[Pipe and Drape theme plays.]
STEPHEN FALA: I’m Stephen Fala, and you’re listening to Pipe and Drape, the only podcast that spotlights the creative minds behind the Theatre For Young Audiences industry. Every two weeks I sit down with a theatre professional to hear their stories about the audition, rehearsal, and development process of theatre for young audiences. Each of them have bridged the path from youth to adulthood while working in the theatre for young audiences industry. My guests have mounted shows small enough to fit in a minivan to productions so big they travel by caravan. You can join the conversation by emailing PipeAndDrapeStories@gmail.com or messaging @PipeAndDrapeStories Instagram.
This is episode 22 of Pipe and Drape. While sharing this pipe and drape story, my guests and I reminisce over our shared experience performing Where The Red Fern Grows a few autumns back. We talk about everything from packing suitcases to what it's like to grow into adulthood while playing children. Thank you for listening with me today.
STEPHEN: Hi everybody. I'm sipping pumpkin cider with actor Michael McClain. Before we get into resume and theatre things, I need to tell you that Michael has seen every movie that exists and he created the podcast Pfeiffer Fridays with Jerry Downey, which analyzes the history and creatives behind every single Michelle Pfeiffer film. You can find the link to Pfeiffer Fridays in the notes for this episode. Michelle Lover Michael has performed at places like the Alliance Theatre, La Camedia, and Peach State Summer Theatre. We met working at the regional premiere of Heathers: The Musical in Philadelphia, and then met up again a month later in Lexington, Kentucky to put up Where the Red Fern Grows at Lexington Children's Theatre, which is what we're going to talk about right now. Michael. Hello. Cheers.
MICHAEL MCCLAIN: Cheers, Steve. Clink. I hope that got caught on the mic.
STEPHEN: If not, I'll add it in post
MICHAEL: Just a little clink, like a very audible clink.
STEPHEN: Like a ding, like actually the symbols from the coffee in The Nutcracker instead.
MICHAEL: Yes. Oh, it's getting that time of year where you start thinking about seeing The Nutcracker. When I saw it at Atlanta Ballet when I was a kid, they do with the Fox Theatre. And so it's just gorgeous. Perfect place to go see that show. I don't think it's down there anymore cause we have a new performing arts center in Georgia. But at the Fox, they did it there when I was a kid. And the minute that curtain went up on like the drawing room with, you know, the big Christmas party that was like [Gasp.] I remember nothing.
STEPHEN: That one of your first theatre experiences?
MICHAEL: I think so. Oh my God. That and like Titanic the musical, like the tour ofTitanic the musical. Minute one, fast asleep and then I woke up when the ship was sinking and so the ship was like, 'cause it was like hydraulics. So it was tilted like that. And so imagine me as like a little kid waking up to like, what is this on stage? And I hadn't seen Titanic the movie. I hadn't knew nothing about it.
STEPHEN: Oh my God. How old were you when that was touring?
MICHAEL: I think I was like seven?
STEPHEN: Was that at The Fox too?
MICHAEL: Yeah. All of the big like national tours go to The Fox.
STEPHEN: That's such a beautiful, huge kind of overwhelming space to have your first theatre experience in.
MICHAEL: It is, yeah. It's funny we kind of, I don't wanna say hate it as a family, but I think it's just the sight lines and acoustics are not very good. So these tours that come in, they're really meant to be seen like the Broadway stages as they premiered on, they're fit to that scale. So you're kind of adjusting the scale of the set to the space you're in. So sometimes, like I remember seeing like the Drowsy Chaperone national tour at the Fox Theatre being way up in the nosebleeds and it was a little box of a set and then the huge, like the rest of the stage proscenium around it...just being like, how much did we pay for these seats? Because you feel a little bit like short change because you're in such a huge spacious venue, you're only getting a little show because, depending on the show, some are smaller than others and so they can only accommodate what they can kind of ties back into how we had to deal with at like that tour of Where the Red Fern Grows.
STEPHEN: Oh yeah. We were constantly adjusting that set.
MICHAEL: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
STEPHEN: Dealing with the different space and we didn't have much time. It was like, get that in there and... we had done that show in a thrust space and then had to adjust it rather quickly into like to fit a proscenium setting.
MICHAEL: Yes. I, so I, thank goodness I did this, but I kept a journal. I really kept it, I started keeping it like in college and then for like my first like few years out of college I kept it. And you know, I have the, I'm showing it to you, I have the little composition book, it says 2015 on it . And you know, thank God I have this because going into the Red Fern section from like September to November of 2015, it's all there. And in the first kind of theatre we went to that we really had to make adjustments I wrote about it and I said we had to adjust those sight lines and figure out what was going on. And because my character never left the stage, it was like kind of a constant like calibrating, 'Okay, am I being seen right now? I need to adjust myself 'cause yeah.' When you're in a black box, three quarter kind of thrust space, you have all this room to play with and then when you get to some of these school auditoriums, it really limits your playing field.
STEPHEN: Yeah.
MICHAEL: And I remember having to, that's a hard adjustment to make it like eight in the morning [Laughter.]
STEPHEN: Do you remember if we had rehearsal between our load out from like the main theatre in Lexington to like our first tour stop? Yeah.
MICHAEL: We had rehearsals on like how to pack up the van if you wanna call those rehearsals or like practice runs of how to load the set into the van. And I remember those. I don't think...You mean like rehearsals in terms of okay, this is how we're gonna perform this show to just a regular proscenium? I don't remember if we ever did.
STEPHEN: I don't either. I just remember those like rehearsals for load outs happening after performances...
MICHAEL: If I may even say so I think between performances, I mean, I dunno if that was even possible with our show, but it felt like it was like maybe between a performance and like a rehearsal for something else that we were doing while we were there. Just felt like those kind of practices were sandwiched in there after doing kind of a very physically demanding eighty minutes of theatre and then like,'Okay, you just burned five million bajillion calories, pack up a truck.'
STEPHEN: The first, I feel, like five or six weeks of that contract were loaded with like everything between rehearsals for our show, putting up the show, prepping for tour, tour, and then doing various other things for the theatre. It was just like...it was a lot, which like made for a great fall and we still got to do like so many activities.
MICHAEL: Yeah we did. I was looking back through the journal starting at the beginning of when I got to Lexington. I forgot how he basically blocked the show in week, less than a week? I was so shocked. But then I remembered, I kind of came flooding back to me as I was reading, I was like, oh yeah, we put this up pretty quickly and I think I must have known that or else why did I learn all my lines before before I got there?
STEPHEN: That was a big thing. Like they, they were like, please come off book.
MICHAEL: Memorized yeah I think that must have been or else I would not have done that. 'Cause I'm such a, oh I'll learn it as I'm doing it, you know, once we, I'm of the school, you know, once you block it, it's set. So go memorize the lines. Especially if it's like this is your text. It's not like it's a new piece, you know, this is what you're gonna be doing. So I remember before I came to Lexington, just like maybe even during Heathers I did that, when we were doing that I was like studying my script. And yeah, it was such a fast process. I think maybe on the first first or second day we got it up on its feet without really any kind of direction from our director Vivian. And we just kind of went with the flow of how, what were our impulses and how are we, how maybe we just block the scene naturally. And that was very different for me at the time coming from, like I just said, the: you block the scene, you memorize it, you move on to the next one. That felt so different. You know, being asked to trust my own instincts and impulses and just see what happened without having any kind of solid, 'Go here, go exit this way, then do this.' Yeah. That first week was just really like mind blowing.
STEPHEN: Yeah. And that really tested your memorization skills. All of my lines were a, 'woo woo woo' because I was a dog.
MICHAEL: Did you let people know that you played a dog?
STEPHEN: Oh, hi everyone. I played a dog in it. I was Old Dan.
MICHAEL: I mean, it's funny cause we both had very physical parts, so I can't really say, well yours, your role is more physical. And I'm like, mine was just as physical. I just had a lot of...I was yelling a lot .
STEPHEN: Oh my God. Yeah. You had to, we were running around just the same, like I was running around with a puppet on my arm and then you were running around having to say things the whole time. So we both...there are some really hot pictures of us from before and after our dress rehearsal day.
MICHAEL: Okay. I think we, I saw in my journal we did like a one dress rehearsal day three times in a row.
STEPHEN: Yeah.
MICHAEL: In my journal for so many days it's just sweating. It's just talking about how much I'm sweating and how tired I am and [Laughter.] how beat I am after doing all these performances because yeah, it's no joke doing two in a row or three in a row. It's like for that play.
STEPHEN: I like didn't realize until after that contract that doing three performances in a day is not unusual for TYA theatres.
MICHAEL: No.
STEPHEN: But like neither of us were prepared for it.
MICHAEL:Yeah. It was all a stamina and muscles that we built to do it that many times.
STEPHEN: We had a rehearsal process too, to build up that salmon a little bit. 'Cause not only were we rehearsing the show all day, we also moved the scenery throughout the show.
MICHAEL: That was all very tightly choreographed if I remember. We just, it's, and yeah. Even during the show, just besides moving sets, like we were a part of, you know, of the set, you know, I'm remembering when little land falls through the ice, do you remember that scene?
STEPHEN: Oh yes.
MICHAEL: Where a very, I think a very cool stage picture. I think the way that it was blocked was very cool, but I remember that being a process to get right because there was fabric that became the ice or the sheet of ice. And then Abbie, who played Little Ann with her puppet had to make sure she could have poked the puppet through a hole in the ice if I remember right. And then of course I had to, you know, drag her out of it and the puppet had to like catch onto like a stick.
STEPHEN: Yes!
MICHAEL: And so she had to like detach the puppet from her hand. And then I had to kind of drag this puppet to me. And then did we have to do a whole kind of where she had to like get the puppet back on her hand and make it look kind of seamless?
STEPHEN: Yeah. There were a couple of those in that show.
MICHAEL: Where you had kind of had to lose the dog for a second, then I had to get the dog back on you. Or we had to like, with the dog's mouth, get something back in place. I feel like there was a lot of that and I reading in here, I was like, oh yeah, there was a whole scene where I had to fish her out of the ice wasn't there? Yeah.
STEPHEN: Yeah. That was, for me, that was a bit of a break because I just had to stand on the side and bark helplessly and didn't have to do much.
MICHAEL: And the way you couldn't help me if I had...I remember I was reading a scene where one of my suspenders on my overalls in my costume got kind of tangled in my little nap sack. You as a dog, you can't help me you know, because you have to maintain the illusion you're a dog. And so I don't even think with your free hand, you can't just be like, let me help you Michael. No, you have to maintain the illusion. So, so many times I'm just like, looking at you and you're the dog and I'm like, I'm having an issue. And you're like...it would've not made any kind of sense if you just broke your illusion of being Old Dan and like helped me out. Talk about your brain, kind of going in five thousand different places saying your lines. I'm like, okay, I gotta get off stage. I'm gonna go behind that drape, fix myself and then come back on stage for the next scene. This has to happen in ten seconds or else I'm gonna be late for this scene change.
STEPHEN: Did you have in those ten seconds time to like drink water or anything?
MICHAEL: No.
STEPHEN: Oh God.
MICHAEL: I mean maybe, I definitely know that I couldn't pee if I had to go to the bathroom that had to be done before the show. And I think my body takes over in a place where you kind of, your body will hold that. You know? And it was a very, it was a very long play for a children's theater show. It was a pretty adult, lengthy story and you know, compared to other shows that we saw while we were there, this was, you know, very much like a proper show length.
STEPHEN: And I don't remember kids getting restless necessarily. Like most of the show was like scored like there was music behind us so like, even if they were saying stuff, I probably couldn't hear them because there was...
MICHAEL: No...There was that great voiceover that we had. Do you remember that? Did we have the music before we started rehearsals? Do you remember this?
STEPHEN: I just remember the first time hearing the overture for the show and getting like, not emotional, but I was like...it took me somewhere. And I think that's something really special when a show or like music can take you to a certain place. It has fallen the Ozarks. It was just done really well. Yeah.
MICHAEL: And the set was, I always felt like I was, especially when we were at Lexington with the floor painted like it was, the lighting, the score, the set, our costumes. It was not hard to feel like you're just playing pretend. I felt like I was just in lost in my basement acting out aplay, you know? And it was just so...they really helped transport you the way that production was designed.
STEPHEN: I think it was so special that we were in like the heart of pumpkin spice season as we were doing this autumnal show.
MICHAEL: Yeah. I think that was a made a big difference too. I think if it was any other time of year it wouldn't have felt like it did. But yeah, we were, we were in Lexington in the fall and so we were able to do a lot of great fall activities and living our pumpkin spice life. It's never been more peak pumpkin spice for me than it was that fall.
STEPHEN: No. And that's why I will, on the Instagram for this podcast, post so many pictures from that contract during the fall, because we did so many fall things during that time, either like between shows or during that kind of weird period that we had...We had not a layoff on tour, but we had a couple weeks between performances at one point which gave us time to explore the area and like outside...
MICHAEL: And luckily we had our actor housing, which was not very far from the campus of the theatre, but we were all living in together in houses side by side. So you weren't living in the same house as me, but you were living with other technicians, other actors, same as I was. And so you had a built-in kind of tour group almost of people who would show you around Lexington who'd been there for a long time already doing shows or just wrapping up contracts so they knew the places to go and so yeah, they kind of dragged us along. So thank goodness we had people around us to like show us what it was all about. Because I think if maybe we'd been in a hotel maybe separate from the theatre, not really around others, I don't know if we would've maybe had as many opportunities to try out the flavors of Lexington or the Rocky Horror on Halloween. That's like, I'm always like so proud that I can say I'm like, I've been to a midnight screening of Rocky Horror on Halloween! I've done it just like I can say I've been to Salem on Halloween. I've done a Rocky Horror on Halloween, so I have so many amazing fall memories that to me I'm like, can't be topped at the time. 'Cause yeah, they were just so like ideal in exactly what you'd wanna do with your fall time. I remember it being just like really big like days of like, we're filming, we're filming? We're blocking this big scene. 'Cause there were so many in that play where it's like really, we've gotta keep it moving, we've gotta keep it going. And there's really big action moments in the play. Like the ice or the big championship hunt or the fight with the mountain lion. Those are big days.
STEPHEN: What was your experience like learning those and blocking those and building them with the team?
MICHAEL: Well first it was, I think I really had to, with this play, I had to memorize it to the letter because we were moving around so much and so many things relied on the lines. I was like, they had to be forwards backwards in my sleep, had to know them. And then once I did it was kind of easy to add on everything else because the foundation of me knowing these lines and knowing what was happening text-wise was pretty...was solid. So I was able to just keep on going and learn and then like the blocking of it. But I I think it was the remembering, because they were so long, I think remembering the sequences of it probably wasn't hard to learn but then just once we put 'em all together, okay, where are we right now? Because we turn around, we go around in circles, around in circles around the stage because we're trying to simulate, you know, we're hunting, we're going through these woods, we're traveling through so much. And that's what really, if I wasn't focused, I could go up and be like, where are we right now? I know I'm supposed to say three 'Old Dans' or you know, 'Over there,' I don't remember what the words were but you know, I said the same things I think over and over pretty much that wasn't, you know, 'Come on,' or you know, 'Get 'em boy,' like yeah, that's where I would get, that's where I would be thrown off, you know. Is that my second 'Good job old Dan' or is that my third one? That's what could trip me up is because the lines were probably the same and we were just turning around in circles. If I just wasn't focused and knew what everybody was doing and what I was supposed to do next, yeah. That's where I could get thrown off. But yeah, I just, I had to be on, I had to know where you were. I had to know where Abbie was. I had to know where...you just kinda had to know where everybody was and where exactly we were. But that just came from practice and the first couple times I think we probably [Laughter.] and I think it also took so long to kind of...'cause as we were figuring it out and as we're getting the blocking down on our bones, there's gonna be lags in between the action because you're trying to remember, okay, this is where we are, where are we going? But once we know it, I'm snapping my fingers. It's like the pace was just like picking up. I imagine that's the notes we got a lot was picking up the pace in those big sequences. And I think it initially we were probably just not as moving as fast as we needed to, but I think we did.
STEPHEN: So much of it was just remembering where...'cause the set was just benches and doorways that moved around, and so it was moving slowly to figure out, okay, this bench go here at this angle standing up leading against the thing. Like things were just stacked on each other and there was such like a safety component of it, too.
MICHAEL: Yeah, that's true.
STEPHEN: We had to weave around under these things and it's like, if that thing's not there, do we have to hold? But we got there.
MICHAEL: We did I think by dress rehearsal time, I think by that...by showtime when we were doing it in front of audiences we had it. But those big sequences took some afternoons to fine tune and pick up the pace 'cause yeah, I feel like by showtime we had it down and we knew exactly where we needed to be and if there was ever a flub it was a very...it was never repeated. But yeah, those were some of the most intense like sequences I've ever had to do on stage.
STEPHEN: Had you ever been hunting before?
MICHAEL: No.
STEPHEN: Okay.
MICHAEL: That was a very, very weird thing to me because yeah, I don't, I grew up in the suburbs, you know, I did not grow up in the mountains. So I only really knew that kind of lifestyle from like books, movies, TV, like things you watch. So to like hand me like, like a hatchet, like a little ax and tell a dog to go catch something was very, very out of left field for me. And I felt very out of my comfort zone to play someone very down home, very one focus, wanted those hunting dogs. And yeah, it was very, it was a very different character than I'd ever played. And I think at first I probably played him a little bit too mature, even though he is basically only ten years old. thirteen? I think Vivian had to give me a note there at the beginning of like, you know, play him as a kid. He's not, you know, he's not a mature kid. I think I was a mature kid, but I wanted to play him like he was a mature kid but no, he was this little guy who lived in the Ozarks and all he wanted was some hunting dogs and that's it. And so I had to really take it down to like...he has to experience the highest highs and the lowest lows. There's not gonna be a lot of nuance in there 'cause he is a kid. They don't experience things in those kinds of shades. And so I really had to stop treating him like he was my age, you know, or that he was maybe more refined than he was. Not to say that people in the Ozarks aren't refined, but you know, I think I wanted to give him just a more of a maturity and a worldliness. 'Cause I think that was me and I needed to bring him down to a different level
STEPHEN: As such like an avid reader and cinephile, did you dive into like existing media to find characters like Billy or anything else that you've played?
MICHAEL: Um, there's a movie called Winter's Bone, which is like Jennifer Lawrence, her first big breakout movie was that. And she plays a teenage girl in the Ozarks. And so that was in my head as I was about to go play a boy in the Ozarks, you know, how do they sound? I kind of took a lot of pages from their kind of body language and how tough they were.That really helped me. I kind of had that image in my head of that tough character that really helped 'cause I could see, you know, cuz I don't, we don't live in the Ozarks, how do we know what these people are like? But I knew I had kind of that movie as a reference point. That's a very dark story, much darker than Red Fern. But I had like a voice, a sound, a lifestyle that I could think about and I could visualize so that I could know what I was going into. Because yeah, in that movie it's very...you really get a sense of the visuals of what it's like to live in the Ozarks. And I think that's pretty much what it would've been like for Billy. And so yeah, just for your imagination it really just fuels that. At one point, I even wrote this in my journal, I think maybe one of the first performances your puppet's eyes rolled back in its head. That was...what a...I remember looking at the puppet, seeing it. I feel like we looked at each other and I think you, the look in your eyes was like, I know, I know. Don't draw attention, because I don't know, could it close its eyes? Could the puppet close its eyes? Do you remember?
STEPHEN: I don't think he could when that happened. I don't think he could close them 'cause I would've just kept them closed for the, the remainder. But they, something was wrong.
MICHAEL: Then it was fixed though.
STEPHEN: Yeah, there was an emergency call to a wardrobe upstairs during the show and so...
MICHAEL: That's right.
STEPHEN: Yeah. Abby from wardrobe came down with super glue and then like pulled my eyes back into place and glued them and she was like, you won't be able to blink for the rest of the performance. And I'm like, okay, and then three seconds later I like run on with this, with the dog, with the glue eyes.
MICHAEL: Yeah. Yeah. I remember that. Luckily we found a place to stop. Like there or like there was they, you went off, you must have known there was like a scene where you could go off and like get this fixed. I must have been with my parents or something. Yeah I so you remember you coming back on and being like, I'm fixed, I'm good, I'm healed. Like you've bounded back on like with more vigor than you'd ever had. Like I'm healed, I'm free. Yeah. I don't think anybody noticed it in the audience. Yeah. The rest of that performance it was like Old Dan's back. He is back baby. Good is new. Oh, I just had, I thought that I had played an animal before as a kid. I was the Dormouse in Alice in Wonderland when I was a little boy.
STEPHEN: Where?!
MICHAEL: It was at a little community theatre called Little General Playhouse. I was like seven and yeah, I was the Dormouse.
STEPHEN: Oh my. Was that one of your first times performing?
MICHAEL: Yeah, the second time I was ever on stage.
STEPHEN: Oh my gosh.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
STEPHEN: What was the first time?
MICHAEL: I was in Hansel and Gretel at that same theatre. And in this version, Hansel and Gretel had cousins. They had cousins. So I played one of their cousins and then I was also the Sandman that put them to sleep in the forest. I had a little bag of glitter. I just sprinkled them over Hansel and Gretel.
STEPHEN: Oh, fun. How old were you when you did Sound of Music?
MICHAEL: I was twenty.
STEPHEN: Interesting.
MICHAEL: Yeah. I did it as an adult. Like they cast the...I was Friedrich, so Liesel and Friedrich were cast as like twenty year olds. And then everybody, every kid after that was cast age appropriate. So we were kind of the built-in, Liesel and I were like the built-in babysitters where it really is like, you know, okay, are there seven of us, one two three... you know, you really do to do a headcount because the seven of them go, you know, pretty much in tandem. And so, yeah I remember I was basically a glorified like corraler. It was great to do 'cause it's so fun. But there are certain scenes where it's like, okay, you're performing this scene but you also have your arm around one kid arm around another. Okay. I've got my eye on those two 'cause you gotta get 'em off stage. So it's like just crowd control when you're twenty and doing the sound of music. Yeah.
STEPHEN: I mean that's like, you've had such an interesting experience of being like an adult playing children.
MICHAEL: As do you.
STEPHEN: [Laughter.] Yeah. Between like Sound of Music and Red Fern being in your twenties and then playing a ten year old and then even downtown doing shows like here in play festivals where you're playing characters that are very young. How has that been for you as an adult living in in like that kind of world?
MICHAEL: I was very against it at first. I think I wanted to work against my look and my height and really butt against it when it's really been something that's been really marketable, and so it took me a while to accept that yeah, this is what I look like and this is what I can play right now. And I've really have come to peace with that. At first I was very like, I thought it would make me feel like I'm not a mature actor, that I'm not a real actor. I'm playing kids. I don't feel valued as a mature human being. That definitely was in there. But then I look at the experiences I've gotten to have playing these children and they've been really wonderful experiences. I wouldn't really trade them for anything. But it took me a while to accept it and learn how to do it well. I think I wanted to, like I said with Billy, I wanted to play him my age. I wanted to play him mature just like I would be. But no, you kind have to find out, okay, just like an adult character, this kid character, what is their personality like? And I think that's where I kind of had to take it as, you know, not an insult, but treat it just as like, oh, this other character, they're fully valid character and they have a complete emotional life, too. And so yeah, that's the adjustment. But now I think as I'm nearing thirty, I'll be thirty next year, I'm like, will I be doing kids anymore? I feel like I've aged out of some of them, but I think that I'll probably still be, I don't think I'll be playing full on like fathers in my thirties. I think that'll happen a little bit later on still, which I'm fine with. I really have accepted the fact that I look like this and I am this and it's okay. I think if twenty-three year old me would not be okay with it, but I think now I'm like, it's all good. I really don't mind. But it is an adjustment. Yeah, I was like having to figure out where I was gonna live in New York...
STEPHEN: I think that's something that's very interesting with...in your position playing a kid and then dealing with this real world stuff of figuring out. You have a life back in New York, you have adult expenses, and then having to go into work and share this story for kids where like a lot of times it's TYA, you walk in, it's a very happy environment and when you're going through real adult stuff, that's hard during that hour, hour and a half of before the show and after the show, like being like, 'Well we absolutely cannot think about that right now.'
MICHAEL: No.
STEPHEN: What did you do to clear your head?
MICHAEL: I read a lot. So many...I read so much while I was there. And thank goodness we had all our fall outings that we got to do. Just hanging out with you, hanging out with, my roommate Robert, being with people. I tried to make sure I did that instead of hauling up in my room. And I did rest and haul up in my room when I needed to, but I just made sure to be with the friends that I had on this contract and it, it all worked out, you know? 'Cause I was able to find the apartment I eventually moved into in New York. I did the first FaceTimes with those roommates there. My parents being able to see it meant so much, so I had things to hold on to, but when I look back on the time, I wish I had been able to be just a little bit more present instead of in my head about what was happening in New York. But yeah, I really thank goodness we had those houses because we were all able to connect with each other if we wanted to. That helped so much.
STEPHEN: I was not in your house many times. I feel like I was there for like the Halloween pregame.
MICHAEL: I came over to you a lot. I was very nice. I didn't make you...[Laughter.] I was very nice.
STEPHEN: Did I make you sit in the basement with me?
MICHAEL: I did. We did do some movie nights in the basement.
STEPHEN: That was the summer, not summer....
MICHAEL: That little cot that you had.
STEPHEN: Oh, that little twin bed...
MICHAEL:And you didn't bring no sheets.
STEPHEN: Well I had never been in a situation where they weren't provided before. That's...I'm saying this as if I've been in many situations at that point in my life, I had not, I just assumed... They were like, 'We don't have bedding,' I was like, 'That's not real, but okay.' So I brought sheets and like one of those microfiber blankets and then I was in the basement and I just had those...no pillow. The sweatshirt that I'm wearing right now...
MICHAEL: Was that a pillow?
STEPHEN: That was my pillow for weeks because I could not find a pillow anywhere in the surrounding area.
MICHAEL: Did we ever...we never went and bought you a pillow at Target?
STEPHEN: My mom came to visit me. Oh my God. Bless Peggy Fala. She came and was like, oh my God, he doesn't have a pillow. He doesn't have a heavy blanket. He is running three miles down the freeway to the gym every day. And my mom was like, absolutely not. So we drove around looking everywhere for like a blanket and a pillow, which I ended up just leaving at the theatre. I was like, that's my gift here for the..
MICHAEL: Next person...
STEPHEN: The next guest artist. And then my mom signed me up.
MICHAEL: Why did I take you to Target? There wasn't a target very close by, I don't think.
STEPHEN: Michael, you took me so many places and I just...I really looked and I could not find them.
MICHAEL: It must have been a target without betting.
STEPHEN: Yeah. Like a mini Target. Also, like...you know, Kentucky...
MICHAEL: I took you to the emergency room!
STEPHEN: Oh my God. So sometimes when I am very like... stress manifests physically in me, anytime I'm stressed. And so with Red Fern, it was just such like a physically demanding show and like I felt like I had mono, I was convinced. I was like, I am dying. I have to go to urgent care. So Michael drove me to urgent care where like I was evaluated and like they ran tests and my nurse was like, you...you just need to like go to bed. And I was like, oh, okay. So then afterwards I took Michael to Cheesecake Factory. It really good.
MICHAEL: Yes. I wrote down in here that we did the Cheesecake Factory. That's a very important detail. [Laughter.] You poor thing. Oh my gosh.
STEPHEN: That was such a day. I mean I, because on top of like rehearsals, I was also going to the gym. Like running to the gym lifting.
MICHAEL: It was only last...only seven years ago last week. October 9th.
STEPHEN: What was I doing on October 9th?
MICHAEL: We a two show day. This was show six and seven. We hadn't done, we had done not even a week of shows. And you were already like, I'm dying, which makes sense.
STEPHEN: It was nonstop, we dove right into the very physical process. We had to carry our set between two rehearsal studios in the theatre because...
MICHAEL: Because they were rehearsing other shows, right? And so they needed the space.
STEPHEN: Yeah. And we couldn't be...one of the studios is directly above the theatre, which is great because the proportions--it's exact to the stage. But Madeline was happening on stage in the theatre.
MICHAEL: That's right!
STEPHEN: We couldn't do our show where we were running around literally screaming. So we had to bring our set to this other very skinny little stage and rehearse in the morning, then carry it up the stairs to continue rehearsal in the afternoon.
MICHAEL: It was just a big process. I don't think it was, I don't think they ever asked anything unfair of us. I think it's what comes with the TYA. It's kinda what happens. You know, it's really, it can be very DIY I guess. You've gotta get your set, get your props, put it up all together. You're not gonna have a separate crew do all this for you. It really is teamwork and camaraderie. And yeah that can just be exhausting when your team is so few people. As not as if you have a whole, huge cast to do this when it's just like six people.
STEPHEN: And we all did sign on to do like ASM work, too.
MICHAEL: We knew what we were signing up for. But it was just...it can be...it was a lot. I think still fulfilling. But it really showed me that it's that sometimes it wasn't...that TYA was no joke, to put on a show like that.
STEPHEN: I think we were all very connected to the work that we were doing, partially because of how hands-on we were with this set, but we had a lot of conversations about what each of these characters mean and what they're going through...
MICHAEL:We did have some good like table working discussions about the play. It felt like we were doing like a regular Shakespeare or something . Like we were doing proper table work analyzing these characters in these scenes. And I think that just kind of helped us bond. And I think 'cause we were all older, we weren't dealing with any young cast members. We were all, I think maybe you and I, maybe Abbie and you and I are probably the youngest out of the whole bunch. So we were dealing with kind of a largely adult cast. So I think that we knew what we were there to do and it was hard work, but I think we really were a team. We knew we had to be. I was thinking about the kids after the show because the kids' reactions, cause we had like a Q and A session after the school performances and the kids always ask questions about how do you, I'm sure they ask like how they made the puppets and kind of basic stage craft questions. But they asked some deep ones too about like, why did the dogs have to die? Which is always like...'cause the writer wrote it that way. But you can't say that. And I think we thought of really nice thoughtful answers for that where it's like, one cannot lay without the other, they were such a team and they so loved each other. One can't be without the other.
STEPHEN: It was a piece that allowed for the drama and the deep stuff, but in a way that was still entertaining for kids in a way that they could grasp it. And it wasn't...nothing was ever trying to be light or dancing around it. Like you watched me get murdered by a giant animal...
MICHAEL: I had to cry over your dead body...That was, I hated doing that. It was so awful having to like go there. I mean I think I just had to, in order to get to that point, I had to kind of picture it being like, imagine if you, Steve were like, had been killed by a mountain [Laughter.] to kind of get that guttural just like awful scream and like feel that pain in there. Like I think I had to go there and that was, I hated going there. That's awful. You never wanna think of somebody like...well how would you react after your, after your friend had been killed by a mountain lion? Like no.
STEPHEN: I'm so sorry you had to go there.
MICHAEL: That's all right.
STEPHEN: The second I died I started thinking about my lunch though.
MICHAEL: And I know you did [Laughter.], and I know you did. And I was busy having a beautiful wrenching moment and I still had a whole other part of the plate to do. I had another dog that had die.
STEPHEN: And you had to bury us.
MICHAEL: I did.
STEPHEN: You had to wrap our puppets and cheese cloth.
MICHAEL: That's right.
STEPHEN: And then carve our names into rocks.
MICHAEL: Yeah. And I had to do that...Like, that was timed, too. I remember that with like the, because it was timed with the narration and the music. So I had to make sure that those rocks were like down by the time the play was over...They were putting me through it.
STEPHEN: Are there any other lessons or like things that you took away from this job?
MICHAEL: Hmm. This is interesting, because this is one of my first like out of state, like away from home/college big boy on his own shows. I definitely packed too much. I think because I had the car as well, so it's kind of an easy thing to like, oh, just put it in the trunk. I'll take it with me. I realized that I packed too much. I didn't need as many knickknacks and clothes and books that I thought I needed. But now I know for like the down the road as I was going out of state from New York, to do other shows, I was like, oh, I don't need to pack as much. I can pretty much keep it, you know, pretty minimal. And so I've kept that in mind for like later contracts. I'm like, yeah, you don't need to pack as many things as you think you do, especially like odds and ends. You don't need to bring all those pictures. You don't need to decorate your room. Like no, no, no. You don't really need to. You need the space. It's like pack things you do need. Yeah, it was a really...it was my first like big like leading part in the show. Like where it's really like I'm the focus of this is my story if you will. I'm on stage the whole time. It was a really great lesson, stamina and just maintaining the performance like that. And then one of the biggest takeaways was like your friendship and knowing you and that was such a big, you are such a big part of that experience as well. So yeah, I think that's my big takeaway. It was such a big learning experience and I'm really proud that I did it.
STEPHEN: Michael, thank you for coming on the podcast and reliving this Ozark experience with me.
MICHAEL: Oh, it was my pleasure. It really took me back down memory lane. I haven't thought about a lot of this in a long time. Thank God I have this journal. I know when you asked me I'm like, I know I've got my journal. Don't worry. We'll be fine. Thank you so much.
STEPHEN: How can our listeners find out what you're up to?
MICHAEL: You can find me on...I'm not super big on social media much a lot. I mean mostly on Instagram, like it's @MichaelDMcClain, so it's my name and then my middle initial D. I'm on Twitter as well at the same. And any film people out there feel free to find me on Letterboxd if you're on Letterboxd, that same handle. And also check out Pfeiffer Fridays as well, like you mentioned the beginning.
[Pipe and Drape theme plays.]
MICHAEL: I think you could have packed more, to be honest, because, you know, you didn't come in with bedding, so I think you could have packed more, Steve.
INSTAGRAM: @michaeldmcclain
TWITTER: @michaeldmcclain
LETTERBOXD: @michaeldmcclain
Connect with Pipe and Drape:
INSTAGRAM: @PipeAndDrapeStories
EMAIL: PipeAndDrapeStories@gmail.com
Host: Stephen Fala
Artwork: Stephen Gordon
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