Talking with an Adjudicator

Episode 131: Talking with an Adjudicator

What is an adjudicator looking for? How do you handle an adjudication? How does an adjudicator approach their task? Lindsay talks to Matthew MacDermid who has been a high school and middle school adjudicator for 10 years in Florida. He’s seen it all and talks about his process.

Show Notes

• Close Encounters of the Undead Kind

Episode Transcript

Welcome to TFP – The Theatrefolk Podcast – the place to be for Drama teachers, Drama students, and theatre educators everywhere.

I’m Lindsay Price, resident playwright for Theatrefolk.

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

This is Episode 131. You can find any links for this episode in the show notes which can be found at theatrefolk.com/episode131.

Today, we’re talking adjudication. Adjudication!

There are many school festivals and competitions out there at the school level with a judging component. I’ve got the Sears Drama Festival in my backyard which I’ve adjudicated three times. In the States, there are thespian festivals – the International Thespian Festival and The Southeastern Theatre Conference theatre festivals.

As a playwright, I have each year the good fortune to have a number of plays in various competitions. Some do well and sometimes I hear back from students pretty disheartening stories of what their adjudications were like. It’s really one of my biggest pet peeves when I hear from a teacher or a student, “The adjudicator crushed us,” or, “The adjudicator hated our show,” or, “The adjudicator said we were no good.” The students just… they end up defeated.

Absolutely, there is a place for criticism, but where is crushing? Where does that come into play at the school level, right? What purpose does that have in an educational setting? This is really one of the reasons that I started looking into adjudication and started doing it and the reason I became one and I’ve been one for five years now – because I firmly believe there’s a way to approach a critique without making students feel defeat.

But how does an adjudicator approach their task? If you’ve ever had the thought, “What was that adjudicator thinking?” well, then this podcast is for you.

A couple of months ago, I was down in Florida adjudicating middle school students and I had the opportunity to interview one of my fellow adjudicators, Matthew McDermott.

LINDSAY: Hello! How are you?

MATTHEW: Good. How are you doing?

LINDSAY: Excellent. Matthew, we are here at the Florida Junior State Thespian Festival.

MATTHEW: That sounds right.

LINDSAY: That sounds about right, big sentence. You and I are both here today. We are going to be adjudicating one-acts.

MATTHEW: Yes.

LINDSAY: And that’s our topic of discussion for this podcast – adjudicating and what it’s like to be on this side of the table where we’re going to be looking at and commenting on shows. You were a thespian? You started out as a thespian?

MATTHEW: Yes, I started off as a thespian in the later 90s which feels like an eternity ago.

LINDSAY: Do you remember what it was like to be adjudicated yourself? Do you have memories of what that experience was like?

MATTHEW: You know, I do; I remember every single person and every single piece of paper with every single bit of writing. It’s amazing to me, especially now that I do this very frequently. I do it all over the state. It’s amazing to me how much I do recall and that’s what’s also important to me to remember as I’m writing things and saying things. These kids hinge on every single word we say.

LINDSAY: They do.

MATTHEW: That’s why it’s even more important that we are very careful on how we word things because they’re going to remember it forever.

LINDSAY: Okay. What was the worst thing? What was the worst thing that someone said to you?

MATTHEW: I don’t think anything was particularly nasty.

LINDSAY: That’s good.

MATTHEW: At least in the written way of saying things. I do remember my senior year of high school doing a one-act and sitting in the adjudication room and not one judge said a word to me – not one word – nothing negative, nothing positive. They talked to my two co-stars; they told them what they did wrong, they told them what they did right.

LINDSAY: Oh, because there’s was only three of you!

MATTHEW: There were only three of us.

LINDSAY: Oh, my god!

MATTHEW: And not one word was said to me and I remember the people very well. It was Dawn Jones and Gary Graff and Murray Mintz, and these were people that I now judge with all over the state. I mean, it’s crazy, but they were judging me at the time. They didn’t say a word to me so I left that room thinking that I bombed. Turned out I was just the best actor of the district. I guess that meant I was doing something right.

LINDSAY: But, you know what, it’s a perfect example of how teenagers…

MATTHEW: Think.

LINDSAY: Think.

MATTHEW: Absolutely.

LINDSAY: That, if you say, you might be thinking on your side of the table that, “Oh, I don’t have anything to say so I’m not going to say anything,” which is actually not the right way to do it.

MATTHEW: Right. Exactly.

LINDSAY: You adjudicate main stage.

MATTHEW: I do high school main stage. I judge all over the state at district festivals. I’m also a state adjudicator for high school and junior.

LINDSAY: Yes, this is something that you do quite a bit. What made you decide to get into it?

MATTHEW: You know, I taught high school for a number of years and I realized it wasn’t something for me to do. I love the kids. The kids are awesome. Sometimes, the parents are not so great. And, as teachers know, the administration is not always supportive and easy to deal with. I wanted to be able to continue to work with kids somehow but not in the same fashion.

LINDSAY: Every day.

MATTHEW: Exactly – not sitting in the classroom, not teaching to the test, not doing any of that – and this was the best route for me to take because I’m still able to touch lives, mould lives, help them in their paths without being in their face every day.

LINDSAY: For sure. Do you remember the first show that you adjudicated? How long have you been doing it?

MATTHEW: I’ve been adjudicating since 2001.

LINDSAY: Math, everyone. Everyone listening, give us the math. We’re not going to do the math.

MATTHEW: No, let’s not do the math. Let’s not do the math. I think the first time I did one-acts was actually in District 4 which was Clearwater and St. Pete. I don’t remember what the first show of the day was but I do remember the show that had the most effect on me was a play called Candid and it’s about a young man who is doing a photography project and he takes pictures of his family as they’re going through the beginning stages of divorce. It just hit me really hard. I remember sitting in the back of the theatre and just crying my little eyes out. I was like, “Wow! These are high school kids that are having this profound effect on me,” and that’s pretty amazing.

LINDSAY: That’s one of the things that I find really insane about it – that it is a very wide spectrum because there are those really amazing shows and then there are those other shows.

MATTHEW: Right.

LINDSAY: We’ll talk about that in a second.

MATTHEW: Yes.

LINDSAY: But I want to talk first about what’s your process now? When you’re sitting in the back row, do you take notes? Do you write a lot? Do you think a lot? What’s your process as an adjudicator?

MATTHEW: I am a big time writer. I love to write because I feel like everything that we have to say has value – whether it’s right or whether it’s wrong – because we’re seeing it from a different set of eyes. When you’re directing a show, you see your vision and your vision only. When you are judging a show, you have the ability to take a step back and see things with fresh eyes. I want them to see everything I’m seeing and whether that means stage composition, all that fun stuff, the dynamics between actors, sometimes you just get too connected to a piece and to a production where you can’t have that.

LINDSAY: Well, when you’re directing something, you go into show world.

MATTHEW: Yes.

LINDSAY: And everything is show world.

MATTHEW: Absolutely.

LINDSAY: And show world is very intimate and I think that’s part of our job, isn’t it? To sort of step out of show world.

MATTHEW: Absolutely.

LINDSAY: And go, “Here’s the big, big picture.”

MATTHEW: The overall effect.

LINDSAY: Yes.

MATTHEW: We’re here to see the overall effect. We’re here to see the overall effect of your production from the beginning to the end and to give you advice on how to fix it or to praise you where you have succeeded.

LINDSAY: Yeah, and that can be hard for people to hear when you’re so close to something.

MATTHEW: But that’s the important thing to remember. No matter how well you do – or how unwell you do, I should say – I’m just one person with one opinion. Just like you. It’s just an opinion. It doesn’t make it correct, it doesn’t make it wrong. Sure, we’ve got years of experience to back it up, but that doesn’t mean that what you have done does not have value.

LINDSAY: Well, theatre is subjective.

MATTHEW: Absolutely.

LINDSAY: I mean, we can say that until we’re blue in the face and I know that it’s hard to hear but theatre is objective and I come from one path and you come from another path.

MATTHEW: Correct.

LINDSAY: Actually, that’s why I really like that, here in the States – for thespians anyway and for one-acts – it’s multiple adjudicators.

MATTHEW: Right.

LINDSAY: You know, for here at Junior, there’s three of us I think in each theatre so that you get three different points of view and that, if you have three completely different points of view, that means one thing.

MATTHEW: Right.

LINDSAY: If everyone says such and such needs to be worked on, that needs to be addressed.

MATTHEW: Right.

LINDSAY: Or all three of us say, “That was great!” then that’s something to be really proud of. I think it’s a fascinating analytical experience.

MATTHEW: Yeah, because it’s also comes down to taste – personal taste.

LINDSAY: Yeah, true!

MATTHEW: I mean, I do remember from that very first time I did one-acts where there were three judges – one gave it a superior, one gave it an excellent, and I gave it a good.

LINDSAY: Wow.

MATTHEW: I remember sitting there at the end of the whole process thinking, “How is it possible that we all saw three different plays?” and it happens. It absolutely happens. It happens in one-acts. It happens in individual events. There are times where everybody sees something completely and utterly different.

LINDSAY: Well, it could be too that one person comes from a character background so that’s what they focus on.

MATTHEW: Right.

LINDSAY: Another one is like, “I couldn’t understand a single word.”

MATTHEW: Right.

LINDSAY: And that’s something that’s really important, I think, really important to remember. But then, let’s get into this because we’re not supposed to judge the play.

MATTHEW: Correct.

LINDSAY: We’re supposed to judge the performance.

MATTHEW: Correct.

LINDSAY: So, what do you do when you see a play that you just don’t like?

MATTHEW: Okay. This happens so very, very often and I’m not going to name the play but we did have a situation in Ocala this year where I had to judge and it was a play that, this particular school, it was a type of play they kept doing over and over and over again. Super talented kids, super talented director. I have rarely come across such talent anywhere in the state as far as ensemble value is concerned and they just keep picking the same type of play. And so, yes, we’re not supposed to judge the material. That is not our job. However, we can encourage them to choose better material that allows them to…

LINDSAY: Shine.

MATTHEW: Shine better. I mean, I couldn’t fault the production. They got a 30 from me which is a perfect score. They’re going to on to state. I could not fault the production. But I did encourage the director and the students to make stronger choices with material.

LINDSAY: I find that that is what says to me that adjudication is something I can do because of the number of times I’ve seen a play where I’m like – sorry, I’m making a face – “I just don’t like this play!”

MATTHEW: Yeah.

LINDSAY: But I can separate this and this.

MATTHEW: Yes.

LINDSAY: Actually, that’s one of the reasons that I got into adjudication – because I really got tired of the number of times that kids were coming up to me and saying, “They told us they didn’t like the play,” and it’s like, “Stop that!”

MATTHEW: Right.

LINDSAY: That’s not the adjudicator’s job.

MATTHEW: Right.

LINDSAY: I think that’s great. I really like that you can do the same.

MATTHEW: It’s important for us to separate, absolutely, but it’s also important for us to encourage them to grow in ways they probably would not expect to, and sometimes that means reading outside of the box, not just thinking outside of the box but reading outside of the box. There are a million plays out there. There are plays from the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s that haven’t been seen in a long time. Read them. Find them. Tennessee Williams wrote about a hundred one-act plays.

LINDSAY: Yes, how many of them do we see?

MATTHEW: Very little of them and a lot of them are wonderful and have the same themes that his longer plays have and have the same acting opportunities for kids and for adults and whatever. There’s a wealth of possibilities out there. Don’t do the same stuff over and over and over and over again. You guys can figure out what the judges like and dislike as far as the material because you’ve been doing it long enough to know.

LINDSAY: Okay. Let’s talk about criticisms because that’s part of our job, too. This is educational adjudicating.

MATTHEW: Absolutely.

LINDSAY: We are supposed to be, “This works.” So, how do you go about wording criticism so that it comes across as educational – like, not coddling but constructive?

MATTHEW: It’s very carefully – very carefully, that’s the best answer I can give you.

LINDSAY: It’s not “sort of” carefully! It’s “very” carefully.

MATTHEW: Very carefully! You don’t use a lot of capital letters unless, of course, you’re being very positive.

LINDSAY: No exclamation points.

MATTHEW: The way I was always taught, especially in the presentation of oral adjudication as we do with the one-acts and with certain individual events, you always want to start with saying something positive then put some constructive in the middle and then you want to send them out on a positive note.

LINDSAY: That’s the thing they’re going to remember.

MATTHEW: That’s the thing they’re going to remember. They’re going to remember that you had things to say that were constructive. They’re going to remember the criticism there. But, if you can buffer it with positive, they’re going to feel better about themselves when they leave. Sometimes, that’s hard. Sometimes, you see stuff that’s just… it’s just a lot of constructive, you know? And you have a lot of things that would come across as negative. And then, in that case, you just really have to be very careful with your tone. I’m pretty even keel on my tone – always. This way, nobody can ever say that I was a hateful, horrible human being.

LINDSAY: Well, I mean, we had a very interesting experience last year.

MATTHEW: Yes, we did.

LINDSAY: And that is something that I remember very well. We had a show that needed a lot of constructive and the thing that I remember very well is all of us went in and we were very… even was the name of the game.

MATTHEW: Even tone, yes.

LINDSAY: Even toned. I remember the students being very receptive.

MATTHEW: The students were very receptive; the teacher was not.

LINDSAY: The teacher was not.

MATTHEW: And, sometimes, as a teacher, you need to be a positive influence to your students and you need to accept the criticism as gracefully as they do. Sometimes, that doesn’t happen. You don’t want to be that drama teacher that’s chasing after the judge with their sheets and hands waving them in the air saying, “No, no, no, this is why I made my choices!” We don’t want to hear why you made your choices. We want to see why you made your choices.

LINDSAY: Yes!

MATTHEW: So, just do the work, let the work speak for itself. If you disagree with us, okay, that’s perfectly fine. I have no problem with disagreement. I have no problem with conversation just as long as it’s respectful and as long as you’re open to the criticism.

LINDSAY: Not asking for the judge’s email so that you can berate them.

MATTHEW: That’s right.

LINDSAY: Ah, but I think that’s an excellent point – an excellent point for teachers and drama directors listening. I think that’s how you get your point across. You don’t tell us, you know, in the adjudication or you don’t tell somebody what it is that your point was. You have to show it. It’s a play. We’re not reading along.

MATTHEW: That’s right.

LINDSAY: All we can do is respond to what’s being seen and as long as you’re happy with your work.

MATTHEW: What we say should matter nothing – not at all.

LINDSAY: It shouldn’t. What do you feel about competition?

MATTHEW: You know, I see a different side of competition having participated in it. As a participant, coming to these events when I was in high school, it was really a way to meet other people. Like, it was always wonderful for me to meet kids from across the state and other schools and to have fun with them. Sure, there was a bit of competition but, for me, it was never nasty. You know, I have friends to this day that were rival friends from other schools and we laugh about it to this day. We laugh about the fact that we were the best of the district and we were still friends. It didn’t matter. We wanted to see each other perform. We wanted to see each other succeed and that’s what teachers also need to do – foster those friendships between schools. Whether they’re rivals or they’re just neighboring schools, whatever, foster those friendships because they’re friendships that will last forever and they are so much more valuable than that score.

LINDSAY: Yeah.

MATTHEW: I mean, my friend Marcy who was actually up in the Panhandle with us when we were judging, we’ve known each other since we were juniors in high school and we have been friends ever since. We were at rivaling schools, rivaling one-acts. It’s just, you know, we were friends – friends first – and that’s more important than that superior.

LINDSAY: I have to wonder… I have to wonder if that, because, sometimes, I see how teachers respond to the competition aspect and things get a little bit… I’m going to say funky, and I see exactly what you’re describing in the kids. What I see in the kids is I see generosity and I see fun and I see “I’m here to communicate and have a good time.”

MATTHEW: That’s right.

LINDSAY: So, it always makes me wonder if there’s a disconnect somewhere.

MATTHEW: There are. You know, I know it from my personal teaching experience as well. There gets a point where the teachers become competitive with other teachers and it doesn’t matter, you know? I was like that for a little while. My first couple of years was like, “Well, why does she always get to go to state with her one-act, blah blah blah,” but it doesn’t really matter. You know, it really doesn’t because we’re not there for our own egos. If we were doing it for our own egos, we’d be in a different career. We’d be in Hollywood.

LINDSAY: Yes, we would not be working with high schools.

MATTHEW: We wouldn’t be doing educational theatre. Exactly.

LINDSAY: Okay. If we know that the competition thing should be about friendship and community and all that stuff…

MATTHEW: Theatre is community.

LINDSAY: Theatre, it is. It’s a really wonderful community. I look at these kids sometimes and, you know, you just know that they wouldn’t be welcome anywhere else – some of these kids.

MATTHEW: Absolutely.

LINDSAY: I just love that there’s a place for them.

MATTHEW: We take them all.

LINDSAY: Yeah, we do, we do!

MATTHEW: We take ‘em all. If you’re weird, we want you.

LINDSAY: I love too when I go, well, I go to see festivals, like, all over and when you’re in a district and it’s just really in the middle of nowhere and you just see the kid and he’s just like…

MATTHEW: But, you know what, what I have discovered about that, you know, last year was the first time I ever went up to District 1 which is the Panhandle and every year I go to District 12 which is Ocala and the neighboring counties and they’re the middle of nowhere. You know, a lot of other schools and other districts are a little poo-poo on those places because they’re like, “Oh, there’s no competition.” Let me tell you something; I have seen some of the absolute best work I have ever seen anywhere and that means professional level theatre as well in those districts. It doesn’t matter where you are.

LINDSAY: No, it doesn’t.

MATTHEW: Talent is talent.

LINDSAY: Well, and dedication. Dedication is dedication.

MATTHEW: Absolutely.

LINDSAY: Community is community.

MATTHEW: Some of the absolute best theatre teachers are in those areas. Crystal Whittaker is brilliant. Kristen Neander is brilliant. Janet Shelley is brilliant. All of these people are in the middle of nowhere.

LINDSAY: And choose to be there.

MATTHEW: Talent is talent no matter what. Period. End of story.

LINDSAY: End of story. Done.

MATTHEW: You can hit stop on this.

LINDSAY: Okay, but before I do, how should teachers and students approach their adjudications? So, when they’re receiving comments – either written or oral – what should they take away from it?

MATTHEW: They should open their minds and always remember, no matter what, that it is one person’s opinion on one day of your life.

LINDSAY: When should they incorporate a change?

MATTHEW: If they recognize that it’s worthy of change. You know, sometimes, a judge says something and offers a suggestion that you just don’t agree with. Try it. Try it. You should always try a change. If you don’t like the change, go back to what you were doing or try something else. Theatre is constantly evolving and constantly moving. That’s why we’re not doing film. That’s why, when you go to a Broadway show and see it twice in the same week, you’re not going to see the same performance. If you want to see the same thing over and over again, watch a movie.

LINDSAY: When should a teacher and student not pay attention to an adjudication’s note? Because that’s the thing that hangs up a lot of students – they take it all in, they take it all in, but, you know, you and I both know that not all adjudicators are working from the best place.

MATTHEW: Oh, absolutely. When adjudication comes from a place of cruelty, I think. Any time that a criticism is just mean-spirited, that person is not the right person to listen to, and you can tell when something is mean-spirited. If that’s the thing, just leave it alone. Just don’t even acknowledge it.

LINDSAY: And what goes into a score? Because that’s another thing. For you, what goes into it when you’re making a score? I know we’re not supposed to talk about scores but scores are there.

MATTHEW: I’ve always been one to follow the rubric that’s provided. You know, level of mastery in certain areas. Sometimes, I question the modules, I guess you could say. I wonder on occasion exactly how it’s supposed to be. I mean, they don’t always have the correct things to score.

LINDSAY: Yes.

MATTHEW: So, you’ve just got to be, you know, you do your best in situations like that. I miss the old form where you could just fill stuff out and check a score. Now, it’s all about the math. For me, it’s seeing the level of skill, applying that to the numbers provided, and then just letting the math do the rest.

LINDSAY: Follow the rubric.

MATTHEW: Follow the rubric!

LINDSAY: That’s all we’re doing these days is following the rubric.

Okay. So, lastly, what do you get out of it? What do you get out of adjudicating?

MATTHEW: Other than the stipend?

LINDSAY: Other than the massive amounts of cash.

MATTHEW: I really get to see really cool new stuff sometimes. Like, I’m only one person. I can’t see everything. It’s not humanly possible. But I discover lots of new material that’s interesting for me as a performer and as a director. And then, just, you now, seeing really good talent just always makes me happy – always – no matter what. It’s the absolute best.

LINDSAY: Very cool!

All right, thank you so much for taking the time out. Now, we get to see all these wonderful – actually, I’m always amazed. I love the middle school students because sometimes they’re so tiny and yet I’m so amazed about what they can do.

MATTHEW: Yeah, the middle school kids sometimes are better than their high school counterparts. Last year, I was doing solo musicals on individual events day and the kid that won from our room could have beat a high school kid.

LINDSAY: It’s so funny.

MATTHEW: Talent is talent. I will say it a million times. Talent is talent.

LINDSAY: Thank you, Matt.

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

It’s a play feature! It’s a play feature! It’s time to feature a play!

Today, we have three plays in a collection – three for one!

This is Close Encounters of the Undead Kind by Jeffrey Harr and that is a title that really says it all. You know exactly what you are walking into with the title Close Encounters of the Undead Kind.

We have Wendy who walks into a typical teen support group. Claire thinks Halloween is going to be humdrum as usual. Rachel just wants her parents to be nice to her new boyfriend. Three ordinary scenarios… or are they? Is that a werewolf at the support group from hell? Is that a vampire at the door in beggar’s night? Is that a zombie boyfriend in bad taste in boys?

With some Close Encounters of the Undead Kind, I think you see where each of these plays is going. These plays are far from typical and far from humdrum. It’s such a fabulous collection of plays. It’s quick humor but with characters that you can really sink your teeth into – pardon the pun. The plays can be formed individually or all linked together for a fabulously, ghoulishly, delightful evening.

Go to theatrefolk.com. Look up Close Encounters of the Undead Kind. Read the sample pages. You won’t regret it.

Finally – finally! Where, oh, where can you find this podcast? We post new episodes every second Tuesday at theatrefolk.com and on our Facebook page and Twitter. You can find us on YouTube.com/Theatrefolk and you can find us on the Stitcher app. You can also subscribe to TFP on where? iTunes. I’m in a sing-y mood today. All you have to do is search on 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.