Become acquainted with extraordinary musician, composer, educator and visionary Steve Hays through this conversation with Kathryn Hayward, MD. Steve’s professional life has been devoted to developing community music and theatre programs in Springfield, Massachusetts, which is where Kathryn met him in 1967.
Steve’s talents as a pianist, singer and teacher have inspired him to teach adolescents the craft of acting at The Drama Studio, to found, manage and produce plays for 18 years in the regional theatre company Stage West and to conceive, direct, produce and compose music for The Boar’s Head Festival and Baker’s Dozen shows at Trinity United Methodist Church.
In all of Steve’s endeavors, he describes a spiritual thirst for something that is meaningful in people’s lives.
Sometimes you get it through theology. Sometimes it’s in what the congregation or audience expresses together. Finding ways to make that happen has been a guiding principle for me.
-Steve Hays
Steve Hays has devoted his life to creating learning experiences for people through music, dance and theatre. In this podcast, Kathryn and Steve focus on his work with The Drama Studio and his partnership with his daughter Amelia Hays-Rivest.
This is a project very near and dear to Steve’s heart, especially the Theatre Readers Program, which began in 2017, offering an hour per week to 250 children in three Springfield public schools.
We started The Drama Studio in 1987, and its mission is to uplift the adolescent experience and celebrate it through a conservatory acting and training program.
-Steve Hays
Some of the skills that Amelia, Steve and their faculty teach adolescents include communication, listening, taking risks and daring to express an idea and writing about it. Listening is an especially important skill, particularly in our current culture of polarization.
One of the secrets of acting is to be a good listener.
-Steve Hays
Exploring how to express feelings of love and having a safe way to discuss themes of sexuality is important in adolescence. Theatre and music offer wonderful tools for these learnings, especially the songs of Irving Berlin, Stephen Sondheim, and the composing duo of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.
Steve looks within their bodies of work, in other words, their songs, for what he calls little one-act plays whose messages relate to kids.
For example, Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd has an illustrative song with the words, “nothing’s gonna harm you, not while I’m around” which explores themes of being a sensitive, helpful, nurturing young man who feels protective and responsible for someone.
Rodgers and Hart’s “I still believe in you,” when sung by a young woman in love with an unreliable man who calls her names, helps adolescents explore nuances about abusive and unbalanced relationships.
With music, you can present a slice of life or a problem in life that is dead on for kids so that they can interact emotionally with it.
-Steve Hays
Another project to which Steve has devoted himself is The Boar’s Head Festival. Since 1984, an elaborate, majestic music and theatre production happens each January in the towering gothic cathedral of Trinity Church. More than 150 cast members, plus live animals including horses, camels and birds, tell the story of a medieval town that is getting ready for and then presenting the festival. Within the podcast, there are some film clips of the pageantry for you to enjoy, along with Steve’s descriptions of his musical compositions and experiences directing the production.
In addition to this podcast, watch for Behind the Music programs with Kathryn and Steve, during which he performs with piano and vocals some of his original songs, so you can become even more well acquainted with Steve’s extraordinary talents, educational style and sense of humor.