First steps to running a program and Why you should run one

Hello, welcome to, But I Digress, a podcast about educational theater and how maybe we

should run an educational theater.

This week we are talking about how to get started with your program.

And with that, here's Jennifer.

Theater program, educational theater program.

In this episode, we plan on giving you an idea of what is it that you would,

what's the beginning?

How do you start in the beginning?

You just, you don't ask permission, you just go.

The one, so I've started more than one theater program, but this one is the one I've

stayed with the longest for various reasons.

And actually, when we first started it, we didn't have an auditorium.

They built one like a year later, but there was student interest and it started

out just as a club.

And we had a function at our school where once a month all the clubs got to meet

during school.

And so we would meet and students would bring their own like skits or there

was a ballet dancer.

There were these boys that made these really impressive Muppet style puppets

that would do skits from the Muppet show and stuff like that.

And so people just performed, just brought their own things to perform in.

And we also went to see a lot of plays.

And then we just got really lucky because I didn't know this was going to

happen when we started the program, that they built a really, for our area

and for the size of our district, a very nice auditorium for us to use.

And then we just, I just said, OK, now we're doing it.

Like there wasn't, I didn't, there wasn't a lot of planning.

One of which meetings I didn't ask permission from anybody.

I just said, here's the thing that I'm then we're going to do it.

So there was not, I don't know, wasn't done by committee.

So for a first episode that tells you how to make a drama program,

the the idea that you didn't have a plan and didn't ask anybody's

permission really shortcuts the.

Well, I mean, I had done it before.

I mean, I think like so the first show that I ever did that I felt

like was not just like a Christmas play or a cute little kindergarten

skit at the end of the year.

A couple had a family had moved into our area and put their kids

in our school who were professional theater artists.

And they wanted to put up their version of professional play.

And we did the show, Our Town, which, of course, is in public domain.

You have to pay for any of it.

And one of if you're not familiar with that play, one of the unique

qualities about it is that there aren't any sets and there are.

And costumes are very minimal.

So it's super cheap to do.

You're not paying royalties.

You don't have to build anything.

You need like a couple of tables and chairs.

And you need a couple of ladders

and a big piece of wood.

Well, you need actually several chairs.

And that's about it.

So I thought that was since they had done that as my first like grown up show,

I was 13, I think.

I lied about being in high school to get into that show.

So I thought that would be a great way to start our program was with that show.

And that's so that's why we did that particular play was because it was

free and cheap and had some name recognition.

And it's a really good.

It's a really good play.

And there's no sound effects and there's no lighting designs,

just actors on a bare stage.

In fact, the main character is a stage manager.

They tell you a story.

So I think everybody should start with that show.

I think that's smart.

Here in the year 2025,

if somebody is planning on trying to do this,

how close to that road do you feel like you would need to skew

if someone is in a random school district that doesn't have a theater program?

Or what would you say the the cleaned up version of your plan

would be if you had to do it again?

Oh, I don't know.

You have to have some connection with the students.

I already been here, I think, two years teaching English

by the time we decided to do it.

So I already had some connections with the students.

And through my English classes, we did a lot of theater.

I feel like it's easier to to teach plays

is a whole group activity than a novel.

So we'd already done several plays in class and I taught different grade levels.

So I knew there were students who were interested in doing theater.

And I was also friends with the band teacher.

And so we had a lot of sort of overlap because they want to perform, right?

However, there's a way to perform.

So, I mean, I think it's about, you know, getting to know people and

just seeing, you know, putting feelers out there to see who wants

who wants to come and play.

And then if you pick a play like our town that's very flexible

in your casting, you don't need you could have a lot of extras

or you could have not very many at all.

That works out really well.

Do you feel like you're better at this than you were when you started?

Yes. Like how if I were going to start like at a brand new school? Right.

Like if you if you had to do it over again,

how much of the things that you did originally would you keep

and how many things would you change?

I mean, this is this was, you know, more than 20 years ago.

And I had baby brain because I had just had my daughter.

In fact, I wore her for most of the production.

I wore on that sling on my chest.

But I think because like I said, it wasn't the first time

I'd gone in to start a theater program.

Like every time I went, I taught in three different four different schools

and one had a burgeoning theater program and the other ones

really didn't have anything.

And so I just came in and just announces what I'm going to do

and who wants to come and play.

So I think I would do it.

I would make friends with the right with as many people as possible

and then say, do you want to come do this?

And then enough people always say yes.

Like, I don't know, just always sort of magically works.

Theaters magic like that.

Like so many things we set out to do when I have these ideas.

I know sometimes you think that we can't do them.

And sometimes I think we can't do them.

But if I say we're going to do them, if you put it out there

in the world and other people are like, oh, yeah, and then we get it done.

And it's literally magic.

I don't know.

I don't know why.

I mean, we do plays and I sit in the back and I watch

and I think, how did we pull this together?

Like the one we did last year with the aliens and stuff.

I don't want to give it away because somebody else might want to do that show.

But I just thought I read that script and I thought, this sounds really cool,

but I don't know how it's going to work.

And then it did, you know, and the audience was

very much into it by the end.

I mean, I don't know.

And it's literally magic.

I don't I don't know why it happens or why it works.

And it's not just true with our theater program.

I go to see other plays of the places and not everything I see is great.

But on a regular basis, I will see something go, oh, oh, this is so amazing.

And everybody in the audience is is with them.

I saw Hamlet like a month ago at Kentucky Shakespeare in Louisville,

Shakespeare in the Park.

There's their amazing summer program.

It's the longest non ticketed free Shakespeare company in the country.

And they did Hamlet and they had a female Hamlet and she was amazing.

There were a whole bunch of

governor's school for the art students there who, I guess, had never

seen a red Hamlet because any time anybody

got killed or an important information came out, they were all like,

what? You know, and I just thought this is so insane that I've I could,

you know, I can recite this play in my sleep and these kids never see it.

And there's everyone so invested in this, even the people

have seen it like a hundred times.

And it was just I don't know.

It's just that live theater is the coolest thing

in the whole world, because everybody that is there,

you get this one shot for all of you to be gathered or experience

is one thing, and you can never recreate that.

You have to be right there.

You can't be thinking, well, we do this again or next time or tomorrow.

No, this is the one shot you have at it.

And everybody, you know, is everybody buys in suspension

of disbelief of the audience.

And when it works, it's just like, I don't know,

it's just the best feeling in the world.

I mean, that's why it works,

is because everybody wants to get that high again.

Once they've done it, they want to feel that again.

So, well, I mean, in some instances, it's sort of like a magic show.

Right. It is.

Most people go to a magic show wanting to believe the magic that happens.

And some and some people go to a magic show to try and figure out.

Right. Right. It works.

Which I actually feel like I'm a lot more in that camp a lot of times.

Like when I go to plays, it

I enjoy the play.

I enjoy the story, but I'm also watching all of the other.

Right. I want to see how the hell did you do that?

Like, how did you make that move when there was nobody around it? Right.

How is that light on stage doing that thing

and there's no wires ran to it and I can't see anything that connects it?

Or how is that picture floating away or whatever?

You know, like I I enjoy the aspects of trying to figure out

the technical things that happen.

But even then, still, like I'm very much into it

in terms of enjoying the things that are happening in it.

But I do think that that is a great way to to understand

maybe why it always works so well, is that because oftentimes

most of the people, unless you're on a field trip with just hooligans,

that that most of the people are there and want it to work.

That is definitely true.

That is definitely true. They want to buy it.

And I will say it's a little bit harder with our audiences

because we do day shows with students and some of them are there

to get out of class and they don't really.

They're not super interested in whatever the play is.

But if you can see and that's it's the it's worth the audience

because I think about those things that you were just talking about

when I'm watching a play like how did that guy get over there so fast?

How did that costume change?

Look at this way. They did this blocking.

I could I could recreate this somewhere else.

I'm always stealing everybody in theater.

And I think it's true of a lot of art forms.

We're looking at other people's stuff going, oh, that's really cool.

How can I incorporate what I'm doing?

But if we can get those kids who showed up to a play

because they want to get out of class or because their girlfriend

wanted to see the play and they showed up with her.

If they start to buy in, that's that's like the best feeling

because they weren't even there because they wanted to be there.

Right. So when we do we do a musical with kindergarten

through 12th graders in it.

And we have those schools come to our school and to see the show.

So when the little bitties come, the elementary kids come.

It doesn't matter what we do.

It's like the Beatles are on stage.

If they know the songs, they will sing.

They will scream. They will clap.

They are very excited to be on a field trip.

They're very excited to be at the high school.

And that is I mean, that's the best audience you can have

because as soon as we have to stop and wait

from the stop, clapping and screaming up

that you have to calm them down,

because they're so excited because they're at a musical.

But we can get high school kids to buy in.

That is when they're when they're laughing

or when we can scare them.

That's even more fun. We can scare them.

That that to me is the best thing,

because you have to work a little bit harder at that

because they didn't come, you know, to see a play or to be entertained.

They came to get out of class.

I think the the best example of that that I have seen

in the in a day show with high school students

is when you did Caesar.

Yeah, because the obviously anyone that doesn't know

the ending of Caesar or the the battle scenes in Caesar

can be very can be done very violently

and the blocking and stuff that that you had done for them

were was I would almost say borderline graphic.

There was a lot of blood,

the amount of blood and just the hits in that

were very aggressive and stuff like that.

And I think that there were a lot of boys that were there

because there was a girl there that wanted they wanted to be around

or they just were like trying to get out of class or whatever.

But when when that level of aggressiveness broke out,

they they were very interested in how that was happening

and being done and stuff like that.

That is the most money we've ever made.

The most intense we've ever had for Shakespeare play

because a large portion of those students came back that night

to watch it again.

And that doesn't often happen, especially with Shakespeare.

So we yeah, that's the most money we ever made off of Shakespeare play.

And it was post apocalyptic and gender swapped.

So it was based on Heather's.

It was a Heather's version of Julius Caesar.

I was really proud of that show, too.

Yeah. Assuming there's a person out there that wants to do this,

but doesn't really have a background in theater,

that doesn't have a degree in theater, that didn't do it in college.

Do they start at the school or do they start somewhere else?

Do they start going to plays?

Do they start going to theater?

Oh, definitely.

You I think the more theater you can consume, good, bad or otherwise,

the better off you're going to be.

And I think that's true.

If you want to be good at anything, you want to watch other people

do that thing or read about people doing that thing.

I listen to a lot of theater podcasts.

I watch videos about theater.

I go to try to see theater.

And we have so many students now who have gone out in the world

and are doing theater other places.

That's kind of cool to get to go see, you know, what they're doing

all over the place, because I think one type of person

this podcast might be for is I know in there's no certification

in Kentucky for theater.

It's just sort of lumped under English.

And a lot of times, if you are a brand new

untenured English teacher or social studies or any manner of teachers,

they just say, OK, now you have to teach theater class.

And that's something I've heard from several people this summer

that they're just sort of getting this dumped in their lab

and they don't have any idea how to do any of it.

So, yeah, the more you consume and more people you can talk to

and and try to listen to, you know, stuff that we know how to do,

then the better off you're going to be.

Because I was lucky when I mean, I did this on my own.

It wasn't because someone said, no, you have to fear now.

I was I wanted to major in theater in college.

And I thought, but then I'll be poor.

So what can I do?

How can I how can I do theater for a living and still get paid?

And I thought, oh, well, I could teach it

because that would be much more stable than being in a play

that's going to end its run.

Then you have to go find a good play to be in or whatever.

And the message I was getting from, you know,

the people at my high school and the people,

the college I was talking to is that no one's going to pay you to do theater.

And I thought, oh, OK, well, I'll also get an English degree

and they will pay me to teach English because everybody's got to take that.

And then I can kind of just come in under the radar with the theater program.

So I know a lot of people get dumped and it's like, here you go.

Now you teach theater because you want to have a job.

OK, so thinking about those people who may be walking into a theater program

that already sort of exists, that already sort of has a culture.

But that'd be great.

Maybe they don't know that culture.

They don't know anything about it.

So what what would be your, you know,

like if you had to bullet point it down to five ideas,

like what would be what would be your things that they should do?

You know, we're talking about this podcast coming out every other week.

We're talking about every every other podcast has a interview.

So, you know, they have four.

They have three ish weeks, four ish weeks to implement something

as the school year starts.

What what are their five bullet points that you think they need to do immediately?

Like, what is the what are the first five things that if there is already

somebody who was in charge of the program that's leaving,

you need to try to get in touch with them and get as much information

from them as you can.

You and then you also need to talk to your upperclassmen drama kids.

There's always going to be a core group of kids who this is their whole identity

and they just eat, sleep and breathe plays

and find out what they thought has gone well with the program

and what they would like to change and kind of read your audience.

Like what kind of shows do well there?

Like we're established enough that we do the same

kind of shows every year.

We try to do a Shakespeare and we do a musical and we do a comedy

and then we do a wild card show just depending on what

what I'm in the mood for or what people pick.

Like, so read the room, figure out, you know, what kind of backing

do you have from administration?

How concerned do you have to be about content like violence

or profanity or depictions of sex?

Like what, you know, how conservative or liberal is your system?

So definitely want to read the room.

And honestly, if it were my first year doing it, like we're

we're running probably four plays, two more long competitions

and a 24 hour one act show, probably.

But if it were that first year we did our town, we did our town.

And that was it. That was the only show that we did.

So just start really slow and so and take what was there

that was good and put your own stamp on it.

But you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

If you've got if you're coming into something that has support,

find out who the parents are that always bring in food

and can work on costumes and will, you know, give you money

to, you know, buy props or set pieces or whatever.

So get, you know, get involved with that community

and figure out what's already there.

Don't try to start from scratch.

But then that brings us to the people

that are trying to start it from scratch.

So what are their what are their five things that they need to do?

That was five things.

It's more of a counting is hard.

So the same kind of thing where you want to read the room,

like, once again, you know, what interest has there been?

Is there a community theater?

Was there a theater program at some time that has died away?

And then and look to the other arts teachers

if there's a band program or a choir program, those kids just want to be

they just want to perform so and get to be friends with those people.

And then like our band director here currently is the choreographer

and the music director for our musical.

And he's way better at that than me, because like theater is like stone soup.

Everybody brings this thing that they're good at and then you go do it.

I couldn't do this all myself.

I couldn't do it without Brent.

I couldn't do it without Pauline.

I couldn't do it without my kids that were involved in the program, my bio kids.

I couldn't do it without Sweezy, who is our band director.

There's lots of people that help with Alan Florence, who helps with sets

and my husband who's helped with sets and sound and stuff like that.

So you want to get as many people allied with you as possible

and get them to come play.

So but you definitely have to read the room like what and just start small.

So start with our town, man.

Talking about like you have a lot of your sets

painted, built by the art.

Oh, the art department.

Yeah, definitely get to be friends with the art with the art teacher.

What's the what's the most interesting thing that he's ever made for you?

I don't know.

He one time made a giant

like you could put people inside of it.

Fried chicken bucket

that I really did like quite a bit for too much light makes the baby go blind

and a giant foghorn leg horn.

And he made those really nice rocks that we have used a bunch

like people can sit on them.

We can throw them at people like big stones.

And he made a really he's made some good logs.

I mean, he's just like and that's like I'm not a visual arts person.

I can make I can make props if I have to.

But usually I can find people that are better than me.

That's what I think is what your job is.

If you're the producer of the theater company is not because I have seen other

programs where there are people who want to do everything themselves.

They're going to make all the costumes, paint all the sets

and write all the programs.

And I don't I can't.

I'm tired.

But even when I was younger and less tired, I still was like,

oh, here's a person who's better than me.

Go let them do that.

And so I can say to our art teacher, here's a thing that I want.

And then he comes back with this

a thing that is 10 times better, like all the signs they made for we did.

We set Midsummer Night's Dream in a mall and all the stores had names

that were loosely based on Shakespeare characters or and play names.

And he just made these beautiful signs that we put up all over the auditorium

because the whole mall's auditorium, like he's fabulous.

I love him.

So much good help.

Oftentimes, when I think of my first stuff that I did with the program

was when my kids were in

Seussical, which was the first music, the first district wide musical that we did.

And I oftentimes think back to a thing that you said to me

because I don't know, it was like the second or third week

and that we had practice and you had set the kids off

to do something and they were doing it very badly.

And I was like, I looked at you and said,

that is a terrible way to do that.

And you said, go teach them.

And I was like, well, but I mean, you told them to do that this way

or whatever, and you were like, it doesn't matter.

Like, this is a teaching program.

And the goal of this is not to have it done a certain way or have it done,

you know, in this whatever.

The goal is to teach these people how to do this thing.

And of course, you end up on the bad side of that

when you've taught someone really good

and then they have to go and graduate and you have to find someone.

That is a terrible problem.

We lost 12 seniors this year, just fabulous actors and tech people.

And that is a terrible problem that every year you get to the end,

you think, oh, these kids are amazing.

And in the fall, these little babies come back in.

And this year, we're getting seventh through twelfth graders

in the same in the same class before we've only had ninth through twelfth.

And they come in and you think, how did we ever do anything?

Like, none of these children, because they have to be trained up, right?

At the end of next year, our seniors are leaving.

They'll be magical and amazing.

So that is it.

That is a that might be the worst problem with educational theater.

But yeah, no, it's about giving them as much autonomy and authority.

And I know this is the thing a lot of programs don't do.

There are a lot of programs that I have been tangentially involved

with where adults did everything and the kids were allowed to act.

And that was it.

And the director will come out at the beginning of the show

and give a big, long speech about how they did all this work and whatever.

And I don't this is this is not about me.

I would, in fact, a lot of times I don't even give pre-show speeches anymore.

We work them into the play so that an actor can give them.

And I don't I come out at the end to make sure everybody can get back

to class or get where they're going.

But I try to give big, long speeches about how amazing I am.

I know how amazing I am.

But this is about the kids and I want people to look at them

and I want to give them they do everything they can.

We have students direct and stage manage and run the lights and sounds.

And I mean, about the only thing that we don't let them do

is they can't climb up in the in the ceiling and adjust the lights.

And they can't we don't generally use power tools

unless they're one of their parents is there for building something.

The parent, OK, is it?

But other than that, I think it should be.

And that's just less work for you.

If you're running the program, if you can get kids

and then the sense of accomplishment, they feel when they're like,

look at this thing that I built or this scene that I blocked

or this song that I sang, you know, they did that.

We didn't do it for them and say, OK, you know,

you should pull apart the end.

So I think it's very important you give kids autonomy.

And it is about teaching.

Are we putting out Broadway level theater?

No. But we're teaching people

or giving them opportunities to solve problems,

especially in emergency situations, to work with other people,

to put forth their ideas, to accomplish a goal, to,

you know, set deadlines themselves and do large projects

and to feel a real sense of accomplishment and hands on work

that they maybe aren't getting in all of their classes.

I will I will also talk or I also think about that

when you're saying that about losing these 12 seniors.

But when you look at those 12 seniors,

I think that they're a really great demonstration

of how much agency you give these kids like even

even the kids that tended to fall into roles of like

the sidekick and stuff like that were still super

competent in aspects of being

aspects of the theater that maybe didn't necessarily show on stage.

I mean, I'm thinking of a kid that never really had a leading role,

but was always the guy that was like was always the foil

or always the sidekick or always the whatever.

And then but, you know, he did tons of work

involving props and music and all these things

where you would just sort of hand him an idea

and then he would come back and be here.

It is done, you know, whatever.

And I don't know.

I mean, even our most mildest and meekest of the seniors,

which is only in drama for one year,

really became much more of a whole person

and a like a aggressive isn't the right word, but like

able to move on their own without someone else

telling them to, which is more self-confident,

right, which is really not a way that they started the year.

So, I mean, I think I think that those and I think that's

one of the aspects of the way that this program gets ran

and the way that hopefully other people want to move their program into

is that in the end, you develop future adults

that are much more confident in the things that they're doing

and competent. Yeah.

You know, we've had kids before that you're like, hey,

go take this screw out of the thing.

And, you know, the first year they're here,

they have to come back to you 14 times to ask you

how to take the screw out of the thing.

And is this the right way to take the screw out of the thing?

And is this the right tool?

And which way do I turn it?

And what and whatever.

And by the end of it, they're building things, you know, like.

Or I remember a situation with one of the seniors that was this year

when they were maybe like a freshman where we were disassembling a set

and they had no clue how to operate a pry bar

or why you would ever use the claw on a hammer.

And I just spent, you know, a few minutes showing them.

And then before it was over with, like, I turned them loose.

You know, yeah.

This year, I turned them loose to disassemble two or three things.

And the whole time they were like, it's all about friction and leverage.

You know, whatever, like.

So I think I think that is the thing that you will do

if if you change your program away from being a adult

center and center thing to a a system of letting people do jobs

and being OK with people doing those jobs.

Well, and let them pick shows, too.

There are lots of years where more than half or all of our content

is picked up by students who, you know, put together portfolios

where they explain what they what they want in different characters

as far as casting, and they give me pictures of costumes

and they have lists of songs like to play, you know, pre-show

and post-show and things like that.

And so I'm completely happy if I have a student who thinks

they can take on that much responsibility to let them,

you know, run the whole thing.

And I just kind of stand back and and do producer things,

like make sure stuff is paid for and things get ordered.

And people are showing up for rehearsal and things like that.

So, I mean, yeah, the more this is about helping

helping kids become better adults, just better humans.

And that's I think it's what education is about,

because we can't possibly in this building or any other building

teach a kid everything they need to know to go out into the world

because we don't know what their job is going to be.

We don't know how technology is going to be different in 10 years or whatever.

But if we can give them the tools to learn on their own

and build resilience and self-confidence

and how to overcome setbacks or whatever,

that's the best thing we can do for them.

You know, in any of our classes, I feel like just help them learn how to learn.

So we talked about what to do

if you're taking over a program that already existed.

And we talked a little bit about what to do if you're trying to start a program.

But you reference the fact that we lost.

We've lost 12 really good actors and actresses

who we are wildly biased about because two of them are

are each of us have a kid that graduated and we basically help raise

the other one. Right.

So we're not we we think these kids are pretty amazing.

And I mean, they are, but we're a little biased.

So so now you're walking into a program this year

that we keep making jokes about.

It's the Avengers after Thor, the Hulk and, you know, all the big hitters.

Yeah. So maybe for yourself, but maybe for somebody else.

What are the five things that you feel like you need to do right now

in order to help make that program successful

or help bend that program towards success?

Well, one, because the cultures build up for so long, we have and we have

I only get to teach theater one period a day.

And that's been true for most of the time that I've been doing it here.

And some years that there were like 70 kids in that class.

And that you can't do direct instruction with 70 children.

That's just crazy town.

So what I started doing a long time ago, more than a decade ago,

was the students are separated to groups.

And there is a an upper level drama kid, drama three or four,

who is then matched with usually they have somebody else

who's about their level and they're matched with drama ones and twos

so that they have like a little family.

And we color code them, just randomly assign them colors.

And that solves a lot of problems.

But that helps when new kids come in, because then they can get

indoctrinated in the culture and they understand the procedures

about how to take attendance and how to do warm ups when you first come in.

And one of the first things we do is a monologue competition,

which I guess we should do an episode about that.

And they teach them how to pick out monologues

and learn how to memorize lines.

And farther on the year, you know, how to, you know,

where to keep your costumes and what to do at rehearsals and things like that.

I'm in the process right now kind of looking at who I've got

and who who's going to be in leadership positions,

because if you've been in the program for four years

and, of course, now we've got kids in the musicals.

They've done it even longer than that.

To get to be the top dog this next year, they all sit in the front row.

It's a big deal to get to be a drama four kid and sit in the front row.

You've been waiting like all this time.

You've been watching the other leaders and learning from them.

And then you get to do it now, too.

So that's that's really that's what's going to save us is we're not

starting completely from scratch because we've got three really solid

seniors and several really solid like drama three kids as well.

I think so we're going to so we'll probably have, I don't know, six.

We just like six groups that we had last year.

So, yeah, that's that's going to solve that problem.

Also, the first show that I think we're going to do is not is more of an ensemble show.

It's not like everybody gets to do a lot of little things

we kind of see where they are, because one of the rules

is the first show that we do of the season.

Everybody who's in drama one has to appear on stage

because I don't because kids used to come in and say, oh, well,

I just do hair and makeup.

No, you need to learn how to do all the things.

And if they will not get up on stage, then we are not for them.

Like it's an elective course.

You have to have a fine arts credit to graduate in Kentucky,

but it doesn't have to be theater.

And there is no reason for a student to be miserable all year

or for me to have them in our way when they don't want to be there.

So they have to get on stage in the first week of being there.

And then they have to eventually appear in our first show.

And if they're like, nope, can't do that, then they just need to go.

Theater is not for everybody.

It's just not.

We'll be fine.

We'll be fine.

Everything's fine.

So do you feel like there are some things that you've done this summer

already that you have, you know, like that you have done

in order to prep for the program?

Sure. Yeah.

Well, I see all the theater that I can.

I see everything that Kentucky Shakespeare does.

I cannot say enough about what a fabulous program that is an asset to Kentucky.

They have been in Edmondson County, I think, four times this year

because they conduct classes and workshops in the schools.

And so they've come and done a theater workshop with us.

And then they did an American history workshop with the high school kids

and then another one with our middle school kids.

And then they came back to the public library and did a one-man

stream and also a stage combat workshop.

So, I mean, I go see everything that I can that involves them.

And I've also seen several other theater pieces, other places this summer.

I also read a lot of scripts and kind of narrowed down what I think we're going to do.

So the next thing I need to start doing because school starts in like a month,

right, less than a month, is to start with the Shakespeare play,

which I thought I knew what it was and now I don't know.

I usually go through and edit those.

We don't do the entire play.

And Shakespeare's dead and he told me I could do whatever I wanted to.

So we cut it down for what our audience needs.

But then like more modern plays, like the first one we're going to do,

I need to go through and write a rehearsal schedule for that

and make a production analysis for that.

And we should post those like, we should post documents

that we use all the time like that.

So you mentioned the monologue madness.

One of the things I wanted to do before we got into all the other stuff

is talk about what is the next thing that Edmondson County's drama is going to do.

Kids coming into class in around, you know, a month or so like that.

We're going to have first day stuff with syllabuses and everything like that.

But what's the next real deal thing that Edmondson County drama is going to do?

I do want to say this about first day, though, when I'm thinking about it.

When they come in the first day, you have to get them on stage immediately.

You have to get them on stage.

You cannot sit and talk at them and read the syllabus to them.

In fact, a thing we've done in the last couple of years, which is really fun,

was we separated the syllabus out into sections

and we put them in groups and they had to perform that section of the syllabus.

What was the thing about no vaping in the prop hall or something?

Her syllabus has in giant letters that there's no vaping in the prop hall.

And so one of the scenes was just entirely about the no vaping in the prop hall.

Your daughter is screaming at everybody not to think of the prop hall.

And they remember that stuff, right?

Because nobody wants to sit and read seven syllabi on the first day of school.

That's mind numbing to even think about it.

So you get them on stage and you start doing improv

and then maybe the middle of it for the end, you're like,

here's the syllabus, get this signed or whatever.

They can all read.

You know, they're illiterate, they can all read.

But the first big thing that we do every single year

is this thing called Shakespeare Madness.

And it is based on the English Speaking Union's Shakespeare competition,

which is a nationwide competition that we are involved in.

We have been involved in for the entire time that I've been doing theater here,

where we've been doing it continuously longer than most other schools

or I've been doing it continuously longer than most other teachers.

And so basically, our branch is the Kentucky English Speaking Union

and all this stuff is available on their website.

They have a list of monologues, which are just a couple of minutes long,

and they have choices from pretty much every play in Shakespeare's canon.

And we give that to the kids and we talk about how you might pick a monologue

or whatever and how to rehearse and their group leader is helping with that.

And then they get up and present those monologues

and we have bracketed them just like the NCAA.

So we use a website called...

Shalong.

Shalong, yeah, and I've been using it for decades too.

And you can get on there and you can very easily make your own bracket.

You can put the kids in order and we do order them.

So if you won last year, which our winner last year, she graduated,

but it's in second place.

So whoever the last kid that's left from last year's competition,

they'll be the number one seed and work their way down.

And the new kids just get down at the bottom, sort of mushed in there.

And it brackets them so that the upper level kids

go against lower level kids most of the time.

But we try not to show the kids the brackets left they perform

because if they think somebody's got a higher seed than them, they'll choke.

But all you have to do to make 100 on that assignment

is get up and just recite the monologue.

That's all you have to do.

And some of them, they've got blocking, they're into it,

they've read the entire play, they're locked and loaded,

and they will do a really good job.

Because ultimately, if you win, if you go all the way through the bracket,

then you will get to be our competitor at the state level.

Last year, our student that won, she was second stage,

so she did very well.

That's the best we've ever done.

And then you get 100.

If you go one, that's just bonus points.

Some of them get up there and they have memorized it

and they take a giant gulp of a breath

and they just say all of the words all at once with their eyes closed.

But they got on stage and they did it.

And now that Brent gives them a crisp high five

when they all compete through the first round,

our buying is much better.

It's really interesting what motivates these students.

And then they've gotten on stage and it wasn't that bad.

And also the other kids in the audience, it's just for our students.

We don't let outsiders into this.

All the kids that are in that audience are either just as scared

as the kids on stage or because they've never done it before

or they know what it feels like.

And so no matter how well or poorly they present their monologue,

everybody hoots and hollers when the kid gets on stage

and then they all clap and hoot and holler when they get off the stage.

So it's a very soft way to get up there and try it.

We've had students who literally had selective mutism,

which is where they just don't speak.

They can speak, but they, for whatever reason,

they do not speak, especially at school.

And we've had a couple in the past 20 some odd years

who would get up on stage and speak and were fine

or had stutters that did not appear when they were on stage

because they felt safer there than they did having conversations

one-on-one with people.

But I think we've been doing it for a long time

and that's always done really well.

And it's a good sort of segue into being on stage

and realizing that you're probably not going to get it by lightning.

You know, it's not going to be.

And I mean, I know you used to use it as sort of a gateway.

It still is.

If you refuse to do that, then you can't take the class.

And we know pretty quickly because we have five days to drop ad.

So we know pretty quickly if someone's like,

I will not do this.

And I was like, I will fail you.

Let's find you a different class that's better for you

because like I said, there's no reason for a kid to be miserable

and failing elective, that's dumb.

We can move you somewhere else and make you happy, you know.

Well, I was trying to think over the last couple of years,

have we had many kids bail out?

We, I mean, like the first week, maybe two or three.

That's it.

It's not a big number.

It's the offer of a crisp high five.

Nobody can turn that down.

Well, and also, like I said, I don't know if I said this earlier or not,

but we're at a point where we're getting the kids of kids who were in drama.

So they've heard their parents tell these stories and they're in it.

They want to be here.

We're in it to win it.

They're not like, well, what's this going to be like, you know,

or they've seen the plays growing up or they did the musicals.

So they're not like, I have no idea what's going to happen in this class.

They kind of have an idea.

So most kids are pretty good about self-selecting and a crisp high five.

I mean, it's really the end all be all.

So one of the things that she mentioned earlier about the reading of the syllabus

is a great example of one of the things she hasn't really touched on, I think,

is about building a culture and that the reading the syllabus thing and the story

about that there's no vaping in the prop hall is a great example of building a culture.

So first day, first or second day, whatever, when they were doing these plays,

you know, they get up, they're screaming about no vaping in the prop hall.

They have five or six different versions of no vaping in the prop hall,

no vaping in the prop hall, no vaping in the prop hall.

That becomes the word you would use now a meme in the class.

And so seven months later, someone walks out of the prop hall

and someone will look at them and go, Hey, were you vaping in the prop hall?

You know, like, it becomes part of the culture.

And we've had students who were, I mean, 100% on the spectrum.

And, you know, the class develops these, I mean, there's nothing else to call it,

these cultism kind of things that they do.

And, you know, this kid that's on the spectrum goes, Wait, wait,

you did that thing.

So because I'm in the group, I'm supposed to say this.

And then they do.

And it's like I said, it's part of the culture.

We have a culture in the program of when someone gets on stage, everyone cheers.

When someone comes off stage, everyone cheers.

You know, it doesn't matter if they got up, got two lines into it and fell apart.

Like they continue to cheer.

And I think that over the last five, six, seven years,

it has really kept the program in a very positive place

where we don't have a lot of like backbiting amongst people.

And there's not like a lot of like, Oh, we have to watch them

because they're going off to do this or that or whatever.

I do think that's a big part of the thing that she has built.

And it is very much like I say this as a guy who stands around in the class

sometimes, it's very female led a lot of times.

It is very much a matriarchy.

And so that can be both good and bad, in my opinion,

in that when it's good because the females are not interested in preening

and being the center of all attention all the time and everything like that,

it's great because they're not forcing people out

because they need to be in that one spotlight.

It can and has in some in the past been bad

because sometimes the people like to like build a little like coven around them.

And then we end up with like two or three little covens and stuff like that.

But in the last few years, we haven't really had that.

We have little clusters of people,

but those clusters all intermingle with each other.

Yeah.

The Venn diagram, someone is touching other people

in terms of the Venn diagram at all times.

That's definitely true.

Yeah.

And then you will randomly see people that you're like,

wait, how are these people friends?

Right.

And they are like very intensely friends.

And then, of course, it depends on what they're doing in the show.

Like their characters, they're in all their scenes together

or if the light and sound people for a show,

they're in the box together all the time or it's the stage managers.

So they kind of the clicks shift around based on what or if we're running two shows at once,

you're going to see kids from one show maybe kind of piled up against the show.

But there's not, no, I think the culture is really, really important.

I think you have to be very intentional about the culture

and about trying to stay positive.

And if there is a problem, addressing that problem as quickly as possible.

So it does not, which is something I think I'm a lot better at the older I've gotten.

And of course, I was raising my own kids

and I learned a lot about how to raise other people's kids by raising my own kids.

So, yeah, I think that's definitely true is the culture is

because if it's bad and there's all kinds of

because I like I belong to a lot of theater boards and stuff.

And I see a lot of people asking about,

you know, how do I this kid has gone completely supernova

because they didn't get the part they wanted

and that the parents are calling me and all this stuff.

And I just don't feel like we have those kind of problems because we don't.

Do we play favorites? Yes.

If I know that I have a kid that is incredibly good at something or competent even

and they are going to work every time I ask them to do it,

we usually only have a couple of stage managers.

In fact, our really good stage manager is going to graduate this year.

Our last really good stage manager was my daughter.

And we have others, but we usually have the same ones

because they're really, really good.

So I play favorites in the sense that

I know these people are going to be able to do what they're supposed to be doing.

But also because they are leaving, we're constantly have to cycle in new kids.

You know, so yeah, no, I think being positive

and just the fact that they know that the people there love them.

We'll take anybody.

There's no qualification.

So a kid will say, I want to take drama, but I'm not a good actor.

Well, it's educational theater.

We'll teach you how to be better at whatever you want to be.

That's fine.

We can help you get better if you show up for the class.

But we've had students of various ethnicities.

We've had students with disabilities.

We've had students who were blind.

We've had students who were deaf.

We've had lots of spectrum students.

Students who are on the spectrum tend to be really, really good at theater,

which is great for us.

We've had students in wheelchairs.

We've had students who had canes or crutches.

There's nobody who can't be in drama unless you just don't want to be in drama.

There's no like, well, you're not good enough or the right way or whatever.

We don't care.

If you're breathing, we want you to go and hang out with us.

And I will also say that is part of the reason why I really like being part of the program

is that we had training for the school district about how

we really needed to see the kids that needed the help.

And I also at the time happened to be involved in the

implementation of doing online registration for families in our county.

And so that year, I really, really got to see

a lot of the people in the county and how we had grandparents and great grandparents

raising children and households that were divided and one parent was in jail

or one parent was on the other side of the world or whatever.

When I looked around in our high school to see,

where are these kids that I'm supposed to be helping,

the place that had the most kids that were sort of the misfit toys in the high school

was one of those places was drama.

And so I decided that that was probably where I wanted to spend my extra effort

to help the children.

You know, my argument has always been like, there are plenty of people that

support the star football players and the basketball players and the sporty kids

and everything like that.

I say that as both of my kids being sporty kids.

There are plenty of people that are down talking to the welders

and the electricians and FFA and everything like that.

Those people all have plenty of people to help them out.

But most days when I walk into our theater for the drama class,

we're talking about kids who some of them maybe didn't get food that morning

and had no one at the house when they woke up or whatever.

And so, yeah, I will gladly give you a hug and I will gladly give you a high five.

And I will definitely sit down and play a word game with you while we eat or whatever,

because somebody's got to care about this kid.

And obviously, Jennifer does.

And I saw like an opportunity for me to help care about these kids.

And it really is like there's been more than one time when

the counselors have got a new student who's come in in the middle of the year

and they bring them in and go, we think this is one of your kids,

because we don't know where else this kid goes.

And generally it is.

We also don't charge anything for the program.

There are a lot of theater programs that are paid to play

and a lot of extracurriculars and co-curriculars that are.

And we have never charged a dime.

We do have some very generous parents and community members

and my best friend since I was five years old,

Kevin, he has been funding the program for a long time.

But if you can buy your own costume, great.

If you can't, we will get it for you.

Just whatever you need.

But I would never tell a kid they couldn't come in and do our stuff

because they did not have the funds to do that.

And I mean, the county that we're in is a very well,

I mean, obviously it has all ends of the spectrum.

We have people that have a lot of money

and people that have no money and stuff like that.

So we, you know, it would be hard for us to say,

listen, everybody that wants to be in the play has to pay $300 or whatever.

Like, I mean, because basically you would just cut,

you would cut yourself down and especially

a lot of the population that we have in the drama program.

Like, you know, I'm not sure if there would have been

seven kids in the program that could have paid that kind of money.

Yeah, that'd be crazy.

She also does get by with like not doing a lot of fundraising either though.

She makes money on the musical and the house for the musical.

And it also funds doing that as a district wide musical funds

a lot of the things that we do.

And this is something like going back to what you want to do if you're starting is,

and this is a thing that lots of theater programs do,

is you do one that you know is going to be wildly popular

and that allows you to do some weirder or more underground things.

So this musical, it's the only show that we do with all the students.

It's all extracurricular and they bust the little kids in

from the other schools in the district, but it's a dinner theater.

So we kind of double dip with that one.

So we partner with the soccer team generally and also the academic team,

which I am the coach of.

So that helps me out too.

And they provided dinner with the show.

And so we charge about like 20 bucks, I think.

I think presale is 20.

And then we get funded and the other organization gets funded as well.

And that brings even more people in.

But parents of little kids, if we did that show five times,

those parents would come five times.

And that's how we make a bunch of money to do

like a, you know, gender swap Julius Caesar

or the complete works of William Shakespeare,

a bridge to bridge revised.

So we can do weirder things that we can't,

we're not going to get our money back for them

because we did this massive musical and everybody wanted to come see there.

Like we did Singin' in the Rain this last semester.

And so we had all these little cutie patooties

and little flapper dresses and little yellow raincoats.

And we just made money like gangbusters.

So you want to pick one that's going to be wildly popular for the audience

and then give them the opportunity to see something

that maybe is a little more lesser known, I guess.

Trapped is a good example of that.

Oh, yeah.

Like it had props that needed to be ordered and stuff like that.

And like, you know, that's harder to fund

if you don't know that you're about to bring in more money for the musical.

Right. So the spring musical will fund everything that comes back around in the fall.

So, you know, that's it's especially if you're just starting a program

and stuff like that, I don't necessarily know

that you start with a school web musical, but...

No, I would say no.

If it were my first rodeo, I would not.

The program started that it was really just her

and a couple people that acted like they were going to be there that didn't show up,

which was part of also the reason why I wanted to help.

But she has developed a pyramid scheme of people helping her with the musical.

That's a good word. I like that. That's a good term for this. Yeah.

Do you want to elaborate on that?

Well, yeah, so I am not a song and dance girl.

I did musicals when I was a kid, but I never had like a lead in them or anything like that.

So I have, like I said, I have the band director doing the choreography

and then I have a former student who also helps with choreography and singing.

And then Brent works on the tech aspects of it with the mics and that kind of stuff

and building sets and things like that.

And the art department helps with that.

And Mr. Florence, it's nice.

My husband, Jason, helps with that stuff.

So we have a lot of people who come in.

Brent's wife, Pauline, made most of the costumes for The Wizard of Oz, which was just,

I mean, she made wings for all those monkeys, little hats for them,

and dresses and suits for all the little kids in Munchkinland.

It was, I don't even know how many costumes she made for that show,

like 30 or 40 probably.

So we do have a lot of help and people who, and we have a parent

who doesn't even have any children in the program anymore,

who still, as soon as she finds out rehearsals are happening,

starts bringing us cases of fruit to feed the children,

because we give them a snack because they're here for so long after school.

And just like literally orders from directly from the grocery store,

cases of bananas and oranges and apples and stuff.

So the kids have good food to eat.

And she's not even, like I said, her kids graduated,

but we built up all this goodwill with her and lots of other people

whose kids are not in the program anymore.

Who still want to help us, which is, it's great.

I don't know if it's necessarily a summation,

but talking about the culture and the amount of people

that you have interacted with in this program and everything like that.

So this last year, you made shirts that had every play

that you had ever done in this department on them.

Tell us how that went.

Well, we do a shirt every year that says something silly on it,

and the kids can put something silly on the back if they want to.

But because it was our 20th anniversary, I thought,

wouldn't it be cool if we put all the shows on the shirt?

And we did, and I told them we were going to order them,

and that was great.

And then when we actually did the musical,

we always ordered the show in the spring.

The people who had come to the musical, they also wanted shirts.

And so we ended up doing three orders of shirts.

And sold, I think, 200 shirts, which is, usually we sell like 50,

you know, just the people in the program.

And we don't make money off them.

We just buy them.

We do them at cost, like $15 or whatever it is to get them printed.

But everyone was like, oh, no, I was in that.

I was in that.

My sister was in that.

I saw that.

I saw that.

And just the connections, people had these different shows

and telling stories that I had forgotten about and that kind of thing.

But yeah, I was really surprised the popularity of those shirts.

Now people are one of them.

And bought them for like their whole family.

Like we were selling six and eight shirts to a family,

you know, getting toddler size ones and two XLs.

And it was just really, you've got to figure that at this point,

the program has interacted with thousands of people,

either on stage or in the audience.

And they all have these stories about, and they come in and they say,

oh, I want to join theater because I saw Brody play Tom Sawyer,

you know, or I saw James, you know, in the Music Man.

And they all, they just wanted to be a part of that.

Or my cousin was in it or whatever.

And just the number, like before we go into a show, every time we do us,

we do warm ups, then we do the circle and we hold hands

and we sing this song that is ridiculous.

And then I tell them, you know, this is,

I have the best job in the whole world in terms of

I get to come and do this every day with these amazing, these amazing people.

And they get to be part of this thing that's bigger than themselves

that they're going to remember for the rest of their life.

And I get to be a part of that memory.

And I just think that is, it's just phenomenal.

I can't like, everybody's like, well, what did you want to do

when you were a kid versus what you're doing now?

I'm doing exactly what I thought I wanted to do when I was a kid.

When I was a kid, I didn't know how I was going to get there,

but I was like, oh, I'm going to do theater.

I don't know how to do that.

I'm going to find out how to do that.

And I did it.

And so I just think, I don't know, like the outpouring

this last year of the 20th anniversary and the people that came back,

you know, people who have now the program.

Like there was one girl that came all the way

from like Evansville or something.

She didn't have any kids in the program like that,

but she came back because she was in that first show we ever did.

They try to get that whole cast back together.

And that was really, that was really cool.

They thought it was important to come back and visit with us and see the show.

So it's really neat.

Everyone should start a theater program.

Who's having more fun than we are?

No one.

And that is why this podcast exists.

Okay.

So that potentially is the first episode of this

and what we hope to kind of tell you how to do.

It seems very rambly.

I don't know how we would do anything that wasn't rambly.

Yeah, like this is just going like,

but I digress is a we've snatched production.