The Wizard of Oz

If Cub Scouts skits were my first entry into theater, The Wizard of Oz was the first participatory theatrical experience to have a conscious impact on me. 

In the fourth grade I had two wonderful teachers, Margaret Anne Lozuk and Shirley Holland (now Roper). Mrs. Lozuk taught fourth grade. Ms. Holland taught fifth grade next door. They collaborated regularly. For two years I had the benefit of learning from both teachers.

They co-directed The Wizard of Oz. This meant, of course, that fourth graders and fifth graders would be involved in the production. I probably had my heart set on playing the Lion or the Tin Man or, my favorite, the Scarecrow. But those roles went to fifth grade girls, which I understood at the time to be logical even if disappointing. My down-the-street neighbor Diana Harris landed the role of the Scarecrow. I thought Diana Harris was particularly deserving of her role – she was very tall and seemed somehow as sophisticated as she was beautiful. (When walking to the bus stop I always wondered if she would be there...)

The Wizard at work

I was cast as the Wizard. Reflecting on this production, this casting seems genius. The leads we're all tall, brunette, mature (to my mind then) young women and the "man behind the curtain" was a much smaller, Southern-California blond 4th grader with a flair for the dramatic (even if he didn't yet know it himself). I don't know if there were any other options to the casting as the pool of student actors was limited, but it sure worked.

I don't remember a lot from the production, except what I "remember" from the photos – thankfully my mother took a lot of them.I do remember, however, one of the rehearsals. I believe it was my first rehearsal with my cape. (The wizard's cape, as brilliantly crafted by my mother, was made of red and gold satin-like material and had magical shapes of stars and moons on it. I loved it. I loved wearing it.) During rehearsal, even before running actual scenes from the play, I walked on stage if I was on a fashion runway, swirling my new cape as I hit the hard pivots on my comical rendition of a catwalk walk. This made Mrs. Lozuk and Ms. Holland laugh so hard.

The image of Ms. Holland laughing was particularly memorable. stayed with me for a long time. I did not yet know Ms. Holland as well as I knew Mrs. Lozuk and saw her as more reserved than Mrs. Lozuk, but there she was, in peels of laughter! She was doubling over with unadulterated guffaws.

I loved that. I loved being able to make people laugh. I still do. There's nothing quite like making people laugh, especially on the stage.

I learned a great deal from that experience and from those teachers about my love of theatre and about teaching. They were willing and able to laugh while also maintaining rigorous learning in their classrooms. I remember the assignments in their classes more than any other year. In my journey as a theater educator, I strive to create the same environment, a disciplined environment in which we all learn and laugh a lot.

The lessons of the cemetery

Downtown Bloomsburg from the point of view
of those who lived and worked here.

I first learned the term "experiential learning" as a piece of jargon or buzzword. It was eduspeak. For a time, perhaps still, it was a way of communicating to funders and others about the value of what we did as theatre educators. The term was valuable to them as a way of understanding not what we were teaching, but the way we were teaching. Our teaching methods were not as recognizable as rote memorization, the drilling of on-paper exercises, or reading the test-approved texts. 

I don't know what the official definition is now, if there is one, but I have learned more about my own definition. My approach to teaching college students includes a focus on experiential learning. For me it's about getting out of the classroom and about doing stuff when we are in the classroom.

This week I took my Bloomsburg University playwriting class to the Rosemont Cemetery. (It wasn't the first time I took students to a cemetery. I also took one of my acting classes a couple of years ago, but for different reasons. They were performing pieces from Spoon River Anthology, a series of poem-monologues spoken by the residents of a cemetery. Published in 1915, many of the permanent residents of the Espy, PA cemetery lived and died around the same time as these characters.) This week's lesson theme is "How can a playwright find inspiration in current events, history and research?" Our artist research sometimes include traditional academic methods of delving into books and other scholarly sources, but the research is also going to places in reality and in one's imagination to mine inspiration. 

The culminating project for student playwrights is writing a 10-minute play inspired by Bloomsburg town history. In class we looked at the fantastic resources of our own Andruss Library Archives and the Columbia County Historical and Genealogical Society archives. We traveled to the cemetery to find more immediate and visceral inspiration: the people of Bloomsburg. 

Playwrights conclude their research session
and return to life-in-progress.

The names on the stones are fantastic. Inspiration in themselves. Catharine Kressler, Philip Unangst, Margaret Metz. The fact that the Sheep and Peacock families are buried so close to one another.  The numerology of the life and death of Augustus Mason: b. Feb. 17, 1817, d. Feb. 17, 1879.  The students saw the names of the buildings on the university campus –  McCormick, Waller, Hartline. And we were all impacted by the many stones that read "Infant child" or a name with only one year indicating that the child did not make it past one year old. 

I encouraged the playwrights to take in the names, but also the entire atmosphere of the cemetery and it's relationship to the town around it. I asked them to ask questions, to become curious and investigative. What else would they want to know about these people? This cemetery? This town? It didn't take much encouragement to set them to exploring the cemetery. They had inspiration all around them.

I am looking forward to hearing the first reading of their plays.