Lauren Bone Noble joined our faculty in the fall of 2020 as Assistant Professor of Movement for the Actor, and in that semester spearheaded the creation of a brand new work of devised theatre called NEAR/FAR, which was developed almost entirely by students, produced remotely, and screened online. In this episode, we'll talk about that, some of her other recent works, her background as an actor who has appeared both on television and Broadway, and we'll learn how she got where she is today.
Lauren Bone Noble joined our faculty in the fall of 2020 as Assistant Professor of Movement for the Actor, and in that semester spearheaded the creation of a brand new work of devised theatre called Near/Far, which was developed almost entirely by students, produced remotely, and screened online. In this episode, we'll talk about that, some of her other recent works, her background as an actor who has appeared both on television and Broadway, and we'll learn how she got where she is today.
Near/Far can be viewed on the department's YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/TAYcLtW8rX8
For an overview of Lauren's career, her CV can be found here: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5cedc4dc86016b0001f45120/t/5d0bfe5db9ac3e000175f020/1561067101783/DSI+CV.pdf
Some information about suff*rage, which is discussed in the episode: https://www.commediadellarteday.org/eventiDetail.asp?id=14&lin=esp
Learn about her one-woman clown show, FURY! here: https://www.furytheshow.com/
And finally, her farm: https://www.facebook.com/FloweringTreeFarm/
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
Hello, hello and welcome back to Stage & Screen.
Katherine
I'm your host, Katherine Stewart and my guest today is Warren Bone Noble. Lauren is an assistant professor of movement for the actor and she joined our Department.
Katherine
In the fall of 2020.
Katherine
Since then, she has seen our students through the creation of an entirely new work of theater, an also seen the debut of a work that she had been developing previously.
Katherine
We'll talk about those things and many others, including the fact that when she and her family moved here from upstate New York, they did not come alone.
Katherine
And that's a little teaser; you're going to have to keep listening to figure out what that means, so stay tuned.
Katherine
Talked about earlier, maybe just get us started.
Katherine
You could tell us a little bit about your background where you're from your training, you know just what you've done up until this point.
Lauren
Sure, my pleasure, where where to start?
Yeah.
Lauren
Gosh well.
Lauren
I went to undergraduate school at the University of Memphis.
Lauren
Million years ago.
Lauren
When it was still.
Lauren
When it was still Memphis state.
Lauren
And I I loved college.
Lauren
I just did.
Lauren
It's like my people.
Lauren
I loved the theater.
Lauren
I loved being a BFA student and just.
Lauren
Doing this thing and not having to do all the other things that I didn't like.
Lauren
Sure, right?
Lauren
I mean I think my mother tells me that.
Lauren
I announced at some point that I would not be going to college.
Lauren
And then later when I found out that you could go to college for acting, I was very surprised I didn't know that one could do such a thing and then I declared that I would in fact be going to college if I could study acting, and I think they both my parents breathed a sigh of relief and an awful.
Lauren
Went.
Lauren
And I loved it.
Lauren
I just adored it.
Lauren
It's a great program, small enough to feel like family, but big enough to make cool things, you know, have some.
Lauren
Sports bookings and.
Lauren
OK.
Lauren
Lauren
Yeah.
Lauren
Lauren
Yeah, that was a great experience and then and then I did not know what to do with myself.
Lauren
Oh, upon graduation from college I did not know how to be an adult.
Lauren
I did not know how.
Lauren
To cook food.
Lauren
Wash my clothes.
Lauren
I didn't know anything I was such an infant.
Lauren
I moved Chicago and I was miserable.
Lauren
Miserable.
Lauren
So it.
Katherine
That's a big city to be a noob in.
Lauren
Yeah. It was cold. I had never lived in the North before and I moved in like October and then there was winter.
Lauren
Katherine
Yeah.
Lauren
If I was so sad.
Lauren
I mean Cameron, I would.
Katherine
It's different thing.
Lauren
Yeah I never taken public transportation before, so I'm trying to get to my little, you know, living jobs to support myself.
Lauren
On on the L and getting completely covered in snow and dirt and wet and having to re dress myself on arriving, it's just I was a sad little thing so I left Chicago with my tail between my legs.
Lauren
I did not.
Lauren
Do well there.
Lauren
But the good thing is.
Lauren
I went back to Memphis where people loved me and where I was familiar with things and I decided to go to grad.
Lauren
I want to go to grad school and then I went to grad school and that was great too, although hard then great.
Lauren
Remember that I did grad school for three years at the National Conservatory.
Lauren
In in National Theatre Conservatory in Denver, which I love, Denver is a great town.
Lauren
Three years of training and then I moved directly to New York City.
Katherine
Wow.
Katherine
And did you have a particular goal or focus in mind when you set out to the city?
Lauren
Oh, I just think I wanted.
Lauren
I have always just wanted to be an actor like there was whatever.
Yeah.
Lauren
Just give it to me.
Lauren
I'll do it.
Lauren
I'll do it.
Lauren
I mean, I like I did Renaissance festivals I did shows in a pit of mud.
Lauren
I did the, you know I put on the animal suits and walked around the mall at holiday times.
Lauren
I don't care give it to me I'll do it.
Lauren
Commercials, music, videos.
Lauren
Television Theatre it didn't matter.
Lauren
I'll do high style, I'll do melodrama, it doesn't matter.
Lauren
I just wanted to be acting.
Lauren
Right, but I do particularly love.
Lauren
Physical Theatre a whole lot.
Lauren
Yeah.
Lauren
Lauren
And that I think I got a little bit.
Lauren
I want to say off track in grad school.
Lauren
The grad school I went to was great and they learned a lot about acting an I did study physical Theatre there, but the acting is more of a classical Conservatory style acting.
Uh huh.
Lauren
An it's more about doing natural realism than.
Lauren
Then special skill sets and clowning or anything like that.
Lauren
That that I had to study on my own after.
Lauren
To grad school but.
Lauren
I just wanted to be an actor.
Lauren
I had moved to New York City, fully intending to immediately begin working.
Lauren
I had no intention that I was going to.
Lauren
I have no backup plan, nothing.
Lauren
I'm going to New York.
Lauren
I'm going to be an actor, period.
Katherine
Wow.
Lauren
So.
Katherine
That boldness, though, served you right.
Katherine
I mean you have in your in your resume like you've been in a lot of TV shows and.
Lauren
I've done some stuff.
Lauren
I mean, yeah, I I.
Lauren
I felt like when I left New York City.
Lauren
I got married an my my spouse did not want to live in the city.
Lauren
An I he was working North of the city of like well I can live up there and commute in and then we got married and then we had children and I just couldn't.
Lauren
Do that commute anymore, or live that lifestyle anymore of an actor and be the kind of parent I wanted to be which was present.
Lauren
And so I decided to take a break.
Lauren
But yes, my my boldness I think.
Lauren
I will say fearlessness because I was terrified.
Lauren
But like I'm doing it anyway, I just wanted to so badly.
Lauren
And all the steps I took to get there helped me do that.
Lauren
Grad school was a big step in the direction of being brave.
Lauren
Because.
Lauren
I was around other actors who were doing it.
Lauren
They were living that life.
Lauren
It didn't seem like a crazy thing, it was just this is how it's done so.
Lauren
Living in New York was a good next step for me.
Lauren
And yeah, yeah I.
Lauren
I think when I left New York I think what I was going to say was that I felt like I had accomplished what I set out to do, which was be a working actor.
Lauren
And I was.
Lauren
And I kept on doing it for a little while and then like I said, I thought I just can't keep leaving my kids to go on auditions or go away and do gigs. And I come back and I'm exhausted and my husband's exhausted and the kids are like Mommy, you know. So I took a break and I started teaching and that's how I.
Lauren
Came too.
Lauren
Academic Theatre.
Lauren
Do that through the side door.
Katherine
You also, in the course of all that.
Katherine
Came to physical theater, an movement as kind of what you wanted to focus on, right?
Lauren
Yes, well, when I was in undergraduate school at Memphis State, there is an amazing physical theater program there that was really a kind of a one woman show.
Lauren
The professor named Susan Kreitzberg.
Lauren
It should studied with Etienne Decroux in France an.
Lauren
I just she.
Lauren
She really changed my life like I'd never been exposed to that kind of work before.
Lauren
I didn't know what that was.
Lauren
It was so detailed and so embodied, and I did like independent study with her.
Lauren
I got to make my own.
Lauren
Clown show an and then I did Renaissance Festival's for years, whereas that's all that's just clown work. This is clowning and improving for 10 hours a day, you know. And I loved loved that.
Lauren
And that's where I started, like meeting more of that kind of vaudeville folk.
Lauren
You know doing that kind of.
Lauren
Those kinds of shows in just widen my sphere of influence and then in grad school I studied with a guy named Charlie Oates and he's very Koch based clowning and and I just started studying with more people in the whole theater.
Lauren
I just always loved it, but I I kind of again grad school.
Lauren
We kind of.
Lauren
Sent me off on this other path of auditioning in the creating A.
Lauren
Clear this more much more traditional.
Lauren
You know, like you know your can you get an agent and you audition for whatever they send you in for.
Lauren
It wasn't about making my own stuff or.
Lauren
Or physical theater.
Lauren
It was just.
Lauren
It was about doing theater and movies and television and commercials and industrials.
Lauren
And all those things.
Lauren
Right, so physical Theatre was always kind of there, but sometimes it would recede a little.
Lauren
And it it really wasn't until recently that it started coming hard back into focus for me.
Lauren
My kids got older.
Lauren
I was like OK, now what am I gonna do with myself?
Lauren
I'm gonna refocus on this thing that.
Lauren
Really sparked great curiosity and excitement in me, so I started studying again.
Katherine
Yeah, so Speaking of that last semester, you spearheaded the creation of an incredible work of devised theater called Near Far.
Katherine
This was something that the students really kind of developed as they went along right?
Katherine
What was the Genesis of that and how did it come together?
Lauren
Well, the Genesis of that was really a conversation with the whole Department of we we want to stay in creation and creativity with our students during this time of Pandemic an it was important to me as the movement person that we stay.
Lauren
The students stay embodied.
Lauren
I think I even said that meeting to stay in their poetic body.
Lauren
It's a beautiful.
Lauren
Lecocq phrase I just love that notion that the body itself is poetic.
Lauren
And I like right now we're sitting at our desks.
Lauren
Looking into our computers at each other and it's so it's.
Lauren
I just feel my own body kind of collapsing in on itself in this position.
Lauren
We're here all day long and all these meetings and I just I didn't want to do a zoom reading with everybody.
Lauren
Sitting and looking at the computer.
Lauren
I wanted to see if we could make something
Lauren
And I thought if we're going to make something, let's talk, let's talk about what it's like to be in Pandemic an I don't know why.
Lauren
This.
Lauren
This little skit from Sesame Street came to mind of Grover running near.
Lauren
and far, you know he's sort of teaching little children, toddlers, the meaning of being near and far away, and we so I mean, until the pandemic we really take for granted.
Lauren
With nearness is to one right, being in close physical proximity to people.
Lauren
I had no honestly though gathered.
Lauren
I had no idea.
Lauren
What that was going to be?
Lauren
The minute Michael Michael so supportive like I really let, let's do that let's do the Grover thing.
Lauren
And then I told my husband I said Oh my God, what have I done?
Lauren
I have no idea what I mean by that.
Lauren
I don't know.
Lauren
I don't know what it's going to be that it was a big exercise in trust and support and community and conversation.
Katherine
Yeah.
Lauren
I could all came together because people continued to say yes.
Uh huh.
Lauren
And nobody ever was like.
Lauren
That sounds dumb.
Lauren
It's really kind.
Lauren
Of they got me like that really is I don't get it.
Lauren
And and so we made this thing and it was all about the masks.
Lauren
And being isolated.
Lauren
Catherine, we had this one.
Lauren
We had one in person reversal.
Lauren
We met on the stage of The Grove at night.
Lauren
Everybody brought their masks, and before I left my house, I went around my property and gathered up all these stones an we did this exercise where at the end.
Lauren
Uhm, I I gave as a gift the sort of River stones to each actor and I felt it to me and I hope for the Castan in our stage management team that it felt.
Lauren
Ultra communal, like Ultra connected because we had been so separated, we've never been in the actual same physical space until that day, and to me it was very special to me.
Lauren
I may or may not have cried a little bit.
Katherine
Well.
Lauren
But just to see.
Lauren
These young artists in space together making something and so like hungry for that literal, physical spatial connection, an that's what we were exploring in that piece.
Lauren
Uh huh.
Lauren
What it means to be separated, but it means to be desire to be near.
Lauren
But unable to do so.
Lauren
Does it mean that we no longer care for one another now?
Lauren
It just it's a sort of.
Lauren
Feels very Russian to me.
Lauren
Like no like we are separated forever now.
Lauren
Yes, we are.
Lauren
My heart is broken goodbye.
Lauren
This is not going to be fixed this.
Lauren
Is going to be.
Lauren
But hopefully we're going to be fixed now.
Lauren
I got my shot.
Katherine
And you just sort of offered this idea to all these students an you didn't know them, your brand new as a professor an.
Katherine
They ran with it.
Lauren
Yes, I I say that they were the braver because they did not know me right?
Lauren
Like I'm kind of used to walking into these situations.
Lauren
I've been an actor in a in a theater person long enough to know this feeling of walking into a room and I don't know anybody and we're going to make something and we're going to have to get real vulnerable and comfortable with one another.
Lauren
That for young actors I think, especially in an academic environment, we all know each other.
Lauren
It's like, oh, you and and here knew new person saying put these masks on and.
Lauren
It will be personal and.
Lauren
Yeah, but I think I think we we we took our time.
Lauren
We took our time getting there so we workshop we learned about the masks.
Lauren
We spent time before we started really digging in.
Lauren
So.
Lauren
I think I think it was for me it was a really grand experiment and trust.
Lauren
Interesting.
Lauren
Lauren
Yeah, they're in the process.
Katherine
It was a beautiful piece and a lot of people watched it.
Lauren
And continue to.
Lauren
I think I can, do you know?
Katherine
It's still being watched.
Katherine
People tuned in without knowing really kind of anything about what it was an.
Lauren
Yeah I would.
Lauren
I would also say that some people tuned in not knowing what it was and left still not knowing what it was.
Katherine
But having having had an experience that they enjoyed right?
Lauren
Yeah, I guess what I mean by that is that we are really used to, I think, as Americans, particularly having our story handed us to us in a very complete fashion of this is what it is.
Lauren
Yeah.
Lauren
Lauren
Perhaps you already know this story.
Katherine
Yeah.
Lauren
Yes, maybe we've read it or seen it 10 times before.
Lauren
Here it is again.
Yeah.
Lauren
And it's very linear, and there's been a beginning, middle and end.
Lauren
And there are characters, and there's a hero.
Lauren
And I would say that there is a hero there is.
Lauren
It does end up being a main character in.
R.
Lauren
Which is just came out of the rehearsal process.
Lauren
But I would also say that there are big portions of it in which you are asked as an audience member to just.
Lauren
Be present and have you experience it's not as cut and dry, there's not.
Lauren
Yeah.
Lauren
Lauren
There's no dialogue.
Lauren
We're not pantomiming things.
Lauren
A story not a pantomime.
Lauren
And there's not a there's not already a fixed.
Lauren
Our typical story that we already know.
Lauren
So.
Lauren
Yeah.
Lauren
Lauren
But to me, that was it.
Lauren
That's been the experience of pandemic right of living through a pandemic is I don't know.
Lauren
What's going on?
Lauren
Some days it feels very.
Lauren
Lethargic an curious last and other times I'm like, oh, I know, I know what's happening now.
Lauren
OK.
Lauren
Lauren
Yeah.
Lauren
Lauren
This is familiar.
Lauren
No.
Katherine
You had another work recently, suff*rge.
Lauren
Yeah.
Katherine
Which you maybe intended to be pronounced differently.
Katherine
I don't know.
Lauren
I I again I kind of like to leave that you could.
Lauren
Say suff RAGE, yeah?
Lauren
It's really just a play on.
Lauren
Words like it's funny to me that.
Lauren
Word rage is in at the end of suffrage.
Lauren
So I kind of to me it's.
Lauren
Always the visual of it.
Lauren
Is more important than the.
Lauren
How?
Lauren
Is that the way it looks on the page to me?
Lauren
Or on a poster.
Lauren
Linda Marquis someday.
Katherine
Yes.
Lauren
Will dreaming I'm still dreaming about that, but yes, yes that that project has been.
Lauren
A funny little year in the making two in that I started working on it.
Lauren
Uhm, last year I started writing last winter.
Lauren
When I was still in New York.
Lauren
And I had a little bitty grantee for that.
Lauren
For the first reading of it, we were supposed to do 2 on campus.
Lauren
It's in New Paltz, and the day we did the first reading was the day there locked it all down.
Lauren
We got the big announcement, right?
Lauren
So, weird, 'cause there we are all in a room together.
Lauren
And there's their snacks.
Lauren
You know my my little Grant purchased food and coffee and tea and little delightful nibbles and it just felt so professional and wonderful to me and how my actors there and.
Lauren
A wonderful dramaturg and my student mentee and a producer like we had it just was a room full of people making art.
Lauren
And then everybody is like, Oh my God Gap is closing everything is closing down tomorrow.
Lauren
It was so weird so.
Lauren
Everything for that.
Lauren
The second reading went by by I was supposed to read.
Lauren
It there's gonna be a performance on that campus.
Lauren
For you know the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment and all the stuff that went bye bye.
Lauren
Yeah.
Lauren
Lauren
And yet and yet I still kept trying to push it forward.
Lauren
So we had a zoom reading in the early summer through Seattle Public Theater.
Lauren
And then most recently, the one that you're referencing was in the observation of international Commedia Dell'arte Day, sponsored by Faction of Fools and George Washington University, and that that was the first time anybody there had been an audience for it, and that was really weird.
Lauren
Sponsored.
Lauren
Lauren
It's weird when there's an audience, but you don't know who they are or if they're responding for comedy, so I just left it.
Lauren
I would love to get that piece up in front of an audience and see any legs at all.
Lauren
Yeah.
Lauren
Lauren
I don't know.
Lauren
It's hard to know in a vacuum.
Uh huh.
Katherine
What's that piece about?
Lauren
Suffrage suffrage is.
Lauren
It's a live event.
Lauren
It's a historical revenge fantasy.
Lauren
There's some amount of historical stuff in it, set in the 1848 in Seneca Falls, NY, the site of the Convention, the first women's convention, and sort of this notion that that is the stepping off point of the woman suffrage movement in the United States. But I didn't really want to write about.
Lauren
But
Lauren
Lauren
Historical.
Lauren
Lauren
Well, that 'cause that seemed really.
Lauren
Seems really.
Lauren
Lauren
Like just made.
Lauren
Me feel sleepy and sort of agitated.
Lauren
Think about that, and so I thought I decided I wanted to write like a zombie apocalypse.
Lauren
About woman suffrage, but it didn't really turn out to be an apocalypse.
Lauren
'cause there's only one zombie, but there is one, and it's just sort of.
Lauren
It's really about less about suffrage.
Lauren
And women getting the vote and more about.
Lauren
The long arc of.
Lauren
Civil rights and human.
Lauren
An and kind of the the injustice of that of how long it takes to get anything done.
Lauren
Yeah, and for for anyone who's in a marginalized group.
Lauren
I think everybody is just saying we just want the same opportunity.
Lauren
We want the same chance.
Lauren
And specifically for women there is a social notion that women's anger.
Lauren
Sure.
Lauren
This is not acceptable.
Lauren
It's women ugly and women are so taught to be valued by their appearance, that to be ugly.
Is like.
Lauren
That's like the worst thing you could possibly be is to not be beautiful or at the very least, pretty or.
Lauren
Little Fuller.
Lauren
Lauren
Or cute, you know.
Lauren
If you can't be beautiful or pretty, at least you can be cute.
Lauren
But it's so awful that that is, you know, that is the bar of.
Lauren
Achievement for women.
Lauren
Angry if that is to contort the features into ugliness, what happens to?
Lauren
Our our righteous indignation at being treated as inferior, so I wanted to give these women characters an opportunity to be really angry and to go.
Lauren
Too far.
Uh huh.
Lauren
Their anger.
Lauren
But in a funny way.
Katherine
Oh, it's hilarious.
Lauren
I think funny like it's supposed to be, so it's it's silly.
So.
Lauren
They say at the beginning.
Lauren
This is a silly, silly show.
Lauren
I think what's silly to me ultimately, what silly is that anybody should be treated differently than anybody else because of their gender, their gender identity, the color of their skin, their religious affiliation, any just any of these things like.
Lauren
Can't we just make room for one another?
Lauren
Philly that we can't.
Lauren
Sheesh, so that's what the play is really about.
Lauren
Sort of the.
Lauren
Gnawing frustration of.
Lauren
How slowly?
Lauren
Uh.
Lauren
Human rights movements move along.
Lauren
An what bubbles up when you're when you've had enough of waiting around.
Lauren
So and I in actuality we see that happening all the time when people are like I, I'm tired of waiting.
Lauren
So it's just a little examination of that.
Lauren
In high Comedy Brechtian style.
Katherine
And then.
Katherine
What are you teaching for that?
Katherine
Department and what are you doing next?
Katherine
Do you have any works coming up in the next year or so, or?
Lauren
I do I do?
Lauren
I have two big projects that I'm working on right now.
Lauren
One is to get suffrage to to some.
Lauren
Producing another is in a new play.
Katherine
Yeah.
Lauren
I want to start working on.
Lauren
I have a couple of student mentees are going to help me do drama, tour dramaturgical research and.
Lauren
Stuff like that on that play, but I don't want.
Lauren
I don't want to talk about too much 'cause it's knew an I.
Lauren
I want to kind of keep it under wraps until it's a little further along.
Lauren
It's it's in its embryonic state and I want to let it grow.
Lauren
In the dark bit.
Lauren
But but it yes.
Lauren
I have a couple of things and then as far as what I'm teaching right now I'm teaching.
Sure.
Lauren
It's a pure acting class realism for Stage and screen, which is a great treat for.
Lauren
I do love scene study, an classical acting techniques so great to coach those.
Lauren
And then I'm also teaching commedia dell'arte.
Lauren
And this semester, which is fun.
Lauren
It's just such a great style, it's a great.
Lauren
Big crazy wild.
Lauren
Something, and it's all. It's completely in opposition to everything. Actors are taught to that point. Like look at it, look at each other's eyes and truth.
Lauren
Fully, it's like no.
Lauren
Lauren
It's like no.
Lauren
Do not be truthful.
Lauren
Be outrageous.
Lauren
Don't look at each other.
Lauren
Turn out.
Lauren
Be too big.
Lauren
It run, don't walk.
Lauren
Since it's completed in tar, that's what makes it a challenge.
Katherine
What are some of the hallmarks of that that would be different for an acting student?
Lauren
I think the most difficult one is turning out when you're speaking.
Lauren
So if we.
Lauren
Making a scene from like proof.
Lauren
David Auburns proof.
Miller
Lauren
Who are playing the sisters we be looking at each other and fighting and are you know?
Lauren
Uh, but incomedia, if we're playing sisters while we're fighting, we would turn out to the audience and we deliver our lines out.
Lauren
And then when I listen I could turn back to you.
Lauren
After
Lauren
Lauren
But it's just that turning out is it's so far it's high style.
Lauren
It is highly.
Allies.
Lauren
An that I find that to be one of the most difficult shifts.
Lauren
1st.
Lauren
It's to make.
Lauren
Uh, it's titled.
Lauren
I mean, you get this thing drilled into your head if I've gotta this is the way you're supposed to perform it's like well.
Lauren
You could also do this.
Lauren
It's really hard to get out of your habits, and so I I find myself.
Lauren
Reminding them you turn out, turn out, turn out.
Lauren
It's hard, it's hard to remember so.
Katherine
Is it a different focusing of the attention basically?
Lauren
Yeah, it's not focusing on audience like you are directly acknowledging that the audience is out there.
Lauren
You look at that.
Lauren
It's, you know, it's a.
Lauren
It's a very communal kind of theater.
Lauren
There there isn't enough.
Lauren
I mean, there's not a fourth wall.
Lauren
We acknowledge the audience is out there.
Lauren
We give there are asides.
Lauren
Uhm?
Lauren
We're ever sort of.
Lauren
Preening and showing ourselves off to the audience.
Lauren
I think the best way to imagine it is if everyone out there is enjoying it.
Lauren
An adult beverage and that maybe you are too.
Lauren
You know, it's like a party.
Lauren
Like
Lauren
Lauren
It's a very and former theater was often performed at festivals, and you know a part of festival though.
Yes.
Lauren
Karneval
Lauren
Yes.
Lauren
We have to remember that sort of festive atmosphere.
Lauren
That we are part of that and that people aren't contained in a theater, and hushed they're loud.
Lauren
They're drinking.
Lauren
They're talking.
Lauren
They're shouting, laugh at, you know it's very loud and fun.
Lauren
It's much more outrageous so.
Lauren
Yeah.
Katherine
OK, so this is not related to theater or anything you're doing for the Department, but I have to mention that you also have a farm and you moved here not just with your human family, but a bunch of animals.
Katherine
What's all that like?
Lauren
Just a trip from new.
Lauren
York to Mississippi with, you know, like 15 goats an.
Miller
Lauren
I don't you know all the like 40 something poultry.
Katherine
Oh
Lauren
In three cats and a dog and two children.
Katherine
Sure.
Lauren
A couple plants, but yeah, I mean that was nuts.
Lauren
That was crazy, but we we had a farm in New York and goats in particular.
Lauren
My my spouse really cultivated and carefully curated this herd of goats and they're like dogs in some ways and that they have personalities and we care for them now.
Lauren
They they are livestock, but we care for them and there was no way to leave them behind or sell them.
Lauren
That was just not an option.
Lauren
So we brought them and all of our poultry and.
Lauren
Just kind of setting up our farm.
Lauren
Are fun.
Lauren
Lauren
My my husband wants to have a community supported agriculture of CSA several already in the area, but we're just interested in in providing more options for locally grow.
Lauren
There are several.
Lauren
Lauren
Foods and Community interaction with how how food comes to be.
Lauren
You know, we really are very separated from our food and how it gets to our table.
Lauren
So many people don't know how potatoes grow.
Lauren
You just don't.
Lauren
Or or the time and labor it takes.
Uh huh.
Lauren
Yeah.
Lauren
An and the weather is just going to be what it's going to be.
Lauren
It's it's a miracle really, that we have food at all really because it's such.
Lauren
It's a.
Lauren
It's a little bit of a you never know what's going to happen with the weather too much, too much rain, not enough rain, a storm, big snow like.
Lauren
That and ice can ruin things.
Lauren
It's just you don't know.
Lauren
So, but it's been important to both of us that our children know where their food comes from, and it's a great way to raise kids to to have that kind of.
Lauren
Ability of caring for animals.
Lauren
What it means to be responsible to an animal.
Uh huh.
Lauren
This is a big deal and there I.
Lauren
I think it's.
Lauren
It's a good experience for them to understand.
Lauren
Responsibility and food an.
Lauren
Gratitude or responsibility and gratitude for.
Lauren
Anyway, yeah, that's what we're doing.
Lauren
We got pigs.
Lauren
We got cows now.
Katherine
Yeah, have you have you expanded your menagerie?
Lauren
We arrived yet with the goats, an turkeys, an chickens and one dog.
Lauren
Some of the poultry went away because of Raccoon family.
Lauren
That snacks the poor duck.
Lauren
Very sad and some of our chickens went by by as well and that was hard.
Lauren
But yes, we now have pigs as well.
Lauren
We have five pig.
Lauren
And we have a bunch of baby goats now hopping around.
Lauren
And we have two cows.
Lauren
Yeah, so we've definitely expanded.
Lauren
We bought one more male goat to sire.
Lauren
Add some new.
Lauren
Southern blood 2R2R heard.
Yes.
Lauren
Yep, so we we have expanded we've got.
Lauren
Our Orchard or fruit Orchard started.
Lauren
So that's cool.
Lauren
So that.
Lauren
Lauren
Now we're working on our greenhouse getting it up, so it's going to be, you know, a while for us to get going, but just trying to.
Lauren
Do all the setting up steps.
Lauren
In the proper order.
Katherine
Yeah, how many acres are you on?
Lauren
It's 20 acres.
Katherine
How?
Lauren
Would have loved more, but you know.
Lauren
Money.
Katherine
That feels like a lot.
Lauren
I mean it does it it isn't it, isn't it?
Lauren
Depending on what you want to do but.
Yeah.
Lauren
This air you know.
Lauren
Weirdly, when we told people we're moving to Oxford, Ms, they're like oh land and property must be so cheap and said well in this area.
Lauren
It's actually pretty expensive because a lot of people at their second homes.
Katherine
Right?
Lauren
Oxford right?
Lauren
And it's just the the draw of the University and the culture here so.
Lauren
No.
Lauren
Lauren
Well, much cheaper.
Lauren
But we we found a really lovely place, a great deal and we like where we are and beautiful sunsets.
Lauren
Not a lot of.
Lauren
Not a lot of light pollution where.
Lauren
We live see all the stars.
Lauren
Hopefully what we spot.
Katherine
Nice.
Lauren
Yeah.
Katherine
Well, thank you.
Katherine
I've enjoyed this conversation.
Lauren
Thank you Katherine.
Katherine
Alright, again, that was Lauren Bohn, Noble assistant professor of movement for the actor.
Katherine
We talked about quite a few things in this episode and if you go to our show notes you will find links to many of them.
Katherine
You can see some of her other work.
Katherine
There's a link to near far the production that she did with our Department and our students last semester.
Katherine
You can watch that online.
Katherine
There's also a link to her farm if you want.
Katherine
To stay updated on when you can get some produce and other things from her bunch of good stuff in there.
Katherine
So again, thanks for listening and until next time this is Stage & Screen.