Lauren Ray graduated from our program in 2009 with a B.A. Theatre Arts and French, and she's now a teacher and speech and debate coach at Northwest Rankin High School in Flowood, MS. She also serves on the board of the Mississippi Theatre Association as the Youth Co-Vice Chair for Individual Events.
Lauren Ray graduated from our program in 2009 with a B.A. Theatre Arts and French, and she's now a teacher and speech and debate coach at Northwest Rankin High School in Flowood, MS. She also serves on the board of the Mississippi Theater Association as the Youth Co-Vice Chair for Individual Events.
Lauren and I had a lot to talk about, so our conversation was spread across two episodes. In the first episode, we discussed her time at UM, her thoughts on the importance of community theatre (in particular in Mississippi) and a special play-reading project she set up for herself. If you missed that one, do yourself a favor and go back and check it out! In this episode, we talked about the value of immersing oneself in other cultures, Lauren's work with the Mississippi Theater Association, and advice for young theatre hopefuls.
For more information about the Mississippi Theater Association, please visit http://www.mta-online.org/
For more about Lauren Ray, visit her website here: https://www.anotherlaurenray.com/
The Department of Theatre & Film is grateful for its patrons and corporate sponsors. As a department we are committed to the high quality instruction that our students receive. Investing in the students’ education and these quality productions helps us move toward our common goal of graduating successful, creative adults who are lifelong learners. If you are interested in contributing to these efforts, please visit https://umfoundation.givingfuel.com/theatreandfilm
From the Department of Theatre and Film at the University of Mississippi, this is Stage & Screen.
Katherine Stewart
Hello and welcome back to Stage & Screen. I'm your host, Katherine Stewart and today we have Part 2 of a very interesting conversation we had with Lauren Ray who graduated from our program in 2009 and is now an educator and speech and debate coach at Northwest Rankin High School. She's also a board member of the Mississippi Theatre Association.
Katherine Stewart
In the first half of this conversation, we talked about Lauren's time in our program, the importance of Community theater, and a very cool play reading challenge she devised in this episode.
Katherine Stewart
We cover her thoughts on the value of immersing oneself in other cultures, her work with the Mississippi Theatre Association, and she'll share some sage advice for young theater hopefuls here's.
Katherine Stewart
So I want to backtrack a little bit. You mentioned having double majored in French.
Katherine Stewart
Why was the French language important to you and why do you think it's important to immerse yourself in other cultures?
Lauren Ray
Yeah, so so I think that you hit the nail on the head with the hammer on. Immerse yourself in other cultures I.
Lauren Ray
I I, I think that this comes back to this. This focus on the importance and the value of communication in general.
Lauren Ray
I actually so, but I left on this. I graduated in 2009. I taught elementary music at Marshall Academy in Holly Springs.
Lauren Ray
For a year, which is a job that they should not have have allowed me to do, I think I did OK, but I was not qualified, UM.
Lauren Ray
And and after that year I actually moved to France for a school year and lived in excellent province which is about 1/2 an hour by bus north of Marseille on the Mediterranean coast. It's actually literally paradise.
Lauren Ray
For the teaching assistantship program in France, tapies, they really like their acronyms over there.
Lauren Ray
And and I served as an English language assistant through the through a government spot French government sponsored program in middle school, and secondary class in high school classroom.
Lauren Ray
Uh, for for the better part of one of their school years, and I think that we get.
Lauren Ray
I think that we get these preconceptions cheeming gosia d'ici. Who's an American Nigerian American author has a fabulous Ted talk in which she she touches on the danger of the single story and talks about her college roommate.
Lauren Ray
Uhm, knowing that she's from Africa and believing that.
Lauren Ray
That she is representative of all people of Africa, and I think as a Mississippian.
Lauren Ray
We are not immune to this either. I think that when we leave our pretty insular bubble and go out into the greater wide world, it is. It's pretty clear what people perceive to be Mississippi, and it's not always positive in France.
Lauren Ray
I was not with people whose only knowledge of Mississippi was Mississippi.
Lauren Ray
Running, which is an important film and and a frustrating part of our history that we should not downplay or deny, but Mississippi is so much more than that single story and.
Lauren Ray
As as somebody who is is prone to sort of feeling about my state like it's my drug addicted little brother like like I can talk bad about him. I can identify all these problems. He's got a lot of problems.
Lauren Ray
And you start talking smack and I'm gonna blow up and and tell you that that you gotta not be talking about my brother like that.
Lauren Ray
That's sort of how I feel about Mississippi.
Lauren Ray
Having the opportunity to travel to immerse myself in a culture.
Lauren Ray
Uhm, it shows me that's not mine. Uhm, one shows me.
Lauren Ray
How how people who aren't from here see us and it also gives me the opportunity to question from like a structural standpoint my implicit biases, the the things that I expect.
Lauren Ray
When I encounter a French person, do I think that you're going to be wearing the Marcel Marcel, Marcel Black and white striped turtleneck and have a baguette under your your arm and have a silly hat? And I'm accordion, I mean.
Lauren Ray
If you are going to be like Batman is very French.
Lauren Ray
But also I gives me the opportunity to meet.
Lauren Ray
Storytellers and and communicators and people who who.
Lauren Ray
Who we tend to write off their intellect because there's a language barrier. Uhm, it is humbling.
Lauren Ray
To live somewhere as a a self identifying smart person like have a an honors college degree and a a good GPA.
Lauren Ray
And I'm good at academics and you move to France and I've got like a 60% command of the language and suddenly I feel very dumb.
Lauren Ray
And people are looking at me like you just used the wrong article. That's a male or masculine noun. You use the feminine like what which also wanna try.
Lauren Ray
So, so that's a humbling experience and and sort of helps breakdown those.
Lauren Ray
Those implicit this is what I think the world is like.
Lauren Ray
Biases and and things and and. I think that coming back to Mississippi, which I didn't mean to do.
Lauren Ray
I I ended up dating and now marrying and I've been married for eight years to a man who is also from central Mississippi and both of our families are here, so I wasn't planning to come back. But here we are.
Lauren Ray
Uh, so in coming back, being able to bring those experiences and say, OK, I'm dealing with an outside world and they have this single story about Mississippi.
Lauren Ray
What single stories do we have about France about New York about Chicago? About LA like? Are we?
Lauren Ray
Making these big bold assumptions and and how can we start up really start breaking those things down and having.
Lauren Ray
Compassionate conversations about big, complex issues in ways that don't just fling crap at fans.
Lauren Ray
'cause that's not. That's why I feel like that's what we do. A lot of times, that's not what we want to do, and it doesn't help us to.
Lauren Ray
To to stir up everything, but it does help us to be able to sort of step back and it helps me to be able to go look. I gotta check my bias. These are the things that I expect, but what's your story?
Lauren Ray
What are you bringing to me in this moment? What's what's the crisis?
Lauren Ray
What's the, what's the hurt? What's the harm? What's the fear? Where do I need to take a moment? Take a step back and go?
Lauren Ray
I'm looking at this from a from a single point of entry and I need to be looking at this more complexly.
Lauren Ray
The French has helped with that, and also I've I've lost a lot of my ability to use normal English words, and I I'd say French words as though they're English words because they're too dumb.
Lauren Ray
Language is hanging out in my brain.
Lauren Ray
It causes all sorts of problems.
Katherine Stewart
It was wonderful.
Katherine Stewart
Could you talk a little bit about your work with MTA with Mississippi Theater Association?
Lauren Ray
Yeah for sure. So uhm, so Mississippi Theatre Association is Mississippi theater connection. Our goal as MTA is to to find the people who are making art support them in making art and encourage them to network with each other so that.
Lauren Ray
Like I was talking about with the Community theater world. UM, so that we get to choose our collaborators, there's so much value in that.
Lauren Ray
Voice, UM I have been involved with MTA in some capacity since the fall of 2012 when I first brought my first, a tiny secondary competition show to the North High School Drama Fest, which happened every year.
Lauren Ray
Typically in December and it's hosted at MSU UM and and I took seven kids and we took this little theater for youth production that we worked really hard to put together and we.
Lauren Ray
We had just the best time. I did have a harrowing experience in that performance. I had a student who is blind and who's just a fabulous performer, but who is like actually blind and he missed an exit like he missed his UM.
Lauren Ray
Direction on his exit and walked off the front of the stage. One of my other students there were four actors in that ensemble.
Lauren Ray
My other student had the wherewithal to see what was happening, assess it, he caught him by the back of the shirt before he hit the ground.
Scooped him up.
Lauren Ray
Put it back on the stage, patted him on the back my. My blind student walked off stage where one of the other actors sort of retrieved him and without skipping a beat and he told me later because he was afraid we were going to go over time and get this call.
Lauren Ray
Time my my student who saved my blind student just went back into his thing. I just spent the rest of the show just crying my face fell out in place.
Lauren Ray
So so the secondary circuit is is delightful and and it is.
Lauren Ray
Offering competitive access, but really this opportunity for all of these high schoolers to come together and enjoy and promote and experience the work that each other are are doing. We did, I think 17 shows in two days that year. They're 45 minutes. It's a lot.
Lauren Ray
It's exhausting you come home and crash, but.
Lauren Ray
But so that was my that was my entry into MTA. Several years after that I I met and got to know Stacy Howell, who's empty as executive director and who's now one of my Northwest colleagues for maybe building an empire.
Lauren Ray
Uhm I love it. I tried to say that in jest, but it might just be true so. So she's, uh, she thinks I could have director for MTA and she asked me if I'd be interested in being on the board and told me that there was this community theater spot coming open. So I joined the board as a as the vice chair, I think.
Lauren Ray
In 17.
Lauren Ray
I mean did a year as the vice chair of community and then two years as the Community theater chair and and then last year I shifted hat and was the Youth Playwriting Division chair.
Lauren Ray
We have a a playwriting contest for high school students and also for adults. So if you've got if you have students who are.
Lauren Ray
18 and older who are writing 45 pages or less play that they want to submit. We are always looking for great new work and the winner gets cash and an opportunity.
Lauren Ray
To come to have a stage reading at the festival and and paid festival registration.
Lauren Ray
Uhm, so some some cool prizes and.
Lauren Ray
And so, so we sort of revamped some of some of those entry expectations and have sort of started teasing out what, uhm?
Lauren Ray
What playwrighting response and what adjudication should look like, and what it does look like and and.
Lauren Ray
Collecting adjudicators is my least favorite job. I'm just like I love. I love that people want to judge, but I don't want to ask them. I I don't know why I've got some some anxiety tide up around time.
Katherine Stewart
Yes, yeah.
Lauren Ray
Hey, do you want to do something else to this community of people who are overwhelmed?
Lauren Ray
Uhm, but did we decide to spend a year doing some playwriting and then I have moved again this year?
Lauren Ray
Uh, into a vice chair position for the youth Individual Events division. So we have 13 individual events that secondary students can compete in for the Mississippi Theatre Association State festival. Several acting events. And then.
Lauren Ray
4 design events or custom design.
Lauren Ray
The scenic design, makeup design and poster design and those are delightful and also a bit of a beast. So when we have these really good visual artists who come to us and say, I wanna I wanna make something with my hands. You can say we've got clothes. We've got models.
Lauren Ray
You've got faces up to do these. These really cool design presentations that they're modeled after asked collegiate design competition and and it is really an activity and an event that prepares our high school students.
Lauren Ray
To be ready to come in and and do the kind of work that we perceive based on conversations that the colleges are looking for their students to be ready to do. And you win stuff so.
Lauren Ray
Uh, it's it's it's.
Lauren Ray
It's less enticing to to just do a thing, but when you put some steaks on it, you can be first in the state you can win.
Lauren Ray
Acting female, uh? You can win group musical so so we're in that cycle. Right now we're we're working on.
Lauren Ray
Uhm, deciding. So last year everything was weird. Last year. I don't know. I don't know if anybody noticed, but last year everything was everything was virtual and so all of our individual events were also virtual.
Lauren Ray
So right now we're in conversations about what are the huge benefits of being virtual that we might be able to keep, and is there like are there things that have come out of this past year that are?
Lauren Ray
Uhm, that are worth holding onto. Instead of. We just figured out the system. Now let's get back to normal because that's the way we always did.
Lauren Ray
So we're actually hoping to lower some barriers to entry by making our our our preliminary rounds for performance events, maybe to keep them in the virtual space. This isn't confirmed. Our board meeting is at end of the week, so.
Lauren Ray
There will be more information forthcoming by the time anybody hears that that information might be out.
Lauren Ray
But but but to say, OK, well, so so we're going to do finals in person and when we travel for festival you only have to bring and therefore assume the costs of bringing the students who who have made it past that first preliminary.
Lauren Ray
Round and and our hope and I, I believe that that's gonna not.
Lauren Ray
Raise these walls, but but make it easier for schools who aren't closer in Meridian for our festival this year. So schools who aren't close to Meridian and who wouldn't necessarily be come into festival anyway to come.
Lauren Ray
To let their students submit their work, and then if they find themselves in that final round.
Lauren Ray
Uhm, start to look for OK, how can we? How can we make the the the ends meet to get them to this this finals opportunity? And so there's some logistics that are that we're still shuffling about working out, trying to figure out.
Lauren Ray
Of what's going to work? What's not but, but the goal is to lower the barriers to entry and to allow more people to create more art.
Katherine Stewart
And I think that's a conversation that theater makers everywhere have been having in the last few months. You know what did we learn from last year doing things virtually?
Katherine Stewart
I mean, for us you know just here in the department we had. We had some some online productions and saw that people who were not going to be in Oxford were able to watch them when they wouldn't have been in yeah.
Lauren Ray
I saw you're in town.
Lauren Ray
I wasn't going to be able to make it up that weekend. It was.
Lauren Ray
So good it was.
Katherine Stewart
So cool so you know I mean what? What can we bring forward from that?
Katherine Stewart
That's very cool. That's very cool.
Lauren Ray
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're excited. We're excited about it moving forward and we want like like we want to lower barriers to entry.
Lauren Ray
We want people to come play with us and we want a broad, diverse ensemble to come play with us. We don't want people to feel like this is a.
Right?
Lauren Ray
A game exclusively for old white men.
Lauren Ray
Because it's not like.
Lauren Ray
Like everybody got a story, we can tell our stories.
Katherine Stewart
So I would I would love to know if you have any advice for young feeder hopefuls who might be thinking about coming to our program and how to like take the best advantage of all the opportunities.
Lauren Ray
So I mean, I've, I've talked about my my experience with expecting, uh.
Lauren Ray
To be something that it turns out I'm not.
Lauren Ray
Uhm, I would, uh?
Lauren Ray
A couple I mean a couple of pieces. There are a couple of pieces to this. I would probably say.
Lauren Ray
That it's OK to swerve like if you feel like a bum.
Lauren Ray
Like you expect, I expected I was going to go to Broadway and be a triple threat and and love to do the audition and and run the hustle and and.
I don't see it.
Lauren Ray
And when I got into the work.
Lauren Ray
Even though that was my expectation for myself, it turned out that I didn't like it. I I don't like the the constant questioning of what of what I'm doing.
Lauren Ray
Uhm, that comes with the with the contract job cycle. So if if that's the thing and you go OK, I thought I was I I was identifying as an actor.
Lauren Ray
Maybe I'm a producer, maybe I'm a director. Maybe I'm a designer. It's OK to to swerve. It's OK.
Lauren Ray
To to go a different direction and and to to constantly redefine that identity point.
Lauren Ray
And say the thing that I thought it was isn't the thing that I am right now, and maybe the thing that I am right now isn't the thing that I'm going to be in five years and in five years, even if I've built up this identity as a director.
Lauren Ray
If I decide I want to do something crazy like be the only actor on stage for an hour in the Community theater festival, even though I'm not identifying as an actor, it's OK to swerve like that's that's making those changes is normal. It's always a little bit tumultuous.
Lauren Ray
But it's it's. There's no moral failing in not owning the identity that you owned a minute ago. The other, UM.
Lauren Ray
The other big piece of this is to keep those horizons very broad and and I'm a generalist. I feel like it. It probably is evident. I gotta be a I I I don't.
Lauren Ray
Have like a hyper specialization? I have course work on my transcript in design courses and in directing courses and in acting courses and in voice and diction.
Lauren Ray
And then I mean.
Lauren Ray
Just all all of these areas, so so it makes sense that this advice would come from me.
Lauren Ray
Whereas if you talk to some of my performer peers, they might give you something like. No, you need to narrow it and become a I don't.
Lauren Ray
Know whether I'm saying I won't speak to them.
Lauren Ray
But but I would recommend keeping horizons very broad. I I stand firmly and repeat to my high school students all the time. That a degree in theater is a degree in everything.
Lauren Ray
There is, there is nothing that you learn.
Lauren Ray
That isn't going to be useful, and when you're learning scenic construction.
Lauren Ray
And suddenly you find yourself needing to wire an outlet at your house, which I did yesterday.
Lauren Ray
You know you don't necessarily know how to do it, but you've built the foundational skills to to sort of understand.
Lauren Ray
Enough about how things work that that you can cross. Apply that knowledge into all sorts of surprising venues. So so.
Lauren Ray
Broadening out and saying no, I'm gonna I'm gonna learn how to to do a blind hem stitch in my costume in class this year or I'm gonna take a rendering class and and even though I don't think of myself as a visual artist, I'm gonna broaden out so that I can communicate.
Lauren Ray
Visually, so if I need to explain to somebody, here's what I'm seeing.
Lauren Ray
Saying I can make my hand make a pen, make something that might make sense.
Lauren Ray
Uhm and then.
Lauren Ray
On the sort.
Lauren Ray
Of other side of the same coin, look for the gaps. I have huge knowledge gaps in lighting I.
Lauren Ray
I wish that Michael Barnett had come to Ole Miss two years earlier so that I could take more classes from him. He came in when I was a junior and was almost finished and I took his CAD class and it was fabulous.
Lauren Ray
I wish that I could continue to take classes from him and gain that lighting knowledge. That is one of my big gaps and I have.
Lauren Ray
I have noted that's a gap and I have sought out one day workshops. Bronwyn Teague is a is the light resident lighting designer at Newstage.
Lauren Ray
She is fabulous. She did a lighting workshop a couple of years ago. That was a one Saturday and I learned so much.
Lauren Ray
But but it's that's still a place where I didn't have the background. I don't have the background and I feel like I'm missing that information.
Lauren Ray
So, so when those opportunities arise, I know I have a gap and I should work to close it rather than it's just a whole.
Lauren Ray
I'll just leave it like a downtown Jackson pothole.
Lauren Ray
So there was a a thing going around the Internet about a tomato plant growing in a pothole in Belhaven because because they don't close their gap.
Lauren Ray
So so we wanna we want to try to solve that. The other sort of granular piece of wisdom that I repeat.
Lauren Ray
Uhm, actually comes from Carrie Hanson, who's who's one of the professors. I think she's still there.
Lauren Ray
I I can remember a moment in I I was working in the costume shop freshman or sophomore year. I don't know if it was lab or if it was work study or what. What I was doing and I saw this leave arm shy.
Lauren Ray
And I was, which is the thing that happens when you're learning to build customs. It it just, it just does right?
Lauren Ray
And and I went sort of in despair, like what?
Lauren Ray
Have I done? How do I resolve it helping?
Lauren Ray
And Sheen very pleasantly super chipper hands me a seam Ripper. It hands me my garment back.
Lauren Ray
And says all progress is forward progress. Take it out, do it again.
Lauren Ray
And I have quoted her saying all progress is forward progress again. I don't even know if she remembers this interaction, but all progress is forward progress.
Lauren Ray
I just like even when we make these these stupid mistakes that put us in in a a place where we feel like we have, we're going to have to take five steps backwards in order to move forward. Like taking those steps backwards is moving forwards.
Lauren Ray
So, so all progress is forward progress. There's no need to despair, it's just a garment.
Lauren Ray
We've we've we're it's gonna get done.
Lauren Ray
Take the theme out so this leave in again. All progress is forward progress, so so those those those three things be willing to serve.
Love them.
Lauren Ray
Keep your horizons broad. Look for the gaps. All progress is forward progress. I can't enumerate anything that.
Lauren Ray
Four but
Lauren Ray
But but those big ideas for people who are coming coming up secondary students, college students, adults. I need to hear these things from myself and from other people all the time.
Lauren Ray
I'm in mid 30s and and I forget them and I despair because I've done something stupid. What do I do? But all progress is?
Lauren Ray
Order progress take the step back in order.
Lauren Ray
To take this step forward.
Katherine Stewart
Excellent advice, excellent advice. Yeah, thank you.
Lauren Ray
Well, thank you.
Katherine Stewart
Yeah, thank you Laura. It's been so fun chatting with you and getting to know you and hear about all your experiences. It's been great.
Katherine Stewart
Thank you.
Lauren Ray
Yeah yeah, I I am so proud of the work that on this theater is doing. I'm excited. I was up last Sunday to see Lawson Marchetti's a staged reading of.
Lauren Ray
Of chickens in Texas and he and I have been chatting a bit about that.
Lauren Ray
I'm I'm thrilled with the the work that's coming out of this program right now. I saw God. I guess it's been two years.
Lauren Ray
I had the opportunity to come up and see fly by night a couple of years ago and that was well and and Michael and I had had a funny conversation because I had just read it.
Lauren Ray
On this crazy I'm consuming all of the content project and I ran into him. I think at at the MTA State Festival and he was like, yeah, we've we've picked our musical for next year and it's it's this new show.
Lauren Ray
Called fly like I just said that it's so good.
Lauren Ray
And and that that experience was was probably in my top five like transformative theater experiences. As an audience member. That I've that I've ever had, I was literally sobbing.
Lauren Ray
In the first moments of the show, because I knew I knew where it's going. I know it's coming in I.
Lauren Ray
I know the story and it's it's a hilarious and fun and funny and I was just like like tears and snot sobs. Not attractive. I ran into Renee Pulliam at at intermission of that. She's like.
Lauren Ray
Are you crying like Oh yeah, I've been crowd the whole time and I'm not really a crier like it's not usually my MO, but uh, but it was so good and I'm still thinking about it. And and it's just it's just so exciting to see almost theater.
Lauren Ray
Doing cool stuff and making good art and paying attention and telling stories with honesty and and I'm. I'm so glad to to get to talk to you and to sort of get to tie back into.
Lauren Ray
Here's yeah, here's who we are and what we're doing. And and I'm I'm glad that this is somewhere that I am.
Lauren Ray
Able to call home.
Katherine Stewart
And it and it means a great deal to this department that you've continued to be so supportive and come to shows and talk about shows and stay connected with students and faculty members. And all of that.
Lauren Ray
Well, thank you yeah and and I'm. I'm grateful that you reached out to me to to chat today I'm.
Lauren Ray
I'm excited that shell are doing a.
Lauren Ray
Podcast that's cool. Yeah, it's.
Katherine Stewart
It's new I just started. Gosh, last fall we started it actually as a way to be able to do some theater during the pandemic we had a a radio, a radio show that was.
Katherine Stewart
Five episodes or five five radio dramas, written, produced, directed, performed all by students. All original is really fun.
Lauren Ray
Oh man yeah tell them. Tell them to submit, submit that stuff. Submit that stuff to the MTA.
Lauren Ray
Hey, submit that to playwriting, that's that's any any work if they're 18 and out of college, they can submit to the adult festival, so they might need to revisit it.
Lauren Ray
But uhm, but get wins and stuff. Yeah, I love adding stuff is exciting. Of course it is. Yeah, yeah.
Lauren Ray
Thank you.
Katherine Stewart
Well thank you again. I hope we'll get to meet in person.
Lauren Ray
Yeah sometime soon.
Katherine Stewart
Surely at at another MTA fest or something?
Lauren Ray
Yes, I I expect I will be there for many cycles to come.
Katherine Stewart
Excellent, excellent, well thank you again so much. I hope you have a great rest of your day.
Katherine Stewart
And we'll stay in touch, yeah?
Katherine Stewart
Again, that was part two of our conversation with Lauren Ray class of 2009. If you missed the first half of our conversation, do be sure to go back and listen to it.
Katherine Stewart
Up next with the new semester approaching, we'll have a slew of episodes featuring new faculty members and artists involved with our fall productions.
Katherine Stewart
As ever, if you haven't subscribed to the podcast yet, please do so, and if you have a minute, we'd be delighted if you gave us a review. Until next time, this is Stage & Screen.