I've been doing these for awhile.
ME: So we're just going to get on a conference call.
And I've never interviewed two people at once.
ALUMNI: How are you going to break this up? They and Them?
ME: No, you're going to be Alumni and they'll be Professor.
ALUMNI: Isn't it alumna?
ME: I don't like the sound of that.
ALUMNI: (Laughs.) We'll go with alumni.
But last week's interview brought about such a big response that I decided to give the subject of that interview an opportunity to speak with the person I was supposed to be interviewing--his former student.
ME: Are you nervous?
ALUMNI: I am, actually. It's so stupid.
ME: I don't think it's stupid. Let's get him on the line.
If you haven't read that interview yet, you should do that first by clicking here:
http://thiscantbebroccoli.blogspot.com/2019/12/theater-and-alumni.html
PROFESSOR: Hello?
Here's the interview:
ME: Hi, can you hear me?
PROFESSOR: Yes.
ME: I have [Name] on the line too.
ALUMNI: Hello.
PROFESSOR: Hi [Name], good to hear from you.
ME: Did you get a chance to read the interview I posted last week?
PROFESSOR: Yes, I did.
ME: What were your thoughts on it?
PROFESSOR: I thought it was the conversation we had. There weren't any--You presented it the way we had it. I'm not on Facebook, but my colleague is and she showed me some of the comments on it.
ME: What did you think of those comments?
PROFESSOR: I was taken aback. People without any context were just attacking me, my school, our program--I thought it was grotesque.
ALUMNI: You just said he got all the details right, and now you're saying--
PROFESSOR: He put down the conversation as we had it, but there were many things in that conversation that weren't--
ME: When it comes to the specifics of your program, I do wish that I had gotten into that with you and included it in the interview. I did a video about it later, but part of why I wanted to come back to you was so that we could discuss it in this forum.
PROFESSOR: I'd like that.
ME: You did touch upon how your program is driven by the idea of securing students work after college.
PROFESSOR: That's one element of it, yes.
ME: Alumni--that's how I'm going to refer to you--
(Everyone laughs.)
ALUMNI: Okay.
ME: What was your takeaway from the program?
ALUMNI: What I learned from it?
ME: What you felt the educational ideology was.
ALUMNI: That's really heavy, okay. Um--
ME: (Laughs.) What do you feel they're about?
ALUMNI: It seemed as though--Okay, this is going to be a long answer and possibly all over the place, so I'll apologize for that now. I've been working in this industry for over ten years. So when you talk about knowing the business--
ME: Multiple Broadway shows.
ALUMNI: And five bestselling audiobooks, I've done television, I've done film--I'm not an A-List person by any means, but I'm doing okay. I've been very engaged with the business. What we learned at school--at the program [Professor] teaches at--was always brought back to the nuts and bolts of working in the business and whether or not something was going to benefit you when it came to getting work. For example, you like singing this song? But where are you going to sing it? Can you bring it into an audition? If you can't, why are you singing it? In case you play that role in a show? Well how are you going to get in the show if you can't nail an audition? It was about being a good employee of the arts. Don't make noise. Don't complain. Keep your mouth shut. Now, it just so happens that by teaching us that, it was helping the faculty as well, because then that's how we behaved when we were in school, and it was under this illusion of--Well, that's how it is in the real world. I can tell you right now that part of being a professional is not keeping your mouth shut. Not when it comes to looking out for yourself.
PROFESSOR: Nobody was ever--
ALUMNI: Excuse me, I'm speaking. We were presented with false information about a lot of things--including things about what it means to work in this industry, because we were being taught by people who hadn't worked in the industry in years--even decades. They were also people who had no interest in learning about the industry in its current--the way it is now. We were being moved towards, um, an identity--whether it was one that fit us or not--a creative identity--that was all about how much work we could get for ourselves. If learning something was going to help us creatively but not professionally, we didn't learn it.
ME: Like what?
ALUMNI: I had and still have an interest in Japanese theater. I wanted to do my senior presentation on it. [Professor], I don't know if you remember this, but when I told you that, you said it was a waste of time, because I'm not Japanese and the odds of me working on a piece of Japanese theater were--
PROFESSOR: I encouraged you--I encouraged you to focus on what your concentration was, which was acting. I was going to be evaluating your senior project, and I don't know anything about Japanese theater, so how could I properly evaluate you? That's all it was. Can I respond to some of what she said?
ME: Sure.
PROFESSOR: Thank you. My entire career, I have heard people say that what I teach does not matter. That my students are getting a worthless degree. That they won't be able to find work after they graduate. We have created a program that flies in the face of that criticism and so to hear these sorts of things--
ALUMNI: But why are you making a program based on the criticism of people who clearly do not appreciate the arts?
PROFESSOR: I let you speak.
ME: He did let you speak.
ALUMNI: Okay.
PROFESSOR: We want our students to be successful. The notion of a starving artist is a fallacy. You can't make art when you're starving. We do try to find practical applications to everything we teach. As for giving out false information, every field and industry changes rapidly. We do try to keep up with trends, but it's subjective. [Alumni]'s experience with the industry is just one experience. Different people like different things. Casting agents, directors--there isn't a right and wrong way. We teach what we believe are best practices.
ME: But who determines what a best practice is if you're admitting that all these things are subjective?
PROFESSOR: Can I address one last thing she said?
ME: Sure.
PROFESSOR: We do not encourage students not to stand up for themselves or speak out if they feel something is wrong.
ALUMNI: That's a lie.
PROFESSOR: It is not a lie.
ALUMNI: If anybody--when I was there--I can say that while I was there--if anybody made a fuss about anything, they were ostracized.
PROFESSOR: It depends on how they go about it.
ME: Well, I mean, there isn't really a pretty way to stand up for yourself.
PROFESSOR: If it's handled correctly--
ME: You expect nineteen and twenty-year-olds to know how to handle themselves correctly? I barely knew how to tie my shoes.
PROFESSOR: We're talking about adults.
ME: Adults who are still in an environment where they're under the authority of--
PROFESSOR: You're always going to be under someone's authority, Kevin.
ALUMNI: Just the word 'authority' is--
ME: Here's my issue--You're saying that your educational philosophy is based on creating people who can get jobs after they graduate. We already talked in the last interview about how a lot of your students--like the one on this phone call--who are getting work--are not fans of your program, and you seem to have trouble graduating people who then turn around, get work, and support you and how you teach.
PROFESSOR: As I said in our previous conversation, I don't have the statistics for how many--
ME: But the question I wanted to ask now is--Do you think it's a college's job to--I mean, I know for me, I didn't know it at the time, but really, I went to college to learn how to be an artist, not a performer. The distinction being that, there's nothing wrong with being a performer, but you can learn to be a performer by taking classes here and there, and, mainly, by getting work and booking jobs. To me, if you want to be a performer, you don't really need to spend tens of thousands of dollars going to college for that. I went to college to learn what it is about me that's special so that I can be as creative a person as possible, and that's not what ended up happening, because--similar to what [Alumni] is talking about, I went to a school where the biggest concern was, 'Okay, so who's going to be the first person to book a national tour once we're all out of here?' It was all about finding paying work as opposed to, you know, creating your own work and finding creative fulfillment.
PROFESSOR: It sounds like you didn't pick the right program for you, but that doesn't mean it was a bad program.
ME: Oh no, trust me, it was a bad program.
ALUMNI: It sounds like our program, actually.
PROFESSOR: But you've done very well for yourself.
ALUMNI: In spite of you.
PROFESSOR: I'm sorry you feel that way.
ALUMNI: I don't feel it, it's a fact.
ME: Has seeing the reaction from people--you mentioned seeing the response to the interview online--has seeing other educators, especially--made you rethink any of what you said?
PROFESSOR: No.
ME: I think people were shocked at how unwilling you seemed to be to...at least entertain other ways of doing things.
PROFESSOR: Like I said to you before, how I teach and what I teach isn't something that I came upon casually. This has been developed after years of--
ALUMNI: Here we go.
PROFESSOR: It's not something you can upend over night.
ME: Can you address my assumption that your program seems designed for performers as opposed to artists?
PROFESSOR: I would argue they're the same thing.
ME: I think you thinking they're the same thing is a big problem.
ALUMNI: The performers they graduate aren't that good at performing. That's the best part.
PROFESSOR: I really don't appreciate being ganged up on--
ALUMNI: Then you wouldn't last very long at your school, [Professor]. People wouldn't even make eye contact with me by the time I left.
PROFESSOR: [Alumni], this is so petty. I find it--
ME: Excuse me, it's not petty. She's talking about real trauma.
PROFESSOR: I think that's an insult to people who have experienced real trauma.
ALUMNI: What would you call being at the center of that much negativity--
PROFESSOR: It's life. I would say it's life.
ME: But did you orchestrate any of it?
PROFESSOR: I did not.
ME: Do you believe isolationism is a best practice?
PROFESSOR: No.
ME: But when we talked previously--
PROFESSOR: I may have misled you in how I think about--We don't lock our students in a room somewhere. We just try to keep an eye on--You're right. They are impressionable. They're coming to us and trusting us to give them an education. If they're getting differing viewpoints, it's not helpful to them or us.
ME: But they're going to be getting differing viewpoints in the world as well.
PROFESSOR: Hopefully by that time, they're able to understand how to work within those other viewpoints while still going back to the core we've set up in them.
ALUMNI: You sound like you're talking about robots.
PROFESSOR: There's a lot of anger present in you, and I understand that, but I have a lot of my students ready to respond to what kind of education they're--
ALUMNI: Current students?
PROFESSOR: Yes.
ALUMNI: You mean the ones who are still drinking the Kool-Aid?
PROFESSOR: I think if you--
ALUMNI: Do your current students even know I exist? I think they'd feel differently about defending you if they knew--
ME: Hang on, I want to ask--Are your students allowed to do shows outside of your program?
ALUMNI: They're not.
PROFESSOR: It's against one of our policies.
ME: We had a big thing about that here so I'm wondering if you can explain your personal take on why you think that's a bad idea.
PROFESSOR: As I said, we like to keep an eye on what our students are being taught. That's our job.
ALUMNI: Tell them about [Name].
PROFESSOR: This is getting a little--
ALUMNI: [Name] was a junior when I was a freshman. He was offered a paying job at a regional theater near campus. [Professor] told him he couldn't take it, because he was 'needed for the school musical.' That doesn't sound like to me like they're looking out for anybody's education. That sounds like they think the theater department is really a theater.
ME: Is that accurate?
PROFESSOR: I remember enforcing the policy when that happened. It exists for a reason.
ME: But do you ever feel as though you're forgetting that you are not an Artistic Director running a theater but an educator running an educational program?
PROFESSOR: Tell that to the college that expects us to sell tickets to financially supplement our program.
ME: That sounds like a 'Yes.'
PROFESSOR: Not every school is in that position, but a lot of them are. It's not a good position to be in if you believe that you need to produce work for the benefit of the students if you think that work isn't going to be interesting to an audience.
ME: That must be how some of them end up doing The Little Mermaid.
PROFESSOR: Is that a joke?
ME: Sadly, no. So you don't let them audition anywhere else?
PROFESSOR: Not until they've made themselves available to us.
ME: So you're asking them to make a commitment to the program.
PROFESSOR: Yes.
ME: And what's your commitment to them?
PROFESSOR: We commit to educating them.
ME: But this is specifically about casting them in shows. It's about having good productions that people want to see so your program gets extra money or however that works. So how many roles do you guarantee them while they're in school?
PROFESSOR: We don't guarantee them roles.
ME: So the commitment is one-sided?
PROFESSOR: It's not possible for us to provide all our students with roles in productions. We try our best, but we have a rather large program--that acting concentration is the biggest part of that--and it's just not possible to give--
ME: But you want that talent pool available to you first and foremost even though you admit that you can't make roles available to everyone in that pool.
PROFESSOR: I don't think it's as simple as you're making it sound.
ALUMNI: I disagree. I think it is that simple.
ME: I wonder if there's any way to get you two to a place of better understanding with each other. I didn't want this to be some kind of battle that just ends when somebody wins. [Alumni], is there anything you could say to [Professor] that might help him get why your specific experience was so difficult and why it's lingered all this time?
ALUMNI: Um.
(Pause.)
ALUMNI: You have to understand that...I...I was a totally different person. The person who showed up to that school and the person who left. They were different people. I didn't come in to make waves. I came in really wanting to do well, and I just wasn't given that chance. Looking back on it, it strikes me that if you showed up looking a certain way, and sounding a certain way, and fulfilling certain expectations, and smiling all the time, and being pleasant, and taking whatever scraps were thrown to you, and, and, not demanding something for your money--your actual money, that I'm still paying--then you just were not going to do well. Even if you did all that, you weren't always going to do well. You know, I think in some ways, the faculty there is just as victimized by the system that's been created as the students, even though they help foster that system, because very few of them actually want to be teachers. They want to be actors and directors or teachers at more well-regarded schools, and they're not, so they're unhappy, and that unhappiness trickles down to the students, and it's evident as soon as you walk in there. At the same time, there's something resembling nationalism happening all the time, where they tell you, 'This program is the best. These shows are Broadway quality. If you do well here, you're set.' That's not true. I'm not accusing all that of being said directly by anyone, but it's being conveyed indirectly and the people who are in charge know that, and they don't put a stop to it. I've had the good fortune of being asked to go into different schools and guest teach a class or do a master class, and I would encourage any student reading this--If you are in the kind of program I was in, and you can't get out, because I couldn't--
ME: Why couldn't you get out?
ALUMNI: Because, Kevin, I got a scholarship to one school, and this is the one I got it for. I still had to take out student loans on top of the scholarship, but this was my only opportunity to go to college. I read that part of the interview, [Professor], where you said, 'Just transfer.' How dare you. How dare you assume it's that easy.
ME: [Professor], is any of what you just heard having an impact or--
PROFESSOR: I think she's very angry.
ALUMNI: Oh my god.
ME: That's what you took from that?
PROFESSOR: I don't know what I'm supposed to take from it other than that I'm a big bad man and I don't know how to teach despite many other students who would argue differently.
ME: Could I talk to one of those students? One of your current students?
PROFESSOR: If they want to speak to you, yes.
ALUMNI: You're going to let them hear a different viewpoint? I'm surprised.
ME: Can we set that up this week? I'd like to have something I can put out by next week. Will that be okay?
PROFESSOR: I'll ask one of them today.
ME: Thank you. I think we should end there.
PROFESSOR: Thank you.
The Professor hangs up.
ME: You okay?
ALUMNI: I feel like that was a waste of time.
ME: If we kept going--that's why I cut it short. I'm sorry.
ALUMNI: It's okay. Thank you for trying.
ME: Well, I'm not done yet.
Next Week: Theater and the College Student
ME: So we're just going to get on a conference call.
And I've never interviewed two people at once.
ALUMNI: How are you going to break this up? They and Them?
ME: No, you're going to be Alumni and they'll be Professor.
ALUMNI: Isn't it alumna?
ME: I don't like the sound of that.
ALUMNI: (Laughs.) We'll go with alumni.
But last week's interview brought about such a big response that I decided to give the subject of that interview an opportunity to speak with the person I was supposed to be interviewing--his former student.
ME: Are you nervous?
ALUMNI: I am, actually. It's so stupid.
ME: I don't think it's stupid. Let's get him on the line.
If you haven't read that interview yet, you should do that first by clicking here:
http://thiscantbebroccoli.blogspot.com/2019/12/theater-and-alumni.html
PROFESSOR: Hello?
Here's the interview:
ME: Hi, can you hear me?
PROFESSOR: Yes.
ME: I have [Name] on the line too.
ALUMNI: Hello.
PROFESSOR: Hi [Name], good to hear from you.
ME: Did you get a chance to read the interview I posted last week?
PROFESSOR: Yes, I did.
ME: What were your thoughts on it?
PROFESSOR: I thought it was the conversation we had. There weren't any--You presented it the way we had it. I'm not on Facebook, but my colleague is and she showed me some of the comments on it.
ME: What did you think of those comments?
PROFESSOR: I was taken aback. People without any context were just attacking me, my school, our program--I thought it was grotesque.
ALUMNI: You just said he got all the details right, and now you're saying--
PROFESSOR: He put down the conversation as we had it, but there were many things in that conversation that weren't--
ME: When it comes to the specifics of your program, I do wish that I had gotten into that with you and included it in the interview. I did a video about it later, but part of why I wanted to come back to you was so that we could discuss it in this forum.
PROFESSOR: I'd like that.
ME: You did touch upon how your program is driven by the idea of securing students work after college.
PROFESSOR: That's one element of it, yes.
ME: Alumni--that's how I'm going to refer to you--
(Everyone laughs.)
ALUMNI: Okay.
ME: What was your takeaway from the program?
ALUMNI: What I learned from it?
ME: What you felt the educational ideology was.
ALUMNI: That's really heavy, okay. Um--
ME: (Laughs.) What do you feel they're about?
ALUMNI: It seemed as though--Okay, this is going to be a long answer and possibly all over the place, so I'll apologize for that now. I've been working in this industry for over ten years. So when you talk about knowing the business--
ME: Multiple Broadway shows.
ALUMNI: And five bestselling audiobooks, I've done television, I've done film--I'm not an A-List person by any means, but I'm doing okay. I've been very engaged with the business. What we learned at school--at the program [Professor] teaches at--was always brought back to the nuts and bolts of working in the business and whether or not something was going to benefit you when it came to getting work. For example, you like singing this song? But where are you going to sing it? Can you bring it into an audition? If you can't, why are you singing it? In case you play that role in a show? Well how are you going to get in the show if you can't nail an audition? It was about being a good employee of the arts. Don't make noise. Don't complain. Keep your mouth shut. Now, it just so happens that by teaching us that, it was helping the faculty as well, because then that's how we behaved when we were in school, and it was under this illusion of--Well, that's how it is in the real world. I can tell you right now that part of being a professional is not keeping your mouth shut. Not when it comes to looking out for yourself.
PROFESSOR: Nobody was ever--
ALUMNI: Excuse me, I'm speaking. We were presented with false information about a lot of things--including things about what it means to work in this industry, because we were being taught by people who hadn't worked in the industry in years--even decades. They were also people who had no interest in learning about the industry in its current--the way it is now. We were being moved towards, um, an identity--whether it was one that fit us or not--a creative identity--that was all about how much work we could get for ourselves. If learning something was going to help us creatively but not professionally, we didn't learn it.
ME: Like what?
ALUMNI: I had and still have an interest in Japanese theater. I wanted to do my senior presentation on it. [Professor], I don't know if you remember this, but when I told you that, you said it was a waste of time, because I'm not Japanese and the odds of me working on a piece of Japanese theater were--
PROFESSOR: I encouraged you--I encouraged you to focus on what your concentration was, which was acting. I was going to be evaluating your senior project, and I don't know anything about Japanese theater, so how could I properly evaluate you? That's all it was. Can I respond to some of what she said?
ME: Sure.
PROFESSOR: Thank you. My entire career, I have heard people say that what I teach does not matter. That my students are getting a worthless degree. That they won't be able to find work after they graduate. We have created a program that flies in the face of that criticism and so to hear these sorts of things--
ALUMNI: But why are you making a program based on the criticism of people who clearly do not appreciate the arts?
PROFESSOR: I let you speak.
ME: He did let you speak.
ALUMNI: Okay.
PROFESSOR: We want our students to be successful. The notion of a starving artist is a fallacy. You can't make art when you're starving. We do try to find practical applications to everything we teach. As for giving out false information, every field and industry changes rapidly. We do try to keep up with trends, but it's subjective. [Alumni]'s experience with the industry is just one experience. Different people like different things. Casting agents, directors--there isn't a right and wrong way. We teach what we believe are best practices.
ME: But who determines what a best practice is if you're admitting that all these things are subjective?
PROFESSOR: Can I address one last thing she said?
ME: Sure.
PROFESSOR: We do not encourage students not to stand up for themselves or speak out if they feel something is wrong.
ALUMNI: That's a lie.
PROFESSOR: It is not a lie.
ALUMNI: If anybody--when I was there--I can say that while I was there--if anybody made a fuss about anything, they were ostracized.
PROFESSOR: It depends on how they go about it.
ME: Well, I mean, there isn't really a pretty way to stand up for yourself.
PROFESSOR: If it's handled correctly--
ME: You expect nineteen and twenty-year-olds to know how to handle themselves correctly? I barely knew how to tie my shoes.
PROFESSOR: We're talking about adults.
ME: Adults who are still in an environment where they're under the authority of--
PROFESSOR: You're always going to be under someone's authority, Kevin.
ALUMNI: Just the word 'authority' is--
ME: Here's my issue--You're saying that your educational philosophy is based on creating people who can get jobs after they graduate. We already talked in the last interview about how a lot of your students--like the one on this phone call--who are getting work--are not fans of your program, and you seem to have trouble graduating people who then turn around, get work, and support you and how you teach.
PROFESSOR: As I said in our previous conversation, I don't have the statistics for how many--
ME: But the question I wanted to ask now is--Do you think it's a college's job to--I mean, I know for me, I didn't know it at the time, but really, I went to college to learn how to be an artist, not a performer. The distinction being that, there's nothing wrong with being a performer, but you can learn to be a performer by taking classes here and there, and, mainly, by getting work and booking jobs. To me, if you want to be a performer, you don't really need to spend tens of thousands of dollars going to college for that. I went to college to learn what it is about me that's special so that I can be as creative a person as possible, and that's not what ended up happening, because--similar to what [Alumni] is talking about, I went to a school where the biggest concern was, 'Okay, so who's going to be the first person to book a national tour once we're all out of here?' It was all about finding paying work as opposed to, you know, creating your own work and finding creative fulfillment.
PROFESSOR: It sounds like you didn't pick the right program for you, but that doesn't mean it was a bad program.
ME: Oh no, trust me, it was a bad program.
ALUMNI: It sounds like our program, actually.
PROFESSOR: But you've done very well for yourself.
ALUMNI: In spite of you.
PROFESSOR: I'm sorry you feel that way.
ALUMNI: I don't feel it, it's a fact.
ME: Has seeing the reaction from people--you mentioned seeing the response to the interview online--has seeing other educators, especially--made you rethink any of what you said?
PROFESSOR: No.
ME: I think people were shocked at how unwilling you seemed to be to...at least entertain other ways of doing things.
PROFESSOR: Like I said to you before, how I teach and what I teach isn't something that I came upon casually. This has been developed after years of--
ALUMNI: Here we go.
PROFESSOR: It's not something you can upend over night.
ME: Can you address my assumption that your program seems designed for performers as opposed to artists?
PROFESSOR: I would argue they're the same thing.
ME: I think you thinking they're the same thing is a big problem.
ALUMNI: The performers they graduate aren't that good at performing. That's the best part.
PROFESSOR: I really don't appreciate being ganged up on--
ALUMNI: Then you wouldn't last very long at your school, [Professor]. People wouldn't even make eye contact with me by the time I left.
PROFESSOR: [Alumni], this is so petty. I find it--
ME: Excuse me, it's not petty. She's talking about real trauma.
PROFESSOR: I think that's an insult to people who have experienced real trauma.
ALUMNI: What would you call being at the center of that much negativity--
PROFESSOR: It's life. I would say it's life.
ME: But did you orchestrate any of it?
PROFESSOR: I did not.
ME: Do you believe isolationism is a best practice?
PROFESSOR: No.
ME: But when we talked previously--
PROFESSOR: I may have misled you in how I think about--We don't lock our students in a room somewhere. We just try to keep an eye on--You're right. They are impressionable. They're coming to us and trusting us to give them an education. If they're getting differing viewpoints, it's not helpful to them or us.
ME: But they're going to be getting differing viewpoints in the world as well.
PROFESSOR: Hopefully by that time, they're able to understand how to work within those other viewpoints while still going back to the core we've set up in them.
ALUMNI: You sound like you're talking about robots.
PROFESSOR: There's a lot of anger present in you, and I understand that, but I have a lot of my students ready to respond to what kind of education they're--
ALUMNI: Current students?
PROFESSOR: Yes.
ALUMNI: You mean the ones who are still drinking the Kool-Aid?
PROFESSOR: I think if you--
ALUMNI: Do your current students even know I exist? I think they'd feel differently about defending you if they knew--
ME: Hang on, I want to ask--Are your students allowed to do shows outside of your program?
ALUMNI: They're not.
PROFESSOR: It's against one of our policies.
ME: We had a big thing about that here so I'm wondering if you can explain your personal take on why you think that's a bad idea.
PROFESSOR: As I said, we like to keep an eye on what our students are being taught. That's our job.
ALUMNI: Tell them about [Name].
PROFESSOR: This is getting a little--
ALUMNI: [Name] was a junior when I was a freshman. He was offered a paying job at a regional theater near campus. [Professor] told him he couldn't take it, because he was 'needed for the school musical.' That doesn't sound like to me like they're looking out for anybody's education. That sounds like they think the theater department is really a theater.
ME: Is that accurate?
PROFESSOR: I remember enforcing the policy when that happened. It exists for a reason.
ME: But do you ever feel as though you're forgetting that you are not an Artistic Director running a theater but an educator running an educational program?
PROFESSOR: Tell that to the college that expects us to sell tickets to financially supplement our program.
ME: That sounds like a 'Yes.'
PROFESSOR: Not every school is in that position, but a lot of them are. It's not a good position to be in if you believe that you need to produce work for the benefit of the students if you think that work isn't going to be interesting to an audience.
ME: That must be how some of them end up doing The Little Mermaid.
PROFESSOR: Is that a joke?
ME: Sadly, no. So you don't let them audition anywhere else?
PROFESSOR: Not until they've made themselves available to us.
ME: So you're asking them to make a commitment to the program.
PROFESSOR: Yes.
ME: And what's your commitment to them?
PROFESSOR: We commit to educating them.
ME: But this is specifically about casting them in shows. It's about having good productions that people want to see so your program gets extra money or however that works. So how many roles do you guarantee them while they're in school?
PROFESSOR: We don't guarantee them roles.
ME: So the commitment is one-sided?
PROFESSOR: It's not possible for us to provide all our students with roles in productions. We try our best, but we have a rather large program--that acting concentration is the biggest part of that--and it's just not possible to give--
ME: But you want that talent pool available to you first and foremost even though you admit that you can't make roles available to everyone in that pool.
PROFESSOR: I don't think it's as simple as you're making it sound.
ALUMNI: I disagree. I think it is that simple.
ME: I wonder if there's any way to get you two to a place of better understanding with each other. I didn't want this to be some kind of battle that just ends when somebody wins. [Alumni], is there anything you could say to [Professor] that might help him get why your specific experience was so difficult and why it's lingered all this time?
ALUMNI: Um.
(Pause.)
ALUMNI: You have to understand that...I...I was a totally different person. The person who showed up to that school and the person who left. They were different people. I didn't come in to make waves. I came in really wanting to do well, and I just wasn't given that chance. Looking back on it, it strikes me that if you showed up looking a certain way, and sounding a certain way, and fulfilling certain expectations, and smiling all the time, and being pleasant, and taking whatever scraps were thrown to you, and, and, not demanding something for your money--your actual money, that I'm still paying--then you just were not going to do well. Even if you did all that, you weren't always going to do well. You know, I think in some ways, the faculty there is just as victimized by the system that's been created as the students, even though they help foster that system, because very few of them actually want to be teachers. They want to be actors and directors or teachers at more well-regarded schools, and they're not, so they're unhappy, and that unhappiness trickles down to the students, and it's evident as soon as you walk in there. At the same time, there's something resembling nationalism happening all the time, where they tell you, 'This program is the best. These shows are Broadway quality. If you do well here, you're set.' That's not true. I'm not accusing all that of being said directly by anyone, but it's being conveyed indirectly and the people who are in charge know that, and they don't put a stop to it. I've had the good fortune of being asked to go into different schools and guest teach a class or do a master class, and I would encourage any student reading this--If you are in the kind of program I was in, and you can't get out, because I couldn't--
ME: Why couldn't you get out?
ALUMNI: Because, Kevin, I got a scholarship to one school, and this is the one I got it for. I still had to take out student loans on top of the scholarship, but this was my only opportunity to go to college. I read that part of the interview, [Professor], where you said, 'Just transfer.' How dare you. How dare you assume it's that easy.
ME: [Professor], is any of what you just heard having an impact or--
PROFESSOR: I think she's very angry.
ALUMNI: Oh my god.
ME: That's what you took from that?
PROFESSOR: I don't know what I'm supposed to take from it other than that I'm a big bad man and I don't know how to teach despite many other students who would argue differently.
ME: Could I talk to one of those students? One of your current students?
PROFESSOR: If they want to speak to you, yes.
ALUMNI: You're going to let them hear a different viewpoint? I'm surprised.
ME: Can we set that up this week? I'd like to have something I can put out by next week. Will that be okay?
PROFESSOR: I'll ask one of them today.
ME: Thank you. I think we should end there.
PROFESSOR: Thank you.
The Professor hangs up.
ME: You okay?
ALUMNI: I feel like that was a waste of time.
ME: If we kept going--that's why I cut it short. I'm sorry.
ALUMNI: It's okay. Thank you for trying.
ME: Well, I'm not done yet.
Next Week: Theater and the College Student
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