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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 11 of Pipe and Drape. The following snowy tale from the Finger Lakes is about the crossover between theatre education and the performance. My guest worked on stage and in elementary school classrooms to weave creative writing and folktales into the New York State curriculum. Thank you for listening with me today.
S: Today's guest is Rusty Allen. His “Ruscapades” have taken him to Barter Theatre in Abington, Virginia; Blackfriars Theater in Rochester, New York; and on the internet with Love at a Distance: A Virtual Shakespeare Cabaret with Newnan Shakes and Hold These Truths with Gensing Asian-American Performance Ensemble. About a month ago, Rusty finished the world premier of Shoyu Tell at Lexington children's theater in Kentucky. He and I met after he performed Romeo and Juliet with his company Madness Most Discreet in Philadelphia just before he made his way up to the Finger Lakes to travel with Rev Theatre Company On Tour, which we are going to hear all about. Rusty, welcome.
RUSTY ALLEN: Hi, Stephen, thanks for having me!
S: Rusty we have played do-si-do with a couple of these companies actually. I feel like you did one and then I did one and then I did one and then you did one and we've been dancing all around. And now you are currently based in Chicago?
R: Yes. In the Chicago area, that's correct.
S: When you were a kid what kind of things were you doing on the playground in your backyard to keep yourself entertained?
R: You know, like a lot of people who do theatre, I was a total weirdo as a child. I'm not sure I grew out of it. But lots of make-believe, you know, lots of pretending I was someone I saw on TV or read about in a book. A lot of hitting my siblings with lightsabers, you know, stuff like that. Big sci-fi fantasy nerd. Loved visiting imaginary worlds, kind of still do to this day!
S: Did you always want to be an actor?
R: No, actually I thought I was going to be an elementary school teacher or a special education teacher. I kind of knew ever since I was little that I wanted to do some sort of service-oriented profession…But yeah, I thought it was going to be an educator and interned at an elementary school and high school and went to undergrad to study childhood and special education. And I got there and something just felt a little off, and I'd always loved performing since I was a kid: Christmas pageants, community theater, high school musicals, all that good stuff. But I didn't really understand that that could be a career. I didn't really have any perception of what actors could be other than like Hollywood. So I went to school to be a teacher and I just felt like something was a little strange. And I had some friends who recommended, I try studying speech therapy or speech pathology. So I was studying to be an SLP or a speech language pathologist, and that felt better. And I was still studying theatre on the side and acting and I was about to student teach in a school and again, I was like, ‘Huh, something doesn't feel right.’ And I did some digging and I realized what I really loved the most is theatre and performing, and I think that theatre is an active service in a way—just like in a classroom or a therapy session. But I think finding my way into the performing arts is still fulfilling that childhood ambition of mine, providing a service for other people, it's just for an audience instead of a classroom. So I kind of tried not to go into acting I guess, but it didn't work and here I am. So no, didn't originally think I'd be an actor, but that's what I am today.
S: You seemed to combine this world of education, children and theatre into a children's theatre pattern. Was this purposeful, did you seek out jobs in TYA?
R: Yeah, so I think that having such an interest in working with young people kind of naturally helped me transition into performing for them instead. And I think that there are a lot of really incredible companies like The Rev where you get to perform andteach. And I think that's a really special connection because like, if you visit a classroom and you say like, ‘Hi, my name's Rusty, and I'm here to teach you about like how you can have a career in the arts,’ or, ‘This is what a play is,’ and they meet you as yourself and thenthey see you as a character and they see you transform…there's just like something in that relationship that's special and unique. It's almost like the whole is greater than the sum of its parts somehow.So I loved the idea of teaching and performing going hand in hand because I do have a background as a teaching artist and an education, too. And I think also there are so many different styles of acting and so many different kinds of plays, but when you're doing plays for young people, they tend to be so fantastical, right? And I think that the magic and that fantasy element I was talking to you about before, it's not that adults don't get any of that but I feel like young people get way more of that. So I kind of did have like a natural inclination to seek out theatre for young audiences, yeah.
S: How did you get connected to The Rev?
R: That's a great question. So, I had attended the New England Theatre Conference, or “NETC,” when I was going to graduate and they were casting and out of there. And I also had friends who had worked there because they toured around where I was from in Rochester, New York. So had some perception of them as an organization before, and then I attended like a giant audition conference for the new England region and that's where I first met people from The Rev. I can't imagine I had more than ninety seconds to do my initial package. And I'm sure I did either two monologues or a monologue and a song…maybe it was sixty seconds, maybe it was ninety. But then as far as a first impression goes for a company in the callback, this was one of the most unique callbacks I ever had. And I think it showed me that the standard at this company is super high. And I think that there's this misconception that because…if young people are watching a play that you can get away with anything, right? Like you can phone it in, or you don't have to be at your best or all kinds of things that just aren't true. And it was a hugely challenging callback. And I remember Lisa who was the artistic director of the organization, was looking for actors who were super versatile and who could make big choices and embody a character and start improvising as them. And she would go down your resume and say, ‘Great, I see you played this role. Give me that person, give me that character, go.’ And then she'd let you go for about thirty, you know, however long. And you're terrified. And you're like, ‘Oh my gosh, I've never done anything like this,’ or at least I hadn’t. And then she's like, ‘Great. Now switched to this person. Great. Now switch to this person.’ And it was so terrifying, but it was also exhilarating. And they asked for that level of bravery commitment, fearlessness, you know, willing to do silly things at the drop of a hat. That was a great and very accurate first impression for the company. And that's the callback that I've never forgotten all these years later and I'll probably never forget. And I hope I don't have to do it, anything like that again, but it was so much fun at the time.
S: What were those first couple of weeks like at The Rev for rehearsal and training?
R: Like I mentioned before, The Rev has you not only performing but teaching as well. So you're rehearsing your show which is what we're used to as actors, right? But because it's a touring show, you also have to learn how the set operates because we'll be responsible for loading it into schools or venues unloading it. You're also learning how to teach workshops. So I remember we taught workshops about creative writing for the ECHOES creative writing competition and a pre-show workshop, too. So the first show I did for example is called The Magic Paintbrush, and it was a retelling of a Chinese folk tale, which was super special for me as a mixed-race Chinese American getting to tell a Chinese story or a piece of traditional Chinese culture to young people was deeply personal. And our pre-show workshop had anything from a few introductory words of Mandarin to familiarizing them a bit with the geography of China, some cultural touch points that would become relevant during the play, even simple things like familiarizing them with Chinese names that might be unfamiliar to their ears. So it wasn't just rehearsing a play. Although that of course is important too, it's learning how to teach, learning how to tour, all kinds of stuff in the first couple of weeks alone.
S: I feel like you must have thrived in that as someone who was an aspiring elementary school teacher for so long.
R: Yes, yes. It kind of felt like, ‘Oh, I didn't know this job existed, but it's actually exactly what I wanted.’And for me it was kind of my first big contract where I felt like, ‘Wow, I can really say I'm making my living as an actor.’ You know, before I had done summer stock or short term, like a workshop here of out-of-town contract here. But at the time my contract was nine months long. Right. So I was like, ‘Wow, I'm like doing the thing,’ you know, that I wanted to do and I got to teach, too? It was like the perfect combo for me personally.
S: You're in the classroom with these kids, the teacher is present, but it's not their moment to be in charge of the class. Did you face any challenges taking charge of a room that wasn't necessarily your own?
R: I think I was lucky in the sense that I did have more of an education background than a lot of actors do. But I will say, Stephen, that I think it takes a kind of courage to embody a character and step out on stage; I think it's a lot scarier (at least it was for me) to enter classrooms as myself. And part of that might be like, I think a lot of us who come to the arts might have been perceived as other or different growing up. So I don't know, there's kind of the sense memory, like you walk into school or like a gymnasium. Like I had a lot of instances of bullying in school as a young person, especially in gym and you're doing your show there and it's like, oh gosh, like it can bring back those feelings. So it's kind of like this full circle moment of revisiting these places that, as a young person, there were hard times, there were amazing times and stepping into the classroom kind of reclaiming it and trying to be that accessible adult or role model or educator for the students.And I think leading with that mentality, I guess of like, ‘I am here for you and I want everyone in this classroom to feel seen and heard and invited to participate,’ I think helps. I think students pick up on that and that energy. So that would always help me if I felt like maybe I was walking into a classroom that could be a little bit more challenging.
S: Speaking of challenge, typically with theatre for young audiences you don't have a lot of time to put your show together. And there are not a lot of people in the show either. So you tend to be carrying a lot of the weight, either in text or scene changes or costume presets for someone else. What was it like learning these shows?
R: I did two shows during my time, the first show was four people and the second show was three people. So pretty small casts. And luckily I had done some smaller scale touring before that with a similar setup. So I was used to kind of that workload/how things could be delegated. But like you said, sometimes you have to do heavy lifting and sometimes it's literal, right? Like, you're literally responsible for this heavy thing. But I think that it also can help form this sense of ensemble, too, you know, that we're all like working on these tasks together and there's no artificial like, ‘Well, we’re are the actors and you’re the tech,’ so everyone's always working on the same/towards the same goal, which is to put up this piece of theatre for the audience. So I think it helps bond everyone, but also there are extra challenges in very high pressure situations along the way, too. A lesson that I really had to work on, and I'm still working on it today, is collaboration. And when you're working in such a high-pressure situation, like preparing for a performance or even performing itself, that's very stressful. And when there are different personalities in an ensemble, you can be at odds together even though you're working towards the same goal. So that's an instance of how doing this play or this job didn't just make me a better actor; it also showed me like, ‘Hey, there are some things you could work on in your personal life too.’ So, some painful lessons, yes, but some lessons that I'm glad to have started learning and I'm still working on them
S: You're doing these workshops, you're doing shows. Can you take us through a day in the life of a touring actor with The Rev?
R: I would love to. First thing: you wake up very early, right? If you think back to how early an elementary school or middle school schedule runs, and that's the type of group you're visiting. So you wake up and you meet at your van, it could be as early as 5:00 AM and you get into the van and then someone has to drive the van to the first school. You may or may not have had to scrape snow off the van. Probably yes because it's an upstate New York or central New York. And then when you get to the school, you need to check in with the office because security's important and they can't just let anyone wander into the facility. Then everything that you need to do the play needs to be taken from the van and put into the venue and set up. So your costumes, all of your props, your set pieces, yourselves, all of that needs to be taken in and set up. I feel like I'm making it sound so simple, but it's not. [Laughter] And any like magical, beautiful technical element: there's physical prep that needs to go into that. Then after that you go into the classroom and you teach some of the workshops I was referencing before. So for The Magic Paintbrush, there was that workshop on Chinese culture that lasts around thirty minutes. And then if you're done teaching, you go change into your costume and then you do your play/you put on your performance and then once that's done, you have to clean up everything that you've set up and put it back in the van. Rinse and repeat. What we used to say is, “Every day, twice a day,” so what I just mentioned about ten times per week. And that's the gig. I think one huge advantage to me at the time was the consistency. And everything that I'm describing was a perfect fit for me, but a lot of actors have different needs. And so, for example, I love to teach but a lot of actors don't and I totally respect that. And a lot of actors would prefer a shorter commitment. At the time I was like, ‘Great, I would have a job, I would have stability for nine months.’ I also love that it was a company where you got to do multiple shows. So you got to be challenged to play different characters which is a great creative opportunity. Like the first show I did, my characters were much more comedic relief. And then the second show I did, it was more of like a protagonist who kind of had a big lesson to learn. So, I felt like I got to really stretch my artistic boundaries while I was there. I also think that there's a really great sense of community there. Like when you're doing these crazy things, waking up early, having these wild experiences at school—that's really bonding. And so even when you're not necessarily working with a person or on the road with them or in the van with them, when you're all home at the end of the day, it's like a great sense of community. That was really special.
S: What are some adventures that you had up in the Finger Lakes?
R: Well, something that I loved about being in the Finger Lakes is that it was kind of close to home to me. So it was kind of a new region of the state to discover. But we had people in our ensemble from all over the country. So, getting to treat them to a classic upstate New York autumn, for example, like apple picking, orchards. A lot of people would…when you say you're from New York they think the city, right? And I'm like, not…that's not up here, you know? So showing people that there's more to this state than just the big apple itself, I guess.
S: How has this experience propelled you forward as a young adult?
R: That is a great question. And it's so funny you ask that because when we were kind of catching up I talked about how actually the last play I got to do was another play for young audiences with a different company. So it's fresh on my mind, how getting to do theatre for this specific population affects me. And I think that doing theatre, doing really anything for young people is so selfless because they're so unpredictable and they're so honest and they do everything with their hearts and they’re so funny. And I think we all, every human being is in danger of getting so wrapped up in ourselves. But I think especially in our industry, right? Like it's so easy to just fall into or get stuck on the hamster wheel of like, ‘Oh God, my audition and my show and my performance and my career,’ right? It's tough to be an actor and so I feel like it leads us to this mentality of scarcity where it's like all we can focus on is ourselves. And, like I said before, I think doing theatre is not about us, it's about the audience. It's an act of service. So what more demanding in the best way, challenging, fun, joyous population than young people? I think it's very humbling to do plays for young people. And I personally am someone that could be humbled/should be humbled at least once, twice, ten times a day. This might sound like so corny, but I think it makes me a better person. And I think that's even more important than being a good actor.
S: Rusty, where can our listeners go to see more of your work?
R: You can go to my website, which is www.rusty-allen.com.
S: Awesome. Well, thank you for speaking with me today.
R: Thanks, Stephen. It's been so fun.
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S: 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.
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R: But I do remember once in a middle school, when a teacher thought I was a student and I was confused because I was a twenty-five-year-old man. Sometimes, kids say the darndest things that is true, but you know who also says even darndester things? Their grownups.
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