An Interview with Kristen Dabrowski

1. What do you think makes this series different from all the other monologue and scene books?
This series has strong educational and interactive components. I’ve mixed in these elements with a few other books and series I’ve written (like the 10+ series), but never to such an extent. And I’m really excited about adding a Teacher’s Guide with exercises, ideas, lesson plans, etc. Drama, acting, and the arts are such vibrant components to add to lessons; if a student has a felt experience in class, he/she is so much more likely to remember and love the lesson. Some side effects include: Increased confidence, creativity, self-expression . . . I could go on for days! I’ve seen absolutely amazing transformations in the classroom.

I think it’s important to note that My First Acting Series is not didactic. Independent thinking is very much encouraged. I really want students to draw their own conclusions. So characters are not always nice and answers are sometimes ambiguous. This opens up real opportunities to instigate discussions in the classroom (and at home). If I can make a kid think and laugh, well, that’s the best. That is what this series aims to do. It’s ambitious on many levels.

2. What did you LOVE about writing this series?
I’m very in touch with my inner 7-8 year old. I’m a goofball. Writing this series allowed me to wallow in my ideal young self---the one who isn’t as afraid or shy as I actually was in my elementary years. Plus, this series has something for everyone. A great number of topics are touched upon, a score of different kinds of characters and personalities are shown . . . it’s extensive. As a writer and actor, it’s a joy to jump into a myriad of situations and ages. As a teacher, my biggest problem in writing this series (and my greatest joy) was the huge number of ideas that emerged. It was almost overwhelming at times!

3. What are a couple of things you can tell teachers to help them understand how great My First Acting Series can be in helping their students understand themselves and others?
Wow. That’s a big question. One of my favorite things about acting is that you are forced to get inside another person’s skin, taking on their personality and viewpoints. This is a tremendous lesson in empathy. It’s one thing to think from the outside that you understand how others think, feel, and live. It’s another thing to feel another person’s experience from the inside. So that’s one way students can understand others (both their contemporaries and people from other places and times) through this series.

I am absolutely in love with My First Scene Book because it focuses in a very non-judgmental, fun way on manners, morals, and ethical dilemmas. In each scene, a situation is presented that often has some kind of twist---it doesn’t turn out “right” and/or characters behave in unexpected ways. But it does bring up issues big and small from table manners to bullying and prejudices. By approaching these subjects in unusual ways, students are emotionally and mentally engaged. The scenes incite a reaction. Often even quiet students are drawn into discussions despite themselves. Students are provoked into really examining their beliefs, why rules exist, etc. This is one way students can understand themselves better by exploring this series.

4. Is there one person who inspires you to pursue theatre and dramatic writing? How does this person affect your life?
There are touches of just about everyone I’ve met or imagined in my writing. But a lot of my inspiration comes from my family. My mother has a wacky sense of humor, much like me, and that inspires me to have the courage to express myself in general. The girl who gets gum stuck in her hair? That’s my little sister, Adrienne. Some of characters and situations in My First Monologue Book are not even thinly veiled. Walt on page 51 is my dad, Walter. Oh, and I should probably mention Julie Andrews. I so wanted to be her (complete with British accent) all through elementary school. Only I would never have kissed Christopher Plummer. Too bossy!

5. Can you share the moment when you told yourself, "This is what I want to do for the rest of my life: Theatre!"
When I was in school, we didn’t have acting class, but we music class. And I loved to sing. It was a chance for me to express myself, be loud, and take risks. And I was a huge daydreamer and reader, so the chance to be someone else or be whisked away to another land was something I always jumped at, too, though it sometimes got me into trouble!

The closest thing I can remember to an “a-ha” moment was when I auditioned for a part in the school musical in fifth grade. The teacher told me to go onstage. I was given one short line to say. I’m pretty sure it was, “Eating with the pigs? Yuck!” I slowly walked up the stairs to the stage (both a very long trip and a trip not quite long enough), trying not to shake. When I got at last to the middle of the stage, I said the line as confidently and with as much attitude as I could muster. And everyone broke out in laughter---the kindergartners, the fifth graders, even that dyspeptic-looking fourth grader who was so wafer-slim I wondered how her guts fit into her body. After a second or two, it registered that I had not embarrassed myself, but I was truly funny! They were laughing for real. It felt like the acting coup of the century. The rest is history, Maureen!

An interview with M. Ramirez

1. What do you think makes this series different from all the other monologue and scene books?

I taught school directly out of writing school, and what struck me immediately was how inactive most monologues written for kids actually were. It seemed odd that - as a teacher - I was supposed to ask my students to tone down all their energy when performing. I found that the more active the kids were during performance, the more they enjoyed performing, and the more their peers enjoyed watching them. So I started limiting the material to ONLY the active stuff, and I found that the better the material was, the fresher it was, the more my acting classes seemed to teach themselves.


2. What did you LOVE about writing this series?

I love the fact that - as a young Hispanic-American - I was asked to write for young Hispanic-American students. I love the idea that those performers are being served, too. However, the publishers and I made it a VERY important point for the monologues to never be "about" ethnicity, so we wouldn't exclude kids that weren't of Hispanic descent. The "ethnic" stuff here is subtle - sometimes they call grandmothers "Abuelas", the characters have favorite Spanish foods, but other than that, the kids never have to "play" their ethnicity. The "Abuelas" and the "arroz con leche" is all part of the world the characters inhabit, but it's not ALL they inhabit.


3. What are a couple of things you can tell teachers to help them understand how great My First Acting Series can be in helping their students understand themselves and others?

First of all, I think if a teacher's going to do any kind of "monologue" unit in a class, I think it's important to have SEVERAL books ready. The last thing you want is for three kids to fight over the same monologue. (If they all do it, it can get awkwardly competitive, and if you only let ONE do it, whoever doesn't get it feels shortchanged.) Secondly, I think it's important to re-stock your shelves often. I know it sounds cheesy to say "buy tons and buy often", but I think it really helps when the monologues are as up-to-date as they can possibly be. Kids today talk very differently than they did in the 80s, or 90s, or even two years ago. They'll recognize a piece of phony, dated dialogue faster than you or I, so I think it's important to make sure the monologues you're working with are relatively up-to-date.

There's a kind of catharsis when a kid finds a monologue that SOUNDS like he or she speaks. Suddenly "acting" is a real possibility, not just some imagined fantasy only Daniel Radcliffe can do. I think there's also something special about having kids find monologues that feel "tailor-made" for them. I think they'll take more pride in the work, I think they'll be able to connect to it personally, and I think - ultimately - the product and the experience will be richer.


4. Is there one person who inspires you to pursue theatre and dramatic writing? How does this person affect your life?

This might sound a little odd, but the one person who inspired me tremendously while putting these monologues together was an author named Dav Pilkey. Teachers might know him as the guy who writes the "Captain Underpants" series. While it's not the most sophisticated literary work, I don't think I've seen MODERN KIDS captured on paper quite as accurately. The Disney channel pop-stars are all trying to sell clothing lines, the Nickelodeon characters are all trying to sell action figures, but the "Captain Underpants" kids reminded me of 90% of the kids I remember teaching. They're awkward, frustrated, and not-so-talented. They don't like authority, the world seems like a crazy place, and they don't have anything other than their brains to get them by. They can be very funny, or very crass and kid-like. They're full of contradictions and only one thing is constant: every single day is a weird adventure. Even though they're two-dimensional, they're very REAL. I like that. THOSE
kids I can relate to, because I was one of them. (In many ways, I still am.)

5. Can you share the moment when you told yourself, "This is what I want to do for the rest of my life: Theatre!"

I don't know if it was a moment, maybe it was a sequence.
That sequence looked like this:

Fifth grade: I didn't get picked for teams at kickball.
Sixth grade: Nicole (the second-cutest girl in our grade) didn't like me back.
Seventh grade: I didn't make the baseball team.
Eighth grade: No football either.
Ninth grade: A failed attempt at starting a band.
Tenth grade: Nicole (now the third-cutest girl, but still my favorite) was getting REALLY into drama.
Eleventh grade: So was I.

Seriously, though... No, I don't think I ever felt that MOMENT, but looking back on it, and looking around at a lot of my peers in the world of professional theatre, I think we were a lot of those hard-working odds-and-end rejects from other disciplines. Most set painters I know started out as other kinds of painters, but they didn't like the solitude, so they painted their first set for something like the JCC's production of Grease and they've been doing it ever since. Most directors I know started out as the kids who run for student government president but lose to the popular girl with the killer smile. I think that's an important thing to know as a teacher of young drama delinquents... A lot of these kids trickle into your classes because other social structures (or football coaches) have put them there. Not every "drama kid" comes with a stage-mom or musical theatre aspirations. Some of these kids just want a place to develop, find their voices, and learn for themselves how to navigate the murky weird waters of the real world.