S12 E40 - Delaware State of the Arts - Clear Space Theatre Company

Get ready to transport yourself to the vibrant performing arts scene of Southern Delaware with our special guests, David Button, the Artistic Director and Stephanie Hudson-Whitcomb, the Director of Development and Outreach at Clear Space Theatre Company. They'll take you behind the scenes of their inspiring journey and the intriguing story behind the theater's unique name, pulling back the curtain on some of their exciting shows lined up for the 2023 season. 'God's Bell', 'Young Frankenstein' and the holiday musical 'Estella Scrooge' are just a few that will pique your curiosity. 

We delve into why Clear Space is not just a theatre company, but a community builder, uniting people from all backgrounds through their love for art. You'll hear about their innovative community outreach programs, their commitment to arts education through the Arts Institute, and how these initiatives are shaping the next generation of performers by fostering self-esteem and public speaking skills. We also explore the universal power of the arts in creating shared experiences and fostering connections, regardless of our differences. So, join us for a captivating conversation that serves as a testament to the transformative power of the arts.

The Delaware Division of the Arts, a branch of the Delaware Department of State, is committed to supporting the arts and cultivating creativity to enhance the quality of life in Delaware. Together with its advisory body, the Delaware State Arts Council, the Division administers grants and programs that support arts programming, educate the public, increase awareness of the arts, and integrate the arts into all facets of Delaware life. Learn more at Arts.Delaware.Gov.

Delaware State of the Arts is a weekly podcast that presents interviews with arts organizations and leaders who contribute to the cultural vibrancy of communities throughout Delaware. Delaware State of the Arts is provided as a service of the Division of the Arts, in partnership with NEWSRADIO 1450 WILM and 1410 WDOV.

Transcript

Andy Truscott: 0:02

For Delaware State of the Arts. I'm Andy Truscott. The Clear Space Theater Company was founded in 2004. The organization strives to be a leader in the vibrant performing arts community of Southern Delaware. There is always a show going on at Clear Space and always an educational opportunity for those who are looking for it, but we'll let some of Clear Space's biggest advocates tell you more about it.

David Button: 0:26

My name is David Button and I'm the artistic director here at Clear Space.

Stephanie Hudson-Whitcomb: 0:30

My name is Stephanie Hudson-Whitcomb and I am the director of development and outreach at Clear Space Theater.

Andy Truscott: 0:35

And how long have you both been involved at Clear Space Theater Company? I have?

David Button: 0:39

actually been involved since 2006. That's about 18 years in different capacities, starting out as a performer, going to a teaching artist, eventually going to a full-time position in 2008. And I am, of course, allocated to the artistic director now, after a couple of different positions over 18 years.

Stephanie Hudson-Whitcomb: 0:57

I began with the company in 2018 as the director of development and outreach, and I'm also a parent of students who have participated are participating in our Arts Institute here at Clear Space.

Andy Truscott: 1:11

So let's just start by setting the stage for Clear Space Theater Company. Where did you get your name and how does that describe what your organization stands for?

David Button: 1:20

So if you go back to the beginning of Clear Space. Kenzke Shesh and Doug Yetter are the two co-founders. They created the name Clear Space to sort of say we weren't dealing in a giant sets or overproduction in some ways, so that you find yourself in the moment with the character, with the language, with the music, so that it's a clear space for clear thought on some level. So Clear Space, as it maintains its name, has sort of elevated some of those spectacle properties, if you will. However, we continue to follow the model of. We want you to find yourself in the space, hearing the words and understanding that it's not about all of those spectacle items but ultimately about connecting with the audience, connecting with the language of the author or composer, it seems like there's always a show going on at the Clear Space Theater Company.

Andy Truscott: 2:18

What does the rest of your 2023 season look like and what's going on right now?

Stephanie Hudson-Whitcomb: 2:23

Well, you're right, there's pretty much always a show or something happening at the theater. We have Young Frankenstein that opens October 13th and takes us up to Halloween weekend In November. Our spotlight on Young Performers, which is our educational program for students from 4th through 12th grade. They work for about 10 weeks learning how to put together a full musical and a fully-stage musical, and they perform November 10th, 11th and 12th. And then our final show of the season is our holiday musical and this year we're doing Estella Scrooge. That opens on Black Friday, november 24th, and goes through December 10th.

David Button: 3:03

And Estella Scrooge. What's really exciting about it is that it is the Scrooge story but it updates it to now and it's sort of his great, great great granddaughter experiencing the essentially the same thing that he experienced with his life changing ghost story and ultimately pulls in a lot of other Dickensian sort of elements and characters and themes.

Stephanie Hudson-Whitcomb: 3:24

It's very heartwarming, but yet there's so many funny parts of it as well.

Andy Truscott: 3:28

That sounds fantastic. Could you tell me a little bit more about the entirely student-run production that you mentioned earlier?

David Button: 3:36

Sure. So the students are ultimately learning about the production aspects. They're still an adult choreographer, director and musical director, but they're sort of guided through essentially how it is to be an actor in the space. We developed that program, I believe, in 2012 or 2013. We sort of had a space or a gap in our programming where we had Broadway Bound, which is first through eighth grade, and of course, our main stage productions, which we generally use mostly adults for, and we sort of lost that sort of age range between ninth and twelfth grade.

David Button: 4:09

So in an effort to include those students and make sure that they continued their education because most of them, of course, are going to go off to college and do this we created a program that was fully, a fully produced show, so that they could understand or have another experience in doing a production. In this production specifically, we're also engaging a visual artist, and so our students will be learning how the visual arts work in collaboration with the performing arts. In addition to this being sort of a fluid piece where typically you'd only see 10 people, in God's Bell we have 32 kids who are going to be telling the story in a sort of fluid, each kid in a different scene. A different amalgamation of students in each scene and song.

Andy Truscott: 4:55

I should have asked this earlier, but where is Clear Space Theatre Company located and who can be involved?

Stephanie Hudson-Whitcomb: 5:02

So Clear Space is located at 20 Baltimore Avenue in downtown Rehoboth Beach, where the beach block, and our website is wwwclearspacetheatre. That's an RE at the end dot org. So that's where you can find us and really we have educational programs from children as young as three all the way through adult, and our programming throughout the year is for all ages. So our main stage shows tend to go a little bit older. You might not bring your three year old to our show, but we're really geared to our population, which is all ages.

David Button: 5:41

We have everything from our Broadway babies programming, which is on Saturday morning, so that's our three year old, through about six year old. And we have our signature programming, which is Broadway bound, which is students first through eighth grade going through music, dance and acting once a week. And then we shift to our spotlight program, which is our sort of fourth through 12th grade audition only program and that's sort of a little more exclusive to students who audition for it. And then of course we have the main stage program, which all adults are involved in and some students as well, and we also do a legends of Broadway class, which is our over 50 class, where we sort of do a little bit of a reading of a musical and sort of do a stage reading of a musical, so that they are also continue to get education and be involved.

Stephanie Hudson-Whitcomb: 6:29

And we just completed five weeks of summer camp. Our summer camp is divided through grades, primarily, and it's grades first through 12th grade and then we have a acting only camp and that is for all grades. But we have people who come on vacation down here for the week and plan it around summer camp so that their child can participate. We sell out all of our camps and kids come back over and over again.

Andy Truscott: 6:55

It sounds like they came back for good reason. That sounds really fun.

Stephanie Hudson-Whitcomb: 6:59

That's our goal.

David Button: 7:00

It's always. What's really fun about the summer camps is that they ultimately get to produce a show at the end of it. So we're using the usually one of the licensing companies junior programs, some of those scripts that are a little shorter. So our kids get a shortened version of something that they get to perform for their families at the end of the week, which is a big draw as well.

Stephanie Hudson-Whitcomb: 7:19

We also invite the campers to come and see one of the productions in the evening, and the actors who are in our main stage summer shows also help as counselors and teachers choreographers during camp, and that's really exciting for the kids to be working with these actors they see on stage.

Andy Truscott: 7:40

What is the range of experience that you have at your theater? I know you teach students and you also have more experienced actors, but can anybody get involved or do you have to audition? What does that look?

David Button: 7:51

like Well, there is a general audition at the beginning of every year, and it's a fallacy that you have to be a professional to be on our stage. We actually look for people of all different ranges of ability. You can be coming into it for the first time We've had that many times and we also have those who are studying musical theater in college, who come into summer, and then we have some artists who have retired here, who just want to continue the work, or people who have retired and never done anything but always wanted to, and now they're on our main stage. So ultimately, the experience level is all over the place, and I think that that's what makes it so exciting and vibrant. The company is more vibrant in the shows because they are able to sort of lean on each other, and learn from each other.

Andy Truscott: 8:36

You just announced your 2024 season. Tell us more about that.

David Button: 8:41

The 2024 season has a lot of fun surprises. So if you're a listener who's come to Clear Space, you know we produce 13 shows a year in different capacities. So ultimately this year, to give you a little bit of an idea of what we're doing, we're opening our season with Agatha Christie's the Mousetrap. We collaborate as part of our Clear Space Kids Back programming with the Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice and we're producing A Raisin in the Sun with them. We are producing our kids, which is our spotlight program, are producing both Descendants and Shrek the Musical.

David Button: 9:15

This year at different parts of the season we're producing the Bodyguard the Musical featuring an amazing artist, ashley Williams, who has worked with us several times now. Our summer is going to include Jersey Boys and the Prom. We have another musical that's a little bit of a surprise. We haven't announced yet. We're waiting for licensing so we won't announce that one quite yet. But then in the fall we have a Venus in Fur, which is an amazing thing. We also have the Remate, which is our spotlight on artists program featuring Elaine Thay and Meg Kelly for local equity actors. We are also producing Sweeney Todd in the fall and White Christmas for the holiday season.

Andy Truscott: 9:58

It sounds like, between the rest of your 2023 season and your 2024 season, that you have a really wide range of productions going on. So how do you make those decisions and decide what shows to put on?

David Button: 10:11

So I have actually boiled it down to sort of a formula, if you will, where each slot in the season is specific to a certain kind of show. So I always love to open our season with sort of a murder mystery or something that was made popular by TV or film, something that grabs the audience right away. It's in the winter, we want a little bit of mystery around it. We always collaborate with another local nonprofit for our second slot, which is a one weekend readers theater. We jump into the spring, which offers I'd like to offer a classic musical, maybe a golden age musical, but not always, but something that's sort of classic, that offers something that's a little bit more geared toward a musical theater of bygone days. We'll call it Our spotlight program, of course.

David Button: 10:58

I'd like to pick something that's specific to what the kids will want to do so Descendants and Shrek they're going to sort of go a little crazy for, I think and also something that parents can bring their kids to. So it's sort of a dual goal there of producing something that our children or our students will want to produce, in addition to producing something for parents that want to bring their kids to the theater but don't want that long evening kind of thing. In the May slot I like to do something that people don't know or that they don't really know this version of so like the bodyguard, for instance. People won't know that it was a musical, but it is all Whitney Houston music, every single song, all of the songs from the soundtrack that you loved when you saw the movie are in the musical, and it's remarkably true to the movie.

David Button: 11:47

And then there's an artist spotlight in June.

David Button: 11:51

In the summer I like to pick three big, splashing musicals that are geared toward different audiences. So with Jersey Boys, the Prom and our other question musical, which we'll announce later, we want something that everyone can come see. That's a little bit more like a blockbuster musical. We want something that pushes the limits a little bit, maybe with the Prom making you question sort of maybe what you felt about certain things, but also offering a big, splashy music and fun version of something. And then you know again something the whole family maybe can come see.

David Button: 12:22

In the fall, our play, our first play, ultimately, is something a little bit more contemporary. Hopefully Sometimes we lean into a little bit more classic, but generally contemporary and again pushes some limits. So Venus and Fur sort of has I'll call it a 50 Shades of Grey element, if you will, something that will push those boundaries. Then we go into sort of our Halloween season and we have to see which festival here in Rehoboth. So we like to do something that's complementary of that. And then for the holiday season it's just about. You know, there's all these different versions of Scrooge which we do constantly. But this year we want to do something big and splashy, so we chose White Christmas and it's always something around the holiday theme, something that has the holiday joy in it. So that's sort of how I picked the season and then generally I just try to pick things that I know people want to see, in addition to things that maybe didn't know they wanted to see. But the ones they see them here at a little folk a feeling of I'm glad I saw that.

Andy Truscott: 13:20

Talk to me about how Clear Space interacts with the larger community and vice versa.

Stephanie Hudson-Whitcomb: 13:26

So, as David mentioned, we have a program called Clear Space Gives Back and one of the big ways that we do it is our February Readers Theatre production where each year we partner with another local nonprofit where it gives the opportunity for their audience or their patrons and supporters to come to Clear Space and see a production that it relates to that nonprofit in some way, and then it also is an opportunity for them to speak to our audience, so our patrons, who are already here, get to learn about another nonprofit. So it's really great for sharing information to different audiences and it helps us both grow our supporters and it's a way. Also, the big thing is is that all the proceeds are split with the other nonprofit and with our arts institute, so it is a fundraiser for the partner as well. We also take our children. They have a.

Stephanie Hudson-Whitcomb: 14:22

We have a young company in the summer that perform these Saturday morning plays that are really geared to young audiences. They're like half an hour and it's like your first theater experience type of play. Well, we take them and we go to different locations. We've gone to the Lewis library, we went to K-Penel Open High Schools to their summer programs and we perform for different audiences in a way of taking theater to them, when not everybody can always come to theater. So a lot of times it's children's first experience with live performance.

David Button: 14:55

It's essentially making it accessible for audiences that wouldn't be able to come directly to the theater. We've even gone to the Oak Orchard Boys and Girls Club in different locations that ultimately don't have the capacity to travel here. So it gives them an opportunity and an accessibility to the arts.

Stephanie Hudson-Whitcomb: 15:12

We also have a scholarship program where that any student who wishes to attend a program is not prohibited for any financial reasons. That has been helpful for our students of all ages. We've been able to facilitate students to come to summer camp to do Broadway, background, spotlight and even legends class.

Andy Truscott: 15:33

That just sounds so wonderful. Switching gears here a little bit. Clear Space Theater Company was chosen to participate in the Division of the Arts' Equity and Innovation Incubator program. What did you learn from your experience?

Stephanie Hudson-Whitcomb: 15:49

The Incubator program was actually a very it was like a six-month project where we got to hear from experts in fields related to diversity, equity, inclusion, to social media, to working in theaters, working with how to meet your community needs. We knew we were lacking in diversity primarily our audience and it helped us realize where we need to go to help bring the theater to other people and then also give us the method of how to go out and find out what these communities want from us, like what do they need, what do they want and how can we provide that. So we've got a plan. So we're in the process of getting the people we need involved so that we can go out and reach communities, like some communities that are really close by but they just don't come to the theater and find out why they don't come. What they would like to see what kind of programs we have, do they work for them is do we have to create a new program? So we're in this discovery phase right now.

Stephanie Hudson-Whitcomb: 16:54

We've already started working with social media to get our message out to other communities, and this grant helped us pay for that, and then it also helped us with educating ourselves internally. We were able to find these great training videos that talk about the use of pronouns, about conflict resolutions, like whether calling in or calling out somebody if there's a conflict. We've put into place a deputy program, which is a way for actors on stage to be able to have a safe space and a safe person to go to with any problems and to be able to report anything without feeling that there's going to be any retaliation or anything, and so that we can address issues before they become large issues. And we've had staff training. We've become focused on becoming diverse and really showing who is out there on stage and our goal is to have it on staff and our volunteers everywhere to really represent our community.

Andy Truscott: 17:56

Now it's time for some big questions. What does success look like to the Clear Space Theatre Company as it relates to the arts in Southern Delaware or in all of Delaware?

David Button: 18:08

Ultimately, I think success is reaching out to audiences that don't always get to come to the theater, audiences that want something from the theater, audiences that are focused on not just coming to the theater and having a wonderful experience and being sort of delighted, but those audiences that want to think. Success, ultimately, is about seeing yourself on stage. As we say constantly in the arts world, the art imitates life. I think success for Clear Space is reaching audiences and educating audiences about theater and helping them walk away with something, not just a fun song that's stuck in their head, but maybe a question that gets started at a local restaurant or going out for a drink and it sparks something a little bit more in them, sparks a question, makes them think about something a little bit more deeply or feel something more deeply.

Stephanie Hudson-Whitcomb: 19:07

So my short answer is success is creating a positive experience and therefore a positive memory in anybody who interacts with us. My quantitative response would be that people who participate and come to Clear Space whether they are a patron, a volunteer, an actor on stage, a musician in the band loft, a teacher in our program that they feel supported, they feel enriched by what they have done and an overall positive experience so that qualitatively we have repeat people and we grow the company and reach more people to have that. Go back to my short answer a positive experience, creating a positive memory.

David Button: 19:51

I think another success for us is our Arts Institute knowing that our students are walking out of here not just with knowledge in singing or acting or dance, but that they are getting work in self-esteem, working as an ensemble, public speaking. We know that the arts reach these access points for kids, that we are sort of opening up those areas of need in children. Children need to feel like they're in a safe space and once they feel like they're in a safe space, ultimately things like speaking in front of people, working with other people easily and being able to express how they feel becomes more abundant and more regular as opposed to the child who is introverted, and it gives them confidence to walk out into the world, a different person, a person that is more who they are, as opposed to someone who they've locked inside or is a little afraid of.

Andy Truscott: 20:52

My final question for you what do the arts with a capital A mean to a community like Delaware?

David Button: 21:01

I think ultimately in Delaware because we are such a small state and we are so connected that the arts ultimately connect not only the arts organizations and the kind of arts whether it's visual arts, media arts, performing arts it connects us all not only a cerebral level but an emotional level. I think that art connects not just arts organizations but kind of pulls all organizations together in this sort of bond of creating something for Delawareans. That is sort of driven by a need to connect, a need for outlet, a need to see more than what's just in our lives every day. The arts, whether it be visual or performing or media etc. Tug at us in a way that brings a different kind of life inside of us and I think that the way the arts sort of evoke this sort of meaningfulness, it connects not only the arts organizations but connects people to the arts in general.

Stephanie Hudson-Whitcomb: 22:08

Arts. It takes people from all different backgrounds experiences and gives them a shared experience where, no matter what your political beliefs or your religion or your skin color, we can all participate in a shared experience and sit in a room together or participate in a class together and all have our lives enriched.