, that's America, right? Like, I feel like America is made up of all different types of people. We're all here. We're the melting pot. So I feel like that's why this show represents South Asian Americans, but really just Americans. So it's a story, an American story about identity.

[22:13] Christine Toy Johnson: Ruby, I wanted to ask you a little bit more about marketing and how you approached La Jolla, for example, with your marketing ideas. How was that to collaborate with them?

[22:23] Rohi Mirza Pandya: It's been really great working with La Jolla Playhouse. I think that their marketing team's really great. I think they're very open and collaborative to ideas. Kadesh and I have worked with Hollywood Studios for the past 20 years, putting out films for the Hollywood and Bollywood and with the South Asian community. So we know how to reach that particular community. So I think La Jolla Playhouse really recognizes and respects our expertise. So we've enjoyed working with them. It's very similar to working with white Hollywood studios. I feel like they need to know different things and they don't know ways to reach particular communities. I think that's been really great that they're open to that.

I think that most theater companies have not been. Also, I guess that that's also part of the there hasn't been that many brown stories out there to market. So hopefully this is gonna be the start of something more where you'll see more brown stories or more underrepresented community stories, and you'll see more BIPOC stories being told on stage.

[23:27] Rehana Lew Mirza: Thank you.

[23:29] Christine Toy Johnson: I'd love to know any of the specific challenges you might have come across in preparing to work with a predominantly white institution that you want to speak about.

[23:44] Rehana Lew Mirza: Rana, do you want to start with that?

[23:46] Rehana Lew Mirza: With La Jolla, they've always been really open, like we've been playwrights in residence there, Mike and I. And so I think being around us, they get to know who we are, and it becomes more of a relationship. But I think when you're dealing with primarily white institutions where you just kind of fly in for your play for like, you know, that process, it's much harder to develop a relationship, right? And all of a sudden, like I'm making demands as a partner on a theater, and they're like, Whoa man, we're on our third date only. What do you mean? Well, like no. So I think it becomes a little bit harder to explain why and make that case when you don't have a fully committed, trusted foundation underneath you, right?

I think La Jolla trusts when I'm like, Yeah, I need cultural consultants and I need this and I need that. Unfortunately, when they have a BIPOC play coming in, you know, a friend of mine pointed this out, like, oh, they don't see the need for a cultural consultant because they have you. And it's kind of a little bit unfair, I realize. Whoa, that's like asking like a playwright, oh, since we got you, why don't you just clean out the bathrooms or like or hey, like while we have you, can you just like do this Twitter feed about how to market the play? And I'm like, I'm literally making cuts and like in act one. Can you just can I not have to think about that? And I and I've heard this actually amongst a lot of BIPOC artists of oh, I know that the audience I want isn't going to be there.

So I go out and I do these events and I bring them in, and I'm like, I have a lot going on in my brain, and I need like extra hands, because I think for me, a play or a musical isn't finished until the audience interacts with it, right? It's like you can have a play or a musical in a drawer, and it doesn't mean anything, but it means something when you have that full engagement. That part of it is so important to me. Getting the audiences in there that will actually receive be there to receive it.

[25:34] Natasha Sinha: Natasha, I know that you have something to add.

[25:37] Natasha Sinha: I'll just say, I mean, I find it's also always just so relationship-based, which is maybe the only way to keep it from feeling transactional or product-based, which is not the vibe I'm ever looking for in theater. And and yeah, I mean, I I've worked, I've worked with a couple of theaters off Broadway in the city, and that feels like always the way to combat coming at a show from a lens that is not actually relevant for the show in any way, again, whether it's a cultural reason or some other reason. But I think really understanding what the show is about, why it's there, what it puts forward and how from the generative artists is just for me always just the way to go and always the most interesting way to go.

And like we were saying before, I think it's also about understanding together and getting on the same page about who is in the conversation, from what space we're trying to tell a story and to what audience and what the sort of obstacles there are, so that they're all laid out, even if it's still something that's being navigated and might be navigated the entire time, actually. So yeah, and I also, you know, I've been developing and producing new theater for years, and questions about cultural specificity are basically in one of many buckets of dramaturgical conversation that comes up, whether I'm wearing producing hat or dramaturging hat. It's not new, it's just more spotlit recently because of what's been moving into the zeitgeist the past few years.

Sometimes that can be frustrating to be honest. This has forever been important. It's just been silenced or marginalized before, whether actively or passively, but suddenly now there's an upsurge of folks who want to make sure that they're caring about the things that they're supposed to be caring about. But ultimately, I am relieved that we're moving towards like a fuller discussion about stories that don't live in the narrow scope of what theater and particularly musical theater has focused on in the mainstream in this country. And you know, the mainstream and the Western canon are so used to considering musical theater from the lens of white male able-bodied folks, cis folks, even though our world obviously includes so many more of us.

So it's really about trying to figure out how to reshape that lens and or even just understand what the lens is so that we can know that together and take efforts to look at it through other lenses. So it just feels like we need this multiplicity of lenses that Rahana and this team have built into this process from the very beginning, so that no one person holds cultural knowledge because that's not a possible thing.

[28:03] Rehana Lew Mirza: Right, right. Yes, I think that that part of the advancement that's been happening this year is the acknowledgement that there are different stories and different lenses through which we should be looking at them to get a just even more enjoyment out of all of our theater going, right? How can we forge productive conversations with our producing collaborators before we even get to production so that we can make it clearer that things that we need, the people that we need with us on our teams and be heard.

[28:38] Rehana Lew Mirza: Yeah, I mean, I think it's really interesting. Like you can't do it, you can't build an empire all at once, right? We brought people on step by step, and you know, it also started with Brujvaidia, our choreographer is one of the key things because you know, a lot of the choreographer names that get tossed out, they're you know, you you need people with musical theater experience, and the people with you know, musical theater experience happen to be all non-South Asian and non-female. This is a female for a show. As you can see, building that team and having, you know, considering all perspectives, it's not just about South Asian perspective. It's like these are two female leads, and that's never been like, you know, we're actually four female leads, and that's very rare to see and all of these things.

And I and I I mean I think it's every artist, you have to start thinking through what you need very early on. Because I think Rui can probably speak to like what happens when when she's brought on to a show too late in the game when people realize there's a problem. It's it's always too late to respond to things. Like when you create work that's in response to something, it's never as strong as when you declare it, like at the start. So it's sitting down, being like, who do I need on my team, and where do I need to fight for it? Right? Because you can't get everything, and you can't get everyone. You need to understand that this is actually a collaborative process. Actually, the work will be made richer when you have that give and take.

And so it's really just having the hard discussions, which I think people tend to avoid as well, because there is no dialogue for it right now. There is no precedence for like any of this conversation around DI DEI work or around community engagement, but like no practice of it, right? There's no practical. So, like, what does that look like? And I think both Natasha and Rui have a great experience of on-the-ground work. I I also just want to say how smart I think well, you all are, but the idea of not having to take the burden on yourself to be the cultural consultant when you've written the thing too is so mind-blowing and incredible.

[30:41] Rohi Mirza Pandya: Incredible. Thank you. This is Ruby. When you get to the PR side when you're marketing the film and it's already done, it's too late. All the mistakes are there. The DEI wasn't baked in. And as a publicist, you're just there to spin whatever mistakes that were there. We want to see DEI baked in from the beginning. We want to see cultural consultants, or as we call ourselves, cultural producers to be an industry standard for any type of show, film, TV series that you're making, we want you to hire a cultural consultant. It doesn't have to be me or Sandia. There's tons of us out there that actually are doing this type of work and think this work is very important because we feel like it needs to be done. And everything out there needs to be accurate. You know, that's the I mean, I keep saying that word, but it we really want things to be accurate and done in a sensitive way.

[31:33] Natasha Sinha: Thank you. And I do think that in the past, people have assumed that the writers would be that person and not need feel the need to hire an outside source, which of course is so key here.

[31:47] Christine Toy Johnson: What have I not touched on that you'd like to say, Natasha?

[31:51] Natasha Sinha: This is a lot of sort of from scratch thoughtful work that has to be done early on. Otherwise there's a lot that's getting baked in and not really acknowledged or intentionally put there. So I just wanted to add that because I feel like it's really important to think about this stuff from the beginning. As a dramaturg, I get a lot of artists giving me their scripts once they're in like full draft like number draft number four form asking if something is being authentically represented. And I never know how to answer that. At this point I sort of don't really engage with that kind of work because I don't know how to do it. I I don't know I'm not an expert at a culture. I think I'm good at developing storylines and developing theater and this is part of that but it's not something you can surgically remove, fix and then put back into a story. So I think you have to sort of start from the beginning so that the whole organism is functioning with that understanding.

[32:48] Rehana Lew Mirza: Thank you. There's a lot of early on just like building from the ground up what the narrative is and I will say like one thing that you want to do is choose collaborators that aren't led by fear also or like find ways in which you're not led by fears in yourself. As an actor you may never have put Bhangra on your resume because then you're just gonna get someone being like what's Bhangra what does that mean? Ah how cute yeah, you're not hired for this. So maybe like now you're starting to see, like, oh, where have I just been undervaluing myself because of certain like how Natasha was saying certain ways in which American theater has been built and ways in which we've undervalued global artistic expressions.

And so I like to think that this is just like one baby step that like perhaps we're moving the needle just a little bit forward where we can now start to realize how left out some people have been from the conversation and how left out some talents have been, how underutilized a lot of people have been. But who knows? Nobody knows anything. I think what we all have to remind ourselves is like how do we make room, how do we make space?

[34:04] Christine Toy Johnson: I want to thank our guest today. Banginit is set to premiere at La Jolla Playhouse in early 2022. Visit LaJollaPlayhouse.org to learn more about the show and to get tickets. If you've enjoyed this episode of TalkBack, please rate us, leave a review, and share it with a friend. Talkback is a production of the Dramatists Guild of America. It's produced by Amy Von Masick, Sarah Storm, and me, Christine Toy Johnson, and mixed by Robert Delaney Prine. Our theme music is by Andrea Daley. Our guest producers for this episode are Michael and Shellen Lubin. The Dramatists Guild Presents Talkback is distributed by the Broadway Podcast Network. Join the conversation online and use hashtag DG TalkBack. As always, to be continued.