A leader at best is a master weaver of the skills and choices in the room. A curator of instinct. It is vital to my process as a director to cultivate an environment wherein each artist feels that genuine desire to be seen and heard. To be welcomed, not just invited. I always ask myself if I am acting in service of the spiritual currency in the room or if I am acting in service of ego. As I continually practice ways to knock characteristics of white supremacist culture out of my own practice and encourage my cast and team to join me in that fight-- I find that we start really serving that spiritual currency rather than the capitalist drive to push product no matter the cost. My central driving force is about community. It’s about the people who gather to tell the stories so deserving of center stage. I believe that playwrights are some of the greatest truth tellers on earth. If we let ego and a product-over-person mindset take over...we’ll scratch the surface of that truth at best and deeply harm those involved at worst. The human experience is at once both wildly complicated and devastatingly beautiful-- we would be wise to feed storytelling with great bravery and unyielding curiosity.