So why go to the International Thespian Conference, especially if you do not have a thespian troupe? It is a tremendous week of high school theatre with no requirements to attend. This past week it was at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

So what goes on for that week? More than fifty productions are presented by schools from throughout North America and abroad, a full schedule of workshops are offered by theatre professionals, as well as individual performance events and a student playwriting program.  It also gives students the opportunities to audition for college and university representatives and Thespian scholarships, and a chance to hang out with other students who love theatre.

When we attended the conferences I met wonderful people, saw some great shows — which I later produced — and took incredible classes as well as picked up some much needed credits to further my climb up the seniority list. My students and I all went to something different and would share what we learned each night. We always left the conferences with a wealth of wonderful new theatre information. This sharing of ideas was the very best thing we all gained from the conferences — except one thing!

One of the shows we saw was Catch Me If You Can performed by a Florida troupe, a great production and mystery, one we did several years later.  When I retired in 2000 one of my kids had a going away party for me at the theatre that had been my home away from home for 37 years. Many of my students attended, several from out of town. One in particular was a young lady who had seen the mystery when she attended the conference. She also brought her husband.  He had been the lead in that production and they had met again when she was working in a theatre company in Florida and married — so really great things can happen at these conferences! 

During the next 28 years we traveled to the conferences every other year.  We primarily presented workshops on children’s theatre—see our recipe below developed from the 25 children’s shows we performed over a span of 20+ years.

CHILDREN’S THEATRE RECIPE

6 Cups of Ingenuity, Imagination, & Invention

Ingredients

1/2 C           A strong opening

1/2 C           Color (mix this very well throughout the production, including set, costumes, & makeup)

1/2 tsp.        Setting

1/3 C           Moral

21/2 C         Movement  (this must include dance and music)

1/2 C           Animals

1 2/3 C        Audience involvement (doing chases, asking for help, holding imaginary objects/animals)

Mix all ingredients well.  Let marinate about three to four weeks

Time:  1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Yield:  A very successful play.

On several occasions we performed shows that were not written for children, using more clever traveling ideas. For Thurber Carnival we purchased the slides along with the scripts.  However, we did not want to worry about a slide projector and screen so we transferred the drawings from the slides to white poster board and created boxes. Each box required six pieces of poster board, all the same size (a top, bottom and four sides). We copied, in black, Thurber’s line drawings, one for each piece of poster board (giving us six different settings). Five holes were punched on each side and the posters were then laced together with black yarn. As each new story was presented the boxes were turned to illustrate that story.  The cardboard laid flat when not laced, making traveling a breeze. This would work well for designs of walls or trees, as well.

The set and costumes for Elizabeth 1 were created out of “found” objects our drama department had acquired over the years.  See The Drama Teacher's Survival Guide  for a detailed account of that production. Below is an excerpt. 

All wore leotards I had on hand, the boys wore sweat pants and running shorts, and the girls wore muslin rehearsal skirts. For Elizabeth we used a child’s inner tube to add fullness to the skirt, a cut off sweatshirt for her top, and a paper crown we had gotten for our production of Cinderella.

You can find a picture of Elizabeth 1, Mary Queen of Scots, and Burley under Photos To Enhance Your Reading on my web site www.margaretfjohnson.com.

Run-Down Window Shade

The first conference we attended was in Portland, Oregon. Because of our production of Annabelle and the traveling we had done to the Shrine hospital in Spokane, we were invited to perform a children’s show on the main stage. We chose to do Beauty and the Lonely Beast. Again we had to travel, so we decided to concentrate on costumes that each student could take as their luggage. The play required two sets, a lot of hats (the fairy godmother loved hats), and smoke. My husband came up with an ingenious set and flash pots.

We needed three items: window shades, music stands, and acrylic paint. We started with plastic-coated window shades (these are stronger than the regular shades and washable) and acrylic paint (it has a plastic base and will adhere to the shade). We created both scenes by using the back and the front of the shades. Before any design was painted on the shades, he made a drawing to scale on graph paper of a run-down house (for the first scene, see the picture) and French provincial panels (for the prince’s castle).

Next we needed 6 music stands. He took the top off the music stands and raised them as high as they would go. A piece of wire was fixed to the rolled down shade and put in the top of the stands to hold the shade in place, suspending the shades on the music stands.  The animals came in, picked up each shade, and turned it for the scene change to the prince’s palace. The device of turning the shades for each scene called attention to it and was incorporated with the play. This design was simple and traveled easily.

The show was amazing. The fairy godmother made her entrance on roller-skates down the very long steep aisle singing “I love hats” in a broad cockney accent at the top of her voice—the two cats we incorporated into show were at the bottom to catch her. The rest of the music was right on and the flash pots did their thing beautifully although today we would not allowed to use gunpowder, shorting wires, and coffee can lids! (Never had everything worked in rehearsals!) The show was a hit, not only for the folks at the convention but at the Portland’s Children’s hospital as well.

This would be the beginning of many journeys and performances at the Thespian conferences.

As summer is approaching and we can say good bye to the 2007-08 school year, it brings to mind stories of “What I did on my summer vacation.” No, not really, but I did do several great things during those summer breaks from teaching.

First of all, summer was a time to catch up on house cleaning that had lain dormant during the 9 months of teaching and directing. But we will not go there!

The first thing I did as a rookie was to start a summer theatre program. I had been introduced to children’s theatre in college and loved the experience it gave me as an actor.  Not only is it wonderful to have the young audience members ask for your autograph, but seeing the wonder in their eyes and their reactions to the play is something that every actor needs to experience.  It is doubly rewarding when you are performing for little ones in a hospital.  

We live relatively close to a major children’s hospital in Spokane, Washington, so I decided to do a children’s show that we could pack up in a car and take to the hospital. Cinderella was chosen, as it needed very few men. (You can see a picture of the backdrop my husband drew on page 217 of The Drama Teacher’s Survival Guide.) With the help of several parents, we car-pooled the 175 miles—this was in 1964 when gas was cheap—and had a very rewarding day. 

This led to another scheduled performance the following Christmas.  I had been cast in the Harder’s play, Annabelle Broome, in college and wanted to do it as my Christmas offering to the cities of Missoula and Spokane.  Well, serendipitously this turned out to also be the Christmas my husband and I decided to get married (we had been going together for 9 years). All the plans for the trip had been made long before the wedding plans, so two days after the wedding, 20 students, 2 chaperons and the newlyweds boarded the train for Spokane.  Again the show was a hit and all had a great time.  Those now-60-year-old kids still talk about their honeymoon.

This performance led to our invitation to perform at the National Thespian Conference in Portland, Oregon.  More on that next time.