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.