Drama Instructor Stages a Long Run : For 20 Years, Developing Student Players Has Been the Thing for Irvine’s Blake Gould

Twenty years ago, drama teacher Blake Gould directed his first high school theater production, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” at the newly opened Irvine High School.

It was a test for both students and teacher.

The USC film school graduate was not at all sure whether he was ready to give up his dream of movie making for the small high school classroom where the play was performed on a makeshift stage.

“We had no theater. We had nothing to begin with,” said the 47-year-old Lake Forest resident. “We charged 50 cents admission.”

Gould knew the play would be the first measure of his skills as a drama teacher.

“My students had this great amount of energy and I really wanted them to succeed. They were the pioneers and it turned out fine.

“We even did the headless horseman. We were on our way.”

After a childhood enraptured by acting and movies, Gould attended one of the nation’s premier film schools, filled with the dreams that Hollywood still inspires.

“We all thought that we were going to be the next big director of all time. But I was also minoring in theater. I’d always hoped that I would be able to go back and direct theater,” he said. “Film school taught me a different approach to theater, and I knew it made me a much stronger director.”

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But in the extraordinarily competitive business of entertainment, Gould’s immediate employment prospects were dim.

“I called up every film person I could find in the industry directory and asked them what employment opportunities they might have for USC graduates,” he said. “Nothing panned out.”

He eventually landed a job cataloging animated films for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which led to a stint with Walt Disney Productions as an audio recording engineer. He spent four months in Litchfield, Minn., with a small crew filming “The Footloose Goose.”

“It was ‘Lassie Come Home,’ but with geese. We had a goose wrangler who taught us how to work with these just-hatched goslings. I devised a way to hide little tiny tape recorders in the grass. We did work with some human actors, but over half of the script had no dialogue.

“The story line was about Duke and Duchess, these two Canadian geese who fell in love. When they had to migrate, Duke flies off expecting Duchess to follow him, but she had hurt her wing. And as Duke is migrating, he gets caught in a tornado and he hurts his wing. He’s attacked by a wolverine; he’s attacked by a coyote.

“After I made that movie, I realized there was nothing really true to life in these animal films. It was all staged. If the goose had to do something, there were 10 of us on the sidelines yelling: ‘Come here baby, come on, come on.’ ”

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When the film was aired on Disney’s popular Sunday night show, Gould learned a lesson that would later help him cope with the disappointment of his students.

“I waited for the credits to roll at the end of the show, but the only person that got credit was the director and the cameraman. That was a hard lesson. My mom was sitting there and wanted to see my name go by. I was crushed.”

Gould shunned the animal kingdom and tentatively chose a teaching career. After 20 years, he does not regret the choice.

“I like watching students grow. You see students who at the outset have a glimmer of something and a great desire, and you want to watch them unfold.”

It is a fragile environment.

“I’m not sure that people have much respect for the acting profession. As an educator, my greatest admiration goes out to the young actors and actresses who take the risk to show more than one side of themselves. The rewards can be great, but so can the failures.

“I’ve had students who come in after they fail to make an audition and say, ‘Am I no good? Do I have no talent?’

“And I say there was just somebody who was better today. That’s all.”

With more than 200 dues-paying members, the Irvine High drama club is the largest club on campus. Most theater arts classes are full, and Gould says the school district is supportive.

But he is constantly building on that support by inviting teachers to integrate their studies with theater productions, by sending his young actors and actresses to local elementary schools, and by developing programs with nearby UC Irvine.

Gould’s long record of popular productions with the former Theatrefair for Children and the Saddleback Civic Light Opera has also helped win credibility for his school’s dramatic endeavors.

“I’m in a good place, but we’re like a little island here. Not every school has the support we have. It’s still a very endangered area of study. You have to have somebody with a great deal of passion to see it all they way through. I fight an uphill battle all the time.”

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Profile: Blake Gould

Age: 47

Hometown: Medford, Ore.

Residence: Lake Forest

Family: Wife Charlene, a middle school drama teacher and state public education curriculum commissioner

Education: Bachelor’s degree in cinema, USC; graduate studies in English literature and teaching credential, Cal State Long Beach

Background: Sound recordist for Walt Disney Productions; drama and theater arts instructor at Irvine High School for 20 years; directed community theatrical productions for 11 years with Theatrefaire for Children, which he and his wife founded in 1982; director with Saddleback Civic Light Opera since 1993; theatrical consultant and directed grand opening ceremonies for Irvine Barclay Theatre in 1990, and fifth anniversary celebration for Orange County Performing Arts Center in 1991; recently named head of new Saddleback Children’s Festival theater group

On stage: “What I enjoy about theater the most is that theater is a collaborative art, and yet it preserves the development of the individual student. It makes use of all the skills they have, and once they’re on stage, they have to bring it all to life.”

Source: Blake Gould; Researched by RUSS LOAR / For The Times