One of the main goals for our Theatre
Education Community is to help theatre students and professionals from all over
connect and identify with each other in order to build resources and support
the theatre education field. We shine a spotlight on a different member every
other week by conducting a simple interview.
Our latest Spotlight Member is Lori
Constable, currently the troupe director for Troupe 7789 at Chanhassen High
School in Chanhassen, Minnesota. Lori has served as Troupe Director at five
schools and as a Chapter Director in both Australia and Minnesota. Her vast
array of theatre experiences from around the globe allow her to provide
top-notch advice to our Community members.
Ginny: Tell us about how you first got involved in
theatre.
Lori: The first time I got involved with ITS was
when I was in high school at Mililani High School in Mililani, Oahu. Our new
theatre director enrolled us as a troupe and we went to Maui for the state
festival. I didn’t really know what was going on, but did as we’d prepared:
performed a cutting from our production of Ghosts,
entered the duet mime contest, using a piece I’d done in a previous high school
production at a different school, and entered solo mime.
I have a photo of the director
from Castle High School coming up to me after the ceremony and shaking my hand
to congratulate me and my classmates on our success. Apparently, that was a big
deal, because this director brought musicals to the International Festival
every other year. I just thought it was a fun opportunity to go somewhere and
hang out with kids who were as crazy about theatre as I was.
Ginny: What inspired you to become a teacher?
Lori: Through the years, theatre has afforded me a safe haven,
somewhere to explore who I was, who I wanted to be, who I never thought of
being. All the while surrounded by those who didn’t value me for my clothes or
my parents’ income or my looks…just what I brought to the production
experience.
In college (University of
Wisconsin at Madison—go Badgers), I understood that theatre was more, much more
than about producing a play. It was about how we, as a culture, examined
ourselves and our place in history. I learned that the various movements in
theatrical practice were reflections of paradigms and value systems that were,
in turn, shaped by events in every conceivable component of our civilization.
What we did, what we made, what we accomplished or destroyed… all of that
needed to be processed and art was the way humanity made sense of itself. The
fact that theatre arts was a collaborative effort brought together disparate
ways of examining that exploration. Watching a collaboratively conceived
Japanese Noh performance, participating in a Richard Schechner original
production, playing a male (despite my obvious propensities of being female) in
a production of Dr. Faustus, stage
managing German Expressionism…all the while soaking up the teachings of some
incredibly gifted instructors, opened my eyes to the academic and scholarly
side of drama.
Fast forward twenty years and I
am teaching theatre in a different culture, one where students can study
carefully constructed courses and syllabi, put together by scholarly experts
who participate in IDEA and
more…and I fall in love even more with the opportunities that the study of
theatre and drama can afford. My students and I learn about indigenous stories
of the ‘Dreamtime’ in Aboriginal culture and use these experiences to create
playbuilt performances of our own. I guide my students through the study of how
the singularity of Tragedy in Sophoclean drama gave way to the shared cultural
tragedy of plays like Angels in America.
The practice of Commedia dell’Arte means that my students get to learn about
how drama was influential not only in the indictments of societal status and
privilege, but the pragmatic and marketable benefits of being a ‘shill’.
And I could go on and on…
Ginny: What is your proudest accomplishment?
Lori: I don’t think I could isolate just one, because the small moments
of a SPED student in my most recent Commedia performance assessment, marveling
at the comedic joy going on around her on stage is just as inspiring as
watching the faces of the students who learn they will be representing their
state at ITF…or as inspiring as watching your students go on to various careers
in acting, writing, government (one of my former students travels with
Secretary John Kerry!) and more, but all understanding how their involvement in
theatre helped get them there.
I always joke in my programs
about my three greatest productions being my three children…and having just
seen the youngest of them perform as Dot in her university production of Sunday
in the Park with George gave me
all the ‘feels’ of seeing good theatre done well…by someone I love.
Ginny: What is the resource you most
recommend to others in your profession?
Lori: Resources like the ITF are
valuable, for their own unique needs, yet there are so many more that are out
there. Perhaps having lived in a different country with a much smaller
demographic meant that I could have closer connection to professional
organizations, but I know that there are similar groups here. Having attended
my first AATE conference this past August proved that to
me. The theme of brain development and theatre at this year’s conference simply
confirmed what most of us already know—the arts, specifically theatre arts,
provides ways of looking at the world in myriad ways simultaneously. What an
enriching, invigorating, and empowering reminder! I must confess that I miss
the sustaining work done by those involved with Drama New South Wales, Drama
Australia, IDEA, and the secondary drama teachers group with whom I developed
my drama teaching curriculum and professional approach. I am seeking those
people out now that I have returned to the US, and finding them, but not to the
degree that I had previously.
Ginny: Do you have any tips for new theatre
teachers?
Lori: Find and build support networks. Whether those are in person,
through blogs and networking, etc., listen and share with others. Read like
crazy in terms of not only plays, but the pedagogy of theatre education. Get
involved politically and support the arts as a viable and vital component to
the development of young people and society at large. See plays or read plays
regularly and get together with people afterword to talk about them. Share
curriculum, talk about it, discuss the Standards, revisit your curriculum. And
don’t compare yourself, to anyone. Just be the best you personally can be.
Ginny: Why do you believe theatre is
important?
Lori: Oh, my word, if you haven’t figured that out by now after all my
verbosity, I couldn’t possibly tell you! Theatre is life, film is art,
television is furniture…or something like that.
Lori is as much of an advocate as she is a teacher. Her zeal
for connecting with others to share ideas and advice improves the theatre
education field as a whole and is at the heart of the reason why our Community
exists. If you enjoyed Lori’s interview as much as I
did, add her
as a contact in the Community!
Do you know someone who deserves a
moment in the Spotlight? Tell me their name and why at gbutsch@schooltheatre.org. Want to read more Community Spotlights? You
can find them here.