Open Forum

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 Billy Houck, troupe director of Troupe 2753 at Fremont High School in Sunnyvale, California. Billy is an experienced educator and playwright and also serves on the California Chapter Board.

Ginny: What inspired you to become a teacher?

Billy: My first high school drama teacher was David Clark at Pinole Valley High School. He was an inspiring, formidable person. I found out who I was in his classes. After a while, drama became the only thing I cared about in high school. It was my home, my circle of friends, my reason to get up in the morning. It only made sense that after college, the best place to go was back to drama class. I’ve been there ever since. I think about David Clark every day.

Ginny: What is the most important advice you can offer to new theatre teachers?

Billy: Be brave, but get tenure first.

Make a point to walk outside the theatre every day and talk to someone who’s not involved in your program.

Make friends with the administrative assistants in the office and the custodial staff.

Don’t compute what your extra duty pay comes to by the hour. That way lies madness.

Ginny: What was the first play you ever saw?

Billy: When I was a little boy in Salt Lake City, I went with my sisters’ Camp Fire Girl Troop to see a touring production of Flower Drum Song. This was in the early 60’s. From my aisle seat in the orchestra section, I was right next to the rickshaws and the lion dance that went up and down the aisles before the show. I couldn’t completely follow the story, but the spectacle was all I needed. By a strange coincidence, the first play I was cast in in high school, this would be around 1970, was also Flower Drum Song. We had a very nearly all-white cast with lots of eyeliner. Today I’d call that racially insensitive. In a California suburb in 1970, we thought we were adorable.

Ginny: What is unique about your theatre program?

Billy: We do a lot of plays. This year, we will do at least seven.

We always include at least one Shakespeare play and a festival of student-written plays in the lineup.

I’ve directed 26 Shakespeare plays, several of them more than once.

Ginny: What inspired you to do so much Shakespeare?

Billy:  I saw Peter Brook’s revolutionary RSC production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in San Francisco in the early 70’s. Mr. Clark took a busload of us on a field trip. It was the first Shakespeare play I had ever seen. I didn’t know it was avant garde. I thought that was the way Shakespeare was supposed to be done. It was physical, visceral, beautiful. I’ve directed this play five times over the years, and I keep finding new things in the text every time I pick it up.

Ginny: What is your proudest accomplishment?

Billy: I’ve been teaching high school theatre for 37 years. I’m very proud of my former students who have become actors, directors, agents, choreographers, theatre managers, teachers, professors, playwrights, critics, costumers, scenic designers, light designers, prop artisans…they’re all out there, and it’s wonderful. But you know what else I like? I like it when a former student who’s working at a gas station tells me he still loves Shakespeare, or when a dentist tells me that the skills he learned in my class make it easier for him to talk to his patients.

Ginny: Anything else?

Billy: A little story- in 1985 I got a call from Don Corathers. The International Thespian Society offices in Cincinnati had been burned by an arsonist. Many documents had been lost, including scripts that they were considering for publication in Dramatics. Don told me if I could get a copy of my play Birds of Prey in the mail immediately he would publish it in the edition they were putting together amid the ashes. And that’s how I became a nationally published playwright.

We appreciate Billy’s sage advice and expert opinions. His students clearly have an accomplished leader. If you enjoyed Billy’s interview as much as I did, add him 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.