Â鶹ÊÓƵ

---

Podcast: S9 Ep. 9
Date: April 02, 2026
Title: LU Moment: Theater students' work takes the stage at LU | S9 Ep. 9
Host: John Rollins

---

JOHN ROLLINS: Welcome to the LU Moment, where we showcase all the great things happening with Â鶹ÊÓƵ faculty, staff, students and alumni. I'm John Rollins, Associate Director of Community Relations and Public Affairs here at LU, and I want to welcome you all to this week's show. Â鶹ÊÓƵ is taking a fresh approach to theater productions this spring as the Department of Theatre and Dance introduces “Next Draft: Student Work Series.” Here today to tell us all about it, we've got Bailey Jenkins, a theater and dance senior majoring in acting here at LU. Bailey, welcome to the show.

BAILEY JENKINS: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

JOHN: Let's do kind of like a quick elevator pitch. How would you describe Next Draft? And then later on in the episode, we'll kind of get into the specifics of it, but the who, what, when, where, why, how -- you know, all the details.

BAILEY: Gotcha. Well, last year, it was kind of a surprise when we got the notice that it was going to be a thing. However, the way they pitched it was new student works, either original or adapted. You'll apply it, and we'll decide who gets to actually put it on. Originally, there were three people to do it, but that dwindled down to two works, one co-written by two people, and then I wrote one, and then we put them on as a like a radio play. That was the original idea. However, working on it, we’ve decided that these two works are actually drastically different. One is adapted, so they were much further in the process when we started. We have these meetings every Wednesday, talk about our plays, and we talk to our mentor, Elizabeth Kiel. She gives us ideas, asks questions, all this. So they are way further along. So we think that theirs might be a little more staged, almost like a full production. It’s  only an hour long, each show. So it's really like two hours long the whole thing. But theirs might be a little further than mine. Mine is going to be like a radio play. Everybody's kind of sat there in front of you. People sit when they're not, you know, yeah, doing the thing that, though.

JOHN: Yeah, and two hours is pretty standard for one production. So the fact that you get it's a two for one kind of deal, right?

BAILEY: And the intermission will act as a sort of transference of property, you know, to the next, yes, on to the next. Our preshow will be before the show, their preshow will take place during intermission.

JOHN: Let's give you some time to introduce yourself. And I do always like to ask when I have a student on, “When was that lightbulb moment for you when you were like, ‘Aha, theater, that's what I want to do.’”

BAILEY: So, my name is Bailey Jenkins. I went to Nederland High School, which is down the road. I wasn't really a theater student. I was a band kid for a while. I played the flute. And that was awesome. I wasn't that great at it either. And then my friend wanted me to do their One Act Play, which I was starkly against One Act at the time. I think theater should be community, not competition. That's just me. But I did One Act, and I thought that was really fun. My teacher, Roxanne Gray, was really nice. So she was very, like nurturing in the process and stuff like that. So she was strict, but she was nice. And I think that was really important, because I think if I got a mean teacher, I don't think it would have worked out the same. I think mean teachers can kind of break that motivation. But then we did one show, and it was Shrek the Musical, which, I don't like musicals anymore, but Shrek the Musical, it was just a fun experience. It was just all my friends in one place, good people around me, and it was just a good time. And I was like, this is just fun. And that was the first time. I was like, I could just do this for the rest of high school. Like, I'll just continue to do this. If I have an opportunity outside of work, I'll do a play, or I might do community theater during the summer when I have more time. But then, when I got out of high school, when I graduated, I took a gap year. I didn't know what I was going to do. I was doing BCP, Beaumont Community Players, which is now Southeast Texas Stages. Yeah, sorry. We did Sister Act and we did Sponge Bob. I was Sponge Bob, and I remember two of the cast members who, one is still here, we're going to graduate together. Actually, her name is Gracie. She's directing my show. Actually, she's directing Half-Bloomed, which is my Next Draft show. But she was like, “You need to go to Lamar, I think you'd be great,” because I was just kind of lost and just doing things. And I had also talked to them about college, and so they got the professors to come and see the show, and I saw them for the first time. And they were so tall, you know, Joel and Alan, they are tall. They are both tall. They are tall people. And I was just this, I'm probably the same height, you know, but like, just looking up at these giants in my head, I'm like, “No, y'all are, like, working professionals, and y'all can teach me all this stuff.” I really had to, like, focus in and, like, really decide. But I think that was it. It was just the decision. It was like, “I'm going to commit.” Because after high school, that's all I did. I just went and did more theater. So I was like, might as well go to school for it, because that's apparently what I keep coming back to.

JOHN: Well, we're glad that you did and glad that you ended up at Lamar to continue that.

BAILEY: Lamar is awesome.

JOHN: And you're almost, I mean, you're a senior now, so you’ve put your time in for sure. Okay, so let's go back to Next Draft. I did see on the website, when I went to look at the ticket page, there was a quote it said, “Come celebrate the art of the rewrite and the power of a story still in progress.” So can you elaborate on what you think that means?

BAILEY: See, I've never heard that quote before. That is awesome. The art of the rewrite, I think that's really interesting. That's something that I've struggled with a bit, because I feel bad. I feel bad doing it, and it is my work. So I could see Little Women having trouble doing that, because it's like, no, we have the words from the book, you know, like that. That could be a problem. But for me, that was something I kind of had to, like, embrace and like, “No, I can rewrite. Yeah, no, I'm going to  delete this page and it’s allowed in this. Hey, guys, cut this whole section.” So, the art of the rewrite, I love that, because they even emphasized when we were starting this process that we're able to make changes up through even through the performances like day one, when an audience is introduced to this work, I'm going to be up listening to what they react to what they do, and I'm going to be highlighting and making notes and stuff like that. And then the next day, I can just give my crew a new script. You know, obviously some of the words are going to stay the same, some of the things, they might be rearranged, whatever, but it is the art of a rewrite, because ultimately I don't know how an audience is going to react until I get completely fresh ears, because I can have the other actors in the room, but they heard it.

JOHN: That's super interesting, because this is a Thursday through Sunday show. So if your Thursday crowd, like you're saying, responds to certain things, you can say, Okay, this we need to keep but maybe this didn't hit here, whatever, you can work your way through it. And that's not always the case, which makes this particular student work series very unique.

BAILEY: Yeah, it definitely shows you the process of writing the play, right? Because what we're doing right now in rehearsals is just workshopping it like we're just we're reading it, I'm listening to the director. That's why they also wanted the playwrights to not direct it. Little Women’s not directing theirs, which is great. We both have an outside party coming in and taking a look at our words and seeing what works, trying to direct the actors. Because I think when I give notes, it's very biased, because I'm like, No, that's not what I meant. And it can get very, that, very fast, right, right? And so it's also been an exercise of keeping my mouth shut, like letting other people do the work, and I'm just there to watch and see how it's interpreted. And I think it's just, it's really just a lot of that.

JOHN: It's a lesson in leadership, right? I like what you sent me in an email. You know, as a student being put in the position of power, it's like this role reversal that you're living right now.

BAILEY: It’s so weird. Even when we were doing auditions for it Cam and Sam, who wrote The Little Women script, they were auditioning for theirs, we kind of knew that they weren't going to be in mine, and that was no problem, because that splits up their time, and they'd have to be there all week, instead of just half the week doing rehearsals, having them do it, and then having me actually on the side of the directors and stuff like that. I was like, “No guys, this is a different experience, because now I'm looking at all of my friends objectively, seeing what works, seeing what they're weak at, seeing what they're strong with. Because everybody's weak and strong with something, and that's not an attack at all. Like, I don't mean it to be.”

JOHN: Oh, 100%

BAILEY: It is so interesting. And also having to make the decision of, okay, who do we cast? And then, of course, with a show, with two shows. And as big of a department as we have, we kind of tried to steer away from double casting, which was a problem in the room, and we had to figure it out. We had to negotiate who goes where, and there were things I wanted, there were things they wanted, and we had to share the people. And so it's just interesting having to look at the people I go to school with, and I have gone to school with for years at this point, how would I cast them? You know, like, what would I do? How do they serve me as a playwright? And then, luckily, my director, Gracie, we share the power, I think, in a nice balance, especially. In the room the other day, she had brain fog or something. And I usually relinquish; I've been trying to do that. I'm really pushing. I'm like, I'm just here to watch. And she turned to me slowly. She goes, “Bailey, do you have anything to put in?” And I was like, actually, yes, because I went on a walk. And I like, my brain is  refreshed, and I try to, like, I'm not doing that work, you know. So I'm not bogged down by that. I'm bogged down by other things. Oh, you want me to put the director hat on, I got you. And so I did it, you know? And, and so it's just like a, it's a good it's a good power balance. But it is weird. It's weird.

JOHN: It's got like, a hint of awkwardness, right? But it's almost like this developmental process, you know, you're growing in the process. And that's one of the things about being a leader, is that you do have to relinquish control. So I love that you bring that up. And whenever you're back on the stage as one of the cast members, you're going to be able to understand where your director is coming from now in a way that you couldn't before this process.

BAILEY: Yeah, even being a stage manager, like, we'll do that, because I was just stage manager for Ugly Lies the Bone last semester. Yeah, right, that was interesting, because it's like, I just, I get to watch all the decisions and how people take in information and how they do all these things. And that's another position of power as well, like being in charge of the room and time and stuff like that, keeping up with everything. Yeah, it's so it's interesting. I could go on that.

JOHN: So Bailey, I also know you've been cast in several shows on campus. Do you want to let the audience know some of the stuff that you have been a part of?

BAILEY: Absolutely, my first show I did here was, it was a play called The Incredible Fox Sisters, which, the Fox sisters are historic entities. They did a lot of ghost talking back in like that, I think is the 1800s this was my first show, sorry, this is my first semester. I don't remember it all been a while. Yeah. Sorry, Craig Johnson, which was the director for that. He was awesome, but that was interesting. I played a ghost. I played an author. Then there was the next semester. We did Dangerous Corner, which was a murder mystery. Oh, that was a good one. That was interesting. And the costumes, Oh, yeah. Oh, it was so good. I just remember that one being my kind of like, I wish I could do it again. Because, really, yes, absolutely. Because that was my second semester. I was still learning. I had just taken Acting I like, this was the first show I fully had, like, a kind of belt loop on, you know, and like a toolbox, right? So that was interesting, but I didn't know how to use the tools, and I didn't know how to do all this and, you know, play analysis and stuff like that, character motive, like, all these different ideas that I could passively do better now, and that show is so complicated, so wordy, I really wish I could do that one again, that one Sophia Watt directed that, who's the artistic director at Rec Room in Houston. She's amazing, and that that theater is awesome. Then we did Peter Pan and Dumb Show. Those were really good. Dumb Show was a British play by Joe Penhall we were talking about before the show. Yeah, great show. And you were Peter Pan, and I was Peter Pan, yeah, we did Peter Pan. That one was really spectacle based. There was a lot of lights, a lot of like magic, sort of ideas, a lot of imagination. And that one was just, it was magic. It really was, I wish I could see it, because being in it was a different experience being in the audience, yes, oh, I wish it was because, to me, I was like, I was like, ah, man's play, I don't know if it's good. Blah, blah. And we did two weekends after the first weekend, people were like, No, this is amazing, amazing. And I was like, no, okay, hold on. And that's when I finally, like, gained some, some sort of ownership over the show. Me and Alan Brinks talked about this after that whole process, but before, I just didn't feel like it was mine. I was having trouble, blah, blah, blah. It was this weird time. And then all the reviews started coming in. There's like, No, this is good. And I was like, hold on, okay, the second weekend's going to be better, watch. And it was. I think my favorite show we ever did here, however, is As You Like It. That one was the outside play. That was Shakespeare. Talk about magic. You can talk about Peter Pan all you want. Talk about being literally under real trees and under the real stars. And referencing the moon when you could see the moon, yeah, it's so there's something about it. And the pictures that came out of it were just pure fun. That show was so fun, and that was, like, the main thing we got was like, even if people couldn't understand the Shakespeare, they were like, having fun. And so just all these things. And that's so much what I like about Lamar is the people here can have fun. We have good relationships with our professors. We have all these different ideas bouncing back and forth, and nobody shot down in any regard of the at any point. You know, we might say, No, that idea doesn't work. But it's not like that was a dumb idea, don’t ever talk again. Let’s talk about why that will you know, maybe this will work better. We worked on to make it better.

JOHN: I love that. You bring up As You Like It, because I feel like of all the productions I've been to during my time at Lamar, which is probably seven or eight at this point, that was my favorite as well, because I think it really showcased the talent that we have on this campus. None of you had microphones. Y'all were literally just projecting out there, which was hard. You've got trains, you've got the elements, you're outside, yeah, Exxon Mobil right around the corner. I mean, y'all just everybody did an amazing job.

BAILEY: Not even just about the actors, the tech. We had to bring everything outside. Yeah, we had a setup, build the stage, yes, not the entire set, you know, not just the stage. Yeah, it was like we had to make it, you know, it was a truly crafted show. And you know, we will miss Lee Barker, because him and Brian Steele are like the backbone of that, of the way, of how that worked and why it worked. And along with all the student workers and stuff like that, like, a lot of work poured into that, and we haven't had that since Lee left, because he's one putting all that the unsung heroes.

JOHN: So let me ask you this, because we're going to have to wrap up soon. Okay, so let's say just, just out in the world. Maybe you're 20 years from now into your acting career. How would you want people to describe your work? Like, what kind of legacy would you want to leave behind?

BAILEY: Oh, wow, that's a great question. I've always just wanted to be fun to watch and just interesting and have these, like creative moments like now with Next Draft, it's such a different Bailey that people are getting because usually I think I'm just fun in a room, you know, but this is more observation. This is more sitting back quiet. I'm not quiet like, I'm not a quiet dude. And that's the first thing I was told was, like, no, Bailey was weirdly silent. I was like, good. That's what I want to be like, I'm working on it, but I think just surprising. I want people to be surprised by me and like what I can bring because I think I'm often surprised by myself. I don't know. I think a lot of people do this. They don't know what they're capable of. And being in this area, especially in a creative field, you aren't nurtured a lot. You aren't given the opportunity. Here, we have been, we have, like, I've done so much self-discovery here at Lamar, just because I'm cared for and like, my life is cared about, you know. And I can come here and I can make it my second home, and it's not a big deal at all. It is even encouraged. The green room, I rearranged it, and I was like, everything is better. Now everybody, look at this. We have got, like, a conversation pit. It's a family like that's truly what I love is like you find your people here, you discover so much about your work process. And it's amazing.

JOHN: I do want to say really quickly this show will take place Thursday, April 9 through Sunday, April 12. And if you visit lamar.edu/lutdtix you can purchase your tickets there. Once again, Bailey, I guess I'll say it early. Break a leg. That's what y'all say in theater, right? And best of luck. I know you're wrapping up your senior year, so best of luck on all your future endeavors for sure.

BAILEY: Thank you, John. Thanks.

JOHN: To catch the LU stories just like Bailey's, be sure to search LU Moment wherever you get your podcasts to keep up with the events, activities, programs and people right here at Â鶹ÊÓƵ. This is John Rollins your host, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.