Wilkommen!

Well hello, internets.

Colleen here. You know, the one that wears a bowler hat and sings a lot? Yup. Hi.

I have started this blog on my pastor Christy's suggestion. In short, it's to keep all of you lovely people informed of my activities at my summer job, working on Production Crew at Montreat. But right now, I'd like to tell you the longer story of why this job is much more necessary than you probably originally thought. So, I give you:

Why Colleen Will ImplodeIf She Does Not Work In A Community Of Faith This Summer
a story of love, impossible scheduling, and constantly being mistaken for a Catholic

I am a theatre student at NYU (I'll be a junior in the fall. Yikes).

As a theatre student at NYU, you take classes in several different areas:

Studio classes - these are your hands-on theatre training classes. Acting, directing, all that kind of thing. Each studio trains differently, and you're placed in the studio best suited for you and your interests. The college schedule officially says, "Studio, 9am - 6pm, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, for a total of 8 credits per semester." Further scheduling of specific studio classes are up to each individual studio. Most of your time and life is spent in studio. My studio, Playwrights Horizons Theater School, focuses on collaboration, training actors, directors, designers, playwrights, everyone. In fact, it focuses less on training people to be "specific things" and more on being theatre artists. Knowing another part of the art form helps whatever you're doing, especially since theatre is such a collaborative art. Practically, I know more things which increases my chance of being hired somewhere in the theatre.

Theatre Studies - these are academic theatre courses. In the past I've taken "History of Directing" and "Theatre in Ancient Greece". Next semester I'm taking "Experimental Music-Theatre", which I'm terribly excited about.

General Education - these are your non-theatre classes. You're required to take a certain amount of classes in both "sciences" and "humanities". This last semester I took "Modern Art" (a humanities course in the Art History department) and "Language" (a science course in the Linguistics department). Next semester I'll be taking "Dead Sea Scrolls" in the Religious Studies Department.

Electives - Electives are confusing, because some Gen Ed courses past the required number can count as electives, but the most common electives for us theatre majors are 2pt electives that are practical, hands-on classes not through our studio, but just through the Drama Department. In the past, I've taken "Accents and Dialects" as an elective.

Before I go any further, I want to say that I absolutely adore my studio, PHTS. The quality of education there is astounding. Every single person who works there, and I do mean every single one, is brilliant and caring (and usually slightly crazy in a good way). Their philosophy behind teaching is to help each one of us find what we're interested in and do all they can to enable us to pursue those interests. The classes are mindblowing, teaching us not only how to put up a theatre piece, but how to exist in the community of the world. That sounds a bit cheesy, but it's true. The love and care lavished on every single student there is absolutely unbelievable. From meeting with me out of class to help me work out what I'm struggling with, to rearranging the schedule so that I could get a class I desperately wanted, teachers and administration are always there to help enable us. I dreamed of coming to PHTS two years before I got my acceptence letter, and it's more than a dream come true. I have no doubt that this is where I am supposed to be, that God has placed me here, and that this education would help me even if I never did theatre again.

However, the second year at PHTS is notoriously difficult. And by difficult, I really mean impossible. Here's the deal:

• I spent 26.5 hours in class every week this past semester. 20 of those were studio, meaning the classwork is intensely physical and emotional as well as rigorously intellectual and creative. It takes an enormous amount of energy.
• Of my 9 studio classes, 6 required extensive out of class rehearsals. One of those, Directing class, had me rehearsing for three different scenes constantly.
• In addition, part of our training is working on 3rd and 4th year directing projects, which rehearse and perform outside of class. I worked on six this past semester. (sound designed one, sound designed/was the clowning expert for one, stage managed/dramaturged one, assistant lighting designed one, composed for one, and played accordion for one). That was stupid of me. NEVER AGAIN.
  
• With all these rehearsals, this means an average of four hours of rehearsal every night, and an average of 6 - 8 hours each weekend day. This already puts you up to about 60 hours in class or rehearsal every week.
• Whenever a show is in tech (meaning, the week the show actually goes up, you get into the theatre, that kind of thing), you load-in from 10am - midnight on that Sunday, have tech from 6pm - midnight every night until Thursday, when you open, have a show Thursday, Friday, two on Saturday, and you're there until midnight on Saturday striking. When you have breaks, you'll most likely be squeezing in another rehearsal because you still have scenes going up in class the next day.
• The amount of stress caused by juggling schedules is unbearable. And often, the only time everyone in a group or a scene can meet is after midnight.
• 2 of the other 3 studio classes that do not require rehearsals still require a good amount of weekly work and projects.
• And then, you've still got two academic classes, with papers and exams and teachers who do not realize that you have been in tech for three weeks straight.

Now, if these illustrations are somehow not enough for you, I give you an image of an average week from my Google Calendar (which saved my life so much this year). Click to enlarge.

Explanation. The regular blue are my classes. The slate blue is the show I was sound designing that week. The bright purple (the 8am light hanging fun time slot) is the show I was assistant lighting designing. It was assumed that any time I was not busy after 6pm, I'd be with that show, so I didn't put it on the calendar. The other purple is the show I was stage managing/dramaturging. It was an original piece, and for original pieces, there's a big thing at the midway point where they show what they have and get feedback. That's Panel on Saturday. That strange green is for rehearsals. Note the one that starts at 11:30pm. That one ended around 2am. The yellows are the show I was pulled into playing accordion for. Regular green is for the show I sound designed later in the semester. The reds are rehearsals for my own directing scene. And the pinks are "fun things". I had lunch with my great aunt this week, which was fun, and the other times counted as "fun" are the times I specifically set aside to do my Voice and Speech homework (DORK DORK DORK). Beyond all of this, I also had written homework for Script Analysis and Language and a project due in Design. You can see the rehearsals for Form and Content, Acting, Collab, Voice and Speech and Directing on the calendar. Note the rehearsals that overlap. I had to figure out what to do about those. Also, keep in mind that I'd usually have to get on a bus that came 45 minutes before my class so that I would get there on time.

This is not, I would say, the average college experience. If you can find time on there for a party, a football game (not that NYU has a football team anyway), or some residence hall activity, I'd love to see it. Those precious blocks of time where nothing is on the calendar were used for food, sleep, and homework. This is why I say I don't feel like I'm in college, I feel like I'm in theatre school. And theatre school is rigorous.

Things that are horrible:

• Oversleeping and missing class because you've gotten five hours of sleep in the past two days.
• When you sit down at 9:30pm to memorize lines, fall asleep and are therefore late to your 10:30pm rehearsal.
• Almost weekly all-nighters.
• When not getting sleep is not because of procrastination, but because there are literally not enough hours in the day to get everything down.
• The life-or-death mentality that runs through the whole program. With theatre people, if your directing scene is horrible, it is the end of the world. Also, when you're doing incredibly personal work, as is encouraged in any arts school, there's a lot more at risk for you than just a paper.
• No one can fully commit to their work because everyone's so overbooked.
• Breaking down into tears consistently throughout a school day. (I did this - as did everyone else. There was one day in particular where the entire 2nd Year class was crying, screaming, or both.)
• Not being able to go to the doctor, or therapy, or seek help in any way because you don't have time.
• Getting to the point where your body cannot take it any more and you have to leave studio early because you're vomiting.

The good news?:

• I survived this, I can now survive anything.
• I'm used to working 70 hour weeks.
• I've learned so much.
• Creativity really kicks in at 2am.
• I understand the importance of food and sleep.
• I will never work on six shows in one semester again.
• You learn to let go.
• It's theatre school, and the people there are wonderful and beautiful and interesting and otherwise delightful. One particularly horrible morning I woke up with anxiety over a scene that was going up later in the day... and then when I went to my 9:30am acting class my gray-haired teacher laid on her back flailing her limbs saying, "I'm a seagull!! WORK OFF OF ME!!" and I thought, "...I'm so glad I'm not in business school."
• Sometimes when you're crying your teacher lets you all spend the first half of class giving each other full body massages.
• Surviving it is absolute TRIUMPH.
• It helps you realize what you really care about. You figure out what you will still care about doing at 3am when you've been in tech for the past month, and that really helps to focus you towards what you want to do 3rd Year.

This semester was particularly hard for me because this semester brought a kind of doubt that I had never experienced before. It was a doubt of theatre.

See, about seven and a half years ago, on October 31st, 2001, I saw the musical Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street on PBS. I was absolutely terrified by it, but I couldn't get it out of my head so I watched it again a couple weeks later. I was absolutely astounded by it, finding it to be the most beautiful, powerful tragic and moving thing I had ever seen. From there, I auditioned for Appomattox Regional Governor's School for musical theatre, where I discovered the joys of directing, and then I applied early decision for directing at NYU, and was accepted. The one thing that has never been doubted was my drive and passion for the theatre. In fact, my intense focus tended to border the "too much" line. The question was always about whether I was too involved in my work and forgetting to live my life. Nothing made me happier than blocking a scene, hanging a light, or analyzing a script.

But this semester, when everything piled on top, I looked at my schedule and thought, "Yes, it's busy, but it's busy because I'm doing all these things I love to do. If I was still as intense and focused as I used to be, I'd be thriving. So what's going on?" There didn't seem to be any point to what we were all spending so much time and energy doing - I didn't see how our work affected anyone but ourselves, and everything started to seem like the egotistical, self-centered ramblings of people who thought themselves "artists".

What I eventually realized was that my focus was still just as intense... but it had shifted. Instead of being focused on the work itself, I was now focused on WHY I was doing the work. What the work was doing, how the work could affect the lives of audience members. I don't believe in art for art's sake. I believe in art as service to the world. Art can open us up, teach us to see things in a new way, show us the light that is hidden in the darkest places. But in this environment, I started losing sight of this, of the reason why.

I believe that my work is a religious calling. And with my schedule, being able to participate in any kind of fellowship group was pretty much impossible. Getting to church on Sunday mornings was difficult. (I had to specifically take Easter Sunday Morning off. That's kind of messed up.) What made me truly realize that this lack of connection to Christian fellowship was part of my problem, though, was Holy Week. During Holy Week, the show I was stage managing loaded in (Sunday 10am-midnight), had tech (Monday/Tuesday, 6pm-midnight), dress rehearsal (Wednesday 6pm-midnight), performances (Thursday-Saturday at 8pm, Saturday at 2pm) and strike (Saturday until midnight). The stage manager runs the show during tech week. No stage manager, no show. I couldn't even go to a Palm Sunday service, forget Maundy Thursday or Good Friday. And as I sat in my dorm room late night on Friday, holding my own Good Friday vigil with a candle technically illegal in NYU dorms and Medieval chant coming from my iPod, I realized how much it hurt me not to be able to go to these services. And I realized that I absolutely needed to make this time in my life. Time in communion and worship is what replenishes me, and keeps me focused on why I do what I do.

This year has left me extremely exhausted: physically, emotionally, intellectually, creatively, and most of all, spiritually. While I can intellectually and articulately state all the reasons I believe in art's power to minister to the needs of the world, I don't feel it resonating within me.

But luckily for me, I'm working at Montreat this summer!

Montreat is a Presbyterian Conference Center by Black Mountain, NC. (For you United Methodists: it's the Presbyterian Lake Junaluska). It's absolutely gorgeous, in the mountains, and just bursting with the Holy Spirit. I've been to their music weeks in the past. I have been hired to be on their Production Crew - meaning operating lights, sound, and projections wherever they're needed. This job is perfectly in line with what I'm doing in my training in school (I've gotten very into sound design this past year), gives me the opportunity to work in a larger space that I get to at school (Montreat's main auditorium seats 2000 - the theatre I work in seats 40), and, most importantly, live, work and learn in a community of faith. I believe in God's call for my life that He slowly reveals to me - and I believe that my love and passion and belief in what I'm doing as an artist will take hold of me again if I let it. I am absolutely thrilled to start this job.

So I'll be spending my summer in fellowship. In the mountains. Operating sound boards. Taking free pottery classes (awesome). Working about 40 hours a week. Getting a day off every week. (WHAT?! I don't know what a "day off" is...) Getting this incredible community to recuperate and grow in this community of faith.

When I e-mailed Christy to tell her I'd been hired, she said, "You should start a blog about it!" I thought that was a wonderful idea. So many people have said, "I want to hear all about it!" Furthermore, I know that putting what's happening into some semblance of an organized format will help me articulate my thoughts and feelings on God's work in my life. So here it is! The blog! I'll be updating periodically with... I'm not quite sure what. Thoughts, discoveries, questions - and lots of pictures because it really is exquisite here. Feel free to comment, ask me questions, anything. All of you are a part of my faith journey.

Questions I've been asked a lot recently:

Aren't you United Methodist?/Are you catholic?
I get "Are you catholic?" all the time in New York, ever since I came to school with ashes on my forehead on Ash Wednesday. (Because clearly catholics are the only ones who celebrate Ash Wednesday?) I call myself a "general Protestant", which means I was born Baptist, raised United Methodist, go to an Episcopalian church in New York, and am working for Prebyterians this summer. Yes, my background and knowledge is primarily United Methodist. I'm excited to learn more about Prebyterianism, and seeing what they really mean by "pre-destination".

When are you leaving?
Today! In about half an hour, in fact.

When will you be back?
August 12th.

I guess that's it for now. Thanks for reading. I'll try to post again soon after settling in!