queen rina said: ‘this (spooky ghost) hell is better with you’. ❄️❄️↔️↔️☀️☀️👻👻.⁣ ⁣ i met john doyle in feb 2020, 3 weeks before COVID shut our industry down. we talked about leadership, drank hot tea, and talked about our shared love for classic stories. john told me that in CSC’s history before his time, there’d been less than ten female-identifying directors in the company’s history of work and far less directors of color, including zero API-identifying directors. john said he knew his work was to change that.⁣ ⁣ a year and a half later, john and frances brought me on to direct ‘snow in midsummer’. we assembled a team i’ve rarely seen in nyc, let alone at a theatre with the word ‘classic’ in its name: a team of mostly API-identifying creatives, most of whom were born outside the states, several of us working off-broadway for the first time. we made what frances once referred to as ‘our own creative collective’. ⁣ ⁣ add to this ten of the most generous spirits of actors, always ready to dive into something new, constantly striving for something deeper, never without a good word, the greatest energy, and increasingly better snacks. these people are bigger than my community, they’re my siblings, confidantes, caretakers, and truth-tellers.⁣ ⁣ regardless of what happens tonight, we, the company of ‘snow in midsummer’, did something that’s much bigger than our direction, design, writing, or performances. we carved out space for our community where there wasn’t space before, definitely at CSC, and i hope in the greater landscape of our industry (alongside the plethora of other plays this season that’ve already been deep in this work). regardless of what happens tonight, i’ll always be the first API-identifying director in classic stage company’s history, and I’ll hold onto that forever.⁣ ⁣ citizens of new harmony (humans and ghosts): happy opening, c u @ zhang mansion, i am so proud of us.