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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. Join me every two weeks as I sit down with a theatre professional to unlock their pipe and drape stories. These are the (often untold) stories of the creators behind the pipe and drape scenery in the theatre for young audiences world. Theatre for young audiences (or TYA) inspires young minds by entertaining audiences with topics big and little in any and every setting. My guests have mounted shows small enough to fit in a minivan to productions so big they travel by caravan, and on this podcast we discuss the ways theatre for young audiences helps all artists and theatregoers make this world a better place.
Hi, everyone. I’m here with Growing Stage Founder and Executive Director Stephen Fredericks. This organization, which is The Children’s Theatre of New Jersey was founded by Stephen shortly after he graduating from Arizona State University—first as a company with a strong touring unit, and now over forty years later it is housed in the century old historic Palace Theatre in Netcong New Jersey. This former vaudeville house is now a two hundred and forty seat theatre and art gallery, where students and families can see theatre, experience new plays through the New Play-Reading Festival and Playwriting Festival for Young Writers, and receive training in the arts! The Growing Stage offers classes for students as young as 3.5, and educates young people year-round through their Master Classes, Creative Arts Academy, and Summer Arts Camp in subjects like music, acting, improv, playwriting, and more! And Stephen’s passion for arts education excellence extends beyond the walls of the Palace and into schools! For over a decade Stephen served as president of the Hackettstown Foundation for Excellence, which supports teachers with funding for new initiatives beyond the school budget and strengthens community participation in school programs. He is also the recipient of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education Sara Spencer Award, The Community Foundation of New Jersey Exemplary Performance in Nonprofit Management Award; and The New Jersey Theatre Alliance Award of Recognition. Stephen is here with me to discuss all of this end more at The Growing Stage. Stephen, welcome.
STEPHEN L. FREDERICKS: Oh, thank you, Stephen. I appreciate the opportunity.
FALA: Of course, yeah. I'm very excited to hear about all things that are happening at The Growing Stage and how you grew into this position and where you are today.
FREDERICKS: Sure, sure!
FALA: Were you a big theatre kid growing up?
FREDERICKS: Oh, absolutely. My father was very involved in community theatre. He was a salesman with a major company and he was very good at what he did in training new salespeople. So it was every…they would send him to different territories all around the country that needed a little bit of a boost. So as a young kid, we would travel all around in different parts of the…you know, from Brooklyn, New York to Rochester, New York, to Dallas, Texas, to Boston, Massachusetts, to finally, we ended up in New Jersey. But every town we went to, he had a strong community theatre background, as I said, and wherever we would go, he would start something up like that within the church that we were going to as a way to getting to know everybody and kind of building community. So even as a young person, I could see how theatre was a great tool for building community. And so that always stayed with me, made more of an impact on me than I realized. Not until I was older did I realized what was going on here and where I got that passion from.
FALA: Yeah. Wow. So it sounds like you were…[Laughter.] you were on a national tour before you even realized it.
[Laughter.]
FREDERICKS: Yeah, that's right. We were on a bus and truck show. It was a moving truck, but it was a…it was a bus and truck show. Yep, absolutely. Yep. It was great.
FALA: Would you perform alongside your dad in those church productions?
FREDERICKS: He would, for the most part, direct the shows. You know, and then I would be in it, my sister would be in it you know, very much family involved type of thing. And then as I got older and we were settled, then I started doing other theatre in other areas and stuff, and kind of broadened my horizons a little bit with his encouragement. Yeah. He was always incredibly supportive with regards to that. And so that, yeah, I mean, it was…the theatre has always just been a part of it. Snd I've been fortunate; my wife is also works at The Growing Stage. She's the director of educational programming, and she's also the costume designer and coordinator for the theatre. So our three kids have grown up through the theatre as well. So it's just kinda passing that torch along. None of them are in the arts professionally, but they all have a passion for it still with whatever they do.
FALA: Oh, yeah! With your position, you are wearing multiple hats. You know, you are sometimes designing, writing, writing, directing, overseeing everything. Were you doing that as a kid as well? Did you find yourself writing your own plays to do with friends?
FREDERICKS: Well, not necessarily to do with friends. I was not necessarily the greatest of students. And I was teas my mother just the other day, it was just like, you know, ‘You were my first…you helped me write my first play.’ ‘Cause I had to do a homework assignment on the Stamp Act when I was in seventh grade, and I could not get it across. Like, ‘How am I gonna do this? Just do a report. This is so boring.’ So my mother said, “Well, what do you wanna do?” I said, “Well, I’ll write a play about it.” So I wrote a play about it, and then the, the teacher was like, ‘Well, did did you really write this? I mean, what, none of my kids just write a play.’ [Laughter.] But that was a way for me to communicate, you know, theatre was something that was, was comfortable for me and was very easy for me to, you know, find my place and find my, my niche. And as far as, you know, with in, in a comfort zone and feeling an excellent way to communicate, especially since as a young person we were moving in such different areas and regions of the country and not necessarily there for a very short, you know, for a very long period of time. So that it was like, ‘Alright, how does a kid from New York make friends in Texas? And then as a kid make friends in Boston, Massachusetts?' And then from there, you know, there's so many different geographical changes and challenges that go along with that. And theatre was a way for that to make that happen.
FALA: I’m thinking about all of the geographical landscape you must have seen as a kid, but then also the people. You know, America's so big, and so there are different customs, different ways to socialize throughout the country. I'm thinking about when I first worked in the south…
FREDERICKS: Mm-Hmm.
FALA: And I was told like, ‘People will say hi to you, and that's normal down here.’ I was used to a neighborhood where people just don't talk to each other and they don't acknowledge each other.
FREDERICKS: Sure, Sure.
FALA: And so I had to make that adjustment as an adult. So how did you find that as a kid? Did…was it easier to adjust with other kids or was the big adjustment in how you communicated with adults as a kid?
FREDERICKS: With adults. Yeah. You know, it was, I think it was with the adults because, you know, and at that time period, I mean, we're talking in the mid-sixties, so I'm going from upstate New York where everything's kinda laid back and everything's fine. And then going to Dallas, Texas at the time where you had to say “yes ma’am,” and “yes, sir.” And the principal literally had a ping pong paddle behind her desk, so if you didn't show proper respect, you had to go to the principal’s office. I mean, think of the…relate that to today and how that would fly. But and then going to…my father then got transferred eleven months later to Massachusetts and my mother getting called into the office because the teacher at the time thinks that I’m being a wise guy by saying “yes, ma’am” because…and it was like, ‘No, I had to say that otherwise I was gonna get a ping pong paddle!’ So it was just like, you know…and kind of weighing all that together. And New Jersey was actually the easiest of the transitions because it was such a transitory state. So many of the people within the region, we’re in the northwest part of the state, so many people within that region, you know, are already coming from all around the country, so it was much easier way for me to blend in at that time once we finally settled here when I was in the seventh grade.
FALA: How did you find yourself then back on the other side of the country at ASU studying?
FREDERICKS: I was going to the junior college ‘cause I, at the time, I was a business management major. And not really sure…theatre was something I was definitely interested and wanted as a part of my life, but I wasn't necessarily so focused that I knew I wanted to be in theatre management. And even at the time, mid-seventies, there were very few, if any programs for theatre management at that time. So I was gonna be a business management major and then with a minor in theatre. And one of my friends said, “I'm applying to Arizona–”I wish I could say this was like studious, you know, after all this research, I decided Arizona State was the place for me to go. But what it was just happenstance. And it was…what happened was a friend of mine said, “I'm applying to Arizona State, you should, too.” “So how much does it cost for the application?” He said, “There's no application fee.” “Well, I've already been in Dallas, Texas, why not?” So I filled it out and I was accepted and, and then the thought was, well, when will I ever get that chance to be back in that part of the country again? And, you know, and looking at the costs and such…my family was a very middle class family. You know, it was just like, ‘Well, it was cheaper.’ I was accepted also to Rutgers University, but it was less expensive for me to go as an out-of-state student to ASU than it was for me to be as an in-state student to Rutgers. So, my parents always realized life experiences are as important as what you’re gonna get through the books. ‘So if you have that opportunity and it’s something that we can afford to do, then by all means go to Arizona, experience that in addition to getting an excellent education and then apply it to whatever you decide to do in life.’ So I took that leap just like my father had done with the family numerous times around the country and then took, once I got there, I changed my major to theatre and my minor into business management. And that's how I kind of fell into into the path that I chose. And quite honestly as well, I took the children’s theatre course thinking it was gonna be an easy-A and walked into that classroom and was so inspired by Dr. Don Doyle and Lin Wright and all of those people I had the opportunity to meet and befriend. And they took me under their wing. But to me it was just like a whole new world opened up to me of the potential of theatre as an art form, and that it’s not just reviews and applause at the end of the show and not just the community but the impact you can make on a child, and the impact you can make in developing the next audience—the arts patron for tomorrow. And embracing that and getting so excited about that, that then became my focus in life.
FALA: ASU has such a strong children's theatre focus now. I had interviewed a previous ASU grad on my last season of this podcast. And for two TYA/USA, we worked with a number of ASU students as apprentices at our conference last year.
FREDERICKS: Sure.
FALA: And so, I am so curious about what that course was like that you took. Was it focusing on TYA in performance, or was it more about the effect of theatre on young audiences?
FREDERICKS: Well, the effect on the young audiences was kind of…that was a part of it, that was kinda like the icing on the cake. But the, the at, it was at this same time that Aurand Harris was coming out with The Arkansaw Bear and coming out with pieces that were a lot different than the Charlotte Chorpenning stuff of just reruns of fairytales, you know, and stepping it up from what children's theatre used to be with the Junior League. It was like, let's look at this as a professional theatre art form. And that's something that Don Doyle was very, like, enthusiastic about and wanted to encourage us about, is to look at the theatrical piece and that yes, it's only maybe seventy minutes in length, but in that seventy minutes of length, it requires the same creativity, the same level of respect that you would do on something of Sondheim or Rogers and Hammerstein or any of those other very notable musical theatre or just theatre practitioners in general. And it was just at that time, you know, Susan Zeder had just come out with Wiley and the Hairy Man, and it was just, again, trying to bringing it up, and in a way, children’s theatre was kind of becoming an adult in and of itself as a field and as a genre of theatre. So it was a very exciting time to be doing that. And Michael Elliott Brill’s The Masque of Beauty and the Beast, all of a sudden we were using Elizabethan verse for children’s theatre and like, wow, that had never been thought of before. Before, before children's theatre at that time was like, ‘How many fur costumes can people live in for extended run?’ right? [Laughter.] ‘How many times can we do Winnie-the-Pooh?’ and things of that nature, which all have their own place and they deserve respect. But in the same token as does the, the genre of fairytales in and of itself, but it was just starting to realize that it could make a social impact as well as take on the responsibility of developing the arts patron of tomorrow through respect for your craft and respect for what you’re presenting of the intelligence of your audience. That was just really starting to take hold, and that’s something that was like a lifeline for me artistically. And it’s just, yes, this is something that matters. And to me personally, so this is something I'm gonna try.
FALA: And you had already come in with so much life experience being all over the country and doing shows.
FREDERICK: Right.
FALA: And so you had all this stuff to fuel you, and did you make the decision to go to graduate school for business right after this?
FREDERICKS: I never went to graduate school.
FALA: Oh, okay.
FREDERICKS: I went to, no, so I was like a student at Arizona State and Lin Wright and Don Doyle took me under their wing, allowed me to attend the master’s classes to be able to sit there and kind of drink it all in. I was accepted to the MFA program at Arizona State, and I was accepted to the directing program at the Mason Gross School for the Arts. And in my final interview, and it was strictly directing ‘cause they didn't have a children's theatre program at that time or theatre for young audiences, t was just getting known as “theatre for young audiences” at that time. They didn't have a program, so it was stress directing. So I'm going with the mindset, ‘Well, alright, if you’re respecting your audience the same in my directing class, it doesn’t matter if it’s for children’s theatre specifically, I'm gonna be a good director.’ It’s gotta have that same level of respect and follow through. And in my final interview at Mason Gross, the the professor said, “What do you wanna do with your degree once you have it?” And they had, they had a theatre management course at Arizona State, and I wrote up the very skeleton lore plan for The Growing Stage at that time. And I shared that with him, that this is something I’d like to do. There are no professional theatres for young audiences in the state of New Jersey; I’d like to come home and start one. And his comment to me was, “Well then why don't you just do it?” And I drove from Rutgers University to my home, my family home, which was about an hour and a half away with that in my mind. And I sat down at the kitchen table with my parents and said, you know, I was the first male of my family that had gotten a four year degree in college. And the idea of now me going to graduate school was something that they were very proud of. So I said, “That do you think about this?”And I shared the story that I had been told, and they said, “That's fine.” So I took the book money that I had saved for graduate school, about $1,500, and that's what started The Growing Stage. So that's my story.
[Laughter.]
FALA: When you first started out, did you know it would be called The Growing Stage?
FREDERICKS: Well, I had a thought of…it was something because of the whole concept that had really stuck with me about developing the arts patron for tomorrow. I wanted to develop a theatre that a young person and a family could grow up with. And so within that in mind, it evolved to that. And also Don Doyle had, at one time, had his own company and it was the Treehouse Players. So as a homage to him, I used the tree as a way of, you know, just as he had kind of planted a seed in my mind, I just wanted to be able to then pass that, move that forward. And so I took that and then it became The Growing Stage, and the tree with the kite stuck in it was our first logo. And that's really how it evolved.
FALA: What was the first show that you did as a company?
FREDERICKS: It was The Nightingale and then the second show was Step on a Crack.
FALA: And those were touring productions.
FREDERICKS: The Nightingale was a touring show. We toured with The Nightingale and we toured also with Robin Goodfellow, Aurand Harris’ Robin Goodfellow, and the local theatre, there was a theatre in our town, the Chester Theatre Group, the Black River Playhouse, which was this beautiful old building that was converted into a hundred seat theatre in the round that I had done theatre there as a young person while I was in college in high school. They allowed me then the opportunity to start performing and producing in that theatre as The Growing Stage. So I was there for a couple of seasons. So we had like a main stage company, and then we had a touring at the same time, while we were trying to build the touring at that time.
FALA: How did you build an audience? What…and there’s no like social media to send out on blast and be like, ‘Hey…’
FREDERICKS: No, a lot of perseverance. My [Laughter.], my mother and grandmother saw a lot of shows and there were sometimes. They were the only audience that we had. But I mean, the, you know, there were…it took a long time. It really was a labor of love. And it was just a little bit by little bit, it was word of mouth, it was the local newspapers. And again we're in Northwestern, New Jersey, so we're not even in a large city. We’re not in any of those cities that you see when you get off the plane at Newark Airport. You know, we’re off, we’re closer to the Pennsylvania border. And so that it was just word of mouth and then getting to the local arts councils and trying to develop a reputation and, and a following at that point that really stuck with us. But, you know, Stephen, one of the most exciting things and rewarding things for me now after forty-two years, is that those people that were with us when we first started, the company that brought their children are now bringing their grandchildren. And those kids that used to attend our theatre are bringing their own children to the theatre. And so that is probably one of the most rewarding factors of the longevity of being with this one company is being able to see that happen. And that’s just been the greatest gift that I could ever have.
FALA: Yeah. Wow, that's beautiful, that like, your audience is growing as these families are growing.
FREDERICKS: Right. You know, and we actually pulled it off. So it's just that [Laughter.], you know, what the dream has been kind of realized within that way. And it's also too very rewarding now for me is that a lot of the leadership that are is on our board, are adults that at one time were young people in our program that have gone off into different areas professionally and yet have moved back, started their own families, and then are now back involved with the organization, making sure that it’s sustained beyond its founder, which is something, you know, one of my major goals. So that in and of itself is great.
FALA: When did you start the education programs that The Growing Stage offers? Was that still in its days when you were doing theatre in the round?
FREDERICKS: No, we had stayed at the theatre in the round for a short period of time. And then it just so happened that in this small town that we were in, the community had decided to abandon the school that I had graduated eighth grade from with the plan and idea of converting it into a senior housing program and project. So I thought, ‘Well, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we moved into the gymnasium, converted it into a theatre,’ and then we could then engage the senior citizens that would be living there, getting them involved and creating and doing things for young people, and kind of…what a wonderful synergy that would be to have happen. And we were there for about ten years, and unfortunately that program never got up off the ground, the senior housing that they were gonna convert that school building to never got off the ground. So the town decided that they were gonna sell the whole school building after, we were there for about thirteen years, they were gonna sell that school building and for like $4 million. And it was like, yeah, well that's, that's great. [Laughter.] We, we don't have that, but thank you. And this was the this was the mid 90s. And so that was even more unobtainable at that time. But and that's when we began our search and found the Palace Theatre that we’re in right now.
FALA: And through opening there, you stayed true to your commitment to serving families, you did Wizard of Oz.
FREDERICKS: Right.
FALA: Which…I'm really excited about this, and then like, also Peter and the Starcatcher. These titles that bring in a lot of different people.
FREDERICKS: Absolutely.
FALA: How do you pick and then stage titles that are family theatre that like, draw in audiences that are so diverse in age and interest?
FREDERICKS: Well, I think it's always important, and the key word is respect. We wanted to be able to create something that enthusiastically engaged the artist, right? Because if you're a performer, you're an emerging artist, whether you’re a young person or an adult or somebody that’s in college coming out of there, you want something that's really gonna challenge you. And then when you try to sell them, ‘Well, we're gonna do children’s theatre,’ the immediate thought in their head is, ‘Well oh, okay, you know, that's kind of beneath me, but I'll try to do it.’ Not realizing until they’re involved in it, what, you know, the payback that is in performing and the challenge that is in performing before your most honest audience that you'll ever have as an actor. So we took pieces that…like we did The Miracle Worker, we’ve done Secret Garden that has a young person as the focal point in the play. And then you see the family dynamics around that. That to me, that's a legitimate TYA piece because you're showing respect for that child. You’re showing that child’s intelligence, that’s the key focal point in that play, and you’re watching the orbit of adults around it. To me, that’s a legitimate TYA piece, and it should be considered in that. And by kind of pushing those boundaries, we did that a number of times with a lot of pieces. It then all of a sudden opens up the doors to folks to try it out. And to see theatre for young audiences with different eyes, they see them as arts patron eyes as opposed to, ‘Well, I’m gonna take the kids to do something special because it’s the holiday.’ Or, you know, you know, that there has never appealed to me. I mean, we, we have fun shows, we do fun shows, but we always make sure that it’s multi-level to the point where if you have an older or younger sibling, it’s not…you have a target age of X, you can still appeal to the younger or the older and the parents with humor, with music, visually with your designs, you know, everything’s got meat and potatoes to it for every audience to appreciate and to share. We don’t get stuck unless we're doing theatre for the very young. All of our theatre pieces may have a target age, but the level of artistry that we put into it is multi-level for all ages so that they all appreciate it. To this day we still have folks coming to the theatre for the first time, to our theatre for the first time and saying, “I never expected this. This was fantastic.” And it's curious too, with our Friday evening performances, we have a lot of seniors that come out, no kids, but come out to those shows because they enjoy the shows and they enjoy the length of the shows and they know they’e not gonna hear outrageous language or whatever, but they still appreciate the quality of the performance that they see. They don’t care that it’s labeled TYA. To them it’s just good theatre.
FALA: As a performer all of this is very exciting for me because like I, you know, like graduating college when I was first looking for work, I'm like, ‘Well, I want to do something that’s good.’ And then I found TYA companies that…the way they worked and what they, the scripts that they found were really exciting for me. And it had a draw from adults as well. You need those adults wanting to come so they can bring their kids and tell their nieces and nephews.
FREDERICKS: Oh, absolutely. I mean, and you have to, you have to do it. For us, I mean, it's never like, ‘Well, we have to slow this down, or we have to…because it's for a child's audience or that, you know, we can’t be like this direct.’ We did A Midnight Cry, James DeVita’s A Midnight Cry a number of years ago. And there’s a whipping scene in that. And I had an outside director do that show, and he’s like, ‘Is that all right that we do that scene in the show?’ And I said, “Well, what would you do?” Because he ran his own theatre that was aimed at adult audiences. I said, “Well, what would you do for your audiences?” “You know? Well, I would probably have him go through the motion of the whipping of the slave with the ensemble clapping every time the whip would strike.” “Do it then, then do it. That's what you should do. If you think that's the most effective way to get what James is trying to convey to his audiences and what's true to what the characters are going through, then do it.” It doesn't matter if it’s for, you know, adults or young people. That’s the level of respect you've gotta show no matter what.
FALA: And also, I guess with that moment in particular, but like others, that’s also a very creative solution. And so that’s also a learning moment for kids–
FREDERICKS: Absolutely!
FALA: –about how a story can be told and that when things are done in sort of an abstract way, it makes you think differently and it like helps you process differently. And that's an important part of learning, of being engaged in the arts.
FREDERICKS: And that's the gift of TYA as well, is the opportunity. Some of the adults may have seen theatre before, maybe regular audience goers for the theatre and are arts patrons. But that child, it might be the first show that they ever see. So everything that they see from that point on is gonna be judged by that first impression that they had at your theatre. So you've gotta play to that child with such respect, because you're giving them the first invitation to this. This is something that you wanna see more of. This is something…we’re not just gonna create a moment in the theatre, we’re gonna create a memory for you. We're not just gonna kill fifty minutes of time while dad watches a football game. We're gonna have something where dad's sitting right next to you so that you can talk about the show before you see the show, see the show together, and share that moment, drive home and ask as many questions about what you just saw and how that made you feel and what it made you think of so that you want to come back and see the next story that we're gonna tell you. That's the challenge with every time the lights go down and you get that audience and that family sitting together to share it and experience that show. So that's a great opportunity and that was the light that ignited in my mind first with Don Doyle and, and something that I've tried to convey and to keep going forward throughout the years.
FALA: And so how do you go about picking your seasons to keep material fresh and relevant and push those boundaries as [Laughter.], you know, the world is changing and so like kids absolutely are coming in with different perspectives.
FREDERICKS: Well, I think, you know, what we've always been, I'm, I'm also very proud of the fact that even before some of our greater social awareness really started to take hold, which I'm eternally grateful for, even before that, I mean, even in our early years, we would challenge the audience by necessarily…there’s no stereotypes, typical casting, you know, we would always cast the best actors, the regardless of race or culture or any, you know, ethnicity, anything of that nature, who would push those boundaries as far as subject matter goes. They may come in thinking they’re seeing this, but then they’d see it with a whole different set of eyes. At one time we did The Emperor's New Clothes, and it was at that time with Calvin Klein jeans and everybody was becoming very socially aware of how they looked and how they dressed and the importance of clothes. And there was a certain kind of pressure that young people were feeling at that time to make sure that they fit in and didn't fall on the outside of, of what society or their peers expected of them. So we just kind of updated the whole script. We went with it as far as like you know, we had the picture of the whole emperor up there in the Calvin Klein pose, you know, “Nobody keeps between me and my Calvin Kleins,” and things of that nature. Just kinda like be aware of what you’re pushing on your kids socially as far as those types of pressures. Most recently And Then Came Tango, we did And Then Came Tango and took that whole beautiful love story of the male penguins fostering that egg, and then took that part of the development of the relationship and we added a whole, with Emily Freeman's blessing, added an entire modern dance to it to kind of bring that to life to show that without words the love and the fostering of this child and the focus of that child and the importance of that. And we've done that with throughout the years. And I don't think it that has ever changed. We've kind of evolved along with it as the genre has grown. Step on a Crack at its time was I think one of the first plays for TYA that dealt with a stepmother that wasn't Cinderella's evil stepmother, but, you know, a child going dealing with fantasy to try to come up with her father remarrying somebody else, like, and the troubles and focus that poor child was going through. You know, how does she express herself and find her place in the world? We're in a unique position to be able to explore some of these societal questions and and do it creatively and in a non-threatening manner that invites audiences to think and to share and to start conversations. And I think that's one of our most powerful gifts that we can provide.
FALA: I think it's so important for kids to see the world reflected back at them on stage artistically so they can have those conversations. Have you received feedback from your audiences about conversations they have with their kids or you know, overheard things that people are saying as they're exiting the palace?
FREDERICKS: Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, even early on, even with Through, I remember my, when we first did The Arkansaw Bear at The Growing Stage it was in that small intimate theatre and the audience had left. I was the bear and I was in that big fur costume, and I had just gotten out of it, and I was just, you know, ‘cause after the shows, we always meet the audience as actors, not as the characters, but as actors playing the characters so they realize what theatre's all about. But aside from that, there was a woman and she was in the audience still, and she was crying. And here I am still in pieces of my bear costume, and I walked over to her and I said, “Are you all right?” And she said, “Yeah, I am.” She goes, “I just lost my dad about six weeks ago and now I understand what I've got to do. I've gotta carry on his stories.” This was an adult woman who was there to see the show. And you experience those types of things, you experience opportunities for…When I was Captain Hook for Peter Pan, a young boy came, and this was just as autism was becoming realized in as a condition for some, a challenge for some young people. And this little boy was dressed as Peter Pan. And after the show we’re up signing autographs and talking, “Did you have a good time?” And, and he said, “Yes!” And the mother just like looked at me and I said, “Is there something wrong? I'm sorry.” And she goes, “That's the first thing he has said in six months.”
FALA: Wow.
FREDERICKS: So, so, you know, yeah, yeah. You have those opportunities that are priceless and that will always stay with you. So you have those, and with our Young Writers Festival, we’re now giving young people the opportunity to share their thoughts and their words and their…through Danny Campos, who's our New Play Reading Festival director, we expanded that program, which is developing new plays for young audiences, which is really exciting. And we’re getting, plays launched and developing new works and new thoughts and sharing new ideas. And then during COVID we thought, ‘Well, our young people are like stuck in their homes, and the only ways they have to communicate is through the computer. And why don't we create something for them to encourage them to write and to share their ideas and to let us know what they're thinking as well.’ And that program has just launched and is taking flight. I mean, the last Young Writers Festival, we had four different pieces from all around the country that were the the winners. So that that's giving us an opportunity as well to stay relevant, to stay as a vehicle for young people to express themselves, not necessarily perhaps with another person's words, but with their own words. And that's very powerful.
FALA: And so as winners of the contest…what happens after? Is there a reading?
FREDERICKS: Well, yeah. Mm-Hmm. What we do for Young Writers Festival is that every piece receives a critique back. You know, we’re, ‘This is what we think’ from our professional playwriting staff, from our teaching artists, and we also have past recipients of our new play reading festivals serve as mentors. So they all read the work, and then we provide them with everybody that submits a play. They get at least feedback on what they’re doing. We’re not able to choose your piece at this time, but we like the development you're doing of this, or we strongly encourage you to think about that or explore this within the character. You know, and as suggestions, not as this is what to do, but as suggestions to consider as a playwright, those that are, are then cut down because, you know, when we receive like seventy-five different pieces, it’s impossible for it to give us to everything that same. But it eventually, it gets whittled down to four recipients. And with those four plays that are chosen, they, we then team them up with one of our, the published playwrights from our previous winners of our New Play Reading Festival. So they receive a mentorship with that playwright to work with on their piece and to further develop it. And then they pick a scene from that play, and then we get our professional actors and they do a reading of it that we tape, and then present it to the audiences that we have at the theatre.
FALA: That’s awesome.
FREDERICKS: And that's that's the whole process.
FALA: I love that you give everybody feedback who submits for so many reasons. I mean, especially now when you'll put something out there and you just won't hear back and you're like, ‘Well, did they even…did they even look at it?’ So it's like, you know, it's that level. And then also it's like, you know, you're, you're helping them grow, even if they're not this year part of if they don't move on, there's like, oh, okay, great, I can take that and learn from it. And then, you know, keep on writing.
FREDERICKS: It's encouragement, especially For the playwright. It's such a solitary process to begin with. You're in a room by yourself, you know, I always love that one quote that, “Writer’s Block is when I stop talking to myself,” [Laughter.] it is just, if you're gonna make that effort to put something together for us and to send it to us that you deserve to get that feedback and those words of encouragement and just like, “try this…” or, you know, maybe…and it’s constructive criticism. Everything is constructive to build and to keep that dream alive. We try to do the same thing with the New Play Reading Festival as well, which is geared for adults. And it’s that same type of process. We’re not able to give all of the adults the same kind of feedback that we give our young people, because as teaching artists and as educational process, we kind of feel like a lot of the adults have already gone through that. But what we do provide the four finalists is a stage reading, and then the eventual winner of that year will get a fully-mounted production in our following season so that they then can then take that work, because that's one of the greatest challenge for an adult playwright. ‘Well, no one’s gonna publish it unless it’s been produced,’ but how do you get it produced unless somebody publishes it? Yeah. [Laughter.] So it's just like a dog chasing its tail. So that's the gift we give that winning playwright, is the further development of that piece. Like we gave Emily Freeman with And Then Came Tango and J.S. Puller we did as well. And we just produced Maddie and Eleanor by Marty Se Silva and that just got published by Dramatic Publishing. So we’re thrilled with that opportunity that we were able to provide Marty and then to see her work even take to the next level With those pieces.
FALA: With those pieces, as you bring them in, what is the workshopping like for the chosen production that goes into your season? Do you have an extended rehearsal process to help put it on its feet? Or does that have the same amount of rehearsal as the rest of the shows in your season?
FREDERICKS: It has the same amount of rehearsals, but prior to that, we generally put it either at the end of the season or a mid-season so that I have opportunity to work with the playwright prior and offer ideas and suggestions and thoughts. And even after, it’s essentially like, for lack of a better term, one new play reading festival; we still consider it a play in development, and we encourage them to continue to look at it. And so that’s something I continue to work with them. And then the only gift of COVID was Zoom, right? So [Laughter.] take advantage of that. So if they’re in another part of the country, they can be a part of the rehearsal process. When we do readings, just as the we had the cast together and we get the playwright in there, if they’re not able to travel to where we’re at, we’re at least able to then bring them into the rehearsal room through the technology. We always allow them that opportunity right up until the few days before we open the show to do edits and changes as long as they’re reasonable, it just doesn’t redo the whole set. But you know, [Laughter.] just kind of tweak it here, tweak it there. What do you think if we try this? What do you think if we add that character in another scene to kind of give it some more cohesion to pull the story together? You know, we’ve done that in the past as well, and it’s all worked out really well.
FALA: And how’s it been for you developing Tales From The Great Swamp as this TVY piece, which is kind of a new venture for you?
FREDERICKS: It's great because it’s also been an opportunity for us to collaborate with another organization and the collaboration outside of our field and finding different opportunities to collaborate with folks that you would not necessarily think that, ‘Why would you do that?’ when we’re also…with every nonprofit business is so focused on surviving the next week, month, and year, that we don’t think necessarily outside of the box to be able to think, ‘How can we do it better together?’ So this opportunity came about by one of my patrons was the development director for the New Jersey Highlands Coalition, which is all about water preservation in our state. And so they said, ‘Well, is there some way that we can collaborate to get to the schools to teach young people about the importance of water conservation?’ And so we have the Great Swamp, which is literally a, a segment of land in northern New Jersey that creates majority of water in the reservoirs throughout northern New Jersey. And, and 95% of Newark's water comes from the Great Swamp and through this water system. And so I created the play about these three small creatures that are in this pool that all of a sudden the water has vanished from the pool and they don’t know where everybody went, and they’re set off on this adventure to, to find, you know, how to save their pond. And so through that they, they then learn about, you know, from different creatures. But then I added another wrinkle to it, and then took the Lenny-Lenape, which are the indigenous people of our region, and their creation story is based on the wind, the rain, the water, the fire and the earth are symbols of grandparents. And so tied that in and their creation story to this story as well. So it was became even greater that we were not only now introducing young people to water conservation and our environmental responsibilities in a way of showing the three smallest creatures of this pond taking on an adventure greater than themselves to save the pond, but also wove in the indigenous story so that they could then learn about the culture of their land in addition to saving the land. So that’s kind of all kind of been falling into place, and it’ll be told through puppetry. And we’ll be debuting it hopefully in the fall of 2024. And another one of these wonderful Growing Stage stories is that the, our puppet designer who’s overseeing that aspect of the piece was a young boy when we did a production of Rip Van Winkle years ago with puppets, all the gnomes that came out were puppets that put Rip Van Winkle to sleep. Only to find out he was so inspired by that show ;cause his mother did costumes for us, and he was one of those little kids that would run around the theatre while the mother was making costumes and we were trying to get the show done, only to find out years later that he went to the University of Connecticut, got his master’s in puppetry because he was influenced by that show he saw as a young boy using puppetry and is now doing it professionally up in Boston. And so he’s designing the puppets for us and will be involved in the whole implementation of the piece as we we launch it in 2024.
FALA: That is so cool…And that he is coming back to the community to give to that next generation!
FREDERICKS: Yeah, you know, it’s. It’s the impacts. You never know when they’re gonna start or when they’re gonna end. And it just does continue to grow. We’re first gonna make it available on film, on video. We’re trying to secure the funding so that every school would be able to then have access to the video or be able to stream it within their school at no cost. And then with further development of the piece, we hope to be able to then take it on the road and to be able to take it to libraries and to organizations and to schools for live performances as well. And it will be in that structured the theatre for the very young, which is so successful of about a half hour of performance. That’s coupled then with the creative dramatic aspect of it to be able to also explore the use of puppetry as an art form, as well as the folk tales and the water conservation aspects of it as well. You know, there’s so many different levels that a school can match up with their curriculum that just make it a, I think it's a very worthwhile piece and, you know, opportunity to explore.
FALA: It’s so cool to see the way that you’re integrating art and education in this kind of way.
FREDERICKS: Sure.
FALA: What is The Growing Stage’s approach as far as educating performers?
FREDERICKS: Well, we’re very process-oriented rather than performance-oriented. We wanna make sure that our program is as accessible as possible to any young person coming in and exploring theatre, whether as a tool for self-confidence or as a tool to be able to learn how to express themselves or work within a group or sharing ideas, that aspect of it. And then we also add another level to it: is if you wanna further explore musical theatre or music or expression in that way, there’s opportunities for you to do that. You decide after doing Creative Dramatics for the first four years, until fourth grade, then you decide you wanna launch off into playwriting, there’s an opportunity for you to do that. Even technical theatre now we’re starting to develop programs for kids to be able to learn how to take those cardboard dreams and make them into sets and how does that get built and light, the use of lighting and how you can do things of that aspect. Because again, we wanna make sure that the theatre arts are as accessible as possible, and also so that not only the parents can see how it connects to the rest of the world. Theatre isn't all out here on this one branch. It’s a part of our daily lives. If you wanna learn how to express yourself, you need to do that in life. If you wanna know how to share your ideas and to have that self-confidence to explore something new, theatre’s a great tool for being able to do that. Yes, some of our kids do grow up and become full-time performers and have toured nationally and, and have done fantastic themselves. But we have just as many that have become educators or have become lawyers and professionals and other aspect, but also have that tool of self-expression that we all learn intuitively through through creative dramatics and sharing of ideas. Play, learn, and grow is what we’ve tried to do. We want you to be able to…everything in the actor’s toolbox that, you know, vocally and visually and as far as tools of expression, but again, it’s all as accessible as possible for all students. There’s no audition process. There’s opportunities to do that in other programs that focus in on it right now. We want our young people when they come through the doors to feel welcome, to be able to express themselves freely and to try different things, and we encourage that. And that’s really what our educational programs are all based on.
FALA: Do you yourself teach in the theatre school?
FREDERICKS: I used to teach a lot. I don't teach as much. I now spend more time with the older students or interns and things of that nature, kids of that age. But because of the rigors of the other hats that I wear, [Laughter.] it’s difficult to also do Saturday morning classes or summer arts day camp.
FALA: That Was my next question. How do you balance all of those things? Do you have a day off?
[Laughter.]
FREDERICKS: You know, it's a small staff. We have a small staff of five people, and we all have titles like executive director or a managing director or a marketing director. But we all wear so many different hats, and I think that that’s kind of what makes it exciting. I mean, for us, we also are very we kinda work within a European model as far as a structure. Like if I need help to do something, I just say, “I need some help on this,” and one of the other four people come into the room and help me with that project. You know, we have mailers that have to go out. We all pitch in to get those things done. You know, we have a very active board of trustees as well as the volunteers that come in to support our efforts. We decide, ‘You know what I need a day off. See you later.’ We don't have a set number of days you can take off or, you know, times you have to be in the office. We all have responsibilities. We get those responsibilities done. You need a day off? I'll see you the next day afterward. And it’s just kind of…try to have like a common sense approach to this because it’s creative process is so exhausting, but we value it. We value that, that energy that is required to direct a show or design a show or to musically stage a show or teach twelve classes, you know, or during a you know, a ten-week session or things of that nature, or oversee of the new play reading festival. We value all the energy that that takes to do it at the level we expect it at, that we give our artists and our staff the freedom to be able to kind of make their own schedules so that the work gets done, but it gets done effectively because we're not burnt out.
FALA: What’s something that you're looking forward to in 2024, either at The Growing Stage or personally?
FREDERICKS: Well, I think in 2024 it’s exciting. It never gets dull. I mean, I have been doing it for forty-two…this is my forty-second season that we have just completed. And we’re going into the forty-third, we follow the academic calendar, so we’ll be starting it in the fall with our forty-third season. So it's just that the challenges that we face today, and we kind of alluded to this earlier, are so much greater now than I think that they've ever been before. And I think that we have greater value now as an art form than we have ever had before. Because when you think about TYA, TYA naturally builds community. And I think that that's where our greatest stress point is right now as a society is in our communities. And if we’re able to, through the spoken word, or the artistic presentation that we do, bring that community closer together and celebrate what makes us different, rather than being afraid of it and exposing more people to different ideas and realizing, ‘Well, that didn’t really hurt me, did it when I learned about that,’ or, ’I saw this or, ‘I thought about that.’ And not everything is so antagonistic that if on stage we can show a unique family, we’re still demonstrating love and effectiveness regardless of the sex of the parents or if they’re the same sex or the, or the child is discovering who or what they are in their own unique way. Those are the stories that excite me moving forward, because I think those are the stories that have been hidden for so long by bringing them out onto our stage, we’re then just fueling the sense of community to its next level and showing it as a positive and not, not something as that's been so portrayed in the media as a negative. You know, I just think that that’s the power of our art form that and the fact that the, the challenges that theatre in its of itself is continues to face as we continue to expand and our technical capabilities and our technology and our role of developing the arts patron of tomorrow, I think that’s vital for the future of theatre moving forward. And that's where I would wish our peers that focus in adult theatre would see that value and invest in our efforts at a greater extent than they do today. We’re the future.
FALA: That was so good.
[Laughter.]
FREDERICKS: I would just…I guess one of the things that has become very important to me over the years is the encouragement of our members to look for engagement in different areas than we normally have. And to get outside of our own theatre walls and to expand our role in the community. How we can participate in the community, how we can go out to the community, because sometimes you have to go out into the community in order to them feel comfortable coming into your theatre. And to look how you can do that and explore that opportunity to a greater extent. That's really been pivotal for our success to be able to have that over the forty-two years. You know, when we took on the project of renovating and restoring the theatre that we did there, at that point in time, no one thought that that was a viable opportunity for us whatsoever. The building itself was on the Let It Burn list, and we had to renovate and restore it, but it was an, it was a tool for us to engage the community in saving that resource. And so that, that in, in and of itself then brought people that never would've come into the theatre before to have a sense of ownership in it that has allowed it to. So just to just encourage everyone to look outside the box and to engage and grow. Yeah.
FALA: And it's a beautiful space too. I mean, like the, the murals within the, the house itself are really, really cool.
FREDERICKS: Yeah. Our artist in residence, Perry Arthur Kroeger who worked with me for about thirty years created those murals in the style of Maxfield Parrish. But literally the building was on the Let It Burn list by the local fire department, and it's now on the national state and county registers of historic places. That was…I never took an architectural class. [Laughter.] I was never a handyman. But that was another hat you had to do as far as renovating and restoring that theatre from scratch. So it provided us a great home and and a way to succeed and to grow to learn.
FALA: Stephen, thank you for speaking with me today.
FREDERICKS: It was my pleasure. Thank you.
FALA: How can our listeners find out more about The Growing Stage and what you are up to?
FREDERICKS: Sure. Visit us online at growingstage.com and please give us a call or stop by and visit. We'd love to see you.
FALA: To learn more about the upcoming programming at The Growing Stage, click the the link in the notes for this episode. This week’s Tuesday Afternoon Dance Party music is “The Jitterbug” from the Original London Cast recording of The Wizard of Oz, with Music and Lyrics by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg, Background Music by Herbert Stothart, Dance and Vocal Arrangements by Peter Howard, Orchestration by Larry Wilcox, Adapted by John Kane for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Based upon the Classical Motion Picture owned by Turner Entertainment Co. and distributed in all media by Warner Bros.
[Pipe and Drape theme plays.]
Are you interested in sharing your pipe and drape story? You can join the conversation by emailing PipeAndDrapeStories@gmail.com or messaging @PipeAndDrapeStories Instagram. And everyone, please be sure to rate and review Pipe and Drape wherever you listen to podcasts! Each star given or review submitted helps future listeners find the show. 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 Spotify for Podcasters. The Pipe and Drape logo was created by Stephen Gordon and music was composed by Stephen Fala. Thank you for listening with me today.
More about The Growing Stage:
INSTAGRAM: @thegrowingstage
This week’s Tuesday Afternoon Dance Party music: “The Jitterbug” from The Wizard of Oz.
Listen to the Tuesday Afternoon Dance Party playlist here!
Connect with Pipe and Drape:
INSTAGRAM: @PipeAndDrapeStories
EMAIL: PipeAndDrapeStories@gmail.com
Host: Stephen Fala
Artwork: Stephen Gordon
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