Ed.
A podcast covering topics related to education, communication, and beyond. Smart and frank conversation about topics that matter to students, faculty, and community.
Ed.
Episode 12- Eric Skiles Profile
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This month on Ed. A special educational biography episode. Detailing the 33 year career of Eric Skiles, Professor of Theatre and Humanities and Artistic Director of Theatre at Lonestar College- Kingwood. A recognized Director, Actor, Vocalist, and Professor, this episode will detail his career as Andy and Twyla ask him about All of this on Episode 12 of Ed.
For further information about Ed. Please visit our website at www.ed.buzzsprout.com. For further information about Eric Skiles, please visit his website at www.ecskiles.com
Ed. was produced by Andy Luster and Twyla Coy, Music Provided by Liborio Conti.
I would say this is a triangle of greatness here.
SPEAKER_05Oh, the triangle. I like that, the triangle of greatness. I'm gonna put that on a t-shirt. This month on Ed, a special educational biography episode, detailing the 33-year career of Eric Skiles, professor of theater and humanities, and artistic director of theater at Lone Star College Kingwood. A recognized director, actor, vocalist, and professor, this episode will detail his career as Andy and Twilight ask him about all of this on episode 12 of Ed. Welcome to Ed Episode 12. And this one's a little different because most of the time we talk about a topic. Most of the time we bring up a topic and discuss the topic, have a guest on and discuss things. This is a little bit different because we're we have a person. And um, this person not just any person. Not just any person, um, a 33-year educational veteran who is who has navigated public schools, which I know you have done before. Um, I never have I went to them. Uh then uh also uh has spent what about 26 years?
SPEAKER_00This 26 years 23 going into 24.
SPEAKER_0523 going into 24 years uh teaching at a community college at at Lone Star. So uh this is Eric Skiles. Welcome he is a professor of theater and also uh the artistic director of uh the theater program here at Lone Star College Kingwood. Welcome to Ed.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much. Nice to be here. We're so excited that you're here.
SPEAKER_05We're very excited to have you here because this is something a little bit different. So we're we're gonna sort of delve into you a little bit and sort of celebrate you and your your time here at Lone Star um and discuss, you know, maybe some we're gonna still talk about topics, but I think they're gonna relate more to, I guess, life in general and also in your teaching and and how you've uh engaged students in our in in art and theater and and that type of thing. Sounds good. Sounds good to me too. I'm excited.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I I want to just get started from the beginning of, well, I mean, not just the beginning, but the beginning of when you entered the the teaching field. So so tell us about your beginning in in education.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um I always start with this story and it makes people laugh, and I hope you will too. I think I knew I was gonna be a teacher when I hit the third grade. If you've ever had the pleasure of teaching elementary, you know there's something special about that third grade moment. It's a developmental, it's a psychology and a brain development moment. And um, I wanted to be a teacher because I thought grading papers was the coolest thing ever. And now I would rather do anything in my life. Each grade for show, grade for dough. Yes. Um, so it had always sort of been something that I was very attracted to, this idea of sharing knowledge, passing knowledge, creating empowerment in other people, even though I didn't know those words back in the third grade. Uh thank you, Mrs. Hunter from Greenwood Elementary School, Richardson, Texas. And um, so I wandered a little bit actually in my undergrad. Um, many of my students know that I started at Odessa College in the late 80s as a chemical engineering major.
SPEAKER_02Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00Um, I spent two years as an engineering major, and then I discovered that passion was something that was really incredibly important in this process. And I discovered that in a nuclear physics section of a physics class where I didn't have any passion. And my brain kind of said, you know, you could learn this, you could pass this class, but there is something to be said for the desire to want to learn this and pass this class. So I I hemmed and hawed, I rummaged around for about a semester, and then I landed in music education, which was something I had been involved in my whole life: music, singing, playing piano. And um, so I switched over to a different college within the Texas Tech University. I went from the College of Engineering to the College of Arts and Sciences. Wow, that was a change. And uh and I and I started a music degree, and passion is what can make the difference when you are um attaining that degree. So um I stretched four years of a college degree into six, had a great old time, and uh, and then I got my um certification to teach, and at that time in the state of Texas, you can actually get both of those pieces in the same degree. So I have a a legacy degree called a Bachelor's of Music Education, where I took psychology classes and uh principles of teaching along with all my music classes and thrilled to death that there was a job offered to me before I even graduated. That's great. I think I had gone down and visited, it was a smaller town south of Lubbock, and I had interviewed with them, and I was scheduled to be their um middle school choir director and their fifth grade general music teacher. So off I go, pie in the sky, and here I am, 23 years old and hitting the classroom.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00And for those of you listening, if you think you know everything at 23, hold on to that delusion as long as possible.
SPEAKER_05Oh, look at a picture of him when he was 23. It's posted on his website.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, there is a picture of me on the very I I have most of the pictures of being a teacher at you know, picture day. I remember very clearly that day the the guy that took the picture said, smile, it's almost payday. And first year, first year teachers don't get paid for an extra month. And so that smile has a little edge to it. Um so yeah, um, even when I was student teaching, I had to wear a tie to the high school where I was student teaching because they thought I was still a high school student. Um, and I looked rather youthful for many years. Uh, maybe maybe I still do. I I won't I won't put any limits on that. Um so first year teaching anywhere is probably the hardest transition I think anyone will ever make in their lives. Yes. I appreciate completely, and obviously I support the higher education system, but we are here to impart content and content is vital. However, there are all of these things that I I hate this term, but the soft skills of just being a human, showing up on time, um, listening, asking probing questions when you need clarification, those sorts of things. And then you're going into a political system that you have no idea about.
SPEAKER_01That's so true.
SPEAKER_00Um, I spent a year in that school, and um, if you want to search it out, you can find it, but I will remain nameless right here. And um it was not a good fit for me, and I was not a good fit for them. Right. That's taken about 20 years of teaching to put it that way at the at the time. Uh basically I finished out that contract, but I was put into a category called not renewed. And that just simply means that they are not gonna have you back the next year. Um, it's it's nothing egregious. I didn't do anything horrible, I wasn't fired, I wasn't kicked out, but I simply wasn't asked back. And that was a huge kick in the pants and the ego. Right. Really. Um, so I was wandering around yet again. And uh that summer, I think around the end of June, my brain said, you know, you don't have a paycheck in August. And uh I was doing some work at the local community theater. Great place to meet people and get involved with the artistic community. And we were doing a gig for an all-female show, and I just happened to be there as kind of the spokesperson, and I think I was playing some of the music for them to sing to. And an older gentleman approached me afterwards, and he was from a small 1A school just south of where I was, so even further south from Lubbock, and he said, You know, we've had no fine arts for two years. Wow, and we are now in danger of having seniors graduate without a fine art credit, which we could fudge, but we'd prefer not to. Right. And would you come down and interview? And I said, I'd be thrilled. Absolutely. Absolutely thrilled. Um, because I was so despondent about not being renewed that I was really questioning whether I would stay in teaching or not. Um, so I went down and I interviewed, and uh I I do remember that interview process. I walked into the boardroom, and this is a 1A school. This is the smallest new school. The smallest in the state. And now I understand there's actually two parts of 1A, which is those that can play, and of course, everything is determined by sports in our in our state. So there are those 1A schools that play six-man football and those that play 11-man. And uh this was a six-man football. Wow, very small school. Um K through 12, 250 students. Wow. And that doubled the population of the town when school was in session. And of course, I had just come from this other school district, and um I was just I was eager to have a job. Um, I knew why I had been let go from the other school system, and this is another legacy factor. So I was let go from the first school system in 1994. And although there is nothing on record about the process, I have a feeling it was not really my teaching, it was more about a sexual orientation. Right. And so I was very cautious going into this even smaller school. Sure. And um, you answer very carefully and you stay very professional. Sure. Um, I walked into that boardroom expecting maybe a superintendent and a principal, and the boardroom was full.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_00And it was, I think most of the board members, the superintendent, the high school principal, the elementary principal, and all of the elementary staff, because there was one teacher per grade. And this was a situation where they wanted to make sure that fit really happened. And looking back on it, I really appreciate that. I sat next to Lenice Dennis, who taught the fourth grade all the way during my time there. And at the end she said, I was so amazed you just you kept your hands in your lap and you were so calm and so poised. And I laughed and I said, I had to keep telling myself, leave your hands in your lap, leave your hands in your lap, don't gesture around, leave your hands in your lap. So um I taught at Sands Consolidated Independent School District for six amazing years. That's crazy. They let me be a teacher, they let me forge my own path, they let me learn how to teach all the grade levels, they um respected my work and I got to be a teacher. What an incredible and it felt really good.
SPEAKER_02What an incredible time.
SPEAKER_00So after that, after at the end of six years, I'm kind of examining okay, six years for me is always a good breaking point. I I never feel like you know the job until about three years in. And then you can start to maybe affect some change and really see how you fit into the culture. And at the end of six years, I also realized that on an average week I had seven preps, which is enormous. For those of you listening out there that don't know what a prep is, that just means getting your class ready for the following week. Um, because I saw every junior high student in the morning for what we would put quotations around a choir. Um, I always prayed, hey Sans, I'm talking to you. I always prayed that I had the girls first, sorry, the boys first and the girls second, because sometimes the boys after PE, which was the opposite time, were a little fragrant. And the girls handled that better. Um, and then I would go into the middle of the day with my high school students, and then the afternoons were spent with the elementary students, and I had each grade on a rotational basis. So I saw K1 and 2 two days a week, and three, four, and five two days a week. Then Friday afternoon was my prep time. That was it. And then I was slogging through the teaks, that process, and all of my lesson prep. And of course, it got simpler as the years went on. Um, because you learn, you get that under your belt. It was a lot. And that was when I thought, well, maybe it's maybe it's time to specialize. Um by the way, when I left Sands, I held a teacher certification through Texas for all-level art, all-level music, all-level theater, and speech. Um so, and I was teaching all of those.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
SPEAKER_00In a 1A school, you can always teach one subject outside of your certification as just a catch-all because these schools are so small. And every time I taught one, it's like, well, I might as well go do my proficiency testing and and and get it on the get it on the list. Um so Texas Tech, of course, was close, and I had been through the music program and I had had sort of some uh tangential experiences with the theater program, and I knew they had an MFA program. And so um I applied to go back there and spent three years there doing my MFA. And uh you have trouble doing the math on the educational career. This is completely true because I did spend three years in grad school, but I was instructor of record all three years, so I do count that as part of my career.
SPEAKER_05No, I did I was instructor of record when in grad school too, so I count it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, even though the retirement people don't don't count these years. No, they never will. Yes, never will. Um, and so three wonderful years working on the MFA, which focuses on acting and directing. They now call it performance and pedagogy, which I also love. I love both titles. And um I remember uh January 1st of 2003, I started applying all over the nation. Uh my partner at the time, my partner, wow, we were partners at the time, I should say. We are now married. Um, Randy and I had a map in the bedroom, and we'd put a pin anytime we decided that I would apply to a location. And suspiciously, they were all in the Pacific Northwest, um, Chicago area, Texas, and mostly East Coast. And jobs would come up in Missouri or Arizona, and we would just sort of look at each other and go, hmm, don't know. Um, and and so that that is a a factor. Um, 48 applications went out, and I heard nothing until May.
SPEAKER_05Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00And in May, uh a dean called me on the phone and she said, Hello, my name is Rebecca Riley. Oh. And I am the dean of Division One at then Kingwood College, and we would love to have a phone interview with you. So I I scheduled that, and of course, I happy dance around the parking lot. First phone call you receive, I might actually get a job. And I sat down at my kitchen table for that interview. And now we're gonna go into deep history. I didn't even realize who I was interviewing for, but we had Cora Ann Williams of the speech department, David Ragsdale of the English department, currently the chair, Ron Jones, the current artistic director, who was the content master, and he was about to transfer an open sci-fair to the campus. Uh Rebecca Riley at the end of the table, and on the other side of the table, Todd Miller, Mari O'Mori. Wow, and doggone it if I can't remember who that next person was. Um, I just didn't realize the powerhouse committee that I was sitting in front of. Um, and so I did I did that phone interview, and gosh, for those of you listening, the hardest thing you will ever do in your life is that phone interview because there is just no, and I'm sitting here with speech people, there is no way to read the room. Right, there is no way to interpret body language, and boy, these people are good at holding their emotions back from their voices, and it is it is necessary, but oh, it is a brutal step for all of us. And then uh they offered me a face-to-face interview, and then I had to say that I had two months of church camp commitments in the hill country, and they held the committee and they waited until July to interview me.
SPEAKER_05So I think that's a testament to how much they wanted you.
SPEAKER_00Well, in telling this story, to me, this is the miracle of getting the job, right? And I I interviewed, I drove up here. My parents at the time were living in Sugarland. My mother practically had a house picked out. She just knew I was going to get the job. And uh I drove up here, and we're West Texas boys. We're used to cotton and dirt and big, huge skies. And I drove up here and I remember calling Randy, like, you would not believe how green it is here. And there are trees everywhere. This is absolutely gorgeous. And I was a little early, so I drove back into Kingwood just to look around. And then I got here and then I finally met all these people that I interviewed with. They they showed me the facilities, they went through the interview process, and that afternoon, uh, Rebecca said, Would you mind coming back tomorrow? And I said, I'm I'm here for the weekend. I would love to. Um, I drove back to Sugarland. I went to the mall to JCPenney's and bought another dress shirt because I had purchased, brought exactly one with me. Um, and I came up here the next day and we talked more about things, and they offered me the job. That's amazing. Um, I had spoken with Catherine Pearson, who is now former president, but at the time she was vice president of instruction. I had spoken to then president Linda Stiegall. Um, may she rest in peace. And uh, and each one of them was a different experience, but they were all very positive. Right. And um, and then I accepted the job. And the rest, shall we say, is history. So why do you stay for 23 years? You stay for 23 years because you found a place that you fit. I've talked about that before. You you find a place where you feel like you can impact students positively. Um, I always felt like community college is a bad analogy, but boots on the ground. Sure. We are the first experience they have out of high school. We are the ones who are going to hopefully gently guide them into a different modality of education and maybe a different level of personal responsibility in that education. Um and then just the ability to be the artistic director and to select season and do shows that really kept things rolling. And suddenly here we are.
SPEAKER_01That's amazing.
SPEAKER_00Long answer.
SPEAKER_05That was a great answer. That was a 20-minute answer.
SPEAKER_01And it really gives us a good start of who you were, kind of to get us to where we are now.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it is. And I think we'll take a break um and we will talk about that very subject next. And we are back uh with Eric Skiles talking about his experience uh at um in in teaching and directing. And last segment we got to know you, the person. We got a very you gave us a lot of good information. It's funny. You answered all of our questions uh without even us asking them, which is even better. So you didn't get to hear our voice, you didn't get to hear us.
SPEAKER_01Hey, we don't need to, we don't need to talk. We're in the presence of greatness. We are in the presence of greatness right now.
SPEAKER_00So I would say this is a triangle of greatness here.
SPEAKER_05Oh, the triangle, I like that, the triangle of greatness. I'm gonna put that on a t-shirt. Yes. So I just want to ask you, just sort of in this middle segment, just like some questions about what your philosophy is and and teaching and what you feel are our students and how you dealt maybe with some things like Harvey and things like COVID. So I and this this is a qu I'll I'll be frankly honest. I love bringing up, I love asking artificial intelligence to ask or give me good questions. And I really like this question. So I'm gonna ask this one in a so in a community college setting, very different than a university set. I've taught a university, uh, you've taught at Texas Tech, you taught in in you know, middle and high school and elementary school. So very different student. What what's the most profound aha moment that you came across or that you witnessed from a student in the last couple of decades?
SPEAKER_00Oh gosh. I teach kind of under what we used to call sort of the discovery model. I love to sort of lead the students into information and wait for them to have that aha moment. I think for me, over the years, the continual challenge and the joy has. Been how do I make what I teach? Which for most students will be a survey course that they're getting a fine art requirement. You know, they're checking a box, but I want them to discover how what we teach, the skills we teach, apply to anything that they're going to be doing. And so that's a that's a joyous aha moment for me. But I think probably watching students, sometimes even outside of content, sort of discover their own path. Yes. And I love that watching that happen. And let's be honest, it's not always in the positive, meaning that they try something that then they discover they don't like and then they take another pathway. Um, sometimes we learn better by not making it. Absolutely failure is a tough term, but um just the ability for them, and I think that is still in the midst of a lot of challenges. I think that's still the beauty of community college, is their ability here to search out some of those different pathways.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00I remember being challenged in junior high of what are you gonna be when you grow up. It's like, well, I'm in junior high. My brain hasn't even formed. How am I supposed to know that? And high school students need to know exactly what school they're going to go to by the time they're sophomores. And um, and I I appreciate all of that guidance, but I think there is still time for exploration. And I'm a hardcore liberal arts supporter and and product, and I had a few spectacular failures that taught me a different direction to go. Yeah. And so those are some of those wonderful, wonderful aha moments, watching them make those discoveries. Oh, you want me to talk about Harvey? We can talk about Harvey in a second.
SPEAKER_05I'm gonna bring that talk about it.
SPEAKER_00Okay, too.
SPEAKER_05It's kind of fun to talk about students.
SPEAKER_00You heard the tone shift.
SPEAKER_05I mean, I want to get into that a little bit.
SPEAKER_01I want to ask you a question. So, Eric, every year I hear about the amazing awards that you're you and your students are winning. And it's it's amazing. But I also think that there is a lot to be said for some of the lessons. Obviously, you're you're doing an incredible job educating our students, but I think sometimes we learn from our students. I want to hear are there any lessons or anything that you have taken from some of your students that that maybe you can share?
SPEAKER_00Oh gosh. Make me think about that for a moment. Yeah. I was the faculty sponsor of the GSA for many years, I think 10 or 12 years. That's the Gay Straight Alliance, was the name back then. Now it's the Gender Sexuality Alliance. And I had to learn what living under the LGBTQ umbrella looked like for these students. And it was radically different from my experience growing up in West Texas in the 80s. And that sounds ridiculous saying it now. Of course it was. We're talking a 20 or 25 year difference.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00And watching them be able once again to sort of take this journey in in a more um accepting way uh was something that I really had, I had to retool my thinking. I have some pretty ingrained um fear responses. And um, and then I can take that right over into education. I have learned how to interface more appropriately with the student who is just convinced they can't do it. Whatever that can't do it is, right, and I was trained up under the very, oh, dominant system of just do it. You know, um, oh, you fell down, get up, rub some dirt, walk it off. And blessedly, there are more ways to handle things now than there used to be. But I I had to learn that from my students. I had to learn that by um by making some mistakes and acknowledging those mistakes. And so that can be a student in the classroom who's really struggling with a concept. Uh, it can be a student on stage who thinks the role is too large for them or too complex or too deep. It can be a student who's just trying to navigate who they are, how they fit into society, how they're changing the relationship they have with their family. Sure. Um, all of those things. And so I I think and I hope my maybe my empathy has grown and my ability to support students has has changed because of them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. I think that's that's really powerful. And I think that says a lot about you as an educator. So we're always growing and learning um not only from our the trainings that we go to, but also from our students. So thank you.
SPEAKER_05And you you kind of already jumped into what I wanted to talk about, which is finding your voice. How do you get a student to find a voice of a character when they're they don't know what their own voice is yet? Right.
SPEAKER_00Oh well. Um, if I go back to my undergrad, I roomed with a wonderful friend, but he was theater and I was music. And I didn't understand that he was taking on a new role almost every six weeks, but at home, it sort of felt like he was becoming a different person every six weeks. Um, and I I think that is challenging for any actor. Um, and and sadly, we have examples of actors that were overcome. Um, but we also have many actors who are able to do this very consistently. I think one of the biggest challenges for theater students at this level is frequently they're either coming with no experience at all or they are coming out of high school experience. And this is not disparaging to high school, but one of the main focuses of high school is the one act play system. And they have limited amount of rehearsal time. And sometimes I can almost sense when a student has been in a program where it was simply easier to tell them the way to say every line, every single move you make on stage, every gesture. And that is a means to an end that is really critical in that system.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00So here I am. Welcome to a professional training program where we don't do that. You are going to have to join me in this collaborative process. And sometimes it takes a semester or two or three before they become comfortable in their own experience and knowledge about it. And I really focus on that in my acting courses. It's you have a wealth of experience. You have an emotional memory, you have the memory of all the things you've felt and experienced, and all the things that you have sensed through your five senses. And you can call up that information to replicate things on stage. You know what grief is, you just may not have experienced it identically to your character. You know what love is, you know everyone knows what anger is. And so turning, uh teaching them to sort of turn and look at what they already know and value their experience. And then that lets me be sort of like the ceramist in the lab. I'm molding. The clay is doing its thing. Right. I'm just shaping. And I think it becomes much more collaborative. It honors what they know. And I think that does lead to a joy of performing, which leads to these wonderful accolades we've received over the years.
SPEAKER_01Well, they become a self, they they become their own self-advocate, and they are in charge of their own growth, which is so important.
SPEAKER_00I hope so.
SPEAKER_05I hope so too, because I there are days. So I I really want to know because I I did theater in high school. My I went I was in Illinois, so not the one act system. It was very much it was kind of exactly what you described. Like it was us learning the characters, and I did speech and debate. So, you know, spe in the in the theater events and speech and debate, which is what I did, it was learning the voice. Like it was learning to use your voice to create that voice. But I I want to sort of shift that to your director position. What is the strangest, weirdest thing you ever had to experience directing a show?
SPEAKER_00Oh, beyond the usual shenanigans. Yeah, there's tons of shenanigans.
SPEAKER_05We know theater, tons of shenanigans.
SPEAKER_00I have 18, 19, 20-year-olds, um, and they're backstage, all the shenanigans. And blessedly, I think most of my students throughout my entire career have sheltered me and told me after the fact many things that were going on. Uh, and and that is great. We totally challenged ourselves with Love's Labor's Lost by Shakespeare. We had done the Scottish play. Um, I was never that interested in midsummer, um, but I did it later on because it was easy to trim down for a competition show. I had wanted to get my hands on the Tempest, which is very late in Shakespeare's writing. Um, and then ironically, Harvey came along, so we didn't do the Tempest. It didn't seem appropriate. But here we are doing Love's Labor's Lost, probably one of the most complex scripts. And we're working on it, and one of my students just stops me dead in the middle, and it's like, I don't, I, I don't even understand what these people are saying. And he said, I wish I had like a librarian right over here, just sort of pausing the action and explaining to me. And that moment changed the course of that entire production. And we added at the beginning of the show a college student coming in to the library. And so the entire set was a library.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00Um, stunning design by Calliope Vlaos, our technical director at the time. I told her what I wanted and she gave it to me in spades. It was just amazing. And one of the book cases was climbable so characters could perch on top. It was just so the student comes in to the library and it's like, I've got this report to do about love's labor's lost, and it's just crazy, and there are so many characters, and I don't understand what's going on. And the librarian says, Okay, well, let's let's start talking through it. And as she sort of brings in the prologue, here come all the characters. And every once in a while, the student would break right in the middle of the action and get a get a lovely scripted, directed, dirty look from all of the Shakespearean actors, like, ah, we're right here in the middle. Why did you stop us? To ask the librarian to explain. And I thought it was a great moment of taking that instance and go, Oh, we can use that. And, you know, I think that's being open to the material and saying, if we want this to be accessible, we're gonna have to attack it. Yeah. You know, uh, Love's Labor's Lost is four sets of lovers that are that are at one time disguised from one another. And then you have some ancillary characters, and it does, it gets really thick and confusing. Um, I had some phenomenal actors to work with, and um, but that that was that was nice and pretty unusual for me to take a new track right early on in a rehearsal process because I've already sort of done a lot of the blocking ideology in my brain and how it's all gonna flow and fit. And it's like, okay, we're gonna do a pivot. And yeah, and uh, I I think it worked. That's I think it worked pretty well. That's really cool. We have seen um, we have seen things fall from the heavens. Um that was very early on, my first year here. Um, and of course, there were two people on that huge stage, and of course, one of them got hit. Oh, and uh the stage manager behaved very professionally and beautifully and paused the show, closed the curtain, assessed, and and then had to cancel the show. That one was pretty wild. We've had our fair share of power outages in the here in the livable forest, and of course, everything in the theater runs on electricity. Yes, so you just have to ask the audience to pause, try to wait for somebody to get you an estimation of repair time. And if the emergency lights in the theater hang on long enough, you can keep the audience and maybe keep the show going. I think we've canceled a few and we've able been able to pick up a few.
SPEAKER_01You have all of those, and then you also have things like Harvey and things like COVID.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so how do you how do you navigate that in in a in a experience that's supposed to be in front of an audience that's supposed to be very much a uh not tactile, but very like immersive. Yeah, immersive.
SPEAKER_00In in the case of Harvey, I remember sticking a note on my door back after Harvey. Uh-huh. And I didn't realize that that was gonna be, you know, a year and a half functional before everything was rebuilt. Um, Harvey was tough because it was so unexpected. And I know that sounds ridiculous for a hurricane and all of our weather forecasting, but that that storm just kept churning right up the coast and just kept raining and kept raining. And um, Randy and I snuck onto campus. We weren't supposed to do it, but Sunday night when the when the weather sort of cleared, we we drove over here. Um, nothing was problematic at home. And that's when I took some of the videos of the flooding um and could sort of begin to understand the devastation. Um, and then there's that period of shock, and then there's the period of regroup and David Beatty and Catherine Pearson and their brilliant leadership during that time, and all of the leadership being at the MCID Center. Um, Callie and I wound up sharing a practice room in the music building. So we were at least on campus. We were teaching classes concurrently in the recital hall, and the music classroom fit into the schedule with all the other music stuff going on. Um, it was chaotic. And I was chair at the time, so I was also looking at the larger picture of all the classes and the scheduling. And I think we I think we dropped and ran and everything went online and we did a 12-week, you know, and so we had to rebuild all of that. And I remember Callie looking at me and God bless Callie Vlahos. She has kept me going sometimes when I just wanted to sit and be in a corner and kind of just grieve and mourn. Um, and she said, What are we gonna do about shows? And it's like, I just, I just, I just, I just can't, you know, I just had to be honest that I just I couldn't at that time. And she said, Let me direct something, let me find something. And she brought together a cast of eight community members and a few students, and it was the original Broadway version of Dracula. And she put it on in the recital hall and made it look like a thousand million bucks when we had 20, you know. Yeah. Um, and so I really credit her with the abil the ability to keep that part of the ship afloat when I had so many other concerns going on. Um and I think that's inherently the challenge of my job. I'm a full-time professor.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Within that I am the lead of the department because I'm the only full-time professor, intent administrators. And then I'm running a theater.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00And it's a big job. Um, it it I have grown into it sort of like the frog in the pot over the years. I've grown into it. Navigating Harvey was then extra spicy because we were coming down the hill putting on hard hats and seeing the devastation and the rebuild process, which was lengthy. So I believe we were able to have a show back in the theater with a live audience um in our space, May of 19, and Harvey hit August of 17. Right. But in the midst of that, we were using the recital hall. So we still had the live interactive experience. So we we climb out of that and we're feeling pretty good about things. In what was that? 19?
SPEAKER_05In 19.
SPEAKER_00May of 19, and then in March of 20.
SPEAKER_05March of 20, the world just ends.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Um, so it was it was easy in that moment to understand coming not coming back from spring break or understanding how we were coming back.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00To say, okay, we're we are not doing a show for a while.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00And we don't like that, but this is a reality. I I know this word is overused, but this is truly unprecedented in the lifetime of almost everyone living. Right. Um, and and we need to take the time to regroup. And of course, teaching classes was a challenge. I don't know if either of you are coming on campus.
SPEAKER_05Well, it was Harvey too, because we learned from Harvey. We we we got lucky. We we were we had learned from Harvey. We did because with Harvey, it taught us how to do everything online, and so we moved it all online and and and it worked. And we were thankfully, because I think it could have been much worse.
SPEAKER_00It could have been it could have been a cluster of this problems compared to our colleagues at other campuses who were scrambling because of COVID. Well, we we had already been through that fire. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So you've overcome so much. Yeah. And continuously.
SPEAKER_00It was it was, you know, it was asking questions. Um, it was constantly in communication with president and vice president of what would be allowed. Right. Um, in the fall semester, we finally were allowed to do a production, but we had to do all of the safety, the distancing between the distancing, yeah. Um, so once again, Cali Vlahos, God bless her, she chose 39 steps radio version. And we designed and built what we called action figure boxes on the apron of the stage, as if each actor was in their own little recording booth. Right. We built them out of plywood and plexiglass. Plexiglass was like gold at this time.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it was really exact. I just remember and they were on the apron book.
SPEAKER_00A lot of things were expensive, and they were six feet apart in a semicircle, and Callie, because she's brilliant, gave little windows on the sides of the recording booths so they could see each other peripherally to do the interactions they needed to. And that show was recorded and streamed to a very small audience, but it was picked up to be a representative for the American College Theater Festival at the regional festival that year. Awesome. And that's our only we've received some invites, but that's our only time to actually participate. Um, and so in the midst of disaster, some very affirming moments. Right.
SPEAKER_05That's amazing.
SPEAKER_00We had a little super spreader at another campus that shall not be named in the fall. And so the edict came down that following spring, nothing.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00So we did a Zoom play. And if I never do one of those again, as long as that would be okay with you, huh? Yeah. Um, it just doesn't allow for natural response time. It's just not the way that platform is built. Um, and so we we we just kept chugging. We were allowed to do the summer opera, which is our wonderful joint project with the music building. They do all of the singing and the talent and the auditions, and we provide all of the scenery, lighting, costumes, everything else. And we were all masked and and checked within an inch of our lives and tested. And that was a gesture for those of you at home with a little swab up the nose. And um, and and we we it was filmed and streamed, and and so it's like, okay, this can be done. Um, and so in the the fall that year, which were now what to 2021. 21, yeah. Um, we built a radio studio on the stage and we did two radio shows, one for Halloween and one for Christmas. Um, and once again, because Callie is so brilliant, we just decorated it for the different holidays. Yeah. We just left the setup and uh both of those streamed, and then finally we got back on stage, and that would have been February. Spring of 22. Is what that feels like. Yeah. Yeah. With a little shortened version of Midsummer Night's Dream.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's awesome. Well, I just love the the history of all the lessons that you've learned and the obstacles that you've overcome. And the things that we're still we're, you know, it continues. The we'll continue to have obstacles and and lessons and as we go into all the different things.
SPEAKER_00It totally made me shift my focus about what's important.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Um you know, I I I did a paper presentation at a conference about the Harvey experience and what it taught me. And it it completely changed the way that I believe we look at casting a show. And oh, this is a family of four. Who really cares what the ethnic ethnicities are? Because that could be the modern reality of any family. Absolutely. Um, it it shook us out a little bit, and and this is still pretty controlled by playwrights and rights and royalties, but genders of characters and um and sometimes flipping those genders and what it can teach us about relationships. And um, I I think it provided in the long run, in the midst of some hellacious stress, stress, I think it really provided us some powerful lessons.
SPEAKER_05That's great. So I think we're gonna take another break. Um, and when we come back, talk about your legacy. And we are back, and so it one of the one of the reasons that we brought You on, and one of the reasons that we're here is because we're trying to get voices of people at our college. Uh, because we really want to sort of have kind of like a voice archive of the people who have been here, um, who have shaped what this place is, um, who have really sort of been here a really long time, but yeah. No, true. But you have.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Uh so I you don't have to, you know, it we we implied that at the beginning 33 years. Um, 26, 2024, 2023, 2043, 24 here. Yeah. So you're gonna be leaving us soon.
SPEAKER_00That is true.
SPEAKER_05You are you are retiring.
SPEAKER_00Uh December 33.
SPEAKER_05And if anybody who is in this office would know, or if has ever met you would know, you do not look a day over 45.
SPEAKER_00Oh, you were very kind. Thank you.
SPEAKER_05Thank you. And I'm about to be 45, so you don't look a day over 45.
SPEAKER_00Uh congratulations. Clean living or joyful living.
SPEAKER_05Joyful living, clean living, all of those, all of those wonderful, wonderful things.
SPEAKER_00Laughing a lot.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And that's what I've noticed about you is like you like you are a very happy, go lucky individual. And I think that is infectious.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you.
SPEAKER_05Like, I and I love when you MC things because I just get to sit there and just get to hear your voice and go, he's yeah, he's got it.
SPEAKER_00That was that was totally unexpected. Uh year years ago. Um, I think I was the MC for a veteran. It was bitterly cold outside, a veteran's day in November. Oh, wow. For Elizabeth Chapman, who was a dean at the time. And I think it just snowballed from there. Um, the Cody Awards here for our students, the continuing education. Uh the continuing education that's relatively new. Uh the Linda Stiegall Excellence and Education Banquet, which I think has been going on 15, 16 years now. And that led to me doing the big things like the award ceremony for Lone Star and the Star Gala. Um, and this year I handed it over to two student MCs. I introduced them. So I'm hoping we're starting a new trend. A new a new thing because the the crowd at the foundation responds so well to our students.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome.
SPEAKER_05So you are you are a theater person at heart. Yeah, and you are a music person at heart. Absolutely. The thing about, and that's what I love about theater is that it's there and then it's gone.
SPEAKER_00Ephemeral, definitely.
SPEAKER_05Absolutely ephemeral. So, what does that do to your legacy? What is that like when you're thinking about what you want people to remember you as or remember you for when you're gone, when you're off this campus and you're off traveling and having a great time in your retirement.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05What what do you want us to remember? What do you want those people? What do you want students to remember? What do you want this place to remember about you?
SPEAKER_00Somebody asked me once, wouldn't it be cool if they named a theater after you, the black box here or the main stage? And my immediate response was very much no. Um generally you name a building after someone because they have given amazing amounts of money. And I don't have those amazing amounts of money. Um, but I also have lived in and in the shadow of many of those buildings on many different campuses, and it's a plaque on the wall. There's not much connection between Himley Hall and Himley the man and Eric Skiles, the music student, circa 1990. I think for educators and for directors, it's the family that you build in almost every project that you do. We don't get to build quite the same family in the classroom. Yeah, but we are building a community. I think in the theater shows we are definitely building a family. And I've always been very cognizant about that these groups only last for a certain time. And then they become something that we just we live with and we remember hopefully fondly. Um I toured right out of high school and right in the middle of college with a an evangelical Christian group called the Continentals. And over the course of a summer we would travel across the US and sometimes to Europe and uh 40 teenagers on a bus. Wow. Um, you know, singing this concert, doing this performance every night, sometimes 93, 96 times. And those people become your siblings. Oh, absolutely. And then at the end of the summer, there is this wrenching realization, at least the first time you travel, there's this wrenching realization that this is it. I will feasibly never be around this group in its in it in this existence ever again. Um, and we had a we had a little reunion of one of the groups during COVID. We had a little Zoom meeting, and it was great, but it wasn't everybody. Right. And everyone's lives are now so different than they were. Um, so I think I've always understood that these are these are fleeting moments in the in the in the scheme of history, but you have to cherish them while you're in the middle of it and then acknowledge it and and let it go. Um, so I have students now, gosh, I'm still in contact with many of them on Facebook and social media, going all the way back to um teaching at Sands out in West Texas because those were some of my first seniors that I graduated. Yeah, absolutely. And um, and I follow their lives, and every once in a while it's like, I am so proud of you, and look what you have done, and so many of them have become teachers. And then I have students that are in New York uh doing theater, and I have students in New York that are uh doing bands and being bartenders, and so the the they the diasphora, right? Right. This like our like our lone star sort of sparkles at the end and we all disperse. That's just sort of um part of that process. So for me, the legacy is the lives impacted, the uh the people I've come in contact with, hopefully, something that I have provided them or helped them discover that goes and stays with them. I love that. Yeah, I love that too.
SPEAKER_05And that's there, there is kind of what I expected.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there there is no illusion, right? In in four years, there will not be a student here that ever knew me as a director or a professor.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, in ten years, the handful of staff and faculty will be much smaller. That is just life and attrition. And so you eventually the posters on the walls, you know, will change out right now. Hey, I've got an entire hallway and it's my entire career here. It's pretty cool to walk through. And I'm gonna get all the pictures of all of it, right? And I've got all the spreadsheets. Yeah. Um, but then it's going to evolve. And the next artistic director is gonna put their stamp on the department. And things that I've done that I've held near and dear, like the the evening of shorts, the student written plays may or may not uh make the transition, and the cabaret evening that raises all the wonderful money for scholarships, probably doesn't survive my transition because it's my project. But this place allowed me to come in and put my stamp on something, and they've been very supportive, and they will and should do that for the next artistic director.
SPEAKER_01Well, and that was gonna be my question. So, as the the this you know, the transition to the next person, whoever that is, what uh what advice would you have for whoever takes over, takes the reins, and maybe what note would you give them?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, my goodness. Um it's a great department trust the students, do the work that you love doing, and the love will transfer to the and the passion and the the knowledge will transfer to the students. I don't think if a director doesn't love the show that they're directing, why even do it? Right. It's um I I did a show not too long ago and it was an outside company and they asked me, Have you ever directed this before? And I said, No, but I've always wanted to. And and I thought it was interesting. They were asking if I had ever directed it before, like I needed that experience to direct it again. It's like, uh I'm not sure I've redirected anything anything since I've been here because there's so much out there to explore. Now I might go to a different place and direct a show I've done previously, but that's another different experience with a different group and a different setup. So yeah, it's um yeah, and enjoy the ride. Yeah. Um, look for the positive. It's too easy. Let's be really honest. There's some day-to-day minutiae for all of us as professors that can really grate on your nerves. And you have to go outside, you have to take a walk, you have to refocus. Um, I wouldn't have been here 23, eventually 23 and a half years if I hadn't loved it here, the people, the students. And you have to look, uh yeah, go out and explode. Find somebody who has an ear and will listen to you do all the ugly talk, think all the dark thoughts, express them out loud, and then move on.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00And then move on. Um, because there's a bigger picture.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I hear over and over. I hear you saying, explore and and commit to your passions.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Live in the moment and and and be true to yourself.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_05One last question. Okay. Last question. What does act four look like? Where are you gonna go? What are you gonna do next?
SPEAKER_00Oh goodness. Um, I've asked Randy if we can stay in Houston for at least a year. That's my time to decompress. For those of you at home, Randy has already retired. He's been lording this over me now for a year and a half. Um, and he retired from Lone Star. Uh, and so now I want to get that time period just to, as I said, decompress, um, see who I am not being the professor and the artistic director. I do have a few directing gigs lined up. I'm gonna audition for a few shows.
SPEAKER_05Oh, excellent.
SPEAKER_00We would um we would eventually love to relocate out into the high desert again. Um, probably New Mexico, if we can get there. But that's, you know, a few years down the road. And I have already been in contact with some of the departments and divisions on campus here and some of our centers. Um, and probably after a year, which is what TRS, which is Teacher Retirement System of Texas, they would really like you to not do anything for a year just for a safety catch. Um, and then I will probably teach again. Okay. I want to see what it's like to, and some people will laugh, but what it's like to just teach two or three classes, not be the artistic director at the same time, not be the head of the department and the scheduler and the financial piece of that puzzle. I just I want to remember the joy of teaching. Um, I think on campus it would probably be my my quote unquote side gig, which is the humanities course that I teach, the ancient cultures. Um, but if I teach anything theater, I want to be at the centers so that I am not encroaching in any way on the new artistic director. I don't need to be the old Hamlet's father's ghost in the corner. That's that's not fair to them. Right. That's not fair to them. They need they need to come in and and hit the ground running young. I'm I'm assuming young and energetic and new ideas and do the thing. As our chancellor would say, do the thing.
SPEAKER_01I have so enjoyed this conversation, Aaron. Thank you.
SPEAKER_05This has been one of the my favorite hours. So thank you. I want to thank you for coming on and we will see you next month. This has been Ed, a frank discussion about topics that matter in education. The views expressed in this episode are those of the host, co-host, and any guests. They do not reflect the views or values of Lone Star College. For further information about Ed, please visit our website at www.ed.busroute.com. Next month on Ed, another special sit-down with Rob Hunt, professor of music at Lone Star College Kingwood, to discuss his collaborations and passion projects. Ed was produced by Andy Luster and Twila Coy, music provided by Laborio Conti.
