This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:04] Tonya Pinkins: This is Tonya Pinkins, and you're listening to my podcast.

[0:09] Tonya Pinkins: You can't say that. And it is May 12th, and we are almost three months into the COVID-19 lockdown.

[0:16] Tonya Pinkins: And before lockdown, I had banked over half a year of podcast and was going to take a lot of time off. But then I thought the world as we know it has changed. And I wanted to check in with artists about how they're surviving and what they see for the future.

[0:36] Tonya Pinkins: So my next guest is a playwright, an actor, a producer, a director, a television writer. And we met in New York when I went to programming for an organization he founded called The New Black Fest. And The New Black Fest is described on its website as a theater festival, a movement, a call to action inspired by the state of Black Theater in the 21st century. Please welcome Keith Josef Adkins.

[1:09] Tonya Pinkins: Hey Keith, how you doing?

[1:10] Keith Josef Adkins: Good, good.

[1:11] Tonya Pinkins: How are you?

[1:12] Keith Josef Adkins: So glad to be here. Thank you for the invite.

[1:14] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, absolutely. So I have a million questions for you.

[1:19] Keith Josef Adkins: Yes, of course.

[1:20] Tonya Pinkins: Um you're in LA, right?

[1:22] Keith Josef Adkins: Yes, like currently, yes.

[1:24] Tonya Pinkins: So what's you know, what's the state of life there right now?

[1:30] Keith Josef Adkins: Well, um for the most part, you saw I was I was working on a television show, P-Valley, which my guest I had Katori Hall on here.

[1:39] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, you did?

[1:40] Keith Josef Adkins: Oh, yeah, yeah. So I was I'm not on P-Valley anymore, I was on another show called The Witches of New York.

[1:46] Tonya Pinkins: Oh which is a new Netflix show that's sort of in progress, basically.

[1:52] Keith Josef Adkins: Um, but when the um sort of shutdown happened, or the shutdown order or stay-at-home order happened, we were still in the room, and then we um obviously were told we were not coming back to the room until we were doing the last couple of writing rooms uh virtually.

[2:10] Keith Josef Adkins: And so I think at that point everyone would just sort of still looking over their shoulder, like what's really going on, like what does this mean? You know, um, and um, and so people were sort of still kind of casual and still very, very hopeful about it resolving itself within a couple of weeks with it, or at least within a month.

[2:29] Keith Josef Adkins: Um, and obviously, you know, um that didn't happen quite the way people wanted it to happen. And so currently, you know, um I'm at home pretty much locked in, except to go to the grocery store. Um, even though the governor of California has lifted the stay-at-home order, um, you know, people are definitely out more, but I'm not, because I'm one of those people who's kind of like, well, I hear what you're saying, but I s I just still want to protect myself and sort of read between the lines and make sure that it is safe.

[3:03] Keith Josef Adkins: Um, so so I'm good, but I do notice that sort of collectively the Los Angeles community are out and about as if the storm is over. Um even like I think a week or so, even before the stay-at-home order was lifted. I mean, I saw lots of people with masks, not practicing social distancing. Um, so it's a weird kind of like, you know, and you lived here, Tonya, so you understand like California has a sort of laid back manana kind of attitude about a lot of things.

[3:34] Keith Josef Adkins: And so people feel a little invincible because it's the weather's nice. That's like a you know, a replacement for health. So it's like, oh, just because it's sunny, don't mean you safe.

[3:49] Tonya Pinkins: I that's when I go walking over by the Hudson River here in New York, people are walking without masks, and it's like they think that the river is somehow protecting them from the virus or something.

[3:58] Keith Josef Adkins: Man, that's crazy.

[4:00] Tonya Pinkins: So crazy.

[4:01] Keith Josef Adkins: Yeah. So no, it's it's very interesting. There is certainly a level of invincibility out here at least, and obviously nationally. Um, I just think it's there, I think there's just a built-in American um invincibility that comes from perceiving ourselves as first world and therefore invincible and entitled and privileged, despite what the rest of the world is navigating, you know.

[4:26] Keith Josef Adkins: And it's interesting that that idea of ourself is still holding strong, even though we are the COVID-19 epicenter of the world with three to four times more cases and deaths than any place in the world. We still we're number one in death and and disease.

[4:44] Tonya Pinkins: Right, exactly.

[4:46] Keith Josef Adkins: Exactly. It's very it's very interesting because like the invincibility quotient, if you want to call it that, definitely, you know, has two sides to it, obviously, right? Sort of the American, you know, we're invincible, so we can do anything, and we can sort of you know cut down the trees and build a settlement, you know, despite who it hurts or whatever. And then um the flip side of that is obviously in situations like this, like yo, invincibility is not really a variable in this situation.

[5:12] Keith Josef Adkins: It's like invincibility means like taking keeping your butt in the house and distancing when you're out, you know. Um so it's very curious and interesting, you know. I was just um emailing with someone in Israel today who has five-year old twins, and Israel is opening up kindergarten this week.

[5:33] Tonya Pinkins: Wow.

[5:34] Keith Josef Adkins: And I told her, tell me more. Tell me more. How is that happening? We don't but have a um neutralizing antibody. I was speaking with the head of Quest Laboratories, and he said maybe by Q3, Q Q4, we'll have a neutralizing antibody. And then we need to follow people with that for years to see how long it lasts. So yeah, it's it's some real life happening on these streets, you know.

[6:01] Keith Josef Adkins: Um, and I was talking to, I was zooming with a good friend of mine in North Carolina um a few days ago, an actor, a friend of mine. Um, and we were just talking about like, you know, it's almost like an apocalyptic movie, you know, uh, like the early sort of uh uh episodes of Walking Dead and or Fear Walking Dead, um, where everyone's sort of like there's a virus, I believe, and people are being impacted by it, you know, and only a few people are really sort of taking it seriously, you know.

[6:30] Keith Josef Adkins: And we were like talking about how perhaps in a year he and I were gonna be the few people who are gonna still be zooming while everybody's out and about. Like, oh, we're not going outside, we're still gonna zoom.

[6:42] Tonya Pinkins: Well, you know, you and I both love the apocalyptic worlds. Um I got to be on Fear of the Walking Dead.

[6:48] Keith Josef Adkins: Yeah, I was so excited to see you.

[6:51] Tonya Pinkins: And you know, I I um I had a meeting with the creators of the show. Um I think it was right after when I was sort of the end of P-Valley, Katori's P-Valley for stars. So that was maybe a year and a half ago, and I think you had just um, you know, did an arc on the show.

[7:09] Keith Josef Adkins: And so talking to them about, I think your name came up in my meeting with them, and they were like, Yeah, Tanya. I was like, Yes, oh my God. And they were like, Tanya's amazing. You can't wait till you, we can't wait for you to see the episode. I mean, you know, the episodes, the plural that she's gonna be in. I was like, cool, yeah.

[7:24] Tonya Pinkins: Um, so I was looking at your television resume. We're gonna get to your playwriting resume, but I want to look at your television resume because there's so many things on there, jobs that you have, and I think a lot of times people don't understand. I mean, because I know a lot of television writers, I have a kind of understanding of the different jobs that people have in television writing.

[7:49] Keith Josef Adkins: Because I think a lot of theater writers are going to be going to television or starting to figure out how to tell stories in remote ways. I saw that Lionscape put out a list of suggestions that they only make shows with people who are already quarantined together. Did you see that?

[8:06] Keith Josef Adkins: Mm-hmm.

[8:07] Tonya Pinkins: Um it says you've been a writer, you've been a staff writer, you've been a co-producer, you've been a story editor, you've been an executive story editor. Can you give me a sense of what are those distinctions and job titles in television?

[8:29] Keith Josef Adkins: Um, well, those distinctions are simply about um seniority, right? So um it's it's all based on so basically your first year in television on a television show, you are considered every you're a writer no matter what title you have. Um you're just you're you're a writing, you're writing or and or you're participating in the crafting of a story or a series whenever you're in that writer's room.

[8:54] Keith Josef Adkins: So your first year, you're considered a staff writer. Um, and then normally with those, with that title, you um you're paid a you know a staff writer's salary weekly. Um you're often given two scripts to write. Um the first one you normally do not get paid for, but you do get the residuals for it. So that's like the first year caught staff writer. And then the second year on a show, you're you're um a story editor, and then in that at that point, if you get scripts, you get paid for any scripts that you write, unlike the staff writer who doesn't get paid for the first script.

[9:27] Keith Josef Adkins: And then the third um year on a show, um, or your third year in writing in the industry, you're considered executive story editor. The fourth year or the fourth show, if you want to call fourth show, fourth season, um, is considered co co-um producer, and then it goes to producer, uh, and then it keeps going supervising, consulting, um, coexecutive, executive. So it's all it all sort of depends on uh what year you're in and you're in the year.

[9:54] Keith Josef Adkins: And so I actually had to start all over again. So back in the early aughts, I um came out of grad school and got a job on Girlfriends, which was uh a CW show.

[10:04] Tonya Pinkins: Yes.

[10:05] Keith Josef Adkins: Right. And so I was there as a staff writer because it's my first job ever. Um, and then I I um came out of that show as an executive story editor. So then I took a long pause because I didn't think I was gonna go back to television. I came back to New York to really sort of have my theater career because I didn't have it. I got kind of pulled plucked away very quickly after grad school to television. So when I came back out here and um got staffed on The Good Fight, which is a spinoff of The Good Wife for um CBSO Access, I had to start all over as a staff uh writer.

[10:36] Keith Josef Adkins: So it's like it's you know, even though so this is basically my seventh year collectively in television. Um I'm at I'm now at producer level, thankfully, um, on the on the new show, the new um Witches of New York show. But does it have it okay?

[10:53] Keith Josef Adkins: I understand that as a writer, you don't get paid for the first script.

[10:56] Tonya Pinkins: But does each of these hierarchical name changes of seniority carry with them more money?

[11:03] Keith Josef Adkins: More what? What's the meaning? Yeah, so each level or title from staff writer to producer, each has its own salary.

[11:15] So yeah, the salary increases each year. If you have really great reps, hopefully the bump year to year is significant enough. But sometimes what happens in between the executive story editor and the producer, those three sort of titles, the salary increases just slightly.

[11:33] Um, but once you get beyond producer, then it's bumped much more significantly. Um, but um, and what's the bump to showrunner?

[11:45] Well, showrunner, that's significant. So like if you get your own show, I don't know, I've read some places that showrunners make, man, I want to say like anywhere from 15 to 30 thousand dollars a week.

[12:02] Or yeah, a week or yeah, I think it is a week, yeah, per week. Um, and more, obviously.

[12:09] Right.

[12:10] Yeah. Just for the title.

[12:12] Just for the title alone, and yeah, yeah, just for the title alone.

[12:15] And normally, well, I can't say that's not normal, but um, you have two different types of executive producers. You have executive producers who have um sort of built, um, have sort of come through the ranks and sort of from staff writer all the way up to executive producer because of the number of years they've been working, right?

[12:33] And so that's one type of executive producer whose salary is based on just their seniority, and then the other um executive producer happens when you say, for example, go from a co-producer and then suddenly you have your own, you sold your own show and you're now an executive producer on your own show.

[12:54] So that salary is um built around you being the creator of the show and then along with the potential longevity of the show as well as your weekly salary.

[13:06] So that salary tends to be higher than that executive um producer who's just sort of like, you know, being pulled up through the ranks just on a linear line, if that makes sense.

[13:17] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, totally makes sense.

[13:20] So you came back to do theater and then you went back again. Tell me why, why it's a complicated story.

[13:32] Keith Josef Adkins: Of course, that's what I want to know. Well, you know, I mean, Tonya, you know, um, you and I have had conversations about American theater, and you know, I can't, I love it again, like I got plucked out of um theater really quickly right out of grad school and was in television, and I felt like I never really had a chance to really experience theater professionally in New York City.

[13:53] Um, so I wanted to come back after working on Girlfriends, after being in LA for five years, I came back to New York and I created The New Black Fest and, you know, continued and sort of started having a theater career.

[14:05] Um, but then it became very clear to me, and I don't know if just out of my own maturity or my own sort of uh personal maturity or sort of creative maturity, that theater was a very limited space to tell stories.

[14:20] Um, and there were a lot of hands involved and a lot of filters involved as far as what's produced and what's even and who's commissioned or who's even read.

[14:28] Like I'm one of the lucky people that I'm actually commissioned and read, and every so often I get a production, and that's like a rarity, an anomaly in theater, right?

[14:39] A production. Um, and so when I kind of really sat back and looked at that, I was like, hmm, playwriting has a very low ceiling of exposure.

[14:49] And so you're sitting at home, you know, wanting to tell all these stories, but you have to wait until somebody produces you, and that seems a little not interesting to me, because I'm an active person and I'm very proactive.

[15:01] Um, so I started sort of calling myself a storyteller, um, and just finding all possible ways to tell stories and to continue to tell stories, which sort of reopened my interest in television because I realized that there was so much television happening at the time about this sort of epiphany for me that um seemed much more inclusive, um, and so much more expansive in the type of um genre and points of views and the impact it was having on a much larger sort of international scale as far as exposing stories.

[15:35] Um, and so I thought, you know, maybe I should sort of go back into that realm, that sort of TV film sector space.

[15:44] Um, even though it also has obviously its obstacles and it's, you know, it's uh Hollywood's so white, and all those things are still very real.

[15:52] Like most of the television rooms I get hired into, I'm the only person of color, um, and obviously the only black person, um, often the only male, or definitely the only black male.

[16:04] Um, and so, you know, it's definitely a challenge, but um, I do feel like there are many more um advocates out in the industry now who are wanting diversity and inclusion and authority and truth, um, as opposed to theater that, you know, it's still very limited, you know.

[16:26] Um, so that's why I decided to sort of uh stick my toe back into um TV world, TV film world.

[16:32] So in this moment in time where, you know, resources are funneling quickly to the top, and theater for the moment, live theater is dead.

[16:46] And uh before it seemed, before I even sort of knew that this was gonna last into next year, I began to wonder did this mean that when things open up, you know, black theaters, Latino theaters, uh Native American theaters, we always get the money last.

[17:07] Um, when things open back up again. Have you been thinking about are we gonna get it at all? Since there's gonna be a very limited amount of resources, you know, are we going back to the end of the line again for them?

[17:20] Keith Josef Adkins: That's a very, that's a very deep question.

[17:23] Um, I mean, you look, I mean, the history shows us, and the most more recent history shows us that funding usually is funneled to the larger institutions.

[17:35] And you know, even I think, you know, like in the last five or seven years, some of the smaller um black and um uh people of color, um, and others in women's theaters and that are small have been fundamentals have been yanked from them and sort of funneled into, you know, these larger institutions, right?

[17:56] Even the larger institutions have found ways to sort of create spaces for so-called diversity and um diversity and inclusion, which then makes the smaller companies that is their mission statement, um, not as, you know, um attractive because you can get all that at the larger institution.

[18:17] Um, and so when you even think about, you know, what's happening now with this, you know, the businesses and the um the recovery package that the government is sort of um, you know, handing out to folks, like, you know, you hear about the small businesses who are suffering, the small businesses that have to close because they're not being able to survive.

[18:39] And so I imagine that the same thing is gonna happen to theater.

[18:43] Um, and it's already happening, you know, um, where smaller theater companies really have to figure out whether or not they're gonna be able to survive the next month.

[18:54] Um, you know, and yeah, so I think it's a very complicated, scary thing.

[19:00] And I was just talking to my managers yesterday about TV and film. They were saying that, you know, because it, you know, what's really curious and interesting is that I'm continuing to have pitching pitch meetings with production companies and producers, as well as conversations around developing projects, right?

[19:18] And I was saying to my manager yesterday, I was like, well, okay, so say, for example, my show is, I pitched something and it is greenlit.

[19:26] When are they gonna do it? You know, it's like, when are they gonna produce it?

[19:28] Because you know right now, like who's gonna walk into a set and um and uh, you know, shoot, yes, yeah, and risk their health, you know, and they were saying, well, there's good, there's sort of a reimagining of the TV sector now where they're thinking about very few people will be on set.

[19:49] It'll be very, very closed um, you know, and very tight lipped and so that sounds like a downsizing that sounds and that and that's only for high-end shows.

[20:00] Right, but that's corporate America's dream. Great, we found a way to get rid of all these union people that we have to pay a lot of money to right now we just can't have you around, it's a health hazard to have a hundred musicians or 30 musicians or 50 crew guys.

[20:16] We can't have you anymore.

[20:17] Right, exactly, exactly, yeah, so they drop down to the indie gorilla model to do everything.

[20:23] Yes, exactly, that's what we're gonna have to do um, you know, and someone was saying recently too like, you know, even with the actors, you know, um who, you know, normally work in collaborative spaces um with, you know, COVID-19, it's like, well perhaps now you need to have CGI actors because we, you know, it's like, which then sort of starts downsizing real life people, you know, real life actors.

[20:23] Yeah, that was part of Lionsgate's plan was CGI actors and I what I wasn't clear about was does that mean they want to use deep fake and pay you for the right to use your image, which of course they're gonna do with superstars.

[21:06] Or does that mean they're gonna do this thing that you can do on AI now, which a lot of my ad friends do, where they just, this is their job.

[21:15] They take pictures of people who you associate with on your social media and then they make a composite human being and add their pitch to you.

[21:24] So do they mean CGI actors like composite human beings that don't exist?

[21:29] I think so.

[21:30] I think what you just described, I think is probably where it's going because I think recently there was a CGI actress, actor that um just signed with CAA.

[21:42] Oh, Limaquilla.

[21:43] Yeah, right.

[21:44] Oh my God.

[21:46] Keith Josef Adkins: Right. That and that's very telling. Oh my God. It's very telling. And I mean, you know, thinking about it as a in a business sense, even though it's hard to think about it that way, but in a business sense, it kind of makes sense if indeed COVID-19 sort of extends longer than you know, um anticipated. If there's another wave or two or three, um, and actors and whoever else is sort of like, I'm not going into any kind of collaborative space to shoot anything with anybody, then you are gonna need content because clearly content is still being encouraged. Like I said, I'm still having meetings where as if nothing, I've had more meetings and more pitches during this um stay at home order during the pandemic than I've had prior to it.

I'm constantly busy. I'm like, I can't even just sort of sit back and kind of just figure out what's going on in the world because I'm pitching and talking about television shows. Wow. Yeah, so they definitely are stockpiling content. Um, and yeah, like you know, worst case scenario is you know, this is extended for a longer time period, and so you're gonna have to have somebody some kind of images to sort of put in the content. So then you got you got CGI folk. Do you know Neil Stevenson's work?

[23:09] Tonya Pinkins: The name sounds really familiar.

[23:11] Keith Josef Adkins: Um, he's a science fiction speculative writer, and uh he wrote uh a book in 1995. I think he wrote Zodiac, that's one of his novels. And he wrote a book, The Diamond Age, uh Young Lady's Illustrated Primer in '95, which was uh predicting nanotechnology and dynamics and robotics. And as early as '95, there were things in his book called Raptors, which was if you were an actor, you just um were like the audio narration of an avatar, and people could buy content and choose what raptors they wanted to um animate the content that they wanted to see. Exactly. Tanya, that's exactly it. So actors will be working with their voices. You know, it's interesting, you know, even like I was thinking about um uh Octavia Butler's uh um Parable of the Sore.

And just reading that, yeah. Right. And you know, that was also written in I think 1992, if I'm not mistaken, 1993. Um and she also sort of predicted what's happening right now. I think I think Parable takes place in 2025. You know, it's it's one single government, it's one singular government. Um, and you know, if you're sort of lucky enough to um, I don't think it was about luck, I think you have a certain income bracket and or privilege you were able to sort of protect it by the government and live in government housing that keeps you, you know, um away from the sort of um wild west that the world has become, at least this country has become. It's like post virus, like the novel takes place as like a post-virus, and it's post um, you know, government and economic collapse, and you know, people of color are living in a band and engated communities once occupied by white people, you know.

Um, and then there's like these people who are addicted to this drug called pyro that makes them want to set things on fire. And there's people who are starving because of the economic collapse, and they sort of move in this very slow kind of um rhythm, much like zombies. Um they can sense when you've eaten, so they kind of start walking toward you, but they can't get to you fast enough because they're going so slow. You know, it's just so very crazy, right? And just the other, and then so, and there's all these feral dogs who are just like loose and running in packs and sort of attacking you because they're hungry too, right? And um, and recently in California, I mean, at least in LA, um, there's been an increase in coyote um sightings, um deeper into the city. Like even I live in the Crenshaw sort of Baldwin Hills, Baldwin Hills area, and there's been so many coyote sightings. There was one in my backyard earlier last week. Wow.

[26:11] Tonya Pinkins: Um, because it's seeing I don't know if you've seen Venus Sood's piece on um Quibi. She's got this piece called The Stranger that's five minutes, 13 five-minute segments, and coyotes play a very big part in that in LA.

[26:29] Keith Josef Adkins: Wow. That's interesting. I'm gonna check that out.

[26:31] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, it's it's it's kind of amazing. It's kind of amazing how uh she was saying that when she met with Katzenberg about uh being on the thing, she had no interest. But the way he pitched it to her with the telefit vision, the telephone as the great equalizer, because no matter how poor people are in the poorest African nations, everybody has a telephone, and this idea that you could have content on a telephone, and so she made this very meta show about the technology and what the technology, you know, kind of in a black mirror kind of world. It could have been a black mirror episode, right? But she's done it in the five-minute Quibi model. Wow. And what's it called again?

[27:22] Keith Josef Adkins: Stranger.

[27:23] Tonya Pinkins: It's called The Stranger and it's on Quibi.

[27:25] Keith Josef Adkins: Quibi, okay, correct. Also got me thinking about Fall, which is another Neil Stevenson book, which is I feel like we're there too. Um, that in Fall, it's about a man who has put in his will that when he dies, he wants his consciousness uploaded to the cloud. But the world that you find yourself in before that happens is a world where people no longer agree on what is a fact. And so if you want to travel on land, you have to obey the rules and laws of each community as you travel through it. Like there's a community that burns crosses, but it means something different than what the Ku Klux Klan meant when they burned crosses. And there's this sense that people just are joining together around whatever they mutually believe and agree upon.

And there's so much disinformation right now. I I had a kind of breakdown last week around what is real. You know, 45, because I don't speak that brand name, please don't is putting out that this virus is, you know, over inflated and not real. He's pushing that out already.

[28:35] Tonya Pinkins: Right, right.

[28:36] Keith Josef Adkins: Yeah, yeah. It yeah, it's it's I can't even, I think yeah, I had a breakdown too, probably like a month ago when I was watching the news. I decided one day just to watch the news all day, because I just said, let me just really try to understand what's happening. And I was just like, there is this person, this 45 is just lying out of the back of his head. Like just and and then the question is, why? Why would you want to lie? Like, why is this? Like, are you that inept? Are you that even? I don't think that I don't think he's inept. I think it is strategy. I mean, he says mein Kampf, you know, he reads that's on his bedside, and and was it Goebbels who said, and it became Hitler's mission, you know, a lie told once is a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes a truth. I think this is pure strategy. And you know, traditionally, when a country's in trouble, they don't want to switch leadership.

[29:31] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[29:31] Keith Josef Adkins: So the longer this trouble goes on, yes, as much as you know the press wants to tell you there'll be a change, people don't want to change ships in the middle of trouble.

[29:41] Tonya Pinkins: Right, exactly.

[29:42] Keith Josef Adkins: Exactly. I was just saying that to someone, even like even when it when um the uh Georgia governor decided to open up um uh Georgia, um, and some of the some of the sort of first things that he was opening were like you know, hair salons and tattoo parlors and you know uh you know barbershops, and I thought to myself in movie theaters or whatever, and I thought to myself, like, how are those things essential? How are those priorities? And Susan, you're just trying to put people back into the world so they can then be exposed, so then more people can be sick, and so then you can then shut it down again in a much more national way, and then say, oh, you know, something we just we've got to have the same president because we ain't got time to be worried about no, you can't even go out and vote. I mean, it just it just seems so reckless in a way that's like just not believable.

[30:34] Tonya Pinkins: It doesn't, it doesn't make any sense, it's not even logical.

[30:37] Keith Josef Adkins: Well, but it if you if I mean I'm you know a total conspiracy theor theorist, and I like to play devil's advocate. And if you think that in terms of the voting population, African Americans, we are the largest consistent voting block. And even if we've been down in the last few years, we are the largest consistent voting block. Whereas uh Caucasian Americans are the lot the smallest voting block. They're the largest population, but they don't consistently vote for the size of their population. So, you know, we it is dependent on us. We keep saving democracy in America, and now we're in the midst of a virus that is taking us out at a higher level.

[31:19] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[31:20] Keith Josef Adkins: So reopening organizations that are going to impact our health has a direct effect on election outcomes.

[31:28] Tonya Pinkins: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep, definitely.

[31:29] Keith Josef Adkins: That that's definitely that's definitely an angle to look at it.

[31:34] Tonya Pinkins: Yes. Agreed. Agreed.

[31:35] Keith Josef Adkins: Scary.

[31:38] Tonya Pinkins: Very scary. I was I was talking, actually, I was talking to Katori um Hall a couple days ago, um, because it was her birthday and then it's Mother's Day. So I just said, let me just reach out to her and give her a double double hug. And um, and she was like, It's crazy out here, right? I was like, it is crazy. And um, I said, um, we may have to go underground, and she was like, no, we cannot go underground. I was like, we may have to do something, because um we are just the most vulnerable community and have historically been vulnerable. Like we're they always find a way to like stick their hand in and sort of shake us up, you know. Um it's always it's just yeah, it's crazy.

[32:21] Tonya Pinkins: Hi, this is Tonya Pinkins. That was part one of my conversation with player eye television writer Keith Josef Adkins. Please come back for part two of You Can't SAY THAT on the Broadway Podcast Network.