Departing Faculty Describe Their Fondest Riverdale Memories
Riverdale Review: What got you interested in this career path?
Mr. Tyler Perry: I started doing theater as an actor after seeing a magician. I was interested in this magician and somehow that got me to a puppet theater. This was at like age five, doing puppetry. And, a lot of set designers have a similar story of, “How did you get into this?” through either puppetry or magic. Truth is, I got into it from both, so, I went through some acting classes and I acted all the way through high school. Then, I transitioned pretty quickly to technical theater, because somebody asked me to. Somebody asked me to do some lighting. I did that and then I started to do some workshops at a local youth theater. I grew up in Rhode Island and it’s called “Rhode Island Youth Theater” now, but it was called “Fantasy Works” at the time. But I took a tech theater workshop there in like eighth grade and then I got hired by them by the time I was in ninth grade as a tech theater person. I was doing sets and lights for them all through high school. So that’s where I sort of transitioned into tech theater.
RR: What does you’re job managing the theater during Riverdale productions such as the musical and fall play entail?
TP: So, the production elements are the scenery, the lighting, the sound, the props, and all the things that it entails to make that happen like hanging curtains and paintings. It’s a lot of construction and it’s coordinating all the students in getting that done. Also designing it, the creative process of “what is the set gonna look like?”, how do the lights tell the story of the play?” and sometimes I’m doing that, and sometimes the students are doing that. It’s been about 50/50 over the last couple of years, so, that’s been exciting. And it’s like managing all of the students and mentoring them through what it means to make a play.
RR: What is a moment you will never forget during your time at Riverdale?
TP: There are so many. Well, I can picture one right now, which is Henry Cubbin standing next to me while I was focusing lights and then impersonating me and trying to make fun of me. I stepped out of the way and said, “ You do it.” and then he focused [lights] the rest of the show on his own. And that was sort of a moment of accomplishment for all of us to see that you’ve learned. You think you’re making fun of me but actually I’m impressed because you’re just doing everything that I do. And I think that some of that you see in Girls Like That [from] this fall. There was a lot of student design work, with Damoni Linen’s lighting and Julian Cohen’s sound design. And there were some moments during that show, during the tech process, where all of us has a creative idea together and we made something really amazing. That collaboration between the students, artists, and grown-up artists was so fun. That’s why I love educational theater, those “A-ha!” moments.
