Lights Up: The High School Theater Podcast

I really enjoyed this podcast chat with Anthony Stirpe, who teaches English and theater at New Rochelle High School.

Among the takeaways:

Tight budgets force directors to get creative. Stirpe talked about his long-planned production of “Pippin” and the big finale moment, in which a parachute was unfurled over the audience — like a circus bigtop — and flames were projected onto it. It came about, he said, because he didn’t have the budget for a big set.

“I’m almost happy that I don’t, because it does force me to think outside of the box,” he says.

Leaning on upperclassmen as mentors. Budget cuts in New Rochelle mean that two teachers are now covering three levels. The solution to making that work is leaning on upperclassmen to act as mentors.

“That fourth level now becomes the most important level,” he says. “I have 19 scenes that I’m working right now. I can’t be in 19 places at once.”

Theater teaches skills that will survive in an AI world. Stirpe, a project manager by training, sees problem-solving skills baked into the work of making theater.

“The skills that are truly going to persist are the skills we are teaching in our classes,” he says. “I don’t think people really recognize how much project management goes into a film, a musical, a play. It is project management.”

Creating in the cradle of COVID: Stirpe talks about one of his highlight projects, “Life After High School,” the film he and his students created in 2020, working around the COVID restrictions that were largely invented in New Rochelle, the epicenter of the pandemic in the U.S. in March 2020. “Patient Zero” lived about a mile from the school.

Here’s a link to that film. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ab4zAFJalnBXyuF5oW-rfccVh_jp_I07/view

If you like “Lights Up,” share it with a theater kid, theater fan, theater mom or dad, theater grandparent.

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For a special edition of “Lights Up: The High School Theater Podcast,” I was happy to be joined by Dr. Lou Wool, superintendent of Harrison Central School District and president of the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents, and Matt Royal, Harrison’s director of fine and performing arts and head of Westchester County Arts Leadership Association.

LHCSS and WCALA have teamed up to create the STAR Awards, an education-based recognition program for high school musicals in Westchester, Rockland, Putnam and Dutchess counties, north of New York City.

Wool and Royal talked about how the STAR Awards hope to level the playing field when it comes to recognizing the work students do in the performing arts.

Among the features they’ve built into the program:

Grouping schools in divisions by enrollment size, judging like-sized schools;

Using educators as adjudicators, and training them in the rubric that was also developed by educators;

Making the rubric transparent, so that students and teachers know in advance what they are being adjudicated on and how the standards can be met;

Using a rubric that recognizes the arts as a continuum and adjudicating a production and performances on that continuum, with rankings of silver, gold and gold with distinction;

Providing clear feedback and actionable ideas for growth;

Separating public and private schools into separate divisions;

Possibly naming multiple overall productions and performances as gold with distinction, meaning there will be multiple winners, not just one;

Building out the program in future years to include professional development and master classes for students.

The Star Awards website is: https://sites.google.com/view/wcala/lower-hudson-valley-stars

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Stacey Tirro is a dance and theater teacher, an arts advocate, an author, a Substack writer, a singer and dancer, podcaster and a geriatric gymnast.

For 30 years, she has taught dance and theater at Spring Valley High School, in the perennially strapped East Ramapo Central School District.

She joins Pete to talk about all of it, and about a post-COVID podcast in which she reconnected with former students to gauge the impact that arts had on their lives, years after they graduated.

As Pete said during the conversation, the fact that Tirro is leaving her post is the only thing retiring about the teacher. Her passion for the work is unflagging.

Here are some links to help you dig deeper.

Stacey Tirro’s website, Stacey’s Headspace: https://staceytirro.com/

Her substack, Stacey Writes and Flips: https://staceytirro.substack.com

Her post, Teaching Accountability Through Arts Education. (https://staceytirro.substack.com/p/teaching-accountability-through-arts)

Her podcast, “Changed for the Better: The Power of Arts in Education.” https://changedwithtirro.com/episodes/

Her books:

“How Do We Feel Right Now?” A collection of real-time narratives expressed by my community in the days and weeks following the 2020 murder of George Floyd.

What Ronnie Sue Knew: A tribute to her mother and the love lessons Tirro learned from her.

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Ken Davenport, the Tony-winning producer of “Kinky Boots” and the revival of “Once On This Island,” joins Pete to talk about “The Full Company: A Field Guide to Non-Performing Roles in High School Theater.”

Davenport is busy. He’s brought the spine-tingling thriller “Paranormal Activity” to Broadway with illusions like nothing audiences have seen before. It’s scary, he says, but at its heart, it’s just a great play.

As busy as he is, Davenport is still thinking about the future of Broadway and how current high school kids will play a part in it.

Last spring, one of Davenport’s Instagram post went viral when he said he was disappointed that high school show don’t have staffs like Broadway shows do. Where were the producers and the company managers? And why shouldn’t schools start training kids early for actual business-side roles they could eventually fill on Broadway?

The pushback came fast and furious, teachers saying there was no budget for those roles.

Davenport registered that, but then created something they could use without spending a penny.

The report, titled “The Full Company,” looks at a dozen non-performing roles — from producer to dramaturg to development coordinator — that school theater departments could add simply by setting another chair at the table. Each role is described, and why each is important, and what they would look like in a high school setting, and how to implement it at your school.

Other episode highlights you won’t want to miss:

* Davenport’s “High School Musical” moment, when he quit the basketball team and announced he was trying out for the musical;

* The impact that “Les Mis” had on him, and what Davenport thinks sets that musical apart;

* His thoughts on “Paranormal Activity,” his latest Broadway show, and how Broadway has embraced thrillers in the past.

Here are some links to help you dig deeper.

Read the full report, “The Full Company: A Field Guide to Non-Performing Roles in High School Theater” here.

Read more about Ken and his work at The Producer’s Perspective. (https://kendavenport.com/welcome-to-the-producers-perspective)

Follow him on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/kendavenportbway)

And follow me on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/petekramermedia)

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When Christina Baurle asked her theater students at Port Chester High School which show they should do next, their suggestions were wildly off the mark.

Shows that weren’t available for license, shows that were in no way suited to a school setting and shows that didn’t fit the available talent.

Her kids should know better, she thought.

Then, in a lightbulb moment, she decided that this could be a teaching opportunity. Why not gather a group of trusted students and teach them the process of choosing a show?

“Not only does that help them become better leaders and feel like they can advocate for a show and have voice in the production and what’s chosen, but it also takes a lot of the pressure off of me, because then if anyone has an issue with it — which there’s always someone — I could say a group of people chose this, and not only that, but it was a group your peers as well. Students had a say in what was chosen.”

Win. Win. Win.

How does Baurle know the selection committee is making a difference?

“I no longer get, not as often anyway, I no long get bizarre show suggestions,” she says. “I think somehow it’s just kind of gone through the student ranks and they’ve realized, ‘OK, there’s a lot more to this process than we realized at first.’”

On this episode of "Lights Up: The High School Theater Podcast," Baurle talks about her takeaways from the process -- for those who might be considering it.

We also talked about her formative time at Commack High School on Long Island, and Curly's poor horse in their production of "Oklahoma!" (Her director insisted on using live animals.)

We talked about how teaching theater in Brooklyn is different. And the two musicals her students say they will NEVER want to do.

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Getting into the wonderful theater weeds with the leading actor Metro nominees Liam Weill from Northern Valley Demarest, Luciano Guidetti from Paramus, Derek Bedell from St. Joseph Regional, Donovan Russell from Woodlands Middle High School and Jian Kawai from Rye Neck. Watch the reactions when Donovan begins listing the roles he has played in the last year. The other guys go nuts.

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Four high school actresses, nominated for leading actress at the 2026 Metro Awards on June 15, joined Pete on a special episode of "Lights Up: The High School Theater Podcast" to talk about medleys, revisiting their characters, acting in musicals and being theater kids.

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Allison Parsley, choreographer, director and dance teacher at Mamaroneck High School in Westchester County, New York, talks about helping her students navigate the turning of the page from one musical to the next and the emotions when seniors prepare to graduate.

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Director-choreographer Halle Mastroberardino joins Pete to share her unique perspective on the Roger Rees Awards and the Jimmy Awards. Halle won the Rees Award (when it was The Gershwin) and participated in the Jimmys. Now, she's on the team teaching choreography at both awards programs. She has thoughts about auditions, pressure and how parents can help.

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I was so happy to welcome Stephen Ferri, executive producer of White Plains Performing Arts Center, to the “Lights Up: High School Theater Podcast” this week to talk about Broadway, studying at Purchase College, running a regional theater and the time when he was a sophomore in high school and saved "Aida" by stepping in to conduct the all-pro orchestra. At age 16.

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Cyndi Feinman, the theater director at Rye Neck High School in Westchester County, New York, joins Pete to talk about the Eastern Student Artist Guild Awards, honoring high school students for their work on non-musical productions. The third annual ESAG Awards will be bestowed on April 20, 2026, at Tarrytown Music Hall in Tarrytown, New York. Details at www.easternstudentartistguild.org

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Directors Nadia Rizzo of Pleasantville High School and Christina Colangelo of Blind Brook High School join Pete to talk about what they've learned from their theater kids over the course of their careers.

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In the first 10 minutes of this week’s “Lights Up” podcast, Neil Schleifer and Tom Beck from Pelham Memorial High School in Pelham, New York, dig into the work they do to make sure that their actors create fully formed characters every time out. Schleifer says that work begins on Day One of rehearsal, with a character circle, in which each actor answers the question -- “Who am I?” -- in as many ways as they can, based on what they know from the script. The next conversation, Beck says, answers the question “What do I want?” Then, Schleifer says, the conversations go deeper. “Are they willing to lie to get what they want? Cheat? Bribe? Steal? Kill? Are they willing to listen? Are they willing to learn? Do they apply sincerity, honesty, trust to get what they want? These are all choices and there are dozens of possibilities. Rehearsal is for deciding which choice works best.”

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Deb Toteda, choreographer and director of dance at Harrison High School, and Dr. Gerry Micera, director at Putnam Valley High School, talk about how they give feedback to their young actors and dancers. It's a dance of its own, balancing trust and sensitivity and the realization that feedback is part of the process of making art.

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Dan McCarter is music director, conductor, technical director, and producer of Suffern High School’s acclaimed theater program. He joins Pete Kramer of Pete Kramer Media to talk theater tech and what it's like to lead a pit orchestra of 55 high school students. Yes. Fifty-five!

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Voice teacher Celeste Simone has coached some of Broadway's greats, from Kristin Chenoweth to Chita Rivera. She joins Pete Kramer on "Lights Up: The High School Theater Podcast" to share real-world advice for young singers and their parents, about troubling things she sees when singers come for their first lesson. And she tells some great stories, including how Chita Rivera got the leg up on her teacher in their first voice lesson.

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Pete Kramer of Pete Kramer Media chats with Brandon Salerno about social-media campaigns for high school theater productions. For four years, Salerno has handled social media for the Eastchester High School Players Club fall comedy. He is a working actor (currently appearing in "Drunk Shakespeare: Romeo & Juliet" Off-Broadway) who also handles social media outreach for Penguin Rep Theater in Stony Point, New York.

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