Episode 209: Page to Stage: What can you learn in 48 hours?

What can you learn when you put up a show from page to stage in 48 hours? Teacher and playwright Scott Giessler shares his experience. If you want your students to have an immediate lesson in problem solving this is the conversation for you!

Show Notes

Life, Off Book
Finishing Sentences
Oddball

Episode Transcript

Welcome to the Drama Teacher Podcast brought to you by Theatrefolk – the Drama Teacher Resource Company.

I’m Lindsay Price.

Hello! I hope you're well.

Thanks for listening!

Here is the question of the episode:

“What can you learn when you put up a play in 48 hours?”

I’m just going to let that resonate with you. Play to stage in just two days – not two months, not a year – two days!

So, this 48-hour play project, that’s what our guest did today with his students, and he’s going to share his experience with this great project, this great problem-solving project. Aha! Everything is a learning experience.

Now, I have to warn you, the sound may be a little wonky. When we recorded it, there was bad weather on my end, bad weather on his end, so that’s what I’m blaming it on – weather! But what Scott has to say is so lovely. Oh, I really love this conversation, so hang in there. I’m going to hang in there. You do it, too. All right? Let’s do it.

LINDSAY: Hello everybody!

I am here, talking to Scott Giessler.

Hello, Scott!

SCOTT: Hello!

LINDSAY: So, tell everybody where in the world you are.

SCOTT: I am calling from very cold, Wolfeboro, New Hampshire.

LINDSAY: I hear you. I feel you. I’m hoping that, when this goes up, maybe it won’t be so cold, but you never know!

SCOTT: Yeah.

LINDSAY: Scott, you are a teacher and playwright, so let’s just start with the teacher first. How long have you been a drama teacher?

SCOTT: I’ve been doing it for 17 years, and it’s been a pretty steady job at that. I started in 2001 and I’ve been just working at it ever since.

LINDSAY: What made you want to get into the teaching aspect?

SCOTT: Okay. Well, I had another life before this where I was working in the commercial sector because I went to college and I wanted to be a screenwriter. After I left college, I went through several different jobs in the commercial sector, just in the entertainment biz – both in Boston. Then, I moved to LA and did a little work there.

There was just a point where I started to realize that there was kind of that big, empty hole in my life of, you know, these jobs are interesting on some level, but I couldn’t care any less about them. And then, it all came to a head when I’d gotten laid off at a job and I just couldn’t imagine applying for any other jobs that were available.

My wife and I sat down and sort of talked about it. We developed a plan to move back east to New Hampshire where I’d spent a lot of my summers. When I got here, as it turned out, the local high school was looking for a theatre teacher.

So, things really kind of magically came together for me, all in the summer of 2001, and they hired me on a wing and a prayer because I had no credentials at the time. Eventually, you know, it started off as just sort of a stipend job when I was a study hall monitor, and I think I taught a theatre class in middle school whi...