Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2021 - 26

(singing). I crushed it. I nailed it. Couldn't
have done it any better.
Then came the dialogue. I was prepared.
I was ready to go. Or so I thought.
I stuttered. A lot. A lot a lot. And I hear
from casting, " Good job, Marc. Thanks
for coming in. "
Let me tell you that that 10-foot walk
to the door was one of the worst walks
I've ever had in my life. I walked out that
door, and it slammed right behind, and,
and it shattered my soul. I was shattered.
I, I thought, " You worthless piece of shit.
You fucked up. You stuttered all over that.
You messed up. You blew it. Your big opportunity
to book another big job, and
you fucked it up. You don't deserve any of
this. You're done. "
And then something changed. I literally
felt a shock, a shock to my system.
And I said, " Whoa, Marc, what are you
doing? You, you can't treat yourself this
way. If you're gonna keep going on in this
business with this career, something's
gotta change, 'cause this ain't right. This
will not work anymore. You are not doing
anybody justice by hiding a part of who
you are anymore, Marc. You are not doing
the director justice. You're not doing
yourself justice. And you aren't doing justice
and giving representation to a huge
community of people who go unheard,
just like you have been being unheard for
your whole life. "
And it was that day that I decided that
I'm not gonna hide anymore. I'm not gonna
hide this part of myself. Yeah, James
Earl Jones is great, but he's not Marc
Winski. And yes, I do a mediocre impression
of James Earl Jones. Y- y- you saw
it. It's like, not too bad. But it's not Marc
Winski's voice. It's not my voice. It's not
my truth.
M- m- my name is Marc Winski. I am
a person who stutters, also an actor and
artist. I'm here to educate, inspire, and
teach others to live their own truth. I
challenge you to look within yourself and
say, " Is there a part of me that needs to
speak? Is there a part of me that needs
to spe- spe- speak my own truth? " I challenge
you. Stay healthy and inspired.
Marc Winski, an alumni of
Indiana University, is a
professional actor/singer/
motivational speaker in New
York City and a person who
stutters. As an actor, Winski is currently
26 | THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY | SUMMER 2021
striving to give a voice and be an advocate
for people who stutter in theatre, film, media,
and television. Using a large TikTok
following as a bigger platform, he continues
creating content and spreading stuttering
awareness with wit and creativity for the
stuttering community, a group people who
often go (quite literally) unheard and unseen
in our culture. Winski has been seen on ABC's
" What Would You Do? " ABC News, Good
Morning America, DailyMail, Broadway
national tours, and Disney Cruise Lines. He
is helping to give many more opportunities to
show truthful representation and inclusivity
in our world.
Inform: Audrey Hoo
Hello everyone. My name is Audrey
Hoo, and I use she/her pronouns. I'm
joining you for the 2021 virtual USITT
Conference from the unseated and ancestral
lands of the Chochenyo-speaking
Ohlone people now known as Berkeley,
California. I'm seated in the quiet and
NOT ALL THAT
IS WIDELY
CIRCULATED
IS MADE
UP OF REAL
DATA, AND
SOMETIMES
DISINFORMATION
SPOKEN
LOUDLY
ENOUGH
AND
OFTEN
ENOUGH
BECOMES THE
PREVALENT
ONE.
-HOO
empty Roda Theatre at Berkeley Rep,
almost a year to the date from the city's
shelter in place order. I've been asked to
focus on the word inform. Of course, of
the three keynote speakers, this particular
word was the one USITT posed to
me, a production manager, to speak on.
As production managers, as many of my
colleagues will attest to, gathering and
sharing information is one of our main
purposes. Being informed is necessary
as it gives me the ability to make critical
decisions in both my professional and
personal life.
What we're living through right now
with the COVID-19 pandemic is a real
example of how much advice and guidance
is out there. I'm sure many of you
have read and re-read the recommended
guidelines for reopening. We all have
had to digest, use, and apply information
in making decisions for the eventual reopening
of the schools and companies
that we may be part of. Many of us train
for years to grasp even the very fundamentals
of our theatrical craft and foundations
of our trade. We may have had
the great privilege of receiving a formalized
training, a curriculum where somebody
decided this is the information you
need to know as baseline into whatever
field you're in.
But why did they choose to put that
piece of knowledge in there? And why
did they choose to remove others? How
do you, the ones further along in your
careers, discover that you might need
to seek out a whole new set of training
to stay relevant? For many others in our
field, the path to a working career did
not go through a formalized style being
given a set curriculum. So likely it came
through opportunities or which mentors
you chanced upon and what guidance
they shared with you, working and living
through different productions and experiences
to create that bank of knowledge
for yourself.
There is so much information out
there, and the thing is, information isn't
the same thing as data or a mathematical
formula or truth. Information is a way of
presenting those things after being analyzed,
organized, and interpreted. Not all
that is widely circulated is made up of
real data, and sometimes disinformation
spoken loudly enough and often enough
becomes the prevalent one.
While I'd like to tell you exactly how
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