Oral History Program Allen Smith Interviewed by Matt Bentley 06 December 2008 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Allen Smith Interviewed by Matt Bentley 06 December 2008 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Smith, Allen, an oral history by Matt Bentley, 08 December 2008, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Allen Smith. It is being conducted on December 6, 2008 at his home in Ogden, Utah and concerns his educational career in the theater department at Weber State University. The interviewer is Matt Bentley. MB: Where were you born? AS: Brigham City. MB: Tell me about the first house you remember growing up in. AS: It's the house where my parents currently live. What do want to know exactly about the house? Like features? MB: Just tell me about it. AS: It's a medium sized home, big yard. Spent a lot of time out mowing the lawn because most of the yard is lawn. There is a huge garden, spent a lot of time weeding in the garden growing up. There is only four rooms. Bedrooms technically, so as the eight kids were growing up all of us shared rooms. MB: Alright, what first interested you in being involved in theater? AS: Extra credit in an English class. Yeah it was extra credit in an English class that I auditioned for my first play, and I was like “Oh, that was kind of fun.” It was a junior high play. I did that and then the next year I did the other junior high play and then my sophomore year, I took a drama class for my fine arts credit and I just took it as a fluke just to take it. And my drama teacher asked me to be in the musical and I turned her down because I was wrestling and it would interfere with wrestling. I went and saw The 1 Music Man which is the musical they did that year. Then at the end of my sophomore year she asked me to help with the Shakespeare festival doing tech theater stuff, setting it up, tearing it down and stuff like that and helping run the show on the nights. I had a blast doing that and I realized it was a lot of fun and I was already signed up for drama the next year because it was a fun class to take. Then as the next year came around I was offered extra credit in my drama class to audition for the first play that they were doing which I did and I was in it. It was a melodrama and after that I stuck with drama. MB: What was the name of the melodrama? AS: Tempted but True or All for the Sake of Lilly. I was James the Butler. MB: Who wrote that? Was that a common play or something your professor or teacher...? AS: It was actually by Scott Nelson. The husband of my drama teacher. MB: Was anyone in your family actively involved in theater? AS: No. My mother has always loved theater. Loved going to shows and stuff. My sister, when she was at Roy High, played in the orchestra and sometimes helped with the musicals just down in the pit but not really actively involved in theater itself. I was the first of my siblings to really get involved in theater. MB: So you said your mom liked seeing these shows, did you go with her? Do you credit your love of theater to her at all? AS: Not at all. She used to go to theater a long time ago and then really never went again very much because she never really had a chance. She would go to the school plays when the kids had to go to them and stuff. I went to school plays, like Roy High's school plays when I was in elementary and junior high we would go up and see their matinees. 2 I remember seeing Once Upon a Mattress. I remember seeing Damn Yankees, at Roy High and other than that she never really went to plays. She always loved it but never had the time to go until I starting getting involved in theater and then she started going to every show she could, all the time she going to shows now. MB: So as a kid, did you enjoy going to these shows? AS: I never went to shows. Well, other than as an elementary kid. Yeah, I had fun you know, you get on the bus, you go up to Roy High, you get to see a play. Once a year I remember seeing Oklahoma as well. I think I was a sixth grader when I saw Oklahoma and it was a lot of fun. MB: So that first production that you were in that Melodrama. Could you tell me a little bit more about that? AS: The first production in high school, it was just a really silly melodrama, and Mrs. Nelson had just got this bar from a saloon, a bar that had just closed and they gave her this humongous like 18 foot long solid bar and— MB: Like a drinking table? AS: Yeah, like a drinking table, a bar. Where you go sit at the bar. I mean it was like two and a half feet wide by 18 feet long. The top piece was all one solid wood section, heavy as could be. The bottom piece broke into two sections but they were huge. She wanted to use that and they wanted to do kind of a dinner theater kind of thing, but they didn’t want to be providing dinner necessarily. So they decided to do like a vaudeville-style variety show before and do this melodrama and we built a stage on the stage at Fremont up against the back. It was like a 20 feet by 30 foot stage, it was this tiny stage. 3 It was only 15 foot by 30 foot, I think. This tiny little stage and to one side, we had the bar and then we had I think like 50 small round tables that could seat four people around them. So we could fit around 200 people around the stage. Spread out across the rest of the stage was open and it was a lot of fun. And they served popcorn and brownies and things like that, root beer floats and stuff like that. And we did a variety show, all of us in the show had to be part of the variety show as well. Then we did the show and I was an old man that just kind of shuffled around. I was always late, always slow, I would drive the other characters crazy because when they needed something I was always the one that had it and they had to wait for me to bring it to them. And, being the old butler, I just shuffled around and they caked my hair with tons of grey hairspray. It was awful, it took forever to get it out. But yeah I had a lot of fun with it. I had a crush on one of the girls that was in it. MB: So, were you equally involved in the tech as well? Hearing you talk about it just seems like... AS: Helping set it up? Yes, I was. I helped build the stage. I really got involved in the tech stuff in high school. MB: So were you ever interested in technical theater over performance theater? AS: Yeah. I mean, I love performing but I also love the tech aspect of it. I always helped with tech. I helped design stuff when I was a senior in high school. I put together tech portfolios and applied for tech scholarships even, and that's one of the things I love that also help draw me towards teaching. I love performing, but I prefer the tech aspect of it because I put on the show, I like building the shows and figuring out how to make the show work and finding things and now directing which, in a way, is part of the tech crew. 4 MB: Very cool. Alright. Why did you choose the Weber State Theater Program? AS: When I was a senior in high school it was October of my senior year. I was kind of back and forth, I didn't really know where I was planning on going. I knew I wanted to go to college, and I knew I wanted to go into theater but I had no idea where. And at that time there was a lot of talk about, you know, the better theater programs were either Weber State, University of Utah, or BYU. Utah State has a really strong tech program, but their acting theater program isn't necessarily the strongest. It was October, my friend Adam London ended up with two tickets to go see Sweeney Todd at Weber High that Jim Christian had directed. He had a couple of friends that were in it, Rock White and Wes Whitby and Mark Daniels and Andrea was working back stage. So he could take one friend and he mentioned it and I said I wanted to go and Jeff Nye said he wanted to go and Jeff made some threats to Adam saying that if he didn't choose him he would treat him like this and do this and this to him. So, Adam chose me just to spite Jeff because I just asked, “Hey, can I go?” And so Adam and I went and watched Wes and Rock and Mark and everyone else. Aside from loving the show itself, that’s the first time I ever saw Sweeney Todd and fell in love with the show itself. But I saw how well done it was and then after the show I got to go backstage because of Andrea. Andrea took Adam and I backstage and I got to see how they did it and, you know, the trap door for the barber and everything. I just really was impressed with what I saw and then right then, I was already starting to lean toward Weber State. It’s close, I could stay at home, I could go to school here and it would be fun and I knew it had a good program. And then at drama convention, the Utah Theater Association drama convention in the end of January that year, it was at Utah State when I auditioned. And I received scholarships 5 offers from College of Eastern Utah, BYU, Weber State, and Utah State, all of them offered me scholarships and I thought about it and the best deal was, for me, looked like Weber State. So I went with Weber State and I didn't regret it. MB: Very Cool. Just for the record, at the beginning of that you said Weber High’s production of Sweeney Todd. AS: I mean Weber State. Yeah, it was not Weber High, it was Weber State. MB: Okay. What was your first production you were in at Weber State? AS: The first production I was in at Weber State was A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Tracy Callahan. It was my very first quarter as a freshman and I was the only freshman that got a speaking role. I was pretty pumped and I rubbed it in the faces of all the other freshman saying “Yeah well I got a speaking role in the show this quarter,” because it was before semesters even and they only did one show a quarter so if you were in the show, you were in the show. There were other side projects as well that went on but Weber State did one major show per quarter and I was the only freshman with the speaking role and I was the paperboy because I probably looked younger than all the other freshman as the only reason I got it. But, it was a lot of fun. MB: Very Cool. When did you attend Weber State, by the way? AS: Let’s see, I went to fall and winter quarters, so basically one semester in 1997 and the very beginning of 1998, winter quarter got over like Febuary, I believe. I can't remember exactly how quarters ran anymore. But I did those two quarters, then I left and then I transferred to Salt Lake Community College for a while and I arrived back at weber State fall semester of 2001. 6 MB: So they had gone back to semesters at that point? AS: Yeah, in fact just after I left Weber State they were talking about the transition to semesters as I left weber state. So, fall of 2001 I came back, started that semester, and I graduated spring semester of 2005. MB: What were some of your favorite productions you were involved in? AS: I would have to say my favorite of all of them was The Mystery of Edwin Drood. I've not been in a show comparable as to how fun that show was to perform as well as just a really great cast. Working with Jim as the director in that one, again it was a lot of fun and, by far, that was my favorite production we did there. MB: So that was Jim Christian. AS: Jim Christian directed that one. MB: And what year was that? AS: Oh, Mystery of Edwin Drood… I believe it was spring of 2002. MB: Can you tell me about some of the experiences of that show, more in depth of why that was your favorite? AS: Well because the show doesn't have an ending. The audience gets to vote as how they decide it ends and so the show changes every night and the musical numbers are really fun. The dancing and choreography that Jim put together was really fun to do and it was just a high energy, fun show. MB: And what character were you? AS: I was Deputy, the assistant to the grave digger Dirdules. 7 MB: And can you tell me a little bit more about your character? AS: He was dumb. He is the classic sidekick, really a fairly one-dimensional character, does what he is told. A younger boy, he is younger than everyone else in the cast, and yet I had more facial hair than most of the other guys in the cast, but that was just because I could grow it and they couldn't. Constantly there, always watching, that's why one character tries to strangle him. As the play write clearly states, “I could never be the murderer when they put up people to be voted the murderer.” Deputy was never allowed to be voted on as the murderer because he was clearly there for comic relief. So, that's all I was there for. So it was fun. I got to be the clown and goof off, but at the same time I could be voted to be a lover which the one night I was the lover and it was really fun. MB: The lover? So they also voted on the murderer but the lover too? AS: The audience had to vote for 3 things the murderer, who the detective in disguise was, and then in the end they said, “You know, we can't just end a show with a murder, we have to have a happy ending. So two of these characters have been secret lovers, which two?” And then the audience gets to vote which two characters were the secret lovers and there is any number of combinations between the male characters and the female characters as to who the secret lovers could be. MB: Why does it not have an ending? Did the author not complete it? Or is it intentional? AS: It’s intentional. It was based on a book by Charles Dickens called the Mystery of Edwin Drood. Charles Dickens was writing that and he got to the point where Edwin Drood had been killed, this mysterious detective had shown up, everyone had their reasons, and 8 then Charles dickens died. He never wrote down any notes, any clues to what the ending is. It is the only unfinished novel by Charles Dickens. It was the last novel he was working on and so no one knew what happened to the end. So when the play write took it and turned it into a play he got to that point and in the play, the chairman who is kind of the narrator, stops the show and says “And this is where Mr. Dickens died. So we need your help!” And we would turn to the audience and have them vote to put an ending to it. MB: Very cool. Where was this performed at? AS: It was performed at Weber State in the Allred Theater. MB: The Allred Theater. Very cool. Were there any changes in the department during your time at Weber State? AS: Several. MB: Several, can you...? AS: Anytime the professors changed it caused a major change. Like when Martha, I don't even remember her full name, she was there and no one really liked her. She was a tough director to work with. When she left, they hired Dr. Dooley to take her place and Larry brought a totally different aspect to the department. There was a time when Jim quit. Jim Christian quit and went to work for the LDS Church for Music and the Spoken Word and he had some conflicts there, something or other. I think he was gone about a year, and when he came back, of course Jim always added a different dynamic, and so with just shifting of professors like that. MB: There was a different feel. 9 AS: There was a different feel to the department, there really was because certain people were there focusing on musical theater when Jim left. They left and I didn't get to see probably one of the biggest changes the department saw because I was part of that change. There was usually one or two, maybe three on good year that would graduate each year. May of 2005 when I graduated, 13 of us graduated. So it was a major shift in the department. What happened after that, I don't know because I was a part of that shift that was leaving. But each year, the new freshmen would bring in something different. But I really don't think the students made that much of a difference to it as the shifts in professors did. MB: Mhmm. So Jim Christian then returned with the conflicts with…? AS: I'm not sure exactly what happened, but he ended up coming back. MB: He ended up coming back. So, what you said was that 13 of you guys graduated. Was there just a shift of more people, is that why more people graduated? Did the department become more popular or is that why they had so many graduate that year? AS: No it’s just that 13 of us finally finished. MB: So just a random chance. AS: A random chance that 13 of us got to the point that we were ready to finish. Some of us had been there for four years some of us had been there 7 years, so it was just when 13 of us got to that point where we were done. MB: Why do you think that theater majors take longer in school? AS: Oh, good question. There are quite a few reasons why. One, there is a lot of dropout because with theater there are those that think I can just go out and try it and make it 10 out on my own and there are those that do, and there are those that go out and try to make it out on their own and then come back. There are those that want to take so many classes that they take all of these unnecessary classes and don't take any of the necessary classes until they absolutely have to and then there are those that aren't the brightest that fail math 5 times before they can finally get past the math. But for the most part it's such a vigorous major that it drains you. You get burnt out and you have to work constantly because not only are theater majors putting in their 12 -18 class hours, those that are on scholarships are putting 90 hours of practicum, plus being in shows. They have to audition for every show if you’re on scholarship. You have to work in the scene shop and the costume shop, you are there late for rehearsals. I mean rehearsals are late evenings. If you are in the early rehearsals from 3 to 6 you are the lucky ones. If you are in the late show you are from 7 to 10 but you are there all the time every day and it’s very taxing on people. So a lot of times, after a couple of full semesters a lot of theater majors will back down to just the bare minimum they have to, and so you are only taking 12 credit hours, three of which are bonehead classes, just like one credit hour bonehead classes just to fill it so you have 12 credit hours. But really most theater majors because of the rigorous nature of the major, because of all of the hours and work that they have to put into the department itself, they really only take like 9 credit hours a semester. And to get to graduation with only 9 credit hours, I mean to make 4 years with just 12 credit hours is next to impossible. I mean you have to take like 18 credit hours at least some semesters. But with theater majors only taking 9 credit hours because of all of the stuff they have to do it wears them out and they can't take a full load. 11 MB: And how long did it take you to finish? AS: About 4 and a half. MB: You were also in the department during the shift to the Browning Center, correct? AS: I was not there for the shift. When I was there originally in 1997 the Browning center was closed for remodeling and so I had one theater class in the library, two theater classes in the library, one in the gym, up in the Swenson Gymnasium. I had one in the Lind Lecture Hall, I had one in the Social Science Building, and then the scene shop was in a warehouse down on Wall Avenue. The costume shop was in the vault in the administration building and you had to open the big huge vault door and walk through the vault to get to the costume studio. During that time the department offices were in these little tiny rooms upstairs in the union building, and so I trekked all over that campus and then I left. When I came back, the new Browning Center was open. I had come back to the new Browning Center, they had transitioned to it. MB: So why did you leave? When did you leave, and why did you leave? AS: I left in 1998, spring of 1998 to serve an LDS mission. MB: Did the Browning Center close your first semester in 1997? AS: No, it was already when I went there. MB: It was already closed. So, how long did it take to remodel the building? AS: I don't know. MB: You don't know. AS: I think it was like a year and a half. 12 MB: Where were shows put on during the remodel? AS: We did Streetcar Named Desire and Sunday in the Park with George in the Egyptian Theater down on Washington Boulevard. MB: Okay. So, looking back at it now, did the Weber State Theater Program have a lasting impact on your life? Do you feel like you have learned a lot by especially choosing Weber State that you couldn’t have gotten anywhere else? AS: That could be said of anywhere you go because what you are learning is not just the facts because no teacher can teach you all the facts that they know. I don't think there was anyone that could have taught me better than Jim Christian did just for example, by watching him direct. There are other directors that would have taught me different things, but Jim's style and everything he did, just watching him direct, contrasting that from Tracy's style, totally different experience. Each director provides their own style and own lessons to learn but there is no way in 4 years I could have learned everything that Jim knows, but it's the relationships that you build with people. It’s not just Jim, but it's the other people I was there with, how I saw them behave, how I saw them treat each other, how they treated me, how I treated them. You know, you learn that way as well. There are the facts in the classroom but then there is the society and the social aspect of theater that you learn so much in so many ways that of course it would be totally different if I went somewhere else. I probably would have learned similar lessons, but in totally different ways. MB: Actually, my next question was, who were some of the influential faculty and staff that helped guide your education? Obviously, you talk so highly of Jim Christian, could you 13 elaborate a little more on that? Maybe some other faculty members that helped guide you or that were influential in your educational career? AS: In the Theater Department? MB: Yes. AS: I would say that Jim, of course, because he's such a talented individual and he's a natural leader, people want to follow him which is a good thing as a director and as a teacher to have students that want to listen to you and want to follow you, and want to figure it out. Larry also made a huge impact on me, Larry Dooley. He was definitely a more scholarly approach to theater, analyzing and breaking it down and looking at it and he really helped inspire a lot of the little things within theater, the little facts and theater history. He even tried to get me looking into a doctorate in theater history and teaching at a collegiate level like him rather than teaching in public education. It was tough, I was having a rough time debating on that because he really made me think about it. Forcing me to take risks and get out of my shell and just try to the extreme would be Tracy's influence that she had on me. I didn't always necessarily get along with Tracy, nor did I agree with all of her methods of teaching but she really pushed people and she really pushed me. There were so many times when she just sat there and looked at me and said “Allen come on, I'm waiting.” And she would push and push and I know she was pushing. Catherine Zublin had a huge impact on me. I knew her from working at Treehouse Children's Museum because she was on the board and her sons would come to the Treehouse all the time so I got to know her before I got into the department. So as I came into the department I had someone I could turn to and Catherine was the person I could go to for help with anything. If I didn't know how to register, if I didn't 14 know what to do for a certain class, or if I didn't know what to do for a certain thing, I could turn to Catherine and she was always willing to help me and answer my questions. Which is kind of basically the whole staff with the exclusion of one or two. But you know, even in their own way they also had an influence on me. They weren't the most influential but I would probably say the most influential were those four: Jim, Catherine, Tracy, and Larry. MB: So Tracy is Tracy Callahan, correct? AS: Yes. MB: And Catherine Zublin, can you tell her position in the department, what she is? AS: Well when I was there she was a professor. Then when I came back she was the Associate Dean of the Performing Arts and so she would still teach a couple of theater classes and she would still design some of the shows but she had a different office and she had other responsibilities as well. When I left she was still the Associate Dean of Arts but since then, I believe she is now the Dean of the Performing Arts. She replaced Dr. Polumbo... no Larry replaced Dr. Polumbo. I'm not sure what Catherine is doing. MB: And she was a professor. Was she a director, what kind of classed did she teach? AS: She taught all of the costuming classes. MB: Okay, so when did you graduate from weber state one more time? AS: May 2005. MB: May 2005. Are you still actively involved in theater today? AS: Absolutely. 15 MB: Did you choose a career in theater? AS: Yeah. My career was theater education. I'm in public education teaching theater. MB: Teaching theater. Where at? AS: Rocky Mountain Jr. High, Weber School District. MB: Alright. Are you personally still involved in shows? AS: I am. I keep myself a little too involved in shows too often, I think. Sometimes I think I need to take more of a break. But just about at any given time I'm involved in at least one show. MB: Do you plan on continuing your education in theater such as graduate school? AS: Haven't yet decided. A masters in directing is very much a consideration, and I'm having a debate with myself between that and a masters of education. MB: Mhmm. And do you plan on staying at Rocky Mountain Jr. High or move to a collegiate level? AS: Never. MB: Never. AS: I love public education, I love the Jr. High level. I don't think I even want to go up to a high school level. MB: Alright. So my last question would be do you have anything else that you would like to talk about that we haven't discussed in the interview? AS: About Theater? 16 MB: About theater at Weber State, about the department itself. Just anything you would like to talk about, any loose ends that you would like to talk about? AS: Not that I can think of. MB: Alright, well thank you very much AS: Thank you. MB: This now ends our interview.... Alright. 17