Episode 21: Becki Zaritsky

[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 21 of Pipe and Drape. In this episode, we're going on a magic carpet on a rail that never takes a rest. All the board, this pipe and drape story is about the stage manager/company manager who oversees the magic on The Polar Express Train Ride experience. Thank you for listening with me today. 

STEPHEN: Hi everyone. I'm here with actor/stage manager/production manager/company manager and podcaster Becki Zaritsky. Becki was the first theatre major I met at university and we sat side by side for four years from convocation to commencement. In class, we put pencils behind our ears and pretended we were wearing body mics. And outside of class we were making theatre with Alpha Psi Omega. She was the last to walk the stage at our graduation with Summa Laude cried after her name in wild applause. And since then she has traveled all over the globe. Work as an actor and stage manager, has taken her to Bigfork Summer Playhouse in Montana, the elusive state, The REV on tour in the Finger Lakes, Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival, Creed Rep, Asolo Rep, and the international tour of Westside Story. On her travels, she has climbed to new heights. Literally. Becki has summited Mount Fuji, walked Mount Hua which is so dangerous, The Bavarian Alps, Taal Vocano Crater in the Philippines, Fay Canyon, the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado, the Grand Canyon, and structures like the Eiffel Tower and the Great Wall of China. Today she is going to tell us all about her trip on The Polar Express as a stage manager and company manager. Becki, welcome. 

BECKI ZARITSKY: Hi. Oh my gosh, what an introduction. I have the biggest smile on my face, thank you. 

STEPHEN: I'm very excited that you hear joining me from, from almost all the way across the country. You're currently out in Flagstaff? 

BECKI: Yes. Yeah. I'm out in Flagstaff, Arizona and I've been here kind of off and on for the past I guess now going on three years, since the beginning of 2019. And I feel like there's...everyone who is not from Arizona but currently lives in Arizona, always says, 'Never thought I'd live in Arizona, but here I am.' So I definitely resonate with that a little bit.

STEPHEN: So you are in, I literally just learned this today...where you are, you do get seasons. It's not dry, spooky desert completely. 

BECKI: Right. So we are at about 7,000 feet. We're up in the mountains of northern Arizona and it actually is considered a dry desert, or I'm sorry, a high desert. All deserts are dry. It's a high desert, but we do get all four seasons. We get snow in the winter, and the frost date is actually something like the end of May, early June. So there is a possibility that we could, I guess, get snow at any like, at any of those months leading up to that. And then we also get what's called monsoons during like July and August which is just like torrential rain. It actually causes some flooding in some parts of Flagstaff and it's, I mean, it's that like double-edged sword where it's like you don't want all that rain. You don't want all that snow necessarily, but it is a desert, so you do want all that rain and you do want all that snow because it is a desert. And like fires, fire season is real. 

STEPHEN: It's a literal state of extremes.

BECKI: Yeah. 

STEPHEN: Very different from where you grew up. 

BECKI: Yeah! Growing up just outside of Philadelphia...not a whole lot of mountains. Obviously like we do have like the Poconos, but I remember my first like trip out west, post-college when I was going to work in Montana with Bigfork Summer Playhouse. And I did a cross country road trip with my dad and just that road trip and then also like actually being in Montana for the three months that I was there that summer. Like those mountains don't compare, like the Rocky Mountains are just something else. 

STEPHEN: And you have been keeping tabs of all of the mountains you've climbed, like people can like look through your Instagram, I know I have, and see basically everywhere that you have climbed since Instagram was invented. 

BECKI: Yeah. And that I guess goes back to my first summer in Montana again. Really just falling in love with being out in nature and hiking and specifically climbing a mountain or doing a particularly strenuous hike for beautiful views and just realizing what my body can do. And even if it's hard I'm still capable of doing it.

STEPHEN: Do you remember, there's no segue for this...

BECKI: Great. 

STEPHEN: Do you remember your first experience with theatre? 

BECKI: The first show that I remember seeing was...my synagogue did a production of Li'l Abner and I must have been like in first grade or second grade. And I was like...and that, that was it. That was where I was like, yes, that's what I wanna do. And I turned to my mom and was like, how do I do that? How can I get up on stage and do that? And so the next time that they had auditions for Fiddler on the Roof, which was the next show that they did, and that was my first show, I auditioned and was one of the like ensemble and that was my intro and where I got the bug. But I do also remember my sister and I being at a summer camp and us doing some song for one of the talent shows, but as soon as I stepped out on stage I got such terrible stage fright that I just tried to hide behind my sister the entire time, and that I was must have been like preschool or like kindergarten or something. So I was much younger than the Li'l Abner experience, but I just remember like just having such stage fright and I think that's gone away (Laughter.) I hope it has.

STEPHEN: Just maybe studying theatre for a little bit. 

BECKI: Yeah.
 
STEPHEN: Becki and I ended up working for the same company within the same couple of months. 

BECKI: Yeah. Because I was working, basically as like a production assistant for, can I mention, are you, can I mention the theatre?

STEPHEN: Oh, yeah! 

BECKI: Okay. For The REV, formally Merry-Go-Round Playhouse. So I was working as basically like a production assistant for one of their like pillars of their summer theatre. When I was with them at that time, I think they had like three or four pillars of their summer theatre. They had their main stage, they had a more grungy like downstage theatre. Downstage? Downtown theatre, what am I trying to say? And then they also had this program called The Pitch, which was basically like a new works/new musicals and development series. So I worked on that, The Pitch and then I think...I feel like it was like two days after my contract ended with that you came up to start your contract with them, right?

STEPHEN: Yeah, we hung out for a couple days 'cause I was moving into their...one of their housing places and it was really nice to have you there, because it was my first time moving away-away from home. Like, I don't know what I'm doing. I was like, 'This is an elaborate ruse, they don't actually want me here.' But we had a good time. We went downtown and got our caricature done.

BECKI: Oh we did!

STEPHEN: As you do when you're in Auburn, New York, and then you ended up returning to The REV as a performer/road manager!

BECKI: Yeah, a couple years later, I guess it was maybe like six years, six or seven, seven years, something like that after my first contract with them. And then just from being friends with, um, Lisa who is the, I'm gonna butcher her title, but the director of education something, the artistic director of education, something like that. And I saw that she had posted on Facebook like we're looking for actors for the summer tour. And so I reached out and then I did it that year and then came back for the following summer as well to do the summer show. 

STEPHEN: So theatre has taken you and your audiences, figuratively, imaginatively, to the North Pole this past wintery season. And so you were stage managing and company managing one of the Polar Express experiences in this country? 

BECKI: Yes. Yeah. So I spent two seasons as a stage manager and most recently the third season as a company manager. So the stage manager, when I was a stage manager, it was local to the specific city that I was working on. And then as a company manager, it was for all of the cities that the production company managed nationwide. So yeah, so I was a stage manager for the Whippany, New Jersey production of The Polar Express, which is based out of...everyone, most everyone was contracted out of New York City and so what they would actually do is they would, anybody who was in New York City, they would bus from the city to New Jersey and it was maybe like a forty/forty-five minute bus ride depending on traffic of course. But that was a courtesy shuttle like they definitely didn't have to do that, but it was really great that they did 'cause then it just made transportation from New York to your work just that much easier. But yeah, those could be really long days. We would have anywhere between three to five performances a day. And each performance...the "performance" is I guess technically about an hour, but when you factor in getting audience onto the train, and the actors--they're in it from the moment that the audience gets onto the train--so even before the train moves, and that was maybe like twenty to thirty minutes. So it's really like, for all intents and purposes, like a one hour and twenty minute show, immersive show on a train. So we did move and we did go to the North Pole (Laughter.) Just long days, could be like, I guess up to twelve hours. I think our first performance for the day would be at like 10:30 and then our final performance for the day would be at like 7:30, something like that. But then you have to factor in travel time before and after, so catching a bus around 9:15 and then not getting back to New York City until I don't know, 10:30 maybe. But then that's just to Manhattan. And of course, I mean if you can afford to live in Manhattan, awesome. But then of course there's the travel time,  from...it was Port Authority back to wherever your respective homes were. 

STEPHEN: For our listeners who haven't been to the North Pole yet--how big is this train? 

BECKI: So all of the trains nationwide that we managed...the train's vary in size. And I think, and I should know this, but I don't, but I think the smallest train was four performance cars. And then I think the largest train was eight performance cars. But then there's also the production car where the stage manager would be and where the crew members would be, lighting technicians, sound technician, production manager, etc. But then there are the two like engines on either side as well 'cause the train obviously like, or maybe not obviously, but the train will go one way and then it will go back and then it might go like..it just kind of like...not ping pongs back and forth.  but it's not a circle. Whippany had six performance cars, so essentially there's six different shows happening at the same time and all of the scenes will happen in each car just in a different order, right? Because the conductor for instance, the conductor is a character from the movie, The Polar Express and the conductor is also on our Polar Express. And the conductor can't be in all of the cars at once, right? So you just have to like cycle through the scenes. So the way that it's kind of situated is there are: three performance cars and then in the middle is the production car, and then there are three performance cars. So you're like bookended by those three performance cars and the shows that are happening in the cars closest to the production car, they're the same like script. So the conductor is doing those scenes like exactly the same, so they kinda like mirror each other. And then those middle cars, same thing, it's the same show that's happening obviously with different actors. But the same scenes and then the cars furthest away, same thing, of course, the same show is happening in both of those cars. Obviously different actors, but they have the same script. But because we're on a train and because there are technically six shows happening at once and I can't be in every car at once, I can't even really be in any car because if there is something that goes wrong, I need to be in that central location of the production car. So we would listen in, there would be like monitors and I could listen in to any car that I wanted to, and that's how I called the show. So calling a show is... basically there is one centralized person, the stage manager who is giving the, the go ahead for things to happen. So anytime you see a light change or a sound cue happen, or sometimes even the band starting or a curtain moving, a set piece coming on, even seeing a prop come onto stage--a stage manager definitely their eyes on that and/or if it were any, was anything technical, a stage manager kind of gave the go ahead to make sure that things are happening in a consistent order. If there is any troubleshooting that needs to happen, they might call a show differently to allow for maybe some safety aspects, if something isn't working properly and if something gets stuck in communication with whoever is backstage running that automation, the stage manager might delay calling the scene, calling the lights to start that scene so that automation can fix what they need to fix, if they can do it within that timeframe before calling the lights to start that scene. So the way that I would call this show was based off of time and based off of sound. So I would start the timer of course when our "show" started. And then I had some cues that were like, this ideally will be called at like four minutes and thirty seconds into the show. And then just to like trigger the next scene that happens in the cars. And then also some cues were taken via that monitor. I'm listening in car one and I'm waiting for the conductor to finish his line of this scene, and then that means that I can start the next or that I can give the cue to start the next scene. So those were the two ways that I would call it. And there were some times where I forgot to start that timer, and let me tell you, as somebody who doesn't consider themselves to have a strong quick math skill, some of those things where I'm like, oh God, okay, okay, math, uh, uh, um... Luckily there was never any show stop because of that. We would have the power go out or like the generator I guess would...not fail, but the generator would stop working. And so what would happen is, and when we say the power would go out--our lights and sound, so the, the lights and sound that the production that the theater production team put onto the train in the cars, they would all go out and stop working, but luckily that didn't ever mean that like the people were in a total darkness or blackout, there were still, like the train lights mostly would work or their floodlights or emergency lights would work. So nobody was ever like in complete darkness. But there were a couple times where everything would just go out and during the rehearsal process, the actors were given the tools if this type of situation happened, what to do. Mostly it was continue the scene because when we would get the power back, it would pick up not where it left off, but where it was like going to go or like where it would be in real time. And they were great. And my first year in 2018 that happened, not a lot, but it definitely happened enough where it was like, is it gonna happen today? type of thing. And it was no fault for anyone. I think it may have just like whatever was happening with the generator or I don't know, and we would have like backups, so it was never like we were stuck for hours. It was just like, oh, we're gonna be here for like two minutes or something. And then we'd be able to get the train back up and running, get back into the, to into the station, safely and stuff.

STEPHEN: To prepare for these contingencies, but also your regular three to five show day what did you have to do to get everything ready before each show? 

BECKI: Yeah, so we would have a safety meeting before each, at the start of every day because, oh, something that I hadn't mentioned before was, it was in Whippany we had four different casts and in other cities it varied from three to four different casts as well as...so there is the Hero Child, like from the movie. We also carried that into the train ride. And so we in Whippany would have like ten to twelve of those. When I was there, they were just boys. But now, since this past holiday season, they are now Hero Children and it's not just boys. So we had ten or twelve of them, you know, child labor laws, they weren't allowed to do every show and they weren't even allowed to do every like, like they couldn't do a full week's worth of shows, but they also couldn't do a full day's worth of shows. So at that safety meeting it would be, 'Just like a reminder, like who's on what side of the train?' So it was like red, blue, yellow, green casts for Whippany. What hero kids were there that day, if there were any ins and outs being the holiday season there were and just being very strenuous days, there were people who would get sick. So when the train was riding past the North Pole, there were elves outside dancing, dancing and spreading that holiday cheer in that sense. So sometimes we would have to pull people from the North Pole to be on the train. Sometimes we would ask cast members to come in on a day off and that was never a requirement. If it was your day off you could absolutely say no, you did not have to be on the train that day. But sometimes it did come down to that particularly my first year. And then my second year we had swings which was great. So then we would have two swings just in the production car ready to go on if somebody went out mid show, which sometimes happens or if at the end of a, a show someone was like, I am not feeling well, I don't think I can continue with the day. It's like, great, we'll put the swing on. So we would start with the safety meeting, just a reminder of who's out, who's filling in, who's there, etc. And then the actors were responsible for making sure that their props were set up. And we had a lighting technician and a sound technician who were on the train and they would make sure that each car lights and sound were working. The stage manager would go through and there weren't like specific things for us to check, like I never checked to make sure that props were there. That's something that I relied on the actors to do or really to get back to. We also had a props and a wardrobe person also in the production car riding with us so if there was anything they could radio in to us to just be like, 'Hey, we're missing whatever,' and that's also something that they would do during the run of show if there were any problems. Each car had a radio and the production car...I had a radio, like our production manager had a radio, our train master had a radio. So if there were any problems either with the train or like the bathroom say like in the train cars or if there were any problems technically with like the sound or the lights or if there were any problems with passengers also they could radio into us. And if it was something that needed to be dealt with, we would send someone out to go help them with it. Or if it was like, 'Hey, just an FYI this is happening but we don't need anyone to like come and fix it, but like, just so you know, this is happening. One of the biggest takeaways, particularly from my first season that then helped care that then carried into the next seasons with the Polar Express/also just in my career or whatnot was thinking of problems as puzzles and like just trying to come up with like ways to make that puzzle fit together. And specifically like that image came to me when we did have people call out and we were trying to fill in those holes. So I don't know, it was very daunting and for me, just thinking about it as a little role puzzle, like, okay, this person, this puzzle piece isn't here, but I have these other puzzle pieces, so how can I make them...how can I still have this, do this show and make sure that all of the puzzle pieces fit together. But then when you also think about it as like a puzzle, and this actually came up in my interview with the production stage manager where he was like, you don't need to know how to fix everything on the train. Like, you're not gonna know how to fix everything on the train, you just need to know who to talk to or like, you just need to know who knows how to do that. So it's like, we're not gonna expect you to fix the sound. Like you just need to make sure that like the soundboard operator knows like, 'Hey, this is what's happening, this is the car.' 'Cause again, there are six cars, they're not going just like stage left or stage right. They're either going to car one two three four five six seven eight or one two three four five six. So like delegation, I guess. Oh! A big thing that I guess I should mention is we were on a train like that is a moving brain and it's an active rail yard too. Like safety was always the number one thing. And anything that came from the train personnel, like pretty much always superseded. If they're telling you to move or go somewhere or get onto or disembark the train in a certain way, like listen to them because they it's all about safety. And in the production car there would always be at least one, we would call them the train masters, and they were our communication to the people who were the engineers who were on either side of the train making the train run. And so the way that like my communication was with like getting the train to move was I would like radio the train master or if they were sitting right next to me, more often than not, I would be like stage manager to train master, like train is good to go or I can't remember what I would specifically say, but it'd be like train can move or something like that. And then there were moments in the show that we would stop the train, like for a "caribou crossing" like cutesy little moment. And so that would also be like sage manager to train master, okay, to make a safe stop. And then the train master would radio to the engineers on either side and say if it was safe, or they would say like, okay, to make a safe stop. And then either we would make a safe stop or sometimes the, the engineers would say like, oh, we can't make a safe stop right now, but we can in like thirty seconds or something like that. I only remember that happening once, maybe twice where we couldn't stop for caribou crossing at the...it was like the four minute thirty-second mark or something because we hadn't cleared. Maybe it was because we hadn't cleared a railroad crossing, because this was also like, we were not in a rural town here, we had railroad crossings and like looking out the window, just seeing all these cars like just waiting to cross these tracks and it's like, so sorry. And like all of the houses that, of the people who live nearby. Um, but yeah, but I, I only remember that happening once where it wasn't a safe stop, so it was like, okay. And then for me, that's a moment where I would radio to the cars to say like caribou crossing isn't happening on time, like just vamp or whatever. Or we know the train hasn't stopped, like give it twenty seconds or whatever. And sometimes people would hear that but because the radios weren't like attached to the actors, because obviously you don't wanna break that magic, um, oftentimes like I would then get like frantic uh, radio calls back in, like, we haven't stopped or like the music cut out and I'm just like, yep, we know, like, thank you. Like just keep vamping, like we'll stop when we can, stuff like that which I mean, and that's just like a, I don't know, like yes, I'm saying the same thing, but you also didn't hear it and I know you didn't and you're dealing with like fifty patrons and some of them are like three years old. Like, so I'm like, yeah, I can repeat this information for you . 

STEPHEN: What was the age range of people that were experiencing this? 

BECKI: Oh yeah, we, anywhere from babies to grandparents. There were people of all different ages people from all different walks of life. A lot of times of course it was families or like parents with like younger kids, grandparents with their kids and then their kids' kids. But every now and then there'd be like teenagers and you would just like hope that they're like in the magic of it. And sometimes they were and sometimes they weren't, but what are you gonna do? But that a big thing, a big, big thing that the director instilled during the rehearsal process to the actors was that like every person is a child at heart and it doesn't matter how old you are, like the genuineness of I guess like the holiday spirit is still for them. And it was never like, you're only acting for the kids. That was not the case. It's like you are telling this story for everybody. In 2019, I was asked to help with the rehearsals in California, in one of the cities in California. And the hobo character has this really beautiful and genuine monologue at the end. And it really is all about like, you're never too old to have that like spirit. And I just remember there was one hobo who, who was giving this final monologue and the whole room just had chills because the way the just, it was just so genuine. And he had made like some like musical connections from the monologue to some of the songs in the show. So I think it's like his line was, 'It's a magic carpet on a rail, never takes a rest. And I think that's also in the movie, but that is like, yeah, so it's, it's a magic carpet on a rail, never takes a rest.' And he, like gave that line a little bit of musicality and we hadn't...I don't think any other hobo had done that before. So we were all just like, oh my gosh, like wow, like that just hit right in the heart. 

STEPHEN: What was it like rehearsing this show?

BECKI: Normally madness you know, if you're lucky you're in a room where the set is taped out on the floor, so you get a general sense of where it is. You know, like, okay, I'm looking this direction 'cause the audience is here, this is a train. So we did tape down like the aisles and it's actually, it's really easy because you're just taping down the aisle and then you put chairs on either side. So the way that we would rehearse it was I'd mentioned that there were different casts. So there might be four hobos, but it's four different casts, right? Because if there were two sides to a train, you at least need two hobos on any given day, etc. So we would tape out however many casts there were. That's how many like lines we would or aisles we would tape out. So in Whippany we had the forecasts red, blue, yellow, green. So we would tape out four aisles. And the way that we did it was if, let's say car one was rehearsing that day or that hour or whatever, everyone else would be the audience for them so that they weren't just like running the show without any audience 'cause so much of it is audience participation. And it's...I mean technically I guess it's immersive theatre, like they are in the train car. A lot of it is timed to the music, a lot of the scenes. So there was a big technical aspect to the rehearsals in that sense. But luckily I wasn't the only stage manager in the room. So there are at least two local stage managers plus the traveling production stage manager and the production stage manager and the assistant production stage manager. So I was lucky in that there were usually four people in the room. Some cities it gets a little different because it's like once it is rehearsing and then they open, and then once they're like opening, then they'll like, half the team will go to the next city. But like their city A is still like, maybe they haven't had opening night yet, but city B has started rehearsals so it was kind of like a rolling effect. But Whippy was the first city, so they actually start rehearsals before Halloween and then they open like the first week of November or like the second week of November, at least that's how we did it in years past. Assuming it'll be the same for the rest of, or yeah, assuming it would be the same for this year as well. So yeah, so we were the first city, but then it's like a rolling, so like Whippany will open great and then the next city will rehearse and then they'll open. Great. So then you have two cities opened, one city's in rehearsal and then it's just like a rolling opening like that, which can get confusing if you're on the production end of things. Yeah. 

STEPHEN: How was, um, managing that from the, your company manager standpoint and when you went back? 

BECKI: It was a lot. Um, and I really didn't have like all of the production schedules were more or less figured out before I got there. So I wasn't necessarily like part of that process, but I was part of the like, oh, okay, well this city, it's opening day, but we're gonna send half the team to the next city. So it's like I did have to like coordinate some of that staff. But then also like part of my responsibilities as past season was company meals for those tech, those long tech days and then also for the like five or six show days, you know, those twelve hour days. So that was also important to know like, okay, well who is gonna be where, when, if it was the traveling production team, but then also like with the actors and with the crew, not everyone is on the train every single day. So for that it was like, okay, well who's gonna be on the train four weeks from now because I need to get that ball rolling so that it's not the day before and I don't have any caterers and they have no food type of thing. Yeah, so it was really like anything that you do for one show you're doing times, however many shows you're doing that season. So last season we did five, so it's like, yeah, whatever I was doing, I was doing times five. 

STEPHEN: Were you just based in one location for that or did you bounce around a little bit? 

BECKI: My position was remote, and I wanted that, that also allowed me to like...I had a couple weddings that I wanted to go to, I wanted to be with my family for Thanksgiving, which might not have been something that would've happened if I had to go or if this position had been location-based. But there was a moment where I did get asked. It was like, do you wanna come out to one of the cities just to like be with everyone? And I was like, you know what? Yeah I do. So I went to Miami because, you know, Miami December, I want it to be warm.

STEPHEN: I've been there, I get that. What is something wild, crazy, unusual, fun, exciting that happened to you while working on the Polar Express, which is quite a sentence in itself? 

BECKI: Yeah, so the reason that I interviewed for the position in 2018, they were looking for replacement stage managers. So I didn't go through the rehearsal or tech process my first year. I came in after the show had already opened and I found out about it because my friend had worked at actually Creed Rep that previous summer. And one of the stage managers that he worked with is the PSM for The Polar Express. And when he reached out saying like, 'Hey, does anybody need have any know any stage managers? Like, I have two, I need to find two replacements.' And so then my friend passed on my information and I interviewed, got the offer, but I did have an ASM offer for Creed Rep that summer, but I wasn't so sure that I wanted to continue stage managing. And then actually that's when I saw that The REV was hiring for summer actors, so it was really fortuitous for me in that sense 'cause then I was like, oh great. Like, and that was my first like acting gig kind of back from doing a lot of years worth of stage management and so me turning down that Creed Rep job, I was convinced that the new guy that the PSMs like took that position, sorry, the PSM for The Polar Express also worked at Creed Rep. And so I was so convinced that I was like, oh wow, like I turned down this job and like then this great guy takes it and then he's looking for stuff and my friend worked with him and then like my resume got passed or like my, my contact info got passed along. So it felt like it was just kind of like this domino of like, oh yeah, like that's like, that's what was meant to happen. I don't think after talking to him and talking to my friend, my a different friend who was the PSM at Creed Rep, I think he had filled a different role. But I just like to think that like, yeah, everything happens for a reason and I don't know, I feel like sometimes when we are in school or maybe when we're just starting out, we feel like we have to take everything that comes our way and it's hard to like say no to something when it's there and when you're looking and like where you're looking at something that's there, but you're not sure. And the alternative is who knows is uncertainty and nothing. And so yeah, like it's just so hard to say no. But I mean, looking back and even in it, I was glad to have said no to that 'cause then it opened up other things. Previously I felt as though I couldn't be both a stage manager and an actor. And whenever I was in like a stage management position, I felt like I needed to hide that I was also an actor. And I guess maybe because I was older or maybe because I was now feeling more certain about myself, myself in terms of stage management, I felt like I could like talk about being both and not feel like I needed to hide it. And yeah, I guess I had, I was having a conversation with a friend and he was like, Becki, how many people do you know who only do one thing in theatre? And I was like, even like an actor who I can, who I would be like, that's the best actor and the most successful actor I know they're also a teaching artist or maybe they're a playwright or you, you know, so it's like nobody bats an eye when a sound designer is also a lighting designer or when a director is also a choreographer or when an actor is also a playwright. So I was like, so why was I limiting myself to only feeling like I could only be one of those things? So that was also I guess a realization I had.

STEPHEN: Multihyphenate Becki, thank you for speaking with me today. How can our listeners see more of what you're up to and find out what you're working on? 

BECKI: You can find me on Instagram @beckzarit. I also do my own hashtag #BeckSideStory. That started out from the West Side Story tour. You can also find me on my website at beckizaretsky.com. I and I'm also one of the shrews on a podcast called Untamed Shrews Podcast that's hosted by the Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival. And you can find Untamed Shrews on Instagram @UntamedShrewsPodcast or anywhere you listen to podcasts. 

[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.

Check out Becki's podcast Untamed Shrews:
WEBSITE: https://flagshakes.org/untamed-shrews/
INSTAGRAM: @untamedshrewspodcast

Find Becki Zaritsky:
INSTAGRAM: @beckzarit, #becksidestory
WEBSITE: https://www.beckizaritsky.com

Connect with Pipe and Drape:

INSTAGRAM: @PipeAndDrapeStories

EMAIL: PipeAndDrapeStories@gmail.com

Host: Stephen Fala

Artwork: Stephen Gordon