When starting college, stagecraft teacher Leroy Timblin was center stage acting, but he soon learned that he was much better suited for working backstage, creating sets, rigging lights and managing the stage. Since then, Timblin has focused on set design and worked backstage from local shows to Broadway.
“I always tell my students that it’s like another character on stage, because it just gives you so much information about the world you’re in and about the other characters, and then there’s interaction between those characters, and then the set character,” Timblin said.
Timblin’s teaching philosophy started all the way back in his junior year of college when he became a teaching assistant.
“I’m teaching then teach other people, pass that knowledge down, because that’s kind of what theater is all about, it’s storytelling,” Timblin said. “Those stories then get told to the other generations and so teaching, I feel, is the exact same.”
The knowledge gained from participating in stagecraft isn’t just limited to the theater but can apply to all reaches of life.
“The idea of design, of figuring out what things look good, will go on to show you how to decorate your house, or how to keep things clean,” he said. “If you’re building something, you get use of tools and how to utilize those, and then you can transfer that into your adult life and fixing things or building things with your own family.”
In addition, Timblin finds that his role as a teacher puts him in a special position to not only learn from his craft, but from the influx of students.
“I’m finding myself getting older and older every year, and every year the new kids come in, or just young, and I’m learning new things from their perspective that I wouldn’t have thought of at this age in my life,” Timblin said. “It’s just this unbridled creativity and a lot of people they don’t know to hold back, and so a lot of times they just give you all these really cool ideas you just wouldn’t have thought of.”
If all of this is not enough to get someone to want to join the stagecraft class, Timblin has one more piece of wisdom to impart.
“This is the perfect time to fail,” he said. “This is the time in your lives when you can just do everything and anything, and it doesn’t matter if you’re good at it; If you don’t try, you don’t know you’re good at it or bad at it. Do all the things, try to find some joy and fun in it, even if you maybe hate it initially, just do it.”
