An Interview by Alycyn Keeling
Today I got to talk with Dr. Zachary Daily who is directing “The Woman in Black.” Zach just finished defending his dissertation and officially received the title of “Dr.”! Congratulations, Zach! What a great accomplishment! Zach is originally from a small town just outside of San Antonio Texas
In speaking with Zach you understand his sincere passion for what he does, and learn that his motivation comes from helping others through teaching. Zach has an incredible talent in leading and bringing people together. His leadership creates the elements that make a spectacular show, or in this week’s case a “Spook-Tacular” show!
Photo by Mallory Prucha, taken in the Ancient Greek Ruins, Pirene, Turkey
Zach’s favorite part of directing theater productions is seeing and experienceing the development of relationships among characters. Zach describes the cast of “The Woman in Black”, “It has a smaller cast and creates a very intimate evening with a lot of really interesting moments for a small show.”
Zach’s love of theatre began with his involvement in church productions. He has always liked telling stories and sees theatre is a way of doing that in a different medium. Zach received his BFA in performance with a concentration in directing at Baylor University and spent some time in Ohio before moving back to Texas. (Good job, Zach! As my former boss in Washington, D.C. quite frequently liked to say, “All good Texans come back home!” - Or we spend a lot of time trying!)
When talking with Zach, I most enjoyed seeing and hearing his passion for teaching. As I mentioned above Zach has a talent for empowering people. Zach says he loves teaching everything from directing, acting, literature, to history and he really enjoys teaching theatre to “non-theatre” people. Theater has a lot of transferable skills that will help you out and about in the world, and they are not skills you can just learn from reading a book.
There have been multiple surveys published over the past few years where employers listed the top qualifications they are looking for in job candidates. Communication skills and emotional intelligence are top of the list and that’s what theatre does. “If you participate in theater, we ask you as an actor to step into someone else’s shoes for a couple of hours a night. Being able to portray and see something from someone else’s perspective is inherent to theatre.” It teaches people to consider what it might be like to see things through different eyes. Zach also talked about the business students he taught in a non-majors theatre class. “If you’re presenting a business opportunity in front of a group of people, improv and theatre training teaches you how to listen to their questions, listen to their ideas and develop your response and own ideas in that moment.”
We also talked about the community theatre creates. “That’s what I like about the Wallace, we want people to see the show, and be as safe as possible doing that in this vast open space, but it still feels intimate. You are going on a journey through this play with everyone around you. As the story unfolds, as the mystery unfolds, we are all solving it together as the audience. It can give you back that sense of community that you may feel like you have lost over the past 6-8 months.”
““What I like about this show is how quickly the story unfolds for you. At the top of the play, the story takes off. You are in it from “Go!””
In my last post about Paul, I told you I don’t like scary things. Zach had a similar feeling. He said, “I don’t normally enjoy horror movies, they aren’t my favorite thing. I don’t like jump scares. I don’t like something frightening me out of nowhere. This play isn’t like a horror movie. There aren’t jump scares. It is unsettling, it is a mystery, it feels like a classic, almost Hitchcockian thriller. This show is about what’s not seen.” He said, ‘This play is also interesting because the story has to do with local legend of a small town in England. This play really gives honor to those local legends stories.’
So, I invite you to come see this show because it is going to be an incredible experience thanks to hard work from the cast and crew that have worked with Zach! Engage yourself in this story and maybe we’ll have a new local legend of our own, right here in Levelland!
Purchase your tickets now for “The Woman in Black”, the next great experience at the Wallace Theater!
Performances run:
Thursday, October 22th 7:30pm
Friday, October 23rd 7:30pm
Saturday, October 24th 7:30pm
Friday, October 30th 7:30pm
Saturday, October 31st 9:00pm (Celebrate Halloween with us!)
General Admission Tickets are $20; Student Tickets are $10