This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Tonya Pinkins: Welcome back to part two of You Can't SAY THAT.

[0:04] Tonya Pinkins: My guest today is Anne Hamburger, and I'm Tonya Pinkins.

[0:14] Tonya Pinkins: Anne Bogart, we did this, I did a piece with Anne Bogart at the Towers Nursing Home, which was owned by Ian Schrager. Which looked like the LaWal Valley. Now it's condos, and she's actually living there, which is kind of funny. But it was an it was empty. And it was formerly had been a cancer hospital. And we did a piece that Chuck Mee wrote called Another Person is a Foreign Country. And it we literally Chuck's casting list was like a little person who can fit in a box and um a little person and uh you know we ended up getting an emotion a group of emotionally disturbed rock musicians who took a bus for two hours every night from Long Island to come and be in the show. And we had a blind choir with people every night that would come and sit and sing with their guard dogs.

I mean, phenomenal piece of work. And Ann said to me not that long ago, she said, you know, Annie, I never would have had the courage to do this, but she said, the more intense and crazy it got, you just laughed. And she said, having that kind of grace in the face of adversity gave me the courage to move forward.

[1:28] Tonya Pinkins: Um and I, you know, have a lot of personal courage, I would say. Who's given you the grace? Who's that person? Who's your you what you were to Annie? Who's done that for you?

[1:41] Anne Hamburger: Well, I think uh I think uh people that were I think Ann Bogart's been was a very, very important influence in my life for a long time. I would say also I when I was at Yale, I went to um do my internship at the Brooklyn Academy of Music back when Joe Melillo was the director of the Next Wave Festival. And he's been a lifelong friend. You know, I don't think there's like I don't know. A lot of it is I thrive off of my creative relationships. They give me strength.

[2:17] Tonya Pinkins: Me too.

[2:18] Anne Hamburger: Um like a bit of a gypsy to come together for these projects. You fall in love and then you part and you fall in love with the next group of people and it really is almost like a new romantic relationship where you're getting to know people, you have doubts, you're worried, things take form, things take shape, you increasingly depend on one another and you then grow and thrive or not and then it's like giving birth. I mean the the first preview of Fandango for Butterflies and Counties, I literally felt like I had two and a half years of work, two and a half years of fundraising was like giving birth. And you know, I think what I've seen is that being an independent producer in the not-for-profit world today is harder than it's ever been. Unfortunately um and I thought it was hard in the eighties and nineties, but it's much harder now actually.

[3:10] Tonya Pinkins: I wanna talk about this independent producer thing because I think you know when we see like the award ceremonies, particularly the Tony now you see like you know, 20 people get on stage and and I and I I sat down with Hal Prince a year before he died and he was saying one of the reasons he stopped producing was because you had these 20 people who had to get on stage and he said, you know, when I was producing my shows, it was my name I that was up there. I I was the producer. I think that, you know, a lot of people run around calling themselves producers, and that means they put up some money or they made a phone call and they have some relationships. Let's talk about what you do, which we've touched on a little bit, which is you have an idea.

And so let's talk about what you do as a producer. Because I think a lot of times people don't respect the job of producer because they just think you're just the person who comes in and says, no, no, you can't have the money, no, you can't have this. No, no, no. But uh what you're talking about, uh, you are birthing it. You're making it possible for the artist to make this beautiful thing.

[4:15] Anne Hamburger: I I I believe that no means yes. You just have to figure out how to get to it. So, yeah, I mean, you know, I'm a creative producer, and I'm kind of a hybrid, I have a hybrid brain. So I'm not just a business person. I'm I'm a I'm a cre I'm a creative person with business chops, right? And you know, like what I think is funny is like I got a degree from Yale in theater management. The one thing I'm not is a theater manager. I would suck at managing a theater. Let's just tell what I do. Well, the Lloyd. I was the artistic director. And then went on to Disney, as you know, but I'm not like management is not my skill set, really. I mean, I'm glad I went to Yale. I made amazing relationships with people, and I learned some of the the important kind of business constructs that it takes. But I'm always so impatient. I got bored with like, I mean, my contracts was like nails on glass for me, take America kind of class. You know, and I'm an inventor and an entrepreneur, you know.

[5:23] Anne Hamburger: So, you know, uh for me as a producer, um, job number one, get the right people around the table. So if you don't have the right artists together developing something, you're doomed, right? So I always look at how artists coming around the table can have a shorthand with one another. So if I start with a playwright, then who does that playwright trust and know and love as a director? If I start with a director, we talk about who that person might want to work with as a playwright. You know, if I want to bring a new designer to the table, I make sure that it's not all new designers because I think the strongest work comes out of short artists having some kind of shorthand with one another. Um I'm actually working as a creative consulting producer on an immersive project called Particle Inc, that's a commercial piece that's gonna be in a five-story building in Midtown that's opening um in the fall, which I'm very excited about because I just get to do what I do and I don't have to raise money.

So I love that. I'm more than life itself, you know. So um, but you know, it's about having a vision and then about being a kind of a cultivator and an enabler of talent. And then it's also about being, I think, acutely aware of what's going on out there around you, because I think there are certain people that start theaters in a particular time and then they keep doing the same thing, and society and life fundamentally changes, but they're doing the same thing.

[6:59] Anne Hamburger: And you know, when I came back after I'd been gone for almost 15 years, um, everybody's like, you're just gonna do site-specience specific work again, right? And I was like, No, I don't want to do the same thing I did before, even though that's what I was very well known for in New York. What does the world need today? And I always say when one's in a particularly transitional phase, um, the important things to ask oneself are who am I, what's needed, and how can I make a difference? And so coming back to New York and seeing all the problems that are besetting our society right now. I said, for me, like taking everything I learned from the early years of En Garde Arts, the first 13 years, taking everything I learned from La Jolla and from running a global division for Disney and applying it now, I really want to do work that is about social change, right?

[8:02] Anne Hamburger: So back to answering a question you asked me about 10 minutes ago, which is, you know, I'm the inventor of devised work. Devised work is where a group of people come together to write a play collaboratively, right? That's one form of devised work. Another form of devised work, which I am doing a devised piece right now with Leila Buck, who's the head writer called Mix and Match for 2021, that's about a Lebanese Muslim and an Irish Catholic family coming together for a wedding that we hope to do in a Lebanese restaurant. But we may end up, if we can't find one, we may end up in a theater.

[8:42] Tonya Pinkins: I know one.

[8:42] Anne Hamburger: Oh, fantastic.

[8:44] Tonya Pinkins: I do, we'll talk about that.

[8:45] Anne Hamburger: Yeah. Um, so that's a devised process where Layla's ultimately writing it, but she's bringing actors in to tell their stories that she can then use in the context of developing the play. But site-specific work is about finding a location that is a great marriage of the artistic goals of the property that you're working with or of the play. It doesn't, and it doesn't have to be literal, it could be metaphorical. Like when we did Orestes, Tina Landau and I were driving around the city looking for a site for it, and we saw this twisted metal pier that jutted out into the Hudson River, and she goes, That's the house of Atreus. It is then I had to convince the Trump organization to give me their property.

[9:34] Tonya Pinkins: Um you clearly did.

[9:37] Anne Hamburger: So I clearly did. It wasn't easy, but yeah.

[9:40] Tonya Pinkins: So um What's that about? Like, how do you go convince some organization to let you use what sounds like a very dangerous place?

[9:49] Anne Hamburger: You know, he was like, Well, you know, there's nothing out there. There's no lights, there's no sound, there's nothing. And I was like, but that's what we do. I mean, there is a funny story that's related with that, which is so the guy who I talked to was a guy named Andy Weiss, who was Trump's executive vice president of the Trump organization, Real Estate. Um, and I went there with this powerhouse of a woman named Arlene Simon, who was a big active Upper West Side, historic landmarks, take no prisoners woman who loved my work. And so she connected me with them. And we went in there together. So um he was, you know, we had a few meetings, he was reticent, but he was like, Well, I guess so. And then he said, You have to build a fence, which is actually now very funny in retrospect.

[10:42] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[10:43] Anne Hamburger: You gotta build a wall.

[10:44] Tonya Pinkins: You gotta build a wall.

[10:46] Anne Hamburger: This was like, you know, a long time ago. You gotta build a fence because I'm worried that people who attend your show are gonna want to jump into the Hudson River. So you have to put a fence up that stops them from jump because he thought like theater rock concerts. I'm thinking imagine like junk and 21-year-old boys coming with like six packs, right?

[11:07] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[11:07] Anne Hamburger: He had no idea. So I was like, oh my God, how am I gonna do this, right?

[11:13] Anne Hamburger: So there was a low-income housing development very close by to where we were, and I went into the courtyard of this low-income housing development and yelled at the top of my lungs, anybody want a job.

[11:29] Anne Hamburger: And it was like, it was like people descended from the buildings and I was like the Pied Piper bringing them all over. We had this orange plastic fencing. We got that fence up, four blocks from 60th to 64th Street. We got a fence up. I paid them all in cash. And then when the audience came, none of them walked in between the two orange fence, except for opening night, Andy Weiss came who insisted on the fence and walked in between it, of course. And everybody else was like all over the place. But I think by that time he thought it was too late, you know.

[12:05] Anne Hamburger: So, you know, for me, listen, I mean, I've been told no plenty, and it's been no, right? And I've had doors shut on me that I couldn't open. But I think the thing I always think about is when someone says no, then I don't just accept no. I say, how can I turn this into a yes? And sometimes that's doing things in unpredictable ways. I mean, when we did Wilderness, which was the show we did in the past.

[12:37] Anne Hamburger: 2016 was a documentary theater piece, and it told the story of parents who sent their children to wilderness therapy programs. I spent a year and a half interviewing kids and their parents on Skype who had troubled teens who were suffering from anxiety, depression, bullying, drug addiction. And I co-wrote it with Seth Boakley, a wonderful director based in Minneapolis, and a writer.

[13:23] Anne Hamburger: If we could bring a theater writer into the wilderness. So actually it's very cheap. So Lara Collins Hughes comes and we go up into the wilderness together, and I had to convince the wilderness therapy program. She wasn't an investigative reporter. She was a cultural reporter. And we got a three-quarter page feature in the New York Times. So it's about really kind of thinking out of the box and thinking, you know, about how you can make things happen and being stubborn and resilient and brushing yourself off when you're disappointed and about things that happen, and you keep on going.

[14:24] Anne Hamburger: What else is there to do? Nothing.

[14:26] Tonya Pinkins: I agree with you.

[14:28] Anne Hamburger: Which makes me think about this thing that I've just been thinking about lately. That, you know, I think a lot of times culture, capitalism negatively brands things that are threats to it. And I was thinking about the fact that I very much feel at the top of my game, at the height of my prowess and power, whereas, you know, crown women, I am a proud Crown woman. People like to think, oh, she's a crown, she's forgotten, but I feel like this is it. Like we are not plagued by all those chemicals that make us go belly up for boys. We just have our brains, we have our creativity, we have our power, we have nothing taking our focus away from whatever we want to do, and we go and get it done. What's your take on that?

[15:14] Anne Hamburger: I don't think it's true.

[15:15] Tonya Pinkins: What why isn't it true for you, Annie?

[15:20] Anne Hamburger: Because we're mothers.

[15:23] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, well, we are mothers. So, you know, I mean, I feel fortunate that not only I've had an amazing creative career, but I have a wonderful husband. And I tell people, and it's true, that the reason I married him is because he's theater tolerant and he leaves me alone. Which is true. And I have 22-year-old children who I love and adore more than anything in the world. But, you know, so you know, we you and I grew up in a time where it was the birth of women's live, and it was like you can have it all, and you should have time for everything. And you know, you'd see those pictures of a woman in an apron, like cooking, you know, eggs while reading a book or something ridiculous like that, right?

[16:05] Anne Hamburger: Um, which, you know, so you know, you can have it all, you know, it's bullshit, right?

[16:13] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, you can't have it all.

[16:14] Anne Hamburger: Not all at the same time. You can, but something's always suffering, right? Something is, but at the same time, I feel extremely fortunate that I have a very enriching creative life. I mean, it torments me, but I am enriched by it as well. That I have these incredible kids that I've watched grow and change, that I learn from all the time, and that I have the support of a man who, you know, lets me be who I want to be, doesn't try to make me into something I'm not, doesn't complain that I don't spend enough time with him.

[16:51] Anne Hamburger: Um he fixes things, he cooks, you know, like a walk down today's like the front door lock is broken and it's a code lock. I'm like, can you go fix that? You know, because otherwise, if I had to do it, I would be like ah, you know, so where's the disagreement?

[17:09] Tonya Pinkins: It sounds like life is good, Annie.

[17:10] Anne Hamburger: Yeah, but I was saying, you know, you were saying we are women who don't need men, and I didn't say anything about don't need men.

[17:16] Tonya Pinkins: What did you say?

[17:17] Anne Hamburger: I said we're at the top of our game, the height of our prowess. We don't have the chemicals that make us go belly up.

[17:23] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, well, there's that that's a very different thing.

[17:26] Anne Hamburger: That is we can have men in our lives, but when you're in that certain age where you can still bear children, you got a whole chemical thing going on, like you can't even think for the chemicals flowing through your body.

[17:37] Tonya Pinkins: That's true.

[17:37] Anne Hamburger: The magic of menopause, right?

[17:39] Tonya Pinkins: Exactly.

[17:40] Anne Hamburger: I think it's pretty magical. Like one of my friends said, it's like spring cleaning, only it's people.

[17:47] Tonya Pinkins: Oh my god.

[17:49] Anne Hamburger: No, I think that that that is a freedom that we get that nobody talks about. That when you suddenly don't have that chemical thing going, you just get really clearer. You get clear about decisions, and it's not as clouded by some of the hormonal emotional things anymore.

[18:06] Tonya Pinkins: That is true.

[18:08] Anne Hamburger: Yeah, see?

[18:08] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, we're in agreement.

[18:09] Anne Hamburger: That is true.

[18:10] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[18:12] Anne Hamburger: Now you're writing a book.

[18:15] Tonya Pinkins: I am writing a book.

[18:17] Anne Hamburger: When are we gonna see that?

[18:18] Tonya Pinkins: Hear this book.

[18:19] Anne Hamburger: Oh well, I have to send it out to agents.

[18:23] Tonya Pinkins: Okay.

[18:24] Anne Hamburger: Um I've finished it. I just haven't yet sent it out. But um I'm excited by it because it chronicles my whole career. Um and what I've talked about juggling, marriage, motherhood, art. Um right now the title of it is balls of steel slightly dented.

[18:45] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, I like it.

[18:47] Anne Hamburger: I like it.

[18:49] Tonya Pinkins: Balls of steel slightly dented.

[18:52] Anne Hamburger: I like it. Yes. And I came up with that title because you know, the thing we didn't really talk about, but I did spend almost a decade out of New York running a founding and running Let's talk about it. Founding and running a global division for Disney called Creative Entertainment, which I did. I was contacted by a search firm who asked if I wanted to come in and interview for that job when I was at La Hoya.

[19:16] Anne Hamburger: And so I did, and I got the job, and I moved my family and my kids to LA. That's where we met. I was there for nine years. And um, without going into detail in public, I ended up on the wrong side of politics. And three weeks after I got the highest bonus of my career, I was fired. And when I was completely shocked, as was my entire team. And when I walked into my office and I told my team that I was fired, one of the producers burst into tears and said, I'm always gonna say you had balls of steel.

[19:55] Anne Hamburger: So I thought that was a great title for the book. I love it. I had a great run at Disney, and I am very happy I'm not there anymore. I got to travel all over the world. I had budgets which I can't even fathom having today in the not-for-profit world. But I learned so much about life and the world and working in cultures like Japan and France and cultures like Disney. And then now I came back to what I truly love, which is the not-for-profit theater and making art.

[20:29] Anne Hamburger: And so I feel like I've had a wealth of experience that I've lived through. That's I mean, who goes from running a site-specific avant-garde theater to running a regional theater to running a global division for Disney and then coming back again to New York to the not-for-profit theater. I mean, I think the life's journey to that as a woman and a mother and a wife, hopefully, I think we'll be of interest and there'll be lessons learned which I can share.

[21:04] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, I think there's a lot of good stories that are gonna be in there.

[21:07] Tonya Pinkins: I want to ask you if you aren't violating a gag order or something like that. Um, I always think about politics. I'm always on the wrong side of politics, and I'm actually just at this point in my life going, yeah, that's what I was born to do. I was born to be that thorn in the side, that person who goes, the emperor has no clothes on. Look at that elephant in the room. Just talk about that, the woman being on the wrong side of politics.

[21:30] Anne Hamburger: Well, I can't I don't really want to go into details about it. I just talk about the metaphorical way. But I would say that it perfectly feeds into the you can't say that title.

[21:35] Tonya Pinkins: You can't say that.

[21:44] Anne Hamburger: Okay.

[21:45] Tonya Pinkins: Okay.

[21:46] Anne Hamburger: So do you think it had to do with being a woman?

[21:48] Anne Hamburger: Totally.

[21:49] Tonya Pinkins: Okay.

[21:51] Anne Hamburger: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. You know, it's interesting. I think one of the uh, well, yeah.

[21:58] Anne Hamburger: Okay. Yeah. I mean, I would say that at Disney, you know, I was brought in as an executive vice president. So if I hadn't been brought in at that level by Michael Eisner, who I actually adored, I never would have been able to achieve what I achieved. But because I had the support of him, you know, the CEO and the chairman of Theme Parks of Resorts at the time, so at the highest levels of the company, I was able to make change.

[22:26] Anne Hamburger: And a couple of years after I was there, you know, and remember, I had no corporate experience. I started with an empty warehouse and a secretary. And I left with 30 people reporting to me, 1500 in direct reports and managing about 250 million dollars worth of stuff around the world. I think that Yale Management program might have had something like that. Well, I wasn't actually managing the money myself. I was working with people who did.

[22:55] Tonya Pinkins: But you figured out how to find the right team.

[22:57] Anne Hamburger: Well, yeah, and they failed, yes. And one of the things I did that there's actually something I it's probably the only thing I really miss. I brought in like the smartest people I could find, who were people from the theater world who could partner with me, dramaturges and production executives. And we created a team. I had this creative team of 12 people. We were like a family. We lived and died together, and they were really smart people. And I have never been kind of somebody who insists upon being looked up to because I'm in charge. Because I think that's just stupid. You know. So they would tell me I was wrong. We would fight, we would argue, we would laugh. And that was very valuable and wonderful.

And I wish there was an environment in New York where people running institutions or you know, independent companies could come together to really take one another into each other's confidence about shows they're doing. But I feel like we're all competing for the same small piece of the pie that we don't do that. Um so that's the one thing I missed. That was a really valuable experience for me.

[24:10] Anne Hamburger: But I think, you know, it's funny, by the time I left Disney, I'm such a person who needs to see the next challenge, the next challenge, the next challenge. And I was in charge of the stage shows on the cruise ships. I brought Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson Lopez to the Disney Company. They created Finding Nemo as a musical, which was the first time Pixar had ever had one of their shows in the parks done as a musical. Um Diane Paulus did a cruise ship show for me. I brought in amazing people into the Disney parks and Disney World. But after I did all that, I was like, what's next? You know, what's the next big challenge that's very exciting? And I really didn't see it um when I was there. So I felt kind of like, you know, like, oh my God, can I really walk away from all this?

And I think if I hadn't been fired, I might not have had the nerve to leave. Um and so I think it ac I mean I hate to say everything happens for a reason because it doesn't I don't believe that but um but I think for me I'm I couldn't be happier than where I am now. I mean the only way I'd be happier is if I had the Disney resources and could do what I'm doing now. But obviously that does doesn't I don't know maybe you're gonna create that.

[25:28] Tonya Pinkins: Maybe maybe yeah. What were those three questions?

[25:31] Anne Hamburger: Who am I? What do I do and how can I who am I? What's needed and how can I make a difference. And so answer those for me right now.

[25:42] Anne Hamburger: I'm a woman with 35 years producing experience and I've made a lot of mistakes and I've done right and I feel and I'm a as I said I'm a mother and a wife so I can I'm a mentor um and an example to others kind of coming up in the field. I feel like what's needed in the theater is invention and courage and bravery and commitment. At the same time not letting those things get in the way of treating artists with respect. I think I have a great deal of knowledge about how to move projects forward dramaturgically um in a way that can benefit artists. And I feel like I understand how to give them enough space. I think I'm determined. I think all that's needed. And I think I can make a difference by continuing to do work that's important. Um politically, socially, and artistically, like Fandango for Butterflies and Coyotes. So, yeah, that's who I am, and what's needed and how I can make a difference.

[27:04] Tonya Pinkins: Awesome. Who's exciting you right now that you are going, yeah, they're doing it.

[27:10] Anne Hamburger: Oh my God. Um you know, I it's a hard one.

[27:22] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, who? Who put you on the spot? Who's exciting you?

[27:29] Anne Hamburger: Okay. Okay. We'll leave it at that. You know, I haven't even talked to this for I just want to this is kind of I don't even think I should say her name because I I was gonna call her today and I should announce it before I call her. But I literally read this wonderful play yesterday, and I was like, the way this play needs to be performed is it needs to be performed don't know, bus. Because I read, I have to read a lot of plays, and I was just like, this is so fantastic. I mean, I guess I could say her name. I don't know if it'll ever happen. Kate Benson. I don't know if she wrote Porto. But I read it and I was like, what should happen is there should be a bus parked in front of a Broadway theater.

The actor should get on the bus. The audience should get on the bus. The bus should drive. I know it's so premature that I'm saying this, but it's you can't say that. The bus should go to New Jersey Performing Arts Center in New Jersey. The actor should pile out of the bus, continue performing in the lobby, and get back on the bus. Everybody should drive back to New York City. And I'm like, this is exciting.

[28:34] Tonya Pinkins: I think you could sell that.

[28:36] Anne Hamburger: I do too. Because you know, they say everybody wants experiences now. And then it's like very different than going to the theater and sitting for two hours because it's two hours now.

[28:46] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah. I I think you need to pitch it and sell it.

[28:48] Anne Hamburger: Yeah. It's interesting. I want to, before we wrap it up here, I want to say I had a meeting for a new play. And I right now just turn everything down because I'm always looking like how what's going to be exciting? What have I if I've done it already, don't ask me to come do it again.

[29:02] Tonya Pinkins: Well, you can be on the bus.

[29:03] Anne Hamburger: I might be on the bus. Um, and I went into this meeting and I was shining, shining, shining. And the people were like, oh my God, oh my god, oh my god. And you know, when people go, Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, you know you're not gonna get the job. And um, I said to them at the end, I said, So are you gonna offer me this job? And the director went, Well, it's a joint decision, and um dear. And it was like, you know, I knew, but I left that meeting and I thought that was one of the few times in my life where I've gone into a meeting and I felt that I was shining. A lot of times when I go to meetings, I always feel awkward and uncomfortable, and like I just like I don't shine. And um, and I don't get those either.

But this was like, I want to shine, and I want to work with people who want to be with me when I shine, and the piece is now over at the shed. It's called uh help. It's Claudia Rankin's new piece. And as soon as I left there, because I feel very much that the work I do is kind of I'm a I'm a receiver, I'm a vessel, like the divine is like flowing through me, and I'm just allowing it. And when I left, um, one of the problems they said of the piece was it's uh based on a series of interviews that Claudia Rankin did with a bunch of white men about what how they enjoyed their privilege. And they said they felt a little guilty about giving 20 white men jobs, you know, and and so I left there, and the solution for that came for me, and I was like, oh, well, they're not gonna give me that job, and I'm so glad I didn't give them that solution, because now that I know what the solution to their problem, I wouldn't even want to do the play if they weren't gonna do the solution.

[30:48] Anne Hamburger: So I saw the ad for it, and it was like beautiful Roz Ruff, who's an amazing actress, surrounded by 20 white men, and you know, in my vision that came to me was you take the since white men think of themselves as human neutral, you take a bunch of people of color and you put them in those white sumo suits, and you have people of color in these neutral suits being white men of privilege. So they get to be human neutral, and that's how I wanted to do that play.

[31:17] Tonya Pinkins: Tanya, you need to do that.

[31:20] Anne Hamburger: That is true. So when when so who are you? What's needed, and how how do you make how can you make a difference?

[31:27] Tonya Pinkins: I uh am a maker. I am in my best, I'm uh instrument for the the the highest expression of all that there is to just use me to express. Um what's needed is for more of us to pay attention to the reality that's here rather than the illusion in our devices and the illusions on our screens and the illusions in our heads, and to actually see that no matter what it all looks like around us, it is all evolving towards higher levels of expression and goodness, no matter what it looks like. It is all moving towards something better. And I serve by um being the person who says there's an elephant in the room and the Emperor has no clothes, and by scaring people, by speaking the uncomfortable truths and be willing being willing to take the hit for saying what people don't want to hear.

[32:43] Anne Hamburger: That sounds right to me.

[32:47] Tonya Pinkins: Well, on that note, thank you, and for coming. Do you like me called Ann or Annie?

[32:53] Anne Hamburger: Annie.

[32:54] Tonya Pinkins: So thank you, Annie, for coming. And my name is Tonya Pinkins, and you are listening to You Can't SAY THAT on the Broadway Podcast Network.

[33:02] Tonya Pinkins: Thanks for listening to You Can't SAY THAT, The Show Where You Can. I'm Tonya Pinkins. This is part of the Broadway Podcast Network, produced by Dori Berinstein and Alan Seales. Edited by Derek Gumper, music by Anthony Norman. Available wherever you get your podcast. And visit me on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. And let me know what you'd like to hear me talk about. For more information, visit VPN.fm forward slash YCST.