Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble: Down Center
Season 2, Episode 11
Theatre School: Fun, Games, and Acting Adventures!
Amy: Welcome to Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble Down Center. A podcast where we get creative with our company, our people, our art, and our town. And we tell you about it, front and down center. Hi, I'm Amy Rene Byrne, Resident Acting Company member and an educator here at BTE, and I am sitting with our amazing Education Director, Abigail Leffler. And we are here with two theatre school participants. Can you introduce yourself and tell everyone how old you are?
Margot: My name is Margo Sutton and I'm 10 years old.
Aiden: My name is Aiden Kawas and I'm almost 10 years old.
Amy: All right, now I am going to throw it to Abby Leffler to tell you a little bit about "what is theatre school?"
Abby: Theatre School is a place for primarily students of theatre that are under the age of 18 to come and learn theatre in a safe and engaging environment.
We have workshops during the fall, during the winter, during the spring, and during the summer. We usually have all sorts of educational offerings like stage makeup, stage combat, acting, musical theatre, improv, sketch comedy Uh, filmmaking you name it, we've covered it probably.
And like I said, it's a place for theatre enthusiasts and learners of theatre to come and educate themselves about all things theatre. We have our friends Aiden and Margo here today, and we're going to learn a little bit about them because they have been taking Theatre School classes with us for quite some time, and we just love them in our theatre school classes.
We just wanted to bring them into our podcast as well. So, my question first and foremost is, who would like to go first? Margo would like to go first. Okay. So, Margo, how many theatre school classes and camps have you taken? Do you know?
Margot: I believe I've taken two. Improv and Silly Acting.
Abby: Oh, nice. Perfect. We're on to Aiden
Aiden: I don't know, but I know it's a lot.
Abby: I agree. I have no idea how many it is either, but I know it's been a lot of them.
And we love seeing you there. What is it like to take a theatre school class or camp?
Margot: I would say it is very fun and I recommend it to a bunch of people.
Aiden: It's very fun.
Abby: Yeah, that's great. I'm glad you say that.
What is your favorite part of theatre school?
Margot: My favorite part is probably the part where you're learning about it and you do fun activities like showing what you're doing and stuff.
Abby: Great.
Aiden: Probably any acting games.
Abby: The acting games? Nice. I take pride, I must say, in the goofy games that we play in theatre school in order to learn theatre. I take a lot of pride in that. If you could create, though, Margo, any theatre school class or camp, what would it be?
Margot: I'm not sure. It's a hard choice because I believe there's a lot of great parts in acting, but I think I'd combine the two classes and make one.
Abby: Mm hmm. I'm gonna write all these things down so that we can offer these camps at a later time. How about that? Yeah
Margot: I'd love it.
Abby: You'd love it. Sir Aiden.
Aiden: I would probably do fantasy.
Abby: Oh. Fantasy. Just fantasy? Like, would it be fantasy acting? Fantasy comedy?
Aiden: Fantasy acting.
Abby: Fantasy acting. I like that. Like, elves and stuff like that? Nice. I like a good fantasy camp.
Amy: Can I be a dragon, Aiden?
Aiden: Yes.
Abby: Nice. I would probably choose an elf. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Amy: You'd make a good elf.
Abby: Or a hobbit.
Amy: What would you be, Aiden?
Aiden: Maybe a knight.
Abby: Ooh, a knight. And Margo?
Margot: A princess guarded by the evil dragon.
Amy: Oh, I'm going to take you captive.
Abby: I love how Amy was already pigeonholed as the evil dragon.
Amy: Yeah, yeah, I could have been a benevolent dragon.
Margot: I mean, who knows? No one knows until you breathe fire on a city.
Amy: That's when the dragon's true colors are revealed.
Abby: That's very true. What's the best thing that you've learned in theatre school?
Margot: I'm not sure. I feel like I've learned a bunch of things, but my brain do not want it, so.
Abby: That's all right. You don't have to answer all the questions. We won't fault you for that. Aiden?
Aiden: Uh, Stage directions, because if I was doing a show, I would have to know where to go while I'm doing a play.
Abby: Yeah, that's very good. Stage directions are some of the things that some new actors tend to not think about when you start taking acting classes.
Stage directions is sometimes my favorite thing to teach, too.
Amy: For our listeners who are not theatre makers and who have not taken a theatre school class, stage directions tell the actors where to move, and there's a certain lingo that we use for those stage directions that we teach our young actors.
Abby: I always say it's kind of like a map, like we put a map on the stage, and that map is how we follow like east, west, north, south, but we don't say east, west, north, south we say up, down, left, right. All that stuff. yeah, it's kind of like a map. I like that one.
What's the funniest thing that's happened in theatre school? Do you remember anything like that?
Margot: I'm not sure.
Probably people coming up with ridiculous lines that come out of absolutely nowhere for improv.
Abby: Yes, that's some of my favorite stuff as well.
what's the funniest thing that's happened in theatre school for you, Aiden? Uh,
Aiden: There's a lot of things that happened, so I don't really know.
Abby: You don't really know . That's okay. That's a hard question I don't think I would be able to answer it either, so you're good.
Would you recommend theatre school to your friends?
Margot: I definitely, I think it's amazing, and I think my friends should definitely give it a shot. Great.
Abby: I think they should too, Margo.
Thank you very much. Come on down, Margo friends, to theatre school and have some fun with us.
We're on to Aiden. Would you recommend theatre school to your friends?
Aiden: I would definitely recommend theatre school to my friends and other kids.
Abby: And other kids can you just on the street just be telling people about theatre school for us so that you don't have to he's nodding his head
Margot: Yes, like he's like many flyers make many flyers and then pass it out to random people Maybe give it to the man at the free candy van
Amy: Children don't give anything to the man with the free candy van.
Abby: No--
Margot: never--
Abby: Never never.
Amy: Oh, goodness. So you both just recently took a theatre school class with me and Abby. It was our silly Acting class. Did you have fun?
Aiden: Yeah, I definitely did.
Amy: Yeah?
Margot: I loved it.
Amy: Awesome.
Margot: It was fun.
Amy: It was a pretty energetic
group we had.
Abby: I would say so, too. Yeah, they were from 4. 30 till 6. 30. There was non stop action.
Amy: Oh my goodness.
Margot: It was a little chaotic.
Amy: It was a little chaotic, yes.
Aiden: Yeah, it was.
Amy: Do you have any favorite games from that class that you took that you remember?
Aiden: Maybe Taxi.
Margot: Definitely taxi.
Amy: Taxi. Margo, can you explain how the taxi game works?
Margot: The taxi game works is there's four chairs if there's an adult in the room, let them be the driver. We don't want any crashes. And then three other kids will come in each and whatever their mood is, you have to like kind of copycat their mood and how they're doing and stuff. And then once they leave, you change it to immediately what the other person's mood was. And then once everybody leaves, I guess the taxi cab driver is very exhausted.
Amy: Yes. Do either of you remember any of your characters that you made for Taxi?
Aiden: I'm pretty sure I was late to work at the zoo.
Abby: Oh, yes. I remember that one, yeah.
Margot: I think mine was that I was gonna like, prank the teachers or something. I was very like, mischievous about it.
Amy: Oh, yeah, yeah. So can you slip back into those characters for just a second? So, Aiden pretend that Abby's your taxi cab driver.
Aiden: I'm gonna be late! Oh my gosh! Okay, okay, let's hurry! I'm gonna be late to work at the zoo!
Abby: Okay, let's hurry! Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go!
Aiden: I need to feed the monkeys, the lions, and the giraffes!
Abby: Oh my goodness! Okay, the lions, the monkeys, and the giraffes?
Margot: Excuse me, taxi?
Abby: Yes, yes, come on in!
Margot: Perfect.
Abby: Yes, perfect.
Margot: I need you to go right to the school. I need to prank some teachers.
Abby: Pranking some teachers sounds awesome.
Margot: Put a pin, put a thumbtack on their seat. Put a whoopee cushion under their chair so when they roll over they hopefully fall over.
Amy: Taxi! Taxi!
Abby: Oh, oh, yes, come on in, come on in.
Amy: Hi, dear. Oh, hello. How's everyone doing today? We're doing fine. How are you? I'm doing wonderful. I'm on my way to my grandkid's house. We're gonna bake cookies.
Abby: Cookies?
Margot: What type of cookies?
Amy: Chocolate chip.
Abby: Do you make sure you have your hard candy for them?
Amy: Of course, butterscotch, always.
Abby: Always.
Amy: Oh, I just love cookies.
Abby: Let's take you to your grandkids house.
Amy: Why thank you! Bye!
Abby: Bye! Yes, evil things to teachers. I love it.
Margot: Yes, steal their glasses so they can't see a thing. Blind as a bat.
Abby: Genius. Evil. Genius. Well, here we are at the school.
Margot: Perfect. I gotta go prank some teachers.
Abby: We gotta go! We gotta go! We gotta go! Let's hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! To the zoo! Right? To the zoo!
Aiden: Yeah, the zoo!
Abby: The zoo! The zoo! The zoo! The zoo! The zoo! The zoo! Here we are.
Aiden: Thank you. Bye!
Abby: Bye! Oh, this is exhausting work.
Amy: Very nice.
Thank you for playing an impromptu game of taxi. Listeners, I did not tell them that we were going to do that beforehand, but that was really fun.
And I think a really good example of how fun and silly the game is. And it's really nice to see how everything changes when you're mimicking another person's characteristics and actions and energy, right? You could feel really strong energy shifts from character to character. And it's a really great tool to teach young actors how those choices can affect a character that they're playing on stage.
Abby: I also think it helps with listening as well in a really big way. Cause if you're still so focused on your own character and you're not listening, you're not going to be able to shift and that's a hard thing to do, especially as beginner actors and learning the ropes of all that stuff.
Amy: Absolutely, and they have to think on their feet, because maybe they had a character in their mind, and maybe one of the characters that came before them is too similar to the character that they had thought of, so then they have to think on their feet and think of something different.
Yes. Which is also really great.
Margot: Or maybe the character beforehand had, like, low energy, and then your character has low energy, you might want to give a high energy to just spice it up and throw in some, like, curveballs and, like, random stuff.
Abby: Look at that! You were listening in Silly Acting! We're so proud!
Claps, claps, claps.
Amy: Speaking of preparing you to be on stage, Aiden, you have performed in one of our mainstages with us. You were in A Christmas Story. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Aiden: So, I played Randy. Ralphie's brother and I had a really good time
Amy: Do you like oatmeal?
Aiden: No. . .
Amy: Did you like oatmeal before the show?
Aiden: No. ,
Amy: No. Wow. Was it hard to put your face in the oatmeal every night?
Aiden: It was fun to do that. I just. didn't like putting my hands in it.
Amy: Oh, yeah, it got everywhere. It was all goopy and gross. Do you feel like your theatre school classes that you took prepared you a little bit to be on stage?
Aiden: Yeah
Amy: Do you think you could tell us a little bit about what you learned from theatre school that helped you on stage?
Aiden: As I said, stage directions really did help me on A Christmas Story. And also projecting your voice also helped a lot to do A Christmas Story.
Amy: Yeah, and I will say, you were really wonderful, Aiden.
I was also in A Christmas Story. I played the character that Aiden played's Mother. And Aiden was so good in rehearsals. He would write down all of his stage directions, and he would write down his blocking, which is where actors move within a scene. And he would study that script. I was so proud of you. So, thank you, Abby, for teaching him so well.
Abby: Hey, anytime. All right, does anybody have anything else you would like to share about your experiences with Theatre School before we go today?
Margot: Hmm.
Abby: I have a question for you if you don't mind me asking it. Do you know how you first learned of theatre school?
Margot: Oh no. I think it was just I had to do a hobby because I didn't want to do sports. My parents wanted me to do something. So I think they must have heard about the acting because it definitely got brought up towards me. I'm like, I'll give it a shot. And then I'm like, Oh no.
Abby: Then you just fell in love.
Aiden: I think I might remember why.
Abby: Okay.
Aiden: My mom was an actor and then my mom's dad was also an actor. So I guess after I saw the videos of my mom and my mom's dad being like an actor I guess I wanted to try it out and see for myself how it would feel and yeah.
Abby: Nice. Those are both great stories. I too fell in love with theatre because I was avoiding sports, Margo. So I just,
Margot: I just didn't want to do sports. Sports is just, doesn't feel like my thing. I would, I felt like trying basketball, but then I'm like, I think I'm too short.
Amy: There are many many theatre makers that started because sports were not for them.
I was the kid that did both. I was both a sports person and a theatre person. But you know Margo, I think you have some natural acting talent. I also think that Margo, you have a very director brain. I noticed in class you're really good at mapping out a scene and figuring out where you want people to move and when and also Why?
Which is really wonderful, because I didn't teach you that. You just knew that that's how you think through a scene. And that's really awesome.
Margot: Why, thank you, but a lot of the stuff I didn't know you guys helped me out with and it just clicked in my brain that way, so it's great to have amazing teachers.
Abby: Aww, thank you.
Amy: That was really nice. I know.
Margot: Oh no, this isn't gonna turn into a sappy moment.
Amy: No, no, we're gonna end the podcast now before
it gets any sappier, no worries.
Abby: Ended on a high note.
Amy: This has been Bloomsburg theatre Ensemble Down Center. Ensemble Driven. Professional Theatre. Arts Education. Rural Pennsylvania. For Everyone. With Everyone.
We would like to thank the foundation of the Columbia Montour Chamber of Commerce for the use of equipment that makes recording this podcast possible. Theatre School Camps run June 10th through August 2nd, and we have camps for ages 5 to 18.
Check out all of our fun offerings and register online at www. bte. org. You know you want to come and spend the summer with Abby Leffler.
Abby: Yes, you do. I'm so much fun. I promise.
Amy: Thank you, Aiden. Thank you, Margo. We had so much fun doing this with you today.
Abby: Yes, you did such a good job.
Amy: Oh, lovely. I'm good. It came out well. You're good? I'm good. You said, I'm good.
It came out. I'm good.
Abby: It came out. Well, I'm glad it came out. Well, you can leave that in. It's fine. We're all learning about ourselves today.
Amy: There are no mistakes in theatre.
Abby: Yes, there are
Amy: Fine.
