Interview: Director Troy Scheid Talks BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA at Main Street Theater

Main Street Theater for Youth presents BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA. It's an authentic play for real children, according to director Troy Scheid.

10-year-olds, Jesse and Leslie, forge a friendship and the fantasy kingdom, Terabithia to endure the harsh realities of their lives.

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The story has been adapted for theater and film. What is the draw to you?

All of Main Street Theater's Theater for Youth plays are based on books and interestingly, though I've been directing for Theater for Youth for many years now, this is the first one that I've directed that had been published in my childhood - but which I didn't read.

I had no interest in most books that took place in the "real world" as a child. In reading BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA for the first time as an adult, I see Jesse and Leslie as real kids I might meet at any time, and whom I would love to know because of their big hearts and imaginations. [Katherine Paterson and Stephanie S. Tolan] did not shy away from having them grapple with the big philosophical and pragmatic questions of life just because they are 10. Those questions are as present in Jesse's and Leslie's lives as they are for any kid. It's a bold move for an author to create young characters whose lives are not carefree, but there are so many real young people for whom that is reality.

What does Terabithia mean to Jesse and Leslie?

At the beginning of their friendship, Terabithia is a refuge. It's a place for two kids who are "weird" to their classmates to be kings and queens, heroes and heroines. It's a place where they can be creative. It's a place where they have power, where fighting evil is within their control. Terabithia becomes so closely identified with their friendship that they wonder if one thing can exist without the other.

I imagine Jesse and Leslie are challenging roles. What advice and guidance are you giving to your cast? How are you helping them understand their characters?

I'm fortunate to be working with actors with a lot of training to portray these 10-year-olds. (Almost all of the actors employed by Main Street Theater's Theater for Youth productions are adult professional actors, and that's the case here.) I think truly good acting training helps us un-learn the social conditioning that we experience growing up, a process in which we are conditioned to think that we should hide or apologize for our funny laugh, our un-cool hobbies, our emotions, even our hopes. For the children we're portraying, the feeling of falling in love - or being disappointed - or losing someone - is entirely new, and it's a challenge to the actors to discover that afresh every time.

One of the more unusual things we are doing with this production is that our ensemble of 9 actors not only portrays multiple characters, but they also play all the music for the show live and in view of the audience. Because the musicians are visible, they become part of the story, and in addition to text, movement, and song, instrumental music becomes part of the characters' on-stage "vocabulary" too.

How are you portraying Terabithia? Can you talk about your conversations with your designers, including lighting and sound, and your pre-production process in general?

The audience has a role to play in creating the final production (for any production really). This, for me, is one of the biggest differences between film and theatre: film gives you everything, and theatre challenges you as an audience member to use your imagination. That's one of the reasons I often go for a more abstract or spare setting for a play that takes place in multiple locations. By participating through watching and using their imaginations, audiences have potential to have experiences along with the characters, and to identify with them. As artists we may use different lighting, parts of the stage, music, or language to signify Terabithia - but because this is a play, Terabithia (and Jesse's house, and the school) also depends on what you think it looks like, just like when you are reading the book.

It's a full length, 2-hour-long? play featuring traditional Broadway style music. Do you worry that young audiences members will lose interest? How will you and the play keep their attention?

I give young audiences a lot of credit! Any successful play portrays complex, three-dimensional characters that the audience identifies with, experiencing real emotions in imaginary situations, telling compelling and relevant stories, with "high stakes" and without talking down to the audience. This can happen in a realistic or fantasy setting as long as the audience, young or grown up, feels like the story reflects something about them and is relatable.

How do you approach dark content that is intended to be viewed by children? Jesse and Leslie are lonely and isolated children-at least, initially. Most adults can't face delving into the emptiness and pain and of the emotion.

Adult playwrights have to create child characters who are three-dimensional people, and that's what the book author and playwrights here have done. (The dark content is not gratuitous.) In real life, many children have already experienced a feeling of not belonging to a degree, and they experience loss in real life too. I think fiction and the theater are two the best and safest ways for people of all ages to encounter difficult experiences. (It's the same thing Jesse and Leslie do - fighting imaginary monsters in Terabithia parallels facing challenging situations in real life.)

The structure of the play helps here too, because you know from the first moment of text that something shocking has happened, and that the action of the play unfolds as a memory. That puts the audience in a frame of mind where they want to discover what happened, not avoid feeling sad. Also, I think the final scene of the play takes the story to a satisfying new level, so even if not all the emotions along the way are happy ones, something was learned and something was changed for the better.

If an audience member has not experienced what Jesse and Leslie are going through, the process of watching and being engaged by another person's story inspires empathy. If there is something in the play that does resonate with an audience member, it reminds that person that they are not alone. And I think those are really two sides of the same coin - remembering that you are like other people, and other people are like you.

What do you want your young audience to walk away with at the end of the play?

Besides the idea of empathy, there are so many facets to the story of Jesse and Leslie and their community. But the story does not get tied up in a neat solution, like a classic mystery. The characters, including our hero and heroine, are human, and they make mistakes and fall short and sometimes make choices for the wrong reasons. I think many events in the play will inspire conversation among kid and adult audience members after the show.

There is a big clue to a really important discovery in the title of the book/play (I'm going to be vague so I don't entirely spoil the ending...but the important part of the title is not the word "Terabithia"). The "real world" that Jesse and Leslie take refuge from is full of secrets. When they create Terabithia, it's supposed to be a place just for them - but ultimately, it's opening up their secret world that allows a greater magic to happen.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA. Performances open to the public: January 31 - February 21. 4p. MATCH, 3400 Main Street. 713-524-6706. For more information, please visit mainstreettheater.com.

School Performances, open only to groups from public, private, or home schools are Jan 26 - Feb 19.

Photo courtesy of Main Street Theater

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