[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 working in the theatre for young audiences industry. 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 Instagram.
This is episode sixteen of Pipe and Drape. My guest is known throughout the regional community as a multihyphenate and theatre podcast host. The following pipe and drape story is about my guest’s experience creating theatre with student actors for young audiences in a theatrical training ground. Thank you for listening with me today.
This is episode sixteen of Pipe and Drape. My guest is known throughout the regional community as a multihyphenate and theatre podcast host. The following pipe and drape story is about my guest’s experience creating theatre with student actors for young audiences in a theatrical training ground. Thank you for listening with me today.
STEPHEN: Hi everyone, I’m here with actor/choreographer/director/educator Sarah Philabaum. Sarah has performed literally all over the country with Maples Rep, Rocky Mountain Rep, Great Plains, Shenandoah Summer Music Theatre, the Caravan’s tour of A Christmas Carol, The Little Theatre on the Square and Round Barn where she also choreographed several shows. She is the Director of Dance Education at the Y Arts Center of Downton Frederick Maryland, teaches at Bella Ballet Kentlands, the creator and host of the podcast There’s No People Like Show People, and we’re going to hear about her experience directing Seussical while serving as Director of Education at The Little Theatre on the Square. Sarah, welcome.
SARAH PHILABAUM: Oh my goodness. What a delight, a treat, and an honor. I am so thrilled to be chatting with you!
STEPHEN: I’m so excited to have you on the show. I mean, I'm sure all of our listeners know who you are, you’re probably the most famous person (Laughter.) I mean, like, this isn't even your full resume, I'm supposed to keep this intro under like thirty seconds. But we've worked at most of the same places and know all of the same people. We even, we chatted about this…so I was a guest No People Like Show People a few months back and we chatted about how we were both in the Christmas Carol tour at the same time, just in different casts, so we were both in rehearsal in Omaha at the same time, performing on different coasts for a month.
SARAH: Yes. Merry Christmas. (Laughter.)
STEPHEN: Now we'll have a Christmas!
SARAH: You flatter me. I am very famous. I'm not. I like to call myself either a local celebrity or a Q List Celeb.
STEPHEN: Q! (Laughter.) I don't think it's that far down the alphabet.
SARAH: I do.
STEPHEN: And so on your show There's No People Like Show People you have throughout the last couple of years connected and reconnected members of the theatre community through your conversations and listeners. Just having listened and been a fan of the show, I'm recognizing so many names of different people that I've met over the years kind of performing around the country so I mean, you're the perfect person to be doing that podcast, because you know,every single person,
SARAH: I truly feel like this pod, it's like no stone left unturned from the global theatre community. It's hands down, top five, one of the best things that I've ever done. I have met so many incredible people, people that I don't know. Yeah. I've had have a lot of people reach out on Instagram, email, Facebook Messenger, be like, ‘Hey, I love your podcast,’ or, ‘Would you consider to interview me?’ And I'm, and I am always like, yes. It also is funny to me cause I think sometimes people think that they have to impress me try to be a guest on my podcast. But guys, there is one requirement to be a guest on There's No people Like Show People. Do you know what it is, Stephen Fala?
STEPHEN: YoU gOtTa Be a ShOw PeOpLe.
SARAH: Yes. Have you worked on in any capacity, any capacity, have you worked on one show in your lifetime? That's, that's the requirement. That's it.
STEPHEN: So if I came on and my only experience was my kindergarten production at the Three Piggy Opera, could I talk about it?
SARAH: Absolutely.
STEPHEN: Great.
SARAH: We want, we want to hear about it.
STEPHEN: Were you a show people as a young kid?
SARAH: Honey, I grew up on the stage. Truly. The first show that I did, I was in first grade, six years old. They had auditions at a local community theater production for Gypsy. I went my, you know, this little six year old girl went up there. Now, of course I had already been taking dance classes since age four. So two years dance experience had just started voice lessons and was maybe in like an acting class. I marched up on that stage and my audition song, I belted out the song “Applause” from Applause the Musical, and I booked it. I booked my six year old self booked the role of the balloon girl in, what is it, Uncle Jocko's traveling vaudeville show where Mama Rose takes the hat pin out of her hat and runs and pops all the balloons. And I've been doing theatre ever since.
STEPHEN: Did you see theatre before you were in theatre?
SARAH: My family—huge supporter of the arts. And we were just always going to see shows, like community shows, middle and high school productions, regional tours. I grew up in Maryland, so we would always drive up to New York at least once or twice a year to go see as many Broadway shows as we could. Like theatre has truly been, it's just been like an everyday part of my life for as long as I can remember.
STEPHEN: So you ended up going to school for theatre. Was that sort of like a, without question, you are going to study and get your BFA in this?
SARAH: Yes, it was BFA or bust for me. So I applied to five colleges and I ended up going to Shenandoah in Winchester, Virginia. The, and I got my BFA in musical theater with a minor in dance because, for several reasons, it was the closest college to home that offered the degree that I wanted. So it was about an hour and a half away. And I think it was good for me. I had applied to a school in New York, I applied to a school in Chicago. I think I was too young to be going that far away from home. And they offered me a talent scholarship so half my tuition was already paid for.
STEPHEN: Did any of your training, either at Shenandoah or throughout grade school, prepare you for tour life or theatre young audiences?
SARAH: Yes, actually! So Shenandoah is a really great school because they do so many different productions. They do, I mean now this was when I was therewhich was a long time ago so I'm not sure how the program has changed, evolved you know, but when I was there, they did two musicals a year, they did an opera, they did a straight play, they did two theatre for young audience shows, they did directing projects, there was all kinds of stuff. And so you were always auditioning for things and basically like, you were kind of required to audition for everything until you got cast in something. Like someone was going to cast you and maybe it wasn't your first or second or…but you always had performance opportunities. And there was also the Shenandoah Summer Music Theatre, which was great ‘cause you, that was like a separate thing. And you know, professional summer stock company, you could audition and do that in the summer. I did three summers of that, which was super, super helpful for me as a young actor transitioning from college into the world. But I think my first TYA that I performed in was actually The Jungle Book at Shenandoah. I auditioned and somehow was cast as Baloo the Bear.
STEPHEN: Oh!
SARAH: I was the only female that was called back. It was me and four other guys in the callback and like all different types of guys, tall, short, you know, different body types. And then me (Laughter.) I'm like, oh, okay, cool. I was like, there is no way that I am going to get this. But I was just like being my dorky, goofy, weird self. And then when the cast list went up and it said Baloo the Bear, Sarah Philabaum, I was like, wow, I am booked and blessed here.
STEPHEN: Something that I've been thinking about a lot recently is like the spirit of a certain character. Bringing theater to kids when they're younger, especially with shows that are also very popular films, kids might come into the show with an expectation of, 'Oh, this is the movie, but it's just live.’ And then theatre is an opportunity to be like, well, when it's not the movie, it's going to be different, but it's going to carry the same spirit in essence regardless. So Baloo’s not gonna sound like this because you're playing it so the character's going to sound different but still carry that like fun wild spirit like that you were able to bring to it and bring out in the character. So I think that must have been a really cool experience for the kids to see the story told in a different way, but still have the same messages and excitement and sense of those characters.
SARAH: Yes.
STEPHEN: How was that putting, putting that together?
SARAH: It was great. It was really cool. The set was awesome ‘cause you were in the jungle the whole time. And so there was like a, a rope, you know, bridge and a bunch of trees and vines and rocks and a bunch of levels and it was super fun. I think that was my first show in college that I was cast as a lead role. So it was a big deal to me because before then, I was a musical theatre major and I always auditioned for the musicals. I would get called back and then I would never get cast in the main stage shows. And so there was a part of me that doubted my own talent. I was like, am I supposed to be here? Is this what I'm supposed to be doing with my life? I'm not really, am I just not good enough? And it wasn't until my senior year of college that I finally got cast in a main stage musical. So it was like a solid three years of what's going on here? Like, I'm a musical theater major, like why am I not in? But I was in The Grapes of Wrath I was in Father of the Bride I was in The Jungle Book, I was in everybody's directing project, I sang in performance for like, there were so many opportunities. So I was still like, and taking classes, I was also teaching. I had like a million jobs. You know, now that I look at my college life, it's very, very similar to my life now as a 35 year old mother to a three year old, I'm like, oh yeah, I'm still doing like eighty-seven things ‘causelike I'm running a dance studio and I'm teaching part-time at other dance studios and I'm still directing shows and I'm hosting my own podcast.
STEPHEN: (Laughter.) That’s so much.
SARAH: It’s a lot. It's a lot.
STEPHEN: And how did you find yourself in the position of director of education over at Little Theatre on the Square?
SARAH: Yeah, so I had been there for two summers as an actor in their acting company, you know, like the whole summer doing a million shows on shows on shows. So we would do like the TYA in the morning, we would rehearse another show in the afternoon and then we would perform yet another show at night. So I did that for two summers and then by the end of my second summer, the artistic director approached me and said, ‘Hey, we are looking for a new director of education. I thought of you, are you interested?’ And I said, oh, like, yeah, like, you know, I was flattered but nervous. I'd never really been in charge of a whole program before, but I was like, of course. So then I started, I had a couple other contracts after I left in the fall and Christmas, and then I started in January of 2018. And I remember just kind of being like thrown in and they were like, ‘Oh Sarah, you'll be fine. You'll figure it out. It's all good. It's kids. You have so much experience with kids and TYA,’ but I was a little bit nervous, especially when it comes to like the arts administration side of that job.
STEPHEN: But then you did it!
SARAH: Yes, I did it by asking for a lot of help.
STEPHEN: No one can do it alone.
STEPHEN: No.
STEPHEN: It really is a collaborative art on stage and off to make theatre happen. When you took the the position, what were some of the duties that you had as director of education?
SARAH: I was pretty much in charge of the whole program. Now Little Theatre on the Square is in a small town, it’s in Sullivan, Illinois, so it wasn't a big program, but that was good. Like these kids, they inspired me so much because they reminded me of when I was a kid and how much, they loved theatre so much. Like if they could sleep in the theatre, they, they would, it was their passion that really inspired me and motivated me to show up for them every day and to always push myself to do my best for them because they deserved it. So I taught…it’s hard to remember how many classes, like this is going back a couple years, but I taught dance and acting classes. Those were like weekly ongoing classes throughout the year. I directed and choreographed TYAs and junior shows. And then occasionally I would also perform in some of the main stage shows as well. And then I communicated with all the parents, we held auditions for all the TYAs, I coordinated the dance recital. And I liked it because I was never doing the same thing. It was always a lot of changing, wearing a lot of different hats and creating a lot of different shows. I never got bored. It was never boring.
STEPHEN: How did you go about the show selection process for the TYA series?
SARAH: So in the summer they do three TYAs in the summer. And sometimes those are with just the adult company. Sometimes it's sort of like a mixture of adults and kids. Sometimes it's just all kids depending on the show. And then in the fall they do a junior show and then in the spring they do another junior show. So the first show that I directed there was Seussical, Jr. And that experience, I mean I love Seussical so much. One of my favorite shows, I think it is so well-written and so well-crafted as a show. We had auditions for the show and we ended up casting forty kids. And to this day I think I've worked on over, oh gosh, I don't even know it, like over two-hundred different productions throughout the last thirty-some years whether it's performing, directing, choreographing, teaching, running, spotlight, doing whatever it needs to be now, whatever needs to be done. And this specific production is within my top ten favorites that I've worked on of all time.
STEPHEN: So you cast 40 kids in this show that's gonna be presented to kids and families. How do you go about rehearsing a piece like this?
SARAH: Yeah, so the classes that they would take would be during the week. So we would always have our rehearsals on the weekends. And so I would say for about two months time, auditions were end of January, then we would start rehearsals in February. We would rehearse all February, all March, but only on the weekends. So we usually rehearsed for about four hours every, so like noon to four, Saturday noon to four, Sunday. We'd come up with the rehearsal schedule, we would email it out to all the parents, we created a private Facebook group with everybody. We would take videos of all the numbers, upload the videos into the invite-only Facebook so they could like… and we would be like, ‘Look, you better watch those videos.’ (Laughter.) You know, as a director, I feel like I have said these, it's like you say the same thing, it's like the first day of rehearsal speech and it's all these universal themes and things. It doesn't matter if you're working with kids, if you're working with adults, if you're working with people doing their very first show, if you're working with people doing their eight hundredth show, it's the same stuff and it's always about attitude. I really think attitude and work ethic and community and being part of a team and coming together to create this thing. And so I would always say we don't have the time, it's like eight year olds doing their very first show, I’m like, we don't have the time to move backwards, we only have the time to move forwards. So the expectations are you need to go home, learn your lines, learn your music, learn your choreography, and when we come back next weekend, minimum, wherever we left, whatever number we just learned, it needs to be at least one tiny step up from where we last left it, it cannot go backwards. We have to keep moving forwards. And what's cool, like I would watch these miracles happen every single week with these kids. Now this was a cast, so forty kids age, I think the youngest was eight and the oldest was eighteen. So like a wide age range. So you would have the kids doing their very first show ever, which I think is one of the most special experiences, like very first show. And then you would have the kids in high school who most of them went to college for theatre or musical theatre or some sort of theatre-related field who are like die hard, theatre. And watching that sort of mentorship with the older kids to the younger kids, it was like really like such a beautiful, beautiful thing. I made these, like, we ran these rehearsals, like it was like Equity. like we would take our Equity ten, take our Equity five very professional, like this is when you are expected to be off book, this is when tech week is, this is when… it was like a professional show. And we held those kids to that standard because we know that they could do it and they did. You know, they surpassed the expectations that were set upon them. And that's why I think sometimes educators, I think foolishly believe that kids aren't capable of all the things that they are truly capable of. And even even the kids themselves, they think, ‘Oh, I can't do that.’ Or, ‘I'm not good enough,’ or, ‘I can't memorize all these lines,’ or, ‘I’m never gonna remember that dance routine.’ And I'm over here being their coach and their mentor and their director or choreographer or just their friend. And I'm like, yes, you can do that. You need to go home and you need to work on it, but maybe you can't do it today, but next week, next month dress rehearsal you're gonna do it. I know you can do it. I don't know, I tend to see things within people I think that they can't necessarily see themselves, regardless of the age. And it is always my goal, my primary goal as a director/choreographer is to make people shine and to find the gold deep within themselves and to truly, however I need to do it ‘cause there's different methods or tact everyone's different, but to try to really like, let's dig, dig, dig on down, deep down, deep, deep, deep in, into your soul and like pull that gold out of you so that you can feel magnificent and you can feel so proud of yourself and have this confidence that you never even knew existed within you. And you can truly shine on stage.
STEPHEN: Something really special that these kids have that a lot don't have is that the kids are getting encouragement from someone who is professionally in their shoes when they're not directing them. As the director of education there's decisions that you had to, to make about where's the money going in this show, how am I as how as I director of the piece, how am I gonna spin it? And then, you know, having a higher position in theatre, like, okay, how are we going to allocate the monies into doing this piece? How did you handle that both creatively and administratively?
SARAH: It was kind of like, the theory is what can we use that we already have? How can we repurpose, how can we, you know, slap a coat of paint on this platform or set piece that we already have? Because that's very smart and very economical. We had these four benches that were like perfect for the courtroom scene. I'm like, let's paint them like this crazy like red color, you know, just make it Seussical, like splash a bunch of rainbow, colorful paint. Whoville was in the back on these platforms, so like all the Whos were on platforms, so they were kind of like in their own world. And then the jungle of Nool was all sort of like on the stage, proper downstage. We had this great line of lights at the very front, the edge of the stage that we put all of these little clovers kind of sticking out. So we kind of had this like row of clovers lining the whole stage. And we had a great scenic designer. My good friend Michael Mason also…all these people are on my podcast.
STEPHEN: Michael Mason was my roommate when I worked at Lexington Children's Theatre. Hi, Michael.
SARAH: Look at that! We love Michael Mason. We love to see it. And he sort of created these really cool like Seussical-looking trees, like the truffula trees that are all around? Itwas pretty great. It was like a really cool platform. Some really cool trees and then small set pieces that we already had benches, chairs, blocks, the jail bars for when they're in the circus that we just kind of like rolled on for little moments. But it was mostly a unit set.
STEPHEN: So I wanna hear about all these wonderful things that happened behind the scenes while working on this.
SARAH: So it was the last day of shows, it was school performances. We had four hundred kids out there waiting. Fifteen minutes before the show was supposed to start our Cat in the Hat got really, really sick. Now, since we run these productions as if they are Equity productions, all of the leads had understudies. Now, we had not had a formal understudy rehearsal. It was just kind of like, come to rehearsal, write down your blocking, if someone has to miss a rehearsal, someone can stand in for them, like that kind of thing. But wouldn't you know that one of the guys who played the Wickersham Brothers was the understudy for the Cat and the Hat? Now he has never, never run through the show before as he's a Wickersham Brother. I mean, I was downstairs in the dressing room, like drawing with an eyeliner pencil like cat whiskers like on. And I was, I was like, do you think you can do this? Like, be honest with me. Like, do you feel okay? Because we can cancel the show. Like there's options here. You know, like we can, if you don't feel okay, we we'll figure it out. He was like, no, I got this . I was like, okay. He's like, I know it, I know it. I was like, wow. So Wickersham Brother went in for the Cat and the Hat. Our choreographer went in for a Wickersham Brother. The show happened, I'm telling you literally flawlessly. It is one of the most, to this day I'm getting goosebumps like just talking about it right now. It's one of the most incredible things that I think I have ever seen. And nobody knew, no one would've known.
STEPHEN: Kids are amazing.
SARAH: Yes, they’re amazing!
STEPHEN: That used to happen in, like, I remember in middle school, people would miss rehearsal all the time and someone from the ensemble would just jump in and they would know all of the lines in the blocking. I'm like, how?
SARAH: How do you know this? It, it was, yeah, it was really, really amazing. One of our youngest actors, it was his very first show, he was a Who on Whoville, adorable, cute as a button. And the last show he asked me, he said he was like, ‘Miss Sarah, I really wanna say a prayer before the show starts. Like, can I do that?' I was like, and I said, okay, sure. Like, have you ever done this before? And he goes, no, like, he was like kind of sad. I was like, oh no, no, I didn't mean it like that. Like not, I was like, I was gonna tell you like, we usually do this at five and we'll call everybody the, you know what I mean, like the protocol of how it works. And he was like, oh, okay. And he was super excited about it. We gathered full cast, forty kids standing in a circle. It's gonna make me cry in their Seussical costumes and this little eight year old boy crying, like sobbing his eyes out, everyone's holding hands. And he's like, ‘I am just like, I'm so happy. I'm so thrilled. This is the best thing I've ever done. I've loved doing this show so much. You guys mean so much to me. I think you're so talented and I'm just gonna miss you all so much.’ And like everyone is like sobbing, weeping. And I have a picture of it. It's in black and white. It's everybody's standing in and I like to call that Austin's Prayer Circle before the last show.
STEPHEN: That’s cute. And I also, I remember doing similar things, or like pre-show rituals when I was that age thinking like ‘Oh, this is a thing we do now.’ And then going into the industry, like people will bring their own, their things that they want to do to get the cast together. During Christmas Carol before curtain, we would all stand on stage in power stance. I don't know if your cast did that too, but that was like, we would all like do this together. And it was just like a, a fun thing that someone started and then we were all doing it. Kids will just ask to do something and it's so pure and that really does carry through adulthood where people say, I I want to do this. I think this will bring us together. And then you, you stand and sway in a circle or you do like a “in the mouth of the wolf may the wolf die” like that kind some kind of thing. So that's really cool.
SARAH: Those kids changed my life. They re they really did, they had such an impact on me and being with them and working with them. Because to me in this business, we are all equals, we are all the same. And that's the biggest point of my podcast. I don't care if you have done seventeen Broadway shows. I don't care if you've done one community theatre production, I don't care if you're seven, I don't care if you're seventy seven. Have you done a show? We are all the same. We are all in this together. You know, it is such a strong community of support and we need to be there for each other especially when we go through those difficult times of life when you feel lost or you're like, I don't know why I'm still doing this, or this is, this business is too hard. It's it's just too hard. It's, or I'm, I'm exhausted. I'm so burned out. And those kids really, they reminded me of when I was their age and they inspired me to keep going and to keep doing what I love, despite the many obstacles that are in your path to keep climbing up the mountain and to keep fighting for what you believe in and keep fighting for your dreams. So it's crazy to me because I've performed on eight children's theatre tours. So I've been all over the country, performed in gyms, cafeterias, gymnatoriums, libraries, outside courtyards, performed in jails, like juvi centers, all different kinds of community centers. I've directed and choreographed a ton of TYA some with adults for kids, some with kids for kids, some with a hybrid of kids and adults. Director of education, taught lots of classes, now I'm director of dance education. So the children, they keep calling me back. They keep calling me back. And when I was auditioning a lot, mostly at theatre conferences and UPTA, I would almost always be called back by the majority of the children's theatre companies that were there. And I think it's because I'm very loud, I'm very expressive, I'm very big, I make big, bold, crazy like charactery choices. That's my wheelhouse I guess if you will. Like, if you want me to be in a Chekhov play, that is not it… I am not quiet and subtle . I am big and loud. So they were like, ‘You are perfect for the children.’ But it's just the way that all of these kids all over the country have really impacted me. And yes, like as a performer and a teacher, but mostly as a person. And I think the reason why I love kids the most is because they are so positive. They are so passionate about what, about what they wanna do. They're so curious. And half the time these kids would work way harder than the professional adult company that was there. And I'd be like, the kids are showing you up, the kids are showing you up so you better go home and like, think about that and come back tomorrow and because why not give it your all? The kids inspire me daily to be a better version of myself and to try harder and work harder and to show up better. Yes, for them, but also for myself.
STEPHEN: Sarah, thank you for speaking with me today. How can our listeners find out more of what you're doing, where you are, and hear more of your stories?
SARAH: Oh, yes. Okay. Well you can find me so many places. I'm here, I’m there, I'm everywhere. on Instagram, my personal Instagram is @philabaumshell which is a nickname that I did not give myself that somebody gave to me years ago. And I was like, well that's a great Instagram name. And then my podcast Instagram is @TheresNoPeopleLikeShowPeople I also have a actor website, www.sarahphilabaum.com. And if you are a fan of the podcast, we also have a merchandise website where you can go on and look at hoodies and sweatpants and water bottles. And that's theresnopeoplelikeshowpeople.itemorder.com. So my very dear friend Zach Smith, I think it was his junior year of high school when, ‘cause this was now four/four and a half years ago that this production happened and he is since now graduated, he's gone on to college. He is going into his senior year at Milliken getting his degree in music education. And he has become, he played Horton the Elephant in the show, and he has become one of my best friends and now he is the sound editor of my podcast. Guys, my podcast would not happen without the magic that is Zach Smith. So like, that's super special because we had been in a show together and then he was kind of the lead in, in Seussical that I directed and now he's one of my best friends and my sound editor. So like, yeah, amazing.
STEPHEN: Be sure to check out Sarah's podcast There’s No People Like Show People on your favorite podcast app and keep up with Sarah on Instagram.
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