Production Case Study: To Kill A Mockingbird

Episode 183: Production Case Study: To Kill A Mockingbird

Drama Teacher Lea Marshall talks about producing To Kill A Mockingbird this year. We talk everything from vision to staging, from fundraising to marketing.  How do you visually represent a theme? It’s a production case study and you’re going to want to take notes.

Show Notes

• How Do You Visually Represent a Theme
• Sponsorship Example

Episode Transcript

Welcome to the Drama Teacher Podcast brought to you by Theatrefolk – the Drama Teacher Resource Company.

I’m Lindsay Price.

Hello! I hope you’re well. Thanks for listening!

This is Episode 183 and you can find any links to this episode in the show notes which are at Theatrefolk.com/episode183.

All righty now!

Today, we have a production case study. I love these! I love hearing about how a director chooses a show, approaches a show, rehearses a show, and this is a great one! We have Drama teacher, Lea Marshall, who directed To Kill a Mockingbird this year.

We’re going to get into it – soup to nuts, vision to marketing. How do you visually represent a theme? She has some awesome ideas and you are going to want to take notes. So, let’s get to it!

LINDSAY: Hello everybody!

Today, I am so happy; I can’t wait to have this conversation with Lea Marshall.

Hello, Lea!

LEA: Hello!

LINDSAY: Lea, tell everybody where you are in the world.

LEA: I am in my playroom at home. Oh, you meant more exact? I am on the couch in my yoga pants because my show is over. Oh, is it that happy? Do we really need to know more than that? The show is over and I’m on a Saturday. I took a nap. Is there anything else we need to know?

I’m in Tallahassee, Florida. This is my first year as a high school theatre teacher. I was a middle school theatre teacher and then moved to the high school this year. Leon High School is the name of my high school in Tallahassee, Florida.

LINDSAY: As soon as you said, “I closed the show so I’m in my yoga pants,” a chorus of agreement just rocked the internet, you know?

LEA: It’s the only time I would have time to do a podcast is because my show closed last weekend.

LINDSAY: Exactly, and that’s what we’re here to talk about. We are here. You just finished the show, To Kill a Mockingbird.

LEA: Yes, or as several students, “Oh, the killer mockingbird.” I was like, “No, that’s not the name of it. No.”

LINDSAY: That’s a band. That’s not a show.

That’s what we’re here to talk about. We’re doing like a case study, Lea.

Well, all you have to do is pretty easy on your end. All you have to do is just talk about what you did – if your brain is still, you know, if you’ve still got it.

LEA: Maybe. You can have whatever is left of my brain.

LINDSAY: Aww, you’re sweet. You’re the best!

My first question is why this show? Why To Kill a Mockingbird?

LEA: During the summer, I was taking over this high school theatre job. During the summer, I was really thinking about kind of an overarching theme for our year. I’m very thematic. It comes from having taught preschool and having to teach in themes – once, years ago. So, I really thought about what I needed this year as a theme and what I thought the kids needed as a theme and what I thought the world needed as a theme. I’m so bold – “what the world needs from my high school theatre program.”

This summer, when a lot of the news was very fearful, I felt like, last summer – I’m not sure it’ll be different this summer but I felt like a lot of people were reacting in fear versus acting in love. I thought, “That’s what I want to do. Taking over this program, I could react in fear of these kids not liking me or comparing me to their old theatre teacher or I could act in love,” and I wanted to act in love and I wanted that for them to. They could react in fear that the program was changing in a lot of ways and there was a new teacher or they could act in love towards me.

That was our season. We did Antigone in the fall – a play that is very much about reacting in fear versus characters that act in love. And then, To Kill a Mockingbird. I thought there’s just not a better example of characters that react in fear to what is happening in the world around them. and then, of course, Atticus Finch who acts in love and tries to raise his children that way. And so, that was my choice for that. I thought it was time for To Kill a Mockingbird and, obviously, I’m not the only one because I read, just a couple of months ago, that it’s coming to Broadway for the first time ever.

LINDSAY: First time ever?

LEA: First time ever! I thought that was weird, too! But, I swear, I read that. Let’s fact check. Where’s my fact checker? Where’s our Drama Teacher Academy fact checker? First time ever is what I read. I could be wrong about that but it’s coming and Aaron Sorkin is doing the new edition of it. It will not be the one that I did or the Christopher Sergel that had been the play. He’s doing a new edition of it. It’s coming soon. Obviously, they were watching us to see what I would choose. So, it’s coming to Broadway.

I think it’s definitely time to look at racism again – not that we ever stopped looking at it – but it was interesting. I also was in-charge of the Black History Month assembly at our school which happened in February before Mockingbird. And so, that happening at the same time and me culling pieces for that while doing Mockingbird was really a great experience for me and a great thought process go to through as I was actually co-directing Mockingbird.

One of the things I did early on was reach out to a friend of mine who had never directed anything before but I knew had been in a lot of different shows. I did not know that he had been in To Kill a Mockingbird a few years ago. A great African American, young friend of mine, Kafui Ablordeppey is his name. Try and spell that, Theatrefolk, on the podcast. He helped co-direct it with me. And so, I needed that voice with me because he had experiences that I did not that could speak to Mockingbird. I thought it was great to have a partnership on it. So, that was why I chose that and kind of my thought process at the beginning of that.

LINDSAY: Yeah. Well, first of all, having a theme for the year I think is something to absolutely highlight. It’s a really great way to kind of cull down the amount of plays you might want to read over your summer break. You kind of identify what it is you want to present – thematically. It just helps you out. It must help you out.

LEA: And what you want to focus on because there’s so many things you can focus on in Antigone. So many things you can focus on in To Kill a Mockingbird. So, that fear versus love kind of became a real jumping-off point for not only the set but just our focus for it – our direction that we took the play in to give it our own little concept.

LINDSAY: Yeah, because that’s the next thing – you know, once you have this play, what is your vision? What is your direction that you’re going to take with it? Having fear versus love.

My next question – I have many questions – but just because you just talked about that, I love the idea and I think it’s really important that, once you have a theme that you’re moving forward with or a vision you’re moving forward with the play, finding ways to visually represent it – like in a set.

What were your thoughts on taking fear versus love – visually?

LEA: I did a podcast with you in maybe in my first year teaching. We talked about maybe doing – I don’t remember what the concept of the podcast was but I talked about how I decided to kind of major in one thing at a time.

LINDSAY: That’s it. I think it was the lighting. You were majoring in lighting that year.

LEA: Yes, I think it was set design. Actually, I think it was set design because I feel like I got really good at it. I don’t want to pay myself on the back but you’re not here to do it so I’ll pat myself.

Anyway, I really was able to capture some things in my set this year that students really loved, the audience really loved. We put in the program kind of a set design overview and one of the things that really was my jumping-off point, I wanted to visually represent some things from the book on my set.

One of them was I did this book tree. And so, I had asked our community and my school to donate any books that were not needed anymore and were destined for the dump because they were not being able to be read afterwards. A lot of people donated old and I wanted specifically hardback factual books – encyclopedias, old textbooks, that kind of thing – and then fiction paperback books.

And so, I wanted to make this tree out of the books and the hardback factual books were the base – the trunk of the tree – all hooked up with a cable together with a big hole drilled in the middle of them and some of them had to have the pages ripped out and foam put in. I love being a set designer; I don’t so much love the have-to-make-it part. But we figured it out and did that and that was the base of the tree and the top of the tree was the canopy was these hand-painted green paperback books hung from the batons. It was just beautiful.

The idea was I told my students that this is a story that is a fictional story based on some factual events and there are actually three events that probably Harper Lee would have heard of in her time that mimicked a little bit the Tom Robinson case. And so, we can’t ever forget that the trunk of this story is supported by fact. And so, the fictional is this green leafy expanse and I had some great lighting.

A girl that did my lighting design for me – a high schooler – lit up that tree in some really beautiful way so that the leaves looked more plentiful at times for one season and then, you know, fall colours in another and then backlit it and that’s where Bob Ewell got killed. I mean, he fell on his own knife. We all know that. But that’s where he fell in his own knife with Boo Radley standing right over him backlit. So, it just made this beautiful kind of jumping-off point for everything else.

Another thing I did for the set was the houses didn’t have walls. There was a great quote that Atticus Finch is the same in the streets as he is in his own home and we talked about how we can’t be one way. No man is an island – that whole thing John Donne, I love and read it for the kids that we can’t be one way in our own home and not expect it to affect our community which is very much ensemble work.

We had some drama during the play – like you always do backstage kind of stuff. I talked a lot with the kids that, if we have this dissension between just a couple of people in the show, it will affect the whole community – much like To Kill a Mockingbird. And so, we need to act in love instead of reacting in fear that maybe somebody else got a part that we wanted or somebody wasn’t at rehearsal a couple of times – that kind of thing.

My houses didn’t have walls. Just this idea that, as individuals, we affect the community. I mean, we need each other. Mrs. Dubose needs Jem to come into her walls and to help her get over this very painful time for her so that she can beat her addiction and we need Boo Radley to come out behind the walls that we think we have trapped him in because we’re afraid of him because he’s going to act in love and he’s going to rescue these children. That was another set concept.

And then, probably one of my favourite things that I did was I asked my high school if anybody had any 1930’s furniture. All my furniture was antiques and it was just was culled from people’s homes. People said, “Yes, come and look and pick out what you want!”

My actual cast sets up the courtroom right there in the middle of the street in front of Atticus’ house and then they sit on the porches and the furniture doesn’t match. It doesn’t match at all. It looks like, you know, one piece from somebody’s house, one piece from another. The chairs don’t match. But the idea that when we sit in judgment of people, we are sitting on our neighbor’s furniture – you know, the courtroom is not this place of legality and perfection but it’s a living room. It’s a family room. It’s a front porch and we are sitting in judgment. What happens in that courtroom happens in people’s family rooms and neighborhoods and porches. And so, we were able to talk through a lot of fear versus love as we talked through those set choices with the students.

I just loved that set. I almost cried when they took it down – except that my play was over and I knew I’d get to put on my yoga pants. So, that was redeeming for me.

LINDSAY: There’s balance in everything, right?

LEA: Yes, yes.

LINDSAY: The set goes away. The couch beckons.

LEA: Yes.

LINDSAY: First of all, I think that what you’re talking about, I think the thing that hits home to me so much is how important it is to have a vision because it answers every question every student might have. It answers every set question anybody might have. It even seems to have bled into issues that the actors are having with each other, you know?

LEA: It really did. It really did help us. It was so funny. I was telling the kids, with the Antigone, there was an issue that came up. Actually, a student said it. It was not me. One of the cast members said, “We’re not trusting each other. We’re not listening to each other.” I was like, “That’s the point of Antigone.”

And then, with Mockingbird, this same thing was happening. We thought we could harbor these individual thoughts of “I think you cast that role badly” or “I think I should have been this” and that not affect the community, know what we think in private affects the community. What we whisper when we’re in the back of the theatre, chat-chat-chatty about the show, it affects our ensemble.

It’s very interesting to me and it’ll be interesting to see as I go on as a director if the very lesson of the show does not show up in some way in a lesson that we need to learn as a cast and crew and director preparing the show. I just find that fascinating how that’s happened two times and I’m pretty sure it’ll happen again.

LINDSAY: You had a co-director help you with a piece specifically for – well, I’m sure lots of reasons but – a voice that you wanted heard.

LEA: Right. When I was reading it over this summer, you know, I got a little – again, fear – I got a little afraid of the language. I got a little afraid of standing up in front of these kids and saying the word that’s so controversial – the N word. I just thought, “I don’t know if I can do that from my limited experience and everything.” And so, I called Kafui and talked to him. We talked about it and I talked to a professor at FSU about why it’s in there and why it has to be and why we have to do it this way.

I felt like I needed to act out. Instead of reacting in fear, I needed to act out in love and reach out and bring somebody else into this that could speak to that, could speak to that perspective, and I had no idea he’d played Tom Robinson in it. In fact, I’m not sure that I will ever direct anything on my own again. It was so fabulous to have him as a co-director on this. It made it so much stronger for it to be a piece that was from both of our perspectives.

LINDSAY: I think I read that, with that language, you weren’t allowed to take it out.

LEA: No. In fact, I had to go to my principal and get it signed. I chose the circle version that’s a little harsher than the other one because I like the idea that there’s not an older scout narrating. It’s narrated by Miss Maudie so you keep it all in that one time period. But I understand that that one is a little harsher and, yes, you cannot take out one single word from that. I love the text.

I am very textural and I love the words and I think that every word is in a play for a reason and we don’t deviate from that. Kafui is the same way. we worked really hard on our actors being what Kafui called “dead letter perfect” which meant that we really called them on the carpet to learn it that way because, of course, it’s 1935 – you know, their language is a little different than ours. Even though we’re in the south, it was some strange words and we wanted them to definitely have the language down perfect. Of course, we had to keep those words in but we didn’t think other words needed to be left out either.

Yes, that version, you definitely have to have all that language in there and you sign your contract saying that. I knew that that had to happen.

LINDSAY: Oh, but there’s so many, you know, I know so many people who are just like, “We can’t do this so we’re not going to.” Like, they react in fear, Lea.

LEA: Yes, I went to my administrator. I mean, we’ve talked before – several times, Theatrefolk – different things about don’t let it be a surprise for your administrator. My administration, my principal had to sign off on it. It is required reading for every freshman in our county. At my school, my English teachers were great, my language arts teachers were finishing up on it the week of the play so they just really worked well to support me in this. Because it’s required reading in our county, I did not think I would have a problem at all. I put something in the program. I did have a warning about the language and the rape, the sexual assault being mentioned in it on our program. And so, I had no backlash at all. I had several homeschool groups that came to see it and no backlash at all.

LINDSAY: Well, there’s no surprise, right? It’s like, “You can’t backlash me because you knew.” I quite like that it’s like, “Look, this is curriculum. This is a curriculum text.” And I just think that period language is really important. We may not like it. I mean, we certainly don’t like it, but you’re creating a world.

LEA: Right, and you have to show the ugliness of it. You have to show it in its darkest ugliness for people to understand why it is offensive. And so, I just think it had to be there. To show the beautiful story, sometimes, you have to show the ugly part of it.

LINDSAY: I’m coming across now a lot of teachers – not a lot – some teachers who are saying to me, “My students feel uncomfortable. They would never do this. They would never say this. Can we cut it?”

How did your students respond to playing perhaps ugly characters saying ugly things?

LEA: It’s funny. In the text, there’s a lot of times it’s said from offstage, somebody yelling at Scout and, you know, offstage. It was funny because you’d just grab any member of the cast. “You’ll be Boy 1 and shout that offstage. You’ll be Boy 2 and shout that offstage.” It ended up having a mixture of racially mixed kids doing it from offstage; it wasn’t just one. It was funny.

Doing that offstage and just getting people offstage to play a different character helped with that and we did a lot of talking about, “This is your character – this is not you; this is your character doing this. This is your 1935 character and this is what was happening at that time.” We just kind of went straight into that and talked about how words matter and that’s why we do theatre – because words matter.

When you say, “Sticks and stones break my bones but words will never hurt you,” that’s a lie. Words do hurt us and words have power. And so, talking about that and talking with the cast about, you know, “Has anybody ever prejudged you for something or said things about you that were really hurtful?” talking through that with the cast in the beginning and then realizing that these words are powerful and they do hurt but we need to show how much they hurt and why we don’t need to say them.

I think just being very open with the cast about that and having Kafui and I direct it together as a team, I think that helped a lot – just having both of us up there and visually, you know, the idea that this play, like Atticus says, “This case is about black and white,” and the fact that the directors were black and white, that helped; that visually helped the kids also.

LINDSAY: It’s the 21st Century, man. They’re all visual learners. They learn by what they see.

LEA: Yeah. So, to see Kafui and I up there. I did say in the program, “I hope that the kids were benefited by seeing Kafui and I argue about things is a great “where does the tyre swing go?” debate of 2017. You know, kind of hash that out in front of them sometimes and then kind of watch us do the process together and, you know, one of us give in and one of us kind of thing. I think that helped them – to watch two adults do that in a way that was never petty or mean. “I think this! I think this, here’s why.” “Okay, we’ll go with yours.” That kind of thing.

LINDSAY: That’s really important. Well, it’s important to see compromise and standing up for your side respectfully.

LEA: Yeah, I think that was fun for them, too – to watch and take sides and who goes with Kafui on this and who goes with Mrs. Marshall.

LINDSAY: It just feels like you spent a lot of time thinking about preparing, planning. Did anything happen that kind of came out of the blue that was unexpected and then you kind of went, “Oh!”?

LEA: Oh, yes, there was! It was so funny!

I had a great lady work on our costumes. Oh, she ended up just being so fabulous. Usually, when I was at the middle school, I had somebody help make the costumes and I was kind of in-charge of all of that. She just kind of took over the costumes. She’s done costumes for this high school before so she brought a lot of stuff. She did the measurements and trying on. It just took so much off my plate.

It ended up that three of my African American girls that were spectators all ended up with light blue dresses and I did not realize it because they tried on a bunch of things and put their names on the one that did the best and they all tried things different days and I just did not realize it until the dress rehearsal – that they were all in light blue dresses – our first dress rehearsal, when I took photos, when I took cast photos about a week before the show.

Kafui goes, “Uh, why are all the girls on this side in light blue dresses?” In a moment, in my head, I said, “They’re all in the choir?” He’s like, “Did you just make that up?” I said, “Mmm… You’ll never know!” Because they were in the choir, we decided, I started looking up 1935 spirituals and I find “Didn’t the Lord Save Daniel From the Lion’s Den” and I thought, “This will be the song the choir would be singing because they think Tom Robinson is like Daniel in the lion’s den.”

So, we had our chorus teacher very quickly work with them at lunch one day, the pastor and the pastor’s wife, Reverend Sykes and his wife and the three choir members. We had not had them before when Reverend Sykes first walks across the stage to talk to Calpurnia about Tom Robinson and, just very quickly in the beginning, we had them walk behind him and sing.

It actually says in the script – again, I’m very textural – that the choir can be with him. And so, I thought, “Well, if they’re with him, they’re probably singing.” Actually, they’re supposed to be singing. Dubose says, “You must confine your singing to the coloured church, Reverend Sykes.” So, I thought, “Well, there needs to be singing. I just never thought before. There needs to be singing!”

So, they sang that and walked behind him and they were so great. Bob Ewell walks across with Mayella and they just kind of very naturally – we had not blocked this, obviously, the first time they did it and it’s the week before the show, I mean, just actually three days before the show – and they kind of scoot back and look down and they just did a fantastic job. We added that because their costumes all were light blue.

LINDSAY: And it was on purpose – every second of it.

LEA: Every second of that.

LINDSAY: Well, it’s called being flexible and it’s like, “Okay, if that’s what they are, then we need to make it purposeful.”

LEA: Yes! And then, they need to sing, and they were fantastic because, really, their role was spectators before that but then they became the choir and then they sat together in the back and it just gave them so much more character in that because they are the choir behind and it really helped. It was one of those very serendipitous choices that happened near the end.

I would say the good lesson from that is be open to that. Be open the week before going, “I think they’re the choir!”

LINDSAY: Great example of how costume creates character.

LEA: Yes, very much so, and sometimes unintentionally.

LINDSAY: Purposeful. Always purposeful.

LEA: Very. I’m all about intention, yes.

LINDSAY: What was the thing that you decided to be an expert on in this production?

LEA: On this one, I think, for me, it was marketing. I really worked very hard on marketing for this one. We ran a little campaign with it called Finch’s Fight with Your Head Club and used a great quote. Our shows at Leon had never been highly attended. Our summer musical is but not the straight plays during the year. I really want Leon Theatre to kind of have a name for itself.

And so, the Finch’s Fight Club, we had law firms join at three levels – the Scout level, the Atticus level, or the Free Tom Robinson $1,000 level. We did not have any Free Tom Robinson $1,000 level. I was very sad about that but we were able to raise almost $5,000 aside from the money that we got from people coming in to the show through that – through Finch’s Fight Club.

LINDSAY: I want to break this down just a little bit because that is a huge amount of money. Did you literally just send flyers? Did you send emails? How did you get the information into the law firms’ hands?

LEA: I live it a capital city.

LINDSAY: Are you swimming with lawyers?

LEA: Yes, I won’t say lousy with lawyers. You know, they were great. I gave the kids self-addressed stamped envelopes – well, an envelope to give to a law firm or a lawyer that they knew. It had all the information about Finch’s Fight Club and the great quote about “let’s fight with our heads; put your fists down” which I thought was great for fear versus love. “Let’s fight with our heads.” And then, in there was the letter and how you could check off which level you wanted to be at and what you got for each level and then there was an envelope that was addressed for our high school, Leon Theatre, with the address and with a stamp on it. And then, you know, you got in our program.

The kids each were tasked – and my thespian group because we were also raising money to go to state and my thespian troupe were each tasked with handing out two of those letters to lawyers or people that they knew. I also had them that weren’t law-specific – in case you knew somebody else that might join. It wasn’t law specific but it was the same. “Join Finch’s Fight with Your Head Club.”

LINDSAY: How many went out?

LEA: 2 a.m. in the morning, I was just worried about money and I thought, “Fight with your head club. Fight club.”

I would say probably over a hundred went out.

LINDSAY: That’s awesome.

What other marketing did you apply?

LEA: I have taken a big clue from PBS Television – public television. Our shows are all free. Like PBS, you can watch PBS for free. You can come and see a show for free but with a $5.00 donation. Let me tell you, this is all so I don’t have to write receipts. I hate writing receipts because you’ve got to write a receipt or do this little ticket process at my school and I just can’t be bothered with it.

With a $5.00 donation, I don’t have to write a receipt for donations. With a $5.00 donation, you get an informative program and that I take pictures of the cast and crew and have a little bio in there plus I had my set design vision in there and then something about why this play is important – you know, a nice little program for $5.00.

And then, with a $10.00 donation, you get a program and you get to visit the concession stand during intermission and my concessions were southern sweet shop and I had parents who had donated southern treats and we had Calpurnia’s lemonade and a quote about lemonade. In the book, there’s a quote about lemonade. So, it was very much like a southern potluck kind of thing it looked like so you got to go there.

And then, for $15.00, you could reserve your seat online in the VIP section. For the first show, for Friday night, we sold over 150 of those $15.00 ones ahead of time. For the second show, it was close to 100 of those VIP ones and then had a lot of the $10.00

We made $4,200 on the show itself.

LINDSAY: That must make you feel amazing!

LEA: I do. I especially feel amazing because now we can take everybody we wanted to state and we have the scholarship money. And so, I can sleep at night because of that. That does make me feel amazing.

You know, also, like I said, the English classes very much encourage their kids to come and see it with their students. You had to take a selfie with me or one of the cast members there which is always fun. I feel like a star when they’re going, “I have to take a selfie with you!” so they can get extra credit or I had to sign a little paper saying that they had been to the show. I got a lot of people coming because they were encouraged to come by their language arts teacher. That helped us, also.

LINDSAY: It’s encouraging cross-curricular. It’s about community, right? It’s about encouraging your entire school community to support each other.

LEA: Right. I was in the middle of a set design unit which – plug! – I’m writing for Theatrefolk this summer. I was in the middle of teaching that set design unit. And so, I walked all my theatre students through the set design and talked to them about my concept because they’re coming up with their own concepts for their little set design projects. And so, a lot of the kids in my theatre class that might have been on the “I don’t know if I want to go or not” really wanted to come because now they’re kind of vested in the set design of it.

LINDSAY: That’s awesome!

Did you do anything that didn’t work? That you’d like to change for next time?

LEA: Oh, let me see! Anything that did not work that I’d like to change for next time? I needed to – and we did change it the next night – I needed to have two stations for the food. It got really backed up during the intermission that first night.

Gosh, I haven’t really thought about anything that did not work!

I feel like I wanted to go back and talk to the cast the second night before they went onstage and I had some things written that I wanted to tell them and it just never happened. It got crazy out front and I am not a backstage director. I am usually in the house. I’m usually in the back, pacing during the show. And so, I kind of let my stage manager handle the backstage stuff and I wish I’d gone back and said something to them before the second show before the second night but I just never was able to make my way back there. I had some things I wanted to say but, you know, I sent it out in a text later.

LINDSAY: That’s okay. I think it’s not a bad thing to let your stage manager take over. When the show is on, the show is on. You’re out front doing the lemonade.

Lea, this has been a lovely conversation!

First of all, all my conversations with you, I love your energy and I love hearing your thought process. This has just been a great conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time out!

LEA: Well, thank you! I always say that the closest thing to directing a show is having a baby. I tell people all the time and I feels like that last week, you are in active labour so it’s always nice because you always want everybody to come and see your baby and you want to talk about your baby. So, it’s very fun to afterwards get to talk about my baby.

LINDSAY: Yeah, when you said that, I’m like, “Oh, that means you’re in labour for a whole week. That sounds like fun!”

LEA: I told an administrator once that at middle school when she asked me to do something that last week – something extra. I was like, “I just want you to know, would you ask a woman having contractions to do that? A woman in the hospital with her legs up? Would you ask her to do that? No. Then, don’t ask me!”

LINDSAY: All right, everybody! That’s Lea Marshall!

LEA: Is that going to be on? Oh, great.

LINDSAY: No, it’s wonderful. It’s wonderful! It is vivid and visual – just the way we want it to be and we want it to be very important – do not ask a Drama teacher to do something the week of tech.

LEA: No, yes, very much. Consider that, even if they’re a male, consider that they are in labour, having contractions at that point. That’s what administrators need to know.

LINDSAY: Exactly so.

Very cool.

Thank you so much, Lea!

LEA: All right, thanks!

LINDSAY: Thank you, Lea!

Before we go, let’s do some THEATREFOLK NEWS!

Listen – are you doing one of our plays? Are you doing Theatrefolk play? We want to know about it! We want to hear about it! We want a picture! Send it to us!

Are you working on a monologue for a competition or just in class? You know what I’m going to say. We want to hear about it! We want to know about it. Take a picture! Send it to us!

Rehearsal videos – 30 seconds, not too long! Show us what you are doing in rehearsal in the classroom because we want to brag about you.

Send it to us at help@theatrefolk.com so we can do a production feature all about you!

Finally, where, oh, where can you find this podcast? We post new episodes every second Tuesday at tfolk.com, theatrefolk.com and on our Facebook page and Twitter. You can find us on youtube.com/theatrefolk and on the Stitcher app. You can subscribe to The Drama Teacher Podcast on iTunes. All you have to do is search for the word: “Theatrefolk.”

And that’s where we’re going to end. Take care, my friends. Take care.

Music credit:”Ave” by Alex (feat. Morusque) is licensed under a Creative Commons license.