Myles: Have you been to the Door Kinetic Arts Festival? My guess is that the answer for most of you is no. But I encourage you to think about it this year. I've been to a lot of events here and there just aren't many like this one. It has brought famous actors like Rainn Wilson to the county, Pulitzer winners like David Maraniss, renowned artists, amazing dancers, and even award-winning cocktail writers. It's truly hard to describe, and next month, a sort of mini version of the event will be held at the Door County Granary to announce this year's slate, which is scheduled for September 20th through the 27th. This winter, I had a chance to talk to the creator of the festival, Eric Simonson, about the inspiration for it and what makes it so different. I really enjoyed talking to Eric about creativity, engagement, and what DCAF is all about, and I hope you'll like this conversation as much as I did, and we'll get right to it in just a moment. Take me back to the beginning. How does ⁓ formulate? How does this idea come about?
Eric: Well, I'm a writer. That's one of the things I do. And as I was becoming a writer, I would go up to Door County, usually in the wintertime. And I would ⁓ hole up, you know, usually with my sister. My sister lived there. I didn't have a place there yet. I do now, but at the time it was just my sister's place. And I would go and I would write. would find coffee shops that were open, like the Blue Horse. I'd go there and I'd get the best writing done. I look out on the frozen bay and there's nothing, no distractions to bother me. And that's where I wrote my play Lombardi that ended up on Broadway and other things too. And I've also had a relationship with Björklunden. I'm a Lawrence University grad and I've known about Björklunden since I was in college. and I was asked to teach a couple of seminars there and kept in touch with the people who ran the place. Just sort of like one time put two and two together. I'd always wanted to run an arts organization of some sort. Never had the opportunity to do it. And ⁓ I thought this would be a great place for artists to come and get inspired by the surroundings, the beautiful surroundings of Door County. And what a perfect place, this place called Björklunden, which has an enormous lodge and living quarters and a kitchen. ⁓ I've been to other retreats, similar, mostly in theater, where artists are asked to come and create and they get fed three square meals. You don't have to worry about that and you get inspired by your surroundings. I thought to make this different ⁓ and unique, and I'm always interested in other arts. ⁓ have been, you know, throughout my career, I've been tried to stretch my or challenge myself and bringing other art forms, not just theater, I'm mostly a theater artist and I do film, you know, that's sort like my second, second thing I do. But I've always been inspired by, you know, media arts in live performance. I love incorporating dance and music and things, not necessarily musicals, but wherever you can, you know, sort of like reach out and try to incorporate the arts and bring them together. the idea was that, well, to make this unique and sort of inspirational for other artists to attract other artists to come here, what if we just invite all kinds of different artists? They can come and they can, you know, kind of live together for a week and incubate ideas and get inspired by the environment, but also get inspired by one another. And that was the idea artistically. I knew Alan Kapischke, he's my brother-in-law, and he had a lot of experience in administration, arts administration. So I went to Alan and I said, what do you think about this? A week at Björklunden, all these different artists come up, we raise a little money, ⁓ it just becomes a kind of retreat to create things. And then at the end of the week, we invite an audience in to come and take a look at what the artist created. He said, ⁓ okay. let's go to Brooklyn and we went to Mark Breesman who was running Brooklyn and at that time and pitched the idea to him and he kind of lit up and said, let's do it. I mean, it was like the easiest pitch that I've had ever done about anything. And not only that, he said he would be willing to contribute some money to get it started. So that was sort of like the impetus of the idea and we didn't really know what we were doing.
Myles: So in a nutshell, it's kind of like you created the conference or the getaway that you would want as an artist
Eric: That's exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly right. I and that's you know, that's with everything in the arts. When I go to write a play, I don't just write a play for the sake of writing a play or, you know, try to second guess what might be a good play that might get done. I think to myself, what what is the play that I would want to see? Because you know how hard it is to get people out of their living rooms and into their cars and drive to go see something live. It's not easy. So you have to give them a really good reason to do that. And that's the same approach that I used for Decaf, both in terms of like, what would I want to see? Well, I think it'd be really interesting to see a magician try to do media arts and a play at the same time. I think it'd be interesting to see a dance company that used humor instead of drama. And ⁓ was also an arts festival that I, as an artist, would want to be invited to attend.
Myles: You know, it is so diverse that it's hard to pigeonhole and describe to someone exactly what it is, right? Because usually we put things in a pretty square, tidy up box of like, this is a rock band, or this is a ⁓ theater event, or this is a painting event. And you're combining all those things. Is it hard to communicate that to people of exactly what it means when you say Door Kinetic Arts Festival? ⁓ What that is what they're going to experience once they get there if they're not an art I'd imagine for a lot of your arts folks they probably are like this sounds cool but I'd imagine like more of the laypeople are going what exactly is that.
Eric: Yeah, you're very intuitive interviewer, because that is one of our biggest challenges. Always. And ⁓ it's it's hard to describe. And the only way to really understand what it is, is to experience it. And I'm sad to say that I'm not just trying to get people to come entice them to come. It's just the only way that people, you know, even like people who had the same questions, like What is this thing? mean, it seems like it's all over the map. It's everything and everyone all at once. I said, well, come and see it. I'll describe it to you. I can spend five minutes telling you exactly what goes on. And there's a lot going on. I didn't even describe the mixed drinks, the cocktails, the seminar component that goes with the whole thing. or the outreach that we do to high schools and colleges. I mean, there's a lot going on. But when people come and they experience, they go, now I get it. And then they try to tell their friends about it. They have a really tough time. ⁓ So, you know, it's a challenge, but it's a good kind of challenge because I don't know. You know, I guess I have an idea of what Burning Man is, sort of. But I'm guessing that probably I'm probably a little off on what it actually is. I would have to go and experience it. Yeah. It's a little bit like, I guess the Edinburgh Festival, I've used Spoleto, ⁓ is ⁓ an arts festival, multidisciplinary arts festival in the Carolinas ⁓ called Spoleto brings a lot of international groups. mean, my God, their budget must be massive. They bring ⁓ symphonies from Europe over to their place and dance companies from all over the world. So does the Perth International Perth Arts Festival. They do that as well. So those are like the closest festivals that come to what we're doing, but those festivals don't really, ⁓ they present, but they don't develop. We're doing both. at the same time. And I don't know why anybody hasn't done this before. Maybe they have and I just don't know about the festival. But I think that it's really kind of like heaven for artists because they get to show off what they've done and then they get to create something new at the same time.
Myles: Yeah, I mean, it's what you describe about challenge of describing it ⁓ something I felt too when I came away from it. And a couple of years ago, I'd gone and I'm like, this just feels it feels like something I would see in my days living in Chicago if I went to some sort of arts event. ⁓ But down there, would be a very specific thing. Like down there, I might go do something. ⁓ see a certain type of performance or tap or something like that. And here, it's all of those mixed together. Like, I'm at Björklunden, which is always, you you go to Björklunden, it feels like a different kind of experience anyway, because it's such a unique grounds and property. And then Robert Simonson is doing a cocktail, short cocktail presentation and drink. And then the next thing you know, I'm watching some ⁓ cool films. And then Jumein Taylor is doing a tap performance and I've never seen a tap performance live in my life. And I'm like, this does not seem like something that I should be able to experience in Bailey's Harbor. And it was just a really cool experience and vibe to have all of that combined into one experience. that's and if I describe that, that not that. particular experience isn't exactly decaf. That is ⁓ that particular night of it, because a different thing might be the David Marinus discussion with you about bringing Lombardi to the stage, which was also fascinating and part of the creative process, but a totally different creativity. So yeah, explaining this in a nutshell is a hard thing to do, other than to say it's a pretty cool experience. Certainly within the confines of Door County, there's nothing else like it.
Eric: I would say. Yeah, there isn't, I don't think. Well, definitely not in Door County.
Myles: For musicians, Steelbridge, you could say is kind of the same concept of trying to get a bunch of creative people in a room to write songs, but it's very specific to music. that's a little more, okay, I can wrap my head around that, but ⁓ is all those different things. ⁓
Eric: Yeah, and we're trying to expand it and it's a little hard because we're kind of like busting at the seams ⁓ administratively. But we want people to be able to look at the festival schedule and decide sort of like it's like a buffet. ⁓ Or it's another good example of something where you kind of like ⁓ you know, you design your own house on a software or something like that. I want two stories and I want a little brand on the back and I want like the kids room and you get and it's going to be read and you get to kind of like look at the schedule and you get to plan your own chart course of the festival and it could be just performances like maybe you just like are only interested in seeing the finished performances and the presentations. You can do that. You can also during your daytime, you can take a workshop and learn how to juggle. You can take a workshop on how to make a great cocktail. You can attend a lecture. Last year we had a lecture where we had a panel discussion with this PASS Festival with TV writers. We had a filmmakers panel discussion. You can attend a... presentation of a work in progress. There are all sorts of things and we keep on, know, there are workshops for high school students. was a little, you know, David Kovac, who's a magician who came from Los Angeles, he was working on his one-man show, but we asked him to, you know, will you honor us with a little... I wouldn't call it a magic show because he's more than just a magician with a show. He's kind of like the whole thing. He's a lively personality. Did you see him at all when you were there?
Myles: that ⁓
Eric: Yeah. He's amazing. He's amazing. We're going to definitely have him back for sure. ⁓ But we found a little room at the Coppola House and ⁓ he packed the place and he did his kind of pattern, his magic show. that was just besides what he was here to sort of focus on. ⁓ Then we have this thing called the Coffee House, you know, Wednesday night where all the artists who come are invited to an open mic and they don't have to perform what their strength is. Like we had a cellist this past festival, okay, cello is his name.
Myles: you mentioned earlier, the challenge of getting people off their couch out of their living room ⁓ and going to a live event. that is something that ⁓ I've kind of fascinated by in last few years, that, Door County, specifically, there's been ⁓ for years, there's been this challenge of how do we people younger people out there, how do we get more families up here? And then once we started doing that and we've been pretty successful at it, then the problem became, ⁓ wait, that these are families with, if they have kids, getting them to go into a indoors confined space, like a theater or a show, which we've always had this great arts community up here. But getting them to do that is hard to do with kids and hard to do if you to get a babysitter, it just adds to the expense, right? then COVID hits and people just get exposed to doing so much outside all the time. Now, and then the whole second screen thing, this whole idea of there's so many challenges for sort of live performance and theater and arts. I don't know if you grapple with that a lot in ⁓ how do you make it good enough that ⁓ come out and ⁓ have a very unique experience.
Eric: Yeah, think there's a big opportunity here with and people feeling isolated. I think that the ⁓ idea ⁓ human beings are just suddenly not going to be social anymore is a fallacy. It's never going to happen. People ⁓ or animals, we're going to always want to collect and be together. You sit alone ⁓ by yourself or with just like one or two other people, your family. for a long while, becomes not only ⁓ do you get lonely and feeling isolated, it's not good for your health. There have been studies where it's just like people who have few friends and live alone ⁓ stand to live years than people who are very social ⁓ get out there. I that ⁓ the that I do and we do and we artists do is we do bring people together and it is kind of like a church only I guess, you know, in my view anyway, it's more fun, you know, you to like laugh and cry. But you know what we try to do at Decap and when I'm programming the season is I'm trying to choose things that I know are going to bring people together on a common plane. I'm trying to present ⁓ artists who have a certain joie de vivre in their expression, a certain kind of joy, a love for life that I think we can all find common ground on. And I think that that is really important. And you you go back to, you know, ⁓ I don't want to go to the theater. ⁓ Do I really want to see this play that people are saying is important and that I should see because it's so socially relevant and well yeah I mean there's a certain there's a space for that but it doesn't really get me excited about seeing theater as much as it would if I if I'm seeing something that people are recommending because when they mention it they get their faces light up and they say this is something that I agree with and you should see it because I think you would agree with it and then we can both be in agreement together that is what I'm looking for and that is what I think that It's kind of like, you know, multi-discipline. It's a very long word and people's eyes gloss over when I say it, but multi-disciplinary arts festival. We should create a new word for multi-disciplinary and just introduce it into the ⁓ language. Exactly. Yeah. ⁓
Myles: Change the next account a bit. What you're saying about what you're saying about like people want to do something social. just thought of this, you know, The little bit of joy or camaraderie that comes out of like we can we all enjoy music, we all enjoy by ourselves sometimes listening to an album. But there's something when when you meet somebody who also likes that same band and how that like you're ⁓ you feel something, there's something about the social aspect of it and the. Not just a validation, like, yeah, because it's not necessarily validation. Sometimes you feel like you're the only person and then you're like, ⁓ somebody, somebody else is in on this little thing with me. And whether it's some obscure movie or a play that you loved or a book that you loved to meet somebody who also loved it is there's something social in that too, that we feed off of.
Eric: There is. my favorite kind of what you're talking about is when you are in agreement with somebody that you never thought you'd be in agreement with. Yes. Yeah. And that can happen. You know, it happens. You know, it happens with things like the television show Breaking Bad or The Office. know, those are shows that should not have been hits or people didn't think they were going to be hits. I The Office, when it premiered, They gave them like six episodes. And then when it got a little traction, they gave them two more the first season. just the executives had no faith in it whatsoever. Breaking Bad, I think, was a long shot. Bringing up those two examples are tons. mean, those are those are TV shows. ⁓ You know, ⁓ journeys don't stop believing. You'd think that that'd be kind of like a rock anthem, know, I don't know. ⁓ It's not, it's what do you classify it? Just pop rock? It's just like pop rock. So it's popular, I guess. But now it's like everybody loves that song. You you go to like elitist artists, you know, people who ⁓ do avant-garde art can appreciate that song for what it is on their own level, but it brings people together. ⁓ And that's kind of like the artistic ⁓ pay dirt. You if you're an artist, live for that moment. I had ⁓ little bit of it with Lombardi, not nearly as much as say like Hamilton, you know. ⁓ you know, when you see people who are football fans who have never been to a Broadway play coming together with somebody who is a snobby Broadway, you know, theater goer who never thought they'd like a play about a football coach. Yeah. Come together and say, like this. That's kind of like what you live for.
Myles: Well, I mean, I'm having a flashback to how I actually like Pearl Jam is my all time favorite band. I've gone to more Pearl Jam shows than any other band. But how do I get introduced to them is because when I was 16 or 17, my little sister, who was much cooler than me, here I am with my like boys to men and, you know, pop CDs or whatever, color me bad, terrible taste in music that I had at the time. She was listening to all these alternative bands. And she was trying to get me like, you should listen to them. You're going to like them if you do. And how she finally got me to listen to Pearl Jam is being like, you know, they like the Chicago Bulls. They they like basketball. And I was, you know, I was a big sports guy in high school. So I'm like, oh, they do. And, know, it's that commonality. I've obviously never met anybody from Pearl Jam, but I was like, oh, that speaks to me. We're on the same wavelength. And then I was like, you know what? I love this band. I love everything they do. But it got my first in.
Eric: Yeah.
Myles: because of some other connection. that's a great, know, a very minor version of what you're talking about. But ⁓ yeah, you never know what it is that's going to open a door for somebody to like something totally different.
Eric: Right, so we bring up a magician, David Kovacs, good David Kovacs, and he ⁓ performs a one man show. ⁓ He performs another in which families bring their kids to. So suddenly a family show. His one man show is monologue. There were kids at that too. ⁓ But you have people who ⁓ would to a magic show. come and see David Kovac, but you also have serious theater goers come and see him because he has something to express that's a little deeper than just a magic show. You have Jumanee Taylor you brought up before, that tap dancer from Chicago, is like one of the premier tap dancers in the country. And he's undeniable. I mean, I've never met somebody who's watched his performance and has not been amazed and appreciative and understanding of the artistry that's behind what he does.
Myles: Yeah, I mean, he he was amazing. And even the short film on him that was at the festival was. Captivating, ⁓ you know, especially for someone who spent some time living in Chicago, like seeing some of the shots in that just in a photography that was put into that was really cool, but he's. It's just so interesting to see a performance like that live when you've only experienced it through like a screen before. And I was going to ask you what.
Eric: Yeah.
Myles: You over the course of the next year going to be the 10th one, 10th. So over those 10 years, know, folks like Rainn Wilson, David Marinus, you know, you got a Pulitzer Prize winner. got Emmy winners. You got a guy who worked on one of the what I would call one of the best TV shows in the last 45 years. Yeah. And, you know, Jumaane Taylor, how do you get connected with these?
Eric: 10th anniversary.
Myles: friends of yours or these people who reach out and say I might want to be a part of this. How does it come together?
Eric: Well, it's all of those. And right now I'm putting together next season. Even though it's like 10 months away now, I started as soon as the last festival ended at the end of September. And what I'm realizing is that I have to even start for next year's festival. I have to start like 16 months beforehand. Just get a budget together and know what I'm dealing with. I do a lot of independent research on the internet. I have a lot of connections in the arts community. I'm on the phone a lot with artistic directors. Last year I called up Hedy Weiss, the former theater critic and dance critic of the Sun Times, and Chris Jones, who is a theater critic. Asked them for suggestions. ⁓ I reach out to my Steppenwolf Theater Company. who programs ⁓ a small space at Steppenwolf that ⁓ encourages interdisciplinary art. So they're a resource. ⁓ I found Jumani on the internet. ⁓ And I was just looking for interesting, I'm doing that this year too, just going down rabbit holes and finding out who, people recommend. So once I found Jumani sort of like, think I saw his short film. And then it's a matter of like hunting him down. I had to like call a ⁓ guy I knew as a bass player who had performed in a couple of my shows like 15 years ago. He's in Chicago. said, you know this guy, because I saw his name appear in a performance that he had done years ago with Jumani. said, do you know Jumanis Taylor? He said, ⁓ yeah, I know that guy. I said, can you put me in touch with him? Well, I know somebody who knows how to get in touch. Eventually I got in touch with Jumanis. There's another like okay cello, ⁓ Okori Jones. ⁓ Okori Jones, sorry, ⁓ is from Atlanta. He's a really fine cellist who's performed all his life. does. improvised cello, he works with a looper. He just absolutely captivated our audiences last year, did all sorts of different performances for kids and adults. So there's this group called the APA, and I couldn't tell you what the acronym stands for, but what they do is say ⁓ every year in New York, they have this big conference where they invite presenters to come and take a look at performers and consider them and the performers have little booths set up and they say, you know, we're a drama group and we perform monologues or, you know, we're a dance group and this is our, you sometimes they're performing, sometimes they're not and all different kinds of things. And I got interested in this group and I was unable to attend last year, but they put me on their mailing list and one day they featured OK Cello. I looked at that guy and I'm like, who's this? He looks interesting. So again, I went down a rabbit hole and I did a deep dive and I didn't know anybody who knew him, but he had a website and he had one of those pages where you just fill out an email form. I said, you know, can you please get in touch with me? Eventually his manager did. And we started a conversation and we, know, this is. So I mean, I'm like a long way of saying, yeah, anything and everything. Then there's Rick Cleveland, you know, who wrote the play Lulu. And he had a play that he, as a friend, he had sent to me for advice. And then he'd sort of like emailed me periodically saying, hey, know, Deaf West is interested in producing this. And the timing just kind of was perfect. the time that Deaf West and Rick were looking for a way to workshop the play, I was... I was looking for somebody to fill a space at decaf. So that's how that came about.
Myles: I mean, it's ⁓ remarkable, the talent that you bring up here for this event. I'm wondering, ⁓ is it for you having a connection to Wisconsin and Door County, and then to do this kind of thing in Door County and bring that here, is it different than if you were doing it just in LA? Is it more meaningful to? to bring that sort of creativity into this little hamlet versus somewhere like LA where there's a lot of creativity all around you all the time.
Eric: Well, we'd get lost, I think. you know, we're really starting small and from the scratch and we're a grassroots arts organization. So that doesn't well here in Los Angeles. The city is just too sprawling and are too many things to compete with. Maybe if we out in the country, ⁓ I know that there's like the Ojai Playwrights Festival. and they do well because they're just sort of like the only game in town when it comes to the arts. Although they, I think they have a film festival up there, you know, and there are lot of artists too. But, you know, County is special to me. I have a personal connection with it. ⁓ So it wouldn't be the same. ⁓ It's challenging for me to be in LA and be running the festival in Wisconsin. But I, what I found is that the way that we grow or the way that we grow successfully is when not by email blasts and social media, although that's a part of it, you know, and we're increasing our profile or our footprint there, but where we grow the best and the most, I think, sort of ⁓ significance, in terms of significance is when I just meet people you know, like you and talk about what the festival is and get an explained to them or just have a discussion about what we're trying to do and why they might want to be a part of it. And it's not really, you know, please come to see my performance. It's really be a part of like what we're doing here, because you're going to be a lot of interesting people and you're going to get something really enriching out of it. You're going to, you know, you're going to be ⁓ changed perhaps a little, perhaps a lot, but you're to come out of this experience, we think, for the better. ⁓ And you're going to meet, like I said, a community of people who are all there to something that is enriching entertaining ⁓ and and educational ⁓ all at the same time. ⁓ you get a cocktail.
Myles: Well, I'll say the cocktail thing has been fascinating to me too because enjoy a cocktail. I've got a bar in my garage. ⁓
Eric: What else is in the garage? A car?
Myles: Well, Well, occasionally there's a car in there, but not too often. I it's been cool to see the different venues and different partnerships you guys have created with this too. It's obviously Bjorklunden and Lawrence's The Hub, but you you've had stuff at Wickman House before that was gone. You've had, you incorporated Koopla House right on Door County, Crest Pavilion, the Door Community Auditorium with OKCELLA this year.
Eric: Yeah.
Myles: You've just done a lot of different, and the granary down in certain Bay, ⁓ bringing different parts of this community into the fold.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, and we can we were going to continue to do that. ⁓ One thing I haven't you know, it's really a matter of time and manpower. ⁓ The dreams are to like, you know, reach really reach out to the high schools and grade schools and get the arts active there and also the other universities like we did. Aretha Sills workshopped and collaborated with UWGB students. on her piece, Impertinent Girls, which is an adaptation of Jane Austen's younger works. When she was young, she performed those at the Crest Pavilion. So there's that UWGB connection and ⁓ we haven't reached out yet to St. Norbert's. We want to do that. I envision like reaching out to UW Stevens Point. had Sylvester Poles students come and watch. the ⁓ Impertinent Girls ⁓ program. ⁓ an important part of the thing. We really want people to ⁓ that we're there ⁓ ⁓ to take advantage of the artists when they do come up. I that's the thing. We have these world-class artists come up. There's no reason why the community shouldn't be taking advantage of that because there's... There's a very rich arts community in Door County and I think we need to really lean into that and encourage that. could, you know, there are more and more artists coming up to Door County and along with all the everything else Door County has to offer, the arts can be a part of that thing that people are, that's attracting people to come up. And then we can take that art that we create in Door County and send it back out to the world. I mean, that's really what DCAF is all about. And in terms of like what we're planning for next year, I can't be specific because that'd be a giveaway. know, I want people to come to our event at the Grainery. But it's gonna be big and it's gonna be bigger than last year or any other year. And not only in terms of the number of artists that we're inviting up and the number of presentations and the number of workshops. but also in terms of like venues and the organizations that we're gonna be reaching out to. We've got big plans, grand plans. And the one act that I'm thinking that's sort of like the centerpiece of this 10th anniversary is gonna be something that's going to ⁓ make people aware of the festival in a big way. And I don't mean to be mysterious about it, but in a way I do. ⁓ it's going to create a big splash. And if you didn't know about us before, you will next year.
Myles: I love that outreach to the school's idea because I think of myself having gone to Gibraltar High School ⁓ and you know, I I was a sports guy, but I was always writing and I always. Thought of myself as becoming a writer one day, ⁓ so I think of version of me getting a chance to possibly ⁓ hear from a guy a Rick Cleveland or David Marinus in my own backyard would have been. So that's a awesome opportunity. And I think ⁓ possibilities were some of these folks and the kids that I went to high school with who were into the arts and how much they would have thrived off of the scene I was describing earlier of being around a lot of other creative types ⁓ different parts of the country and just like, ⁓ there's different possibilities here. think it's that just ⁓ from an inspiration standpoint for kids up here would be. ⁓ to get more of them into that those spaces
Eric: Yeah, that's the idea. I think there's something very powerful about meeting with an artist one-on-one. It demystifies what you would otherwise assume is a kind of mystical experience of creating, you know, creating something from nothing. But once you meet the person who's doing the creating, they answer your questions or maybe even like see them doing the actual creation and you realize, oh, that's just a guy or a girl. and they're just putting pen to paper and they just made that up. I can do that. I can do that.
Myles: I tell you what, the first time that I always thought of writing as like not something to be studied, that it's just something that kind of like appears in your head and you do it. then when I as I matured and met more writers and actually did read about it, ⁓ there's a process. just like a job. ⁓ You to work. Yeah, there's inspiration that comes. ⁓ It's of there's struggle and you work way through those problems and. ⁓
Eric: You're absolutely right.
Myles: I didn't know that as a high school kid. Well, Eric, thanks for the conversation on this I appreciate the festival. appreciate the opportunity to talk to these folks and learn from them. you know, like even for us in bringing young employees in, you know, when you bring some young writer in from out of town and you can point to something like this and say, yeah, maybe you're not in Chicago or you're not in Milwaukee or LA or New York, but you can get these little tastes of this, those kinds of things, that inspiration, which I think, as you sprinkle those throughout the year, it's enough to carry people through.
Eric: Well, I'm a writer. That's one of the things I do. And as I was becoming a writer, I would go up to Door County, usually in the wintertime. And I would ⁓ hole up, you know, usually with my sister. My sister lived there. I didn't have a place there yet. I do now, but at the time it was just my sister's place. And I would go and I would write. would find coffee shops that were open, like the Blue Horse. I'd go there and I'd get the best writing done. I look out on the frozen bay and there's nothing, no distractions to bother me. And that's where I wrote my play Lombardi that ended up on Broadway and other things too. And I've also had a relationship with Björklunden. I'm a Lawrence University grad and I've known about Björklunden since I was in college. and I was asked to teach a couple of seminars there and kept in touch with the people who ran the place. Just sort of like one time put two and two together. I'd always wanted to run an arts organization of some sort. Never had the opportunity to do it. And ⁓ I thought this would be a great place for artists to come and get inspired by the surroundings, the beautiful surroundings of Door County. And what a perfect place, this place called Björklunden, which has an enormous lodge and living quarters and a kitchen. ⁓ I've been to other retreats, similar, mostly in theater, where artists are asked to come and create and they get fed three square meals. You don't have to worry about that and you get inspired by your surroundings. I thought to make this different ⁓ and unique, and I'm always interested in other arts. ⁓ have been, you know, throughout my career, I've been tried to stretch my or challenge myself and bringing other art forms, not just theater, I'm mostly a theater artist and I do film, you know, that's sort like my second, second thing I do. But I've always been inspired by, you know, media arts in live performance. I love incorporating dance and music and things, not necessarily musicals, but wherever you can, you know, sort of like reach out and try to incorporate the arts and bring them together. the idea was that, well, to make this unique and sort of inspirational for other artists to attract other artists to come here, what if we just invite all kinds of different artists? They can come and they can, you know, kind of live together for a week and incubate ideas and get inspired by the environment, but also get inspired by one another. And that was the idea artistically. I knew Alan Kapischke, he's my brother-in-law, and he had a lot of experience in administration, arts administration. So I went to Alan and I said, what do you think about this? A week at Björklunden, all these different artists come up, we raise a little money, ⁓ it just becomes a kind of retreat to create things. And then at the end of the week, we invite an audience in to come and take a look at what the artist created. He said, ⁓ okay. let's go to Brooklyn and we went to Mark Breesman who was running Brooklyn and at that time and pitched the idea to him and he kind of lit up and said, let's do it. I mean, it was like the easiest pitch that I've had ever done about anything. And not only that, he said he would be willing to contribute some money to get it started. So that was sort of like the impetus of the idea and we didn't really know what we were doing.
Myles: So in a nutshell, it's kind of like you created the conference or the getaway that you would want as an artist
Eric: That's exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly right. I and that's you know, that's with everything in the arts. When I go to write a play, I don't just write a play for the sake of writing a play or, you know, try to second guess what might be a good play that might get done. I think to myself, what what is the play that I would want to see? Because you know how hard it is to get people out of their living rooms and into their cars and drive to go see something live. It's not easy. So you have to give them a really good reason to do that. And that's the same approach that I used for Decaf, both in terms of like, what would I want to see? Well, I think it'd be really interesting to see a magician try to do media arts and a play at the same time. I think it'd be interesting to see a dance company that used humor instead of drama. And ⁓ was also an arts festival that I, as an artist, would want to be invited to attend.
Myles: You know, it is so diverse that it's hard to pigeonhole and describe to someone exactly what it is, right? Because usually we put things in a pretty square, tidy up box of like, this is a rock band, or this is a ⁓ theater event, or this is a painting event. And you're combining all those things. Is it hard to communicate that to people of exactly what it means when you say Door Kinetic Arts Festival? ⁓ What that is what they're going to experience once they get there if they're not an art I'd imagine for a lot of your arts folks they probably are like this sounds cool but I'd imagine like more of the laypeople are going what exactly is that.
Eric: Yeah, you're very intuitive interviewer, because that is one of our biggest challenges. Always. And ⁓ it's it's hard to describe. And the only way to really understand what it is, is to experience it. And I'm sad to say that I'm not just trying to get people to come entice them to come. It's just the only way that people, you know, even like people who had the same questions, like What is this thing? mean, it seems like it's all over the map. It's everything and everyone all at once. I said, well, come and see it. I'll describe it to you. I can spend five minutes telling you exactly what goes on. And there's a lot going on. I didn't even describe the mixed drinks, the cocktails, the seminar component that goes with the whole thing. or the outreach that we do to high schools and colleges. I mean, there's a lot going on. But when people come and they experience, they go, now I get it. And then they try to tell their friends about it. They have a really tough time. ⁓ So, you know, it's a challenge, but it's a good kind of challenge because I don't know. You know, I guess I have an idea of what Burning Man is, sort of. But I'm guessing that probably I'm probably a little off on what it actually is. I would have to go and experience it. Yeah. It's a little bit like, I guess the Edinburgh Festival, I've used Spoleto, ⁓ is ⁓ an arts festival, multidisciplinary arts festival in the Carolinas ⁓ called Spoleto brings a lot of international groups. mean, my God, their budget must be massive. They bring ⁓ symphonies from Europe over to their place and dance companies from all over the world. So does the Perth International Perth Arts Festival. They do that as well. So those are like the closest festivals that come to what we're doing, but those festivals don't really, ⁓ they present, but they don't develop. We're doing both. at the same time. And I don't know why anybody hasn't done this before. Maybe they have and I just don't know about the festival. But I think that it's really kind of like heaven for artists because they get to show off what they've done and then they get to create something new at the same time.
Myles: Yeah, I mean, it's what you describe about challenge of describing it ⁓ something I felt too when I came away from it. And a couple of years ago, I'd gone and I'm like, this just feels it feels like something I would see in my days living in Chicago if I went to some sort of arts event. ⁓ But down there, would be a very specific thing. Like down there, I might go do something. ⁓ see a certain type of performance or tap or something like that. And here, it's all of those mixed together. Like, I'm at Björklunden, which is always, you you go to Björklunden, it feels like a different kind of experience anyway, because it's such a unique grounds and property. And then Robert Simonson is doing a cocktail, short cocktail presentation and drink. And then the next thing you know, I'm watching some ⁓ cool films. And then Jumein Taylor is doing a tap performance and I've never seen a tap performance live in my life. And I'm like, this does not seem like something that I should be able to experience in Bailey's Harbor. And it was just a really cool experience and vibe to have all of that combined into one experience. that's and if I describe that, that not that. particular experience isn't exactly decaf. That is ⁓ that particular night of it, because a different thing might be the David Marinus discussion with you about bringing Lombardi to the stage, which was also fascinating and part of the creative process, but a totally different creativity. So yeah, explaining this in a nutshell is a hard thing to do, other than to say it's a pretty cool experience. Certainly within the confines of Door County, there's nothing else like it.
Eric: I would say. Yeah, there isn't, I don't think. Well, definitely not in Door County.
Myles: For musicians, Steelbridge, you could say is kind of the same concept of trying to get a bunch of creative people in a room to write songs, but it's very specific to music. that's a little more, okay, I can wrap my head around that, but ⁓ is all those different things. ⁓
Eric: Yeah, and we're trying to expand it and it's a little hard because we're kind of like busting at the seams ⁓ administratively. But we want people to be able to look at the festival schedule and decide sort of like it's like a buffet. ⁓ Or it's another good example of something where you kind of like ⁓ you know, you design your own house on a software or something like that. I want two stories and I want a little brand on the back and I want like the kids room and you get and it's going to be read and you get to kind of like look at the schedule and you get to plan your own chart course of the festival and it could be just performances like maybe you just like are only interested in seeing the finished performances and the presentations. You can do that. You can also during your daytime, you can take a workshop and learn how to juggle. You can take a workshop on how to make a great cocktail. You can attend a lecture. Last year we had a lecture where we had a panel discussion with this PASS Festival with TV writers. We had a filmmakers panel discussion. You can attend a... presentation of a work in progress. There are all sorts of things and we keep on, know, there are workshops for high school students. was a little, you know, David Kovac, who's a magician who came from Los Angeles, he was working on his one-man show, but we asked him to, you know, will you honor us with a little... I wouldn't call it a magic show because he's more than just a magician with a show. He's kind of like the whole thing. He's a lively personality. Did you see him at all when you were there?
Myles: that ⁓
Eric: Yeah. He's amazing. He's amazing. We're going to definitely have him back for sure. ⁓ But we found a little room at the Coppola House and ⁓ he packed the place and he did his kind of pattern, his magic show. that was just besides what he was here to sort of focus on. ⁓ Then we have this thing called the Coffee House, you know, Wednesday night where all the artists who come are invited to an open mic and they don't have to perform what their strength is. Like we had a cellist this past festival, okay, cello is his name.
Myles: you mentioned earlier, the challenge of getting people off their couch out of their living room ⁓ and going to a live event. that is something that ⁓ I've kind of fascinated by in last few years, that, Door County, specifically, there's been ⁓ for years, there's been this challenge of how do we people younger people out there, how do we get more families up here? And then once we started doing that and we've been pretty successful at it, then the problem became, ⁓ wait, that these are families with, if they have kids, getting them to go into a indoors confined space, like a theater or a show, which we've always had this great arts community up here. But getting them to do that is hard to do with kids and hard to do if you to get a babysitter, it just adds to the expense, right? then COVID hits and people just get exposed to doing so much outside all the time. Now, and then the whole second screen thing, this whole idea of there's so many challenges for sort of live performance and theater and arts. I don't know if you grapple with that a lot in ⁓ how do you make it good enough that ⁓ come out and ⁓ have a very unique experience.
Eric: Yeah, think there's a big opportunity here with and people feeling isolated. I think that the ⁓ idea ⁓ human beings are just suddenly not going to be social anymore is a fallacy. It's never going to happen. People ⁓ or animals, we're going to always want to collect and be together. You sit alone ⁓ by yourself or with just like one or two other people, your family. for a long while, becomes not only ⁓ do you get lonely and feeling isolated, it's not good for your health. There have been studies where it's just like people who have few friends and live alone ⁓ stand to live years than people who are very social ⁓ get out there. I that ⁓ the that I do and we do and we artists do is we do bring people together and it is kind of like a church only I guess, you know, in my view anyway, it's more fun, you know, you to like laugh and cry. But you know what we try to do at Decap and when I'm programming the season is I'm trying to choose things that I know are going to bring people together on a common plane. I'm trying to present ⁓ artists who have a certain joie de vivre in their expression, a certain kind of joy, a love for life that I think we can all find common ground on. And I think that that is really important. And you you go back to, you know, ⁓ I don't want to go to the theater. ⁓ Do I really want to see this play that people are saying is important and that I should see because it's so socially relevant and well yeah I mean there's a certain there's a space for that but it doesn't really get me excited about seeing theater as much as it would if I if I'm seeing something that people are recommending because when they mention it they get their faces light up and they say this is something that I agree with and you should see it because I think you would agree with it and then we can both be in agreement together that is what I'm looking for and that is what I think that It's kind of like, you know, multi-discipline. It's a very long word and people's eyes gloss over when I say it, but multi-disciplinary arts festival. We should create a new word for multi-disciplinary and just introduce it into the ⁓ language. Exactly. Yeah. ⁓
Myles: Change the next account a bit. What you're saying about what you're saying about like people want to do something social. just thought of this, you know, The little bit of joy or camaraderie that comes out of like we can we all enjoy music, we all enjoy by ourselves sometimes listening to an album. But there's something when when you meet somebody who also likes that same band and how that like you're ⁓ you feel something, there's something about the social aspect of it and the. Not just a validation, like, yeah, because it's not necessarily validation. Sometimes you feel like you're the only person and then you're like, ⁓ somebody, somebody else is in on this little thing with me. And whether it's some obscure movie or a play that you loved or a book that you loved to meet somebody who also loved it is there's something social in that too, that we feed off of.
Eric: There is. my favorite kind of what you're talking about is when you are in agreement with somebody that you never thought you'd be in agreement with. Yes. Yeah. And that can happen. You know, it happens. You know, it happens with things like the television show Breaking Bad or The Office. know, those are shows that should not have been hits or people didn't think they were going to be hits. I The Office, when it premiered, They gave them like six episodes. And then when it got a little traction, they gave them two more the first season. just the executives had no faith in it whatsoever. Breaking Bad, I think, was a long shot. Bringing up those two examples are tons. mean, those are those are TV shows. ⁓ You know, ⁓ journeys don't stop believing. You'd think that that'd be kind of like a rock anthem, know, I don't know. ⁓ It's not, it's what do you classify it? Just pop rock? It's just like pop rock. So it's popular, I guess. But now it's like everybody loves that song. You you go to like elitist artists, you know, people who ⁓ do avant-garde art can appreciate that song for what it is on their own level, but it brings people together. ⁓ And that's kind of like the artistic ⁓ pay dirt. You if you're an artist, live for that moment. I had ⁓ little bit of it with Lombardi, not nearly as much as say like Hamilton, you know. ⁓ you know, when you see people who are football fans who have never been to a Broadway play coming together with somebody who is a snobby Broadway, you know, theater goer who never thought they'd like a play about a football coach. Yeah. Come together and say, like this. That's kind of like what you live for.
Myles: Well, I mean, I'm having a flashback to how I actually like Pearl Jam is my all time favorite band. I've gone to more Pearl Jam shows than any other band. But how do I get introduced to them is because when I was 16 or 17, my little sister, who was much cooler than me, here I am with my like boys to men and, you know, pop CDs or whatever, color me bad, terrible taste in music that I had at the time. She was listening to all these alternative bands. And she was trying to get me like, you should listen to them. You're going to like them if you do. And how she finally got me to listen to Pearl Jam is being like, you know, they like the Chicago Bulls. They they like basketball. And I was, you know, I was a big sports guy in high school. So I'm like, oh, they do. And, know, it's that commonality. I've obviously never met anybody from Pearl Jam, but I was like, oh, that speaks to me. We're on the same wavelength. And then I was like, you know what? I love this band. I love everything they do. But it got my first in.
Eric: Yeah.
Myles: because of some other connection. that's a great, know, a very minor version of what you're talking about. But ⁓ yeah, you never know what it is that's going to open a door for somebody to like something totally different.
Eric: Right, so we bring up a magician, David Kovacs, good David Kovacs, and he ⁓ performs a one man show. ⁓ He performs another in which families bring their kids to. So suddenly a family show. His one man show is monologue. There were kids at that too. ⁓ But you have people who ⁓ would to a magic show. come and see David Kovac, but you also have serious theater goers come and see him because he has something to express that's a little deeper than just a magic show. You have Jumanee Taylor you brought up before, that tap dancer from Chicago, is like one of the premier tap dancers in the country. And he's undeniable. I mean, I've never met somebody who's watched his performance and has not been amazed and appreciative and understanding of the artistry that's behind what he does.
Myles: Yeah, I mean, he he was amazing. And even the short film on him that was at the festival was. Captivating, ⁓ you know, especially for someone who spent some time living in Chicago, like seeing some of the shots in that just in a photography that was put into that was really cool, but he's. It's just so interesting to see a performance like that live when you've only experienced it through like a screen before. And I was going to ask you what.
Eric: Yeah.
Myles: You over the course of the next year going to be the 10th one, 10th. So over those 10 years, know, folks like Rainn Wilson, David Marinus, you know, you got a Pulitzer Prize winner. got Emmy winners. You got a guy who worked on one of the what I would call one of the best TV shows in the last 45 years. Yeah. And, you know, Jumaane Taylor, how do you get connected with these?
Eric: 10th anniversary.
Myles: friends of yours or these people who reach out and say I might want to be a part of this. How does it come together?
Eric: Well, it's all of those. And right now I'm putting together next season. Even though it's like 10 months away now, I started as soon as the last festival ended at the end of September. And what I'm realizing is that I have to even start for next year's festival. I have to start like 16 months beforehand. Just get a budget together and know what I'm dealing with. I do a lot of independent research on the internet. I have a lot of connections in the arts community. I'm on the phone a lot with artistic directors. Last year I called up Hedy Weiss, the former theater critic and dance critic of the Sun Times, and Chris Jones, who is a theater critic. Asked them for suggestions. ⁓ I reach out to my Steppenwolf Theater Company. who programs ⁓ a small space at Steppenwolf that ⁓ encourages interdisciplinary art. So they're a resource. ⁓ I found Jumani on the internet. ⁓ And I was just looking for interesting, I'm doing that this year too, just going down rabbit holes and finding out who, people recommend. So once I found Jumani sort of like, think I saw his short film. And then it's a matter of like hunting him down. I had to like call a ⁓ guy I knew as a bass player who had performed in a couple of my shows like 15 years ago. He's in Chicago. said, you know this guy, because I saw his name appear in a performance that he had done years ago with Jumani. said, do you know Jumanis Taylor? He said, ⁓ yeah, I know that guy. I said, can you put me in touch with him? Well, I know somebody who knows how to get in touch. Eventually I got in touch with Jumanis. There's another like okay cello, ⁓ Okori Jones. ⁓ Okori Jones, sorry, ⁓ is from Atlanta. He's a really fine cellist who's performed all his life. does. improvised cello, he works with a looper. He just absolutely captivated our audiences last year, did all sorts of different performances for kids and adults. So there's this group called the APA, and I couldn't tell you what the acronym stands for, but what they do is say ⁓ every year in New York, they have this big conference where they invite presenters to come and take a look at performers and consider them and the performers have little booths set up and they say, you know, we're a drama group and we perform monologues or, you know, we're a dance group and this is our, you sometimes they're performing, sometimes they're not and all different kinds of things. And I got interested in this group and I was unable to attend last year, but they put me on their mailing list and one day they featured OK Cello. I looked at that guy and I'm like, who's this? He looks interesting. So again, I went down a rabbit hole and I did a deep dive and I didn't know anybody who knew him, but he had a website and he had one of those pages where you just fill out an email form. I said, you know, can you please get in touch with me? Eventually his manager did. And we started a conversation and we, know, this is. So I mean, I'm like a long way of saying, yeah, anything and everything. Then there's Rick Cleveland, you know, who wrote the play Lulu. And he had a play that he, as a friend, he had sent to me for advice. And then he'd sort of like emailed me periodically saying, hey, know, Deaf West is interested in producing this. And the timing just kind of was perfect. the time that Deaf West and Rick were looking for a way to workshop the play, I was... I was looking for somebody to fill a space at decaf. So that's how that came about.
Myles: I mean, it's ⁓ remarkable, the talent that you bring up here for this event. I'm wondering, ⁓ is it for you having a connection to Wisconsin and Door County, and then to do this kind of thing in Door County and bring that here, is it different than if you were doing it just in LA? Is it more meaningful to? to bring that sort of creativity into this little hamlet versus somewhere like LA where there's a lot of creativity all around you all the time.
Eric: Well, we'd get lost, I think. you know, we're really starting small and from the scratch and we're a grassroots arts organization. So that doesn't well here in Los Angeles. The city is just too sprawling and are too many things to compete with. Maybe if we out in the country, ⁓ I know that there's like the Ojai Playwrights Festival. and they do well because they're just sort of like the only game in town when it comes to the arts. Although they, I think they have a film festival up there, you know, and there are lot of artists too. But, you know, County is special to me. I have a personal connection with it. ⁓ So it wouldn't be the same. ⁓ It's challenging for me to be in LA and be running the festival in Wisconsin. But I, what I found is that the way that we grow or the way that we grow successfully is when not by email blasts and social media, although that's a part of it, you know, and we're increasing our profile or our footprint there, but where we grow the best and the most, I think, sort of ⁓ significance, in terms of significance is when I just meet people you know, like you and talk about what the festival is and get an explained to them or just have a discussion about what we're trying to do and why they might want to be a part of it. And it's not really, you know, please come to see my performance. It's really be a part of like what we're doing here, because you're going to be a lot of interesting people and you're going to get something really enriching out of it. You're going to, you know, you're going to be ⁓ changed perhaps a little, perhaps a lot, but you're to come out of this experience, we think, for the better. ⁓ And you're going to meet, like I said, a community of people who are all there to something that is enriching entertaining ⁓ and and educational ⁓ all at the same time. ⁓ you get a cocktail.
Myles: Well, I'll say the cocktail thing has been fascinating to me too because enjoy a cocktail. I've got a bar in my garage. ⁓
Eric: What else is in the garage? A car?
Myles: Well, Well, occasionally there's a car in there, but not too often. I it's been cool to see the different venues and different partnerships you guys have created with this too. It's obviously Bjorklunden and Lawrence's The Hub, but you you've had stuff at Wickman House before that was gone. You've had, you incorporated Koopla House right on Door County, Crest Pavilion, the Door Community Auditorium with OKCELLA this year.
Eric: Yeah.
Myles: You've just done a lot of different, and the granary down in certain Bay, ⁓ bringing different parts of this community into the fold.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, and we can we were going to continue to do that. ⁓ One thing I haven't you know, it's really a matter of time and manpower. ⁓ The dreams are to like, you know, reach really reach out to the high schools and grade schools and get the arts active there and also the other universities like we did. Aretha Sills workshopped and collaborated with UWGB students. on her piece, Impertinent Girls, which is an adaptation of Jane Austen's younger works. When she was young, she performed those at the Crest Pavilion. So there's that UWGB connection and ⁓ we haven't reached out yet to St. Norbert's. We want to do that. I envision like reaching out to UW Stevens Point. had Sylvester Poles students come and watch. the ⁓ Impertinent Girls ⁓ program. ⁓ an important part of the thing. We really want people to ⁓ that we're there ⁓ ⁓ to take advantage of the artists when they do come up. I that's the thing. We have these world-class artists come up. There's no reason why the community shouldn't be taking advantage of that because there's... There's a very rich arts community in Door County and I think we need to really lean into that and encourage that. could, you know, there are more and more artists coming up to Door County and along with all the everything else Door County has to offer, the arts can be a part of that thing that people are, that's attracting people to come up. And then we can take that art that we create in Door County and send it back out to the world. I mean, that's really what DCAF is all about. And in terms of like what we're planning for next year, I can't be specific because that'd be a giveaway. know, I want people to come to our event at the Grainery. But it's gonna be big and it's gonna be bigger than last year or any other year. And not only in terms of the number of artists that we're inviting up and the number of presentations and the number of workshops. but also in terms of like venues and the organizations that we're gonna be reaching out to. We've got big plans, grand plans. And the one act that I'm thinking that's sort of like the centerpiece of this 10th anniversary is gonna be something that's going to ⁓ make people aware of the festival in a big way. And I don't mean to be mysterious about it, but in a way I do. ⁓ it's going to create a big splash. And if you didn't know about us before, you will next year.
Myles: I love that outreach to the school's idea because I think of myself having gone to Gibraltar High School ⁓ and you know, I I was a sports guy, but I was always writing and I always. Thought of myself as becoming a writer one day, ⁓ so I think of version of me getting a chance to possibly ⁓ hear from a guy a Rick Cleveland or David Marinus in my own backyard would have been. So that's a awesome opportunity. And I think ⁓ possibilities were some of these folks and the kids that I went to high school with who were into the arts and how much they would have thrived off of the scene I was describing earlier of being around a lot of other creative types ⁓ different parts of the country and just like, ⁓ there's different possibilities here. think it's that just ⁓ from an inspiration standpoint for kids up here would be. ⁓ to get more of them into that those spaces
Eric: Yeah, that's the idea. I think there's something very powerful about meeting with an artist one-on-one. It demystifies what you would otherwise assume is a kind of mystical experience of creating, you know, creating something from nothing. But once you meet the person who's doing the creating, they answer your questions or maybe even like see them doing the actual creation and you realize, oh, that's just a guy or a girl. and they're just putting pen to paper and they just made that up. I can do that. I can do that.
Myles: I tell you what, the first time that I always thought of writing as like not something to be studied, that it's just something that kind of like appears in your head and you do it. then when I as I matured and met more writers and actually did read about it, ⁓ there's a process. just like a job. ⁓ You to work. Yeah, there's inspiration that comes. ⁓ It's of there's struggle and you work way through those problems and. ⁓
Eric: You're absolutely right.
Myles: I didn't know that as a high school kid. Well, Eric, thanks for the conversation on this I appreciate the festival. appreciate the opportunity to talk to these folks and learn from them. you know, like even for us in bringing young employees in, you know, when you bring some young writer in from out of town and you can point to something like this and say, yeah, maybe you're not in Chicago or you're not in Milwaukee or LA or New York, but you can get these little tastes of this, those kinds of things, that inspiration, which I think, as you sprinkle those throughout the year, it's enough to carry people through.
