Jim Devivo [00:00:00]:
Well, it definitely is to loosen them. Mean, that’s, that’s why it’s a great thing to make Barnard animal noises on the first day. And I always tell them, I don’t know if this is what Tim used to say to us, too, but you feel a little self conscious walking into this room and are a little afraid of what’s going to happen next. And maybe you don’t like public speaking or whatever your thing is that leads you to an acting class or a theater class at this age. And just know now that we’ve probably done the silliest thing possible and everything else should feel a little bit easier.

Matthew Worwood [00:00:33]:
Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Matthew Werwood.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:36]:
And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett.

Matthew Worwood [00:00:38]:
This is the fueling Creativity in Education podcast.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:42]:
On this podcast, we’ll be talking about various creativity topics and how they relate to the fields of education.

Matthew Worwood [00:00:48]:
We’ll be talking with scholars, educators, and resident experts about their work, challenges they face, and exploring new perspectives of creativity.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:56]:
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 [00:01:08]:
So let’s begin.

Cyndi Burnett [00:01:11]:
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Fueling Creativity and Education podcast. And if you are into theater and arts and creativity and education, this is a show for you. So today we welcome Dr. Jim DeVivo, who is a specialist in youth driven theater. He teaches middle and high school theater for Homedale Township Schools and is an adjunct professor with the program in educational theater at NYU. For 15 years, Jim produced the New Jersey Youth Playwrights Festival, for which he received New Jersey Governor’s Award for Arts education and New Jersey Theater Alliance Award of Excellence. He continues this work through an online platform called the Young Playwrights Guide. Jim has a BFA in theater, which he did alongside me way back when in 25 years ago, and a Master of Arts and PhD in educational theater from NYU.

Cyndi Burnett [00:02:07]:
He lives at the Jersey Shore with his wife Bridget, also an award winning theater, and together they direct a troupe of three children and one pug, some of whom take direction well. So, Jim, welcome to the show.

Jim Devivo [00:02:21]:
Thank you. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here. Glad to see you again.

Cyndi Burnett [00:02:24]:
Yes. So, Jim, let’s start with something I found on your website. I’m going to start with this phrase, the classroom is a theater. Explain that to us.

Jim Devivo [00:02:35]:
Yeah, well, we can be very basic about it. This is actually one of the things that I like to introduce to the middle school kids is that just the setup of the room and the way that we tend to think of education and have been doing it for over 100 years, we have someone in the front who’s giving information, telling a story, and then a built in audience of people taking that information in, reacting, I hope, and just that simple setup. But I’ve also found, too, that one of the things that’s helped me the most in transitioning to becoming a classroom teacher, which I only did about seven years ago, is that training as an actor, I don’t think I’ve ever performed as much or put in as much energy into a performance as I have in front of a classroom.

Matthew Worwood [00:03:24]:
Yeah, but that’s really important, and we’ve kind of alluded to that on other episodes, is that when you’re standing up and communicating information, and it is. I love the way you referenced it as information. Right. It’s somebody else’s knowledge, and to us, it’s information, and we’re sharing that information with the students in the hope that they are able to make the necessary connections where they can construct their own knowledge with that. But obviously, that means it’s really important for us to package that information in a way that helps students make those connections. And you had referenced sharing information and storytelling, and we are. We’re standing up and telling stories. So my question is, do you have any techniques or approaches when it comes to storytelling? Because I’ve seen some teachers that are like, oh, wow, this is really like a theater.

Matthew Worwood [00:04:09]:
Really like a show. I’m just engaged. They’re bringing puppets and things like that. And then, of course, the other extreme is a PowerPoint karaoke type deal where some students are sitting there thinking, wait, should I be listening, or should I be reading type deals? So tell us a little bit about some of your strategies when it comes to standing up on that stage.

Jim Devivo [00:04:26]:
Sure. Well, I like to use the physical space as much as I do approaching storytelling from a verbal standpoint. So having the slides behind me is a great way to bring in a lot of information students should be seeing. My room is an old technology room, so there’s a lot of space. It also been converted into a gymnasium at one point, very small one. So I have a much larger open space than most classrooms do. And everything in here is movable from the tables to the chairs. So I can reconfigure this space any way that I want to, which helps sort of use the element of surprise or awareness gets the students hooked into what’s going to happen today.

Jim Devivo [00:05:07]:
The room is suddenly different, and we can try doing different things in different areas of the room, it doesn’t always need to be a fixed space facing forward. And I find that that tends to get the students involved. Sometimes I can use a certain spot in the room to accentuate what we’re doing that day. And a lot of that feeds into the idea that I tell them that what we’re doing when we’re doing theater in the classroom is we’re really learning how to communicate. And communicate isn’t just from our own tools, the actors tools, voice and body, but also the space that’s around us and how that might impact the way that we might relate to somebody or what we need to do to make sure that the information or the story or whatever we’re trying to express carries from us to them.

Cyndi Burnett [00:05:52]:
And Jim, I’m such an advocate, and I know you are as well, of theater training, and that every person in the world should get theater training or take a theater class or an acting class at some point, because it is about communicating ideas in an effective way. So what do you do with your high school students to help them shift the focus from instruction to experience?

Jim Devivo [00:06:16]:
They have to get on their feet. It sounds very simple, but it seems to be the biggest barrier to anything that they’re going to do in the acting class. And we do have that shift from middle school. Middle school is very general theater, and that idea of communicating is probably as far as we really get with acting. I do throw a couple of random things out there, actually, Sydney, I don’t know if you remember Tim Ward’s opening workshop where we used to walk around the room making animal noises of each other? Did you have that experience?

Cyndi Burnett [00:06:45]:
Yes.

Jim Devivo [00:06:45]:
Remember that? I do that every day, first or second class with every grade level to get them breaking down. So from there, maybe a couple of improv things in the middle school. But high school, it’s a pure acting class, so they can’t hide. They need to get up, they need to move around. And I find that that’s one of the biggest hurdles to getting involved. And once they’re on their feet, there’s really no hiding from doing the work. They have to get into it. There’s only so long you can stand there motionless, speechless, before you’re required to do something, which I think is important, too, not just as actor training, to learn that there’s a reason why your character speaks and moves and thinks or does whatever they do.

Jim Devivo [00:07:25]:
But that’s what we do in life, and that’s what you’re going to need to do when you’re communicating to someone. And again, going back to all those other ideas I mentioned in the middle school classroom about the space and the environment and the time and yada, yada.

Matthew Worwood [00:07:37]:
Yada, I can’t help but revisit the improvisation piece a little bit more and just kind of tease that out because. All right. My first initial response was to kind of, like, invite you and Cindy to start making animal noises as part of the improvisation. However, I do know when people talk, know get me to share the acting stories. There was an audition. It was actually my most preferred school. I never got into it. The guilt hood school of music and drama.

Matthew Worwood [00:08:04]:
And I got to the last round, and in the last round, there was about maybe 20 of us. They were looking to bring in ten, and I’d been doing really good. And then they suddenly asked us to be champagne bottles, like the liquid inside the champagne bottles, and I was like, okay. And I was stuck. I was like, I found this really challenging, right? And then they were like, okay, someone’s shaking you. Someone’s shaking you up now. Someone’s shaking you up now. And I think, realistically, probably they were just getting us to kind of loosen up and relax and open up a little bit.

Matthew Worwood [00:08:35]:
But it just strikes me that those types of activities probably do have an interesting place in the classroom. I don’t know if maybe some grades over other grades, but could you elaborate a little bit more on that, Jim, and some of the kind of improv type activities you’ve had the students do, and more importantly, what your objective is when you kind of have them doing those activities?

Jim Devivo [00:08:56]:
Sure. Well, it definitely is to loosen them up. That’s why it’s a great thing to make barnyard animal noises on the first day. And I always tell them, I don’t know if this is what Tim used to say to us, too, but you feel a little self conscious walking into this room and are a little afraid of what’s going to happen next. And maybe you don’t like public speaking or whatever your thing is that leads you to an acting class or a theater class at this age, and just know now that we’ve probably done the silliest thing possible and everything else should feel a little bit easier. And a lot of times, I think students take that with them to the next class, the next exercise. Obviously, some feel more comfortable than others right off the bat, but after that, every performance exercise tries to just get students a little bit more comfortable. With middle school, the next thing I do with them is just give a one slide presentation about themselves.

Jim Devivo [00:09:54]:
It’s very low risk. They’ve done that in another class in far more detail. I do emphasize to them that they need to have more pictures than words on the screen. So that they can start to tell us the story. Rather than just read it from the screen or point to it and say, that’s my cat. That’s my favorite food, or whatever they might do. So that there’s also an element of improvisation there as well. And I always bring that idea back to them.

Jim Devivo [00:10:18]:
That you should come into every situation that you can with a plan and be prepared in some way. But you also have to be aware of the fact that in the moment, something’s going to happen that could throw that plan completely out the window. And now you’re in a situation where you need to talk to someone or present a story or do whatever. And now you’ve got to make it up off the top of your head. And one thing that really helps students make that connection, I think, is if they’ve had any kind of experience playing a sport, they know that they practice. In order to have those skills ready for whatever situation happens in a game. A lot of times, too, the improvisations I’ll try to draw from real life experiences. Like you’re trying to ask your parents for something.

Jim Devivo [00:11:05]:
Or you need to get an extension on a homework assignment. So this way, it’s familiar examples that maybe they can draw some of their life experience into. Or it’s just slightly removed. Where we can start to talk about substituting those experiences into what they’ve done. And they can see how they’re able to think on their feet and come up with a creative idea. Or I always emphasize, too, that I don’t know is one of two incorrect answers that they can give me in the room. The other one is the correct spelling of theater, which I know is controversial. But that’s what students remember from middle school to high school.

Jim Devivo [00:11:39]:
Typically, because I tell them the I don’t know is you either telling yourself you are unwilling or unable or feel that you’re unable to give the answer. And this isn’t really the type of situation where you have to know the answer. You very easily make one up. And by sort of training them to do that. Or giving them the experience and thereby the comfort to answer off the top of their head. Whether it’s correct or not or right or not or whatever they’re used to. Having to give the right answer in another classroom starts to break that cycle a bit and build up a little bit of inhibition.

Cyndi Burnett [00:12:19]:
So, Jim, middle school and high school. Tough age, right? Tough age to get them really to break outside their own little paradigms because they’re so self conscious and worry about what others might think. And just this past week, I was working with a group of fifth and 6th graders on invention. As they walked into the classroom, I handed each of them a pipe cleaner and I said to them, I’m going to give you two minutes to create the most unusual item with this pipe cleaner. And almost all of them, except for one, got really into it, started working on it, and I looked at the one and he said, I’m not doing this. So I had a choice. Do I force him to do it? Which is no. I said, you have to do it, or do I let him go? Now I let him go.

Cyndi Burnett [00:13:05]:
And he ended up wanting to judge who was the best one. So I said, I need a judge to judge the best one. And he said, I want to do it. I want to judge it. I’m like, okay. So he wasn’t at all interested in being a part of it, but then he realized how much fun they were having and then he wanted to be part of it. So I’m sure that you face this a lot, so can you give us some examples of when this has happened and what you did about it?

Jim Devivo [00:13:32]:
Yeah. Well, the nice thing about the way things tend to get set up, especially in both middle school and high school, is that they’re both built in actors and audience. So some students just need a little more time in the audience before they’re willing to step into the role as actor. If I can give them that grace, I certainly will try to do that. There are sometimes, and I actually just had this a couple of weeks ago with a new marking period, new group of students. It was with the slideshow presentation and I’m very adamant about everyone needs to go. You need to be able to get up and present just even brass tax. It’s my first assessment of your skills in presentation.

Jim Devivo [00:14:17]:
So I need to be able to see that sometimes a way around that is to provide the opportunity to record it at home and then I can take a look at it away from the audience and then just try to keep an eye out for that student and find ways for them to maybe get up on stage in a group and not always with lines. I have another student actually in another class right now who really, to your credit, I was really impressed with this. A 7th grader who came up to me after the first class and said, I’m really shy and really self conscious when it comes to speaking in front of a group, but I want to improve. So I’m going to be here and I’m going to do it. It just might take me a little while. And I wanted you to know that I was floored. That was incredible. And so we’ve checked in every couple of classes, and this week our project is a full group story theater piece.

Jim Devivo [00:15:11]:
We’re recreating a myth, the Prometheus myth, and with a two page script that we have that borrowed from my wife. And it’s a great piece because there are maybe eight roles, eight speaking roles, and then the rest of the class can participate in something that’s more ensemble based. So there’s a point where all the titans are fighting and everything on earth dies. So we decided in this one class that we would have the six characters that played the gods come out and fight, and all the other actors would be living beings on earth who die at the wrath of the gods. So it gave them a chance to come on stage without a line and to do something silly. We brought the barnyard animals back in with that part. That’s what died. It always comes back to the barnyard animals.

Jim Devivo [00:15:58]:
But this one student was a part of that, and she had a great time and felt less self conscious about it because she was able to do that with other kids and could kind of hide upstage a little bit in the back. But she was still on stage, still doing the work, getting the experience in building her confidence, but on her terms. And those are good examples. And it’s not always that simple. Sometimes we have had to go and talk with a parent or a counselor and find out that maybe the student isn’t quite ready to be out there quite yet, and maybe they can come back around again in 8th grader or. I’ve had a couple of students who have not been able to or have not felt that they’ve been able to be a part of the middle school theater class who then it came to find me as a junior or senior to get their art credit in, but they wanted to redeem themselves. When student actually talked to me about that, he really wanted to come back and really say that he was able to do this.

Matthew Worwood [00:16:54]:
I just want to follow up on theater a little bit because Cindy and I have had some back and forth in our Marco Polo. We talk about the podcast, we talk about pretty much everything Cindy and I offline. And one of the things that we got got into, I want to say about a month ago, was community theater, because both of, well, we’ve got two children that are engaged in community theater, and I had this really tough situation where I kind of missed the deadline for signing up, and my son was in danger of not getting into the show. And one of the things that struck out to me in this situation was how much he valued the community. And we talk a lot about environmental factors in creativity, but I think there’s something. Of course, he loves being on stage and developing empathy through the actor and et cetera, et cetera, but just being in this environment where we’ve got whatever it is, and that’s my question to you. What is it but something within this environment he seems to really like? And I think part of it is the relationships that he develops, but I think there’s something within that environment that allows him to interact with people in a way that’s very different to how he interacts in a classroom environment or even in social environments outside of school. What is it in that theater, that community piece that I’m seeing?

Jim Devivo [00:18:09]:
Wow, that’s a great question. I could talk about that personally, but before I do that, I’ll mention that one thing I see with students in particular is that because it’s not a traditional classroom setting, and we do a couple of theater history pieces where they have notes and they take a quiz, and we do that. But the majority of the class, a good 75%, if not more of it, is just being creative and being theatrical and getting to relate to one another, getting to relate to a teacher and a space in a school in a way that they don’t do so the rest of the day. And I think that draws a lot of students in who don’t succeed or don’t feel comfortable in a traditional classroom setting. It also pushes students who are very tuned into academics to tap into a side of them that maybe they don’t know exists in some cases, and to do so in a very comfortable environment, too. I’d love yesterday I had a student in my high school acting class who is not a theater kid. She’s in the class just because she wants to have fun. And a good friend of hers is one of our actors who does all the shows.

Jim Devivo [00:19:29]:
And she said, before class started, I just feel this is a very comfortable space which you’re made right there. That was great, and it’s what drew me to theater. When I was ten years old, I developed alopecia, which is complete loss of hair. And so I’ve been bald since I was ten, which is difficult as a ten year old. And especially at that time when there was very little known about it, it’s an autoimmune disease, so there’s no treatment, there’s really no cure. I took a big hit to my self confidence, to put it very mildly. Fortunately, I have two uncles who I’m closer in age to than my mother is. So kind of like older brothers to me.

Jim Devivo [00:20:15]:
And they ran a Summerstock company near where I grew up, their hometown. It’s only like 45 minutes away. So I got invited to spend a week with them to work on a production. It was a production of Oklahoma. I got to run the lightboard for it, which was incredible. Actually, one of the stories I tell at the beginning of my middle school class, and when I introduced myself is I was an eleven year old running a lightboard, which is all analog. I totally messed up a light queue on opening night, the start of act two, and it was in the paper. So my first theater review was how badly I had messed up the lights at eleven, which I loved.

Jim Devivo [00:20:49]:
And that’s what I noticed too. I spent a lot of time just hanging out in the balcony of this old vaudeville house, watching the technicians build the set. I helped people run cables. I was on headset as a part of the crew, and I would watch rehearsals and just see the community that was built and just all the different types of people. These actors and artists came from all over the country. They all looked different, spoke different, they had different lifestyles than I could even imagine. And just being someone who felt like an other at that point and seeing other others coming together and just not caring. In my ten year old eyes, eleven year old eyes was really quite moving and there was nowhere else I wanted to be.

Jim Devivo [00:21:38]:
I see that in students. We get a lot of students in this theater program. I’ve always had them. When I was running an education program with the theater, there were a lot of kids who would show up there who would say that they feel like it’s the one place that they can be themselves or parents will tell me, my child was so quiet and we were worried about them. They found people in theater and now they’ve started to blossom. They have confidence in themselves. They’re finally speaking out. I can’t get them to stop talking to me anymore, things like that.

Jim Devivo [00:22:09]:
So it’s been very nice. And I just think it’s that need to collaborate to make the art happen that provides theater with the community that can be so beneficial to so many people.

Cyndi Burnett [00:22:21]:
What a beautiful story. And actually, Jim, I didn’t know that story about you, so thank you for sharing that.

Jim Devivo [00:22:26]:
Well, no, I was just going to know, the thing about college, too, was that at least feel weird talking about it because it sounds so stupid. And I look back on it and I feel kind of silly about it. But I wore a wig all through middle school and high school just so I could kind of look like other people. And what was nice, too, for me about college was not only going into a theater program where I knew I was going to have that kind of community, but it was a new place where nobody knew me so I could just be myself. So you’ve always known me looking like this, right? And I never talked about it because that’s not a story I want to share. So that’s the reason why. It’s the reason why you didn’t know.

Cyndi Burnett [00:23:02]:
Well, thank you for sharing that story. And I think theater is a place where you can sort of find, at least it was for me as well, like a place where you can be yourself even though you’re being someone else. Right. So it’s sort of like this, finding yourself through other perspectives of the characters that you get to portray.

Matthew Worwood [00:23:24]:
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Cyndi Burnett [00:23:32]:
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Matthew Worwood [00:23:43]:
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Cyndi Burnett [00:23:58]:
To learn more, check out curiositytocreate.org or check out the links in the show notes for this know.

Matthew Worwood [00:24:07]:
So, Jim, I want to kind of bring this a little bit back to creativity because I think there’s so many things that you shared from just being yourself to collaborating with others in a community. I think this idea of community and creativity is something really important for us to kind of explore and maybe just finish up the show with. Because I have to say, I remember when I was sitting with auditions with other actors and, you know, there’s like those holes in the ceiling sometimes quite often in doctor’s offices. And I remember we were looking up and waiting for the results of the audition and someone made a comment about the holes in the ceilings and the amount of divergent thinking that started happening with all these strangers that didn’t know each other. We all started cracking these wild jokes about how these holes happened. And every single time I’m in the dentist chair or a doctor’s appointment, I look up and I see those holes in the ceiling. I remember that time with these complete strangers having a divergent thinking exercise, in essence, about these holes and just laughing. And I know that I couldn’t be the same person with my soccer friends, and I couldn’t be the same person in the classroom environment and at school and even with my social friends as well when going out.

Matthew Worwood [00:25:15]:
And I was always fascinated about how I. It wasn’t that I changed, but how I kind of interacted differently within this particular community. And just that example there, that imagination, that creativity, that divergent thinking. I’m seeing a connection. So what’s your take on that connecting theater back to creativity in schools, the.

Jim Devivo [00:25:37]:
Other spaces don’t really require. Well, I don’t want to, actually. I shouldn’t say that because I’m sure we engage in divergent thinking in a lot of different environments. But just a simple question, what if, which is built into a lot of acting theory, requires you to think differently, to take another aspect of looking at something, or the fact that production goes on stage in one time and place and another time and place, it’s going to be totally different because it’s different people, different group, different environment, different time, looking at the same piece with their own knowledge, background, experiences, everything else. And I think that to go to the question, too, of why I’ve noticed children struggling with that so much more recently is that I don’t think there’s really a set space that prompts those kind of questions. You talked about being in a doctor’s office. There were holes in the ceiling, and you kind of had that conversation with the people around you. But I don’t know that there’s really a space within the school environment or even within an extracurricular activity outside of something like theater or another art form where you do need to have a perspective that’s divergent, where you can exercise that.

Jim Devivo [00:26:52]:
One of the things I noticed after graduate school, I went and taught high school English for a year, and then I left to go work at the theater. And then I came back to teaching, as I said, like seven years ago. And I did teach English and theater when I first came back to the classroom. But one of the reasons I then made the move here to just teach theater was because the way I viewed English, it really had lost a lot of its fun. There was very little room for creative writing. In fact, there was no creative writing in the curriculum that I received. I had to introduce some of that myself, and it’s sort of bell ringers. So ten minutes a day we could write and think creatively, and then after that, we’re reading epic stories in drama and poetry, and we’re analyzing it every second that we have that we’re not reading it.

Jim Devivo [00:27:40]:
And I’ve seen students come in and I give them a prompt to look at a picture and tell me what they see in the picture and to make up a story about it. And I’ve had students tell me that they can’t do the assignment because they don’t know where that location is or who those people are. So I’ll sit with them and tell them, no, you’re creating it. You’re making it up. And they’ll eventually get around to doing that because they’re children and there is some kind of innate creativity in play still within them. But it’s really fascinating to me how much some students struggle with what really on its face seems to be a very simple exercise in creativity. Tell me what you see in that picture and make up a story about.

Matthew Worwood [00:28:23]:
Know, Cindy, maybe you and I can kind of pick this up in our debrief, because, Jim, I think there’s a lot to what you’ve packed up, both in that answer and the answer before this space where we might be free to come up with our own stories, to think divergently, to ask those kind of if questions. I think there’s some really great stuff there. But unfortunately, we do have to wrap up the show because we’re about at time and we want to make sure we’ve got time to ask the same question we ask all of our guests. Given your background, I think you’ve probably got some great tips for our educators when it comes to promoting creativity in the classroom. So what would be your three top tips?

Jim Devivo [00:28:58]:
Well, I think that idea of find a way to look at something that is a given, look at it differently. We all have things that we take for granted or that are done out of routine or because we’ve always done it that way, look at it differently, find a new way to approach it, to think about it even. I’d love also just flip in the classroom, get the students up and say, here’s something we normally do. You tell me how to do it. Approaching it that way, I think not being afraid to be silly, we had a great video one time in the middle of a faculty meeting where I wish I could think of what it was. I know it’s on YouTube, and I think it’s a TED talk about a teacher was told by a know you’re not afraid to sing. And that that’s what the student remembered about his class, was that every now and then he would sing and answer or break out into something like that helped that student to remember the content from the classroom. So put yourself out there.

Jim Devivo [00:29:58]:
Don’t be afraid to be silly. Look at something a little bit differently. If you can approach a classroom with those three things, that would be a great step toward something more fun and creative and exciting for everyone involved.

Cyndi Burnett [00:30:09]:
Wonderful. Jim, well, thank you so much. It was great to see you again after all of these years. We really appreciate you coming onto the show and for sharing your expertise and keep up the great work with those students. So this concludes this episode of the fueling creativity in Education podcast. If you have a fellow actor or theater teacher who you think might be interested in this episode, please share it with them. And if you give us a review on your favorite podcast platform and you screenshot it and send it to us at questions@fuelingcreativitypodcast.com then we will send you a very special gift. My name is Dr.

Cyndi Burnett [00:30:48]:
Cindy Burnett and.

Matthew Worwood [00:30:50]:
Name is Dr. Matthew Warwood.

Cyndi Burnett [00:30:52]:
This episode was produced by Matthew Warwood and Cindy Burnett. Our podcast sponsor is curiosity to create and our editor is Sam Atkinson.