Actress CATHERINE CURTIN (Stranger Things) & Artistic Director KATE MUETH (Neo-Political Cowgirls)

"I don't know why we would really want to tell stories without being connected to the meaning. And I think that's especially for women, but I do think for human beings, that is how we can work as hard and be able to get up the next morning and keep going. Because we are working through the meaning, and it feeds us as we're like making sense of it all, trying to make sense of it, and for being in community and communion, if I dare say that, as an ex-Catholic too. Like sharing as a witness what it is to be human and what it means, and through this work, tell our story. So yeah, I feel like it's a bit of a crushing experience, as an industry goes. And I often feel like I'm way flung out to the side in the process of how I do the work versus how the industry wants it done, expects it done, and how the money is made and having it done. And there's an unhappy marriage between art and commerce right now. We've changed as a society, and the internet and AI have changed the world. But I kind of don't care because I get one life that I'm aware of, and I just want to do it in a way that feels good and the art feels true for me." -Kate Mueth