she at?
Is she going?
Yeah, she was.
She got here and she's
like, "I don't want to do this."
Welcome to Bud Eye Digress Podcast.
This is Jennifer Dooley speaking.
What are we talking about, guys?
What's on the agenda for today?
Pink is a color.
(Laughing)
It's a hot take right there.
She's coming.
A hot take and a hot dog.
What if I just did an
NPR voice the whole time?
Oh, well, you see.
That's going to bounce a little because I
was planning on doing Alex Jones.
Yeah, we're here to talk about stuff.
We're making the frogs again.
We're here to talk about drama.
Have you ever been here before?
Our podcast is already no
longer safe for young people.
What?
What did I say?
Was that five minutes?
No, you haven't even
set a single curse order.
I've been practicing.
Shoot.
She...
you already started recording.
Great.
That's great.
You probably don't
want to put your name on.
But I mean, we can wander off clearly.
Oh, no.
What?
No. We'll have to start somewhere.
I only do one take.
We're doing.
I will be in my trailer.
Okay.
Welcome back to Bud-eye digress
Adventures in Education.
No I told you Spencer
already does this for you.
Fine.
Did he say he was in a pretty big league?
Weren't we recording all over?
Oh my gosh.
That's great.
So I'm skipping the intro
because it already got done.
No you can totally do it.
It's fine but Spencer did it.
You can
Jennifer Dooley the founder and executive
director of Evans County Drama which is a
K through 12 educational theater program
in the wilds of rural Kentucky.
And with me is always Brent Norris the
loudest technical director in Evans
County which makes him
technically a director.
That's probably not true.
Also joining us today are Douglas Hurt,
Jacob Bolton, Spencer Lawler
Hello.
Whose qualifications we
will try to explain later.
Before we get to talking to these
handsome gentlemen I always give the
audience an update on what we're
currently working on.
We're in prompting for the show The Con.
Prompting means in theory that all the
actors have learned all their blocking
and all of their lines.
But if they get stuck on a line or forget
their blocking then the stage manager is
sitting right in front of the stage and
she will prompt them as to what they
should say next or
where they should go next.
Hopefully
a student doesn't know their lines and
the scene keeps having to stop everyone
will get angry at them and they'll be
peer pressured into learning their lines
and their blocking
for the next rehearsal.
That is the great right hope.
And it's actually going
pretty well this time.
There's nobody who's just decided they're
not going to play out reindeer games.
Because you guys aren't here anymore.
Well,
it's me.
So were all of you guys always off book
and ready to go and we were prompting you
always knew all of your
lines and your blocking?
I would say a solid 120 percent.
Yes.
Absolutely.
Especially not deering the play.
No, you would never do that.
You
say you've never forget your line, right?
Say one from like when you were in high
school, like your first play.
I have so many favorites.
I denounced these proceedings.
Were you in the show?
Were you the yellow bird?
No, I'm not.
Hail?
You're Reverend Hale.
That was my first play.
You were.
You were Reverend Hale.
Yeah.
Because the other Reverend guy got.
Did he get arrested or either got
arrested or went to ALC and
we had to bring Matt Long in.
Yes.
That was crazy.
No, literally because he was doing
Shakespeare, raised at the same time.
So he came in the theater and I said,
hey, you have to go.
The kid is not doing the show.
And he said, OK.
And he went out and he threw up in the
parking lot and he came
back in and said, let's go.
I didn't find out how much
later that's what happened.
But that totally drives.
Yeah.
I feel like that show has like its own
mythos when we were starting.
mean, we were like
single digits at that point.
Right.
That was like we had done we had done our
town and we had done
Romeo and Juliet, I think.
And that was it.
So and it was free
because it was in the textbook.
And then we had a lot of parents get
angry because they thought
I was teaching witchcraft.
So the drama shorts that
year say it's not about witches.
No.
No wonder
all those spells.
Yeah.
Right.
So were you guys when it was still drama
club then and it was
and it wasn't a class
that wasn't co-curricular.
No.
Like it was that we had a class.
I think that might have been the first
time it was a class.
There were both.
Yeah.
We had like the club days.
Yeah.
We were on block to
spend a lot more time to rehearse.
And then I remember for my freshman year,
my first drama class, we actually had it
in the band room for like a week.
We did.
Yeah.
We did to have it in
the band room sometimes.
Yeah.
All right.
So I'm not going to let you guys
introduce yourselves
appropriately as possible.
She can't this school appropriate things.
We'll start with you, Douglas.
My name is Douglas Roy hurt.
I was in the drama department
that ECHS from 2006 to 2010.
And I'm very excited to be here.
My name is Jacob Bolton.
I was in the drama
program from 2007 to 2010.
But I was president of the
drama club my senior year.
I was vice president.
I was there.
Spencer Lawler.
I was in the drama
program from 2008 to 2010.
I think I think so.
Just three years.
You didn't do your senior year.
I didn't do my senior year.
Dang.
Yeah.
My friends left.
Clitter.
So the loser.
The point of this operation is that we
try to give people tips on how to start
their own theater programs
or improve their programs.
Or there are several people that have
contacted me directly who were like, I
have to teach theater.
In fact, there's a guy in our district
who was told the day
before school started that
that he was teaching theater.
And he had seen a play once.
So this is to help those people out.
That's part of the operation.
And the other part is basically we just
sit around and talk
with people that are like
our experiences in theater.
And I just want to
see people that I like.
So that's what this episode is today.
But it kind of builds-- the episode's
building on each other.
So a
couple of weeks ago, we had Fallon will
be here was Fallon Hogan
when she was in high school.
And she was talking about
we did Midsummer Night's Dream, her
grandfather died the morning of the show.
That was her.
She was directing that show.
Yeah.
He died the morning of the show.
And she was talking about how powerful
that was because she called and I said,
if you don't want to come, she says, no,
I have to come because if I don't, I
can't, I can't do anything.
I have to go do this thing and not think
about what's happening at home.
I said, okay.
And about the
community that she felt there.
And then we started talking about other
things that had happened.
We've had students die.
We've had parents die.
We've had just terrible things happen to
kids and they want to come and be with
the other theater kids in the space and
about the community.
And several people talked to me about
that episode about how they thought that
was really powerful.
And so I want to talk to you guys about
community because you have, you're still
in community with each other and with,
with Brent and I, of course.
So that's kind of why I
wanted you guys to come in today.
So were you guys friends before you
started doing drama?
So Jacob and I.
Jacob and Shaggy said no, vigorously.
I've never met this guy.
Yeah.
Jacob and I have known each
other pretty much since birth.
And so we've been buds for forever.
He's going to return the call.
Yeah. So we're going to go to school and tell him what we're going to do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to return the call.
Yeah.
So we're the other children.
Yeah.
But we, on a serious note, I think we
started hanging out when I was like in
fifth grade because we had a split class.
Yeah.
Yeah. I was in fourth.
Yeah.
You and I were in Mr.
Adams split class.
Yeah.
I was in fifth grade and
he was in fourth grade.
And they'd come over in like third grade.
Yeah.
They were swimming at
my grandparents house.
You know, it was the
best memory of my life.
I mean, you remember
the moment of his birth.
Yeah.
I remember you at all.
Spencer kicks in around tenth grade.
I'm
leaving out five dollars.
I think you might be right.
I am right.
I was there.
85% chance you're right.
Because our
grandparents were good friends.
So I think at some point our pads merged.
We merged.
Our pads might have crossed.
I think we started hanging out my
freshman year when I
joined the academic team.
Yeah.
Like that was like
when it really kicked off.
Yeah.
That's when we really
became good friends for sure.
I do have a memory of, I think I was in
fifth grade and you were
probably in fourth grade.
I spent the night at your house and we
watched Men in Black in your basement.
Sounds right.
Yeah.
Beautiful stuff.
Yeah, it is.
It's a good movie.
It is.
So Spencer, why did you join drama?
You know, I don't really remember.
I think it's because I like to talk a lot
and the center of attention.
What?
It's what I've been told.
I don't believe it really.
You've been shocking information.
Okay.
How about you, Jacob?
I think I joined because there were a lot
of people that were my
friends that were in it.
I think Douglas was in there and then
there were a handful of other people.
Erica, Ashley, Cassidy was in there.
So
it was
way to like hang out and then it like
turned out to be something that was fun.
So it was like we got to
hang out and have fun together.
So thank goodness.
That's an opportunity.
How about you, Dougie?
Honestly, like, you know, we got those
sheets in eighth grade about like signing
up for high school classes.
Saw drama on there and I've
always been a huge cinephile.
I mean, bad movies, good movies.
I love movies.
So I was like, yeah, check that box.
And then next thing I know
we were in the band room.
Honestly,
though, it was probably one of the most
fun times of my life
being involved in drama.
That's great.
You know, you can come
back and play with us.
We'll do Red Eye 10s in January.
Okay.
So that's where you get the 24 hour show.
I remember that.
Yeah, we're going to try to reboot that.
I think we're going to go back and like
go through the ones we've already done
and pick the ones that does someone had
me in the school
shooting with my daughter.
No, we're not doing
school shooting again.
I historically will give Brent the worst
because it used to be there was a play
rank competition and people
were doing it every time zone.
Right.
And so you got the plays like I would
give them a month before and I would give
them them like a week before I guess
directors and everybody
else got the day of the show.
And these were brand new plays.
And nobody ever done anywhere.
And the deal was somebody's doing them
every hour for 24 hours.
There's somebody every time zone.
We were the central time
zone up until COVID happened.
And so I would look at
these things and be like, what?
I don't even know.
Brent, I was like,
this one's about D and D.
It was not.
It was about a school.
I watched it.
I got shot.
And there was one about
magicians that didn't have a
don't tell them it's bad.
You say, no, this is the best one.
Also, that's a lot too about us getting a
week before I got the
school shooting one the day of.
Surprise.
If I gave it to you
earlier, you wouldn't show up.
From what I hear, you
got the D and D one.
The day of.
I was like, you can buy D and D.
You can put your daughter in it.
It's fine.
I don't think we did Red Eye 10s, right?
But we did.
What what was dinner with the McGuffins?
We did like a one act.
We did like a series of one act.
Yeah.
Sends and clutter.
Was that one of them?
Was that part of that?
Or was that later?
No, we had it was
dinner with the McGuffins.
And there were three other plays.
Governing Alice.
Yeah.
That's the one.
You got shot.
Yeah.
That's what made me think of it.
You said school shooting.
And I was like, I got shot
in a series of one act plays
was the third one?
Because there were three.
Because I know I
directed dinner with him.
You ran that one.
Kim,
Cory.
Yeah.
And then like, I think.
Patricia.
Yeah.
Patricia, Kathy Clark.
Yeah.
And then I think Governing Alice, that
was Erica that directed that.
And Matt was in it and
Austin Durham.
That's what it was.
Oh, my God.
I'm sorry.
You should play a principal.
I can't tell the kid.
So he followed Mr.
Alexander for like a
week and did not tell him.
So he was like very concerned and adopted
his mannerisms and
speech parents like that.
And it was really good.
But then what was the other show?
I don't remember.
It's the one none of us were.
I don't know.
I'll begin it later.
We'll talk about it in the podcast.
So what other than those shows, what are
some other shows that you, some memories
you have either on or off
stage or in class from drama?
Well, there's one show
that I want to get to before.
Yeah.
Hard Candy was the
first one that I was in.
And I know that's been talked about on
this podcast before, but yeah, that was,
I think that was a
great first show to be in.
At least for me.
A little tiny one act, two person scenes.
That was the show where
the girl's father died.
Like in real life, one of the actress'
fathers died dress week.
And I said, you don't have to do this.
And she said, no, I'm going to do it.
Is that every play?
And yeah, so that was because I was like,
yeah, so that was a good show.
Who Rachel Finch, I think she might have
directed that where she was in that one.
And is that the one we
bought the chaps for Tinker?
We had the leather chaps for Tinker.
Possibly.
I thought Tinker just always had chaps.
Yeah, that's possible.
So that was
like, no, you have to
wear pants under the.
I
think that was our freshman year.
That we did hard candy.
I don't remember what.
I think it was our sophomore year because
that's when you started.
I thought I started the second.
Well, maybe.
Yeah, maybe I started
the second semester.
A mid summer night stream was.
I really.
Sophomore play.
We did do that one sophomore year.
Yeah, mid summer.
Yeah.
I think we did hard candy.
Three times.
I think we did a hard candy freshman year
because I think like
DJ and Beth were in it.
No, that was.
That was check.
Check please.
Yeah.
Check please.
That's the one I'm not.
That's
the one I'm thinking of is check please.
Yeah, that's very similar to hard candy.
That was my first.
It was like two people, two
people, two people, two people.
Yeah.
That's the one where you got handcuffed.
Oh my gosh.
I said do not use those handcuffs.
And then Madison did anyway.
And I had to leave the room. I said, do not use those handcuffs. And then Madison did anyway.
And I had to leave Philip West with you
guys and go up and get.
So I don't know where my keys are.
They're in the car.
There are handcuff keys on my.
That's right.
That's wonderful.
My school keys ever since that day.
I have handcuffed.
So much so that like there was someone
posted on Facebook that they found a set
of keys on Denham road and like in the
picture you can see that
as a handcuff key on it.
And I was like, hey, yo.
Everything's for keys.
I was just like, who else would have a
handcuff key on their.
Yeah.
Because of you.
But because of me.
I
did not put that.
Here is handcuffs.
We're going to put them in a bag.
Don't want to use them.
Don't put them on anybody.
I have to go to the bathroom.
I came back and she
was like, Oh, my Lord.
So yeah,
does she listen to those female?
I don't know, but she definitely should.
All right.
That was a fun time.
Madison, if you ever listen to this.
three Chuck, please.
There's a check.
Please.
One, two, three.
I think you guys are the first one.
Then we did the second
one later with Rachel.
Gray's original bag.
Shaw and that real tall skinny kid whose
mom used to be secretary at south.
Kyle.
Yeah.
That was all.
What was the other one?
Yeah.
It was a fairy tale stuff.
We were mega brothers.
Yeah.
That was a blast.
That was a good show.
Yep.
With the birds at the end.
She was the bird.
I forgot about the birds.
I was sorry.
No one else forgot about the birds.
There's great pictures of that out there.
I was going to say she mentions one often
where you're in a dress.
I don't know why, but she's like.
That was not another high school.
Yeah. 30 reasons not to be.
No, no, that was 30 reasons.
That was the one where all the kids had
the colored shirts on.
I think they were out of
school before we did that one.
I think you were in that one.
They weren't maybe.
I don't remember.
I don't know.
No, the one you're talking about is.
Not another high school play.
When Tia comes out and says that I've run
off to, it's always tinker, isn't it?
Off to Mexico to fulfill
my true passion of flamenco.
But really he just locked
me in the trunk of his car.
And so all sorts of things happen.
He was wearing the green blazer.
And there's pictures of me.
Which is right there.
There's the green blazer.
Austin Durham in dresses.
Everyone was in a dress.
Yeah.
Yep.
That was a good time.
That was a good show too.
So many good plays. Yep.
Twelve Angry Men.
And Twelve Angry Men.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
That's a maternity dress that I wore.
And the one that you have on is a dress
that Western gave us from.
It was a Tottondi dress
from in Summer Night 3.
It was where that dress came from.
Those are the pictures I show people when
they ask me what I
looked like when I had hair.
They're like, "Oh, you had
hair in some other stuff."
And a dress.
Okay.
All right.
See, that's weird because that's the
picture I show people when they ask me,
"Hey, what's your dress fit like?"
What times are you?
Yeah, what times are you?
You know something like that.
It happens all the time.
Oh, my lord.
That's a good show.
Yeah.
Twelve Angry Men.
Yeah, that was a fun one.
Yeah, I forgot Twelve Angry Men.
And Twelve Angry Women with
a Girl Cough the Entire Show.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And we're still using set-ups.
We're using tables from
that show and this show.
Some of the folding chairs
have gone the way of the wind.
So we're still using that stuff.
So that was good money.
I have to buy three more chairs for the
show so we'll have enough.
Yeah.
Now that was a good show.
That's a good one set kind of show.
Mm-hmm.
So.
I mean, I forgot my line.
it was the most
important line in the show.
It really was.
And Douglas, just for like five minutes,
was like, "Something doesn't make sense."
And I was like, "Dude, dude, dude."
And we just knocked on the table.
And then Douglas would
come by and like, "Iball me.
Something doesn't make sense."
I'm like, "Eh, probably not."
I think that you're talking
about the chaos initially.
And I mean, I think that's kind of built
into the bones of it.
Because if you experience it, then I
mean, you know how to handle it better.
Right.
We move forward.
Yeah.
And that's what we're talking about is
that the majority of the people that have
been through our program, we're talking
hundreds and hundreds of kids at this
point, because it's been
more than 20 years, right?
They're not all going
off and doing theater.
Maybe half a dozen are
getting paid to do theater.
But they did look at these skills
they are better in chaos.
And they can get in front of people.
And they can make split-second decisions.
They can work with
people that are not like them.
And that's the point, right?
Because I don't think everyone's running
off to Broadway or whatever.
So that's kind of the goal is to make you
better versions of yourselves by giving
you opportunities to screw up or be like,
"Oh, look at this thing."
Or if you do screw up,
like, "Oh, but then I fixed it."
No, they didn't.
Did you guys do – you
didn't miss Nelson is missing.
I was the principal.
You were Elvis.
You were dressed as an Elvis.
You were little kid.
I thought you were Elvis.
Yeah.
So I don't know if you
remember that show or not.
But the morning we had little kids come.
This first one we had little kids come.
And our line designer got arrested.
Cool.
Oh, God.
And so I was back in the box.
And there was a light
cue and a sound cue.
And there was a video we showed.
First time we'd ever shown a video.
And there used to be that metal box in
the back of the – in
the light box, right?
And I jumped up to hit the cue for that.
And I slammed my head into it.
And I cut my head open.
And I just kept going.
And my hair was up, you know, so you
couldn't really tell.
So after the show was over, those little
kids – oh, because remember we had to
knock out a street light.
And they thought that was
the grandest thing ever.
Like, how did you do this, whatever.
So we had to talk back with those little
kids while they were
waiting for their bus.
And this kid said, "What went wrong?"
And I could feel the blood
pooling in my hair, right?
And I was like, "What?
I could see at that point still.
It was fine."
But I was like, "What
did you see go wrong?"
And he was like, "Nothing."
And I was like, "Nothing went wrong."
Yeah.
It was perfect.
It was awesome.
But it's like – and
it's not just little kids.
That's the first question
that, like, everybody has.
Especially, like, if
they're not in the theater.
But even if they still, like, go to
theater, you know, if you open it upward.
And for questions, that's the first
question most people have.
Yeah. Did anybody miss a line?
And the answer is no.
Everything was fine.
Everything was supposed to happen.
And we've done several shows where stuff
happened to the audience where you can't
– it's hard to tell whether that's
supposed to happen or – or – do you
know what the McGuffins is like that?
Well, that's kind of like part of the
thing about the play.
Yeah.
Like in the fourth world.
Yeah, like you become self-aware of the
audience and no one else sees them.
And that was – in the day show,
remember, some kids didn't go to the show
that just took off and somebody called
and said they were in town.
And Mr.
Alexander came in and, like, in the
middle of the show and started yelling
about where those kids were.
Oh, I'm kidding.
Do you remember that?
Yeah, I don't remember.
And they played it off.
They played it off like
it was part of the show.
And the kids weren't in there.
Like, he turned the lights on.
I started yelling.
And you were like, "Look! Look!
It's
It's happening now!"
Everybody was like,
"Nothing has happened."
You know what I'm saying?
I'm like, "Yeah."
No!
Oh my God!
So that was back when we
would take all the freshmen.
We don't do that anymore.
We would take all the freshmen.
And these freshmen were stupid and ugly.
And everybody came around the corner and
they just peeled off and went outside and
went down and were walking down the road
and somebody saw them
and called the school.
And so he was like, "We
have to find these kids."
And I was like, "Well,
this is the perfect show."
He didn't tell me that.
He just came and started yelling.
But, yeah, but no, Spencer played it off.
And I was like, "Thank God!"
We did that and I don't remember.
So, yeah.
Good job.
We did a show last year where – We did
a show last year where – We did a show
where – We did a show
last year where – We did
a show where – We did a
show where – We did a show where it was
like a show and then a show and it was
like doubling back on itself.
It was a play about a play.
But then, are you in the play?
Who's in the play?
Who's not in the play?
My victory.
And, no, everyone was listed.
It was like literally in the program.
It was like a person who answers cell
phone in the audience.
Yeah, stuff like that.
But then there were other people that
weren't in the program and then stuff
started happening so the audience
couldn't tell who was
real and who was not.
I saw that show.
Yeah, I thought that worked.
It was really cool.
It did.
Yeah, yeah.
No, you don't.
Did anyone in the audience do something
they weren't supposed to do?
Like a regular audience?
Oh, that's happened before, yeah.
actors were supposed to pass out during
the show and this girl really did.
And Sam Brince was
like, "No, she's down."
She's not getting back up.
And then when the episode was over, she'd
had them previously.
We knew what to do with them.
She was like, "Yeah, I knew I was going
to go down, but I knew it was about time
for me to pass out, so I figured I'd just
wait a second and then go
down when she told me to."
And I was like, "Well, at least it wasn't
during an actual performance, but that
also would have been fine."
But yeah, no stuff happens and we just...
What was the show where the woman got up
and started talking real loud in the
audience and she wouldn't leave?
I had to like physically escort her out.
She was talking about
her brother in prison.
What?
I do not remember that.
It sounds like
something that would happen.
But that's the thing, because it's live
theater, so you don't know.
So that's the great
thing about live theater.
Because Shakespeare in the Park and
Louisville, have you
guys ever been to that?
You have to go.
You have to take the kids.
My kids have been going
since they were little.
And people get up on the stage, don't
people show up, animals come on stage.
The power went out.
They did a whole scene from Twelfth Night
when the power was out.
And it was supposed to
be in the dark though.
And then as soon as this scene was over,
the power came back on.
Like in downtown Louisville.
And they just kept going.
They didn't stop at all.
And that's why it's great.
We've shot a couple of movies.
I don't like that.
Because I think we could do it again.
Right.
Okay.
Until Florence is like, "No!
We have to be bad."
At some point we just have to stop.
And in live theater it's like...
This is it, man.
This is the last shot you have at it.
So it duly turns into like Oliver Stone.
Yeah, except with
somewhat more humorous content.
Okay, yeah.
So what is the show you
really want to talk about, Dougie?
Well, there was another show.
Wasn't there?
Gosh, I don't think so.
Let's go home.
Yeah.
Probably definitely the best
moment of my high school career.
I would say even like the
first half of my life so far.
Yeah.
American history of bridge.
All right.
Just because, I mean,
you know, it was senior
year for me and Jacob.
And it was solid.
You know, obviously it was the same guys
or the same team that
wrote Shakespeare Bridge.
Which was hilarious.
Legacy.
Yeah.
Already.
The initial five times now.
Nice.
But, you know, the biggest part was, you
know, you give him a green light and I
got to go on stage with my two best
buddies and make everybody laugh.
I'm the kind of guy,
I want to get a laugh.
All right.
And we went up there and we smashed it.
These guys, we all did great.
Brenda Stice, awesome stage manager.
Cody Scott, who the prop master, you
know, getting together like it was a
group effort, but, you know, getting
together that giant flag and making the
Bunraku puppet of Abraham Lincoln.
Yeah.
And it was just all the multimedia kind
of part of it, the
camaraderie of us up there.
I mean,
yeah.
Yeah.
I'm so mad that that
didn't get on tape, but I'm not.
What?
That American flag.
So it was it basically took up the entire
front half of the object and
everybody to sew it together.
And we're still using it.
We made it to Bunting
finally when we did The Music Man.
But we're still using parts of that.
It's still in the world.
It's not a flag anymore.
It's pieces of things.
No, we still have that piece.
Yeah.
All hands sewn up close at this level.
I think that was one of
the first ones I think I saw.
Because that was obviously
before the musicals and stuff.
Oh, yeah.
And I knew I knew you guys from playing
D&D and stuff like that.
And so when you told me it was happening,
I was like, OK, no,
I'm going to go see this.
And it was like, it was
like, oh, this was wild.
Like, yeah,
wildly inappropriate.
And if anybody who had known anything had
shown up, I'm going to
shove that baby down.
Probably.
But I was like, like before we had prom
and I thought, I'm listening to the
music, they're playing at prom.
This is way worse than
what we're going to do.
We're just going to hope nobody comes
that would be offended and nobody did.
So I remember
that I still don't understand how you let
us the thing about two
weeks before like Kennedy died.
He was in Marilyn Monroe.
The switch up.
I think you had us cut
it off a little earlier.
The pig in a fella in Shakespeare Bridge
where they had the rap about Othello,
which they've now cut from that show.
Very end of it.
They say some things about Desdemona and
just come out with an air horn.
It was like that.
At the end of that play, when we're doing
we're doing like the lightning round in
reverse, like the stuffed
animals.
Yes.
With the pie.
There's a lot of so
much like the Statue of Liberty sinks
back into the ocean.
Yeah.
One of the lines is Monica
Lewinsky goes up on Bill Clinton.
Yeah.
No,
she told us not to.
But the last show we said it anyway.
You built that four out of desks.
Yes.
Just a pile of desks in the middle.
We had to dress up as
the Anderson sisters.
Like the pinot.
Yeah.
We tried to spell
America with our bodies.
Yeah.
And did it.
They just took
so long to wear gas everywhere.
We are never doing that show.
The picture of YouTube behind the forts
of the desk is in one of the year wraps.
With the wigs.
Yeah.
I had that big blonde.
And the water gun.
I think that was Vietnam.
Yeah.
We were doing it.
It was like all the wars at one time.
One of us, I think,
was like wearing a bra.
I think all of us.
Yeah.
That gets used a lot.
It's interesting the things that we built
or bought or borrowed 20 years ago that
are still showing up.
Like, oh, I know we have this thing.
Well, that bra ended up
in my magician's thing.
It did.
That I had to make good.
I made chicken salad out of.
Yeah.
We had to pull it out.
Yeah.
It's an instant laugh.
Yeah.
That was a good show for you guys.
I'm glad that you got to do it.
And I'm glad that I
didn't get in trouble.
Do you remember?
I very distinctly remember
when we were halfway through.
And you, Jennifer, were finally like, all
right, let's see it.
And we were like--
(Laughter)
OK.
And we did it.
And I think the whole time you were just
like-- You directed that.
Did you direct that?
Yeah.
(Laughter) So there was a part where I was supposed
to come out on stage.
And Jacob was going to
have a horn in his pocket.
Oh my god.
And the line was like, are
you just happy to see me?
Or is that a horn in your pocket?
And I reach over and squeeze the horn.
And--
(Laughter)
But in the second show,
Jacob forgot the horn.
(Laughter)
Are you happy to see me?
Or is that a horn?
And I just grabbed Jacob's horn.
And he was like, what are you doing?
(Laughter)
Oh, that was also the Civil War part,
where there's
supposed to be the pictures.
And it was like-- and
the audio in the back.
Yeah.
It was me and Mr.
Dooley.
And I said, read this before we do it.
He said, no, no, I don't
have to read it, whatever.
And then the people, the neighbors start
fighting with each other about how
they're breaking up.
Yes.
And
Mr.
Dooley could not.
And I was like, oh, you have to get-- he
was like, I can't do it again.
He's crying.
(Laughter)
I told you to read it.
I remember who read it
with me that morning.
It wasn't him or somebody
else that had kept it cool.
But Mr.
Dooley could not.
I forgot about that.
And all of a sudden, we are
reacting to that on stage.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
And you're like, are we going to do that?
So that was a good show.
Never drink again.
Never.
But we do Shakespeare
Bridge right every five years.
So Ian did it two years ago.
We could do American History Bridge at
the community center.
We could do the Bible Bridge at
the community center.
Is that one they have, though?
That is a real thing.
And you're not touching--
I brought it up and got a hard--
(Laughter)
A thousand notes.
I do enjoy this job.
We were keeping our
fingers crossed, though.
Yeah.
We were going for it.
Yeah.
No, that was probably the wildest thing
that we ever have done.
And the culture is different now.
I would not try to put that one up.
Because we got a complaint about
Shakespeare Bridge this
time we'd never gotten before.
And we had Baby Go Blind.
And we almost had a problem with that.
But we sort of stopped
it before it started.
You guys would like that show.
I didn't find it
until after you graduated.
So basically what happens is they send
you a script with 100 plays in it.
It's based on a theater company that used
to work out of New York City.
And you pick-- Is it 30?
It's like 30.
You pick 30 of the shows to do.
They're all one minute.
And what would happen to the original
company is they would
write the shows every week.
And some would stay and some would go.
And you hang up a
clothesline with 30 numbers on it.
And the audience just
screams out a number.
And they didn't do this in New York.
But we did it where we had a ringmaster.
And they would pull down
whatever number they heard.
And then the actors had to do that show.
So all the actors in the audience, every
kid's learned five shows, five scenes.
And so whatever your scene is when it
gets called, you have to
go and do it right then.
There's a 30 minute time limit.
Yeah.
There's a timer.
Whatever 30 minutes of the
show's over at 30 minutes.
But we've never done
it where it didn't make.
We got through the entire show.
My favorite one is
called Chicken, though.
And what happens with that one is
whatever scene just happened, you have to
run back on stage and do it again.
But you can only speak as a chicken.
So OK, though.
So the most recent
version, Julie was the ringmaster.
And so there's no way to gauge what the
audience is yelling.
The ringmaster is just
like, everybody yell a number.
So there's a one that's like the truth
about war or something like that.
And so there's literally written flash or
cards that they have to do the bit on.
It's like a PowerPoint
presentation, but with cards.
So we,
just on the off chance that it got to be
the chicken one, we had redone the cards
with the chicken stuff on it.
And of course, right after it happened,
suddenly the audience yelled
the number for the chicken.
What are the ons?
I know.
And so they had to come back and be like,
well, the first time we
did it was Elise Richmond.
And five people broke up with her.
It was Kip Kipp on stage and dumping her.
And she's very upset.
And all the plays are funny.
Some of them are really sad.
And they just kept going
on stage and dumping her.
And then chicken got pulled.
And she had to go back and get dumped
again five more times.
That's a chicken.
Yeah.
I know.
Chicken crying is very silent.
(Laughter)
So yeah, you guys have enjoyed that show.
It was a good show today.
And we do that one with Shakespeare
Bridge like every five years.
All right, good.
So Jacob, what did you
learn from being in theater?
Well, in high school or college or--
She actually went on to study theater.
Yeah.
I mean, I think the things
that I learned from theater are--
and it almost sounds like
it's, I don't know, trite.
Or I don't know.
But I think the most valuable things that
you take away from theater are being able
to get up in front of
people and talk is a huge one.
Because I think that, increasingly, that
is a skill that is being left behind,
especially for younger people.
But that's always been a thing.
A lot of people don't like to get up in
front of people and talk.
But I've always been able to do that.
But of course, theater helped with that.
And then being a tour guide for the
National Park Service
helped with that too.
That's very much the same kind of skill.
It was, yeah.
And being in theater helped with that,
which was my career tremendously helped
with that, just getting up in front of
people and saying whatever.
Because when you start that job-- not to
derail onto that too much-- but when you
start that job, you very much feel like
you want to stick to a script.
You learn a very narrow set of things.
And then you don't
really want to deviate.
But I feel like when I started, I'd been
doing theater for so long, get up there
and just like, what do
people want to talk about?
And just talk.
So that's, I feel, a very valuable skill.
Another one that I think helped me out a
lot in a different career that I had was,
if somebody asks for a volunteer for
something, I'm like,
yeah, I'll do it, whatever.
I'll volunteer for whatever you got.
It's a super helpful thing too.
Because if you-- what I found out about
that is, if you volunteer for stuff--
and I'm talking in a pretty narrow
context here, because I was in law
enforcement for a while.
And oftentimes, you get asked to
volunteer for stuff in law enforcement.
That is not fun.
It's so like-- Freeing taste.
Well, that or being pepper sprayed, or
getting put in a choke hold, or getting
or it might just be to go shovel the
plant boxes outside.
But anyway, if you're the person that
volunteers for that-- and this is true
outside of work too, but if you'll
volunteer for that stuff, people
recognize that and they talk about that.
If you're helpful, people recognize that
and talk about that.
And those are the best theater kids.
Oh, absolutely.
This is what you take people-- I cannot
sit and hold your hand.
You have to go find those costumes, or
build that prop, or do
whatever you're going to do.
There's too many of them.
Well, not as many as there used to be.
Were you guys there the other year?
We had 70 kids?
Probably.
We had a lot of people.
That was the way to toss a winner one year.
We had 70 kids.
We were there.
And that was just-- I don't even know how
that was a thing that you
could do, but we did it.
Well, and it's different in high school
theater, obviously, because-- so when I
was in college, we had faculty that was a
costume mistress and a prop master.
These were all faculty positions.
And the students were
always under their guidance.
You don't have time to do that.
My thing of care was to do that.
They only let the kids act.
And I'm like, no, you guys
have to go, because I'm tired.
And either I have small children, or I'm
tired because I had small children.
So I don't want to be.
And that's the thing.
This isn't about me.
This is about, look at
what these kids can do.
I just have to be in the
room for legal purposes.
And not every kid wants to act either.
No.
Some people, a lot of
kids have stage fright.
Remember the one girl she would only talk
when she was on stage?
And I just thought,
this is very interesting.
And Enoch didn't
stutter when he was on stage.
That's true.
That's very true.
And so I want you guys
to go and do that stuff.
And if you want to overcome your stage
fright, I want to help you.
Because we do-- and this wasn't so hard
and fast when you
guys were in the program.
But now, if you show up, you have to
appear on stage in the
first show that we do.
If you're a brand new,
you have to appear on stage.
You may not say anything,
but you will be on stage.
Because I don't want to come in.
Well, I only do hair and makeup.
No, you're going to put
your finger in all the pies.
So we did do that.
But then we have some kids
who are like, what did it want?
It's like the girl that stage manages
with us now, Michaela,
she is not interested.
She does not wish to be perceived.
She's probably the second best stage
manager I ever had after Taylor, because
no one's better than Taylor.
But she's really great.
And I think she's going
to do it professionally.
That's what she wants
to go do for school.
So I'm pretty excited.
I'm sorry, I do not mean to.
Well, in fact, at UofL, which is where I
went to college and got a theater degree,
so you have to-- we had to
have four credits from shows.
And every show that you
were in was a half credit.
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
So it's kind of like a lab, basically.
And only one credit, so two
shows, could be acting roles.
Oh, really?
The whole rest of that.
So six shows could not be onstage roles.
So they actually forced
people into off-stage roles,
which I thought was really cool, because
I actually got into lighting and was
like, I really like this, and just did
that instead of doing onstage stuff.
Do they have enough people in that
program so that only
theater majors do theater?
Because it's the way these are UK.
Yes, they did when I was there.
However, there were
often people from other--
So there were some sort
of people that came in.
So yes.
We're going to grow there now.
Sarah Stewart, I think, is going to
graduate from there this year.
Oh, OK.
A theater degree.
Yeah.
Last time I saw that she did was
"Platinum County
Spelling Bee," and she was in.
And they did during COVID, so you
couldn't do any honest participation.
It was kind of sad.
Oh, yeah, that is kind of sad.
But that's what Taylor's doing at Trancy,
that show is next month.
She's backstage managing that one.
Yeah, I can't imagine if COVID had been
during college or something for me.
That would just be so--
Well, we shot videos.
We did a lot of stuff
that we shot online.
But it was definitely weird.
And we did the duallys online.
It was just-- Yeah, that would be weird.
Everybody wore their
promises because they canceled prom.
Right.
so you never know.
Go back to the thing, get live feeder,
you know what's going to happen.
You don't know what's going to be the
last time you get to do it.
You think, oh, we'll do it
again, we'll do it better.
No, this is the time.
No.
Do it the best now.
Oh no, shockers horse rags.
He's in the next show.
Until 16 years later, you do American
History abridged again.
If you want to try to set it up somewhere
that's not a school space,
I will help you with that.
Some of that stuff still exists.
Abraham Lincoln's gone, though.
Because when I moved out of
my classroom, he was in there.
And I told the kids they
could take what they wanted.
So somebody took Abraham Lincoln.
He's living in someone's house now.
He's such an icon.
I like making them happy.
I hope so.
Because then most of all, I'll go to a
kid's house and be like,
that's for my classroom.
That's fine.
What have you learned, Spencer?
Improv, really.
Improv is probably the most
useful skill that I've learned.
Because I meet new people.
I meet new people once a week, that I'm
working in their house.
And something always goes wrong.
Not always, but things happen.
And
have to be able to work fast and fix it
in a timely, efficient manner.
And improv, I really
believe, gave me those skills.
And just
Jacob said, public speaking.
I've been fortunate to be able to speak
to like 200, 250 people.
Just talk to them at a time.
What are you talking about?
Well, I'm actually in recovery.
So I've been to talk to them and get to
talk to them about how
I got to where I'm at
and where I came from.
really helped with that.
And I don't know.
It just-- I'm glad that I did it.
Because I can see all the things that I
learned in school
manifesting in my life now.
And it's just-- it was a good thing.
That's good.
Well, I mean, you said it off the top.
We've mentioned it a couple times.
But it kind of instilled in me the fact
that life is organized chaos.
Since then, I've
become a pretty big planner.
Anytime like trips or anything like that,
I've got to have an
itinerary and all that.
But at the same time, you
can plan all you want to.
You can have your production bottle right
there in front of you open.
But sometimes, asteroid
comes in, blows up your plans.
You've got to roll with it.
You've got to figure out something.
And I mean, I think that's really
something that I keep in the
back of my head quite a bit.
Is that I'm going to try to do this.
But something might happen.
Pivot.
You know.
But yeah, just adaptability, I guess.
Good.
I am glad.
Everybody's got to plan until they get
punched in the mouth.
Until they get punched in the mouth.
Until they get kicked right in the teeth.
It was the Macbeth that we did, but it
was set in high school.
Yes.
The weird sisters.
The weird sisters, yeah.
Oh, that was a good shot.
Yeah, we've totally forgotten about this.
I remember I forget the character's
corresponding names, but I
was the Macbeth character.
And Stephen Bliss was
the king at the time.
Yeah, so you were Mac.
Yeah, I was Mac, yeah.
And there was a
confrontation between us on stage.
Because I guess-- You were fighting us
because you planted pot.
I planted pot, yeah.
But I remember we had worked on it
before, and the couch was behind us.
Yes.
And the thing was, you know, you're
supposed to toss me on the couch.
I'm like, man, you just have at it.
This dude comes up,
slings me on the couch.
I land on the couch.
It scoots like three feet back.
Yeah, no, that was-- Did
the wall go down?
The wall-- I don't think so.
Did the couch flip?
Did the wall go down?
No.
The couch definitely
moved, but I was still upright.
No, that was Tinker.
Tinker knocked the wall down.
That makes sense.
With his head.
Yeah.
Because a girl kissed him.
even break his leg.
Like, I remember him
falling from the top of that-- No.
Yeah.
That was the same show.
Yeah, that was Romeo, you idiot.
He did fall off of that-- Yes.
I just remember him getting hurt.
He's not very-- Ed Somboyne.
C.J.-- no.
Bliss broke C.J.
Farinelli's.
No, that's-- no.
Zach Allison.
Steven broke Zach Allison's like--
(Audio Out) and Juliet.
And we and that was the morning show and
we did three shows and he did all the
shows and then he went
to the emergency room.
Good night.
Yeah.
Because they were fighting because he was
Tybalt and so he has to die, right?
So but they just got super
excited and I heard it crack.
I was backstage and that little tiny girl
with all the hair who named her kid
Aslan, she was supposed to get him off
the stage and I was like,
and Zach Alex is a big old boy.
Yeah.
And she got him off and I was
like, we're going to call it.
And he's like, nope, doing all the shows.
But because Tybalt really isn't, is only
in like three scenes, right?
Sure.
So we iced him up real good because we
were doing the Shakespeare poopy pants.
So we iced him up real good and then kept
it elevated until he had to come back on
and gel three shows and
then he would be like, jeez.
Because I was like, you guys could not,
you could not do this.
They're like, no, we're going to do it.
And I kept like, well, I think I'm going
to be busy on Friday
so I can't do the play.
I'm like, but children's parents have
died and they have broken their body
parts and they're still here.
so people come in clutch all of the time
and you're like, who knew?
And if you tell, if I tell, um, if I tell
you guys, you can do
stuff, then you just do it.
Like we just have to have, I just have
faith and you believe it.
And then it works.
And that's it's so it's magic.
It's so magic.
Isn't it?
Well, I also learned how to type with an
animal from American history.
Yes.
I think that's a skill you can use.
I mean, that's marketable.
Yes.
what is something you guys wish you knew
when you first started
drama that you know now,
what would you go back
and tell itty bitty you
that the humble,
that's what lose your ego.
I like this version of you so much.
I'm so proud of you.
You have no idea.
Like when Gavin went to work for you for
a while and he was like, I love Gavin.
I love Gavin.
And
said, if I talked about him in the
podcast, he would rip his own arms off.
But every episode I mentioned him,
uh, part of my current job is I have to
write these analyses and then I have to
like present under to leadership.
And we did one the like Monday,
you do the miss skits.
He needs you guys.
Yeah.
But I
read one out and then one of like the VPs
in the company was like, uh, thank you
Jacob for reading that so well.
Like I'm so impressed at
how well you could read.
And I was like, Oh, thank you.
I said, yeah, I went
to school in Kentucky.
So there were only two of
us in class that could read.
We got a lot of practice and you can tell
like half of them
laughed and like took the joke.
Half of them didn't know
if they were supposed to.
Hey.
All right.
So what else do you wish you had known?
Uh, that nobody's going to know if you
screw up and just, yeah, it's a big one.
I think failure is really important.
And people go, yeah.
And I felt all the time though, well that
didn't work or got that
wrong or let's not do that.
And because I feel like in so many of the
classes that you have to get it right,
especially if you're that kid, this type
kid who wants to be everything, you're
like, Oh, nope, that was terrible.
Let's go back and try to something
different and nothing was
the worst thing that happened.
Nothing.
Yeah.
I'm sure it is for most people, but
failure is something that I still
struggle with a lot.
Like if I'm afraid that I'm going to fail
something, I have a
hard time starting it.
And that's a big problem we have with,
with brand new kids in the program.
Yeah, absolutely.
But I can now like, I
can eventually work myself.
Like I can draw on that experience and
work myself into, well,
like just go ahead and do it.
And like, if you, you know, screw it up,
it's not that big a deal.
Yeah.
Tell you, here's the best teacher.
Yeah.
Or one of them.
Other than you.
Beautiful.
You then failure.
Get me out of here.
Oh, come on.
are all good things.
I appreciate it.
So what is going to end
and you should appreciate it.
Yeah.
Take it in.
Every show eventually comes to an end.
how long have you been teaching now?
Um, I started teaching not here, but I
started teaching in 1998 was the first
year I had my own classroom.
been here since 2002.
Okay.
Yeah.
So that's what 23 years.
Yeah.
So is that like a, that's like a fairly
recent thing where now you're starting to
see kids that you've
known since they were born.
No, I have the kids, the kids, right.
That too.
But I was thinking like having kids who
like you've known since
they were born and now they're
well, yeah, because all
of my kids are graduating.
So all of their friends are
like, yeah, so that, yeah.
It's when they come in and say my grandma
was in your show, but when we did the
musical last year, my
grandma was in your show.
we have the first parent meeting.
They all come in here.
And like I said, we had 70 kids straight
up kindergarten, 12th grade, all schools.
And I said, how many of you guys have
chosen me in high school?
Every single child.
And I was like, Oh my God.
So yeah, they were kids that there were
girls that were pregnant that I had, that
were my stand-in-law's class the year
that I had even, we
were all pregnant together.
And so those kids all
graduated last year.
So that's, um, yeah, there was a girl
that graduated with Ian that
her mom had been in our town.
She was the narrator in our town.
Yeah.
Lily McGill's mom.
And she got all the original, she got a
bunch of original cast members to come.
Yeah.
I had that shirt.
Yeah.
So it's nice.
It's nice to have this community.
And also when I go places, the people
know me and are willing to help us out
and donate things because
this is an institution, right?
You know, I do these shows and now I want
my kids to do these shows.
I'm like, yes.
And that wasn't something I
thought about when I started.
I just thought I want to do theater.
I've been trying to find somewhere to do
theater since I was six.
Yeah.
So, and nobody would
let me come play with it.
I was like, good enough.
I never got cast in a show in college.
I have a theater degree, but I thought,
well, let's go start my
own, you know, my own company.
And that's, it's just, I don't know.
I didn't think about that part, but that
part's great that these kids are coveted.
Mackenzie Farinelli's
daughter, never heard.
Yeah.
She's a couple years ahead of her.
Yeah.
She looks at just
like when she showed up at the musical, I
called her Mackenzie for a solid year.
And I was like, no, you are literally
like, so that's Reagan.
It's Reagan.
Yeah.
So it's great.
It's great to have that kind of.
Yeah.
That is one thing that you learn about
theater is like, you know, you have this
idea of like theater people and like,
it's a very specific idea of a person,
but it is something that you see here
where, you know, since I've been back, I
noticed these parents who are not what
you think of as like theater parents,
like their kids are probably theater
kids, but like you wouldn't think of them
as being theater parents, but they're
like building stuff for shows.
And donating money,
food and
doing the lunches.
Yeah.
Or the dinners.
Yeah.
Because that brings in all
this, that soccer does that.
And the first
academic team does that too.
So I can't hold it.
Yeah.
So that's a, that's a huge money maker
for both the programs.
And so it's, it's a good time.
So yeah.
Yeah.
studied theater as your undergrad.
But then you didn't pursue that.
I did not.
Because there's no money in it?
No, not exactly.
I tell most people
that I had fully planned.
I was invested in it until the last
semester I went to college.
it's one of the two master electricians
for the department and the other master
electrician ended up being a
really good friend of mine.
We became good friends through that.
When I first started, we had this super
cool guy who was our lighting designer,
which we took all of
our direction from him.
He was this older guy from Philadelphia.
Super laid back.
Old school still like
hand drew his light plots.
And I took his lighting
design class and we had to do that.
cool guy, great to work for.
And then the semester before my last
semester of college, he
retired and we got another one.
That guy was not cool at all.
He was like a concert lighting designer
and just had a totally
different philosophy.
We were students and we
were being paid by stipend.
It wasn't a job, it was
a program for the school.
And so when we signed up for it, it was
like, "Hey, you can only work 10 hours a
week because you're a student
and we'll pay you this much."
And this guy was doing
such huge elaborate things.
We would go to rehearsals at night and
then we would finish rehearsal and then
we would have so many
notes that we had to change.
We would be there till like
two o'clock in the morning.
Yeah, and we tried to talk to him
multiple times being like, "Hey man, we
can't be doing this.
We can only work 10 hours a week."
And it just never.
And from that point on, it just kind of
like soured me on it, honestly.
Which is unfortunate.
You're not the first person I heard say
that where somebody's had a really
terrible experience with the program.
They're like, "Well, never do that again.
It's all fun.
I hate that because I don't know."
Whoever's in charge, if he's charged with
the whole program or is in charge of a
department, you really set the tone for
it, especially working with students.
And if you make them hate that, then
they're going to, you know,
you lose that kid forever.
And that's just...
At that age, I mean, I was like, "Is this
what professional theater is like?"
Like, this is miserable, you know,
because that's how I
was feeling at the time.
You can come back and adjust our lights
just for the love of the game.
Yeah, a couple times.
We got new ones, man.
I mean, you know, we're talking about
your long list of injuries that have
occurred during theater.
So one of our theater spaces
at UofL was just an old church.
Oh, yeah.
I've seen a show in there.
Yeah.
And we had this old lighting set up and
one of them was just like a bar of
outlets that goes across the top.
I've been shocked by
that thing so many times.
Standing at the top of a
30 foot aluminum ladder.
We wasn't so much
outlets, it's just bare wires.
We had to just like...
No one knew where the switch was, so we
just lined them up a lot.
Keep plugging it so UofL comes on.
Flick it before you drag the light
fixture all the way up there.
Yeah.
And it's like, you know, I think about
that a lot because obviously Louisville
has their theater up there.
Yeah.
If you were to stay in Kentucky,
then Louisville is a good place to be if
you want to do theater.
Very good size.
There's a lot of talent there.
They do very well.
They do the Humana stuff.
Yeah.
So that was always like...
Well, the Humana Festival has been cancelled.
Yeah.
Which is kind of lousy because I've been
on that for a long time.
Way before I ever got here.
But that was a big
thing when I was in college.
In fact, I took a class, a monologue
class, my last semester that was like
somebody from that
theater came and taught it.
That was a really good class.
It was me and a bunch of graduate
students in that class.
But yeah, that was a good class.
But yeah, that's why...
Well, and so I think the reason why I
never did it is because I was working for
the Park Service at the time.
So immediately when I felt any resistance
at all in the theater career, I was like,
"Oh, well, back to the Park Service."
Yeah.
No, I understand that.
So
which one's like another
theater career, basically?
It really is.
Yeah.
No, I think if I were ever to retire,
which clearly I'm not going to do, I'm
just going to die during
a really bad rehearsal.
And they'll just be
like, "Well, she's sad.
She's just laying in the middle of the
bat because she's sad.
And then I'll just be dead."
No one will know for like an hour.
Yeah.
Or a week.
You know, who knows?
She's got to let Dooley do her thing.
She just needs to.
Are you mad enough to tell her to get up?
But you were going to go get tours?
I think I would be good at being a docent
or do tours and things like that.
I think I'd be really good at that.
That'd be a good time.
But yeah.
Long tradition of retired teachers from
here going to get tours of Mammoth Cave.
I did a Shakespeare play in college.
Richard III. I
fell on the stairs.
It was what, two and a half hours?
I fell up a flight of space.
Also, remember it was 25
degrees in that theater.
The director had a blanket around her and
Jacob got killed like 14 times.
Everybody Richard III killed.
It was just Jacob
with a different hat on.
And Jason was like, "I
don't know this show that well.
Is that just Jacob?"
He's even, I think even played
some women that got murdered.
Because Richard thought it was like, "Yo,
I'm going to kill these people."
And then he does because he's
young, he kills more people.
So he should have said,
"I'm going to kill Jacob again.
Come on, I got to go."
That would be a great bit to do that
intentionally though.
Just every time.
He was good.
He was in the production.
But he did the same costume with the
blood stains from all the other ones.
Basically.
And I remembered and he
just died and I texted him.
I was like, "Can you turn on
the heat in this building?"
And he was like, "Yeah, we turned it on
way down yesterday and
forgot to turn it off."
And I was like, "Can you remember now?
I can't feel my hands.
And if you haven't seen the first two,
you don't even know what's happening.
Oh yeah, I mean, yeah.
Is that the one where Thanos shows up?
Yes.
Okay, yeah.
That's not me.
Richard III, Electric Boogaloo.
Yeah.
Or no, no, it's Hyper Richard.
Yeah.
The snap is right for remission.
It's okay.
Yeah, I guess we have
to people come back.
Nice show.
It's the audience.
Wait for the audience to decide.
The full title is
Richard III Infinity Stone.
He tells you as you get the stone.
And then he gets it.
And then Malaw walks
and he goes and gets it.
That's why it takes a lot.
Do you remember the transition scenes
where it was me and another guy and we
were just farmers with like super thick
like Southern accents.
I do.
I can't even remember that.
Is he going to kill him now?
Is he the guy in the show?
I don't know what's happening.
Yeah.
No, I'm very stupid.
It's like the other in that play there's
these like transition scenes where it's
just two farmers and they basically stand
there and they're like, "Oh, I hear the
king's just killing everybody."
Like, is this Richard
III's set in like the South?
No.
No,
we did a very traditional.
We did.
There's a lot of Shakespeare scenes like
that like in Macbeth when they comes out
after they kill Duncan and the guys just
talking waiting with the horses like
everything's gone crazy, horses are
eating each other,
our camp got blown down.
Like they talk about a bunch of damage.
Well, and Julie Cesar happens too.
Like the sky's on fire and tigers are
well up in the streets.
All these terrible things are happening
and they do it because
you can't really show that.
what about you?
What theater have you
done since you left?
I don't think I've done any
since I've been out of school.
Yeah, I don't think so.
It's okay.
So there is one theater
that we all do like every week.
Oh, yeah, that's true.
D&D, but how much do
you actually get done?
Or you just like riffing on stuff and not
actually moving the campaign?
Okay, so listen, the first hour.
Is that not theater?
Is that not the heart and soul of
the theater?
I mean, have you been on the same
campaign for like five
years or something now?
No.
The current one's like
a year and some change.
And I will say Spencer's DMing this one.
He's probably the better DM.
Are you doing the voices?
Sometimes.
Doug did some really good voices.
I heard Doug do some good voices.
Yeah, like they had me DM like the second
one or whatever because I was...
Some of them were
still learning the rules.
So I was helping with that.
But then after that, they've all done
most of it and they're
way better than I am.
The last time we played was genuinely
like one of the funniest...
Like it was a perfect like
theatrical moment that we had.
I don't know if you guys
caught it when it happened.
So there's this...
Basically, the story is we're traveling
around and getting the MacGuffins and
we're going to assemble them and it's
going to beat the big pack guy.
Okay, that's the gist of it.
Well, there's like this super magical
Illuminati that's
like helping us do this.
And they have like a
super special secret base.
So we finally got all the MacGuffins and
we put them together
into the super MacGuffin.
We went back to the secret base and then
somebody sent us on
like a wild goose chase.
And one of our party members was like,
"Well, I'm going to stay here."
And there is a spell in
the game called Similacrum.
When you cast it, it creates a Similacrum
of you, which is
basically like a copy of you.
Yeah.
Okay.
And he was like, "I'm going to make a
Similacrum of myself."
And we're like, "Okay."
It takes 12 hours.
Yeah, it takes 12 hours.
So we're like, "Okay, well,
we'll go do the goose chase.
You stay here and do the Similacrum."
Well, there's this whole plot point where
a very well-known vampire
from like D&D lore shows up.
He's been in disguise this whole time as
one of the Illuminati members.
Right.
That's helping them.
They don't know that and I do.
And I don't need them there.
And Steven is like, "I'm not leaving.
I was not moving for 12 hours."
So because Steven didn't leave,
Spencer had the vampire show up and
basically like stab him.
And really mess him up.
Well, anyway, we were gone this whole
time looking for someone.
And we found them and
they were like, "Oh, yeah.
I've been gone for a while, but so and so
was acting weird when I left."
And we were like, "Okay.
Well, don't worry about it.
We left one of our
friends back at the bus.
He's a super reasonable guy.
He's very trustworthy.
We'll just, you know, we'll cast a
sending spell and
talk to him real quick."
And she was like, "Oh, okay.
Yeah, do that."
We're like...
And Steven goes,
"Vampire killed my baby!"
Genuinely, like, what is
the funniest, like, just...
Where else would you come up with that?
Yeah.
The first hour usually
of D&D is not podcastable.
Yeah.
And then most...
Agree to disagree.
And then most of the rest of it, you
could actually record and do something
like this with or whatever, because it's
usually is super hilarious because
between, like, the stuff that we were
doing at the beginning of this that may
or may not make the podcast, but between,
like, four of us, I mean, we will be off
on a tangent so hard that you literally
can't breathe, like, trying just like...
Yeah.
But here's the thing,
like, if we all, like, just...
Like, went to dinner together and we're,
like, sitting around, like, yeah, we'll
cut up and, like, you know, be funny,
but, like, I don't...
Like, without D&D as,
like, the centerpiece...
It's the lubricant.
I don't think we are as
funny without that, like...
I know you're pretty funny this evening.
Yeah.
I mean...
Exactly D&D, but I
guess it's in the world.
But it's another thing, though.
There's a lot of D&D in the...
We need something to draw from, you know,
or not that we need it, but, like, it
helps a lot to have
something to draw from.
He has a spell, an
attack spell, that he has...
What does he call it?
Shadow of Moyle.
Yeah.
Every time.
Every time he uses it.
Wait, do you know what a Moyle is?
It's the people that...
Yeah, go ahead, Doug.
So it's a specialized rabbi that takes
care of the second sentence.
Oh, yes. Oh, I did know that.
I did know
So it's literally, I'm like, "All right,
guys, make the joke, because
I'm going to cast the spell."
I mean, it's, like, Shadow of Moyle. 15
minutes every time we cast it.
Like, it's just like, "Oh, I thought of
another one last time."
Like, you get, like, a week in between to
be like, "Oh, here we go."
Yeah, like, yeah.
There's another one, too, that we do,
like, every single time.
And I cannot think of what the spell is.
We have so many, really.
It's MST3K.
Oh, yes.
Just imagine that.
Yes, no, I totally...
And the other thing about it is, like,
he'll start spieling off, like, five
minutes of, like, story about what the
hell's happening, right?
And then he'll finish, and then we will
say the most ridiculous thing.
And, like, we will just play, like,
that's the thing we're actually going to
go do, right up until the point where
we're like, "Okay, no,
we're definitely not."
And then, like...
Sometimes, but, yes, sometimes not.
But I was just thinking about that.
It's like, "Oh, yeah, Spencer will, like,
build up this dramatic moment where it's
like, "Oh, yeah, the devil, like,
finishes casting her spell and, like,
locks eyes with you, like, "All right,
what are you going to do?"
And it's like, "Well, howdy."
Just stuff like that.
It's so hard.
I try to be serious
and build it up.
It's all improv, man.
It's not worth it.
But, like, also, Spencer has to play,
like, the straight man
in the whole situation.
Because, like, there is a story, and the
story is very dramatic.
Like, Wizards of the Coast didn't write a
comedy for us, so...
Right, right.
But, like, he has to play the straight
man, and then we're just...
Yeah, we're the devil.
We had him hostage.
Yeah.
I don't think I want to DM for you.
When Doug DMed, I never,
ever play a charisma character.
So I was not used to the power that I got
by having the ability to convince people
to do the things that I took over the
entirety of the
northern part of a continent.
And, like, convincing people to do stuff.
Like, and finally Doug
was just like, "I'm done.
Here's a giant
Tyrannosaurus Rex that's unkillable."
Made me mad.
the best part is that I've gotten to know
you guys and see you guys
grow up and see you now.
And just, I just think it's amazing.
All the community that we have and all
the kids that come to Thanksgiving and
Christmas and the kids
that have lived in our house
And so I've gotten to do these things and
get to know your
family since I've had it.
And I really...
I don't know.
This was just...
The things I wanted to do when I was in
high school and when I thought I wanted
to do a theater program, I did not think
about all the extra benefits I was going
to get as far as this
community, this family goes.
Yeah.
And that just...
I just adore you guys.
I'm so proud of all of you.
You've all done so well.
Thank you.
We're proud of you, too.
Thank you.
Do you have any sponsors yet?
For the podcast?
No.
We don't.
Because I'm doing a terrible job of
promoting stuff, because
that's not what I'm good at.
I'd like to give a
shout out to Squarespace.
It's not sponsored, but we'd appreciate
it if you reach out to us.
It should be.
Casper Mattresses.
Yeah, Casper Mattresses.
Nike, hit us up.
Yeah.
We'll talk to anybody.
Spencer, do you have any tile companies
you want to reference?
Oh yeah.
We could get Slooter.
I could get out to them.
Later, greet.
I mean, there's...
I think there's a lot
of people that do that.
There's some multi-
Because when I listen to my voicemail
greeting or something like
that, I sound like a bale of hay.
Like,
hay...
If a bale of hay could play a banjo,
that's what I sound like.
What I do like voicemail.
Yeah, I get that.
I'll make the voice.
This is Douglas.
I couldn't get to the phone right now.
Please leave a message.
Hey, y'all.
Come on, Bands and Douglas
is possum skin and fat food.
Come
on now, big big bait truck.
I'll have to give it up there.
Whiskey and possum, raccoons.
I'm like, I didn't say that.
It's like three minutes long.
I don't
know anybody's ever placed the banjo.
I don't feel like I have a
real deep southern accent.
I know it's there, but then I talk to
people from up north and
they're like, "Hey, you do it."
Biscuit gravy?
Jacob can attest to it.
Up at the park, people from all over...
You can think you're
speaking the King's English.
And then they're like, "What?"
Yeah.
So I lived in Denver.
My whole friend group would
be like, "Jacob, say oil."
Oh yeah.
And I'd be like, "Oh."
Maybe like, "Jacob."
He said the thing.
Say bowl.
And then they would do this.
They would literally end tears.
Just a monkey.
Yeah.
So I'm just going to say that Douglas's
Possum Skimming Factory
is definitely going as a...
A band name.
No, no, no.
That's a sponsor.
That's an every episode sponsor.
When I start making
money for Skimming Possums,
I'll send some to the podcast.
Oh man.
All right, well I think this is all the
insanity we can fit into
one episode Or maybe two
and a half No, it's fine, we just started
our third file I don't know what that
means It has been an absolute delight
It has!
I'm so glad you guys got to come And I'm
so glad to see you I wish I could see you
more But I'm not sure I could sit through
D&D with you guys You should I mean I've
listened to it I've been there like when
you've done it virtually And I'm just
like I don't know that I could do this on
a regular basis It's too much Yeah, it
can be a lot It is But
that's okay So I shall maybe
I have never ever,
not even once, left D&D with these guys
And felt worse than when
I was Oh, I imagine not
Like, I mean, even like three or four
sessions ago I got knocked unconscious in
the first like five
minutes of the thing Oh no!
And did not get brought back up until
like the last five minutes of it Yeah,
you did for a while I had a
blast
It's a spirit filler that's for sure
Yeah, like I mean it's like truly
It's about community It's about making
art and it's community And that's the
whole game That's all, I don't know
All right I want to thank
Dougie and Jacob and Spencer
Thank them for coming and remember you
can contact us at hippychick101 at
gmail.com for questions, views, or
concerns And since I've been telling you
guys since time immemorial have a great
day stay out of trouble And don't make
babies Don't make babies Unless you are
prepared for responsibilities with most
of you or not That got longer Go for the
cure Well I just said the first day in
breath like these people listening
(Music)
But I digress, is a...
We've snatched!
Production.