Herbs are growing on my porch. In 2014 I bought my house in my fantastic neighborhood and found to my delight, after the closing, that there was an honest to goodness porch swing, a feature that I had missed when taking a tour, coming back for the inspection and even when visiting with my Mom. You see, I have always loved porch swings. My Aunt had one for a bit when I was a kid and I just loved how relaxing they were and how you could just swing and talk for hours, maybe with a glass of tea in hand. My swing lived up to its given purpose, family and friends do sit and swing and we do sip on tea, coffee, and even wine and beer. It is a versatile swing but, how does it relate to herbs?? Well, on the other side of my porch sits a razed planter bed (thanks Mom) where there is parsley, oregano and rosemary. This is another feature that I always associated with a true home and as soon as I can figure out how to best use these tasty little plants they can go to work, bringing even more good taste into my house.

These walks down LEAD memory lane have been fun. Again we had a ton of Pittsburgh people at the 2015 conference. This year Al could not join us though the Thomas family did make the trip. Kathy drove with the boys and Stacy while Eric, Sarah baby Andy and I drove a jeep. The sessions were good again. Yeah submitters and committees. I was a part of a panel discussion on Audio Description at the end of the conference. Sadly, there is a photo of me in a headdress floating around the net somewhere, I love the ballet… Eric and I also attended a fantastic British session on Relaxed Performances and I went to a great one on donor engagement in funding access work, done by this great V.P. from the Kennedy Center. She was late because I think, maybe traffic but, once she arrived, she was fantastic. Stacy is also becoming a font of knowledge on volunteer programs. We did attend the opening. Interesting and huge place but they needed more interaction in my opinion. The day before the conference started the Thomas’s and I once again hit the town. We did museums, the mall, my pore Bear burnt his feet walking over part of the world as we traversed the Navy exhibit, we went back to the Archives and saw an exhibit on the drinking habits of the first families. it was a good time over all! Finally, the trip home was no fun, not in the least. We left at the wrong time and got caught in traffic that lasted until Pennsylvania and I mean the state and not the Avenue. When we did reach home all of us were tired and crabby, just like a family after a long trip. I hoped to return to D.C. again soon.

Next was the Chicago LEAD. Number 1, there were 20 of us there from the burgh. Win! 2 The KC staff did a site visit in Pittsburgh earlier that same year, we were hosting in 2016 b/c, 2015 was the 25 anniversary of the ADA and they wanted it back in D.C. . Their trip here was fantastic though. We hit the Children’s Museum, Warhol, Cultural District (including the Children’s Festival) and Museums in Oakland. I bought them lunch at SAL’s and they bought Mary Ellen, Tiff, Anne and I dinner at Sonoma. Back to Chicago, we ate a lot, deep dish, Big Bole, and lots of wanuts, yes, a waffle donut. Eric and I starred in a Kennedy Center produced video. The sessions were so so, not peeking our interest. There was one cool one involving robotics but other than that… :( We got soaked in the rain one night, which was truly funny, mainly everything great about our trip happened away from the conference. I did hope to return to Chicago, which actually happened the following year, AFTA did a precon on diversity and inclusion. This trip’s most fun night for me involved dinner with two of my favorite Miami people, Cass and Peyton. Dining and grabbing a drink with these two now true adults was a ton of fun!

My second LEAD experience was at the Kennedy Center. This time we were on LEAD2013. I was asked to co-present with Betty which was very nice. We did an intro session on working with the visually impaired and it went well. In fact, this was my second time working with Betty in 2013, the first time was at a GPAC event in February when, they flew her up to open their planned program of spring sessions and I was her opening act of sorts. . Also at this LEAD Dan Hoffer of the Trust and I were able to attend a pre-conference offering called tech at LEAD. It was a fascinating day and while not exactly applicable to our day to day work, we did open our minds to new ideas. I was also newly introduced to the idea of an IBeacon system, which sounds cool but, I will need to play with it to get a useable understanding. Luckily the Warhol now has one. Museums have such potential to be cool and automate content delivery. Also, at this conference, we met some attorneys who could speak to risk. They were awesome. We also shared about our experience over the year working with Disney and BAA on our Autism Friendly Lion King and all who we spoke with sounded really interested. Additionally the Kennedy Center is expanding their Family Theater work into Sensory Friendly programming, which was something that we needed to think about over the coming years. Thus far we have added performances in 2015-2016 and 2017 and of course we did our day time gallery crawl. We met Roger who has continued to be a great friend and partner. Additionally the term Pittsburgh Mafia was born, I don’t recall how but know that it had to do with the fact that there are a lot of us and we hang out and genuinely like one another, also Diane from Imagination Stage was involved but, we are now the Pittsburgh Mafia. Over all it was a blockbuster LEAD. I will just add two more things. Betty and Jessica added a Sarah to their team and I liked her right away. Finally, to keep the Pittsburgh emerging Leader thing alive, Alissa of the Ballet one it in 2013. Yay! Also in D.C. we of course hit the mall. Had another Pittsburgh dinner which we invited Mimi to, Philly is PA too… Then we had one of the best Asian fusion dinners ever. I went to the Archives for the first time and parts of the Smithsonian for the millionth time. And finally we took a photo with JFK’s head. Oh, and even though I keep saying that I am done, I am never done with D.C. We went to Alexandria to have dinner with Chris’ old friend from college’s family. It was amazing sea food and amazing drinks and afterword as we were walking back to the car, we had ice-cream that may have been home made. It too was terrific and for Bear’s first trip, it was a huge success! D.C. is just the best!!!

I received an email last week from the Kennedy Center enumerating with short statements and photos, why people should attend their annual (LEAD), Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability Conference. While all of their reasons were true and valid The email got me thinking on my history with LEAD and the things that draw me back each year. I will write about my experience with LEAD over the next few posts. So, here we go, my first LEAD was in 2012. As I wrote earlier at the beginning of that summer, Betty, the accessibility guru of the arts came to visit us. She was impressed with our enthusiasm and all that we were accomplishing at the Trust and during our wrap-up session, while lounging on couches in our Circles Lounge, she even said that we should think about being a host city for her conference one year. This is something that we would tease her staff about for years to come… Not the idea coming from their boss but, we really got it in our heads that our city was a great location for LEAD. The next morning, when taking Betty to the airport, one of my former coworkers, who I still miss working with, heard something else from Betty. She kept it a secret for months but, that following week, she and our boss, Rona nominated Al, Eric, and I for the LEAD Emerging Leader Award, so, at my first LEAD and the guy’s second LEAD we won an award for the Trust for our work in access. Rona flew up to be with us and introduce us at the awards dinner. We all got to speak and we were able to add an award with our names on it to the wall of awards and honors in the fourth floor conference room. Not too shabby. Also at my first LEAD we got to have a bonding dinner with our fellow Pittsburghers, hang out with Al’s awesome wife and daughter, get trained by the best in Audio Description, play at the Boston Science Center, further our idea of doing an Autism Friendly Lion King with an educational session put on by Lisa and Deb of TDF, walk around Boston’s art museum, meet Sally Garrison, the guru in access and evacuation, who would visit us in 2014 and meet so many other cool people who cared about the things that we cared about. It was such a great conference and we had such a great time.

In 2012, I saw the Chorus Line with my two coworkers, Eric and Al and Betty Siegel of the John F. Kennedy Center. We had invited Betty to our fair city to do some consultation on our theaters and this show happened to be playing at our Benedum Center as a part of the CLO’s summer season. To give a little context on my history with musical theater, my sister and I were lucky to grow up in the town of Meadville, a relatively small place with not one but two community theaters. Therefore, from rather young ages my Mom took us to see gems like, Grease, South Pacific, Anything Goes, Aladdin, Pinocchio, Tommy, The King and I, Guys and Dall’s, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolored Dream Coat, God spell, The Secret Garden, Mouse Trap, Oklahoma, West Side Story and of course The Chorus Line… We were lucky kids. So, armed with community Theater productions, I was no novice when I sat down in the theater that night, alongside our guest. I must say, however, I was taken aback when Betty, sitting beside me, cried at various points throughout the second act. I was watching the story and my eyes were as dry as a bone. Was there something wrong with me, that I did not find this story of struggling artists tear worthy? Was I cold and unfeeling? Finally the show had come to its end. The actors took their Curtin call and the lights began to come up in the theater’s house. This is the point when Betty turned to me, still teary and said “she did it for the love of her art.” This is the moment when I knew that while I am a strong admirer and lover of art that I am not an artist. This revelation was further confirmed when Al and Eric joined us at the back of the theater. Eric too had tears in his eyes, (artist,) Al stood dry eyed and as puzzled as I. Artists are amazing people and I count many amongst my closest friends, However they possess an innate ability to feel more deeply or on a different plain, it is not good or bad just different. I will always remember this story, so thank you to the Chorus Line for illuminating such an important distinction for me so early in my journey into the realm of the arts,.

I started at the Trust in the fall of 2011 after leaving a job and a town that I loved but, was beginning to outgrow. My last job had me advising students, event planning, facilitating leadership development, teaching, and working on holistic student development,. I entered into a role at the Cultural Trust, where there was a question to answer and an undefined path stretching ahead. I started with an internal charge to research who in the country was doing this accessibility and inclusion work the best. Once I found that, it was my belief that we could do this work. I read and I read and I planned and I read and then I asked a question, could we bring the national guru here to consult on our physical spaces? Could she help us to digest some pretty daunting plans and help to prioritize some pretty daunting work? The answer to all of this was yes. I already had some programmatic work under way. We had worked with marketing to print a large print program and were going to have some Broadway programs brailed in the fall. Theater Development Fund was going to caption our next Broadway season and we had even found an audio describer, we were on our way… So, then in May of 2012 I gave Betty Siegel a call. A little star struck, I called her at the Kennedy Center and invited her to Pittsburgh and told her of our concerns and of our reports. To my surprise, she was game for a visit. I sent her all of our material and we booked her a flight and like that she was here. In June of 2012 we picked her up from the airport in my coworkers car, took her out for pizza and had drinks with the, Betty Siegel. We took her to see a show that night and I planned a very busy day with four theater visits, a lunch with Kevin, Rona and a team from the Trust and some time to debrief at the end. You know that to this day, we are not perfect but, we have plans, we continue to improve and little by little we are making Pittsburgh a better and more inclusive place.