[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: 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
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