By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
There’s no hiding Mikayla Trimpey’s enthusiasm for teaching theater.
Trimpey, a first year graduate student in the BGSU Department of Theatre and Film, has returned to her theatrical roots with the Horizon Youth Theatre.
She first acted with the troupe about 10 years ago when her family moved to Bowling Green. It was a production of “Peter Pan.”
Now she’s back helping with the troupe. In November she worked as stage manager for the production of “Just So Stories.”
Because of COVID-19 it was “a weird situation,” she said.
The production was rehearsed and staged live with masking and social distancing. Then it was recorded and streamed for audiences.
The young cast members had to learn to “act around the mask.”
They had to speak up. They realized: “I have to act with more than my face.”
So, when HYT president Tom Edge approached Trimpey about teaching a virtual workshop this winter, she knew just what she wanted to present. “This was a perfect time to initiate a conversation with these kids about acting with their bodies.” Trimpey will teach “Masking Your Feelings,” a six-week long workshop that will be offered on Saturday afternoons, 2-4 p.m., from Jan. 30 through March 6. The workshop for those age 6 to 18 will be presented over Zoom. The cost is $45 per student for registrations through Jan. 24 and $75 for those who register afterward. Click for details on registration.
When youngsters start acting, they don’t know anything about the craft. They are drawn to the obvious way of expressing themselves. “The first thing people notice is their faces,” Trimpey said. “That’s how we read emotions. That’s how we know what’s going on in their heads is their faces. When I’m happy, I’m smiling. It takes more effort to think about what my body is doing when I’m happy. What are my hands doing when I’m happy versus when I’m sad?”
At Denison, where she double majored in theater and psychology – “a perfect combination,” she studied devised theater and movement-based performance. That will inform what she teaches students at the workshop.
Her understanding of the need to expressed herself with her body goes back to a HYT production of “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” She was cast as Puck. “It’s a very fun role,” she recalls. “I get to do a lot of fun things with my hands.”
HYT wasn’t her first experience with theater. When her family was living in Arizona, she decided she wanted to try drama after seeing a production of “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Her reaction: “That’s really cool, I want to try that.”
So, she took a part in a local production of “A Christmas Carol.”
When her family returned to Ohio – she was born in Findlay – she continued her theatrical adventures in HYT’s “Peter Pan.”
“That’s how I made a lot of my first friends in town,” Trimpey said. “I also gained a lot of mentors through that network,” including Cassie Greenlee, who directed her a several plays.
And many of those who are now involved in technical roles were fellow cast members in HYT productions. “Bob Walters was my son in Peter Pan,” she recalled. She remembers his family attending rehearsals. Now his younger sisters, Rose and Alice, who were little then, are regulars on stage.
At Bowling Green High School, she got to play her favorite role, Rusty, in the musical “Footloose.” Through theater, she said, “I feel like I got more confident in myself and my acting abilities – more confident in myself period. It was a space I really could really explore and discover myself without feeling the pressure of high school. The theater was really a safe space.”
Yet when she went to Denison she was “pretty dedicated to not majoring in theater.” But when she’d study the course catalogues she found herself highlighting theater courses.
As the time to graduate approached, she realized she’d taken so many theater courses, she may as well declare it as a major.
When it came time to take the next step, she looked at graduate programs related to psychology. “None of those brought me as much joy as theater did,” she said.
These experiences help shape what Trimpey wants to share with students. “I really hope that these students feel more comfortable inside their own bodies. I feel theater is a good way of expressing yourself by finding a way to be bold and be confident. … It gives you this character to explore and from there you can take those things you learned and apply them to your life, your real persona.”
