James Kaufman:
We ask about what are the things that make you you? Whether it’s life experiences, talents, passions, interests, values, resources. What are all these things that allow you to bring your own voice? And for the purposes of the book, it would be to a show, but it could be to any type of project activity or simply the world.

Matthew Worwood:
Hello everyone. My name is Doctor Matthew Worwood.

Cyndi Burnett:
And my name is Doctor Cindy Burnett.

Matthew Worwood:
This is the fuelling creativity in Education podcast.

Cyndi Burnett:
On this podcast, we’ll be talking about various creativity topics and how they relate to the field of education.

Matthew Worwood:
We’ll be talking with scholars, educators, and resident experts about their work, challenges they face, and exploring new perspectives of creativity.

Cyndi Burnett:
All with a goal to help fuel a more rich and informed discussion that provides teachers, administrators, and emerging scholars with the information they need to infuse creativity into teaching and learning.

Matthew Worwood:
So let’s begin.

Cyndi Burnett:
Hello and welcome to the Fueling Creativity and Education podcast. Today we have a very special episode for you. This show is outside of our normal programming, but a topic that we both greatly love. If you enjoy musical theater or have a child or student interested in musical theater, then you are going to love this episode. Our goal is to bridge the conversation between musical theatre, education and creativity.

Matthew Worwood:
Yes, and today we have not one, but two guests for the special episode on lessons in creativity from musical theatre characters. Our first guest is Doctor James Kaufman, who is no stranger to our show. In fact, this is the third time James has been on our podcast. And for the record, we’ve been having a conversation about the possibility of James becoming perhaps some type of part time correspondent. So we’ll see where, where that transpires. I deliberately threw it in to make sure that James is now under contract. Now, James is a professor of psychology at the University of Connecticut. He’s one of the leading researchers in the field of creativity, authoring and editing over 50 books.

Matthew Worwood:
He has published more than 300 papers and three well known theories of creativity, including the four C model of Creativity, which we have spoken about extensively in the podcast. He has co authored several books for educators, including teaching for Creativity in the common core classroom, nurturing creativity in the classroom, and being creative inside and outside of the classroom. Recently, he has published the book lessons in creativity from musical theater characters with Dana Rowe.

Cyndi Burnett:
So Dana Rowe is our second special guest today. He is a New York based american composer and musical director whose works have been performed in New York City, the West End, and around the world. His off Broadway musical zombie prom has reached cult status and was film starring RuPaul and Katie Mixon. There have been more than 3500 different productions around the world. Dana is also a certified professional development coach who specializes in working with creative professionals. So welcome to the show, James and Dana.

James Kaufman:
Thank you. Thank you.

Dana Rowe:
It’s great to be here.

Cyndi Burnett:
So a psychologist and musical theater composer walk into a coffee shop. So how did the two of you originally connect?

James Kaufman:
You want to start or should I?

Dana Rowe:
Dana, I was briefly a podcast person myself. I had a podcast that I brought on theater professionals to sort of normalize the creative journey. It’s not always linear. It’s circuitous at best. And I had met James earlier and I invited him to be on the podcast. And we, what was supposed to be a half hour conversation turned into almost 2 hours worth of. And it, we had trouble stopping the podcast. And at the end of that, I’ll let James take over from there.

James Kaufman:
So I should preface this by saying that one of Dana’s musicals, the fix, is one of my all time favorites. I discovered it in graduate school and listened to it on repeat while I was mired in dissertation blues. Sort of Facebook stalked him and friended him and sent him a copy of 101. And so when I got the chance to chat with him as we were signing off, I’m thinking like, this was this great conversation, and I’m not good at saying, hey, you want to talk sometimes? So I said, do you want to write a book together? And he said, maybe.

Dana Rowe:
I disagree. I think I immediately said, yes, I’m very, very, I’m very quick on my feet that way. And when he said that, I said, are you kidding?

James Kaufman:
Of course, I was trying to only make myself sound insane. But several years later, and we have this one lessons in creativity from musical theater characters that came out last year, we have another one under contract, and we’re working on quite a number of other exciting stuff, and it’s been an absolute blast.

Matthew Worwood:
And James, just in case people don’t know it, you’ve produced your own off Broadway show as well, right?

James Kaufman:
Off. Off. But yes, I did the book and lyrics to a musical called Discovering Magenta with the music by Michael Bitterman. And I began it actually between the end of my senior year of college and the beginning of graduate school. And I did a number of plays when I was in graduate school, much to my advisor’s chagrin, Bob Sternberg. But I revisited the musical when we submitted it to a festival, and it was accepted and got back and rewrote it, wrote new songs. And seeing it staged was incredibly exciting. And part of me will always kind of wonder, well, what if I were to go back to that or try it again.

James Kaufman:
But I also like what I do an awful lot, and I get a lot of the similar needs met with my creativity, writing, and research.

Matthew Worwood:
So, James, you and I have had a conversation around the connection between kind of the theatre environment in general and being part of a theatre community. It seems like there’s so many people, not just in the field of creativity, but you just interact with lots of people in lots of different roles, and they quite often reminisce about their interactions with theater. And you’ve continued to obviously express that as you just shared in the story Cindy and I continue to talk about on that show. I’m probably less kind of forthcoming in my background with theater, though. Cindy encourages us to talk a lot about it, and I certainly know that it has contributed to who I am. And I would argue some of the success that I’ve had probably comes from my interactions with the theater. I’m now seeing my eldest son, who has said he doesn’t want to be an actor, but you can see how much joy and how much he gets from interacting with the theater community. So I’ve had these conversations with James and Cindy.

Matthew Worwood:
Dana, you and I haven’t had an opportunity to interact too much. So I was wondering if you could kind of just get us started on what I hope to be a kind of fruitful conversation about. What is it about the theater and its relationship to creativity and actually just being creative throughout your life.

Dana Rowe:
It’s such a rich territory to explore. I can’t tell you how much, how valuable I do believe it is. For one thing, it provides a safe space to try on life. I think when a kid is watching safely, a character experiencing good things, bad things, making really bad decisions, making really good decisions, and sort of processing those and thinking, well, what would I do in that situation? That’s just. It’s gold, because we don’t always have that safe space to try on those thoughts. That’s number one. I mean, the community alone is something that you just can’t trade. I mean, you’re with other people who are kind of geeky about the same things, and you find your people, if you will, and you learned to appreciate and be with and value other people who aren’t necessarily like you.

Dana Rowe:
You find a way to be with one another and to depend on one another and to support one another. That’s just for starters.

James Kaufman:
I would add to that I’ve been thinking a lot, and this at first, perhaps seem a little bit of an less related, but I swear it’s going to circle around. I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a domain of creativity, because we so often do it very much by the end product or format, like whether it’s writing or there’s art. A couple of things strike me. That’s theater. I mean, one is that on one hand, you could argue it’s its own domain, and yet it sure seems like it weaves all of them together, from music to storytelling to science and technology, with the lights and the effects to business, with the producing and marketing angle of it. There are some concepts that we sometimes call domains but aren’t really domains. Like humor is sometimes called a domain, but it’s really something that flows throughout potentially almost every domain. Same with technology.

James Kaufman:
And part of me feels like theater is less a domain and more of. I mean, I don’t know what the word is yet, but whether it’s theme or medium, but it is a concept that can interact with a ton of traditional domains, and we call it this domain of theater. But what other domain can you have? One person who is a musical composer. You have another person who is really a poet, like a lyricist. You have another person who specializes in costumes and so sews and creates fabrics. You have all of these different domains underneath what we’re just calling another domain. And I think it’s more than that.

Cyndi Burnett:
So I want to talk a little bit about this relationship between theater and creativity because it’s something that I feel really passionate about. And I remember, James, when I saw this come out on your Facebook post. I said, did you write this book for me? Because it felt like you genuinely did, because it combines everything I really love, which is sort of theories and research around creativity with musical theater characters. And I absolutely love this book. And when I reached out to you about it, you said, well, we’re working on another one called so you have a theater kid, which I said to both of you, I have so much to say on this. So we had this great conversation around having theater kids. So I would love for you to share what teachers and parents can do to help the children in their life be more creative and embrace this theater side of them and what they can do to support and nurture this love of musical theater.

Dana Rowe:
Well, I can certainly speak to that. Spielberg did a commencement speech for Harvard at one point where he said, listen to the whisper. And he was talking about listening for your intuition. And I think one thing that teachers and parents can do is to be the whisperer. He went on to say, listen to the voice that tells you what you can do. And I think that we can also do that. I had so many instances of that growing up where a teacher would say, you’re really good at that, Dana, why don’t you do that? Or you should do more of that. You really light up when you do that.

Dana Rowe:
And I think that’s one way we can help and nurture those talents that our kids had. Look for the spark.

James Kaufman:
It’s a bit ironic. I have two boys who aren’t theater kids, as much as I might want that. I mean, they have other passions and hobbies and interests, which is wonderful. But taking them to theater if they are interested, encouraging lessons, being part of those local theater communities, listening to them.

Matthew Worwood:
I think listening to the conversation and the question that Cindy asked, I think its similar to other conversations weve had, which in essence has celebrated the value of theatre and its potential relationship to creativity. And I know on the show weve recently, over the last twelve months, had a couple of shows here and there that have either advocated for improvisation or advocated for being part of a theatre community. And in one of our debriefs, ive started to ask the question, but why? Whats the connection? I listen a little bit just to try and connect some of the things that I’ve heard, because I think different pieces have actually, for the first time, started to answer that question for me. Dana, listening to a few things that you said, but no particular order, you had mentioned the fact that you get to interact with different people from different backgrounds. And I’ve kind of had a kind of, I want to say double personality, but I grew up in sports. I was a soccer player at a very young age. But I also went to a community theater, two very different types of communities, different types of personalities. You’re making me reflect, but I would argue that I think one of my strengths is the capacity to interact and work with different people.

Matthew Worwood:
And I’m not necessarily like anyone. I shared a story a while ago on the podcast. It was an audition of some sort, and I was with a group of people that I didn’t know, but they were obviously all actors. And we were staring up at the ceiling and we started talking about all the weird holes. That’s kind of like in a doctor’s or dentist office. And every time I look at the dentist and see these weird holes, now I remember that conversation because we didn’t know each other. We started to get into this fun conversation about how the holes got there and, you know, how sporadic they were. And why is it that they’re there.

Matthew Worwood:
And we were all laughing and giggling, all these strangers in a room. But we were part of a theater community in that moment. But I also remember at that time jumping out of my body and saying, wow, what would your mates think about this conversation right now? And you know, I always remembered some of my mates. You know, I’d be the one who’d go to the parties, the theater parties, and bring, you know, my southeast London soccer friends and you know, they were just different people, right? And I liked that idea of the fact that I was being exposed to just accepting everyone. And I think that I only got that from the theater community. And it was a place where I felt like I could be me. So that’s one thing. The other thing that you had said, dana, that I find really fascinating really early on is you had referenced the idea of like, you get to play out life.

Matthew Worwood:
And I’m recently reading some books around the anxiety in kids and some of the challenges that we have with young people and the electronics world. I’m not here to say I’m for or against electronics, but some of the arguments that are being made is that obviously traditional playtime is being lost. But if you think about it within the theater, you actually keep getting to play. And James, I would expand on what you’re saying. It’s just not just about the domains you get to play and experiment with different people. And therefore, what is the relationship that might have on you discovering what you want to be later in life? Because I know that I got into theater primarily because I was sitting on the top of a tree and I was eleven years old. I was getting to the point where it’s a bit embarrassing playing these imaginary games and I’m shooting at Baron Arrow and I was envisioning myself firing a message to my camp because I was Robin Hood and I would hang out, I dressed up as Robin Hood and I would hang out on that tree for a long time. And I realized that I had a problem because I was enjoying this job of looking out for messengers and firing a bow and arrow.

Matthew Worwood:
And I remember at that point I said to myself where if I can’t do this, I probably want to command, you know, a federation starship and travel the galaxy. And I was like, I can’t do that either. So the key point is it might have been enough. You know, I’m a first generation college kid. I wouldn’t say that I understood a lot of career paths. We don’t have career counselors per se in the UK, but I felt like, because I didn’t know for sure what I wanted to do, I felt that the theater allowed me to play all of these different characters. And I would say that contributed to my understanding of the world. And potentially James exposed me to what life could be like within domains, different cultures, different life setups.

Matthew Worwood:
And just some of the responses you’ve got has actually made me realize how it’s not just, oh, it’s a good thing. I’m starting to think of how critical it is that we provide experiences for our children at a young age. If we can’t do the home corner in the room, we’ve got to build some form of kind of like semi structured environment that allow them to play. And the theater companies, theatre communities, musical theaters, that actually is the answer. And now I’m getting passionate. I’m saying, so anyone who’s concerned about, oh, there’s not a lot of don’t even think about it as a career. Simply see the affordances that it gives your child if you expose them to that community. So I got a little bit passionate there.

Matthew Worwood:
I don’t know if there’s any follow ups, but I actually feel that I’ve begun to unlock for me some of the values of the theater community because of those specific responses. So thank you. I wanted to share that. Sorry, I went off on a tangent.

James Kaufman:
But if you also figure that adolescence is when we are developing our identity, we’re figuring out who we are. And a number of creativity folks, Baptiste Barbo, for example, have talked about how the act of constructing your identity is a creative act. Theater allows you to experiment with identities. So beyond it being a community, and you can have your identity be I’m a theater kid. It also allows you to, whether it’s as a performer or as a writer or anything, try on these identities without necessarily needing to do the deep dive. That may be more prohibitive at first.

Dana Rowe:
You three would know exactly what this represents. But looking at the holes in the ceiling and going on with that off record, what is the official, how would that be described?

Matthew Worwood:
Do you mean the act of doing.

Dana Rowe:
It or the actual ideating or what would that be?

Matthew Worwood:
Oh, divergent. I suppose it was divergent thinking because we were coming. I never thought about that.

James Kaufman:
Yeah, divergent or associative thinking.

Matthew Worwood:
Yeah, because we were in that incident, we were coming up with someone. I remember someone said a snooker cue and we was coming up with all the ways. Some people said that they would walk on it with soccer boots. So there was actually having fun of all the different ways they got these random them holes.

James Kaufman:
That is favorite. And thinking.

Dana Rowe:
The game that you were playing about, what are those holes represented? What could they be? Reminds me of what an actor would do to prepare for a role. Before they even walk on stage, they get to make up, where am I coming from? What just happened to me that is causing me to walk through this door and be on this stage and in this moment. And it’s just a wonderful example of encouraging and nurturing divergent thinking in young people. It’s a great creative exercise.

Cyndi Burnett:
And to build on that, one of the things I found really interesting in the book was an activity you did called uniquely you. And I think in terms of students thinking about themselves and how they want to live their lives and how they want to present themselves and looking at their identities, and then teachers also looking at their identities and the gifts that they bring to the classroom, I think this would be a wonderful activity to do with your students or even as an educator or parent, to do as your own, because we each bring our own strengths to the classroom, to our home. So can you take us a little bit through the uniquely u exercise?

James Kaufman:
What uniquely you does is to use a broad, divergent thinking kind of framework or structure, but make it be about your identity, your strengths, where what we do is we ask about what are the things that make you you, whether it’s life experiences, talents, passions, interests, values, resources. What are all these things that allow you to bring your own voice? And for the purposes of the book, it would be to a show, but it could be to any type of project activity or simply the world. And to list how many of these different things make you you, make you stand out, make you be that, that special thing that is different from anybody else. And the next part would be, okay, well, think about the things that you might not think of, but which other people have told you, those compliments that maybe you kind of dismiss or, oh, no, no, thank you. But what are they? Can you embrace them? Can you really dive in? And I mean, maybe some are just people being nice, but what are these things that other people maybe have identified as things that are interesting, unique, good about you that maybe you don’t even think about, and then can you claim them and revel in them?

Cyndi Burnett:
In a sense, I love this activity. And when I was reading the book and I hid that activity and I took some time to really reflect on my own strengths, I thought, what an amazing exercise for educators to do as they enter, you know, the new school year in the fall to really think about what are these unique gifts that I give my students every day. I think it’s really empowering and I just love this activity. I mean, it’s both divergent and convergent and really the reflection piece and really taking ownership over our strengths and sharing those strengths with others, I think could be such a gift to teachers.

James Kaufman:
Like to give an example of something that I finally embraced as a strength that I never really would have thought of when I was a kid. We moved around a lot, like almost every year or two. And it wasn’t until I was in kind of senior in college and I lived with many, many different people. It was kind of a big house that’s at student housing. And I remember I was talking to somebody who was pointing out to me that the thing that what he’d noticed was that I got along with everybody, that there were these little clicks, there was this, there was that. And that I always kind of saw myself as an outsider and he’s, you know, maybe, but you’re the one who has the relationship with everybody. And, I mean, years later, I remember, God, maybe ten years ago, seeing Jonathan Plucker do a wonderful presentation at APA, looking at all the different collaboration networks of creativity researchers. And there were two portals through which had the most lines.

James Kaufman:
And one was Mike Mumford, who’s mentored like dozens of superstar creativity researchers, including my very dear friend Ronnie Rader Palman. And I was the other one. It was like I’ve embraced the fact that I like connecting people. I like collaborating. I mean, I collaborate a lot. And it’s. By now, it’s one of my favorite things to do. And whether that’s mentoring graduate students, whether it’s working with people who I’ve worked with for more than two decades, it’s one of my favorite things.

James Kaufman:
And there’s never something that would have occurred to me as any type of strength.

Matthew Worwood:
I do want to just come back to one of the themes that I think is emerging. There’s a few different themes, but I just shared a film that I created called teaching during the pandemic. And it’s that teach around tables, which, James, I confess you had asked me to share it via Google Drive, and I still haven’t done that. It’s on my list. But I went in there talking about creativity during the pandemic, and one of the things that emerged within the film was relationships. The relationships between the teachers and the students, the relationships between the teachers and their colleagues, and then, of course, also the relationship between teachers and support staff and teachers in the administration and it was very clear that leveraging relationships that you had was one of the things that assisted at least these six educators in the roundtable, allowed them to get through, particularly during the first few months of the pandemic. And so, going back to what we discussed, I think relationships in general are critical as a skill that we need. But collaboration isn’t that built on our capacity to form relationships, and therefore, how do we develop that capacity? And maybe that’s another avenue within the theater community that we get to add.

Dana Rowe:
On to the idea of collaboration. There’s no collaboration without certain skills. The big one is being able to listen and to be aware of what someone else is truly saying and not just being. Not just waiting for what to say next yourself, which is all about the technique of acting. It’s being in the moment and letting the other person exist on stage and truly responding to what’s going on.

Matthew Worwood:
I never even thought about that piece, but you’re totally right. One, you’re listening. I’ve been on the stage where someone has suddenly you’re in the second act, and someone’s made a comment, right? They said the wrong line. That then has led the company to jump to the fourth act. I remember it happened to me, and because I was attentive, I had to listen, notice the mistake, and then find a way of bringing us back to the second act because we were about to end the play an hour early, you know, and you could see, but everyone, it folded like dominoes. Everyone was now acting out the fourth scene. And I also remember that my son talks a lot about the fact that he’s having to listen. When you practice the dialogue, you’re having to become familiar with everything that’s said in the play, and you have to constantly listen to it so you can react to any changes.

Matthew Worwood:
And of course, we know within acting as well, you also have to kind of accept how a line’s delivered, and sometimes a line is delivered a little bit differently. Right. And now you have to kind of accept, well, okay, what I practice isn’t going to work. I’ve got to respond in a slightly different way. I never even thought about that. But the idea of listening skills within the. Wow. Yes, there’s another one.

Matthew Worwood:
Yeah.

James Kaufman:
And not just actors, if you think about it, I mean, lighting designers, sound mixers, anybody who’s reacting to what’s going on stage, if they’re in their own world, I mean, that’s how you end up with the funnier bloopers. I mean, my very favorite one is the one where the sound designer pressed the wrong cue twice so that when Maria points a gun at Chino, it went off. Which very much changes the end of west side Story.

Dana Rowe:
Well, and along with that remaining open, right, which is the first rule of improvisation and saying yes. And what I love about that, you know, in your own mind, rather than going, hold it, hold it, hold it, we’re way off here. It’s just being able to roll with it and be with it. It’s a huge, huge skill.

Matthew Worwood:
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Cyndi Burnett:
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Matthew Worwood:
And if you’re craving a community of creative educators who love new ideas, don’t miss out on their creative thinking network. Get access to monthly webinars, creative lesson plans, and a supportive community all focused on fostering creativity in the classroom.

Cyndi Burnett:
To learn more, check out curiositytocreate.org, comma. Or check out the links in the show notes for this episode. Well, Matt, I think our time is almost up, but I have a great question. I found in the book that I would like to ask everyone, which is because if your life were a show tune, what would it be? And then the second question is, what would you like it to be? So if your life were a show tune, what would it be? And then the second question is, what would you like it to be? I’ll start. So when I thought about this, I said, you can’t stop the beats is my show tune. And I would like it to be defying gravity, because I would like to defy gravity, but I don’t know if I have quite the courage. So in the meantime, I’ll just keep going with that beat.

James Kaufman:
So my first thought was, from little Abner, I’m past my prime, but hopefully not that. The one that I probably refer to perhaps the most often is the glamorous life from a little night music, in a somewhat sarcastic way, just because I feel like anybody who’s achieved any level of success, but also just lives a normal life, you know, like, I’ve given keynotes to hundreds of people and. But then I’m also picking up after the dogs. But probably the one I would ultimately choose is, and I’m aware these are not the popular show tunes is from the mystery of Edwin Drood. No good can come from bad. I think it’s very easy to hold on to the bad. And more and more, I’m good at moving past the bad and focusing on the good. And I like the idea.

James Kaufman:
No good can come from bad. I mean, certainly, okay, yes, there is post traumatic growth if we want to get really, really technical on it. But this trying to focus on what is good in your life, what to be grateful for, what to enjoy and be present for. And this, since it’s a bit of an aspirational show, too. And I think that counts for both of them, actually.

Cyndi Burnett:
Thanks, James.

Dana Rowe:
I think for me, for most of my early life, I was always anticipating something really amazing happening. And I believe it served me well. From west side Story. Something’s coming. And I think the anticipation and the excitement of the newness of the world and life was what sort of buoyed me along. It’s since become. I don’t know that I want it to be any different than that, aside from the fact that it’s morphed into. And I know we have this in common.

Dana Rowe:
Cindy, didn’t we both do Oliver at an early age? Yeah, we would have been. Yeah, we would have been. That would have been so much fun. But there’s a song in there that I just think is magical and the way I see life now. And it’s who will buy? And it has such gratitude for this wonderful morning. Who will tie it up in a ribbon and put it in a box for me so that I can see it at my leisure whenever things go wrong. And I will keep it as a treasure to last my whole life long.

Matthew Worwood:
I have a story around that, the flowers, but I’ll hold off on that. Okay. For me, I am a romantic and I love love. I’ve always loved being in the idea of being in love. And I’m not trying to be overly corny, but I absolutely do love my wife and I love everything about her. And every. Just this morning I woke up. I’m going to stop there because this is.

Matthew Worwood:
I already see this is that double personality coming. I’ve got to stay cool. Yeah. So what I would say is some enchanted evening. The song some enchanted evening. You know, I sung that before I met my wife. But that song meant something to me because it was the first time, actually, I’d been having some singing lessons at my drama school. I spoke a little bit higher, which is very common for southeast londoners.

Matthew Worwood:
But just before I sung that song, I just found my voice. I don’t know the technical terms, but I know I got my voice down there. I was starting to hold notes really well, and I really sung that song great. But I think one of the reasons why I sung that, a lot of people said is that, well, some people felt I was singing to someone in the room at the time. It wasn’t actually the true. I wasn’t doing that. But what I do remember is that I was so immersed in the idea of seeing this person who, you know, I was in love with and the idea of seeing someone and, and having to go up to them and, you know, that beginning, that, the beginning of suddenly falling in love and going on that journey. And I think that I continue to live that, in essence, with my wife.

Matthew Worwood:
And so I think that’s the first. The first one is some enchanted evening for both me having such a wonderful time singing it, but then also because of my love for love, I think the other thing, and I think everyone can relate with this, and we don’t talk enough about it, is I think that we all, to a certain extent, sometimes feel somewhat inadequate. And again, it relates a lot to what we spoke about theatre communities. And I know at a very young age, I heard the song, I am what I am, right. The way it’s sung, the lyrics, it’s like, this is who I am. Judge me if you want, but I’m not going to change. Right. And it obviously is a way that we all want to inspire to live.

Matthew Worwood:
And I do think that we kind of get there. Right? Like, I’ve kind of gone through a transition in my life with age where I think I’m starting to become that person. Right. I don’t think two years ago I would have stood up and spoke about the podcast, about the fact that I love being in love, right? But over the last couple of years, I’ve transitioned into just saying, this is who I am. And I think that every single one of us probably do want to shout that out from the rooftops and just be accepted. And I know that I’ve sometimes, when I’ve been down, I’ve played that song in my twenties and even in my latter teens. So I think that is the song that I still continue to inspire to be. I still think I’ve got a journey of trying to work toward that, and I’m sure everyone can relate to that.

Matthew Worwood:
So that’s. That’s my two songs.

Cyndi Burnett:
So, Dana, we end every episode with three tips that you would provide to educators to help them bring creativity into the classroom. So James has already given us tips in his last episodes, which we’re going to link to below. But can you give us three tips that you would give to educators to help them bring creativity into the classroom.

Dana Rowe:
Absolutely. And of course, this is around theater and the idea of putting together plays and or theatrical shows. But look for the spark and be the whisperer, be the voice that tells them what they can do. Don’t just tell them what they can’t do. Number two would be try talking about what’s going on with the characters. Give them a safe space to process certain things in life because this is a great time, no matter how old or young they might be, to try on those, those situations. And thank you for reminding us of the exercise of if your life was a show tune. We also have a little thing called the Rogers and Hammerstein’s value wheel.

Dana Rowe:
And what would Norma Desmond do? Is another exercise that we do where it’s like, how would Maria from the sound of music respond in this situation? What would pippen do? What would the artful Dodger do in this situation? So that’s another one. So that trying on those things and identifying where they are emotionally in a specific time in their life with a song, it’s just a great way to do that.

Cyndi Burnett:
Lovely. Well, Dana James, thank you so much for joining us on this special episode around musical theater and creativity and education. If you know someone who loves musical theater or has a musical theater child, send them this episode and have them listen. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at questionsueling creativity. My name is Doctor Cindy Burnett.

Matthew Worwood:
And my name is Doctor Matthew Worwood.

Cyndi Burnett:
This episode was produced by Matthew Worwood and Cindy Burnett. Our podcast sponsor is curiosity to create, and our editor is Sam Atkinson.