Episode 7: Marcus Stevens

[Pipe and Drape theme plays.]

STEPHEN FALA: I’m Stephen Fala, and you’re listening to Pipe and Drape, the only podcast that spotlights the creative minds behind the theatre for young audiences industry. Every two weeks I sit down with a theatre professional to hear their stories about the audition, rehearsal, and development process of theatre for young audiences. Each of them have bridged the path from youth to adulthood while living in worlds created for children. My guests have mounted shows small enough to fit in a minivan to productions so big they travel by caravan. You can join the conversation by emailing PipeAndDrapeStories@gmail.com or messaging @PipeAndDrapeStories on Instagram.

This is Episode 7 of Pipe and Drape. This pipe and drape story focuses on the challenge of adapting short stories for children into an hour long, small cast musical. My guest directed and co-wrote a massive collaboration between some of his favorite writers for a new TYA show to tour out of New York City. You’ll find out all about the writing and creating process for TYA in this episode! Thank you for listening with me today. 

S: Today's guest is writer/actor/director, Marcus Stevens. Marcus embodied Mandy Patinkin and other legends in recent Off-Broadway versions of Forbidden Broadway (both Alive and Kickin’ and Comes Out Swingin’), performances that received praise of “sheer genius” and comparison to Hirschfeld’s caricature brilliance from the Associated Press and New York Times, respectively. You've also seen Marcus onstage with York Theater Company, Pittsburgh CLO and all the other theaters in Pittsburgh, Walnut Street Theatre, and Mandy many more. In addition to singing sweet Mandy nothings into your earbuds, Marcus provided the lyrics and stories to a number of musicals, including Mythic, which premiered in London in 2019, the Richard Rogers Award-winning musical RED, Yo, Vikings!, and Live and Let Spy (created and recorded begin zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic.) He directed and developed the tour ofDragons Love Tacos and Other Stories, concerts, musicals, and (on top of all of this) he shares his creative gifts as a teacher and coach. Marcus is a director and educator with Upper Darby Summer Stage, which is how he and I met. Marcus shared the stage with fellow New York personalities Bree Lowdermilk and Josh young at Strath Haven High School, which is also my alma mater. For years I had seen his face in posters on the walls of my high school's arts wing, and I finally had the opportunity to work with him after I graduated (first as a coach, then a director.) And today Marcus is joining me from his New York apartment to discuss his work adapting and directing Dragons Love Tacos and Other Stories. Marcus, welcome.
 
MARCUS STEVENS: Thank you for that amazing intro. It makes me..it makes me feel so, so good about myself. [Laughter.] It’s so great to be here. 
 
S: I'm very glad to have you because you are actually the first director/writer that I am interviewing for this.
 
M: That's exciting! That's cool. 
 
S: Yeah! So when you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? 
 
M: When I started out thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up, when I was like in elementary school, I wanted to be an animator. Like, I wanted to basically be like the next Walt Disney. I used to like draw things. Now that I look back at that it's like I wanted to tell stories essentially. And then I discovered theatre and there was really like no turning back. And I was interested in a lot of things at a very young age. I was performing all the time in middle school shows and Young People's Theatre Workshop (which was a program in the area) and Upper Darby Summer Stage. But I was also really interested in writing. I used to pour over these Sondheim coffee table books that I got from my bar mitzvah and like stuff like that. And I was interested in set design. I was just interested in theatre in general. I think when I got to high school I sort of narrowed my view and said, ‘I want to be an actor,’ but I got to college and I couldn't stop writing while I was studying acting. So I've now come to this place where I'm like…I'm really glad that I didn't pigeonhole myself. I just kind of wanted to be a storyteller. I tell stories in a lot of different ways. 
 
S: Strath Haven now has a class (Advanced Studio Theatre) which is student-run productions. And so that actually started with your independent study when you were in high school and you had directed/put together a production of The Fantasticks. Was that your first experience running the show? 
 
M: Yeah, I think so. I remember being really, really interested in sort of creating something from the ground up and collaborating with all of my friends to make something. I had a student choreographer and a student music director and a student orchestra pit. And it was so amazing that John Shankweiler (who ran the program over there), it was so amazing that he actually was like, ‘Yeah, sure. You can do that,’ and I feel so honored that that turned into a class and is now a staple at the school. 
 
S: Yeah. I took that class every year in high school. That was an additional two shows I did every year just because I was taking this class where we had eighty minutes a day to work on something, which was really cool because I found as a kid growing up, theatre was my escape. Do you remember seeing theatre in your elementary school growing up? 
 
M: Oh sure! Yeah. I remember a couple of touring groups coming through, and I remember sitting in the main room (whatever that is) the cafegymnatorium and watching these things. And I remember being so fascinated by the people performing. And I remember I was so excited in third grade because we did a musical (our third grade class) and I remember thinking like, ‘Oh, I'm going to be like those people that come to our school and do these plays.’ 
 
S: How did you get involved with adapting and directing Dragons Love Tacos and Other Storieswith TheaterWorks in the city?
 
M: You had mentioned in your introduction I had written RED with Bree Lowdermilk when she was in…she was a senior in high school when I was in college. And essentially, as you said, theatre is an escape, and I did not want to go to college parties. And so I stayed home and wrote a musical! It was a good excuse to be like, ‘I can't come out tonight. I'm I'm writing.’ Really it was like, it was just something to keep me occupied, and we were very lucky that Point Park produced the first production of that show. And we just happened to…we submitted to a bunch of things, and we won the Richard Rogers Award, which was like, I didn't even know what the Richard Rogers Award was when we won it. And that really sort of catapulted my interest in like, ‘Oh, well maybe I can do this professionally too. Like maybe I can be a writer.’ Bree and I had also written a show for Summer Stage that was a TYA show called Elliot and the Magic Bed, which was a totally original thing. It was an amazing opportunity that Harry Dietzler at Upper Darby Summer Stage gave us to commission a show of ours. And the thing that got me to the city finally was that I got into the BMI workshop, which is basically a workshop for writers who are interested in writing musicals. That's where I met one of my other collaborators, Sam Willmott, who I wrote this show Yo, Vikings! with for Summer Stage also. But essentially we were like, ‘Oh, well we should take Yo, Vikings! and get some professional theatre to do it. And so that was my first introduction to TheaterWorksUSA. We had a meeting with Barbara Pasternak over there to present to her Yo, Vikings! and Barbara really liked Yo, Vikings!, but she was like, ‘It's not a known title. It's not a show that is going to sell as well.’ But she and I kept in touch over the years. She saw a piece that I directed in the New York Fringe Festival, and she was like, ‘I think you'd be really good to direct this new thing that I'm developing.’ And she brought me in to have a meeting about that, and it ended up that she was like, ‘It's this anthology piece that's like a bunch of children's books.’ I think she had like one or two of those books already adapted into like these like ten/fifteen minute pieces. And then she was like, ‘But the other ones haven't been written yet and I haven't been able to find somebody to write it.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I could write it.’ And she remembered that I had written Yo, Vikings! and she was like, 'Oh! I loved that piece! Yeah! Yeah, why don't you write it?’ So I ended up sort of being a multihyphenate on that production, which was that I wrote and directed. So I sort of wrote two thirds of the show and directed the piece. 
 
S: This show had a lot of people involved. It it looks like a massive collaboration. Some [all] of the other writers: Brendon Milburn, Janet Allard, Sam Salmond, Mark Sonnenblick, Ben Wexler, Joe Kinosian, and Bree Lowdermilk (teaming up again!) Were all of these writers in the room with you when you were working on this or was it all just kind of everyone divides and conquers a little bit to the show? 
 
M: There was maybe one or two times throughout the process where all the writers were there. This show was four or five different books. And so each writing team was sort of given a book. I was asked to write Dragons Love Tacos, which I got my friend Joe Kinosian to write with me who I met at BMI. (Joe also wrote Murder for Two.) We couldn't figure out how we were going to connect the stories. A lot of times when they do these anthology shows for TheaterWorks, they just sort of do an opening number and it feels sort of review like, and I really didn't want it to feel that way. And we came across this other New York Times bestselling book called Interrupting Chicken, which is basically about this little chicken whose dad is reading her bedtime stories to go to bed, but she keeps interrupting the stories ‘cause she knows what's going to happen. And we were like, ‘Oh, well, what if that's like the opening sequence, and then the rest of the show is them reading these other stories?’ And so they’re these two characters that sort of have an arc and go through the whole thing. And so Barbara was like, ‘I love that. That's a great idea. Let's have you write that sort of arc.’ And because we were having different writers write different pieces to give…so that each story had its own sound and its own sort of vernacular, we didn't want me and Joe to write the opening sequence and Dragons Love Tacos because we wanted the opening to have its own The Opening and the sort of like connective tissue to have its own sound and its own feeling. And I was like, ‘Well, I'll call Bree!’ The beginning of it was…we did a developmental workshop where we sort of spent a couple of…we would spend like a couple of days on each individual sort of chunk/individual story, and we'd work on that story with those writers. And we brought in a bunch of actors and sort of developed each individual story, and then we eventually started piecing the whole thing together. And then we did a sort of a workshop slash mini tour in New York City later that year. I believe that there were like maybe two times throughout that where like everyone was there. 
 
S: Is it writing a show where you know, ‘Okay, I have fifteen minutes to tell this story or these five stories, I have this many actors, and I know that the show has to fit in a van.’ Given those parameters, did that have a big effect on how you chose to build this piece? 
 
M: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I love about the theatre is that there are certain things that you can get away with on stage that you can't get away with in any other medium. And that is that theatre is the only is the only place where you can…you know the example that you can always point to is Peter and the Starcatcherwhere you can hold up a piece of rope and say, ‘This is a door,’ and the audience will fill in the rest of the…they will use their imagination and fill in the rest. I love that sort of sense of play and that sort of scrappiness about TYA. And it's probably because I grew up doing things like Summer Stage and creating The Fantasticks with no budget, with my friends. It’s that theatre is the most fun for me when it is scrappy, when it is like, ‘Let's figure this out, how do we make magic out of this cardboard box that we have?’ My son is almost four now, and that's literally what he does, is that he will find a cardboard box and it becomes like seven different things. And you know, it is such a great lesson to us as theater makers, because it's like (especially when you're making a show for kids), it’s that if their imaginations can do that with the cardboard box, it's like we have to put ourselves in that place and say, ‘How do I make these five locations out of this one set and make it so that it feels magical?’ I was really into this idea of it really feeling like just five actors running around and playing with various found objects to sort of make magic, with us using our imagination as an audience, and then sort of being the facilitators of that. So the whole thing was created with that in mind because we knew what the limitations were, but those limitations often are what makes the show the best that it can be. I think the fun of it was figuring out how can we make this feel cohesive but also feel like we're surprising you at every turn. And we're taking something very small and making something very big out of it. 
 
S: So as a director, what did you do to get your actors to tap into that imagination/creative world to get on board with that? There's a lot of times at TheaterWorks where the actors are fresh out of college and they've just studied Meisner or Chekhov or whatever, and then they're jumping into this world where everything's moving like this [Snaps around.] and there's a lot of endowing (set wise) to make things work. So what was your approach to that with these actors, with those young adults?
 
M: One thing that I was very careful to do in auditions was sort of try and create a very sort of warm environment where they felt free to play and where it didn't feel like I was judging them on anything. That it was literally just like, ‘Hey! Let's experiment with some stuff. What could this police officer who loves to eat toast talk like? What does this character like? What is this, you know?’ And we would play in the room. I really tried to sort of create that environment and the people that were willing to sort of really play with me were the people that we ended up using, because we felt like that was the atmosphere that we wanted to set up. And I did remind them (because I think you're right, that especially with young actors who have just studied serious theatre in college, serious with a capital S), you do have to remind them that the same techniques that you use…like everything that you do has to be authentic, right? So, when it's insincere and it's over the top it doesn't work. But if it's over the top and it's sincere then it is, it's great. A lot of it is just about changing the size of things. A lot of young actors want to keep things so small and so tight so as to be real. It's not real to mumble. Just change the size of what you're thinking about. I did continually talk about (because that was sort of the idea behind this), was that I did continually talk about, like when we're kids and we're playing imaginary games in our room, we believe every second of it. You know what I mean? We are fully committed to the game. I remember like playing with my sister and we would be secret spies or we'd be pirates, or we'd be whatever and you're fully committed, but there's also this sense of play where your like, ‘Let's change this. It's going to be this now!’ I continually sort of try to remind them that some of the sincerest form of acting is that imaginative play when you're a kid and that this is what we want to create in this setting. It’s that we want these kids to see themselves in you, we want them to sort of go like, ‘Oh yeah, right. That's what I do at home.’ One of the big goals that I had with the show was that I wanted it to be very clear that the actors were actually having fun with each other while they were doing it. That there's also this element of like, ‘We're the performers and we're enjoying the telling.’ 
 
S: What kind of discoveries did you and your team make during the process, either workshopping the show, working on your mini tour or with the first cast? 
 
M: When you get it in front of an audience of kids, you can tell when they are getting restless. You know when you've stayed too long at the farm and you need to tighten it up. You learn the pacing that is needed. You sort of learn that from an audience of kids. You don't ever need to talk down to kids at all, because sometimes you think like, ‘Oh, they're going to love this. This is so funny!’ and they are like… and they get restless, and you're like, ‘We've got to shorten that.’ And then you think, ‘Oh, this is…this is like…really like sincere and weighted and they're not gonna…they're not gonna pay attention.’ I think that's always a learning curve with kids. I think you never know what they're going to get out of those things. And the best TYA theater is when adults write a story that they think they…what I was trying to do with Dragons Love Tacosis make something that I would want to watch. When I was a kid I grew up watching the Muppets, and the Muppets aren't for kids. But what I got out of it was whatever I got out of it. I had one version of the story in my head, but missed all of the grownup jokes that were in there, I'm sure. It's always a good idea to write something that you would want to see in the world, and it happens to be okay for kids to see as well. I think that that makes for good TYA theatre. 
 
S: So what are some things that you have taken away from your experience writing and directing material for kids. How has all of this changed your life as an artist or a dad? 
 
M: I think, well, I've always been attracted to theatre for young audiences and stories for kids because I think it's the purest form of storytelling. I think it is (I don't want to use the word “simple” because it's not simple), but it is the most profound sometimes because there are hardly ever any subplots. You're really focused in on the thematic element of the story that you're telling. With Dragons Love Tacos the arc that we decided to go with was that this kid wanted to throw this party for dragons because he wanted friends, but his little sister who was tagging along the whole time he was sort of like ignoring. And then she ends up like saving the day and helping him figure it out, ad then he like realizes that she was there all along. Which is very, very simple, but in essence, if you really focus in on that and really dig deep into what that is about, that relationship—it's just the most human thing. It's not talking about weighty ideas, it's just talking about very pure, deep human emotions, which is the most relatable storytelling you can… It's why adults love Disney movies. It's why we're all still so deeply connected to the shows that we did as kids, because those stories resonate because they are just so universal. I always gravitate back to that because I'll write something a little bit more “adult” that isn't necessarily for a children's audience, and then I'll always want to like go back and like refresh and write another kid's show. Sometimes when I write adult pieces…so Mythic is an adult piece, but it's based on Greek mythology, which is in essence, folk tales (which are what a lot of TYA shows are) and oftentimes when I would get stuck with Mythic I would go back and say, ‘What is the TYA version of this?’ and that would often reveal to me the most important part of what the scene is supposed to be, because what you're trying to do when you're reaching kids is hit them on this deeply human, emotional level with lots of heart. You’re just trying to get straight to the point of what is important about what's happening. And so I would always (when I would get stuck with Mythic), I'd be like, ‘What's the TYA version of this?’ And oftentimes (like nine times out of ten) that was the right way to go. And being a dad, it's just like, I mean, I'm just fascinated by my son's imagination. We play these imaginary games and I think to myself, ‘Gosh, I got to remember this the next time I'm writing,’ because this is so much more creative than I ever allow myself to be. [Laughter.] He's just…there's no filter. He's just…wild abandon. He just comes up with stuff. ‘You know what? This, this ship does this thing, and this ship does this thing.’Hhe doesn't edit himself. And I think that's a great thing for an artist to think about. That's exactly what we want to be able to do. 
 
S: How can our listeners find out what you're up to; see more of your work? 
 
M: They can go to my website, they can go to marcus-stevens.com. They can look, they can look me up on the Instagram! My handle is @marcusstevensny.
 
S: Be sure to check out Marcus’s work online and in person! One of his newest shows Wake Up Daisy written with collaborator Sam Willmott will play at the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre in Central Park in 2022! Wake Up Daisy is a modern take on Sleeping Beauty and it’s set in New York City. It’s a fantasy with marionetted characters from all five boroughs of New York, original music, and flying tacos.

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You can join the conversation about theatre for young audiences and find more Pipe and Drape content including photos, quotes, and TYA news on Instagram @PipeAndDrapeStories. And please be sure to rate and review Pipe and Drape wherever you listen to podcasts! Each star given or review submitted helps future listeners to find the show. Be sure to tune in every other Tuesday to hear theatre for young audiences creatives share their pipe and drape stories. Pipe and Drape is created and hosted by Stephen Fala and distributed by Anchor. Artwork for Pipe and Drape was created by Stephen Gordon and music was composed by Stephen Fala. Thank you for listening with me today.

Find Marcus Stevens:
WEBSITE: https://www.marcus-stevens.com
INSTAGRAM: @marcusstevensny

Connect with Pipe and Drape:

INSTAGRAM: @PipeAndDrapeStories

EMAIL: PipeAndDrapeStories@gmail.com

Host: Stephen Fala

Artwork: Stephen Gordon

Episode 6: Brianna Nicole Hill

[Pipe and Drape theme plays.]

STEPHEN FALA: I’m Stephen Fala, and you’re listening to Pipe and Drape, the only podcast that spotlights the creative minds behind the theatre for young audiences industry. Every two weeks I sit down with a theatre professional to hear their stories about the audition, rehearsal, and development process of theatre for young audiences. Each of them have bridged the path from youth to adulthood while living in worlds created for children. My guests have mounted shows small enough to fit in a minivan to productions so big they travel by caravan. You can join the conversation by emailing PipeAndDrapeStories@gmail.com or messaging @PipeAndDrapeStories on Instagram.

This is episode 6 of Pipe and Drape and “you’re gonna need a bigger VAN.” In this episode you will get a sneak peek at the behind the scenes action of big arena spectaculars. My guest shares her experience traveling and performing with a children’s theatre tour that is as big as they come. You’ll hear all about brand integrity, self-care, and arena life! Thank you for listening with me today.

S: Today’s guest is actor Brianna, Nicole Hill. She has performed with New Stage Theatre in Jackson, Mississippi, and Playhouse on the Square in Memphis, Tennessee. Bri participated in the 48 hour play festival with FEMMEmphis as a playwright, and she wrote and produced a one-woman show titled The Truth of the Matter. She has thousands of miles of experience on the road touring with big brands in a live arena spectacular, which is how she and I met. On the road, Bri exposed me to the greatest barbecue in the world, held me when I cried in a puppet, and danced many nights away with me in Texas. Bri is joining me from Winter Haven, Florida to discuss the big brand show that brought us together. Bri, welcome. 

BRIANNA NICOLE HILL: Oh my goodness. Hello Stephen. How are you, babe? 

S: I’m good. How has everything down in Florida? 

B: It’s good. It's a little muggy. It’s getting into that rainy season, but you know, it's snowing still in some places. So I am not mad. 

S: So snuggle up everyone, because we have a lot of things to talk about today. 

B: This is true. We’ve gone through a lot together. 

S: We have, we traveled thousands and thousands of miles across North America while playing this generation's favorite cartoon characters. When you were a kid, what were the things that you were watching on TV?

B: I promise you, I was not watching a lot of kids’ shows. It's really funny because growing up I was the youngest, and so my sister was watching a lot of like SpongeBob but at the same time she was watching Degrassi, she was watching Lizzie McGuire, soap operas for kids you know what I'm saying? I watched a lot of Codename: Kids Next Door. It was just a lot of shows and dramas soap operas when I would come home from school. A lot of Maury. 

S: You were already wise beyond your years at a young age. 

B: Basically, I looked up to George Clooney and what Whoopi Goldberg. Let's just put that out there, okay?

S: I want to take a deep dive into your imagination. What kind of games did you play when you were a kid? 

B: Oh my God. So, because I was younger by like three years, my sister thought she was better than me, so I was very much alone with my thoughts and, oh my God, I would make these stories. I was a storyteller from a young age and I would always be acting out different scenes that I remember from shows. I loved ER, a good medical show, and I would pretend I was a doctor all the time. That was me. [Laughter.]

S: Did you want to be a doctor when you grew up? 

B: Yeah, for a second there, I really did. And then my mother told me that I had to deal with babies dying because I wanted to be an obstetrician, and that slowly died. [Laughter.] And so I thought, ‘You know, what? If I can't, I can't deal with that ’cause that's just tragic and I don't want to deal with that kind of energy—what if I played one on TV?’ and that's kind of how I got into this like path of performing. But you know, shout out to everyone who can do that. That is a very hard job. 

S: Do you remember seeing theatre as a kid? 

B: Absolutely. Ab-so-freaking-lutely. My (well, it was a combination) my mother, you know, I came from a lower-income family; she did what she could, but she had a lot of recorded live theater and live “musical spectaculars” I guess. And it wouldn't just be PBS in front, but it'd also be the Philharmonic or Def Comedy Jam or I remember seeing Porgy and Bess (Was it Porgy and Bess? It was like one of those classic black shows.) ‘cause my mom had it on VHS and I was like, ‘This is amazing.’ And then I got to go to a theatre show (I forget what the show was when I was nine or ten) and I just remember the feeling of the theatre. I have no idea what the hell I watched, but I remember being in the space and just being like, ‘Oh, all this energy is going up.’ You know what I mean? All of us are so excited for what's about to happen. And I thought it was so cool. 

S: Is that magical feeling what made you decide to go to college for theatre? 

B: Yeah? Yeah. It was one of those things where it just made sense to my brain. Also, my mother caught me too many times talking to myself, and it wasn’t something to worry about. [Laughter.] It was just like all these different characters I had in my head; I was very excited to see them and portray them. And she would always…anytime I told her I was bored she'd be like, ‘Go read a book.’ ‘I don't want to.’ ‘Go write a book, go write a story, go write a play, do something, you know, productive, creative.' And then I did. 

S: And in addition to doing all those things in school, getting a degree in theatre, you also got a degree in business administration. What inspired that decision? 

B: It was one of those things where my mom was in the medical field and acting was kind of like a dream. You know what I mean? Not necessarily a career. So there was always a need for a backup plan. And it was originally going to be accounting, funny enough. And I took my first accounting class in college and said, ‘You know, this is not for me. This is not me.’ I could not do as a side hustle even. 

S: You grew up watching sophisticated television programs and went to school: performing, writing, producing, and learning business administration. What was your path to performing a live arena spectacular for children? 

B: So it was through UPTAs when I was working at Playhouse on the Square (they are the ones that actually host UPTAs) and I got to see the background stuff (which is very fascinating to me.) I would love to run something like that. That'd be cool, just like a cattle call audition kind of place. But at the same time, it was a way for me to get information on a lot of what was casting in the area. And I had seen the show that I ended up booking, and my nephew at the time was obsessed with it. And so I was like, ‘Oh, well he likes this. And I would love to perform for him one day.’ You know what I mean? ‘Let me just go ahead and audition for this little diddy,’ because when you think about non-union work, it was one of the better paying non-union jobs out there. You know what I mean? Especially with the possibility of traveling to all of these major cities…that’s the best of both worlds right there (call me Miley Cyrus if you want to) but it was such a great opportunity. And so I did the UPTAs audition. I got a call back for it and when I tell you I bombed that thing… [Laughter.] I was so nervous because it was kind of just like out the gate for my acting outside of like an educational realm. Like, ah, this is, this is different. This is different. Ended up doing a different job the first time first time I auditioned for them. But they had called me after I already signed. And they were like, ‘Hey, would you be interested in an understudy kind of situation?' and I'm like, ‘Well, I already signed this contract, but I see you all next year.’ And then next year came along, I re-auditioned, they remembered me and then I booked. 

S: And then you met me! And then we rehearsed for a couple of weeks in a studio. And then we moved over to tech the show in an arena setting. Have you ever performed in an arena before? 

B: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And it shook me because, this is again, I had some experience under my belt before I did this tour, but not arena experience. And so when I put on the mic for the first time and heard my voice reverb and slap me in the nose…that was the most like jarring sense. You know what I mean? My ears were ringing for a second. I could feel the beat in my chest. It's a lot, you know, but you got used to it, you had to learn to get used to it ‘cause God, that first show who was like, ‘Oh, I hear me.' 

S: Was this your first time touring? 

B: Yes, and an internship that I did before that national tour was just focused in Mississippi. And so we had a home base in Jackson and then we'd go to the different schools with our bus, which when you think about a lot of children's theater, that's more…what typically happens: it’s like you pack a show on a bus and you get a couple actors, then you go to wherever you need to go. And so that's what I was doing. When I first went to the national tour I tried to do something technical like help out with something and they're like, ‘No, you're just an actor.' And I said, ‘Huh? Who me? Who me? Just an actor? I don't have to touch something?! I don’t have to lift it— oh, you’re going to spoil me, you’re gonna spoil me, I’m spoiled.’ Oh goodness. What a very, very different change of pace. So this was like…I felt big time. You know what I mean? I felt like I've made it. This is…this is that tour feeling. You know what I mean? When people are like, ‘Oh yeah, I'm a touring actor,’ this is what they're talking about. Did I ever think I was going to get this feeling from the show? Absolutely not. And yet here we are. Here. We. Are.

S: In an arena filled with kids who are screaming because suddenly their favorite TV show has come to life. 

B: Yes. Oh my goodness. Let me tell you something. These kids…it’s like if I were to go to a show right now with like Rihanna or something—that’s the equivalent in these kids' minds. And you realize that because in my role I got to interview the children and I got to go down there and talk to them…and their joy. And we get to capture it on camera while it happens. Oh my gosh. Or you get the ones that, you know, freeze up and just stare at you and you kind of have to infer every way through it. But even though those are fun too, you know? 

S: Can you take us through a week in the life, on the road with the arena, spectacular, starting with your travel day?

B: You got your travel day, a couple of days before that you get your itinerary. Usually it's already posted, so you can go online and see what city you're in, but your company manager gives you all that information. Sometimes you look ahead to see if there's any cool spots you want to visit, any places you want to go on that particular city. If it's a smaller city, oh it's a resting city: you know, my body, I can check in with my body and see how she's doing. And so you go: get up and travel, gets in that city, hopefully get some groceries if you're smart, and then they have walkthrough. After walkthrough you go and…what would happen? We would go and like do blocking? Numbers? 

S: Yeah. We had to space through parts of the show every time we got to a new venue, because our space on the number line downstage would always stay the same, but the depth of the stage was always different. So we had to adjust our blocking to fit the depth.

B: Especially in the arenas because it was like, ‘Oh, we have a lot of space this time. Oh, we have nothing when we go into this theater house.’ And so you always got to check the numbers, making sure people aren't running into each other. If that happened, it would be that way. [Laughter.] I love live theater so much because you can, every, every city you can do your numbers and something could happen. Completely not your fault, but you just look at it like, well, that's live theater that. 

S: You do your show, kid interview included in the middle of it, show would end, and you weren't required to take the set apart but your job still wasn't over because after seeing their favorite characters on stage the kids get the opportunity to meet their favorite characters in real life. Hence the VIP meet-and-greet experience. 

B: It is in the contract that we have to participate in these meet-and-greets. And most times it's a good time. Like, yeah, it's right after the show, you’re wiping off makeup. And my job, personally, was to escort these face characters into the holding room or whatever. 

S: What happened when kids recognized you from the show but you had to preserve the magic and pretend that you weren't just the character that they saw you play on stage?

B: I would go in there and they’ll be like, [Whispered.] ‘I know who you are!’ and I'll be like, ‘Your escort for today, how can I help you?’ you know…like try to break that. ‘I am not this character anymore. We're friends. You know, I know this character very well. We're buds.’ And I remembered going into these rooms to do the meet-and-greets and beforehand I'll be like, ‘All right, so what accent am I putting on today to try to play around with these people. I'm not this person let's be British today!’

S: I remember standing in a mascot costume (because I would puppeteer for the show and then put on a full-body mascot costume to do the meet-and-greets) and I remember standing there and Bri’s doing this accent and I'm inside this costume and I'm like, ‘What is going on out there?’ Because I can't see. 

B: [Laughter.] Or it would be like, I go to Canada and I'm doing like a Southern Alabama accent. Or I go to Kentucky and I'm like Jamaican. It's this whole game that I would play. And it would help pass the time with keep the spirits up. But at the same time, it was just like…I could not acknowledge the fact that I just played this character on stage, and so what's the best way to do this? And the kids, you know, you get the smart kids. Like, ‘I know you, how do I know you? I know you.’ And like, I'll try to change my hair, different clothes, you know, but some parents would not let me get away with anything, they were like, ‘Hmm, I want a picture with you,’ and I'm like, ‘What? Who me? Escort? Oh no, don’t you want…these mascots?’ You know?

S: You got to do some promo on the news a couple of times in character…

B: Sure did.

S: Tell us…you did the weather one time. 

B: Oh my gosh. You know, that made it into my reel? I sure did, let me tell you something: they asked me to do the weather for this news segment and I said, ‘Oh, that sounds cool. I'm just standing next to the weather person doing the weather!’ They didn't tell me that I would be pantomiming the whole time in front of a green screen! And I had never worked with a green screen before. So I get there, and the man…the weather man just leaves. And I'm like, ‘Where are you going, friend (in the middle of this live network) like where are you going?’ But I can't talk because they were very strict about what these characters say and do all that because it's such a big brand—and so I could not talk and I just had to pantomime and improv like my life depended on it. And let me tell you something: to this day I can watch the video and still cry because I'm laughing so hard. Oh my God. It was one of my favorite memories from this whole experience. 

S: News promotions and VIP experience aside, you finished the show, you’re done work for the day: what do you do? 

B: So we were done by like six, seven o'clock at the latest. And afterwards the first thing you want to do is get that makeup off your face because my God did we cake. And usually it was just, ‘What's the quickest way I can relax?’ because being in children's theatre, you have to have that energy 110% of the time, there’s no falling off. There's no, ‘I have a sick day and I can't go on,’ like, if you're sick, you shouldn't be in the show because you need all the energy. Now did we do the show sick sometimes? You’re dan right we did. Why? Because that's theatre for you. We are taught, we are conditioned that if you, unless you are dying, you are in that show. And that was something personally I had to learn to let go of, because it's okay to call out. If you are hurting, don't break yourself. That's why we have understudies. And it was a lesson that I had to learn because I was taught differently. 

S: Same. What did you end up doing for your cool down after shows? Did you take an ice bath? Look for pralines in every state? 

B: No, I was very much…my, my stories, my YouTube, my Hulu, I would go back to the room and meditate. And a lot of that meditation was honestly just sitting by myself for a second to completely unwind. And then, you know, I'd go out depending on the city (Did I have friends in that city?) because you really are traveling all over the place. Sometimes we had two cities in a week. Sometimes we got to sit down and we can just do the one and that’s usually a big city. 

S: Which one was your favorite? 

B: I really enjoyed, funny enough, Winnipeg was really fun for me. It was freezing cold. It was, what like five degrees Celsius? I was freezing…my Florida blood. But it was an experience that I'd never had. I didn't even know that cities had the under the road travel with the, I don't know what it's called but it's when you go down the escalator and it's just like a whole maze to get to other parts of the city without having to have the weather affect you and such. And a lot of northern cities have those kind of networks, but we don't have this in Florida. So that was just like mind-opening. That was cool. 

S: You introduced me to Lizzo and Winnipeg. 

B: You’re dang right I did. I feel like I introduced you to a whole world. We went to that one club. That random club with that that random music… 

S: Is this New Orleans? I can't, I can't, we can't talk about, um, okay. So in the show—

B: Back on topic!

S: —what is something wild that happened to you on stage? 

B: Oh goodness. There was one show we did where the music cut out. And this is a tracked show. And we were like, ‘Well, let's keep sing I gonna keep doing everything,’ but like everything just stopped. And I got offstage fairly quickly and was laughing my whole face off offstage because in most arena shows it's so loud in there that if your mic is off, offstage you can be having a full blown conversation and no one hears because it's just so loud. But yeah, that happened. Or the time that there was an integral prop that was missing from a certain fruit of the orange variety. And we onstage only found out when we were on stage. Oh my God, it was so juicy numnumnumnumnum. We're sitting there and I realized because somebody offstage told us and was trying to figure out how to get this, this prop to us because we need it for the show because (ding) it shows up on the screen. We need this prop. So we go, doing the scene, doing the scene and they slide it underneath the wall (the LED wall) and then the actor that's behind the set piece picks it up and she like chops/hand switch/magic trick and here's the prop. It was seamless. It was [chef’s kisses] and I was on stage rocking back and forth because my anxiety was so high. And I ended up just like doing everything with like my eyebrows on my forehead. I was so excited. I was just like offstage giving all the snaps. I say, ‘Girl, you did that. Ooh, that was so swift!’ and I was like, wow, my anxiety was high. The whole show, for the rest of the show, everybody was on the ten. Cause we were like, ‘That was some good energy. That's what we needed.’ 

S: We talked about how you were there for a lot of my firsts on the road. What were some special things that you experienced for the first time when you were touring with this show? 

B: Oh yeah. I went to an EDM concert for the first time with some of the crew mates, which was awesome. It’s not a music that I usually focus on or anything (no shade to it, it's just not where I was introduced to) and that concert was amazing. ‘Cause I listened to one of the artists, (GRiZ, very nice, pretty to look at.) I had a New York bagel for the first time. Yummy. Oh, what's some other things? I mean, I got to freaking talk to Ice-T’s daughter. [Laughter.] That was so cool. And it was something where like (because I never know how to gauge celebrities, you know what I mean?) when they're in the audience, I just talk to them like I talk to everybody else because we were all in this together. But when I went out there to do that interview, Ice-T’s wife (I think Coco?), she put her baby in front and said, ‘You're interviewing my child.’ And I said, ‘Yes ma’am, yes ma’am. Thank you.’

S: You took the show to theaters and arenas all over the country and you ended up recording it so it is saved forever. How did this show/this experience propel you forward as a young adult? 

B: I started the tour when I thought I knew me. I thought I knew who I was and my God did I age me slash make me grow as an individual because yes, you have this company manager who manages your whole life (and shout-out to when you have a good company manager, because they can really make or break tour) but at the same time, being my own person, having to deal with my own mental health on tour, having to deal with my physical health, when to learn how to say no, when to stand up for myself: these are all things that I learned because of the tour. And at the same time, when it comes to my career, we were in a whole pandemic. I left tour a month before it ended because of Coronavirus, which, you know, luck on my end I was employed already, you know what I'm saying? But at the same time we had a whole pandemic, or a whole year of not performing, and then out of the blue, they reached out and asked if you wanted to record this for a streaming service. And so it's definitely something that I'm hoping helps my career. Personally, I'm about to move to Atlanta so I'm closer to a lot more auditions and such, which I'm very excited about. By the time this airs, I should be there. Should. I will be there. [She is!]

S: I’m happy to hear that through the pandemic, you were still able to maintain these connections with the company and continue to move along on your path with this family that you made on the road. 

B: It’s nice to talk to people from that company who know you by name, also love what you do, also getting to talk to a director that was going in and was like, ‘I'm excited to work with you in the future,’ and I'm like, ‘I'm excited to work with you in the future! Are you saying there's a future?’ But from where I am now thinking of this, the first audition I had for it where I was only doing it for my nephew…it has changed my world. 

S: How can our listeners reach you? 

B: Yes, reach me! You can always reach me on my Instagram. It's @voiceofbreason, (“breason” spelled like “reason” with a B in front of it.) I think it's a little fun on play on words, my mom came up with it and I’ve just kept it. [Laughter.] Or you can email me at briannanicolehill@yahoo.com. Either way you want to reach out and we can always talk about things. I'm very much into devised theatre so if you guys have ideas…I love working. I love playing, I love having fun with my craft. 

S: Thank you for speaking with me today. 

B: You know, Steve, you can ask whatever you want to me and I'm down for it. Just a little tidbit about Steve and I and our love for one another. There are some moments where I go from stage left to stage, right backstage. And we will…I would walk. I would look at Steve. [Laughter throughout.] We would check in, ‘How you doing Steve?’ He'd be like ‘Great,’ where he would mech with the mouth of the pup and then I’d keep walking and that's all the energy I needed to finish out the rest of the show.

S: I cannot tell you how much I appreciated that because I was stuck standing in this puppet that was half my body weight, emotionally and physically drained.

B: Big boy. 

S: And that just got me through. So I thank you again for that. 

B: Oh, Steve, we helped out each other so much. You have no idea. You were such a kind, such a kind soul. 

S: Bri and I spent some time catching up after the traditional portion of the interview, and there was a piece of our conversation that I really wanted to include in this but couldn’t fine a proper segue SO ~this is my segue~ into something important that I know goes through my mind as a children’s theatre performer, and I’m not alone in thinking this. So, here’s this:

B: I think people mislabel children's theatre as a bad career choice. Because you really do have to have a love for children's theater to do things like that, because it's just you and a van, you know what I'm saying? It’s you and your fellow actors in a van.That is something that your heart really has to be into it because there are times where you don't want to do it anymore. You don't want to get up. How many, three show days did we have when we're like, ‘Finished one. I can breathe. Finished two. We're almost there,’ like doing little mind tricks to get through it because it is work. You know what I'm saying? When I was a kid, I just wanted to bring theatre to other people. That's it. You know what I mean? I wanted to make people feel better with my voice, with my characterizations, with my funny face ‘cause I love being goofy.

S: Please be sure to check out Bri’s beautiful face and her work online, and if you are in the Atlanta area, hit her up! She might want to collaborate on something great.

[Pipe and Drape theme plays.]

You can join the conversation about theatre for young audiences and find more Pipe and Drape content including photos, quotes, and TYA news on Instagram @PipeAndDrapeStories. And please be sure to rate and review Pipe and Drape wherever you listen to podcasts! Each star given or review submitted helps future listeners to find the show. Be sure to tune in every other Tuesday to hear theatre for young audiences creatives share their pipe and drape stories. Pipe and Drape is created and hosted by Stephen Fala and distributed by Anchor. Artwork for Pipe and Drape was created by Stephen Gordon and music was composed by Stephen Fala. Thank you for listening with me today.

Find Brianna Nicole Hill:
INSTAGRAM: @voiceofbreason
EMAIL: briannanicolehill@yahoo.com

Connect with Pipe and Drape:

INSTAGRAM: @PipeAndDrapeStories

EMAIL: PipeAndDrapeStories@gmail.com

Host: Stephen Fala

Artwork: Stephen Gordon