 Hello, my name is Michael Morris and I'm the superintendent of the Amherst Regional School District and welcome into the latest episode of Window Into Arps. For this episode, I'm thrilled to welcome our two guests today. So with me is Angela Oldenbarca, a high school senior, and John Becktold, who is the chair of the Performing Arts Department across the secondary district. So thank you both for being here. I really appreciate you making time at your very busy schedules as the semester has changed over to the second semester. To be with us to share about your experiences and a very powerful play or production, excuse me, that was recently put on at the high school. So thank you both for being here. Thanks for having us. Before we get into the details of the Laramie Project, I'd love to start with John. Tell me a little bit about yourself, how you came to Amherst Regional High School and how you got involved in theater yourself. Sure. Those things are somewhat related, fortunately, and I'm very proud to say that I ended up in Amherst as the result of an Amherst High School alum who was a good friend of mine in college, talked me into playing Ultimate Frisbee, and we became fast friends soon after, and then we also realized that we had interests in other things such as theater. So when it came time to look for jobs as a college senior and I had my teaching certification ready to go, I was just casting out into the open and she saw her high school on a listing at random at college. I applied and all of a sudden it was the first thing I'd ever applied for and it's the place I still am. So that's where I ended up and it's been pretty great ever since. I started as an English teacher and slowly got to transform into more of a theater teacher. That's great. And how many years have you been at the high school? This is year 19. Yeah, it's pretty exciting. Yeah, it's awfully exciting. And Angela, I would love to hear a little bit about how you got involved in the performing arts program at the high school. Yeah, I mean going into the high school I knew that I was sort of interested in theater and so I signed up for a couple of acting classes. I think I had acting one and stage craft my freshman year. And then going from there it just became very easy to get pulled into the department and into all of the various productions that are happening. And I'd like to thank you both for that and I'd like to transition talking particularly about the production that happened over the past few months about the Laramie project. John, you talked to me about this over a year ago I think that you were thinking of trying to do this at our high school. You're aware of some of the controversy that has kind of brewed in some communities as it relates to this play in high school students. And I want to say we're on the back end of this, right, the play has happened and I still receive accommodations that I don't deserve frankly from people in the community who participated and witnessed and attended the production and were blown away and how it's still very relevant for them even though weeks have passed since it happened. So I'd love to hear a little bit about what compelled you or compelled the high school to put on this particular production done by high school students for the high school and the larger community. Sure, well there are several forces at work. The most I think on the surface one was that we're in the 20th year of looking back at Matthew Shepard's death and everything that has come with it, what has changed, what has not changed. Some people might have seen that he was reinterred this fall at the National Cathedral and with that context in mind it sparked some conversations with me and some students last spring about imagining what the late 90s were and what has changed now in 2018-2019 and that in itself became a reason to think about the play because the play when we read it and looked at it still felt incredibly relevant like it could have been written yesterday and that in itself I think made a case for why it needed to be done. We were also very interested in a play that's been very successful across a lot of schools and communities across the nation. It's been around since the early 2000s but we hadn't found anyone that had done it in a format that we'd like to do plays at the high school called Immersive Theater where the audience suddenly is in a position of agency and there's more responsibility to unpack the play in a real and more felt way. So we got very interested in about bringing this very powerful story that needed to be re-explored in this very powerful format and putting them together. Angela, from the student perspective, what did you hear as student response when it was announced that the Laramie Project was going to be the play that produced at the high school? How did students perceive that and did it feel relevant in your experience to the current experience of high school students in 2019? I found out that it was going to be one of the plays at the end of year student clean up theater department event, clean up organization thing and that definitely just right there hearing what that was and hearing just a little bit about it. I definitely saw with myself and other theater people an excitement that we were going to be exploring that. I think that it's also very relevant that we had the saga, the Sexuality and Gender Alliance students come into that and so we had that connection with the people outside of the theater department who hadn't done that much theater before who hadn't been involved in the theater department that they came into that and we had that and I think that that connects to how much people did feel the relevance of it and the story. I think Angela is right, there was a really wonderful partnership that developed between the theater company and saga as we for the first time in our lives had student co-producers effective and people that were working on the material giving us outside perspective, getting involved themselves and it became a model that I think we all hoped for that the process of making this play was as important as the product for the audiences and that was a really good example of that partnership. And for people who aren't immersed in theatrical productions before, you described what an immersive format might be, but how would you adapt a play? Because my understanding is the play was originally not, it was a more traditional format for the play. What does that look like adapting a play that's written more traditionally for an immersive experience? What did that involve from the student end, from your end? Sure, well I'll speak a little bit from my end because as the director you get one experience and as an actor you get another, I think in this situation. But you're right, Lermy Project was originally staged much like a lot of viewers probably know the play Our Town, like kind of that classic of minimal staging, characters are more or less kind of plain dressed and they kind of speak through the lives of their characters and a lot is left for us as the audience to imagine the details and it's a very powerful format. And the Lermy Project was staged in that fashion, but one thing that we realized early on in wanting to do it was that it was done as a piece of documentary theater. So all the text in the play are verbatim quotes from the 200 plus interviews that a theater company that created this play went out and found. So we were working with real people's words, we were working with people that had developed a play through an interview based format and we realized that format was very I and you. When we knew that we had that language that's where the immersive theater question came in because a quick definition of immersive theater is the audience is not outside the world of the play but is right in the world of the play with the performers. That might mean they have a lot of agency or not very much but at the very least they're not in a seat just experiencing things, they're responsible for some of this work. So to put it all together we created a format where the characters that are always speaking in I and you format directly to audience members as if they were the interviewers themselves. By that we could create a real human dynamic in the room and suddenly these pieces could be felt in a much more direct way. So that was the intent but I think in performance and process there's probably lots there to be said. I think that some of the most interesting moments as an actor come from that interaction between the audience and the actors. For the first two acts it was sort of separated into three acts and for the first two it was these immersive scenes and it was loops of the same scene done with different audience members coming in and then leaving and then new audience members coming in. And that was done in very close quarters and it could be as close as we are now. And I think that by seeing the actual visible reactions of the audience you got a lot out of that as an actor and a lot out of the script. And like I'd have people coming into my room and some people would be laughing at the funny bits or they might end up crying at the scene. You would have all these different people coming in and having real experiences with you and that's just a very cool experience that you don't always get to have when you're on stage and the audience is sitting in the dark. And so I think that that is definitely significant for the immersive actor experience. I think that's well put because the play is about community building and what it is to be part of a community and to in a theatrical way engage the audience so it wasn't any kind of like wall between us. But we had to engage the work of connecting with one another creates that spirit in real time and that was really kind of exciting. And it's true audiences were permitted a wide range of choice and room to have the responses they did. And it was that also meant that the script stage plays are very controllable things and we were putting ourselves intentionally into a less controllable format and had to be ready for that. Yeah that is a great segue to the next question I was thinking when I was hearing Angela speak you talked about some of the real positives of the experience of actors. I wonder what some of the challenges are in that less controlled environment from the actor perspective. I mean one of the biggest things is that you can't practice that and you can't practice having this audience that you're playing off of. So you're during rehearsal you know you're rehearsing with your fellow actors and you're rehearsing the lines. But you're especially because a lot of the people who were doing this show were people who had never done immersive theater before and didn't really know what they were getting into. You sort of go into it blind and you can definitely see a very intense learning curve as just as the performance nights go on where you get more acclimated to how you're dealing with that. But I think that it's also kind of wonderful that it has that mystery of I don't know what's about to happen. We're just going to go in and make this thing this gift that we have and hope that it works. Yeah and fortunately it did from the reaction of the community of both the ARHS community but also the larger community as well. So what were some of the surprising we talked to some of the challenges that you experienced but what were some of the surprising challenges? Challenges that weren't necessarily predictable on the front end as you're thinking about this. There's always that gap between you plan something and then the reality. I think everything I'm hearing and know about immersive theater you're sort of increasing that potential gap between what you're planning and the reality. What are some things that were unexpected or things that were surprises that you whether it's from the actor and the staff and you know had to manage? Sure. Well I think we could start on the design because this might also help build a picture for the play. This is obviously a play not on a stage as we said but we haven't defined the territory beyond that. One of the first choices we had to make is if we're going to break this play up and fragment it across spaces so that audiences could freely wander into those spaces at their choosing. We had to define those terms so we ended up using I'd say about a quarter of the school building certainly a big main section of it that involved the cafeteria area, the library side hallway, the entire performing arts wing. So we had to start with space and decide how this world actually lived in those spaces and where these characters resided and we had to do it in a way that took into account that we didn't get to perform on a stage. We were in people's classrooms and in the hallways and school was the next day and how do you think about set design and lighting in that situation. So we had to solve a lot of problems with figure out how to live in someone else's spaces that were being wonderful hosts to us and still make it all go poof pretty much every night and then reinstall it the following one. So that was fun and challenging including some of the things we had to figure out a visual motif and we settled on building set design pieces that were all mobile structures. So that they didn't have to sit on the things we could just suspend them and they were all buildable fence wood which became this solution for how could you build something into the space. But that took us a good while to solve and then the installation itself of course was there were many late night challenges and pretty silly moments that come out of like how do I actually hang this thing in the air. Yeah with school that has to operate during the day while the show is happening. It's not like the school shut down for a week while the production was occurring. So I know that was another tension point or challenge to figure out right. It couldn't be like oh no one can eat lunch for while the play is going on. So you know or the library you know and I'm sure they were wonderfully accommodating but you know students were still looking for research and doing their work. 100% and of course we want that a bit. We wanted to be had to have a visual imprint on the school day but bouncing that against the needs of the school the needs of the show was always a trick. But we like that because I think the added bonus to that as opposed to a stage plays that we create a lot more room quite literally for students to have to design and figure out how their staging or doing something. By definition I can't be the sole director of it. Angelo and everyone else has to end up taking a big part of the direction of their own work otherwise it doesn't get done. Any other surprising challenges that you experienced? The main one that comes to mind is I just remember a techie friend of mine coming in every day and talking about oh yeah the big installation thing that we were going to have in the middle of the school was way too heavy so we couldn't use it. So now we're trying to figure out what we're going to do instead. We're going to take something from the library put that up there. Yeah I'd say the set stuff was huge and then like Angelo is saying just you can plan all you want for an audience response and they will always out guess you or produce a new behavior. And so learning how to manage that and like you're also saying having students that were relatively new to this idea of giving the audience that much freedom. We learned I think one concrete thing on the dress rehearsal night which is the only night we get before we open with an outside audience. We realized we needed Kleeneck stations. That was a very real concern that we needed like a space and a capacity for people to step out when they needed it if something got particularly powerful. We also needed to know how to manage the lighter stuff too but that stayed poignant going out and buying a dozen boxes of tissue and strategically placing them around the school. That's fascinating. And so you talked a bit about the you know the stage pieces of it. So given that's immersive theater you've sort of described it but who was doing that stage tech work and how was that work actually happening in real time given that it was not happening in the auditorium or exclusively in the auditorium but it was happening in different areas around the school. That's a great question too. The work starts on spreadsheets. We have fortunately incredibly skilled students that lead the charge and we are in charge of mapping the show. So set up what happens where at what time structure rehearsals with me. There's over 60 scenes in the show that need to be rehearsed and prepared and with many overlapping characters. So students had to be responsible for the matrix of how all that plays out. So I would say there's there's certainly an upper echelon of student leadership from our kind of our titled roles from our student tech director to our stage managers to having students like Angela that are just you know kind of old hats at this that we can that I can rely on to take care of something. We have a very divide and conquer sort of approach. So we each find parcels of the show. I work with a few student designers to keep the overall picture but then we're out and running and checking in frequently and it is a little chaotic. Not in a bad way I'd say in a way that really helps us find the good stuff but there's a lot of trust that comes with that and it's worked out pretty well. So Angela what was the you describe this experience for you. What would you how would you describe the show experience from the full cast. You know student actors who are involved in this immersive experience. One thing I particularly want to put a finer point on is there's to John's point there's there's so much intense emotion that would come given the content and how did it feel to be an actor. You know both experience that yourself and still come through an actor and also respond to the audience who is so so proximate in terms of their reactions. I think one of the more interesting conversations I had after the show was with my mom and she had gone to see it twice and she was asking me how how were you able to for a full month be going through this intensely emotional stuff and be working through all that because she had had to step out for one of the scenes she couldn't see it again because it was just very emotional. And I was thinking and I wasn't really sure but then I came to the conclusion that what it really was is the community that we had formed and also the fact that the show is formatted in a more theatrical sense. It isn't meant to be a sort of photorealistic representation and so actors have the opportunity to step out of their characters. And it's not just a night of being this one character and saying all of these words and living and reliving all of these intense intense emotions. You always have the opportunity to between scenes and between switching roles because a lot of people were playing multiple roles. Take a moment to be yourself and still be in the mindset of the show but to release all of that internal everything. And I remember there was one scene that was probably the most emotionally intense for me where I would be sort of having a verbal battle with another friend of mine who would be shouting slurs across the room and just these really intense things and I think that it's significant that while the audience after that scene sort of was ushered up onto the stage and had to wait and be prepared for the next thing I was able to always go back around them and have a moment to just hug that friend and just stand there and accept that this isn't who we are. We're playing roles, just let it all go and then go back and have that experience again and keep doing that. You were asking about surprises or maybe that was one of the biggest ones. I know that I did not fully anticipate the emotional weight of carrying that work for over a month and I wasn't acting in it. I had the easiest part I think for Angela and for students that had to play roles, some of which are incredibly bigoted, hateful language to see some of the sweetest people that you've worked with over the years spouting these things and needing to like really deliver. You could see the emotional resources it took and the community it took to support that and that was something you guys did organically and incredibly well. I don't think I provided much of a structure for that having not anticipated it and you guys really stepped in. What do you feel like from the student end that the response was? Not so much for the actors and stage crew but for the larger student community at the high school? I feel like I don't generally see that much of a response to theatrical productions but I remember I walked into ceramics one day after the show, the week after the show and this kid who I hadn't spoken to a lot just like, that was fantastic! That was his response and I got that a lot and there were a lot of students who might not otherwise have been so invested in it, were really moved and made that vocal to the actors. It was great. One of the advantages of a show like this with all the characters that had to be portrayed is that we could throw a lot of cast members at it. Traditionally the show is done with roughly ten actors playing a bunch of roles. We threw nearly fifty actors at it so you had this very large group of people making the work together and then the expense of their individual friend circles, many of whom came and saw the show. The end result was a lot of students in the building that we don't always see at other shows having those kinds of responses. I agree that was really rewarding. Are there any other lessons that you, looking back now, it's been a little bit of time since the show happened. The more distance, sometimes after an experience, especially an emotional and intense one that you described, a little bit of distance offers a little bit of time for reflection. Are there thoughts that come to your mind of what either you or collectively we learned in that process and maybe path forward, certainly for John, your senior, so I want to be conscious of that. I'm interested in your story as well, but just for the school, what did we learn and what was the impact? Both of you have spoken about that in different ways because we have a vibrant theater department and one of the elements that makes it vibrant isn't just the shows that go on every year, it's actually the school-wide impact that those shows have. I don't know if you had any reflections as the further we get away and perhaps less acute reflections because we have that distance that I'd be interested in hearing. Sure. Well, I would say on the content and I think there was a sense that when we first started with the work that we were looking at this piece that was 20 years old and that there'd be almost a predictably safe emotional distance provided for us from it and we found that that just wasn't true. It was like very intensely quick, so I think one of the learnings was that you're never fully over or past the material that especially if you're trying to take it on a genuine way, you've got to be prepared to step back in and not assume that it is a kind of like since we are choosing to do this show therefore we already have a mastery of it. And I think that was really relevant to all theater that you surrender some control to make some of the best work but it is emotionally challenging, it's logistically challenging. And then on the, I think just on the grander end, it's really exciting for us to make different kinds of theatrical work than stage plays because we find that we draw different students, not just as audiences, but as potential performers or technicians. So one of our steady instances to keep trying to make as much different theater as possible to increase what a student's sense of theater is in the first place, but also to draw more corners of the school as best we can. And so that felt very successful on this end and we hope to do more of that. Yeah, I think that just having the content that people very much relate to and very much feel, I think that it showed how much people care about that and how much it helps people to see and to act in that. And I thought that that was just really interesting and wonderful and it would be great to do more of that sort of thing. So as we're closing up with just a couple of minutes left, I'd love to hear from Angela as you're getting towards the end of your time in the district. What would you tell young students who are entering the high school younger than you students anyway, who are entering the high school about the impact of the theater department on your experience? Not just necessarily the Laramie project, but more generally. I would probably just say do it because it's one of the most wonderful communities that I've been able to encounter in the high school. It's just such a home and it's also very possible to be involved in a huge array of different ways and different time commitments. You can be part of the Laramie project, you can be part of an immersive show in the fall or you can do all of the shows or you can do some of the one minute shows in the spring and there are just so many different ways to get involved and they are so emotionally impactful and you meet people who you would never otherwise meet and who really influence your life and make it a better place and I think that theater is just a very magical way of exploring different emotions and different realities and things that you don't know about yourself that you then find out about yourself and I think that's a wonderful guy to have in charge. I would agree. We do have to wrap up, but I think both of you, Angela, I thank you for all your contributions to the theater program and beyond at the high school and you're not ready to go yet, but we're not so long. We'll be at the Mullen Center and very excited to see what next steps you take as you depart from our school district after all your time here, not just at the high school but prior. John, thank you for your incredible work. I think the quick story I'll tell about John, he'll embarrass him, but he was presenting at a school committee a couple of weeks ago and it got delayed and he wasn't sure what he was going to present. He said, I'm still working, I'll just go down the hall to my space, to the theater and then just text when you need me, I'm here. This is at 8.30 at night and also that he came back to hear students present on a different topic that he was interested not just in the theater but there were students presented about restorative justice and John made the time to be part of that lengthy presentation because it was powerful to him and so I really appreciate all of your contributions at the high school. Thank you so much. And thank you to the viewers for finding out a bit more about the high school theater department and for learning more about our district. And we'll be back next time with an additional episode of When You're Into Arps. Thank you.