2.06 A Conversation with Dana Taylor
This week Jimmy talks to theatre educator Dana Taylor. Dana brings 30 years of experience teaching high school technical theatre to our conversation. He is currently a theatre education professor at The University of Evansville in Indiana, He shares words of wisdom and lots of great technical theatre resources from his long and wonderful career as a theatre educator. Jimmy also checks in with Kelli, his student teacher, to see how things are going for her in her placement!
Jimmy Chrismon:
Hello everyone and welcome to THED talks. I'm Jimmy Chrismon, your host of the THED talks and this is season two of the podcast, episode six THED Talks is a podcast for theatre teachers and theatre education students. Each week I bring you stories and interviews from experienced K-12 theatre teachers, current theatre education majors and professors of theatre education that will warm your heart, renew your faith at teaching and provide resources to better your practice , in your theatre classroom. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you so much for listening and checking out what we're doing here every week. I really appreciate everyone sharing what we're doing and, and interacting with us on social media. So please continue to do that. I have a wonderful interview for you today. Uh , Dana Taylor was a tech theatre teacher and music teacher at Mount Vernon senior high school for about 30 years. Um, and now he is teaching theatre education at University of Evansville in Indiana. So I had a fantastic chat with him and I'm excited to bring you some of his stories and words of wisdom from his very long career. Um, and he had such nice things to say to me about what I'm doing here, the podcast , and it really was encouraging , uh , just to keep doing what I'm doing and to keep bringing you these fantastic stories from these fine theatre educators all across the country. I am looking for more interviews, so if you are interested in chatting with me, please email me at thedtalkspodcast@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you and I would love to chat with you. Dana is number four in our series on tech theatre. So hope you enjoy my interview with him. I'm excited to welcome to THED Talks. My next guest, Dana Taylor. Dana recently retired after 30 years of teaching technical theatre. Um, I , I know his last school was Mountain Vernon senior high school in Mountain Vernon, Indiana. So Dana welcome to the show. And , uh, why don't you introduce yourself, kind of tell us a little bit about , um, about your long career and maybe the, maybe the abridged version and , uh, kind of what led you to where you are now.
Dana Taylor:
Okay. Again, my name is Dana Taylor and I just recently retired from Mount Vernon senior high school, in Mount Vernon, Indiana. Um, I came to Mount Vernon 30 years ago as their choir director and at that time they were doing remodeling at the high school and they decided they wanted to have performing arts center director because they were remodeling the auditorium. And I got the job because my office was next door. I knew very little about, very little about theatre technology. Um , I knew lighting a bit. I need sound a bit because I had been in a top 40 show band back in the 80s in another life. Um, but so this started and then the theatre teacher who taught theatre, what we call theatre arts in Indiana , uh, had asked about creating a technical theatre class and that was approved. And he asked me if I would co-teach it with him, which I did. Um, he did, he did sets, he did lighting and things. And I mostly did audio. After two years of that, his teaching assignment changed and I was given the class to run as I saw fit. Hmm . And so there was much more to learn, much more to do. We started out with a traditional schedule of just, you know, 45, 50 minutes meeting one period every day. We did change the block scheduling in a couple of years later and that's when we saw our enrollment in tech theatre jump dramatically. I think at our height we had 92 kids in three sections and we didn't, we couldn't let the freshmen take the class. Um, over the years I've been able to take advantage of relationships with local theatre artists, technical directors and the like, and learned more about learning more about the craft, became involved with USITT, United States Institute for theatre technology and again, learned more about to meet more people and we got better at what we did. Um, kids, kids started wanting to do more and so we tried to offer them more. Um, as I've left the program, we have two beginning classes and one advanced class, obviously my advanced class Does they provide a lot of leadership? You know, during shows beginning, students oftentimes are still at, at the light and soundboards , but almost in an apprentice situation where they're learning how to do things. Um, I've also been very fortunate, circumstance that my administration has been extremely supportive of the things we wish to do and wanting to try. And, and one administrator in particular who pumped nearly a quarter of a million dollars into the theatre after it was removed . And that was for the stuff you don't really see. It was, you know, new lighting, new sound, new drapes, new stage floor, you know, nothing, nothing terribly sexy but, but stuff that made our jobs much, much easier. And again, the ongoing support was, it was a real plus.
Jimmy Chrismon:
And now you're at , um , also University of Evansville. Yes . All right. So tell me about what you're doing there.
Dana Taylor:
I , um, at UofE I'm teaching secondary theatre methods, which just meets in the fall and it's for juniors. It, it lives side by side with the class, which is their field experience. Uh, university mandates that they spend one semester in the high school classroom and one semester. in a , junior high or middle school classroom , uh, doing theatre at the high school level is not that difficult because there are programs in the area , uh , middle school is a bit harder and so they get a little more creative on what that may look like to satisfy the requirement. But I'm, the class I teach is there to support them in their field experience, to give them potential things to work on a sounding board if things aren't going quite right or if they just want to share what they've been doing. You know , I guess if, if nothing else, my more experienced here may pick up on things that they are not seeing, both positive and negative, but it's , it's very collegial. It's very pleasant, very low key. And I enjoy that. I'm also going to be teaching introduction to theatre this year. Since now I have more time and I must admit, I never taught an intro class to theatre, so I'm anxiously awaiting working on my syllabus and figure out what I'm going to do with these individuals. this'll be, this'll be a new challenge.
Jimmy Chrismon:
Um, uh , there's a couple of things I want to hit on from what you, what you just shared. Um, uh, in things that are actually sounding very much in common with a lot of the other , uh , technical theatre teachers that I've spoken with recently. And the first is , um, the relationships that you have with your community organizations as well as USITT and , and the value that that has brought to your program and what you did. Um, is there anything else you can speak to that and kind of how you forge those relationships?
Dana Taylor:
Well, within the technical theatre community, or if you want to call it the internet entertainment technology community there, there is a general sense of we want to help. They are, they may be, you know, with within entertainment technologies , the different businesses in the like, you know, they may be interested in selling you something, but they also, the guys that work there and the women that work there love to share their knowledge and to help you be successful. This is especially true with U S ITT , you know, much of you guys must, much of USITT'S mission is educational. And I know I'm a, I'm a vice chair in the education commission and so much of what we look at doing is how can we help our members and specifically those student members get more out of what we have to offer to reach out to businesses , reach out to institutions and seek help. I know that I think the greatest benefit of doing that is it protects us from being just kind of, for lack of a better way, closeted away without any input from anyone else. This is how we do it, as , as opposed to reaching out and finding out there are other ways to do it. There may be better ways to do it. And , and will afford our students the opportunity to be part of a much larger community. Um, for instance , uh , my students every year did a tricycle race for a charity called behind the scenes. And this was something that it's run by, well it used to be run by the esta foundation, entertainment services technology association that is now simply behind the scenes charity. And so we've raised about 16- $17,000 over the years for the charity. But my students are participating in something much larger than, than them that the monies they raise may be helping to , you know, maybe helping a stage hand in Seattle, maybe providing mental health care for someone in Florida. And you know, they enjoy doing that. And because of that, you know, they've gotten some nice, some nice write-ups. Yup . Healthy pats on the back for being participants in that. But also, you know, as we've gotten to know people within the entertainment industry to bring them into our school and to come in and do sessions with our students. And it is, I think it's , it's, it speaks well of that larger community that someone who is a recognized expert in what they do. I'm thinking of people like Bill Sapsis with Sapsis Rigging coming in as he has on several occasions to do sessions , kids and there. And there have been many others over the years and all one really has to do is just ask.
Jimmy Chrismon:
Yeah. And I think [inaudible]
Dana Taylor:
I think part of this is, I was just gonna say, part of this is a philosophy that we've had of why just these four walls. Why, why do we have to limit what we do to just right here? Can we do more? Can we do it outside our building?
Jimmy Chrismon:
Well and the , and then speaks to kind of what many teachers have have talked about with me about that feeling of isolation and being stuck in, in their room or in their theatre and no one else in their building know what, knows what they really do. Um, but I appreciate what you, what you shared about getting out in the community and, and beyond the four walls, like you said, and, and really giving back to the community and , and making yourself an integral part of that and making yourself invaluable to not just your school but your community as well.
Dana Taylor:
It's , it's , it has been a unique opportunity. For instance, the students or I guess the last 15 years, the 12th round . Now I've lost track. Um , probably the last 15 years I've done lighting for our local Philharmonic and Evansville and we should , we do moving lights , stuff for them for Christmas concert and the periodic concert that would benefit from things that wiggle and , and, and click on and off. Uh , we also, we also build sets and design lighting for a big fundraiser for a local organization called Arc of Evansville, and this is a charitable event that raises roughly a hundred thousand dollars on one Saturday every February. But the students have the opportunity to go out and do the work. They have an opportunity to go into a union house and work side by side with the stage hands. And they also get a field trip out of school typically for it. Well then buy them lunch.
Jimmy Chrismon:
One of what a fantastic experience for them though. I mean that that real world, this is what we really do. If this is what you're thinking about, this is what it really looks like. So I think that's fantastic. Um, what, what, beyond the things that you've told me already, because what you've shared already is like right up my alley and it would automatically sparked my interest to want to be a part of the program. But do you have any, any other tips or tricks up your sleeve for , for recruiting? Cause what 92 kids in three sections of tech theatre. That's insane.
Dana Taylor:
Well, I, I was chatting with some colleagues in , out in, out in D C and they, they asked me what planet I was from. I think as much as anything. And this was not purposeful and , and um, and I'm not suggesting that I'm wise beyond my years, but seemingly my approach to the class cause the kids do feel that what they were doing was important and what they were doing was integral to the success of the class. That they truly were needed and the best effort was expected. Um, and I think that drew kids in , um, they liked being the experts. Kids , like being the experts. And if my students will walk into apprentice , we've done, we've done lighting for a number of the area high schools over the years and you know, they enjoy going into the high school, you know, 20 miles away and, and doing, you know, doing the hang, doing focus cueing a show and feeling like this show wouldn't look quite as good if we weren't here. And taking pride in that. Um, I do think that was, I think that was one element that, that drew them in. I also think they did recognize that this was something out of the ordinary. I would tell them that, you know, at that time there were, there were 43 high schools in Indiana that offered technical theatre and we were the only ones in our area that did. A one school in Evansville started having stagecraft, but it disappeared when the teacher left. And so we were kind of the only game in town. And you know, there, if that is the case, you do feel like you have a certain responsibility to try and do it right and provide in the area. Uh, I continued to do workshops for local schools because oftentimes one of the largest issues within, within theatre is, will the administration, is the administration willing to pay to have a theatre kept up? Do they have inspections? Do they replace the equipment when it breaks? Do they, do, people actually have training on how to use the equipment? And so trying to provide that as an experience for my own students as they participate in workshops for other schools and the like. But also, you know, again, trying to show leadership within this that theatre is fun. theatre is community. theatre is a space. It's a social activity, bicycle level in many ways. That's still true. It's college level in some regards, but the theatre is also a business and it's a professional, it's professional, professional endeavor. And if we treat it as professionals, I think that is attractive as well.
Jimmy Chrismon:
Can you tell me a little bit more about , um, beyond what you just shared , uh, of, of your community involvement and the work, the, the stellar work you did with your students? What other, what other advice can you give young teachers who are working to uh , gain a stronger administrative support? Cause I know when I, when I first started teaching, my first few years of teaching, my administrative support was abysmal to zero. And then my, my, my, the final school that I was at my last 12 years of teaching, I had an amazing principal who believed in the power of what we were doing. And then when he saw the tremendous things that my kids were doing, not only in our school building but in the community, in the state as well, he, that that support raised even more. So. Do you have any advice or , or, or tips or tricks you can share with us about that?
Dana Taylor:
I think making your , making your administration aware of what you are doing, include them in the conversation. And this is not so much that standpoint of that somehow the principal wants to be able to, you know, sign off on the fall play, but actually include them in the conversations, making them aware of things that may be happening. A good example is the recent FCC auction of the 600 megahertz transmission bands. Um, this, this impacted about half, half of the high schools in the country so that within two years in 2020 , that if they're functioning in the 600 megahertz range with wireless microphones, they are trespassing and that those systems need to be replaced. That making, you know, and your principal may not want to hear that they need to spend money but that you are actively involved in making your program function more correctly. But you are, you are, you are really interested in making sure that your theatrical space is being well tended. Um, cause I do think they, you know, they may not, they may not have a clue about restoration drama, but they do know if, if fire retardancy with stage curtains may be questionable and this and that, that is something that needs to be addressed. They may not understand the green inspections, but if OSHA is mentioned, they may get that. Okay, this is, this is something that OSHA says needs to be addressed. And so I think including them in the conversations, not , not being fearful. And I do think, especially if you're in a building that has multiple administrators, you know, besides besides the principal , that you have an assistant principal that you have a Dean to make sure that you're talking to all of them. And like anything else, you're going to find out those who are more your friends than others. And that makes up , you know, that becomes your greater resource. And every now and again you get, you get the principal whose wife is a theatre teacher and he and he and he got it . So I do think about this . I do think also if you can show professional growth in your area, they will listen to you more. So , um , I started writing for publications about 15, 16 years ago. Um, initially was writing some articles for Projection, Lights, and staging news, u h, back then, just PLSN. And sometimes these were how to articles. Sometimes they a re w here they were. C ome o n guys, you go out and help the high schools, you know, go in and try to pitch in. U m, then I started doing t he technical editing and writing for Educational Theatre Association. I was t he technical editor for their magazines for 10 years and continue to write. And I think being able to, you know, b e able to just put a magazine in your p rincipal's mailbox with an FYI stuck to it. And p aperclip on the page of the article you wrote doesn't hurt you. And if there are, if there are opportunities to do that, if there are, you know, within your state organizations, you know, for Educational Theatre Association, like I know, you know, Illinois has as a very strong theatre, t he theatre organization. U m, are they still meeting each year in Champagne?
Jimmy Chrismon:
Uh, the, are you specifically talking about the theatre association or the high school theatre festival
Dana Taylor:
with the high school?
Jimmy Chrismon:
Yeah, they uh, we go back and yeah, we go back and forth between champagne and Bloomington. We , we alternate years.
Dana Taylor:
Okay. Okay. Cause cause I know I presented one year in Champagne. Um , but getting involved with organizations like that, which helps you with your networking, which should be , you know , I think especially for young teachers, which is the whole purpose of all of this is that, you know, you don't, you are not alone. Don't isolate yourself. There are people to talk to and not just on Facebook where you can bemoan your particular fate on any given day, but that there are genuine resources out there and, and people who have done it and, and you know, get their take on things. And I do think, you know, social media is a wonderful thing, but I think social media sometimes, although it can be helpful, it also can allow you to just, I don't know, get weighed down by your problems . And they're , there are , there can be better ways to, better ways to help solve your problems and better groups, better groups to align yourself with the other. There's , there's a Facebook page for high school theatre teachers. And I made a comment the other day, it was on a picture that appeared and I , and I just simply said, no , let's all raise our right hand and say, yeah, we've done dumb stuff. Let's promise. Never do that again. Oh my, Oh my. I should have kept mine . I would , I, it was not well received and I thought that was not my intent guys. I swear to you . We shouldn't really do things like that. So we're trying to promote a culture of safety then don't do something that's just obviously dumb and they didn't enjoy hearing that. So I haven't posted anything. I'll keep my mouth shut.
Jimmy Chrismon:
Well, I appreciate you sharing that about , uh , inviting your administration to the table. When I, when I did my research for my , my doctoral program , uh, that was what my dissertation was on. It was about , uh, defining what a good theatre teacher is and what they look like in their classroom. And I spoke with principals and that was a resounding thing, is they , they said that, I don't, I'm not the expert in what you're teaching. That's your job. And they said, but, but I want to be invited in. If there's something you want me to see, if there's something you want me to be a part of, you have to ask me. Um, because their hands are in a thousand different pies and, and we have to be our own advocates at times. So if , if , if we want our administrators , administrators to be involved, we sometimes we have to step out of our comfort zone and say, Hey, come come to my second period, see the great things we're doing today. Or Hey, come.
Dana Taylor:
Yup . Precisely that to make them aware. I , my most recent principal , um, said, you know, I don't know what you're doing, but I can tell when teaching is going on. I can tell when it, when the classroom is , is, is doing good things and to , to not make them feel like somehow you're hiding from them. You know? And I was going to say that one of our local schools, and I was not aware of this until I went to my very, very first musical that they did and noted that the producer of the show was the principal of the school, that, that his office was handling all the paperwork. And I thought, what a great idea
Jimmy Chrismon:
that is . That is cool.
Dana Taylor:
Yeah . And , uh , you know, anything and yes, it's not just, you know, a few hardworking parents and kids. It's , you know, the administration is there. So.
Jimmy Chrismon:
Well , well thank you for sharing about that. Um, I want to shift gears just a little bit and talk about , um, your, your, your long career and what , what you've done with, with, with students. Um, can you give any advice for , um, young teachers or even current teachers who are thinking, Oh my goodness, 30 years in this job that seems so long and so hard and I don't know if I'll make it, what, what can they do to , um, take care of themselves to have a long career and still love what they're doing?
Dana Taylor:
Have a life, you know , I am, I am. I am much like my father and my father was a workaholic and, and dad wasn't really happy unless he was busy working. And I'm much the same way. However, I have discovered probably a little too late in my career that you had to have a life outside. You had to do things, you know, go play golf. Don't just, don't just binge watch Netflix on the weekend because you're too exhausted to do anything else to become involved in things besides what you actively pursue and you know, your day to day business. I , I've joked over the years that, you know, I never wa , you know, one , I never went to work. I just went to school and they paid me for my hobbies and there was a lot of truth in that. You know, I enjoy what I do and um, and, and am invested in it, but also the reality that if you don't have something going on outside of that, then what do you have? W what do you have when 30 years clicks buy in and you decided to leave that? I think you also have to accept that you are going to have uptimes and down times. You know? You know, it's a little bit like a song by the birds from Ecclesiastes days to every season that you know you're going , you're going to have profitable years and you're going to have building years. You're going to have, you're going to have times when the students are making you crazy and times that you just couldn't be prouder. But it's, it's part of what we do. I do think also you have to, you have to think in terms of how do you measure success? Is success the quality of the production or is the success the success of the student who did something that they never did before? I think oftentimes we, we spend an awful lot of time trying to make something perfect and that wasn't the point. The point was the kid, the kid who tried to do something and was unsuccessful, but they tried, you know, the, I tell them, I tell my students about one student I have in particular who we designed. We designed the scenery for our production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor dream coat. And I had this idea of these, of these moving panels on stage and it was going to be so cool. It was all, it was just going to be great. And so two of my students, one in particular set themselves to task and they built this entire track system only to find out that it didn't work. And, and when we finally said it's not gonna work, Ben, he was back the next day cause he , he, his thought was, well I tried and when we worked really hard, it just didn't work. And so I thought he gained more from that than anybody because he discovered something that he dreamt up, that we dreamt up together just didn't work. And that's okay. It's okay to fail. And I think that's particularly hard as a teacher to accept that some days you're just not going to be really good at it or that we missed the point of the lesson, you know, is, you know, is, is scenic design or lighting design about the quality of the design or is it the process that helps create a good design? Is it your stick to it-ness? Is it you're willing? Is your willingness to draw yes for the seventh time or if you're fighting the software to go back and slide it yet again that, you know, do we do this, do we show them grit and earnestness and that it's okay to fail? So , um, I, like I said, there's, I think keeping perspective and, and cause you're , there are going to be times you are going to feel burned out. There's gonna be times as the last thing you want to do is go to school that you hate this play that you hate to show these kids drive you crazy. But you know, there's next week and there's next year and there's the next decade yet to come. And if you intend to be there, okay . I think you need to take a deep breath. And, and you know, I think the phrase now is self care. Like probably 50 years ago, self care involved bourbon.
Jimmy Chrismon:
Well, what are you doing with your spare time now in your retirement? I know you're teaching , um, uh, university of Evansville, but what else are you doing?
Dana Taylor:
Well, I'll, I'll use my Joke professional taxidermy, you know , that's someone, someone last wise , the same just thing about professional taxidermy. Um, right now I am, I am working on um, creating a new nationally normed exam for technical theatre for high school students. All right. This has been done. This has been done through USITT and yes, please tell your students about it. Uh , if you go to USITT.org and you look under, I think education is the tab, you'll see something there listed as Eset. ESET essential skills for entertaining technicians and USITT took the silver a few years ago. And right now besides the tests that are there, we're also creating a new test that'll be geared towards high school students and specifically those high school students who are involved in technical theatre through, through, under the CTE umbrella. All right . And so, and so there's a group of us from around the country who are, who have been putting our heads together and working on this week . We hope to do beta tests this fall and maybe have something that will allow by next summer. Um, but doing that , um , also doing some other work with USITT and see and see what else am I doing. Um, I continue to write articles. Most recently I've been doing some articles for a publication called High School Today and monthly publications rather slick looking. But it's, it is, it is a lot of managing your space, looking at the potential of the technical theatre, especially as you are trying to as a administrative trying to understand what it is they are doing, understanding the educational opportunities that are there, but also keeping them informed about changes in like the FCC auction. Uh , some new guidelines that are coming, gaps with OSHA in regards to rigging the new rating inspection standard. Um, the other thing I , the other thing I do is I am, I'm on the board of directors for the entertainment services and technology association. And so we , we have the work that we do specifically. One of the major things that Este does is writing standards for the industry. And for instance, one of our latest standards that's come out , uh, U one dot four seven is the code for it is, is guidelines for reading inspection, what those should look like and discussing how to do them , um, where to find resources, what to expect. Okay .
Jimmy Chrismon:
Well it sounds like you haven't slowed down.
Dana Taylor:
Well, no and I , I did not have any intention necessarily slowing down. Uh , you know, in all honesty , um, or the better part of 30 years I've gotten up at 5:10 in the morning and, and have my coffee and read the newspaper and got in the car and would drive to school the past year and a half. I started thinking when I got to come home and I think that was a clue that maybe something different will be, will be a good thing. And so, you know, as I said, I had no intention of stopping work. I just do something a little different. I should also be in starting this fall should also be working with , with our local stage union and, and that'll be fun. I've worked with, with folks through in , in the union for years. Mostly as the guy that the lighting , the lighting designer who was coming in to do stuff. And so this would be a little different working more as their, more as their colleague and, and workmate . Um, and I'm , I'm envisioning that University of Evansville is going to keep me busy besides, besides those two classes, I'm also conducting the women's ensemble at the university. All right . Cause I said that's not so, and I, we didn't speak about it directly. I have no formal training in entertainment technology. I have no formal training in theatre. This was all, this was all kind of done while I was, while I was teaching it to the kids. I was so fortunate that I love choral music. It's, it's my, my undergrad and graduate degree is in choral conducting. I found a second passion in some regards to something I'm even more passionate about than choral music, I think technical theatre lighting especially, but all aspects of it are incredibly fascinating. Challenging that, you know, that we get to make art every now and again. We get to make a little art that when you know that you look at a lighting cue and you say that, well it takes your breath away. Or the one of my favorite things with my students when, when we start teaching the light board and we would set up, you know, they would record a couple of cues and they would hit, go and they would look at up stage and see colors changes something something happened on stage. It was likely we are creating magic and the look in their eye and they got hooked because they want to do that again. Now, you know, obviously it takes years to figure out where to, where to put the lights. But you know, most anyone can learn to run a light board and if that's how they get into it, that's great. Um, other, you know, other things I'm going to be doing, at least I assume I'm going to be doing , um, is doing consulting and teaching classes for other, for other , uh, high schools in the region. Um, I've started a consultancy and working with one of the local regional lighting dealers to work with their clients. And because I enjoy doing that a lot, I've taught a lot at the Thespian festival in Nebraska and other such things. Hope to do more of that too . Mostly mostly try to stay out of my wife's way.
Jimmy Chrismon:
I hear ya. Um, for, cause I am a nontechnical theatre person, and you came in as a non technical theatre and theatre person. Um, you must have learned some tricks and tips along the way that you can share with us non technical theatre people. That is, you know, something that we need to have in our back pocket that's super easy and, and that we can totally use. Do you have anything that you can share with us?
Dana Taylor:
Well , um , I guess the first one would be a caution. You know, if you don't know, if you don't know how to do something, please don't try to teach it. You can learn how to do it. Um, I do think, I do think there are things that you can do, resources that are available to you that sometimes we are unaware of. And when you look, when you look at what we do, for instance with, you know, building sets, there are organizations that provide so many resources. The power tool Institute out of Cleveland, Ohio. And I think, and I think it's just power tools to get online. You know what , you can look forward all kinds of great posters and how tos and safety guides and , and information stuff that is bilingual that can be a tremendous help. Uh, explore , exploring, exploring CTE websites specifically CTE online. So many lesson plans available there for teaching tools. So, so we may be learning a little bit with our students at the time, but that's what that is, you know, a tremendous resource. One thing I teach , I tell my students at the university, if you try to figure out what to teach in technical theatre, start with what, you know, teach your equipment. You know, it's, it's really cool to do pixel mapping and projection. But if you don't really have that, then how about if we just teach them how to program the Lightboard . How about if we learn to hang light efficiently? If we don't have fancy rigging, what can we learn with the rigging that we have that there are tons of things to know how to do. One of my colleagues would say, teach them to sweep . Well that's true. There's a correct way to sweep. Um, I do think that, you know, I don't know handy tips or tricks. I will share a link if you'd like. I could share a really cool lesson that a friend of mine developed. His name is Scott Parker. When you talk about lighting fixtures and specifically when we talk about ellipsoidals, they come in different, different degrees. You have 10 degree, 19 degree, 26 degree , 36 it . Does this sound familiar? Okay. Well, and in the old days we used to talk about them in terms of focal length , six by nine, six by 12 six by 22 and all that, you know, all that's good. But you know when you talk about degrees that really it means absolutely nothing to the kids. You can kind of describe it but this friend of mine, Scott came up with this great idea to take a piece of paper. What is the angle on any one of the corners and the students will say 90 degrees. Hey now folded at the corner, basically folded as half . Now what is, what is the degree? And they will say, well that's 45 now hold the pointy up pointing and up to your eye and look out across the rest of the paper. That's kind of what if 40 degrees fixture will cover folded again, what do you have? 22 and a half. That's an awful lot like what a 20 degree fixture will cover the idea of if I'm standing this far from the stage, how big of an area can I hit? It is, you know, it's kind of lighting and origami, but it's is a great tool and there's more you can do with it than that. I thought you could do that if you were teaching a class in a hotel ballroom. You could do that. Um , that there are, there are some interesting things you can do in terms in terms of scenic painting that, for instance, I have a colleague was there in Illinois up in Rockford and he has the kids do four different painting techniques with their names is one of the first things they do in their beginning class. And um, for that, for that , um , he has them scumble, he has them do cross hatch and think of the other two techniques he touches on spattering and, but they do it with their name and then they can take it home. And again, this doesn't require great skill and it's, and it is going to be good use of their time.
Jimmy Chrismon:
Well, I appreciate hearing that. I'm kinda blown with the , my mind is blown right now with the , the, the lightning lesson I wish I had. I wish someone had taught me that the.
Dana Taylor:
paper folding is really cool.
Jimmy Chrismon:
Yeah. Yeah. Um, well thinking back over your career, can you think of , um, uh, maybe your favorite story, a funny moment, a horror story, a, a most meaningful moment. Um, looking back over your career that , that you can share with us.
Dana Taylor:
I think a learning moment for me, I can be, I didn't realize that I was a micromanager. of course. I don't take many micromanagers. What do you mean? N o, I was just t rying to help and one of, one of my kids, and this was, this was just about five o r six years ago, one of my k id's g irls who was our sound op, I was up in the booth during the musical and she said, Mr. Taylor, you make us nervous. And I think what it was, you know, a light c ue came a half second late and I gasped. Or there was, you know, there was the, u h, Mic was a little too loud or maybe not loud enough o r a sound effect came late. And I just, I just drove him crazy. And so from Courtney, I learned to get the heck out of the booth, let the kids do the job. You know, they may make mistakes, but i t's nothing you're g oing t o fix. And t hen again, if I tell them it's okay to make mistakes, t hen why don't I let them have the, have the opportunity to do so. I've spent the last several years, you know, backstage watching the show, sometimes out in the audience and if it's a longer running show, perhaps I go to my office and do some paperwork. That was a very important lesson for me because it told me something about myself. Um, I will avoid the horror stories. Um, well there are those things that, you know , there are those things that you can do within technical theatre and you think, Lord in heaven, how in the world did we ever survive that? You know? And again, this gets into the realm of don't teach with , don't try to teach what you don't know. Don't just assume that you understand something until you can verify that you understand it. Because like me, you could have the kids pull 60 feet with the track off a Baton and never reweight . It didn't even Dawn on me that something bad could have happened. And I think, you know, that's not dissimilar to the eight year old Dana Taylor who saw, saw people who saw a television program called American sportsman and they were repelling off a cliff. And I thought that was just really crucial. I got the clothesline or opening went out behind the house where we had a big sandstone outcropping and I tied the closure and rope off on a stump, wrapped the rope around my hand and jumped. And yeah, we used to , we dodged that bullet as well. Yeah . And this, I think, you know, we all have the horror stories. We all have the bullets that we have dodged. Let's , let's , let's come . And some seem , seemed like it was just the best times because we dodged that Well. There was several years ago I wrote an article and it was, you know, and it started, I saw, I saw a tshirt at a U S I T T conference and said sleep is for the week and out of this, you know, we came up with the idea of why are we applauding ourselves for having avoided disaster? Why do we assume that being so tired, our brains can't even function? That that's an that's appropriate to be in the theatre, to take that? In theory, yes, we all work hard. And yes, we've all had, we've all spent, you know, we've all been there so long that we never saw the sunlight on one particular day. That, but you know, that's not necessarily not necessarily something to aspire to. That's not necessarily the war story. You may wish to tell that, that we, you know, so I really can't, I really can't think of any, any shockers beyond what I've had. I, you know, I've had had some relatively funny things happen to me at times, but it was mostly because I ended up looking like looking like an idiot and that was okay .
Jimmy Chrismon:
Well, you have shared some really great resources so far with us. Um, is there anything else that you might, could think of that, that young teachers or veteran teachers who are struggling with technical theatre or just teaching in general , um, that they, that they need to have on their, either their bookshelf or they've bookmark in a website or , um, a , an organization that they need to know about?
Dana Taylor:
First and foremost, if , if I'm teaching at the high school or college level, and I'm not, if I'm not associated in some way with USITT, you know, as United States Institute for technical or for theatre, for technical theatre say or I didn't and it's usitt .org it is not expensive. And if you're a student, I think it's 25 bucks to belong. And, and this, you know, this, this doesn't get you into the conference for free but, you know, a little cheaper, you know, but to take advantage of that various commissions that function within USITT extremely valuable and great resources. If you, if you are, if you are talking with your students and I know that we all do this because you know we all went to college and we see college as as the natural goal of any high school student , but looking at going, especially if you live in a larger metropolitan area where there is a stage union, the IATsC apprenticing to the station. It is a wonderful career. I have a colleague who has told me the story of going back to her high school and talking about entertainment technology and she's with a large company that manufacturers stage machinery and she said, think about the ending credits of the movie. There's one or two pages of actors and then there are 30 pages of people who get up and go to work every day , send their kids to college, pay their mortgage. And sometimes those people went to college, sometimes they did not. And that working as a stagehand is, can be a very good living. It can be very satisfying. It may not be, it may not be shiny. It may not be fancy and you may not be famous, but it's , it's never, you know, if it's the fame, you're looking for, then you're definitely in the wrong business because most of us involved in theatre will , will be relatively unknown except to our students. Um, that if you can, if you were teaching high school or you are not a member of the educational theatre association, join. Uh, as far as books on the shelf. As much as that, take advantage of magazines that are available, especially those that cost nothing. That is Subscriptions for free, specifically PLSN. Um, also front of house FOH which is audio. PLSN is lighting and projection and then a very, very good magazine called Stage Directions. All of these are, all of these are published by timeless communications. They're completely driven by advertising dollars. So they offer them for free and they are really good resources because you're going to find stuff in there, especially when you know you're looking at new equipment, you know that, well what do I buy? Well, you can read product reviews and their honest to goodness reviews and that they're not, it may be there because they paid for an ad, but the review of the review is, is genuine. Um, there are you know, local arts organizations, you know, becoming friends with the local technical director of the community theatre. I learned, I've learned so much from, from the guy that's been at the community theatre here in Evansville, Charles Julius, all kinds of stuff. Cause this is, this is what Charles has done professionally his entire life. And you know, with time does come some wisdom and some tricks. You know, sometimes it's simple stuff. Sometimes it's those things you go , well I never thought about that. Um, a couple of, you know, a couple of books that are worthwhile having the backstage handbook. Um, it's just a great resource. Uh, I think any good college level textbook, especially anything by Michael Gillette for lighting is, is great. Um, there are , there are a couple for, for scenic construction, but I'm almost, but I'm almost, if you look at any of the Yale publications that you know that to do with people have to do with technology, those are good resource. Basic drama projects. Um, I was asked to be the technical editor for the ninth edition and I thought, well, that sounds, that sounds like fun. And so I did that. Yeah. And we S we set off all of our stuff. This was good. And then I didn't get to look at the galleys, you know, that which they look up before they actually publish it. All of my, all of the information I give them, given them with regard to constructing Hollywood style select was correct. All the imagery shows them construction and not, not have one by four, two by fours. If you get the opportunity to do this, please ask us in the artwork. Okay . That will forever be to my shame that it's a two by four in the picture and not a one by four.
Jimmy Chrismon:
My final question for you would be what is your , um, what are your parting words of wisdom for new teachers coming into the field?
Dana Taylor:
That's an excellent question. I think for most of us, we get into theatre, we get into the arts because it's the only thing that we can see ourselves doing. I think as theatre educators there is that mix of I love to be on stage or I love to be in the same shop and now I'm also going to be teaching children how to do it. Is it you , I think you need to look at it, and this is just being honest with yourself. What is it that you love more? Is it that is the art form or is it the students? It seems like those who are more successful are those that maybe loved the students more than the art form where what, what we do is just the tool we use to teach students. We teach them about life. We teach them about longevity. Yeah . In any career. That, and that's just honest reflection. I , I know those, you know? Yeah . And I don't know if you hear it from your theatre ed students. Yeah . Well, yeah. If things don't work, I can always teach. Well, that's not a good thing , you know ? And, and in college, studying music where my career doesn't work out, I can always be a teacher oU or what my, my own theatre ed students suffer from at university of Evansville a BFA looking at them with a straight face saying, Oh, one day we'll all be teachers.
Speaker 9:
For pity's sake. Yeah . Some of us really just want to be teachers. Yeah. I think it is. You know , and that , that doesn't necessarily mean that you have a teaching degree. But I think a good examination of, of why we do what we do so that we can be more effective teachers. I think one regret that I have is early on I did not, I did not ally myself with educational organizations that I missed the boat on some things that I might have done better in terms of what, you know, what are the standards now I will tell you this, the standards in the state of Indiana for technical theatre where , I mean scratch out Shakespeare write in table saw. That was literally, that was literally the guidance I received from the state office. But, but now, but it's different now, you know, with with the new arts standards and you know, and that they're honest to goodness , technical theatre things in there. You have to look for them. But they are there. Um , especially with regard to design, I do think, you know, those parting words , you know, how fortunate we are to get to do what we do.
Dana Taylor:
That unlike unlike so many of our BFA buddies in 20 years, we are probably still going to be in the business and that's not, well look at me. That is how fortunate I am. I talked about my father earlier that dad was a workaholic. He also, he told me once, he said, you know, you're fortunate and if you get to spend 60% of your time doing stuff you like , and only 40% that you hate. I've been running at about 95 and five my entire career. How fortunate is that and how many people can say that now? Yes. Part of this is attitude. Part of it is opportunity, part of it is, you know , just who you are. But I think as teachers especially, we have such unique opportunity and, and not that we are dismissive of it, I don't think we always understand how lucky we are. And you , yeah , you can talk about salaries and you can talk about mean administrators and even talk about endless testing. But what we get to do, especially in the arts, is so unique and so enriching. It's just a little for us to imagine the algebra teacher who gets the same rush we do when something works. Right. Maybe they do and I'm sure they, I'm sure they do. I just, it's hard for me to imagine that it is as exciting. Well this last, this last fall. Okay . Um , the kids wanted one to do something major , uh , last year w last year was, was Midsummer and they enjoyed doing Midsummer and our , our kids enjoy Shakespeare this year. They really wanted to do Macbeth and you know Macbeth in the hands of a 14 year old is not exactly, well it's a blunt weapon and then handling blunt weapons. It was, it was incredibly well done. Um, yes. I mean yes there were the few stray things even well that can be better. No you are obviously from Bozi County aren't you? But to hear the , to hear the kids speak, to refine, to refine the lighting to try a new scenic technique. Yeah , I see . I see this at the University of Evansville because they function with, they function with a thrust stage. Yeah . There's the fourth wall doesn't really exist and so whatever they build kind of has to live there the whole time. And so, and we have proscenium theatre, which means we have a lot more options. But we decided that the entire set would a Celtic knot , 16 feet in diameter and, and, and raked. And that was the entire set except for okay . A few pieces of fabric hanging at back, which we're dyed red and look and look like [inaudible] battle flags and of it was fun to light and it was fun to build and, and you know, see the kids, you know, it didn't need to have this lavish set, you know, okay . Couple of decades ago, we built the globe theatre, it's still lives in our stock. Yeah . We tried to do it as inch by inch as we could. And it was, it was really a great challenge. It took us so long that we, We kept it, w ell, most of i t's g one now except for the pillars that held up, t hat held up the sky. But it was, you know, in this Case, it was all new challenges. It was new ways of looking at the lighting. It was new ways of looking at the scenic construction. It was material that they had never touched before and that was, it's just, it's just difficult to imagine that the geometry teacher got as much of a rush out o f d oing that as I did that. I t was really fun. It was, why did I retire? I don't know.
Jimmy Chrismon:
Well, Dana, thank you so much for reaching out to me and for, for chatting with me today. I have, I've loved listening to your stories and your, your words are inspiring to me, so I'm hoping that other other theatre teachers out there and theatre ed students are going to , are going to get something out of what you shared. So thank you.so much for talking with me today.
Dana Taylor:
Well, you're quite welcome and thank you for inviting me .
Jimmy Chrismon:
Dana, thank you so much for joining me on the show. I appreciate all that you had to say and I , I learned so much from talking with you. Um, it's great for me to go back and listen to the interviews that I did several months back. I recorded most of these tech interviews back at the beginning of the summer. Um, and , uh, so hearing them now and, and learning, learning the things all over again has been really great for me. So I hope you are enjoying them and getting as much out of them as I am. I'm going to turn my attention now to my student teacher who is out in the field. Kelli Lawrence . She is at Thornton Fractional South high school in Lansing, Illinois and she's doing a fantastic job with an amazing group of students. A Fantastic CT . she's just learning so much. So I'm excited for you to hear what she has to say. All right. Kelli to tell me how things have been going.
Kelli Lawrence:
It's been good. Um, I can't remember if it was one week or two weeks ago that we last talked about everything, but I know within that time I , um , I've done a lot of work with like building relationships with a lot of my students. Um, and I feel like I've come a long way just within those two weeks since the last time we've , um , so really happy about that. I've been doing a lot of , um, individual like talking to them and I just feel like that that's helped so much and I don't know why it didn't come to me sooner that that helps a lot because during my 385 project, when I had like 10 actors, all who are in my show the entire time and I thought to myself like , I can't possibly get anything done without all 10 of them there at the same time because there's never a point where there are certain kids that are off or certain , uh, actors who are not in the scene. But then it wasn't until I started having practices where only like two people were able to show up. And that's when I got the most work, like most work done. And I was able to talk to those students and build a little, a better relationship with those students because it was like more individual and more , um , of a smaller group. And that's what I've been doing the past couple of weeks , uh , with each of my classes. Um, they've been kind of on the same schedule of they get a pantomime and then they get two days to work on that pantomime and then on Monday they perform it. And on Fridays , usually how it was going was they kind of have like a free day to rehearse with their partner. But what I had been doing is instead of giving them the time, I say that , uh, I give each group a time to rehearse onstage by themselves rather than having to share the stage and , um , do it in front of me so I could give them a little bit of a feedback with it. And then that way, the first time that they're performing on stage with it all to themselves, it's not the first time that they're getting graded. So it gives them a little bit of a chance to get comfortable. But I just found that doing that, like talking to each one of those groups, I've learned so much more about every single one of my students, than I would have like as the whole group. Um, and I, I genuinely, I wish I would've done it sooner kind of talking to each individual one or at least going up to them to doing it . Hey, how's your day going ? It just helps wonders . So that , that's what I've been doing the past few weeks and it's helped tremendously.
Jimmy Chrismon:
Good, good. And how do you feel , um, about your classroom management and your planning and how , how all that's going, I know you're doing your planning cause I see it every week, but how do you feel all that going?
Kelli Lawrence:
Um, it, it's, it's got it's highs and lows . I know there's certain points where I'm just so frustrated with not being able to either fit certain things into the week where I want them to be. Like if I need them to get to point B by the end of the week, I need to figure out how to do X, Y, andZ before getting to t here. I know those letters didn't even go together, but you know what I mean. U m, and sometimes it works and I get so, so excited when it does and other times it doesn't. And I have to rearrange things. And my theatre production class specifically, I've, I probably had to rewrite those lesson plans like 20 different times each week just because part of their grade is working on the set for the musical that they're doing. And, but if the person who's working tech hasn't given us o ur, like the design plans yet, or if he doesn't specify what he needs, then we can't do that. And I've got a whole week's worth of stuff that I now need to either p ush t ill next week or figure out something to do in the meantime. And so being flexible is definitely also s omething that I've been working on because I've had to, u h, had to switch around at the spur of the moment and multiple times leading up to that point.
Jimmy Chrismon:
Well, but has that helped any with your, your confidence in front of the kids and your competence in what you're doing there?
Kelli Lawrence:
Yeah. Yeah. I definitely think so. I know I'm , today was kind of another one of those days where I had to come up with like a spur of the moment thing to do. Um, because what we were planning on doing, I've found out the hour before, we couldn't, because of the same reasons, like with the, we couldn't work on the set that day, so, and that's all that I had planned, so I had to come up with something within the hour before , for us to do. And , um, it's definitely gotten a lot easier for me to get to that point. Um, and I know during, like if I ever have to do that actually during the hour, I think that the kids have seen that too. And , um, I, I never have an issue with like coming up with something or keeping them busy or something like that. So I think I see that that's a good thing. And I know another thing that I've learned is like, keeping them busy is like key. Like don't just let them have an, like if something could be done in five minutes, don't give them 10 minutes to do it. give them a timer straight, do it, and then have something immediately in your back pocket to do that. So , uh , that definitely helped a lot. Uh, yeah,
Jimmy Chrismon:
yeah, yeah. Well I, I enjoyed watching you this past week and I can definitely tell some growth and you and I are going to go over that and just a little bit and get into the nitty gritty of that. But I, it was encouraging to see that growth and you definitely took the things that I recommended from the last time I observed and put them into practice. And I know it was a totally different group of kids, but , but you were doing those things that I, that I mentioned and I know your cooperating teacher is, is, is there with you and she's, she's helping you in the moment and helping you. I think it's really good that you're having that experience of, as frustrating as it is and as challenging as it is those in the moment changes or the period before having to rethink what you're doing because something happens. Yeah , that's just real life. I mean that's, I mean I'm planning to in the auditorium sixth period to work on my set and suddenly the principal wants to have a , an assembly that period, okay, what are we going to do in my classroom? So it's just, it's real life. So I'm glad you're getting that experience and , and I know, I know you're handling it really well cause I would, I would have heard by now if you, if you weren't, and I know you are. So thanks for chatting with us this week. Thank you so much Kelli for chatting with me . Thank you Dana for joining us on the show this week. I want to thank you for listening. Please check out our website, www.thedtalks.com. That's T H E D T a L K s.com. You can find all of our past episodes. You can subscribe to the show there. You can go back and check out all the resources that each of the teachers have brought to you as well as find the transcripts from each of the shows. Please make sure you go on your favorite podcast provider, Apple Podcasts on iTunes, Google Podcast, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, Anypod, Tunein. Go on there, subscribe to the show, rate us, review us, tell us what you're thinking about it and most importantly, share it with those theatre educators or future theatre educators in your life. Please don't forget that we have a fantastic new segment coming up soon on the show called So this just happened and it is all about you and all about the questions and situations and stories that have come up in your classroom and situations that have come up. And you just know that you are not alone in dealing with these things, whether it be in your classroom, in your school, or your community as a theatre teacher. Um, we want to hear from you. So go on THEDTalks.com. Click on, so this just happened. It'll take you right to an online form where you can submit those scenarios, questions and situations to us. We're going to read them on the air and my friend Miriam Kuykendall and I are going to bounce ideas off of each other with some possible responses, solutions, and interventions to what you give us for the show. If you'd like to come on and talk about it, we would love to have that as well. Or you can just submit anonymously, submit as many of those as you'd like to have us discussed, discuss, but please only submit topics that do not need immediate attention and are not emergency type questions. I also began a new segment on our social media and on the website called pep talks. If you have not checked that out, you need to do so. It's just a quick, a quick video of meme using about a particular topic of something that I find interesting or that's on my mind and that I think could help you. So check us out on all our social media for that. If you're wondering where we are on social media, on Twitter, we're at theatreedtalks on Tumblr THEDTalks.tumblr.com on Facebook. Find us on THED Talks, Instagram @thedtalkspodcast, and of course you can always find things on our website, www.thedtalks.com. Don't hesitate reaching out to me if you want to be a guest on the show or if you have ideas for topics on the show or if you have some feedback for me, I'd love to hear that too . Email me at Thedtalkspodcast @gmail.com thank you Joel Hamlin and Joshua Shusterman again for the use of original music Magnetize and Flip the Record. Very grateful to you both and I'm grateful to you and theatre ed students and theatre professors for listening. Thank you so much and I hope you have a fantastic week. Keep doing amazing things with your kids and uh, I look forward to interacting with you on social media and checking out next week's episode. I'm Jimmy Chrismon and this has been THED Talks. Hope you have a great week.
