Episode 20: Tyler B. Quick

[Pipe and Drape theme plays.]

STEPHEN: 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 20 of Pipe and Drape. This pipe and drape story is about one of the most challenging art forms in the field: marionette performance. My guest had just a few training sessions before putting his skills to the test in front of an audience of children, and he has been performing with marionettes ever since. Thank you for listening with me today. 

STEPHEN: Hi everybody. Today I'm sitting down with New York puppeteer puppet builder and writer. Tyler, be Quick. Tyler has performed all over New York City at St. Ann's Warehouse, the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre, Caveat, the subway entrance at the corner of 14th and 8th during the Art and Odd Places Festival and at Parks and Schools in all five boroughs via the city Parks, puppet, mobile and safe. Through the arts, Tyler's puppet and costume builds have appeared on Saturday Night Live, in the street with Theater for the New City, with Randy Carfagno Productions, and most recently Disney's Winnie the Pooh with Rockefeller Productions. Tyler recently completed a residency with Object Movement Festival where he wrote and developed the biographical piece, The Story of Baba Vanga. This iteration of his show included shadow puppetry, marionette months of research, Bulgarian folklore and millions of schemes of yarn. Right now we're going to hear the pipe and drape story of Tyler B Quick, which leads us around his homeland of South Carolina and over to the Columbia Marionette Theatre. Tyler, welcome. 

TYLER: Thank you, Stephen. You also didn't say that you played a wonderful part in my show and the Object Movement Festival. So I just had to say that you did a great job. 

STEPHEN: I don't try to be like, aNd My WoRk Is, but yes, so this is not the first time Tyler and I have been on stage together and by that I mean on a stage together. We worked backstage together at Barter Theatre, we were stage left together. We met my very first day of my apprenticeship. I was thrown into tech for Wizard of Oz and Tyler told me what to do and it was such a relief. 

Stephen Fala, Tyler B. Quick, and William Cate at the top of Act II of The Wizard of Oz at Barter Theatre, 2014

TYLER: Yeah, that was an interesting time. We were stage left though and we held stage left down. 

STEPHEN: Um, yes we did.

TYLER: Especially the Wizard of Oz. You know, fly systems were stage left, so...

STEPHEN: I had never flown anything before. And on that first day they were like, 'And here are these people that you will be flying.' And I said, okay good luck to those people. And so I'm grateful to have had your guidance throughout all of that. And you literally cued me. There was a cow that had to fly across stage during the tornado sequence, which I will still have nightmares about, and Tyler's cue was "Moo" because I wasn't on headset . So I would just fly the cow across the stage and then they would lower it and they would, that was such a whole thing. The cow.

TYLER: That's right it wasn't. Instead of a cue, it was a moo. 

STEPHEN:I think every cue should be a moo 

TYLER: Moo number one, standby Moo number one, go. 

STEPHEN: But a lot has happened since we worked behind the scenes together folding snow cloth and mopping the stage and flying people. A lot's happened between then and now. And a lot happened before then. You know, the Big Bang, but also you did a lot of things with your life. So you grew up in South Carolina. Tell me, what was it like being a kid in the south? I'm from the land of Gritty and the Philly Phanatic and so that's like a whole thing. But you grew up outside of Columbia? 

TYLER: Yeah, I mean we moved a lot when I was growing up. So we also lived in North Carolina for a big chunk of my life, including that's where I graduated from high school. So when I tell people like where I'm from, they ask whatever. I say I'm a Carolina boy rather than specifically north or south. And there's always this feud between North and South Carolinians about which one's better. And I'm like, I don't know. I lived in both, I love both. When I was thirteen I was living in Durham, North Carolina. I was at a school and we did a production of the Sound of Music and I played Friedrich von Trapp, the older son. It was a very fun slash awkward time 'cause I was going through puberty. I was thirteen so it was very much like, you know, Sound of Music, they do do re mi fa the whole thing. And it was all like soprano singing, including my little brother whose voice hadn't changed yet. And then when it got to la, it was la and that was me! All that aside. I fell in love with it and I kept doing it. And I guess here I am.

STEPHEN: Sound of Music the film notoriously has the "Lonely Goatherd" scene where they're doing marionettes, but like, are they? And you ended up doing a lot of marionettes with your life. Is there any correlation between you doing that musical, like that first exposure to theatre and marionette later in life? 

TYLER: I have never made that connection, but that is such a lovely connection and I'm gonna keep going forward with that--that my first show was Sound of Music, which had marionettes in it. It's very fitting. I didn't, but no, I have no connection to Julie Andrews whatsoever other than I think she's very talented. 

STEPHEN: She is. And so you continued to do theatre from that point on and you ended up studying theatre in college? 

TYLER: Yeah, I was. I went to college and I became a theatre major and I decided, actually I didn't really make a decision, I kind of was just like, I don't know what I want to do in theatre. So I would perform occasionally, not that often. I stage managed, I did some like props design, so I kind of just like ran around the board and like sound design and kind of just like, I was like, I don't know what I want to do in theatre, but I know that this is where I want to be. College goes on and I do, I did do a children's theatre performance. I was part of, it was called AYPT, the Appalachian Young People's Theatre, which was a program at app that was really great. We basically would devise an entire show, like thirty-minute show and make the costumes. And for that one we did have puppets and we ended up touring it around western North Carolina. 

STEPHEN: Was that your first time using puppetry in theatre? 

TYLER: Yeah. Yeah, that was the first time. There was one like "typical," I'm using air quotes here, kind of puppet, whereas like a hand puppet basically. But we all were performing with masks as well. We played various animals, so we did AYPT and when I graduated I moved to Barter, got a job at Barter as a production assistant/part of the stage management team, met you.

STEPHEN: Hey.

TYLER: After Barter I moved to Columbia, South Carolina. I hadn't lived there since I was like ten years old. I basically applied to every theatre in the area and the first one to get back to me that paid was the Columbia Marionette Theatre. And I was like, oh, interesting. I could play with puppets. I like puppets. Who doesn't love puppets? I go to visit the theatre and I drive up and as I'm like rounding the corner there's a few trees blocking the building. So like on the main road you can't really see it. There is a little sign that says Columbia Marionette Theatre with an arrow pointing down the road, but when you turn on the road, you all of a sudden see a medieval castle and you're like, what is this? And there's a big dragon on it and you're like, wow, okay. So you drive around and then it says Columbia Marionette Theatre on the sign. When I got there, I looked around, there were marionettes all over the walls from previous shows and then inside the theatre there's like a seating section and then off to the side are like what they call party areas for birthday parties, which all have different themes. There was like a dinosaur theme and a castle theme and whatever. And then you walk to the front of the house and there's a stage there. You walk back and you see there are two bridges back there, which is actually different than the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre, there's just one bridge there. At ours we had two, which became pretty useful for having several marionette puppeteers. You could, if a puppet needed to walk downstage, you could hand off your puppet to the front bridge puppeteer. There was a gap in the middle of the bridge, um, that you would walk the puppets through so they could go all the way downstage. I went in to meet the artistic director, Lyon Hill, an amazing person. He's a mentor of mine and a close friend. He asked me about my experience, I said I had little to no puppetry experience and he said, are you willing to learn? And I said, yes. He had a little practice marionette and let me play with it. And then we went up on the bridge, and he was like, I'm just gonna give you some basic techniques right now. And he gave me a job. Yeah, he continued to teach me the whole time I was there. I was there for two years. 

STEPHEN: In addition to your duties as a puppeteer, did you have to do anything with the, the parties and events that happened at the theatre/castle as well? 

TYLER: Yeah, people show up for birthday parties about thirty minutes before the show and then they have their pizza or whatever. And then if you booked a birthday party, you get one of the first couple rows. So like there were four birthday sections, and the house was divided in the middle, so the first two rows split into four sections were for the birthday parties. So they all got to sit there and be crazy kids or whatever. I was mostly hands-off unless they like needed to be pointed to the restroom or we also sold concessions before the show that I would help out with. It was very like a mom and pop type vibe in the theatre, and it was family owned, or it's is family owned by the Scollon family and I worked with John Scollon and his daughter Sam, both at that theatre and it was founded by John's mother. 

STEPHEN: Marionette shows tend to be full of spectacle and tricks and all sorts of things. So what was your rehearsal process like, getting each of these pieces together before playing for these birthday parties? 

TYLER: Yeah, we had a decently strenuous rehearsal process, honestly just because while the shows are only like thirty minutes long, twenty to thirty, it can be very physical, especially when some of the puppets are on the heavier side. They, we did have a spectacle or tried to in every show so a lot of puppets were pretty big. There would be moments where we did Aladdin and there was a genie that came down and I'm six two to give the listeners an image. It was probably from like my head to below my waist in size, and widthwise bigger than my shoulders. I would have to lift this puppet, kind of spin it around during the moment when Aladdin rubs the lamp and smoke would come up from the stage and then the genie kind of twists his way down from the above the proscenium. So it was a little physically strenuous at times. The rehearsal process, however, you know, they knew when we would need breaks and things like that. And the artistic director Lyon, he always had very good feedback. So the rehearsal process overall was like very like cohesive. I think we just worked well together. 

STEPHEN: How many of you were up on the puppet bridges during the show? 

TYLER: We had three puppeteers per show, sometimes we would have four, but the only time there was four was when the fourth person was on the floor like doing shadow puppets or something like that. 

STEPHEN: And did you have to learn multiple tracks? 

TYLER: So in our rehearsal process we tried to make the tracks specific to the characters. So as often as possible we would try to keep the same puppeteer on the same character. We would learn different tracks, but we also tried as best as we could to keep each puppeteer on their own main track. Sometimes you'd have to switch around, but I always enjoyed that 'cause you get a different perspective in the show as a performer 

STEPHEN: On top of learning a show, you were also learning how marionette work, which they are the hardest puppets. Like that's no denying it. How long did it take you to get the hang of it and feel comfortable before performing? 

TYLER: My boss showed me a meme recently that said the types of puppeteering and it listed one through then listed by difficulty, number one being the most difficult, number ten being the least. So then through two were all other types of puppetry. Each one said that and then number one was marionettes because it's seen as a very difficult thing once you're learning it, performing. It is part of the learning process. You have to make that jump into performance in order to further the craft. I would say I'm still learning it definitely. I mean I guess they say it takes a thousand hours to master something. I would argue with marts it takes much longer, but I don't know, each puppet is different so there's a learning curve to each one, especially with marionettes because they're all made so differently and they all move in their own way and have their own character and you kind of just have to feel that out with the puppet in your hand and over time you get used to that puppet and then you kind of get like a muscle memory in your hands when you're performing, 

STEPHEN: Can you take us through a day in the life of a Columbia Marionette Theatre puppeteer? 

TYLER: Sure. So I believe the shows were at I want to say 11:00 and 1:00, I would arrive at 10:00 and make sure the house and the lobby are set up and clean. I would start the popcorn, and usually people would arrive around 10:30 if a field trip happened. Sometimes we would perform earlier than 11:00. So there's the field trips and then there are the weekend performances that are open to the public. So if we did a field trip, we would bring the kids in, they would all go sit in their little rows and wait for the show to start. We would often have like an opening, like an intro kind of thing where one of us would come out and we had several different types of puppets that we'd bring out. So we would show them what a marionette is, we would show them what a shadow puppet is, hand puppet...We would give them examples of what some of the different types of puppets are and then we would start the show, curtains would rise, we do our whole thing. And then after the show the kids would usually...we would line them up and they would each get to play with their own, not permanently, not permanent, but their own little marionette that was like either retired from an old show or we had just made it for like to be used by the kids and they would go off to the little party sections and they would practice walking a marionette around and we would walk around and kind of like give them instructions and stuff like that. And I liked it because the kids actually got their hands on a marionette puppet, which not many people can say that they've done. Like we were actually giving people an opportunity to play with these puppets, which like people don't get to do. I mean I'm sure people have a little marionette at home that someone got or something like that. But these are like theatrical style marionettes short-strung to the height of like a five year old or a seven year old so they can play with it. We would do one field trip in the morning usually and then they would go home and that was the day, very short day, very like part-time kind of experience working there just because, you know, small local theatres don't really have funding for like full-time employees other than like the artistic director, the executive director, and the managing director. That's about it. I was usually done for the day by like noon on a field trip day and then you have the show the weekend days I would probably be done around 2:00PM. So on the weekend shows I would get there around 10:00, start the popcorn, make sure everything's good to go get the candy out, get the soda. One time this kid came up to me while I was working the concession stand and his dad said, would you like juice or water? And he said, 'Doritos!' And that stuck with me for some reason and I just really relate. House would open at 10:30 families come in. It was lots and lots of families mostly and the occasional adult 'cause like puppets are cool, it's a thing to see in Columbia, South Carolina. What else are you gonna do? We would start the show between shows have lunch and we were done around two. There were not normally like hands-on experiences after the show unless a birthday party requested it. Then we would do that and sometimes we would give tours backstage and stuff like that. 

STEPHEN: There's a lot of stuff that we don't get to see there. 

TYLER: Yeah, especially in like if you're in a marionette theatre, all you see is the tiny box for the stage and it also can be a little hard to like know the scale of the puppet you're seeing on stage when you don't have like something to compare it to. So when you go backstage you're like, wow, okay, I see now like the puppets are this size, a lot of kids like make that connection when they go backstage. And sometimes what we would do backstage, when we would have a tour, is one of the puppeteers would be up on the bridge moving a marionette so they could see on the strings how you move the marionette and which strings you pull to move the head and the arm and that kind of thing. 

STEPHEN: And of course with marionette puppetry there's...you have tangles to deal with and like other all things that could go wildly awry. 

TYLER: And they will. 

STEPHEN: What is the wildest mishap you had when you were down in South Carolina? 

TYLER: Oh my gosh how do I pick one? Just to continue that genie moment from earlier: Aladdin was one of my earlier shows, so I was still learning a lot of things and this, and like I said I still am learning things, so this genie, because he had to be lowered onto the stage and twisted up, there's a very specific way to first of all pull a puppet up to where it's above the proscenium. You kind of have to like throw it over your arm and make sure you have all of the strings there. However, since this was also supposed to spin, I would twist it before I would pull it up. So if you miss one string when you're twisting it, that can cause some trouble. And so the genie came down and he kind of, one leg string went over his head and he had, he basically looked like he was smelling his feet or one of his feet and I was trying and he landed and he was like, 'Hey, I'm the genie just hopping on one leg.' And I did the whole scene like that because I had no choice. I tried to get the leg string off of the head, but it just wasn't working. We had to take him off stage after the scene and fix it. 

STEPHEN: How did you take care of your body to make sure that you could keep doing these shows where you're bent over working these heavy puppets on a high stage? 

TYLER: It's very physical sometimes, and so I think it's very important to stretch before and after performances. Also as a marionette performer, a lot of the tension you hold is in your shoulders and in your neck and you know, you're not meant to hold that much weight up there because your arms are lifted up above your shoulders while you're performing. Sometimes during that time I actually did go to a chiropractor back before I realized how much I should be stretching before and after performances. Once I figured out, okay, if I stretch specifically like the upper torso area before and after a show, then I am much better off. It also does take a bit of like upper body strength with the heavier puppets. So I think just over time you get used to them. 

STEPHEN: Between the puppetry skills that you've gained and the way you learn to take care of your body to keep performing. What are some things that you have taken from this experience on to your jobs that followed? 

TYLER: Well, my experience as a marionette puppeteer got me the job at the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre in New York. Right now I'm doing a, a program that tours or is starting to tour some schools and I think my experience with what we did at the marionette theatre definitely has helped me to get to those positions. There was also, I was able to, while I was there, I was able to like help a little bit with some building and things like that. Also like props and set building too, so you become familiar with like a band saw and things like that. Right before I left they let me, they asked, they were looking for a new show and so they commissioned a show from me and a friend of mine and we wrote a musical for young audiences. Yeah, so that was really cool. It was, nice to see my own work produced. I wrote it. My friend Tinsley Long, who you know from Barter wrote the music. We had a, we had a gay time, it was called Peter Pan's Space Adventure. And it was about Wendy's great great granddaughter. Peter finally came back to visit and her name was Penny and he took her on a space adventure. 

STEPHEN: In addition to performing shows in the theatre/castle, you also took pieces out on the road to your audiences. 

TYLER: The main show that we did on our tour was a show that we as a theatre got a grant to do every year, which was a show about recycling that we would take around to all the schools and perform for them. It was a lot of fun. Occasionally we would have other shows that would either be like requested by schools or things like that, but that was our main focus because we were given this grant to take this show around the state. It was very much like if we were going to a school it would be two of us and it's very much like, okay, these two men dressed all in black just showed up in a, in a white van and they're trying to come into the school and do puppets, so I mean were definitely times where I was like, what are the optics here? Um, but uh, you know, it was always a fun time by the end of it and we always went like straight to the office just to make sure, just to be like, we're the puppeteers, hello. But we would get to the school usually set up in like a gym or something like that. We had our own like sound system. We had a little set that we would build. We didn't really typically have a stage, they usually would let us perform on whatever kind of platformed area they had, but if not, we would just do it set up on the ground. And there were not only marionettes, there were hand puppets, rod puppets, things like that. Which, one thing that I loved about this theatre was that they didn't need to focus on just marionettes. So they would focus on puppetry in general. So any show that we, that you would see at the Columbia Marionette Theatre would include probably shadow puppets, maybe a hand and rod puppet here or there, maybe a random other style of puppet that you can't even identify. Marionette theaters are a very like long-standing traditional kind of place and I liked that this place was like, yes, marionettes are this beautiful art form that's been around for so long, but we also want to include the other forms of puppetry because we want to keep our shows fresh and entertaining for the audiences and like we want the kids to have questions after the show so they can learn something. 

STEPHEN: You had this experience doing children's theatre a little bit in college and then after school working in South Carolina and then you moved to New York and get to continue doing marionette puppetry in Central Park and you're working on another show that is touring out to schools. So why children's theatre? 

TYLER: The first reason that I realized a while back is that you are never going to have a more honest audience than a group of children. If they don't think something's funny they're not gonna laugh. If they think it's funny, they're gonna laugh and you're going to, I don't know, if you want to test something out, test it in front of a group of kids because you're going to get a completely honest answer. No one's gonna be nice and just sit there quietly or whatever. Kids will tell you how they feel and what they think without asking. I would say another reason is personal, because I found theatre as a child and it became a passion of mine and I wanted to learn everything I could about it, so I think that teaching kids about theatre or about performing or any sort of art form I think is very important because I would've never found it if I didn't have somebody teaching me to start. 

STEPHEN: It's so funny that you bring up kids being an honest audience. I'm not saying adults are liars, but like they are. But I feel like in mainstream theater or theatre for adults, we tend to get away with doing things that are not good or are not funny, but we're conditioned to to laugh at certain behaviors or clap at certain things just 'cause that's what we're told to do. And then it perpetuates...continuing doing this entertainment that might not necessarily be good or fulfilling to an audience, but it will still solicit a reaction from adults. Whereas kids like, if it's not good, it's not good. 

TYLER: You're gonna get unsolicited reactions from kids regardless. 

STEPHEN: Tyler, thank you for speaking with me today. How can our listeners find out what you are up to, what all sorts of music and puppet and writing happenings are going on in your life?

TYLER: Oh, well I guess you can go to my website tylerbquick.com. Yes, that's my name. It's not made up. I'm also on Instagram @TylerBQuick and on TikTok, even though I don't actually have anything on TikTok at Tyler b Quick and on Twitter, which I don't use at Tyler B. Quick and I guess I'm on Facebook . No, but, um, my website I think would be the best place to go. If you wanna see my work or if you want a puppet built, you can place an order on there. You can just send me a nice message that says hi if you want. I don't care. 

STEPHEN: Make sure you check out Tyler's work online. Order a puppet. And if you are in New York City this fall, you can see his work in person. Tyler will be performing a hot hotdog piece at the Windjammer the evening of October 4th, and he'll be performing with the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre through the end of the year.

[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. The Pipe and Drape logo was created by Stephen Gordon and music was composed by Stephen Fala. Thank you for listening with me today. Do you like Cannolis? 

TYLER: I love Cannolis.

Check out Tyler's puppetry in this Super Bowl commercial for Crunch!

Check Out Tyler's Puppet Stuff:
See Tyler in New York City October 4th at The Windjammer!
Tyler also performs with the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre in Central Park!

Find Tyler B. Quick:
WEBSITE: tylerbquick.com
INSTAGRAM: @tylerbquick

Connect with Pipe and Drape:

INSTAGRAM: @PipeAndDrapeStories

EMAIL: PipeAndDrapeStories@gmail.com

Host: Stephen Fala

Artwork: Stephen Gordon

Episode 19: Peggy Fala

[Pipe and Drape theme plays.]

PEGGY FALA: I'm ready for my…I’m ready for my closeup with the mic. Ooh [A voice that keeps getting higher in pitch, the dogs begin to stir.] should I talk like this? Uh, hi Stephen. I heard we're gonna do an interview. Um, yeah. I'm so glad that you're here and you could spend the day with us and, yeah I love teaching kids. You know what? I think kids are great and I learned as much from them as they learn from me. 

STEPHEN FALA: Do you have any questions? 

PEGGY: No. I was hoping you would have them [Laughter.] I hope I'm interesting to that listening audience. 

STEPHEN: I think you will be. 

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 19 of Pipe and Drape. In this episode, we learn about the theater for young audiences, experience from the perspective of the teachers who bring their young students to see theater and incorporate the art of storytelling into their curriculums. Thank you for listening with me today. 

STEPHEN: Hi, everyone. We're dipping our toes into the mixture of theatre and education. As a teaching artist, I've spent some time in classrooms leading workshops and pre-show discussions with student audiences. But educating students all day, every day and bringing them to the theatre is an entirely different endeavor. My guest is a teacher at the Bala Cynwyd School for Young Children, an artist, and someone who spontaneously breaks out into song, eats one piece of cereal from the bowl before adding the milk and will pick up and hold every puppy for adoption: Peggy Fala. Mom, welcome.

PEGGY: Thank you for that introduction. I didn't know that you, I was under the microscope with my cereal eating. Now I'm very self-conscious about that.

STEPHEN: Well, you have to taste it to make sure it's good before you add the milk. 

PEGGY: I do. I have to make sure I really am having shredded wheat every single day. 

STEPHEN: Is that how you found…There was a piece of bran or something on the windowsill and it said “Nevada” and it was a piece of cereal that looked like the shape of Nevada. I have a picture of it.

PEGGY: Oh my God. How long ago was that? [It was January 5, 2010.] That sounds like something that would happen. We would, we do that. We find little things and then we relate them to something that has nothing to do with that, that thing at all. That's fun.

STEPHEN: There was a potato on the counter once that looked like a person's head and had little ears [May 2011.]

PEGGY: Yeah. Do you still have that up in that box in the attic? We save everything in this house.

STEPHEN: I wanted it to have a family so I put it up there. 

PEGGY: That sounds exactly like you would do that, Stephen, and put it in your little puppet theatre that you saved up there in the attic. 

STEPHEN: Oh yeah. That's up there with Happy the sock doll, the one that you made me that where one side she’s…Okay so it's this doll where you're holding her one way and she's wearing a red dress, and then you flip her the other way, and then instead of legs, there's another doll under there, and then the dress reverses and it's different. And this whole outfit was made out of leftover fabric from our sofa downstairs when…I guess from the 90s. And my mom made this for me and I still have it up with my puppet theatre. 

PEGGY: Yeah, that was a specific kind of little doll that you saw somewhere. Push Me Pull Me Doll, or I don't remember, but I remember you explaining it to me and, and how you wanted it to be and sitting on the bunk bed and trying to make that happen. And it was very interesting, but it was a really cool concept and we made it happen out of scraps. 

STEPHEN: From the sofa. That's one of the many crafty adventures you've had in this house.

PEGGY: You're my craft partner, so, you know, it's easy to get just carried away with crafts. 

STEPHEN: In addition to making dolls and every Halloween costume and painting, my mom taught art at what became Mainline Day camp. And so that was a big part of my childhood. We would go early and Peggy would be prepping for the day, making these projects for kids that were so cool and so different than any other, ‘cause the…I’ve had other art at other camps before and my mom would make these crafts that were unlike anything I'd seen at any other art class. And so, you know, creativity is life. 

PEGGY: Yeah. And I remember I always had these really great assistants and, um, I'm gonna name Drop now with Diana Surma, who is an artist out on the west Coast. She was my assistant for a while, and she always would have these great ideas, too. And then us together, we would just take off with it and get so carried away with these art projects and that we would have for the kids. A lot of fun. 

STEPHEN: You were a leader teaching kids during the summer. You were working in the Wallingford-Swarthmore school district for a bit, you were also getting your masters around that time in teaching elementary education. So I was in high school at that time and so we would both be up late doing homework, eating chocolate in the den on our iMac bubble computers.

PEGGY: Yes. Trying to make the deadlines for those papers and everything else.

STEPHEN: There was a lot of work that I learned a lot about grad school just from watching, I'm like, oh, that looks like a lot. Yeah, I don't want to do that. 

PEGGY: Yeah, well, you might want to . It's different when you go back as an adult.I found that out quickly, especially when you have a goal, a real goal. And sometimes when you go to college, at first you're just kind of there and you're not sure what major to take. But I specifically had a goal and I had a family and I worked harder and really focused. And also most of the people that were attending school at night, grad school at night, were kind of in the same situation. There were parents and they had this other life and the professors were there, I guess their relationship with the students was different as far as being a little bit more understanding, with our time constraints, because they were parents themselves maybe, and a little bit more lenient and understanding if you could not make it to a class because your child was sick or had some commitment, that made it a little less stressful in a way. And it was nice to have the professors have that kind of attitude towards their students, maturity level I guess it was.

STEPHEN: As a part of the curriculum when you were in grad school, did you talk about arts in education? Coming from a background of being a creative person, raising kids in a school district that was very, very arts heavy, seeing me in a bunch of shows for kids, and then knowing that keeping art in schools is such a hot topic. Was that something that was discussed as part of their curriculum? 

PEGGY: You know what, that's a great question because when I think back on it, we touched briefly on the specials during school, say with gym or going to music class or going to art class, but it wasn't dealt with in depth, which I think not the focus on that, but they did try to teach cross curriculum. As far as bringing in when you're teaching, say literature, okay, maybe bringing in what was happening during the time that period, you know with authors and also who are the…maybe who are the artists at the time that the author was rating. So, you know, they did kind of introduce different ways that you could teach cross curriculum, maybe who were the, the composers at that time. So put that idea in your head and say, ‘Hey, remember you need to bring in all these other facets of what was happening.’ So yeah, in a way they did. I would say yes. You always had to keep that in the back of your mind. And that's something that I currently do with my teaching. When we're talking about, say different parts of the world in different countries, okay, who were the artists that were from Spain? Who were the artists that at that time were from France? What's their style? And that's fun when we do that, kids get into it. Yeah, it's always important to remember the arts. 

STEPHEN: How do you prep students in the classroom for seeing a show? 

PEGGY: So the morning goes like this, pretty much. They come in, you make sure they're there, take roll, their lunch is away, they eat snack, then they go to the bathroom, then they get their identification necklace. Then they play a little bit and we…that’s a whole thing. Then they sit and we talk about theatre etiquette and staying with the chaperone. And then we line up to get on transportation so that snack piece, taking care of all those bodily needs, it's just check it off the list. Just two. That's one variable that we can take care of before they go and enjoy the show. Depending on the show. If we're going to see a play or a musical that was based on a book or based on…maybe they've seen a Disney movie that was based on a story, maybe we would, if we had time or we would make this part of the, the presentation that we would read the story to prep them as to maybe they would understand better the play or the story that they're going to see on stage. And that way they would be in that mindset, oh, they are gonna be these characters. This is basically the plot, what's gonna be happening. So there would be less confusion when they would sit down to watch the play. Also, maybe just prepare them, ‘Hey, this might be a little different than what you've seen on the screen. Might be a little different from the Disney presentation. Disney might have added a little bit more than what we're reading in this story.’ And also we talk a little bit about the characters and maybe there might be someone in the story that might be a little scary and just say, you know what? This is gonna be a play. And remember, these are people that are playing these parts and it's make believe. So it's nothing to be afraid of because some children might be a little bit more apprehensive. They've never gone to theatre before. They don't know what to expect. They don't know what to expect as far as the space that it's being presented in. Oftentimes they go to an auditorium and it's a vast room with lots of noise and lots of sensory happening with the lights and the noise level people milling about. And this might be overwhelming, especially for very young children. So we try to prepare them when, if you go into this space, we'll say, this is what we're gonna stay together. We're gonna find our place to sit, we're gonna sit down. And when you sit down in the, the auditorium, there'll be these seats. Sometimes they fold down, so you sit down in the seat. And then we talk a little bit about the…maybe there'll be some squeaky seats. And squeaky seats are, if you've ever taken twenty-some children to the theatre and they discovered that they have a squeaky seat, that becomes the entertainment for the whole hour. I don't know how it is for performers when they're on stage and they hear the child that loves the squeaky seat and to try to tune out that. So I think if we have the squeaky seat, it would be…this has become the topic.

STEPHEN: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Squeaky Seat Podcast. 

PEGGY: The squeaky seat has become the topic of this podcast, but it is an important subject that has to be…anyway, well, we do the squeaky seats. But most importantly is to just prepare, the student for what to expect. And also, theatre etiquette is something that we review as far as when you go into the theatre, the waiting time is to get them acclimated to the theatre and say, this is the space. ‘Okay? Now, when the performers come in, it's important to have respect for the performers because they work very hard in order to put on a show for you. So we are a good listening audience. That means we do not talk during the performance, we don't move in our seats, and we listen. And also, there's a time at the end of the performance or maybe during the performance where we clap to show appreciation, but it's really important that we're quiet and we listen to what's happening during the story.’ So yeah, I think the space has a lot to do with it, but maybe the expectation of what's gonna be happening is the same. And the space kind of always dictates, too. And the other children, how they're acting. What are the other schools kids doing at this? They allowed to do that? You know, and sometimes you have to pull that out of your back pocket. ‘See those, excuse me, they see our friends over there, see how nicely they're sitting. Well, that's, that's what we are doing right now. That's what you do in a theatre. So sit down, we're gonna enjoy the show.’ Or maybe there's the reward system that you kind of dangle a little carrot that you dangle. ‘Friends, I'm expecting that we can sit and be a good audience, and I have…I’m gonna put a pompom in the jar, if we have a really good theatre experience,’ something like that. And they want the pompom because more pompoms, then we get a party. So it's kind of a goal making it be a goal, okay, let's have this be a good theatre experience as well. Seating arrangements before the performance is really important. You know that there are two really active children that when they're together it's explosive. So placing children in certain groups I think that's probably good prep because it not only makes it be a better experience for you as a teacher, but for the rest of the class. And that's all foreseeing what could potentially, what could, could be an issue during the performance as far as behaviors go. Oh, let me get my sensitive kids that might be a little bit more timid and about this whole process, have them sit next to me on one side and the other side, the ones that are really active that you need to make sure you just whisper in their ear once every once in a while. ‘Okay. What do you think of this? What do you think's happening here?’ just to keep them engaged in the show and keep their focus off trying to smack their friend on the head during the really critical part of the play. So , yeah, there may be a couple children that maybe get afraid when the lights go off. So they might need a little bit more understanding. And sometimes they wanna sit on your lap and that's fun. They just feel a little more safe or a little more secure if they're sitting on your lap. And then pretty soon the other children might see that and they might wanna sit on your lap as well. Uh, and so pretty soon you have, um, five children in your lap. There's also a whole bunch of business that happens beforehand where you are coordinating the buses and the permission slips. My obligation is only just to get the children safely to the theatre and safely back to the school. Also if we have chaperones, it's getting the chaperones, the parents who wanna volunteer and to help to help get the children to the show, and it's always double check, double check, double check before we leave the classroom. When we're on the bus, when we get off the bus, when we get into the auditorium, it's always checking to see that we have all the children with us. So it's, it's that responsibility. It's the most important. 

STEPHEN: I want to talk about going to the bathroom. Even in class, one person wants to go to the bathroom, suddenly everyone has to go to the bathroom. How do you handle kids wanting to pee? Do you have to, do you force them all to go? This might be cut honestly this is like,maybe a gross question, but…

PEGGY: No, I mean, that is a really, yes, that's a really important question. It's all part of the prep before we go to the theatre, it's just one of those things that has to be taken care of because you anticipate that after years of experience, you just anticipate this needs to be done because they don't think, the children don't think about going to the bathroom until it's an emergency. So you line them up, everyone go to the bathroom and then, then once they go to the bathroom, they get their name tag. So we have these little name tags that we put, that's just the name of the school that we hang around their neck, like a little necklace. So we know, okay, this child went to the bathroom, washed their hands, and is ready to get to go on the field trip. So that is always a check. Then there is always, once you get to the theatre, someone has to go to the bathroom, guaranteed. And so then once one child has to go to the bathroom, the other one wants to go. They really don't have to go. They just think it's an adventure and they wanna go to a new bathroom and see what that's about. And then also after the show went, a little bit more chaos with all the children from all the schools leaving to go leave the theatre. There are always the children that have to go to the bathroom. So then you have to make sure you have them with you, and then you go to the bathroom once again. And the bathroom is just part of theatre. The bathroom has become part of the theater experience. 

STEPHEN: Now, when they have to go to the bathroom after the show, is that while other children are doing the meet and greets with characters? Do you pull them away from that to go or?

PEGGY: Oh, you know, the meet and greet, if we get to do meet and greet, I think that's a special little treat. And we have done some meet and greets at one of the theatres. If it’s at St. Joe's College, not too far from Bala Cynwyd, at the end of that performance we leave and the characters/the actors line up at the exit. And they just say goodbye and to all the children as they leave. And I think this is really exciting ‘cause I'm excited, I'm excited to see the people that have just put on this performance and all the work they've done to put the performance on for these children. And so I say, okay, we're gonna meet the characters, make sure you say thank you, you enjoyed the show. And as we go by, they'll say thank you. And you know, the, the actors are always very kind and they speak to the children and some of the children are in awe. And I think that's a very, very special part of bringing children to a theatre to see, okay, this is something that maybe you'll do someday. And it might just pique the interest in some children. Like, wow, this is amazing. You mean I can be on stage and I can be entertaining people. And this might kind of chart a course for them in their future if it's something that they want to, um, maybe start taking theatre lessons or that's maybe something if they weren't exposed to theatre before it, it, it might really impress them 

STEPHEN: Once you get back to the school. Do you have to tie this experience back into your curriculum or can you, do you just have a conversation with them about what they saw?

PEGGY: Oh yeah, we do come back and it's always, it could be the question of the day that we have at lunch, we have a question of the day. So during lunch, when they're eating lunch, they go up, we have the question written down and next to their name we might say, what was your favorite part of the play? Whatever it might be. And they write down or who, who was your favorite character? Or we might just sit in a circle and do some feedback about the play and what their favorite part was or who their favorite character is or anything they wanna talk about that has to do with the theatre experience. So yeah, it’s just not going there, seeing the performance, and coming back and forgetting about it. We actually discuss our experience. 

STEPHEN: A lot of shows today are based on things that kids are seeing on TV. There's so many _______ Disney Movie, Jr. happening live on stage. There are other things, you know, Shrek is happening on stage and there's certain things that theatre can and cannot do to make these characters happen. And so kids are seeing characters they love portrayed in a different way. Is that something that they ever talk about in, in class afterwards? Like how, oh, well that doesn't look like Elsa or the voice was different. Is that something that they, that they ever bring up? 

PEGGY: They just take things at face value and they'll think this is what it is, this is how it is. Their imaginations are part of their theatre experience. I think that they're so open to what they're seeing and they don’t…I don't think things have to conform into a box as much as when, when they're older, maybe a little bit more. But I do know that children are really open to new experiences and part of their imagination is fantastic and, and can take them where they wanna go. I think that theatre for young audiences really important. And I wish there were more opportunities to bring children to theatre. We expose them to theatre in our school I think maybe three times a year. We'll maybe go to a very small production of The Nutcracker, and this involves recorded music and dance for that performance of The Nutcracker. Usually one of the dancers reads the story just to prep the children tendon so they know what's going on. And we do as well in the classroom beforehand so the children know what's happening. Because sometimes dance interpretation, it can be kind of ambiguous. And then secondly, we might go to see like local theatre, another play at St. Joe's College. And then another time during a summer we might go to Summer Stage and see a production, a Junior production of Disney show or a book Junie B. Jones or one of those children's books. And I'm glad that we can do that for the kids. And for me it would be more often because I just love going to the theatre. So when we have any kind of field trip like that, I'm very excited. I think that it's good to talk about theatre and, and have the children know behaviors and theatre appreciation at a very young age. 

STEPHEN: There's a lot of crap out there. This is something that is discussed a lot, but not the correct way in theatre and theater for young audiences. People talking about talking down to kids. I've had experience going into classrooms and talking to kids before the show, and I had seen, just in practice other people leading their lessons. And I had gone into classrooms and, and seen coworkers and other people talk to kids. And it was different. There was something weird about it. It was almost like they were doing a show in the classroom for the kids. And I went in being like twenty-two and I'm going into a fifth grade classroom and I, in my head, I was still a kid. And I felt that way for a long time. And so I would go into these classrooms and talk to kids  like they were just like people and I'm just talking about stuff, 

PEGGY: The most honest conversation and what they love to do, and I feel this way when I'm talking to them, is talk about your own life. They wanna hear the details of you as a person. And when I just kind of go off and say, ‘Oh yeah, you know what happened this weekend?’ And I talk to them about what happened in my kitchen or say, ‘I was making these eggs and…do you know how it is when you crack an egg? Have you, has anybody, has anyone cracked an egg before?’ And they'd say, yeah, I have. And they all wanna tell you about the time they got to crack an egg and what happened? And, and then that becomes the thing. I say, ‘Yeah, I cracked this egg and all of a sudden it was all over, the shell was all over. I was trying, it was my last egg and I didn't know how to, how to save the egg. And it was all over such a mess. It was such a…’ you talk to them about real true life experiences and you make it authentic. That's when they love it. They don’t…you kind of get off topic and then later on, because you shared something about yourself, I'm gonna weave this back into what you're, you're saying Stephen in a little bit, you share something about yourself that makes you a real person or you show them a picture of like your dog and you talk about your dog ‘cause they have a dog, too. Then they go, oh wow, cool. So then after that, when you start really talking about the theme of the day or the educating them on something, they listen more, they listen to you a little bit closer and they, you have their attention because you just shared something about yourself personally about your personal life, that you're a person. I think when you're talking about prepping kids before they see a show, I think that's important because you're sharing the non-actor part of you in your prep and you're talking to them like a person, ‘Okay, this is what's gonna be happening to the, the story today. So, you know, you might be wondering why this character's doing this? And I’ll give you a little background about this character, so you might see me play this character on stage and this is what's gonna be happening.’ So then later on they go, and now I know Stephen as the person now I'm gonna see him portray this character on stage. particularly, I'm gonna say Summer Stage and I don't know if I can say that or not…

STEPHEN: Oh yeah. We love Summer Stage here. 

PEGGY: Because Summer Stage is theatre for kids presented by kids. And when I bring my children to see a performance at Summer Stage, I think having theatre for kids performed by kids is such an influencer. And I think that my children love to see other children on stage because they're people that are closer to their age, people that are the same age as maybe some of their siblings. And it can be far more interesting because then they can say, maybe I wanna do that. Wow, can I do that someday? And that's so interesting to see people your own age singing and dancing and performing in costumes and doing this other thing. And that's what the value of Summer Stage is. And that's one of my favorites. I think it's so effective—that other piece of theatre that may be overlooked as being an experience. Not all adults, not something that they can't relate to. Having an adult play a child is different than having a child, being themselves on the stage and having…or what's even more fun is having someone a little bit older than you all of a sudden playing an adult or a grandfather or an animal. That's fascinating. 

STEPHEN: Mom, thank you for coming on the podcast. 

PEGGY: I enjoyed this so much. And then as we went on, I found more and more of what I wanted to say. Like how can we possibly talk about this topic? And the more we got into it, oh yeah, this can happen and this can happen. So yeah, I'm really glad that I could come and have this little discussion and talk to you about the experience from my perspective about going to theatre and taking a class from class of children to to see theatre. It's one of my favorite things to do. 

[Pipe and Drape theme plays.]

STEPHEN: 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. The Pipe and Drape logo was created by Stephen Gordon and music was composed by Stephen Fala. Thank you for listening with me today.

INSTAGRAM: @PipeAndDrapeStories

EMAIL: PipeAndDrapeStories@gmail.com

Host: Stephen Fala

Artwork: Stephen Gordon