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20 Questions with Catherine Clark
“I designed my first show here in ’97 as a freelance
designer. I knew BFS Performing Arts teacher Erika Radin through
the NYU Educational Theatre Program. This is my sixth year here
full time.” BFS Tech Director Catherine Clark has been the glue
holding the school’s theatrical productions together for going on
a decade, along with pretty much anything that goes on in the newly
renovated Pearl Street Meeting House. “I’m responsible for sound,
sets, lights and costumes for a play, but also day to day if someone
wants to use PowerPoint or anything else I handle that, too, along
with calendaring and budgeting." She also teaches in the Middle
School, and this year is co-teaching the new IB Theatre curriculum
for the Upper School Catherine talked shop with staff writer Jeffrey
Stanley recently in the performing arts department’s brand new shared
office on the 3rd floor.
1. What exactly does a Technical Director teach?
Aside from teaching
kids to do all the technical things that need to happen to make a
show go, I teach design. I’ve had a Middle School design class for
four years and sometimes an Upper School class. We study set, costuming,
lighting design. ’What visual choices can you make to help tell the
story?’ is how I present it to the students.
2. The Upper School course has this year morphed into the two-year
IB Theatre class. How has it become different?
First of all I co-teach
with [BFS drama teacher and director] Jeremy Richards, and the course
now has a global perspective. It’s not just acting, it’s not just
design, and the traditions we study are not just Western. They have
to direct things themselves. It’s a developing curriculum because
it’s never been taught before (and not just here at BFS. The IB Theatre
course has been completely redesigned, and this is the first year
of the new course. Jeremy and I went to Florida last summer to do
a week of training on the IBO’s
expectations for the course and on strategies for how to teach.
3. What kinds of texts do you study? What are you doing in there
right now?
We just finished a unit on Greek theatre and we’re performing
an abridged version of Lysistrata. We have eight students and they
all had to submit a production concept. The class then voted on the
one they liked best and that student gets to direct the production.
4. What do you like best about teaching?
When you’re in a classroom
or in a rehearsal and you see students getting it, you see the light
bulb go off. When I work on a project with a student backstage or
in the classroom I often just tell them what our end goal is, and
have them help figure out how to make it happen. Sometimes we have
to talk through two or three ideas, but when they hit on the one
that works they just light up. You can tell that it was so much more
meaningful for them to come to it on their own than it would have
been if I had just told them what to do.
5. What do you like least?
Middle Schoolers, last period, on a Friday.
6. ’Nuff said. What do you do when you’re not busting heads here
at BFS?
I teach reading at the Brooklyn Public Library.
7. That’s very cool, you’re putting a lot of us to shame. Who are
your students?
They’re adult learners, we meet twice a week. Most
of them have GED or pre-GED as their goal.
8. What else?
I like to read. I just read The Yiddish Policemen’s
Union by Michael Chabon.
9. Any good? Should I read it?
Yes although it’s not as good as
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.
10. Any other hobbies?
I knit, I sew. I made my own wedding dress.
11. Wait, that’s way more than a hobby. You made your own wedding
dress?
Yes, and we got married on the Brooklyn Bridge.
12. That’s a pretty firm commitment to New York, getting married
on the Brooklyn Bridge. Were you born here?
I was born just upstate
in Middletown but I’ve lived all over the Northeast. I’ve lived in
New York City for 14 years.
13. That probably means you’re a lifer. Any favorite restaurants
here?
I really like Paprika which is a little Italian restaurant on
St. Mark’s Place in Manhattan.
14. Any good dishes there to recommend?
The gnocchi.
15. Desert island question. What three things?
A Leatherman Multi-Tool,
something to write with and something to write on.
16. Concise answer, good job. Why the Leatherman?
To survive on
the island!
17. Spoken like a true technical director. What’s one thing that’s
always in your fridge?
Milk.
18. And the big wrapup question: what’s your sign?
Pisces.
19. That’s the fish, right? What month is that?
It’s actually Pisces-Aries
cusp, March 20th.
20. What’s the cusp mean?
It’s supposed to mean I’m creative but
not dippy.
No worries there.
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