Spread the Love: Stupid is Just 4 2Day

This week on Spread the Love, we talk about Stupid is Just 4 2day, a vignette play by Lindsay Price. Featuring Karen Loftus, the original director of the play.

Transcript

Welcome to this week’s Spread the Love, where we’re going to talk about Stupid is a

state of mind, a state of mind, a state. If I could move there, that would be great! Stupid is Just 4

2Day, which is, conveniently enough, all about people doing stupid things, and how we all think that

we’re much more stupider than the person next to us, but, you can’t escape it. We are all in the stupid

universe. There’s a play about it. And I just happen to have here our good TheatreFolk friend, Karen

Loftus, who is the original director! Karen, Hi, how are you?

Hi!

So, tell us: what do you like about Stupid is Just 4 2Day? Spread the Love is all about what we love about our plays, so what do you love about Stupid?

Well, I love that it incorporates a large class. And many theater directors, if you’re like me, you’re always trying to get as many kids involved as you can so you can help grow your program, and so that everybody feels as to be a really important part of the ensemble, and I think that Stupid addresses this. And there are parts for some of your more advanced kids, there are parts for kids who might be a little more shy, it’s just a great ensemble piece.

When we were talking about it before, you were saying that you had a lot of kids who were graduating, and that you used Stupid is Just 4 2Day as a rebuilding year.

Yes, without a doubt. And I’ve retained quite a few of them. A lot of them have gone on to compete with Thespians, or to be in a full length production, and things like that. So, yeah.

And how did you deal with– Stupid is interesting, it’s a vignette play, but it also has a choral element to it.

Well, we set it up, just like a choir. We used risers, and that was basically our set.

They had tuxedoed tee-shirts, which were awesome.

And, so, that’s pretty much how we handled the dress, to show it was a formal occasion, and that was pretty much it. And we did lightning and things like that to change back and forth from scene to scene.

And how did the students like– did they like the choral aspect? I know they practiced, like, so much.

Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah. It was frustrating, and it goes through that whole process of, at first it was funny, then it was frustrating, and then once they got it it was kind of a great inside joke. They still will say the lines, to this day.

See, I kind of like that, that’s kind of like a, if it lives on past the production, you know, that’s a seal of approval. Okay, so this is Stupid is Just 4 2Day. I love it because I do many stupid things, and many of the stupid things I’ve done in my life have ended up in this play. Rhino in a Scooter. Look it up. That’s it for Spread the Love!