Eastipedia: Brian Cappello

In 1978, Brian Cappello was backstage after closing night of his final performance at Shawnee Mission East. Upset and nostalgic, he ran into his director, Mr. Evans, a father figure for Cappello, shook his hand and thanked him. This moment was influential to Cappello’s career choice.

“Mr. Evans gave so much time and so much energy and molded not just me but everybody in giving us that freedom and having fun and learning what it is to relate to people,” Cappello said.

As a high school senior, Cappello had spent his years acting and doing technical work with the theater department he would one day come to help run. Brian Cappello, an SM East graduate, teaches English, theater classes and directs plays as well as musicals.

Cappello attended the University of Kansas and Emporia State. After community theater work, Cappello taught English at a high school in Ottawa, Kansas, heading the school’s theater department and working with debate, forensics, and Student Council. Cappello then bought into the restaurant business, working at G. Willikers, where his old high school theater teacher Mr. Evans would come for lunch once a week. Through what Cappello describes as a strange coincidence, Evans informed Cappello that East was hiring.

Cappello returned to SM East, teaching and directing students then not much younger than he was.

“I cannot honestly imagine doing anything else,” Cappello said. “There’s no other job that I know of that when I come in that door in the morning, I have no idea what’s going to happen. And I like that feeling.”

Directing high school theater has long been Cappello’s career of choice. As a child, however, Cappello cycled through many possible careers.

“I wanted to be a pilot when I was a little kid,” Cappello said. “And then, when I was a little bit older, I took my first plane ride and I was terrified. So I realized I probably wouldn’t be a pilot.”

For years, Cappello was interested in law – he took his first performance class at Meadowbrook Junior High School (which later became Mission Valley) hoping to improve his speech to become a lawyer. After his time under the influence of Mr. Evans, theater became an increasingly appealing field and eventually decided to focus on directing and teaching.

“I realized when I got to college that there are a lot of people with a lot more talent than I have. So what I really liked doing was the directing aspect – that way, I could be every character and I could be everybody and everything. It’s just a really cool thing to see what’s in your head being visualized on stage,” Cappello said. “And plus, I knew immediately when I started doing that I was giving the students the same fun, I guess thrill, that I had when I was doing it.”

Since Cappello’s first year teaching at East in 2000-2001, he has worked with fellow theater teacher Tom DeFeo to unite the student community by creating a sense of family and ensemble. To do so, Cappello has adapted a policy of honesty with his students.

“They know that I will be honest with them and I won’t tell them something that I think they just want to hear,” Cappello said. “That’s what I want to do: be open and honest. You can’t convey information or pass on skills if it’s built with that artificial wall in front of you.”

That policy of honesty has allowed Cappello to be frank yet nurturing with his students.

“Life is full of ups and downs and Mr. D and I want to give you guys that same thing, that place where it’s OK to be successful and it’s equally OK to fail. And you’re going to fail among friends and people who will help you and pick you up,” Cappello said.

To create that supportive community within the department, Cappello relies on student leaders. Though he has limited direct control over the programs, Cappello is in charge of the Theater Executive Board, which coordinates social events, meetings, and honors within the community, and the Frequent Friday program, which allows more students with smaller time available to commit to try acting at East. Cappello himself chooses the cast and personally directs East’s main stage performances: two plays and one musical each year.

For East’s main stage performances, Cappello describes the day of putting up the cast list as both his best and worst day in terms of exciting or disappointing students. He stresses that attitude is a huge part of how he chooses a cast. When trying to build an ensemble, Cappello looks for actors who will contribute rather than distract.

“The performance aspect is secondary. I would much rather work with a bunch of people with mediocre to marginal talent who are excited rather than one single diva who is incredible. Because that one person can destroy an entire cast,” Cappello said.

Living the mantra of his former drama teacher, Cappello believes that he doesn’t teach acting but instead teaches audience members. Though some past students have entered the professional theater world, Cappello’s goal is simply to make his students appreciate theater.

On an average day, Cappello arrives at 6:30 to work before students arrive.

“You put out fires throughout the day. If you can get some teaching in in the meantime, that’s great. But it’s primarily a come-in-and-deal-with-stuff, then you go to rehearsal and deal with that,” Cappello said.

Outside of East, Cappello has worked with Kenmark, a theatrical backdrop rental agency, for the past 10 years. Cappello has been with the company with its two owners since its start and has helped with all aspects of backdrop creation and rental except painting. Thanks to Cappello’s relationship with Kenmark, Kenmark uses the Dan Zollars auditorium to photograph its backdrops for its catalogue and in exchange helps East’s main stage productions to use backdrops.

At East, Cappello describes his directing style as specifically nurturing or flexible. When directing, he hopes to create an environment where the kids can discover what they need to do themselves.
“When I’m in the old teacher’s home, that’s what I’m going to look back and say I’m proudest that – I hope anyway – that I gave these kids a place to be themselves. And it’s OK to be yourself and explore what you want to do – to be goofy and all that kind of stuff,” Cappello said.