Interview by Hailey Pruitt
Hailey: Let's just start by telling us who you are.
Dottie: My name is Dottie Frye
Steve: and I'm Steven Frye.
Hailey: And what do you do here?
Dottie: Anything they'll let us. I'm an assistant professor of theater here at the University. I direct the hosts and hostesses and ensemble for Spring Sing. I'm the director of the Pied Piper Improvisational Children's Theatre. Obviously, I teach theatre classes. And every other time when it's my turn, I direct the Homecoming Musical. Oh, and we also help produce and direct Searcy Summer Dinner Theater in the summer. Sometimes we direct; sometimes we perform, and sometimes we are lazy bums.
Steve: I'm with her. Ha!
I'm professor and chair of the department of theatre here at Harding. I've been here forever … since 1900 and none of your business. And I'm in charge of Spring Sing. I'm also producing dinner theatre in the summers, and teaching theatre history and literature along the way. I started here in television and then came upstairs to theatre and have been here ever since.
Hailey: You both came to Harding at the same time. What's it been like to work together for so long?
Dottie: I'm spoiled rotten because we have always worked together. We started off working together on shows as theatre majors at Freed-Hardeman University, and we went to grad school together. We were in most of the same classes, except for a few that, you know, had different emphases. We've always worked together professionally. We've shared an office at least three times during our career. And Steve usually reminds me, “Well, Dottie, not everybody sees their spouse during the workday.” And my response is, “I'm sorry for them, but I'm spoiled rotten to the core.”
Steve: Thank you very much. I like it. It's really great working with your best friend. Yeah, it's funny, sometimes people talk about how opposites attract, but we're similars attract. And it's just a very nice synergy — at home, at work, whatever it is. Certainly even in our spiritual life and walk, we just really love being together and working on things together. There's a joy in that.
Hailey: That's so special. Tell us about how you started working with Spring Sing.
Dottie: Jack Ryan asked me to come in and work with the hosts and hostesses, so I started with Spring Sing three years before Steve did. And I’m so thankful for that invitation.
We were at Ohio Valley University, which is no longer in operation, for seven years. And the ironic thing is, when we had some friends ask if we wanted to come work on their show, which was very much like Spring Sing but at a smaller school, our response was, “Why would anybody want to do a show like that?”
Well, the Lord has a sense of humor because guess what? That kind of show ended up being such a big part of our lives. We did that for seven years there and then we came here. As a matter of fact, one of the times we interviewed here (One of the times. Three times was the charm!), Dr. Ryan said we were the toughest judges he had ever had. And I thought, “Well, I thought you wanted us to give honest feedback.” Oops. Sorry about that.
Honestly, it's been a blast. We get to play with wonderful students. And I'm not just saying that; they really are great hearts with shared values. They’re encouraging, optimistic and positive. And I feel like our job is to teach them how to work with people who are not the same as them, folks that they may not know but because of working together, we create shared relationships and shared experiences. I think that's a life skill, you know, whether we're doing Spring Sing or theatre. It's a life skill to learn how to work well with somebody who is not in your pocket or your best friend.
So when Steve came on in the show, we actually had to sit down and talk to both sets of our parents, because at the time we had two boys at home, and the last 10 days of Spring season can get full. It's not fair to them for life to be in upheaval, so we had to ask both grandmas and granddaddies if they would be willing to come and help us. And so they did. And that made life easier. We got home cooked meals. We got clean laundry. I didn't worry about cleaning the house because grandma and Grandpa were there. So it made working together easier.
Steve: When I first took over the show as director, I knew I wanted to make a difference in the culture. It had been kind of a nastier club competition, not very polished in a lot of ways, and the production itself had been kind of thrown together. So we were wanting to bring a theatre mode to it to say, “Let's have a unified production. Let's do this for a purpose together.” So we started talking about community and the clubs themselves and cooperation and how it takes collaboration to make an event happen the way you really want it to. After the first couple of years, I think the clubs started seeing that and saying “Oh, this is cool. We don't have to have secrets. We don't have to be gossipy. We can actually be Christ-like in what we do.” So we've kept building on that, and I feel like we've really accomplished a great deal there. We've also upped the production values over the years as well. The show is – I laugh about it – you know, it's “flash and trash.” It's what we do. We do a lot of sparkle. One of my great moments in life is when there's confetti used in the show. If three months later, a piece of confetti floats down during chapel, I say, “You're welcome!”
Dottie: One of the things that Steve also brought to the show that helped me because of my theater background is a theme. We choose the tunes for hosts and hostesses and ensemble based around that theme, and it gives us a purpose and a direction. I like to have that structure. We don't require the clubs to follow that theme at all, and that's fine. But for what we do, it helps me have structure to follow as we decide “Why are we doing this? How do we want to stage it? How do we want to accomplish our goal?”
Steve: And there's usually a message. I mean, obviously our big goal is to celebrate Harding but we also want to serve others, which is why, in 2006, we added that the winnings for clubs don’t go to pizza parties but to charities. We increased the amounts, and for the last 20 years, we've been doing contributions to local charities. We've given more than $100,000 to local charities over that time, and I'm really impressed with that.
I have to give credit to David Burks as president at that time, because when I asked him about doing it, I said, “I want to do this, but I don't want it to be that we're giving the money to ourselves. I want to give it to our community so it makes a difference and Searcy sees that we are part of them.” And it's been a real blessing in so many ways.
Dottie: So no matter where the club show places, they receive a cash award that goes to the charity of their choice.
Steve: And now we've added a requirement for the clubs to do a service project with their chosen charity. So they go out and serve them directly. It's pretty amazing to see students at Sunshine School working with the group there, for example.
Hailey: What's it like to work with students in the theatre department and in Spring Sing?
Dottie: Just a hoot and a half! It's great fun. Sometimes we tease about “Oh, wow, the drama!” No. Not really. When students audition, I’m thinking about working with them for the next four or five months. Those who are chosen as hosts and hostesses, for example, are in the spotlight. 12,000 people will be telling them, “Man, you did a great job!” And with that attention comes responsibility. It’s more than just being prepared at rehearsals, although that's part of it. It’s leadership. We take prayer requests at every rehearsal so we're starting to learn about and grow each other. It's also about the right attitude backstage and with the clubs that I think is so very important.
And to me, that's more important than what the audience says. I know that sounds backwards. But again, the people who see you in the dark, when you're stressed, when you're hurrying or whatever, they're the ones who know who you really are. So that's what we encourage. You're going to play nicely with others, or, to be perfectly honest, you're not going to play. And I think our folks know that. It's really wonderful. I'm not saying that somebody doesn't end up in tears because their shoe strap broke. But we'll take care of that. That's part of it.
Our job is to help them be prepared so when show time comes, they're not worried about left foot, right foot, five, six, seven, eight. They are focusing on sharing the joy of what they do. That's why they auditioned in the beginning. We love this, and we don't want to keep it a secret. We want to share it with the audience. We want to be sure that we're loving, encouraging amd leading in a positive way. I expect it from all of the kids. And, and I think they do really well rising to that.
Steve: Yeah, I always joke about Spring Sing by saying, “It's a little show I do with 1,000 of my closest friends.” And it's unlike anything in theatre. I mean, I love getting into scripts and working through character development and all of the things that come from doing a play. But Spring Sing is an opportunity to just release, create and do something amazing. And for so many of these students, it's the first time they've ever been on stage, and it's the biggest thing they'll ever do. And to see them realize that they can be a positive part of something that is bigger than they are is pretty incredible. It's a transformational moment. And I joke about this as well, but it's true. We ran a study on it a few years ago, and 83% of the students who participate in Spring Sing continue to graduation, versus 51% who don't participate in Spring Sing. I think it's a telling point that those people who are really finding themselves get involved. And that's what we want to seek. That's why Spring Sing exists. It's to say, “You want a chance to begin to get involved? Here you go. Do this.” We have something so special in the community that is built.
Hailey: We have heard that in the theatre department, there's a shorthand for “I love you.” Can you tell us that story?
Dottie: Well, I think the word is “ditto.” It came out before “Ghost,” all right, so we're really not copying. When we were seniors at Freed Hardeman, we all had to direct a full-length production and also with five other main stages. So we had 100 mainstage productions that senior year. It wasn't too smart. But anyhow, Steve was the last one on slate, and he directed “Our Town,” and I Happened to be Mother Gibbs, which was really cool for me. And at the end of an evening, he would give us notes, and he would say, now remember, I love you. And there was a freshman, always a freshman, who said, “Yeah, yeah. We know. We know you love us.” And Steve said, “OK, well so it's not to become trite, I will just tell you ‘Ditto,’ and you'll know that I love you.” And so that's what he started to do.
About a month later, we got married. Inside his wedding ring is our initials, the date, and the word “ditto”, but the dufus didn't know it was there until three days after we got married. Ha!
So, yeah, I think you're exactly right. That's something that, you know, you don't want to be trite. You don't want it to have no meaning. But the students always know “ditto.” And they always know, “Know you're loved.”
You know, for me, it's, “Know You're loved.” And maybe it was a reminder that God always loves us. And somewhere down the road down the line. “I love you too.”
Hailey: Well, as you're beginning to wrap up your careers and this excellent journey you've been on, tell us what you hope your legacy is going to be.
Dottie: “Know you’re loved.”
Steve: I've been telling students for years to send 10% of their earnings back to me personally for the retirement fund. So far I have had nothing. So there's no legacy there.
I had a good friend I worked with for years who said, “You can only make a difference where you are, when you are.” And I would hope that in retrospect, people will look back and say, “You know what? It was a better place because they were here.”
Dottie: Oh, wow.
Steve: That's what I'd like. And I hope we've been able to do that. Giving to students has been a joy. It's been a life calling. And I'm looking forward to selfishness in my retirement years where I get to go with my partner, and we get to play, and we'll come cheer on future generations of students and our friends and our staff and faculty. I'm excited about it. And I'm excited about what we've been able to do and what they will be able to do moving forward.
Dottie: I think the most continuing, well not the most, but a continuing influence for me has been the relationships I've had with Pied Pipers, and we perform for children all over the world. And, one of the neatest things I've been able to say is, “Hi, my name is Dottie Frye, and I'm the director of the Pied Pipers.” I love children. I love their innocence. I love their wonder. And I'm hopeful that in those relationships that we've created — with folks I didn't know from Adam's house cat when they walked in the door, and then they move in your heart. Some have lived with us. They've really moved in the house. …
And one of the neatest things is watching them be mommies and daddies to their own children, and hoping that the few years they spent with us, all of us here, has impacted them and that they turn around and share it, that they always have felt and continue to feel that there's room in the circle.
There's always room in the circle for one more or two or three. No circle is closed. I never want someone to be on the outside looking in. And when we get to heaven, we're going to have the best party. Biggest Piper show you ever saw! And Spring Sing: five, six, seven, eight. And nobody's going to get tired. It's going to be wonderful.
Steve: We’ll meet in the Southwest corner. You may have to ask God for directions, but that's the plan.
Dottie: Yeah. Southwest corner. Although I've also told my folks that I'll be in line to get a Jesus hug, and then I'll just go back around and get back in line for another one. And maybe a special request that, Lord, can I please fly? I’ve always wanted to fly. Maybe he'll say yes. Fingers crossed.
Hailey: Anything else you'd like to say?
Steve: Thank you.
Dottie: Thank you so much. Retiring's going to be exciting and weird. It's gonna be weird. I mean, I walked in the office today, and I said to Frye, “This is gonna be weird.” But we’re so thankful.
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