Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble Down Center
Trailer: The Reboot
[INTRO MUSIC]
AMY
Welcome to Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble Down Center. Our podcast is back, rebranded and rebooted. This is your preview of our second season, where we throw the focus on our company, our people, our art, and our town, front and down center. Hello everybody.
ELIZABETH
Hi.
AARON
Good morning. Good morning.
AMY
Good morning. I guess we should tell people who we are.
AARON
Sounds good. I'm Aaron White. I am a resident actor with the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble and ensemble member. I'm in my second year, although we worked together for many years and I'll pass it over to somebody else.
AMY
I'll take it. My name is Amy Rene Byrne. I am also a resident acting company member and ensemble member.
I am in my third year of resident acting company membership, but this is my eighth year of working for Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble. I used to be our education director prior
to that.
ELIZABETH
Hi, I'm Elizabeth Dowd. I am part of the resident acting company and part of the ensemble, and this is my 45th season at BTE.
AMY
A little bit of a stark contrast to me and Aaron here.
ELIZABETH
Yeah, but we're a fierce trio.
AMY
We are a fierce trio.
AARON
We three, we happy three.
Yes.
AMY
So why are we relaunching BTE's podcast? When did we start a podcast?
AARON
That's a great question. I think it happened during the pandemic before I was a member.
ELIZABETH
Yeah, we were trying to find every way we could to reach out to our audiences.
And I believe Jim Good and Eric Wunsch had the brainstorm of creating a Halloween podcast. And A’nie and Michael created really delightful props for teasers to get people to watch. And we had a lot of fun.
AMY
I forgot about those teasers. Those were really wonderful.
ELIZABETH
Yes. Jim was Princent Vice.
AMY
Yes.
ELIZABETH
And he and Eric had so much fun scripting those and recording them.
And then we all read, uh, Scary Stories. And then we did Christmas Carol after that.
AMY
Which got picked up by WVIA, which was really cool.
AARON
I have to say it was one of the reasons that I shared interest in becoming a member because I was in isolation. I was all by myself in my basement, you know, and I'm seeing the stuff you all are making and missing that community. That group collaboration, man, it hurt. And so those podcasts and the Fair Food Foul Play that you did on zoom during that time, it made me really miss that collaboration.
ELIZABETH
So, well, if that's the benefit of the pandemic–
AMY
Yeah, if that got us an Aaron White, then it's–
ELIZABETH
Almost worth it!
Almost. Almost. Oh, man.
Silver linings. Silver linings.
AMY
Yeah, I can't imagine trying to afford that without my fellow BTE artists. That isolation was, was really rough. And that missing of community is why we made what we, what we made. We were so desperate to make that connection in any way that we possibly could. I mean, we're storytellers and we suddenly found ourselves without our ability to tell stories.
ELIZABETH
And there was so much concern of how we could give back to our community that has been with us through thick and thin. Yeah.
AARON
And so, one of the reasons we're rebooting this is for that connection. There is a big gap, as we noted before, between the three of us sitting here. And for both Amy and I, we lack...the, do the subtraction, uh, between you and, between Elizabeth.
AMY
I'm not going to do that math.
AARON
That's right, of connection with, with community and with Bloomsburg and the surrounding region and the people that make it up. And so we always talk about the audience and our community supporting us. And I think for myself, I would love to know, I'm really curious about who those people are.
And so hopefully this goes out to those folks and they can hear us and know more about us. I have a new hunger for connection.
AMY
You know, there's nothing more intimate to me than sitting in front of a microphone telling people about my inner thoughts and feelings. The reason I became an actor is because I like to have a script.
I like it to tell me what to say and to just be myself and speak as myself is an incredibly intimate thing for me. It makes me feel very vulnerable. So I'm hoping that that vulnerability will be something that helps foster that connection.
ELIZABETH
It's also a great way for our audiences to get to know you two better because already there are people who come to BTE to see you.
AMY
I have such a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that anybody is coming to see me. But I think that's one of the beautiful things about BTE.
ELIZABETH
Yeah, it is. And I think that if I've learned anything, and I've learned a lot, it's that for every show, it's someone's favorite show and someone's least favorite show, the very same show, and that someone has come just to see you because they, and that's probably true of every person on stage.
And that's just an amazing thing.
AMY
Yeah, it really is.
AARON
Well, and I feel like I'm starting to gather those anecdotes about when we discover that it's someone's favorite show or someone's least favorite show and they're willing to to speak about it to you directly. Um, I'm just starting to gather those things.
You have like a treasure trove of those stories.
AMY
Oh, I'm sure you have a treasure trove of all kinds of stories, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH
Well. I've never been one to shun telling a story. But yeah, one of my favorite stories from recognizing, you know, we've talked a lot about how our context of making theatre is so much set by the community we serve, and that we have survived 45 years, and I use the word survive intentionally in this unlikely place.
You know, this is not a metropolitan area. There are not foundations around here that support the arts, as many as there would be in a more metropolitan area. So, one of the big things you learn is that you are BTE. You kind of, you just wear that BTE badge no matter where you are. And my first, I think one of my strongest early recollections or recognitions of that was that I was in the giant grocery store after BTE had done a summer production of Peter Pan, and I was lucky enough to play Peter, and we did get the flying equipment from Foy, so I was being smashed into walls and grabbing onto the mantle with my toe and my stomach muscles trying to keep from falling off.
But I was at the grocery store and I saw this little boy looking at me and looking at me, and I didn't register it at first, and I went, Oh! Oh, he's seen Peter Pan. And then I kind of went over to him and I said, Hi. And he said, Yeah, I recognize you. Will you fly? And I was just so caught in like, what do I say?
Do I crush his belief? Do I? And so I just answered, I can, but Peter Pan never flies in front of grownups.
AMY
Oh, so smart.
ELIZABETH
Yeah, that was my save. And he seemed to take that. But that was so, I mean, I walked out of that store and I thought, I'm not anonymous. I'm not really anonymous anywhere now. I'm not a celebrity.
People don't want my autograph, which I was so grateful for. They just believe and they, they feel part of it. And that was a great recognition of the responsibility and the privilege of being an artist in a small town. Yeah.
AMY
I love that. I love that.
AARON
I, uh, Dragons Love Tacos was kind of a big thing that way.
Or Mr. Beaver, too, in Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe. Kids, you'll see their eyes widen, right? And there's that sense of recognition. And, uh, sometimes they'll wave, you know. But it is really interesting to make that part of your day. It's a joyful thing. It keeps you on guard, too.
ELIZABETH
You clean up your language.
AARON
Yeah, real quick, I'm sure.
AMY
Yes, yes, yes. Teaching does that for me too. We teach so many theatre school classes and so many of my connections prior to becoming a member of the resident acting company with our community was through teaching children, you know, and so they always got the super clean PG version of me, which, you know, it's not necessarily my, uh, my mo
AARON
Not your, your standard gear–
AMY
Not my standard gear.
ELIZABETH
And it's interesting thinking of that, that our community in the early days and actually even, even now will respond sometimes with letters to the editor if there is strong language in a play. And it just blows my mind that someone might think that that was an actor's decision and not a playwright's decision that an actor is just fulfilling.
I don't think actors in cities have that response, not letters to the editor at any rate, but. I've come to realize that if the cursing happens in a comic sense, much more acceptable. We hear much less if there is good humor behind it. And if it is out of anger, that's when we tend to get letters.
AMY
Interesting. It's that connection and familiarity. They feel as if they're trying to say, Hey, do better.
ELIZABETH
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And it's partly just startling. And then there's another part of it that is a privilege. You mean you have to always look at both sides of it and go, we're in a place where people can be shocked.
They can be shocked by language. Yeah. And that's kind of precious.
AARON
I'm curious though if it is shocked. I, I think there, there's another difference between urban and rural settings where if it's a sense of belonging, this is my small town. I, I don't know a whole lot of New Yorkers who feel like New York is their town.
I mean, I think there is that sort of paradigm that you could certainly take on. But the reality is you're not going to impact New York that much, right? One person in a town of our size can make a huge impact on the way the town operates, the way the town feels about itself. And so that tipping point has such a strong bearing on what the civic Discourse is what the civic conversation is.
There is a sense of this is my town and these people are cursing in public in my town and that I have the right entitlement and the ability to impact whether they do or not by saying so like that, that's a really different mindset compared to an urban place.
AMY
Yeah, it really is. And I think this is exactly the type of content that we are going to be putting into this podcast moving forward.
Lots of really great conversations about what it is like to make theatre in rural Pennsylvania, what it is like to run an ensemble company, what it is like to be people at that ensemble company and work with each other. My hopes and dreams for this podcast are that we are able to give you that inside window into our world.
All right, Aaron White, you want to take us out?
AARON
Sure. This has been Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble. Down center. Ensemble Driven. Professional Theatre, Arts Education in Rural Pennsylvania for Everyone with Everyone. Check out our first full episode this season where we just start to scratch the surface about what it's like to make professional theatre in rural PA.
Available now on all major podcast services.
[OUTRO MUSIC]
AMY
Hold on, back up. You're still vibrating a little bit.
AARON
Still vibrating.
Mmmm-mmmm
