Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay Log 3

More than ever, I’ve come to embrace the fact that I cannot get away from holding my work as a playwright and holding my work as a community organizer. In the last few months I found myself consulting legislators about certain language or objectives related to their bills or joining national conversations on how policies/legislation can benefit artists/the arts at the federal level. It feels great that people value what I can offer because of my lived experiences and imagination.

In the middle of April, I attended the National New Play Network convening in NYC. NNPN is a network of theaters that develop and produce new stage plays. The convening is primarily attended by artistic directors, literary managers or producing artistic directors of theaters but playwrights also attend (to schmooze). I was a first-time attendee who found myself hosting a salon for half of the producers in residence (aka future leaders of American theater) in my hotel room. It was very cool that I got to create space for folks to share their ideas candidly. This incident affirmed for me that I am pretty good at creating casual, comfortable, low stakes opportunities for folks to connect while also seeding and brewing ideas and potential change.

For the last several days, I’ve been receiving words of encouragement and affirmation from people in my community as well as friends and strangers because I gave the commencement address for the U of MN’s CCAPS graduating class of 2024. It was important to me that an artist (me) was given such an honor because sometimes people don’t take us seriously and our work/contributions get minimized.

I’m anticipating that going forward, I’ll continue to be blessed with these moments of learning that’ll only further affirm my work and purpose in my field and community.