Theatre Etiquette 101

Episode 166: Theatre Etiquette 101 When teaching students who are brand-new to theatre, it’s important to discuss and apply the expectations of the drama classroom, and the theatrical world. Join drama educator Kerry Hishon as she shares her expertise on how to implement and instil theatre etiquette in your classroom, your rehearsal, backstage and during a strike. A cohesive theatrical community starts with the rules and codes of behaviour both onstage and off. Show Notes DTA Course: Theatre Etiquette   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. Hello! I hope you're well. Thanks for listening! This is Episode 166. You can find any links to this episode in the show notes which are at Theatrefolk.com/episode166. Today, we are talking to a theatre person, Kerry Hishon, who is an absolute doll. I love Kerry. Kerry has been writing blog posts for Theatrefolk all this year and I love her point of view. She’s also a Drama Teacher Academy instructor and, this month, we published her course on Theatre Etiquette which I’ll get into after the interview. The course on Theatre Etiquette, I’ll get into after the interview about Theatre Etiquette. Ah! See how I did that? Well, we’ve got course, we’ve got interview. It’s all coming together. It’s all melding together. What is that? It’s not synergy. Oh, you know, a meld together kind of word that I can’t think of right now. Anyway, theatre etiquette, what are the expectations of the drama classroom and the theatrical world? So much to talk about! Let’s get to it. LINDSAY: I am here with Kerry Hishon. Hello, Kerry! KERRY: Hello! LINDSAY: We are in London, Ontario today. We are talking about theatre etiquette. That’s the teaser. That’s the topic. Kerry, how long have you been working? You’ve been working with youth theatre for a while now. KERRY: Yeah, I first started working in youth theatre in about 2008 – the London Community Players Palace Theatre – and then, in 2010, I started working at Original Kids Theatre Company and I’ve been there ever since! LINDSAY: When you talk about theatre etiquette, a lot of what you know just comes from the day to day of working with youth and what they do. KERRY: Exactly, yeah. One of my favorite parts of my job at Original Kids is I get to run the TAG program. It stands for The Actor Grows. It’s an introductory program for young actors who are brand new to the program and it teaches them a little bit about everything in the theatre – just little workshops for three months and it culminates with a showcase. But one of the biggest things we talk about is theatre etiquette because these kids have never done it before. We want to tell them what they need to know, how they can succeed in the theatre, and really what they need to know just to get around and explain the terms and why we do the things we do. Basically, what I wanted to know when I was starting out in theatre, I want to share with my students and help make their lives a little easier. LINDSAY: Right. Of course, when we’re talking theatre etiquette, we’re being very specific here. We’re talking about theatre etiquette that happens in the drama classroom. We’re talking about theatre etiquette that happens whether it’s a class show or whether it’s a drama club show or a bigger production.