The Grapevine Spring 2025 - Memorial Drama Club Full Interview

Special thanks to everyone mentioned in this interview:

Eliav Goldman- Toki Middle School Choir and Theatre Director, Memorial High School Theatre Director.

Allison Statz Hinze- Toki Middle School Health Teacher and Theatre Costume Designer, Memorial High School Assistant Costume Designer.

Lexington (Lars) McKillop- Memorial High School Drama Head of Media & Marketing.

Grace Greene- Toki Middle School Co-Theatre Director and Stage Manager, Memorial High School Assistant Costume Designer.

Shawn Weber McMahon- Gillespie Middle School Choir and Theatre Director, Memorial High School Choir Director and Co-Musical Theatre Director.

Frank Schneeberger- Memorial High School Set Designer, Theater Technician.

Kyle Spradling- Memorial High School Sound Designer, Sound Designer.

Laurel Streekstra- Memorial High School Stage Manager and Production Manager.

Martha Wildman- Memorial High School Lighting Designer and Crew Manager.

Overture Center for the Arts, Toki Middle School and Memorial High School Custodial Staff: Thank you.

FULL INTERVIEW

LARS: Let's get into it. How did you become involved with theater? 

ELIAV: I did youth theater when I was younger- there was this Summer Drama Program above the Shorewood Pool that I would participate in every year- me and my sister, and it was fun, but I was not that into it. There are home videos of our performances of, like, “Cockadoodle Dandy”, I think was one of the shows. It was a bunch of chickens. I was not into it. As a performer, it wasn't my thing.

So then I didn't do theater until my senior year of high school. I did the musical at West High School and had a lot of fun. I did some opera productions in college and out of college and that was really my personal experience with performing. Theater was not a significant interest to me, really. It was only when I got here and got this stab at Toki out of college that I learned that I was going to be teaching a theater class and directing a show, and I had to figure that out. In that first semester there were a lot of discoveries! We put on a production of The Lion King that involved a lot of students doing the costuming, and we had no set, no microphones, no anything. It was a very bare-bones production.

After COVID, we came back and the students wanted to start a drama club, and now the productions live in the club rather than the class, and now we have an actual structure to get student involvement and it's a much better situation. So really, I feel like my theater story really started when I came to Toki. Like, the theater wasn't a part of my life until I came here.

LARS: Allison, what about you?

ALLISON: Well, I grew up not being a part of theater at all. I famously had a fourth-grade solo that I… did not start, and I had to restart it… it was a whole thing. That was kind of the end of my performing career.

Once I got to high school, I think it was Little Shop of Horrors that I saw Memorial put on, and I was like, whoa! I want to be a part of this!

 So, I joined the production team of Memorial Drama Club, and then I did costuming- helping out with costumes and dressing back when they had the tiny little dressing rooms backstage- and I've been sewing since I was seven-years-old. It wasn't until I was bragging here about knowing how to sew when [Eliav] Goldman, who was running “Fashion Club…”

ELIAV: The children ran that.

ALLISON: You were there. But it was then that I was asked to help out to make a pair of pants in mid-April, when The Lion King was supposed to be in May, and then it's just sort of gone from there. I've taken on other productions as well and became the person that all of our crew kids could go to during rehearsal, and then when Eliav got hired at Memorial, that's when I came on to help out with the musicals there, costuming. That [Memorial’s 2024 musical “The Addams Family”] was the first time that I started designing costumes and learned how to pattern, so within the last 12 months, I've totally learned how to pattern everything. There was not a single pattern that I bought from Something Rotten! [Memorial’s 2025 musical]. Everything that I did, I designed it and made it. It's a little crazy up in my brain, but that was a really cool thing that I've learned in the last couple of years.

LARS: What was your favorite production to be a part of? 

[Menacingly] Yeah, that's our next question Eliav. Just tell me your honest, true answer.

ELIAV: [Laughs] I think that’s tricky. Based on the last question you asked about our own theater journeys, I didn't really feel like theater had that much importance in my life until, I would say, the production of Beauty and the Beast that we did here [Toki Middle School] three years ago.

I think that was the real start of Drama Club. We had come back from COVID, and these kids were like, “We want these opportunities, and we're gonna make them happen,” and that was before Allison [Hinze] or Grace [Greene] or anybody. It was just me doing everything the best that I could and really relying on the kids. So, costumes the kids just brought their own stuff. They did their own hair and makeup; I spent a bunch of my own money getting microphones and spent weekends hanging things from the curtains and trying to make it work. The kids were here every Wednesday morning painting from seven to nine before school, and I think for me, it just showed me the beauty of what communities like this can do. So I think for that reason, Beauty and the Beast was probably my favorite production.

Since then, I've gone on to do amazing shows that have been (probably) more fun from a working perspective, or, like, certainly more put together shows, but I think for my own journey that that symbolizes the beginning of it all.

LARS: Allison, what was your favorite show to work on?

ALLISON: Well, I feel like with every show that I've been a part of, I've done something different, or I've learned something new. With Something Rotten!, it was patterning; Learning how to make all these different things. With Toki’s Frozen that we're doing right now, it has such a huge production value, and we have the capacity to make it as big as we want to, and that's unbelievable and super cool that we get to do that. My senior year of high school was the first time that me and another head of costumes were planning the costume plots and figuring out quick changes and things like that, and so that was also a super cool thing that we did, but I don't know.

I think to pick a fav; I might have to say The Lion King (again) [Toki Middle School performed The Lion King in both 2021 and 2023]. Just because after a crazy month, sitting in the audience watching just the things that I had done in the last 30 days was crazy and super cool to see, and it sort of solidified that this was something that I wanted to be a part of.

ELIAV: I think that production, too, was- not only did we have this community of students that wanted to build this program, but then we had other adults helping out. We had the Overture Center coming in and saying, “How can we support you?” before there was even a middle school program for the Disney Musicals at Schools Program, and so that was another starting point of being like, “Okay, not only can we make this happen for our kids in just a rudimentary way, but there is a lot of support to make this as big as we wanted to be,” and now since that year, actually since Beauty and the Beast too, Toki Drama Club is the biggest club in in MMSD after school programs in elementary and middle school, so that was really cool.

Also, The Lion King is so good.

ALLISON: The Lion King is just also so good.

ELIAV: And we got to go to the Overture Center and meet people from the Broadway tour, and it was a big year for the Toki drama club.

LARS: Is there a show that you guys have always wanted to work on but haven't had the chance to? Spoil next year's Disney musical!

ELIAV: Well, with the Disney shows, we’re sort of limited by choice. There's only so many that you can do that are junior shows. We have a certain structure where we'll throw ideas around for months and then we'll choose something, and then one of us will have a spiral of being like, “Are we actually doing this?” and then we'll look at every single possible option again, and then we're like, no, yeah, this is what we're doing. So, I think there are many shows. We've only just started, right?

Every possible show out there is something we'd like to do at some point. I don't know if there's specific costume ones that you're-

ALLISON: No, the cool thing about being a costume designer is that I find joy in being able to see what different productions have done and then make it our own; Something unique to whatever the production that I'm a part of is. Whatever we pick, I get to brainstorm exactly what I want to do. Costuming wise, I would love to do something in the hoop skirt era. We've never done that but seeing that kind of costume would be kind of crazy. Otherwise, no.

ELIAV: One of the things we always talk about when we're choosing our shows is that the most important thing to us is that it fits the vibe of the program and who we have at that time.

I'll say that- this is not like a secret; we've told people about this- but there was a moment where we thought about doing Les Misérables for Memorial for this year. Both of us love that show, everyone involved in Memorial's program loves that show. Frank [Schneeberger- Memorial’s Set Designer] was like, “I’ll build you a turntable!” and we were like, “Great!” It just didn't fit the vibe of our program for this year, and Something Rotten!, which is what we did end up choosing, was the perfect fit. Sometimes it just happens that way. There are shows that you want to do, but you just have to wait for the right moment.

LARS: When we would talk about it in classes- this is behind the scenes knowledge, guys- this isn't that crazy of a secret, but all the Memorial kids, before a show is announced, guess what the show is and then make cast lists for it. We guessed it was  Something Rotten! Everyone was almost positive that it was Something Rotten! because I hadn't shut up about it for a year, and everyone made a cast list and I kid you not, everyone's cast lists matched almost exactly what the actual cast list was. It speaks to how well the shows are picked because people know how to cast these shows because we have the right people for it.

ELIAV: I think that's the best situation as a director or as a production team when you've chosen the show so well that the casting decisions are not that difficult. They're always difficult, and you never walk in with a preconceived notion of exactly how it's going to shake out, but you do think, like, “Oh, this person could do this, and this person could do this, this, and this.” And if you choose your show in such a way that it works out like that, everybody's already on board because they've already seen the potential.

LARS: How many shows did Toki and Memorial produce annually?

ELIAV: So, Toki does one…

LARS: [Laughs.] Yeah, let's talk about Memorial.

ELIAV: Memorial technically does three- a Fall Play, a Winter Musical, and then some sort of Spring Show- but this year is a little bit different, because we're starting something called “Spring Week of the Arts” at Memorial, which is an opportunity to showcase a lot of the amazing Arts Education experiences that are happening in the building. So we’re doing a couple of things that we haven't done in the past.

 We're doing three student directed One-Act Plays, you've written and are directing one, which is really exciting. And then you and I are putting together a Sondheim Revue, so really, it's five shows this year. Now those two are a little bit smaller in terms of the production value, they're meant to be put in a Black Box Theater, minimal lighting or sound or costumes, but it's still really cool that we're increasing performance opportunities for students in the program this year.

LARS: You guys are going to have a fun time answering this one. How are the shows funded? 

ELIAV & ALLISON: [Laugh.]

ELIAV: Ah, yes…

[Allison gestures to a 3-foot-long JOANN receipt hanging from the wall.]

Yeah, there you go.

Over the years at Toki, we've been funded by some MSCR grant funding that we got in the first couple of years. We're also now part of the Disney Musicals at Schools Program through Overture, so our show rights are paid for in the first two years by Overture. Next year they will only pay for half. And then out of our pockets, we've collectively- the two of us- over the past couple of years have spent pretty close to $10,000 of our own money. This year we have been more proactive, thanks to some active parents in our Drama Community who have known that has been the case and are like, “Well, that's unacceptable, we're gonna try and raise money”. So, we've managed to- We actually had one kid who took it upon himself to go door-to-door, and he raised $2,000 in five days on his own.

And so, we've had a lot of contributions from families this year, which has been really great. We have a little “fundraiser tracker” that was made by one of our Drama families. So that's been great.  We've gotten some large donations from various organizations- benefactors- and that's been really lovely, so we're hoping that we are building a kind of fundraising structure such that Drama Club can sustain itself for the future. We have a team of dedicated parents who are working on that.

ALLISON: I think what’s so cool, too, is for parents to see and know how much we care and how we've put into the program because we care about it, and they find it unacceptable because they're so into it that they don't want us to have to do that. They want the program to continue and to be successful not just because the few adults that are running it are putting all this money in, right?

And so, them being really proactive this year has been really great. To see that we're not just blindly going into this, but the parents have our backs as well and believe in the things that we are doing just as much as we do.

ELIAV: Yeah. Memorial’s shows are funded by our ticket sales, and there was some really great stewardship- despite the turbulence of those intervening years after Tom Harding left- and there was a lot of flux in the directors and who was running the program, but there was some good stewardship, financially, during that time, so when I walked into that position, we were in pretty good shape so that we could do big shows right off the bat like The Addams Family and Something Rotten!. We still spend a significant amount of our own money on those shows. It’s frankly easier a lot of the time. There’s a checking account, each school has a checking account and then there are different account strings within that checking account, and so the drama program has one. And it's useful a lot of the time, we pay for a lot of things through that, but if we need emergency hairspray or batteries or foam or any number of things, it's often easier to use your own money and we can get reimbursed if we uh if we get the tax taken off, but it's a complicated thing. So we tend to spend our own money on those productions as well.

ALLISON: Especially as we get closer to the end, we can't wait for someone else to put an Amazon order through when it could be put through and could be delivered to us in 24 hours. So, it's helpful and it's necessary, but sometimes we find ourselves still spending our money.

ELIAV: That's sort of the nature of how things go, but this year we were definitely a lot more conscious of that and held off for longer, I would say. We implemented a lot of new things that you helped do that helped us get more money, like concessions and merch and that really contributed to what I hope is the model for the future in that we're not just surviving on our own money or on or even just on the ticket sales, but coming to our shows is a whole experience, and having opportunities to support the program, whether they be a concession booth at intermission or merch created by someone in the production or someone in our program, right?

Those things are special, so we like providing those opportunities, and audiences enjoy having those opportunities to support the program in different ways.

ALLISON: I think what’s also really cool is, after Something Rotten!, seeing our students at Toki walking around with Something Rotten! merch. It's like, “Oh my gosh, look at this, this is so cool!” They’re wearing their egg earrings still, and it's like, “Oh my gosh, your precious little middle schoolers.” But it's not just the fact that they got to buy something or have a souvenir from the show, but it's the memory made with Memorial Theater, and I think that's super cool, and it helps build what Memorial is building.

ELIAV: Oh, yeah, it’s them feeling like they're part of that community before they’ve even stepped through the door.

LARS: This isn't a question that's written down, but I think something that is important to talk about is that we’ve added a new structure to Drama at Memorial this year. Do you want to talk about how you came to that decision and how that's helped you or helped us as a club?

ELIAV: Sure, yeah. I think this is the first year that Memorial had had the same theater director two years in a row in a while, so to me it was really important to look at what went well last year, what things we can improve, and how we can make this program even stronger. Specifically, from an educational perspective, what opportunities can we give to our students?

So, in conversations with our incoming seniors in the summer, we wanted to model the program after a professional production company and have different assigned roles. It worked out this year that we had people we had to just choose and be like, “Hey, you've already been doing this, now let's give it a name.”  I think that the added structure has really benefited the program because I think we're more organized this year. I think we're really on top of our respective departments. We have fantastic leadership from all you seniors, which will be difficult to fill next year, but I'm sure people will step up. I think also for that educational piece, at the heart of it, we are an educational program, right? The most important thing is that you all get experiences that you can either take out into the world and then apply directly, like, go out and do more theater, or you can learn skills that can be applied, that can be transferred to other areas of your life.

And so, I think for someone like Laurel [Streekstra- Memorial’s Stage Manager, Senior], who is going on to do [Stage Management] professionally; Having her stage manage shows, but then also be our production manager for the whole year? That's giving her way more skills that she can then apply to her degree and to her life in the theater beyond this. For someone like Martha [Wildman- Memorial’s Lighting Designer, Senior], who's not going on to do theater, she has the skills now as a Crew Manager from her Crew Manager position this year. She was already doing this, but now she's established; It's on her resume, and she can show people that [she] knows how to communicate this, this and this. That will help her in whatever she goes on to do. So, I think that structure has benefited our program as a whole, but also our individual students as they seek out those learning opportunities.

LARS: Totally. The next question I have for you guys is, how much time goes into rehearsals? 

ELIAV: Just rehearsals?

LARS: Well, please elaborate on that question.

ELIAV: Are you asking just about the rehearsal process, or the whole production process?

LARS: I think both are important to think about.

ELIAV: Let's find some numbers.

LARS: Let's find some numbers!

ALLISON: We are tracking this.

LARS: For the transcription, Eliav is pulling out his laptop to get his minutes.

ELIAV: Do you want everything, or do you want a specific period of time?

LARS: Give me everything.

ALLISON: Oh, God...

 ELIAV: So, just my hours for my Memorial Theater Directing since August, that's how many hours I've spent working on productions there. So, you can see in January, which was the height of Something Rotten! production, it looks like I spent 223 hours working there in January, and 174 in February.

 If you then add Toki now, we're at…Toki’s more spread out, so it'll be crazy in May, but that's not that bad. 311 hours since August, that's okay, we meet once a week. So August to the beginning of November, then would be Lend Me A Tenor [Memorial’s 2024 Fall Play].

LARS: Banger show.

ELIAV: Banger show. That's 350, 400 hours. Then right after some of that would have been Something Rotten! too, because there's always overlap, right? But into February, I mean, I don't even know. A lot more hours. So, I think a lot; A lot is the answer to the question.

The problem that both of us have is that we really like this, you know? It’s hard when you're excited about something, it’s hard to put that away. You know that feeling. We spend the time that we spend not only because we love it, but also because we care so deeply about the experience we're providing for our students. That's why we spend our own money. That's why we spend this much time. It's certainly not an example to set, but those are the reasons.

ALLISON: It's because it's something we want to do, right? While we are more or less alive at certain points of the year, we care so much about it that we want to think about it. We want to come in early to figure out choreo, to be sewing, to paint things, to run morning rehearsals, so I think that makes it feel like it's way less. Even though the numbers are so high, it feels like the things that we are doing are really productive, and it's really fun.

We're very lucky that we all get along very well. It makes it feel less like work, even though that's not a good reason to work for a thousand hours.

ELIAV: I mean, we literally talk about whatever production (or productions) we're working on every morning.

Our school, Toki, doesn't start until 8:50, our contract time is 8:30, but we're here at 7:00 or 7:20 either working on productions, rehearsing with kids, talking about productions, and then I'll go to Memorial and do a production meeting with all you at lunch, or work on things for shows there, and then rehearse in the in the evening after school, and during like the musical Allison [Hinze] and Grace [Greene] are teaching a full day after we've talked in the morning, and then they're coming straight over to Memorial to work on stuff afterwards while rehearsing and well afterward rehearsing. These are long days. 15, 16 hour days, and like Alison said, we are lucky that we are all such good friends, and we love what we do, and we care. It makes all of that okay.

LARS: What is unique about a theater at Toki and Memorial?

ALLISON: No one's doing it like Toki Drama.

LARS: Hey! Hey.

ALLISON: Sorry, no middle schoolers.

LARS: That's what I thought you said.

ELIAV: I think this applies to both schools, but at the beginning of the year at our very first Toki Drama Club meeting, I asked the eighth graders who had been in productions before to come up and do a little panel and let the sixth and seventh graders ask them questions. I started it off by asking them, “So, you're in eighth grade, you've been in productions before, why are you back?” Every single kid said, “Because of the community that we’ve created here,” and as a teacher, you're like, we did it. That's exactly what you want.

I feel that way about Memorial as well. In both places, there are hard times and disagreements, and that's just what it's like when you are working so hard on something and care so much, but at the end of the day, the reason that I keep doing this is the people. You've heard me say this many times now, but I value so greatly the opportunity to work really hard on something with people that you care about and then share that thing with the people that you care about and the people that care about you. There’s nothing like that experience. So, I think the fact that we value that so highly, both here and at Memorial, I think that's unique.

 I think theater has such an awful tendency to get toxic, and when you have that mentality of, “This isn't just about me, but this is about this whole community,” I think it safeguards us from that toxicity a little bit.

ALLISON: Coming from the Memorial Theater Program that I was a part of in high school, with our theater director, it was not the community that Memorial today is, and it feels so great that everyone that is a part of it is so into it. You can tell when kids are excited and when everyone coming together feels like they're doing the right thing, amazing things happen. This year at Toki, our kids have been excited from day one. We did a table read- Tears. I mean, it was unbelievable, and that was really cool, and the energy has just continued. It hasn’t worn out; Kids are still excited and now that we're getting closer to the show, it's become even cooler. Now that we've added blocking and we're starting choreography, it feels like our students are finally seeing the product of everything they've done up until now and it's just wonderful, because they're all excited about it. It's not just the adults that are excited, but also every person that's a part of it, whether they're in the show, whether they're on the crew, whatever it is.

ELIAV: I think that's really important, and I think also in both spaces, we really value student leadership and input. The theater program at Memorial is run by students. There is no secret about that, right? Like, yeah, I'm there, Frank [Schneeberger] is there, Ms. McMahon [Memorial’s Choir Director, Co-Musical Theatre Director] is there, but that program is run by you and your peers. That has also always been true here at Toki. The Drama Club was started by students, I just happened to be the faculty advisor. I think, because we make so much room for students to have those kinds of opportunities, the buy-in is so much greater, because they're walking into a space where they know that their ideas matter. Not just matter superficially, but their ideas are going to be on stage. They're given that freedom and that responsibility, and I think that aspect is something that we value highly, and also speaks volumes for the community aspect too. When you feel like you're in a place where you matter and your ideas matter, then you want to be part of that community. It's a positive feedback loop.

LARS: What advice do you have for youth considering participating in theater for the first time?

ELIAV: Do it!

LARS: [Laughs.] That’s the opposite response Laurel [Streekstra] gave.

ELIAV: [Laughs.] Arts Education in general is, I mean, I'm an arts educator. Music and theater, that's just what I do, right? And I think it is so disproportionately undervalued by our society when you compare it to how important it is in development and in being a person. It does so many wonderful things, and I think for students who are thinking, “Oh, do I want to try that out?” whether it be on stage or backstage, the benefits are so great. It might be hard to see them on paper, but all you need to do is talk to somebody who's been doing it. Maybe not Laurel [Streekstra].

ALL: [Laughs.]

ELIAV: Talk to someone who's been in a program like Toki's, like Memorial’s, or one of the other great programs in our city or country, and they'll tell you what those benefits for them have been.

I wish that I had been part of something like this for longer. I wish I hadn't come to it as a 23-year-old. It would have been nice to have this kind of community when I was in middle school. When I was in high school, it was sort of like this, but not quite.

 So, I would encourage everyone to give it a shot. There's a place for everybody in the theater. All abilities, all interests, there is room for you.

ALLISON: I remember hesitating too when I was like, “This was so cool, I want to be a part of this,” but feeling like, “Oh, I don't really know anyone that's a part of it yet. I don't know that community, I don't really have any friends that are doing theater yet.”  So, I remember in my first year that I joined Memorial [theatre] for their spring production, it was so fun. I had so much fun, and then I kept going more and more, and I was able to bring more of the people that I was already friends with to come along. I made so many new friends, but then I was also able to show this cool thing to other people and it felt like all of my nervousness was for nothing because it was such a welcoming community and it gave me the space to be creative, and I think that that is something that I would want for all of our students.

LARS: On that, what advice do you have for youth looking to pursue a career related to theater?

ELIAV: Just like any career path, really, I think it comes down to “learning target curiosity.” I think genuinely being really curious as a person takes you a long way. It takes you where you want to go. There's so much that you're not going to know, so framing that as, “This is an opportunity for me to seek out this knowledge and go find somebody who knows how to do this and learn it from them.” That's what's gonna take you wherever you want to go; Having that curiosity and then being willing to be the person who reaches out and says, “I don't know this thing. Can you teach me?”

I'm learning from Kyle [Spradling], our Sound Designer, because I said, “Hey Kyle, I don't know how to do this, and it's important for me to know,” so he's been teaching me. It’s the same thing with lighting; I'll just look something up.

I think that if you have passion for something, curiosity is inherent, because you're like, “Wow, I really love this thing, and I want to learn more about it.” Make sure to use that as a tool for your own learning and for your advancement.

You also cannot overstate the importance of being a person who listens and a person who is generally willing to collaborate. That is so important in this industry. It's like what I talked about with curiosity. First, you got to know what you don't know. Then, you seek out the people who do know those things, and you learn from them and listen to them. Then, you look to apply yourself, and you continue to collaborate with that person or with other people who are around you and say, “Okay, here's what I learned, what do we think about this?” Those are such important life skills, and I think I would give that advice to students who are looking to pursue a career in theater, but also students who are looking to be good humans.

ALLISON: I would have to say, which- maybe this is not the question that you're asking- but it is never too late to come back to it. I sewed from seven to 18. I was in 4-H. I sewed clothing for myself, I sewed clothing for other people, but then I didn't touch a sewing machine until 2023. It was a long time that I didn't do anything, and it wasn't so much that I was like, “I'm sick of this, I hate it,” that's a whole other thing. It’s okay to step back from something when you need to, but it was cool to flex that muscle that I haven't hadn't used in a long time. It's not like it’s something that you must do and keep doing, and you have to meet this by this certain time. There's no box that you must be in.

When it comes to what I've been doing, it feels like I've learned so much in the last two years that I've been costuming shows. So, you can always go back. It's about finding the space where you want to be and then creating and finding your space in there.

ELIAV: Be nice!

ALLISON: Be a good person.

ELIAV: I mean, I said it more specifically earlier, but I think if you wanna boil it down to one thing, I think when you treat people kindly, they are always going to be more receptive to your ideas and want to have you around. That's really important in life, but certainly in this business. I've been on a couple of Broadway load-in and load-out calls at the Overture Center, and the people who are on that tour are exhausted, right? They just had a Sunday-to-Sunday run of the show, they've traveled, they've been traveling for months, they get no sleep, and then they must load-in the show and get it on the road. They could be jerks, but the ones who actually take a moment to say, “Thank you for helping,” to speak kindly to you, you remember those people, and you want to work with those people.

LARS: What are you guys working on right now and when can we see it? I don't know what you guys are doing or when we can see any of it.

ELIAV: [Laughs.] Yeah, why would you know?

LARS: I don't know you guys. Why am I here?

ELIAV: Well, we're working on Frozen Jr. here at Toki, and those performances are May 22-24. At Memorial, we've got three student-directed one-acts which will be during our Spring Week of the Arts, which is April 14-18. Showtimes TBD, as well as the Sondheim Revue. Our Spring Show at Memorial is called The Grown-Ups, May 9-10. Those are the shows in production right now, and you should come see all of them.

LARS: And donate to us. [Laughing.] Bring lots of cash. We will not have anything for you to buy, but please donate the money.

How long have you guys been involved with theater at Toki and Memorial respectively? 

ELIAV: If you count my first year, then, six years at Toki, and two years at Memorial.

ALLISON: This is my third year at Toki, if we're not counting my time as the talent show emcee.

ELIAV: Back in fifth grade?

ALLISON: No, in middle school! Back in 2007! But this is my third year at Toki and my second at Memorial.

LARS: And you guys are gonna stay at Memorial forever, right?

ELIAV: We sure hope so.

LARS: Yeah, that’d better be the plan. You’ll stay and you won't go anywhere. You’ve peaked now.

ALLISON: I was born a Spartan.

LARS: [To Eliav, a West graduate.] Yeah, like all of us here.

ALLISON: It would be traitorous to go anywhere else.

ELIAV: Lately I've been really feeling like a Spartan.

LARS: What is your favorite part of working in youth productions? 

ALLISON: I think it's great to give students a voice; Watch them use their creativity. I've said in my classroom, in school, in drama club: They’re so much smarter, cooler, and have better ideas than I do. Everything that I could think of, when I share it with students, they’re like, “Oh, let's do it like this, or we could do it like that,” and then it's an even better idea.

It's super cool to get to take something that I'm starting to think about and then receive student input that makes it even better, and then we all feel like we are a part of it. It's not like I'm just telling kids what to do, it feels like this big cyclical “We're all in it together” kind of thing.

ELIAV: To quote the most iconic film of all time, “We’re all in this together-“

ALLISON: -High School Musical-

ELIAV: -Troy Bolton.

 I think for me, the most rewarding part of this kind of work, and honestly being a teacher in general, is the relationships that you build. To speak to Allison's point, the fact that we have relationships with these students such that we all trust each other to share our ideas and collaborate in that way; That's really special. When I think about the kids who've come through here, and then now I get to work with them again at Memorial or see them at Memorial and the students that I’ve met at Memorial over the past two years, I'm just so grateful for those opportunities to work together on things. Like I said earlier, we work really hard on these things together, then share them with the people we care about. So, for me, it's those relationships. Over the past, maybe, 10 years in education, there's been a real trend of dealing with the power dynamics of the classroom and taking some of that hierarchy away from the teacher. They used to say, “Be the guide on the side, not the sage on the stage.” Did they ever say that in your-

ALLISON: Never heard that before.

ELIAV: Oh, great. Great. I don't know, they said that at UW. Essentially, they’re saying, instead of just being this guy who stands up there and lectures, help your students in different ways. Take that step off the podium. It seems counterintuitive because you're a Choir Director and a Theatre Director, so that's what you do. You stand up and in front of them and wave your arms or tell them exactly what to do, but nothing in my teaching career has allowed me to take a step back, collaborate, and work with my students, learn from my students, like being a Choir and Theatre Director has, because I get to say, “No, I don't have all the answers. Let's figure this out together.” I've now said it in three different ways, but it is just so incredibly rewarding, and I will always, always cherish that.

ALLISON: It would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge the fact that when we talk about the adults, especially at Toki, many of the people that help us out are former Toki students that have found such joy in this community that they’ve come back. We have middle schoolers who are already talking about being excited to come back when they're in high school, and that, to me, just means we're doing it exactly as it needs to be done. They already feel that sense of belonging, that sense of empowerment here. We wouldn't be able to function without our high schoolers. I think it's wonderful.

LARS: What can the community do to help support these programs?

ELIAV: The biggest thing a community can do is show up.

Being there to see these students and see how hard they work and show your support, that is the greatest thing that you can do as a community member. Some schools in the area have a real culture of that; Showing up even years after your kid has graduated from that school and still attending those performances because that's what we do as a community. We just go, right? I think that is something that I would love to see for both Toki and Memorial.

“First of all, let's recognize the excellence that's happening here, and then let's show up year after year for these kids. Even though nobody from our family goes to Toki anymore, nobody from our family goes to Memorial anymore. We go because what they're doing is amazing, and because that's how we show up for each other.”

ALLISON: It's just buy-in and trust from the community; Knowing that, trusting that the work that we put in is worth it, trusting that the expectations that we are putting on families are going to pay off. It's not like you hear about it and then the next day it's done, right? It's a long process, even in high school. Toki is a full year [of production], but in high school, it's still a couple months. Being able to trust the process and buy-in to what we see it to be when we start the whole thing.

LARS: If you guys had anything else that you wanted to say; Any last words?

ELIAV: Thanks for organizing this and for your part in all of the things that we've talked about. It's funny, you're doing this interview, because we're saying all these things, and you know about them firsthand because you've been such a part of it. We're grateful.

I'm a more recent convert to the beauty of these neighborhoods and these communities, having grown up in a different part of Madison and living in a different part of Madison, and Allison's fought hard to get me to see the Toki Dragon and Spartan Way, but we're both really, really passionate about the excellence that's happening here in so many different ways. We just wanna keep that going.

ALLISON: I think if there’s anything that I can add, just come to the shows, come see us! Come help out! If this is something that you're interested in, there's always space, there's always things that we're looking for or can use and need. If there's anything that you [want to] feel a part of, let us know.

ELIAV: We've talked a lot about our students and how they empower us to do these things, but we also have great teams of adults. Grace [Greene], who is our Co-Director and Stage Manager and helped out with Something Rotten! this year at Memorial, and Ms. McMahon, Frank [Schneeberger], and all the other adults that helped make this possible. Custodial staff, they're so, so valuable.

ALLISON: It wouldn't happen without everyone.

Thank you for supporting drama at Toki Middle School and Memorial High School. We have recently started a fundraiser on GoFundMe to support Memorial Drama. Please consider donating by scanning the QR code below. Any amount is appreciated.

This interview was conducted by Lars McKillop, a senior at Memorial High School.

Edited by Lars McKillop and Kelly Perron, ORNA.

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