DAVID MONTEE is currently the Director of Theatre at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, a private pre-professional secondary school for arts training in northern Michigan. He has taught and directed at Interlochen for the past eighteen years. He holds a Ph.D. in Theatre and Media Arts from the University of Kansas, an M.F.A. in Acting from Wayne State University’s Hilberry Theatre program, and a B.F.A. in Acting/Directing with an Education emphasis from the University of Oklahoma. Before turning to full-time teaching in his mid-30’s, David was a professional actor for various regional theatres, as well as in New York City and Boston. He has worked additionally in feature and industrial films and commercials around the country. He continues to perform occasionally at Interlochen, where he has also directed nearly 50 productions, from Shakespeare to Musical Theatre. Published in Theatre History Studies, Teaching Theatre, The Drama/Theatre Teacher, and The Interlochen Review, Dr. Montee was awarded the Coca-Cola Distinguished Teacher in the Arts Award by the National Foundation for Advancement of the Arts in 2004, and was named a Distinguished Teacher by the U.S. Department of Education in 2001 as part of the Presidential Scholars program. He has also been cited in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers several times. Over the course of his career, he has performed in nearly 150 theatrical productions throughout the country, and directed over 50 shows in various educational venues.

 

Interviewed by Matthew Rose

Interlochen Arts Academy is the nation’s first and foremost boarding fine arts high school.” Talk about every young performer’s dream! How did the Academy come about? What brought you to Interlochen?
Interlochen was founded in 1928 as the National High School Orchestra Camp, focusing entirely on young musicians; but the camp grew rapidly in scope, adding drama to its curricular studies in 1939. The Interlochen Arts Academy was chartered in 1960, and opened in 1962, to provide year-round, secondary school level pre-professional training in a variety of creative arts areas. For over eight decades, Interlochen has built an alumni base of more than 85,000 around the world. Many graduates have found great success as professional artists, and all have enriched their lives, and ours, with that art. Today, the Interlochen Center for the Arts includes the Camp and Academy programs, as well as an independent K-8th grade school, two public radio stations, continuing arts education programs for adults, and year-round arts festival presentations.

I first came to Interlochen in 1988, having then recently completed my Ph.D. in Theatre and Media Arts, and having spent a few years teaching at the university level. Before that, I worked professionally as an actor for a number of years in regional theatres as well as New York and Boston. Although at the time I only intended my experience here to be a 2-3 year teaching “experiment”, I soon found that the quality of talent---and passion for their art---of the average student at Interlochen was unmatched by any other educational program that I had yet experienced. It became clear to me that I had found a comfortable home for my own creative and educational passions and goals. These students inspired me.

The Academy has four hundred fifty students studying music, theatre, dance, visual arts, creative writing and motion picture arts. What is the admission process like for prospective students?
Each Arts Division has a different process for screening applicants: in Creative Writing and Visual Arts, for example, portfolios are submitted for review by the faculty of those Divisions. For Theatre, as in Dance and Music, a performance audition, either in person on campus or by video is required.

A Theatre Arts applicant is asked to prepare 2 contrasting 2-minute audition monologues that show 2 different and distinct aspects of their personality. Since the foundational acting process that we encourage here reflects their ability to explore and utilize the wide range of who they are channeled into the textual words of others---back to the basic Stanislavskian “what if I were in those circumstances, how would I behave?”---it’s important that they not try to be anyone else, or hide behind any masks…..that they simply use their imagination to solidify alternate contexts for living truthfully on stage or on camera. We also ask them to prepare sixteen bars of a song so that we can evaluate their voices and their potential for singing, as we have a musical theatre component of our program as well; although it’s the acting potential that will ultimately be the deciding factor, as we have a number of non-singers in our ranks.

In addition to the audition, a brief conversation/interview with the applicant is also helpful in determining whether our program is a good “match” for their goals and dreams; so an on-campus audition is better than a video submission, if that’s possible. For some applicants, an on-campus visit simply isn’t an option for various reasons, so we do the best we can with what they can offer. Our goal is to make the process fun while at the same time giving them a glimpse of what kind of work and preparation will be necessary in the professional world that they dream of.

From Sunday in the Park With George

You are looking for students who “…have found an ability to put their work first and their ego behind them…. Students who are comfortable with the kind of self-discipline and work ethic required to succeed here, yet who are still able to ‘play seriously’." Being a teenager can be a tumultuous time. How do you help your students focus on acting, as well as deal with all the teenage issues?
Admittedly, these students are so startlingly good and mature in their work at times that it’s easy to forget that they are as young as they are; that comment is offered time and again by the audiences for our productions, who are amazed that they are seeing teenagers playing Macbeth, George Seurat, or Roxie Hart…..and that they truly are that good. I think it may be because they haven’t been told “no” enough times (as yet) to make them overly question their own abilities. One of our jobs is to help them solidify that self-confidence, work ethic, and joy in their art enough so that they can withstand those later “no’s” once they encounter them…to believe in themselves and what they have to offer.

Interlochen has a variety of programs that help these kids feel more connected to a nurturing, parental presence in a boarding school environment. Students are assigned to faculty members who act as their sponsors, a “go to” adult that they can share their feelings, exuberance, and doubts with when they need to do so. We also have a Counseling staff and Residence Life advisors. Moreover, faculty and staff members are expected to be responsive and in regular communication with the students’ parents to help resolve any issues that arise.

While it might be true that many teachers would be troubled and burdened by the parental aspects of teaching passionate, artistic students of this age in a boarding school environment, I find it to be one of the more rewarding---albeit sobering---aspects of my time here. We feel that we have many grown “children” out in the world, most of whom stay in touch with us for years after graduating. We’ve been part of their trusted family during their formative years, personally and artistically. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

It seems every actor has a horror story about an acting teacher who perhaps went “too far” in trying to mold their students. How intense is the training that your students receive?
The expectation that they give their work their “all”---i.e., make their best, good-faith effort---is quite high. But that is an expectation that comes from most of them as much as it does from us. All of the Theatre faculty are quite distrustful of the emotional, “group therapy” approach to actor training. As your question notes, we all have horror stories about that invasive, show-me-your-pain type of teacher, and none of us wants to be in that role. At the same time, we have the responsibility of reminding the student that creating fine art often comes at an emotional cost…that they must often confront aspects of themselves, their feelings and memories in their work that are not 100% “fun” 100% of the time.

Actors need to feel that they are working in an emotionally and physically safe environment in order for them to reveal who they truly are in their work; the younger they are, the more vitally important that sense of safety becomes. Besides constantly reminding ourselves that we are there to serve them in that self-exploration, we often also need to run interference with well-meaning peers who might not choose their critical words as carefully as they should. I think we have a pretty good record with that, and that also helps our students recognize the blatantly self-important “wankers” (as a colleague of mine calls them) who are teaching in the various studios that they may encounter later in their careers. As you say, we’ve all encountered them at one time or another.

As I say to my students, in your acting your emotional and fantasy life is your playground. Be cautious who you choose to share it with, and remember that you hold the keys to the entrance gate. Your teacher is your teacher, not your therapist…although acting, at its best, can be a very healthy self-therapy---like all creative endeavors.

What is a typical day like for an acting student at Interlochen?
A typical class day at Interlochen begins at 8:00 am. Most classes are in 50 minute units, and they begin at the top of the hour. The students alternate their academic classes (about 50% of their class schedules) with their arts classes throughout the day.

Theatre classes begin at 10:00 am with Dance and Camera Acting classes; at 11:00 am, there are elective classes in Stage Movement, Acting Shakespeare, Voice and Diction, Oral Interpretation, and Acting in Musical Theatre. Over the lunch hour, once a week, our Seniors work one-on-one with faculty members to prepare audition monologues for upcoming college and conservatory auditions. At 1:00, we offer additional Musical Theatre courses, a Play Analysis course, a Directing elective, and a Basic Stagecraft course (which all Freshmen and Sophomores must take). The core required courses for a Theatre major are the four sections of Acting Technique offered at 2:00 pm, and the Theatre Company block from 3:00—5:30, when all of our shows are rehearsed and built (costumes, scenery, props, lighting). Our students participate in all facets of our production work; we feel that future designers and stage managers need to know clearly the problems of the actors that they work with, and the actors must appreciate the design processes that support their work onstage. Thus, by the end of each day, most students have taken at least 4 Theatre classes (Acting Technique, Theatre Company, and 1 or more Theatre elective classes) and 3-4 Academic classes. For Theatre majors, this usually involves academic classes and arts classes intermixed in alternate hours throughout much of the day.

Evenings are spent in academic tutorials, independent work and preparation time in their arts area, as well as social activities. Weekends involve performances, concerts, visual arts exhibitions, and creative writing readings…and more social activities and class preparation. The Theatre Division offers a 6-show public production season each year, and the other arts areas offer similar performance schedules. It’s really quite impressive and exhilarating…and often exhausting. But as the old saying goes, “it’s a good kind of tired!” It feeds the soul while challenging the body and mind.

What should every actor know when graduating from Interlochen? Do you have a specific approach or philosophy on training actors?
Every actor should know, and be able to hold in their hearts during times of adversity, that they are unique in their art---that there is no other actor alive that can offer what they can offer in quite the same way. This is so important to their young souls in a business that too often treats them as a commodity, a product with (too often) a limited shelf-life.

They must be prepared to be persistent in the face of rejection, to believe in the value of what they have to offer the world, whatever that turns out to be. They must love the artistic process for its own sake, rather than for the accolades they imagine they will receive. They must esteem their lives and loved ones more than they revere their art, because if they don’t keep that perspective their art will certainly suffer as a result. And they must recognize that there are many paths to what their goals may be, and that it is okay to adjust their goals as their lives progress, youthful idealism notwithstanding.

There are as many different paths and processes as there are young artists; and in spite of what some self-proclaimed gurus may tell you, there is no “right” path to achieve artistic---or life---success.

As for our training methodology: our objective is to expose our young actors to as many different ideas and philosophies of theatre as possible during their time with us, from Diderot to Meisner to Michael Chekhov. A smorgasbord of processes, as it were, a toolbox from which they can choose their own tools for the appropriate tasks as they evolve their individual artistry throughout their lives.

Interlochen campus

Interlochen is located in Northern Michigan, on a beautiful twelve hundred acre campus surrounded by two lakes. How does this picturesque environment influence the work you do?
Oh, it absolutely does. It’s hard to describe how beautiful the seasons are here (as deep as the snow occasionally gets!), and how nestled in the natural environment Interlochen is. The beautiful woods and lakes, the spectacular sunsets, the wildlife---all of those things feed directly into the souls of the students and the faculty, and thus feed our artistic efforts together in the studios and classrooms.

Many parents are fearful of their child being an actor. The rejection, the struggle – they do not want to see their kids go through that “heartache.” What advice would you give to these skeptical parents?
As much as you might want to, you can’t protect your children from disappointment, heartache and setbacks. Being skeptical about their dreams will not shield them from pain when those dreams don’t come true; and if they feel that they never had a proper chance to try to realize their dreams---because they were too afraid, or you were too afraid for them---they will more than likely be frustrated and unhappy in their later lives. If they encounter disappointment and pain, they will not be alone, whatever their endeavors. Support them, love them, allow them to risk falling, and be there to help them regain their feet. Let them change or adjust their dreams if and when they decide to. Be there to listen to them, but don’t keep reminding them that they need something to “fall back on”---if you do, they might end up “falling back” through much of their lives. They will figure out how to survive; and if and when it comes time to let go of their artistic ambitions for something else that is just as fulfilling for them, they will find that path themselves. So love them, support their dreams as much as you can, and don’t try to build a wall between them and their own lives.

Some families live in communities where access to arts programs and education is scarce. What advice would you give to these families? How can they go about enriching their children’s arts experience?
That’s a difficult question that unfortunately doesn’t have an easy answer. There are fewer and fewer funded opportunities to take quality arts programs to more isolated communities; when I was working as an actor in the 1970’s and early 1980’s it seemed that there were many more “outreach” arts programs and organizations than I see around today. This decline, coupled with the precipitous cuts in educational arts programs we’ve seen in many public school systems over the past few years, makes exposure to quality arts experiences at a young age a difficult prospect for many communities around the country.

Still, there are surviving regional theatres of very high quality scattered about the nation; and local symphony orchestras, dance studios, etc. And of course, there are many quality performances available on video and recordings, which are more easily accessible today than when I was growing up. I don’t recall seeing many live arts performances when I was a child in small-town Oklahoma; I became intrigued with the power of the theatrical experience through exposure to film---I remember that seeing Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole in the film Becket had a profound emotional influence that almost certainly fed my subconscious desire to act, even before the age of 10. It’s a shame that most early exposure to significant arts experiences these days comes through some form of media for many young people, rather than from an actual “live” experience…but that’s the way our country’s culture seems to be right now.

Critics will say that a child should not have such an “arts focused” education. They should not be living and breathing arts 24/7. In order to succeed in the real world, some claim, kids need a well-rounded education. Your thoughts?
I understand that concern, and agree completely with the “living and breathing arts 24/7” part---but I don’t think that a good arts focused education need be presented in that manner. It’s certainly not at Interlochen. Presented in a careful, thoughtful curriculum, in a collaborative manner between arts and academics instructors, an arts-based education can be a dynamic tool for presenting knowledge while at the same time enhancing the student’s ability to think divergently and creatively.

At Interlochen, for example, students balance their arts work 50/50 with their academic work, and each feeds the other in rich and surprising ways. Our academics instructors rival those of most universities, and they collaborate with the arts instructors in a variety of creative methodologies. When working on The Crucible, the academic classes can enhance the experience of the actors by presenting sections on the colonial American settlements, or the McCarthy hearings of the 50’s. When producing The Heidi Chronicles, we can delve into the recent history of social upheaval in the 1960’s. There are history classes offered here in Illuminating Lives (biographies of key artistic figures that reflect the eras in which they lived), Psychological Literature, Destiny in Literature, Myth and Fairy Tale, etc. Physics and Biology instructors can even talk about the quality of measured energy and movement using examples from dancers’ work. Arts-focused education can be anything but limiting. It can open up the mind in exhilarating ways. The success of our graduates in all areas of life---not just the arts---reflects that an arts-focused education may not just be workable, it may indeed be the most inspiring way to educate the total child.

What do you feel is the one aspect that most young actors are lacking? Why?
Strangely enough, they have forgotten how to pretend with every fiber of their heart and soul. I’m afraid that in recent decades we have let advanced film techniques and special effects, video games, and of course TV do much of our imagining for us. Moreover, daydreaming is considered an unproductive and time-wasting activity, and so too often young actors miss the key element that ignites an effective performance down the road: the basic “what if that happened to me, what would I do? How would I feel?” They want to jump to the result and be told they were successful instead of enjoying the process of “play”. We’re a driven, product-oriented society. The prevalence of violence stunts our capacity to be fully empathetic to others’ feelings as well. And thanks to various forms of media, we have shorter and shorter attention spans, and find it harder to focus on one thing.

It’s strange to think that the imagination is becoming something that we have to encourage children to actively exercise, like a muscle…to encourage them to pretend, without inhibition or judgment. Strange and sad.

From Two Gentlemen of Verona

Do a lot of your students have agents and/or managers? Are they allowed to audition for productions outside of Interlochen?
A certain percentage---not at all a majority---arrive here with some professional work in their backgrounds, some with SAG cards, some with agents. We are aware of that, but don’t pay undue attention to it. If students want to work during breaks from their time at Interlochen, that’s a call for their families to make. It’s a double-edged sword, obviously. Poor working habits---even an overabundance of so-called professionally polished “technique” (or “tricks”) uninformed by heart and soul in their work can be a very difficult thing for young actors to overcome. It can lead to short and limiting careers, however glamorous it may feel to them (and their parents) when they’re still children.

All of our students are treated equally here as far as our approach to their work in our classrooms and rehearsals. And I can safely say that during my nearly two decades here, the students who had agents or union cards when they arrived did not do any better in their artistic work with us than did the students who arrived at Interlochen with little else but their dreams, their imagination, and their drive.

Many New York and L.A. agents and managers complain that actors do not appreciate that showbiz is first and foremost a business. What do you teach your students about the “business” side of acting?
We invite a variety of guest artists to visit campus each year---many of them our own successfully working alumni---who answer their questions about the details of the business: agents, managers, unions, different kinds of professional audition and interview situations they will face, headshots, resumes, trade papers, budgeting living expenses in NY, LA or Chicago, etc. Although we do not at all favor a vocational tech approach to actor training, as do some of the professional studios that you see advertised regularly in the trades, we don’t ignore the realities of a professional life in the theatre and film industries either. We even touch upon it when helping students prepare for the next phase of their training and education after leaving Interlochen, as we certainly don’t mean to be a finishing school for young actors---only a foundational program. We tell our Seniors that they must realistically identify what aspects of their personalities are striking (i.e., what their friends, families and new acquaintances seem to respond to), and begin to seek out audition pieces that put those personality traits on display---to put it bluntly, recognize what your “type” range might be at this moment, and use it to your advantage---while at the same time working diligently in studio and class to explore and expand and release the aspects of your personality that haven’t yet been fully explored in your acting. Of course, simply growing older will expand your acting range and “type” as well, in most instances.

In recent years, communication technology has become more and more prevalent. Cameras are everywhere, actors have websites, and virtually anyone can produce and distribute their own movie, TV show, or “podcast”. How have these advancements affected the way you teach acting? How have they changed the way your students approach their craft?
Actually, not much at all. The foundational truths of effective acting---behaving as truthfully as possible under imaginary circumstances, committing to the dramatic action as fully as possible in any given moment---remain pretty constant, even if the media for delivering it to audiences keep evolving. If the foundation is there, they can adapt to the media with a little experience.

Tell us about some of Interlochen’s alumni. How have they fared since their time at the academy?
I would proudly compare how well Interlochen’s alumni have done to any other major arts educational program at any level. From only the past decade I could list Toni Trucks (Showtime-TV’s Barbershop), Michael Arden (Broadway’s Big River and the Twyla Tharp Bob Dylan project), Alexandra Silber (The Woman in White in London’s West End), Roderick Hill (Broadway’s Lestat), Michael McMillian (TV’s What I Like About You, Saved, and the film Dorian Blues), Donovan Patton (TV’s Blue’s Clues), Benjamin Walker (Kinsey, Flags of Our Fathers)…the list could go on (and does, on our website!). From further back, beyond a decade, we have Felicity Huffman, Tom Hulce, Meredith Baxter, Jennifer Ehle, Elizabeth Marvel, Richard Brooks, Bruno Campos, and many, many others. From the Interlochen summer Camp Theatre program, we’ve had Anthony Rapp, Victoria Clark, Tovah Feldshuh, Adam Guettel, Josh Groban… We’ve got our tentacles everywhere in the business! What’s nice is that a majority of these folks return regularly to our campus to share their lives, their experiences, and their love of the art with our students. It’s a wonderful extended family, and they love to come home occasionally!

There’s more to the Interlochen alumni story, though. As proud as we are of the more recognizable names in the theatre business, we are every bit as proud of the educators and consistently working arts practitioners whose names are (as yet) less known…not to mention the successful attorneys, psychologists, doctors, veterinarians, social activists, and prominent business men and women who have achieved what they have partly because their lives were enriched by their time at Interlochen and their profound love and support of the arts.

We are very proud of our alumni, whatever they have done with their lives. We are honored to have been a part of contributing to those lives.

In your opinion, what makes an actor an artist? What vital role do actors play in our society?
There’s a great quote from a recent biography by David Stuart Davies (Bending the Willow, Calabash Press, 2002) of the late Jeremy Brett---the brave, tortured and astonishingly bold actor who portrayed (among many other roles) Sherlock Holmes in the BBC-TV series of the 80’s and 90’s; I have it posted on my office door for my students to read again and again as they feel the urge. It says:

“Actors ennoble us. They provide the mirror which is held up to nature to reveal the human beast in all its manifestations and all its dilemmas. They explore the human condition so that, with the aid of their diabolical collaborators, the writers, they reveal the meaning, the futility and the beauty of life. We understand why we are what we are because of actors. We can do without politicians. We can do without soldiers. We can do without businessmen. We can do without so many of the supposedly important cogs in the machine of life. But we cannot do without actors. Because without them, we would not know ourselves.”

That kind of says it all, doesn’t it?

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