Insights · ProCast
Episode 20 — How to Make Events More Neuro-Accessible: From Broadway to Corporate
In this episode, we’re talking with Partnership Strategy & Engagement Lead of Workplace Experience at Google and Founder of The Neu Project, Megan Henshall, and Co-Founder of P3 Productions and Lead Producer of the Broadway musical How to Dance in Ohio, Sammy Lopez.
Accessibility is extremely important! And it may be easier than you think. From Broadway shows to corporate events, this episode looks at simple, cost-effective ways to make your audience comfortable. So hit the download button, screw your headphones on tight, and get ready to take notes.
Read the transcript below and listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
Show Notes
This conversation is close to our hearts. Making events more inclusive is a priority for us. Dig into the details on our Accessibility in Events page.
Explore accessibility in events
Our Guests
Megan Henshall (She/Her/Autistic) joined Google in April 2019, and serves as the Partnership Strategy & Engagement Lead, Workplace Experience. She partners across Google to understand how events drive business, build communities and promote cultural continuity, informing strategy for a global team of amazing event professionals.
She also leads an internal/external research and innovation effort called the Google Experience Institute (Xi), focused on the futures of human-centered, multi-modal experience design and founded The Neu Project, a non-profit focused on neuro-inclusion in the events, experience, travel and hospitality industries.
Sammy Lopez (he/him) is a Tony Award-winning theatre producer and co-founder of P3 Productions, a company dedicated to building productions from the ground up with artists to support new voices and communities. P3 recently produced How to Dance in Ohio and Job on Broadway, with the upcoming Broadway-bound musical Gun & Powder in development.
His recent co-producing credits with P3 include Sunset Blvd., Next to Normal, Just for Us, and A Strange Loop. Additionally, he serves as the Creative Producer at New York City Children's Theater and is a co-founder of The Industry Standard Group (TISG), an organization committed to increasing BIPOC representation among producers and investors in the entertainment industry. Sammy mentors for Theatre Producers of Color (TPOC) and is a partner and educator with The Business of Broadway.
Credits
Hosted and Written by Jeremy Dobrish
Produced by Bethany Potter & Grace McCarney
Theme Music by Mike Mancini
Logo design by Shraddha Maharjan
Special thanks to Dossie McCraw
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Guests: Megan Henshall & Sammy Lopez
MEGAN: 25 percent of the global population is neurodivergent in some way. And in our research, 85 percent of that 25 percent don't go to events, because they're worried they're going to get overwhelmed or pushed into a moment of distress.
JEREMY: Hey there, thanks for tuning in. I'm Jeremy Dobrish, and this is the ProCast, brought to you by Proscenium Events in New York City. It's a podcast about corporate events. Each month, we take a bite-sized look at how to make corporate events, conferences, programs, and shows even more effective and impactful. Over the past year or two, Proscenium has dedicated itself to making our events, corporate events in general, and even live events outside of corporate, more inclusive for the neurodivergent community. We've served on panels, written white papers, produced webinars, we've even co-produced a Broadway musical all about neurodivergent people and their experiences, which we'll talk more about with our guests. Most importantly, we're making this a huge priority for all our events and RFPs. So today I'm talking with the Partnership Strategy and Engagement Lead of Workplace Experience at Google and founder of The Neu Project, Megan Henshall, and the co-founder of P3 Productions and lead producer of the Broadway musical How to Dance in Ohio, Sammy Lopez. We've got a really special episode for you. Intrigued? Want to learn how your event can be more neuro-inclusive, and some concrete, cost-effective ways to get there? Then stand by for cue one of the ProCast. Cue one, let's go.
JEREMY: All right. So I'm here with Meg Henshall and Sammy Lopez, and we're talking about how to make events more accessible and more inclusive for a neurodivergent audience. I'm really excited about this conversation, because Meg and Sammy come at this concept, this philosophy, from different perspectives, different job titles, but get to it in a very similar way. So I'm really interested to see how the synergy comes together here. Meg, I want to start with you. When we talk about making events more accessible and inclusive for a neurodivergent audience, what exactly are we talking about?
MEGAN: I always like to start with some foundational definitions, because this is a relatively new conversation. When we say neurodiversity, we just mean all brains. We are all part of the neurodiverse world of human cognition. And when we say neuro-inclusion, these are design practices that specifically cater toward neurodivergent brains. Neurodivergence is just cognitive functioning that is apart from what's considered typical or normative. But I think it's really important to anchor in this idea: that any way of cognitive functioning or thinking is better than another is a culturally constructed fiction. That is fake news. All brains have incredible value, regardless of how they function or process information. So neuro-inclusion is really looking at neurodivergent challenges, needs, and strengths, and refining design processes to make sure we're getting the most out of all human beings and brains, and that we're ensuring everyone can reach their potential in all environments and spaces.
JEREMY: That's great, that's super helpful. When I hear you talk about that, my mind doesn't immediately go to the idea of a Broadway musical. And yet, Sammy, you produced How to Dance in Ohio, a Broadway musical that dealt with some of these issues and had actors from that community as well. So I'd love it if you'd talk a little about that, and your journey with that show.
SAMMY: How to Dance in Ohio is a new musical that premiered a year ago on Broadway, and it's based on Alexandra Shiva's Peabody Award-winning documentary film of the same name. It documents the real experiences of autistic young adults preparing for their spring formal. This project was truly a devotion toward looking at the commercial theater industry and remaining curious every step of the way, asking, why don't we prioritize accessibility in the way that we build a Broadway musical? This project came to us, with my producing partners at P3 Productions, at a time where we were really excited to interrogate, how do we bring a piece that centers the autistic community, and truly centers disability, in a joyous way? If this was going to be the first time autistic characters were centered in a story, played by autistic actors, we wanted to make sure it was a piece that really uplifted the joyous experience of what this community can bring to the Broadway space. It was a remarkable experience, because we took it intentionally, step by step, rather than following a cookie-cutter Broadway production development approach.
JEREMY: It was a beautiful show, and Proscenium is proud to be one of the co-producers on it. And I know it's going to the West End next, right?
SAMMY: The UK!
JEREMY: That's fantastic. Can you talk a little about the actors in the show, what it was like working with them, and what they brought to the process?
SAMMY: The system of developing shows on Broadway often isn't built for the disability community. A lot of my work outside of the commercial Broadway space was with CO/LAB Theater Group, which stands for Creative Opportunities Without Limits and Boundaries. When we signed on to do this show, we thought it was an exciting opportunity for there to be an intersection between the work that's so brilliantly done at CO/LAB, and so many other neuro-inclusive theater companies in New York City, and Broadway. Even before we brought in actors, we looked around our artistic team and said, we need to bring in some voices to this team to make sure we are bringing forward as much of the authenticity as possible. So we brought in Ava X. Rigelhaupt, who I know has done some conversations with Proscenium around building accessibility into the fabric of your events. We took that same approach to Broadway. From the onset, we landed on the phrase "accessibility in mind versus accessibility as an afterthought." Every step of the way, we named that value and asked ourselves, how are we moving intentionally with this value, knowing that we typically might not have asked this on any other Broadway show? We didn't just list the audition breakdown on the traditional websites you might see for a Broadway show; we looked at it from a more grassroots approach and really utilized Facebook groups and other digital platforms where we knew the autistic community, who so deeply wanted to be on stage or take part in this type of process, would be. We knew we needed to set up that invitation in the best way possible. So we worked with our casting team, and we were able to identify hundreds of thousands of autistic actors all over this country who submitted to be part of the show. And all of them were incredibly vocal about this opportunity, that there are so few moments in this industry where a casting breakdown explicitly asks for autistic actors to play autistic characters, which was in many ways a big moment for the theatrical community.
JEREMY: That's amazing. That really does feel groundbreaking. Now Meg, I want to move over to you. You are not a Broadway producer. You work at Google, and you founded The Neu Project. I'd love you to talk a little about how you're working with this community, and for this community, in both of those roles.
MEGAN: The Neu Project came out of a big fat research project, actually. First, a couple of personal notes: I myself am autistic, and I also have an autistic child, Otis, who is six. So this has always been something important to me, and I'm very passionate about making sure that we change the environment and don't ask people to assimilate to things that are challenging for them. During the pandemic, we were looking for signals for things that could have systemic impact across all types of events and experiences. As a side note, the events team here does 75,000 events a year. So we support tens of thousands of events across the Google ecosystem, and they range in stakeholder, use case, and audience. We were really looking for things we could implement and execute at scale that would have meaningful impact regardless of the type of event or where it was held. And neuro-inclusion is one of those things. So we really started to double-click in and try to understand what would be most helpful. Over the last four years, we've built a global community of neurodivergent consultants, and we've spent a lot of time listening to their challenges, and to the things that have historically gone unnoticed, or the things they're doing to accommodate for themselves because they feel like no one else will. It's been a really enlightening process. I loved Sammy's approach, and first of all, the fact that they hired autistic actors to play the roles, the representation with that show is absolutely phenomenal, and A-plus, they got it so right. It's also been very enlightening for me, as someone who was late-diagnosed, to just understand how to navigate the world better. We focus on experience design, and that started with events but has merged into workplaces, stadiums, arenas, venues, convention centers, and beyond. So there's really application for this work everywhere humans exist.
JEREMY: That's amazing. Like I said at the top, you're both coming at this from a different perspective, but you both share that idea: it's not about having your audience or your attendees adapt to what you're doing, it's about adapting what you're doing for the attendees in a way that's more inclusive. It doesn't exclude anybody to do that, and it includes more people. And that notion of intentionality behind it, and it not being an afterthought, I think is really important. So along those lines, Sammy, you talked a little about the show and what it meant for the actors. Can you talk a little about the audience? Who was the audience, and what sort of accommodations or adaptations were you doing for them so that it felt more comfortable?
SAMMY: This was a deep question our team asked ourselves daily, just knowing that the 41 Broadway theaters, inherently, because they are landmark buildings, have very limited accessibility offerings. So we knew that by developing this piece, we really needed to set a foundation for our team. Historically, our society has really been afraid to even name the word "disability," or even explore what disability means. CO/LAB created a program called Sharing the Stage, an inclusion training session that we had every single person who worked on this production take part in. So someone who'd been with the show for five years, versus someone who'd been with it for a month, was still onboarded with this training, really to distill down vocabulary. Once we were able to create a level playing field of how we're speaking about disability, making sure we're setting the table with all the right utensils and plateware before we all got to work, that was step one, with the Broadway theater owners: how can we identify the right partner who can understand that, in order to welcome an audience where it might be their first time stepping into a Broadway theater, how do we set that table as beautifully as we can? There's a book I so deeply love, Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara, and I think for anyone in leadership, that book is just a must. There's a quote Will says in the book: "Success comes in cans, failure comes in can'ts." I thought about that so often, because there were so many thresholds we needed to go through to get various elements approved and into the Broadway theater, but we always thought about it from everything that we can do, less focus on the restrictions we had. Operating from that mindset of abundance was so clear to all of us. So I talk about the invitation with casting, and we also thought about that with the audience member: knowing we might be welcoming a lot of first-time Broadway theater-goers, how do we take a step back and talk about the purchasing of the ticket? So we created videos of how to purchase a ticket for a Broadway show. We created a robust "know before you go" email, and within it included an interior map of the theater to show where the sensory spaces were, so when you got into the theater, if you needed a fidget or a space to cool down, we notated how you'd be able to get those items to support you during the show. We had a very robust sensory advisory guide, which was essentially a very detailed list. We did say it was a spoiler-alert document, because there were a lot of spoilers in it, but for those who wanted to know everything that was going to happen on stage, you could follow along with this PDF that clearly said, "There will be a loud noise at this moment," "There will be flashing lights." Even if an audience member didn't open that document during the show, just knowing it was there was already comforting. It allowed them to feel welcome in the space.
JEREMY: I love all of those ideas. You said the thing about the loud noise, knowing that the loud noise was coming. At Proscenium, we had an event recently where we just asked, on the registration, an open-ended question: is there anything we can do to make the experience more comfortable for you? And that was something that came up for one of the attendees: "I get very startled by loud noises, and if I can know in advance, that would be really helpful." We did have a fireworks moment, and we told her, and it made a big difference. What an easy thing to do to make someone's experience so much better. Otherwise you're doing all of this work, and then something like that can happen and ruin everything. Meg, what about you, from your perspective? What are some things you've been doing for audiences that make it better, more inclusive?
MEGAN: I want to plus-one all the effort put into the show to help people prepare and predict, because that's one of the things we hear most commonly from our community in focus groups and debriefing conversations post-event: "I really wish I'd been able to prepare more effectively and mitigate my own risks in a more informed way." So those "know before you goes" are such a kindness. Announcements going into a session that there may be flashing lights or loud noises, and so if you need to step out, please do. That sort of stuff is giving people agency inside of the thing you've designed and helping them mitigate their own risk, in a really beautiful way. But what we've learned in our research is that there are buckets of challenge for neurodivergent communities. There are sensory challenges: auditory sensitivity, tactile sensitivity, visual sensitivity, and olfactory sensitivity, so smells can be really challenging. And there are processing challenges, so just being able to sit for long periods of time and have people talk at you is very challenging for a lot of neurodivergent people. Attention and memory can be challenging. Time management, or time blindness, in the construct of events can often be hard. And there's a recent statistic, and it totally tracks with my own experience, that autistic people are taking in 42 percent more information in any given moment than a neurotypical person. Imagine that in the context of a show or an event: you're hearing noises other people aren't hearing, you're smelling things other people aren't smelling, and you're trying to focus on the thing you're supposed to be focused on, or the thing you spent a lot of money to come and see. We also heard a lot about crowded environments being very triggering, cacophonous environments, lots of noise happening at once, and not having good wayfinding, so navigation can be particularly challenging for neurodivergent folks, and that can be very anxiety-inducing. So the pre-videos and giving people visuals to anchor to before they even walk through the door, chef's kiss. And then, not having enough breaks, that's not good for anyone, for the record, because we are not robots, we are humans. If we're going to be actively participating, we also need the opportunity to process and integrate and regulate before we go to the next thing.
JEREMY: These are such great ideas. And again, like you said, these are good ideas for anybody. Breaks, and having a place to go where you can chill out, just speaking as an introvert, that sounds like heaven to me.
MEGAN: Every time I take this somewhere, I always ask questions like, who here identifies as neurodivergent, or cares for someone in their life who's neurodivergent? And lots of hands go up. And then I say, all right, The Neu Project is a love letter for you. And then I say, how many people have hidden in the bathroom at an event because you just needed a break from people and a moment? Every hand goes up. It's wild. These are practices that really support and create a more caring environment for everyone, and they just happen to be something that allows neurodivergent people to more deeply engage. So, win for everyone.
JEREMY: You two are obviously very much immersed in this world and have put a lot of thought and practice into it. And I do think things are changing, maybe slowly, but these practices are becoming more common. And yet, there are plenty of people who haven't really put a lot of thought into this, don't really understand it, or even know about it yet. If you look at it from a Broadway perspective, if a Broadway producer is doing a show that, unlike How to Dance in Ohio, isn't specifically targeted toward a neurodivergent community, and says, "Look, these ideas you're talking about are going to cost me money, and I don't really see what I'm going to get, so like every Broadway show before, except yours, I'm going to do it the traditional way," what would you say to convince them not to do that?
SAMMY: That's a great question, because I actually hear it often in our industry now, individuals asking me, how much was X, Y, or Z, or how did you make that work within your budget? I honestly believe it's actually cost-efficient to invest in accessibility from the onset, because then you're not creating Band-Aid solutions. Everything we learned on How to Dance in Ohio, we're now implementing on our other shows that may not center themes of disability, but we learned that it actually sets everybody up for success if you're prioritizing that kind of accessibility. For example, certain actors may want larger-print scripts or scores, and with some of the actors who've been in multiple Broadway shows or been in this industry a long time, when we've asked that question, they've been shocked and said, "Nobody's ever asked me if I need a larger-print script, or if I feel affected by the air conditioning in the studio." That's the point Meg has been sharing so beautifully as well: we aren't including everyone in how we set up our spaces.
JEREMY: That's great. Meg, what would you add to that?
MEGAN: I love this question, and it's one I run into all the time. It's probably one of the most common questions I get from other designers: how do I go sell this as an important or critical piece of our design practice to stakeholders? What's wild to me is that people sort of default to this idea that it means adding and doing more, when it's actually attenuating and being more intentional about the things you do. At some point in our industry, the experience design industry, everything got louder, brighter, more colorful, more high. I think we maybe assumed we needed to do that to keep people's attention or to get them to check in. But we're wrong. That's actually not the way to capture people's attention or keep it. So sometimes it's doing less. Sometimes it's toning things down. Sometimes it comes with savings. I also talk a lot about how, if we're not including people, we're not getting the most out of them. In the workplace context, productivity, performance, collaboration, and output are the ultimate goal. If people are struggling because their needs aren't met, guess what? You're not getting the most out of that really valuable resource for your organization. The same applies for events. And it's really important to talk about the rate of neurodivergence: 25 percent of the global population is neurodivergent in some way. And in our research, 85 percent of that 25 percent don't go to events because they're worried they're going to get overwhelmed or pushed into a moment of distress. That's a huge chunk of people. That's a missed opportunity, and a huge business opportunity. This is a real loss, not just because those brilliant people aren't there and we're not getting that diversity of thought and creativity and innovation, but also that's a revenue hit. So anyway, I could ramble on about this for days, but it comes up often. If anybody's looking for more statistics, I'm your girl. Reach out to me on LinkedIn, because I love to have these conversations with leaders.
JEREMY: And we'll certainly link to your LinkedIn in the show notes. I would just add, Meg, what you were saying about how we're doing more and more because we're trying to capture people's attention, I agree with that. I think it's also become a bit of an arms race with technology, where your competitor is using lasers in their show, so you want to look as cool as them, so you've got to use lasers, and you want to top them, so you put in the holograms, and then your competitor says, "Oh, they're using holograms, we need holograms," and then you're using AI. It's not that those things aren't fun or can't be effective, they can be, but not just in and of themselves. From my perspective, as a creative director, when those toys are useful is when they help support messaging. But when they're there just to be there and create a lot of flash, then, to your point, more is not necessarily better.
MEGAN: I think that's an interesting point. We also talk about neuro-inclusion work being the opposite of the AI race. We're in this moment where we're racing toward post-humanity, like, how can we become more than human using technology? But the neuro-inclusion work is actually about becoming the highest version of our human selves, and honoring all that is a human being across that spectrum of strengths and finitudes and challenges and giftedness. It's seeing the full human and saying, how might we tap into the real power that exists in our brain and body? And sure, that's great if we can pair that with technology and cure cancer and reverse climate change. But I'm so much more interested, this is controversial because I work at Google, but I'm so much more interested in that problem space: how can we get the most out of people and help them self-actualize, regardless of who they are and what their abilities are? And then, what happens with how we can innovate from that place? I think that's really interesting.
JEREMY: I love that. And speaking of how people can work with AI, I took the transcript of the webinar you did with us, Meg, and I put it into AI and said, "Okay, if I was doing a podcast with Meg, what should I ask her?" A lot of the questions it came up with were not good, but it did say this one, which I was interested by, so I'm going to ask it and we'll see how it goes. It said, "Ask her to explain the concept of the sensory stress bucket, and how it applies to event design for neurodivergent individuals."
MEGAN: Oh, very good question. Would you at least tell me you used Gemini and not ChatGPT?
JEREMY: Sure, yeah, that's what I did.
MEGAN: The stress bucket has been around for a while in the mental health space. It's basically a visual representation of how we navigate stressful environments. Our bucket is only so big, and stress is getting poured in, in so many different ways. In neurodivergent communities, we've translated that into the sensory stress bucket, because sensory processing is one of the key challenges, frequency and intensity of sensory input being really hard to navigate and really distracting, and it compounds over time. So the bucket essentially represents a neurodivergent experience, where you have sound and light and multiple people talking, or maybe you've experienced trauma before, so you're bringing that with you already and your bucket is already three-quarters of the way full. And then, perhaps you experience a microaggression, and all of a sudden your sensory bucket is overflowing, which results in a meltdown, a shutdown, or a moment of distress. So when we talk about the sensory bucket, there are ways to release the water. We can open the valve by creating these accommodations for people, by making sure there's a resilient space for them to go and regulate and restore, and let some of the water out of their bucket, so that they can come back and we're not pushing them to a place of distress. So, great question, AI.
JEREMY: Thank you, Gemini, for coming up with that. I'm glad we asked. I'd love to know how this work you're doing with the neurodivergent community, and the various events you're doing, has impacted you personally.
SAMMY: From a personal perspective, it's offered me the opportunity to not feel that I should move quickly. It's actually offered me the opportunity to take a beat, and to really question, am I doing this quickly because it's a product of our culture and how we want to get as much output as possible? Or am I moving quickly because I might not have thought about every potential outcome? So working in this space, around disability inclusion and disability justice, has offered me space.
JEREMY: That's great. Meg, do you want to add anything?
MEGAN: This work has completely changed the way I see other people. It's completely changed the way I see my role as a professional in the world. Now my, not ambitious at all, mission is to rehumanize corporate life. Because this work makes the invisible visible, and that is so powerful and potent. It's impossible to go back. Once you start to see people for the complexity we all have, and you start to hold space for it in a meaningful way and weave it into how you show up, it's honestly been the most rewarding work I've ever done. It's also made me a better mom to my son, and it's helped me navigate the world and advocate for myself in new ways. Historically, I think autistic women, especially those diagnosed later in life, are very high-masking. So I spent a lot of my life and career coming home from facilitating events or being at a business function, and I would be in bed for two days, and I would lose the ability to speak. I would go nonverbal. I knew that wasn't normal, but I also had no idea what it meant. Now I know, and I have a community of people who can help me unpack it, understand it, and avoid it. So I can't say enough about how this work has transformed me and my life. Anyone who joins the movement and comes to the party, I've heard very similar feedback from everyone. Very meaningful.
JEREMY: That's really beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.
SAMMY: Something Ava, our consultant, has shared with us around How to Dance in Ohio, relating to the invite-to-the-party metaphor, she would always say, it's not about inviting people to the party, it's about inviting them to dance. I love that simple metaphor for How to Dance in Ohio, particularly.
JEREMY: And that's the difference between accessibility and inclusion, right? Accessibility is asking them to the party, and inclusion is dancing with them. Is that more or less true?
MEGAN: I think that's fair. I think accessibility comes with this idea of doing the bare minimum, like, "Oh, we're ADA compliant, so we checked the boxes." Inclusion is a practice. It's something that evolves, it's dynamic, you're always learning, you're always looking for ways to be better in that practice. So I think that's right.
JEREMY: Great. I'd love to move on to our lightning round. The first question, for you, Meg: who is your biggest get? By which I mean, is there a guest speaker, an entertainer, or a subject matter expert you would just love to have at one of your live events?
MEGAN: So my answer is going to be super unconventional, very on brand. There's this amazing guy, Enrique Enriquez. He's a poet and philosopher, one of the most incredible humans I've ever met in my life. He speaks in poetry. He's literally one of the most poetic people, in the way he lives his life. I would love to have him come and do a keynote and just talk about the way he lives quietly and in a routine, and the way he can channel presence. So it wouldn't be someone famous; it would be someone who could teach us something about living with a higher level of quality. And then also Marc Rebillet. I don't know if you know who that is, but he's a performer and he does loops, and it's all improv, so every set is different. He never has a set list. You're not hearing the songs you've heard on Instagram. He comes and he makes it up, and the liberation and freedom in that is just so joyful.
JEREMY: That's great. Sammy, for you, maybe a better question is, is there an actor you would just love to have in one of your shows?
SAMMY: Ooh, an actor. My gosh. I would say, at the moment, John Leguizamo is someone who's been such an inspiration for me, particularly as a Latina theater-maker. He was the first person I saw on screen that reflected my experience, and it actually allowed me to see that there is a way to participate in this industry, because he looked like me.
JEREMY: He's amazing. Okay, second question, Meg: what is one thing you wish presenters at events did more of, or it could be less of?
MEGAN: Oh God, talking at people. Can we stop doing that? I think we need more conversation. I forget where it's from, but there's a quote I saw recently that was like, in the age of AI, we better get really damn good at talking to one another. When we're gathering people at an event or experience of any kind, giving them the opportunity to connect and talk is the coolest thing. So I would love to see presenters do a quick five to ten minutes, something about why they or their work matters, and then open it up for dialogue with the audience and have them talk to one another.
JEREMY: That's great. And at Proscenium, we just did a video with Event Marketer about trends in the event industry, and one of the trends is less didactic presentations. So it's coming, Meg, it's coming. What about you, Sammy? Are there things on stage from actors that you wish they'd do less or more of?
SAMMY: I think we often skip over onboarding, because we're wanting to jump right to the art-making. So I would ask our industry to really focus on, what are the intentional onboarding steps to then allow us to have those expectations clearly set, so that we can go forth and meet them?
JEREMY: All right, last question. What is something, a book, a movie, a song, whatever you like, that has been a big influence on you or your career?
MEGAN: I'll share one that basically launched me into an epic journey of reading a series of books around belonging. It was a book called Lost Connections, and I believe the author was Johann Hari. He was doing a self-exploration around his own depression and anxiety, and basically went on this journey around the world talking to people about building community and overcoming their own mental health crises and issues. It's such a beautiful book about community and meaningful connection and how that can heal, and such an important perspective about how we're all just looking for ourselves in one another.
JEREMY: Wow. And we'll link to all of this in the show notes. That sounds great. Sammy, how about you?
SAMMY: I feel like I have to choose a Broadway musical and lean into the cliche of the moment, but Wicked was such an influential moment for me in my life and my career. And then I just saw the movie, which is truly 10 out of 10. I was so moved by it, and truly the song Defying Gravity, while it is incredibly cliche to say, I forgot how powerful those lyrics are, and the way it was portrayed in the movie, and the themes of empowerment and self-realization, and the ability to maintain that key element of hope and wanting the best for humanity. I was listening to Defying Gravity on the train today, and I'm like, that is the energy I want to bring into the work. And I think so much aligns with today's conversation, that resilience to just keep making our industry one percent better, the way we think about our event-building one percent better each day. So let's all defy gravity.
MEGAN: Can't listen to that without crying, for the record.
JEREMY: That is a great note to end on. Sammy and Meg, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to do this. The work you're doing is incredible. It has inspired us at Proscenium tremendously and is really affecting our work every day. And you speak about it so beautifully and so passionately. I know the people listening are going to want to change what they're doing and add on to what they're doing with some of these ideas. So thank you, thank you, thank you.
MEGAN: It was so lovely to spend time with y'all. Really happy to be here.
SAMMY: Yes, appreciate it. Let's go make more events.
JEREMY: Well, that was really great getting to talk with Meg and Sammy about inclusivity. For me, there were tons of takeaways, but these are the four tops. Number four: being neuro-inclusive means redefining design processes to make sure we're getting the most out of everybody. Number three: accessibility in mind versus accessibility as an afterthought. I'm putting that on a Post-it note on my laptop. Number two: change the environment, don't ask people to assimilate to things that are challenging for them. And number one: so many actionable takeaways. Know before you go. Cool-down spaces. Asking open-ended questions. Letting people know what's going to happen, and giving people more breaks.
JEREMY: But look, I could talk about this stuff all day, and if you want to talk to us about making your events more inclusive, or anything about live events, check out our show notes for more info. There's lots of fun stuff in there. Or just go to proscenium.com and drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you, because at Proscenium, we help presenters do their best in front of their most important audiences. As we like to say, we help brands perform, and I have a sneaking suspicion we can help your brand perform. And if you want to get in touch with Meg or Sammy, you'll find their contact info in the show notes.