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[0:00] Ken Davenport: Hey everybody, it's Ken Davenport here on this week's episode of the Producer's Perspective podcast.

[0:04] Ken Davenport: I'm gonna talk about Simone Biles and what her withdrawal from the Tokyo Olympics means for theater makers. Coming up next.

[0:16] Ken Davenport: I wanna be a producer with a hit show on Broadway.

[0:23] Ken Davenport: You're listening to the Producer's Perspective Podcast with your host, Tony Award winner, Ken Davenport.

[0:33] Ken Davenport: Hi everybody, and welcome to episode number 244 of the Producer's Perspective Podcast. Today we're gonna talk about a very timely event.

[0:40] Ken Davenport: For those of you who were watching last week's Olympics in Tokyo, you know, one of my favorite events, one of the world's favorite events, is of course the women's team gymnastics, individual gymnastics, anything gymnastics, even the rhythmic gymnastics.

[0:59] Ken Davenport: I mean, I'll take any gymnastics at any time. And the world was so excited, and certainly this country was so excited to watch Simone Biles get back up and prepare to run down that vault runway and do what she has done so so well and better than anyone in the world.

[1:21] Ken Davenport: So the world was also shocked when after a less than Simone Biles performance, she announced that she would be withdrawing from the Olympics.

[1:34] Ken Davenport: So I want to talk a little bit about my own personal reaction to this first, before we even get into the global reaction or any of the nonsense, many much of it on social media.

[1:47] Ken Davenport: So I'm gonna be very honest right now and tell you that my first reaction was, what? She pulled herself out? How could she let down the team? How could she do that? She's gotta fight, fight, fight. She's gotta keep going. She's gotta stay in the game. That was my first reaction.

[2:06] Ken Davenport: And then honestly, what I've learned over the last year in so many different subjects is to when I have an initial gut reaction, when I have an unconscious bias, when I have an unconscious feeling or sentiment about anything, I stop and I take a breath and I ask myself, why are you feeling that way?

[2:06] Ken Davenport: Why are you feeling that way? So I asked myself when Simone Biles said her mental health was so important and withdrew from the Olympics, and I had this reaction of how could she do that? I asked myself, why was I thinking that way?

[2:44] Ken Davenport: And then I remembered exactly why I was thinking that way. So go way back with me, dilida, little Wayne's World now. We're going to go back to 1989, maybe 1988.

[3:01] Ken Davenport: And little Kenny Hasija at the time, yes, that's right, um, was playing baseball, my first year of varsity baseball, and I got put into a big game. I was not a starter, uh, and I got put into this very big game, my first time starting, and this was it, the debut.

[3:23] Ken Davenport: And I was gonna show everyone how great I was, and I was gonna be the starter going forward, and my baseball career would take off, and the Red Sox would sign me. It was all gonna be on this one game where I was finally getting my shot, and I was not gonna throw it away.

[3:41] Ken Davenport: Well, guess what? I sucked. I really was not very good that day. I just didn't have it. I'm sure it was nerves, I was my own pressure. Who knows? But I just didn't have my usual stuff because, you know, I was actually a pretty good player, but that day I didn't have it.

[4:01] Ken Davenport: And I could tell my teammates were disappointed in me. And I in fact, I threw a ball to someone at one point, it got away from him because it was an errant throw, and he looked at me like, come on, even said that like, come on, get in the game.

[4:15] Ken Davenport: I couldn't get myself in the game, and I felt I was bringing everybody down. So I went over uh to my coach at the time and I said, I want to come out. I don't feel like I am contributing as much as I want to contribute, and I want to come out of the game.

[4:34] Ken Davenport: And he looked at me dumbfounded and sighed, shook his head, and sat me on the bench. I then, of course, got off the bench and cheered the heck out of my team for the rest of the game, which we won, by the way.

[4:50] Ken Davenport: I will never forget that we won. And afterwards, this coach of mine took me aside and said, Why did you do that? Why did you take yourself out of the game?

[4:56] Ken Davenport: You can never take yourself out of the game. You've got to stay in the game. You gotta stay in the game, you gotta stay in the game.

[5:28] Ken Davenport: Because not only wasn't I not doing my team members any favors, little 16-year-old Kenny Hasija was embarrassed. I was concerned about myself.

[5:42] Ken Davenport: Yeah. I was afraid I was gonna be made fun of. I was afraid that if I stayed in the game, that I would do something, commit an error, I would make a fool of myself, and that would haunt me down those very stressful, tenuous high school halls.

[5:58] Ken Davenport: I was anxious. It was extreme anxiety I was feeling on the baseball field that day. And that is not good for anybody, not just in the short term, but in the long term, in the long term.

[6:12] Ken Davenport: I was right to take myself out of the game. Now, look, we can talk about facing your fears, we can talk about girding up your loins and going for it.

[6:21] Ken Davenport: And obviously, there are times when we need to face the challenges that are in front of us. But frankly, whether you're an Olympic athlete, whether you're a 16-year-old kid on the baseball field, or whether you're a theater maker, if you firmly believe that something you are doing right now may have detrimental long term effects on your mental health, take yourself out of the game.

[6:54] Ken Davenport: Because you can always put yourself back in. That's the epilogue of this story. That wasn't my last game playing baseball.

[7:05] Ken Davenport: The next year, I was a varsity player, a senior. I started every single game. And actually, that same coach gave me an award at our end of the season team dinner for being the most improved player.

[7:24] Ken Davenport: So remember, your long term mental health as a theater maker and as a human being matters more than a short term win.

[7:35] Ken Davenport: Even if that win is a gold freaking medal. Congratulations to Simone Biles for doing what was best.

[8:12] Ken Davenport: My mission is to amplify the conversation about theater because if we get more people talking about it, we'll get more people making it, we'll get more people seeing it.

[8:21] Ken Davenport: It will be great for the industry as a whole. If you want more of my daily perspectives on theater and Broadway, check out my blog at the ProducersPerspective.com or check out my social media accounts at Ken Davenport B Way on Instagram and at Ken Davenport on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

[8:39] Ken Davenport: We'll see you for the next episode.