I'm back! Hallelujah, I'm back!

I'm sitting in my (huge) dorm room, with the roommate Gillian, and Liz, who is now our across-the-hall neighbor (yay!), and I don't think it's possible to be happier. Except I think tomorrow I might end up being happier because of all the people I'll see and the places I'll be.

So much unpacking to do. I've skipped around the streets. I love rediscovering that people and places that are so incredible are also real.

So much love. To everyone.

Splendors you never have dreamed all your days...

Well, here I am.

As I write this, there is nothing more for me to pack but my electronics, the clothes I'm wearing, and the toiletries I'm using in the morning. I said my goodbyes at church this morning, I ran the last-minute errands, and I cut my hair. I really get great enjoyment out of cutting my hair, and tend to do so when I feel like I'm on the verge of a new start. If one night I'm determined to turn over a new leaf, I will probably come to school the next day with a haircut. My hair hasn't been this short since middle school. I like it.

I would like to take this opportunity to say that I have the coolest grandmother ever. I do crazy things like come home with a tattoo and pop out of the bathroom with a shaved head, and she just laughs.

Tattoos and shaved heads aside, I am more than excited to go back to New York. Gillian has already moved into our room, which I've been fully briefed on. (It's basically the same layout as our last room, only COMPLETELY REVERSED and with blue carpet. She also did something different with the beds that I didn't quite understand but I trust her judgement on these matters.) Two other PHTS students (in our year, in fact!) are living next door and across the hall from us, and I cannot wait to see them again. A friend of mine posted something about the Astor Place K-Mart on Twitter and I swooned for the Astor Place K-Mart. (My love for that K-Mart is serious.) Every thought of New York has filled me with such joy and I'm thrilled to be going back. I'm happy to say that the anxiety that knots in my stomach is gone. I retain my cautious discipline, but have left the anxiety. Thank God!

I've been having these dreams about school lately. In the first dream, I was still enrolled at PHTS, but I was going to be doing the semester away from PHTS, so I could experience other things (I think it was primarily so I could experience a campus?). I was on the 3rd floor of PHTS, before it was renovated, trying to work out the details, and I was surprised to find that I would have to have my Design midterm conference over the phone. My enormous confusion was greeted with, "Well, you won't be here," and I felt saddened by the fact that I wouldn't be there.

Last night, my dream continued. I was starting my semester away at Sarah Lawrence, with a friend from high school as my roommate and a friend from college as my suitemate. (Incidentally, I'd had a dream just previously where someone was trying to kill me. In this dream, it had been my suitemate, and she kept trying to apologize and say it wouldn't happen again. Riiiight, Alyssa.) After a lot of details about not having a campus map, I eventually was in class on a bus. There was going to be a performance of this musical done at NYMF a couple years back, and the people in charge were trying to warn me that it was weird, and I was trying to explain to them that I was used to weird theatre. In this, they asked me where I was from, and I told them I had transferred from NYU for the semester. First of all, they seemed to think I'd be at SLC for the next two years, which was NOT the plain, and second, when they asked why I came to SLC, I didn't really have an answer and I was struck with very real pain from missing PHTS. It was intense. I'm ready to go back.

I think it was because of these dreams that whenever someone asked me at church today, "When do you go back?" I almost squealed, "TOMORROW!"

The church service today was beautiful. The choir anthem was magnificent. I was blown away. While I am quick to appreciate church music, it is rare that I am as stunned as I was. I was very close to tears during both services; it was honestly difficult for me to stand up and read the Ephesians after that. Wow.

I also had the pleasure of hearing our new Associate Pastor, Lauren, preach. Lauren is delightful and I've loved getting to meet her as I've been back these past couple of weeks. One of the things she pointed out about the 1 Kings text resonated deeply in me. She noted that after the temple had finally been built, and it stood proudly as a breaktaking feat of architecture, design, and grandeur, the best that they could possibly build, Solomon stood and said, "It's not enough." Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain God; neither can the most valiant attempts of men.

I hold the unpopular opinion that nothing can be fully expressed. This seems to be the most pessimistic view someone in art school can take, but I hold to it. Something is always changed in interpretation or translation, some point is not hit home. (so how do we work USE this inevitability instead of try to ignore it?) But more, and maybe this is just me, but I think that emotion that calls for artistic expression is too much, too full, for any art to be enough.

We can despair, saying, "It won't express it anyway, so why try?" Or we can smile to meet the challenge of trying. We can go forth with joy knowing that there is always so much more to be said, painted, acted, sung. To follow Christ is to enter the story that defines inexpressible. There is a joy to having the words stolen from you. There is happiness knowing there is so much more than those words. There is excitement in a God who is bigger than a temple.

Tomorrow (well, today, technically), I leave with joy. Pure joy. Usually I leave Virginia with some amount of bitterness. Not this time. I was happy to stay for this service, instead of moving in Sunday morning. I have realized humbly that there are such beautiful people here, like there are in New York. I get to bounce from one love-filled community to another - how lucky am I? I'm excited to get back to theater, to working towards inevitably incomplete expression, with joy. To live with humble authority and radical love. To dance dangerously at the crossroads. I come with joy.

I started this blog to keep people updated on my summer. The summer is ending rapidly... but I'm not sure the blog is. I think I see God too many places to keep it in, and since most of the people I'm working to keep updated are NOT in New York... I will try to keep it going. It also helps me to articulate things like this. To be honest, I don't know how often I'll be able to update because of the inevitably crazy school schedule (wheee!), so I added this widget where you can get updates e-mailed to you. That way, you don't have to keep checking all the time when there's not an update. The box is at the top of the left-hand column.

To those in Virginia, thank you. It's been lovely.

To those in North Carolina, I miss you dearly.

To those in New York, I'LL BE BACK REAL SOON. Tomorrow, I mean today, is traveling and moving in (we're planning to unload at 7pm), so that's pretty much out. Tuesday morning/early afternoon I'm tagging along on some mentor tours so I can meet some of the first-years (yay!), and late afternoon/evening on September 3rd is reserved every year for my Sweeneyfriends (I'm SURE I'll blog about that). But other than that, I'm free, so call me, e-mail me, facebook me, tweet at me, whatever (I'll get it all quickly because I have a cool new shiny phone!). I'm so excited to see all of you.

And now, because I'm too excited to sleep, I went through all my posts and compiled a list of the songs I used for titles, even though I'm sure no one cares. But I care!

• Wilkommen! - "Wilkommen" from Cabaret
• I'm sorry to shout, but HERE I AM! - "Here I Am" from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
• Nine O'Clock, Twilight... - "The Sun Sits Low" from A Little Night Music
• All that hath life and breath! - "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty", hymn
• Vivo! - "Che gelida manina" from La Boheme
• We can build a beautiful city - "Beautiful City" from Godspell
• And the beauty is... - "The Beauty Is" from The Light in the Piazza
• Dear God, just do something or I'll have to do it myself! - "Dear God" from John and Jen
• This Is Not Over Yet - "This Is Not Over Yet" from Parade
• Be still and know... - Hymns, anthems, a lot of pieces.
• What would I do if I had not met you? - "What Would I Do" from Falsettoland
• Where does the wind come from? Where does it go? - "To Love Our God", anthem
• I Will Joyfully Sing in the Morning - "I Will Joyfully Sing in the Morning", anthem
• Why did I do it? What did it get me? - "Rose's Turn" from Gypsy
• What's love unless it's unconditional? - "Farewell Letter" from Passion
• Out of death; life - "The Final Battle" from Lord of the Rings: the musical (yes, you heard me.)
• I Know That My Redeemer Liveth - "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" from Handel's Messiah
• Come and dance here at the crossroads - "Lord, Listen To Your Children Praying" by Ken Medema
• I'll shout it from the mountain top - "Pass It On", hymn
• All for books! - "Throw It Out" from A New Brain
• No one can help, Nothing can hide you - "Epilogue: the Ballad of Sweeney Todd" from Sweeney Todd
• I'm after something, and it's not in Kelling. - "The Hidden Sky" from The Hidden Sky
• I've given my best while they screamed for my blood - "Madness to Act" from The Glorious Ones
• I love them, here's why I do - "14 Dwight Ave, Natick, Mass." from Elegies
• Pick-a-little, talk-a-little, pick-pick-pick - "Pick-a-little" from The Music Man
• Agony! Misery! Woe! - "Agony" from Into the Woods
• And they'll know we are Christians by our love = "And they'll know we are Christians by our love", hymn
• I Miss New York - "I Miss New York" from Songs from an Unmade Bed
• I need you to survive - a congregational song I sang at a music conference once
• Everybody cut footloose! - "Footloose" from Footloose
• Come there and learn... and I'm (getting) ready! - "I Can See It" from The Fantasticks
• And I'm so damn lucky to have lived here - "14 Dwight Ave, Natick, Mass." from Elegies
• It's the Final Countdown! - "Final Countdown" by Europe
• I'm ready, I'm ready now! - "Marry Me a Little" from Company
• Gone away, gone ahead, echoes roll unanswered... - "The Question Song" from The Masterharper of Pern CD
• Life Has Infinite Joy - "Infinite Joy" from Elegies
• I don't want to leave now that I am loved - "Finale" from Passion
• And it comes to be - Fade to Black by Metallica
• Praise be to the mind of God - "Montage: Coda" from The Hidden Sky
• Learn Your Lessons Well - "Learn Your Lessons Well" from Godspell
• Cleansed by fire; I may seem only half-glued, but I can see right through you - "Cleansed by Fire" by Alice Cooper
• Is this real life? - "Real Life" from tick... tick... BOOM!
• It's a sign, it's a sign, and it's mine - "The Miracle Song" from Anyone Can Whistle
• Try the priest(s) - "A Little Priest" from Sweeney Todd
• Splendors you never have dreamed all your days... - "My Friends" from Sweeney Todd

Try the priest(s)

My first official brush with teaching was last summer, when I led a two-day workshop on scripture reading at Bon Air. This came out of discussions between my mother and I, largely centered around how scripture is heightened text (Shakespeare is also heightened text), and while we learn about heightened text, how to interpret and present it, in theater school, the average lay reader probably has not gone to theater school. Anyone having to speak heightened text could be helped some of the tips and tricks we have. Of course, going into this, I was quite panicky. "I'm not even twenty, I've only had one year of college, who am I to be leading a workshop on this?!" (To which I'd chastise myself with, "You're someone who understands the importance of operative words. Just DO IT.") Bon Air was a wonderful environment for me to have this first experience; most people there had known me for many years, and everyone was very enthusiastic. We did some individual coaching in the sanctuary and I thought, "Yep. I really do want to teach voice and speech."

I'm reading in worship tomorrow. Since my mother is now in charge of scheduling lay readers, she's having me read both services (of course). She also chose me to read on a Sunday when one of the scriptures is a very long passage from 1 Kings. (She does like to put me to work when I'm here.) And in the spirit of ongoing attention to scripture reading at Bon Air, I thought I'd blog about what my process is like, working on scripture.

I see that my job, as a scripture reader, is to present the word of God to the people of God. This means reading, understanding, and speaking the word in a way that is clear and understandable - not JUST that the individual words are understandable, but that they are linked together in a way that is easy to follow. God has given me a mind, a body, and a voice that I might use them in His service. I am doing no honor to God if I do not work to develop them. There's this mythical thing many people are obsessed with. It's called "talent" and I am not convinced it exists. I assume it doesn't because that helps me move through life working hard. People tend to think that there are people with "talent" and they can read well and there are people who don't have "talent" who can't. This is stupid. I don't have talent. I have training. People talk about my singing voice - my singing voice it what it is because I have parents who had me doing vocal exercises before I could talk. Effective scripture reading comes from respect for the role, and the respect enough to work on the scripture.

The first thing I do is I read the scripture SILENTLY.

Yup, you heard me. SILENTLY.

I do this to read and study it for what is actually happening in the scripture. If I start by reading it aloud, I jump ahead to vocal interpretation before actually considering what it means. Often, when reading the Bible, I notice a word or phrase I hadn't paid attention to before, which changes what the scripture is specifically saying. I find, personally, if I start voicing immediately that I'll revert to previous interpretations of the scripture instead of discovering something new. So I work first to read and understand the scripture and the message it conveys. Is it a message of hope? Is there awe? What is the most important thing it is saying?

Then, I'll read the scripture aloud and slowly, paying particular attention to the individual sounds of the words. Often, here I'll find new information about the scripture as I play with the words, stressing them differently than I heard in my head, noting repeated sounds or types of sounds (are there a lot of diphthongs? voiceless stop-plosives? this is the speech dork in me coming out).

Next, I'll look at the scripture for the trouble spots. Looking at the 1 Kings 8:1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43 scripture, here's what I've identified:

• There are two different voices: the narrator voice and Solomon's voice. Also, Solomon quotes God; does his voice change?
• There are a lot of long noun phrases. Like, "the ark of the covenant of the Lord" and "the altar of the Lord". These have to be kept sounding like one thing for it to make any sense.
• Solomon is slightly repetitious.
• Transitions during Solomon's speech, particularly, have the potential to be awkward, since they're taken from different parts of the chapter.
• The word "priests" is difficult to say and occurs a lot at the beginning.

The next step for me is to go through and score the text, paragraph-by-paragraph. This literally means I go through making marks on my copy of the scripture, so it looks like a musical score. My mother already formats the scripture nicely for this - in a large font, double spaced. I start with identifying my operative words; words that I will emphasize to help me tell the story. The emphasis people put on words helps them convey a message. "I LOVE you," tells something different than, "I love YOU." The latter would most likely be used in a situation where someone was trying to tell the other person that they loved them more than or instead of another. I mark my operative words with various degrees of underlines, from a dotted line through a double line.

The next thing I do with my score is make any markings about sounds. I'll mark aspiration of t's, k's, and p's, and any other difficult sound, or sound I know I particularly will want to use, or pronunciations. While doing this, I'll also practice tricky words or phrases (like "priests"). I don't make as many markings on scripture as I would on Shakespeare, but it the same idea. I'll also sometimes draw lines on my paper to remind me of the structure of the sentence, particularly for the longer sentences.

Most of the work occurs during the scoring process. While I'm working on this, I'll usually also develop solutions to the "bigger" questions. I find ways of building with emphasis that lessens the repetition. I work on placing the narrator voice more towards my sinuses and Solomon's voice more towards my chest.

And the rest is rehearsal. Running it and running it and running it.

Here's a picture of my score for the first page of the 1 Kings reading. At the top it reminds me to drop my jaw, because while rehearsing I kept... not.


Tomorrow I will do a vocal warmup before church. I do vocal warmups daily, but I'll make sure my warmup specifically prepares me for this reading. I believe in warmups to ground and prepare physically, vocally, and spiritually. My warmup will include lots of touching into sound, rolling up and down the spine, warming up the jaw, tongue, and soft palate, the resonators, tremors (Fitzmaurice-style), and articulation.

So that's what I do. It's very theater school of me. Also, the pause I take before I read? That's the "Oh God please help me" prayer pause.

I will now spend the rest of the night saying the word "priests".

It's a sign, it's a sign, and it's mine.

So. I got a tattoo.

When I posted on Emily's Facebook wall about how we should find time for me to go get a tattoo, suddenly people from both high school AND college were commenting saying, "WHAT?!" (I'm one of the first of my good friends to get a tattoo, I think.) I actually started considering this earlier this summer, and meant to get it done in Asheville, but schedules never really lined up well for that to happen. I got it done in VA because I figured I could get safer for cheaper than in New York City.

It's a small, basic Celtic cross, on the front of my left shoulder. (NOT on my back, shoulder-blade area, but on the front of my body, chest area.) I like this location because it's easy to cover up, but also easy to show. Tattoo versitility. It cost me $80 at River City Tattoo, and yes, it hurt. Of course, I was able to go in there with the confidence that I had survived passing a kidney stone and in no way would it be worse than that. It was a much different pain, but it only took about 15 minutes of actual needlework, and at the end, I had a tattoo. Unlike several hours of agony that resulted in... nothing. Though, true to form, Emily did not know when the artist actually touched the needle to my skin, because I never flinched. Or made a sound. I'd occasionally dance with my feet to keep her entertained.

First of all, I'm not planning on being an actor. If I was planning to pursue acting as a career, I would not have gotten a tattoo, because if your tattoo is going to interfere with a role you're up for, you very well might not be hired because of the trouble it takes to cover tattoos. Rough, but real - especially in New York, where the competition is just as good as you and doesn't have a tattoo.

I have never considered a tattoo before because of its permanence. I have often used my body as my own canvas, sometimes out of depression when I want to self-mutilate but work to channel the energy into something creative... other times out of boredom. It is not a rare sight to see me with my arms highly decorated or my neck painted. (On December 15th, 2006, as I went anxiously through the school day waiting to go get my letter from NYU, I wrote the entire Dies Irae... IN LATIN... on my arm. Yes. I'm that cool.) I went through this period last semester where all artistic expression seemed incomplete, that it would never be enough to express what I had to say, and I painted on myself and would often change it and would say that I could never get a tattoo because once there, it wouldn't express what I wanted it to express. It's the idea that once you articulate something, it kills the thing you're trying to articulate. So I was as surprised as anyone when I found myself considering a tattoo.

However, as my faith has evolved this summer, I've been working to turn my life into one of discipline and commitment. And that's how the idea of a tattoo started to sneak into my head... as a sign of that commitment. I like physical representations of things. (The designer in me, I guess.) Furthermore, I've noticed that whenever I wear a cross necklace, I'm acutely aware of the fact that I represent the cross with my actions. Like they tell school students on field trips, "You're representing our school," I, when I wear the cross, represent Christianity. It holds me up to a certain standard, to represent my faith well.

The tattoo is a represents a commitment to live my faith at all times, to take the responsibility to represent Christianity. Being "marked" as such, I can't decide to hide or be undercover as a Christian. Sure, the tattoo won't be showing at all times, but it will always be there. A mark of devotion.

I didn't want it to be a big, Bible-thumping John 3:16 cross tattoo (that is NOT me), which is why it's as simple as it is. No hiding under a bushel, but no pushing it in people's faces. I was drawn to the Celtic cross because of the connection between Celtic Christianity and creation, and the circle calling forth images of the Earth, eternity, unbroken love... all of that wonderufl symbolic stuff, and then I realized that is the cross in Anderson Auditorium. A very basic Celtic cross. That sealed the deal for me, because it is also very representative of this summer.

If there is ever a time that I regret the reasons for getting the tattoo, I think I'll have bigger issues to sort out than the fact that I have the tattoo.

Is this real life?

I go back to New York a week from today, and that is very strange. My anxiety about going back is gone, and I'm chomping at the bit to be back again. At the same time it's very strange to think that soon I'll be back in the city. Distance makes me delusional. When I'm away from people and places, my mind warps and twists my memories until a part of me starts to believe they don't really exist. Intellectually, I know they do, but my body has started to forget. I remember details of faces but strain to connect them to a whole. Experiences once vivid dissolve into wisps that threaten to disappear entirely. I first noticed this phenomenon in high school, when, between my trips up, New York would seem like Middle-Earth, not like a place that actually existed and I'd actually visited. Every time I hear from someone from New York, it's a beautiful shock - my senses reawaken, images, sounds and memories come flooding back back, and a part of me leaps for joy to rediscover that this person does exist. Sometimes I wonder if I'll wake up one day, and it will be December 15th, 2006 again and I'll be anxiously awaiting my letter from NYU, this all having been an incredibly fanciful dream. I hope not.

Dreams and delusions aside, one of the things I'm working on this week is creating my prayer ritual. I know I need a rigorous prayer ritual to keep me on track. I've been experimenting with different liturgies this summer, and I'm working on creating my own that includes some from many and a bit of my own. In the book on liturgy I read this summer, one of the author's points was that the words that have been said across the centuries hold power. I completely agree, but I also point out that once, someone wrote those words, and we must keep articulating our own words like they did theirs.

I truly love ritual. That's part of why I attend an Episcopalian church when I'm in New York - the sense of ritual and liturgy is beautiful and is something I really connect to. It looks like my prayer ritual will include prayer in the morning, before meals, before reading the Bible, before class, before rehearsal, and at night. A major goal of mine is to make sure that I'm constantly focusing on God - that there are not the times that I'm "with God" and the times that I'm "without God". I see my theatre work as a calling; God must be first. My morning prayer is going to be somehow combined with a voice and speech warmup, to help align my body and voice and spirit. I see a prayer before rehearsal similar to the prayer offered by pastors before they preach - a reminder that it is not about me, but about God. There will also be a lot of Latin. My obsession with church Latin is related to my love for heightened text as a vessel for that which is more than we can say plainly. I could say, "Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord!" but somehow, "De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine!" expresses it better.

It is my hope that constantly working to check in prayer-wise will help me establish habits of prayer, and help me be more open, loving, curious, and spiritually-driven. One of the things that killed me last semester was that it was hard to "make time for God". I couldn't go to evening worship services, often even Sunday morning worship services, because of rehearsals. While I am taking more of a stand, staking out my church time (which is very important), I will still have a very busy schedule and it makes sense for me to refocus what I'm doing so it is always about communing with God. I can praise God in a rehearsal.

I have the oddest collection of biographies on my desk to read. There's Alice Cooper's autobiography (which I've finished), and also biographies of Lord Byron, Mother Teresa, and the bowler hat. Yes. I did just say the bowler hat. I found it on eBay; The Man In The Bowler Hat: his history and iconography. It traces uses of the bowler hat through culture and art (Magritte, Chaplin, Beckett, just to name a few), and I'm REALLY excited about reading it. I started wearing my bowler hat in October? November? December? Emily, do you remember? of my sophomore year of high scool. It came out of an obsession with Bob Fosse (brilliant choreographer, used bowler hats all the time). I put on a bowler for the first time during one of our rehearsals for Pippin and it was instant love. What I find very creepy is how the bowler hat is linked, in time period, with other things I've loved. I discovered last year that a lot of my interests tend to congregate around 1880-1900. Henry James, Proust was young and observing and largely wrote about this time period, Madame X, Camille Claudel, and the heyday of the bowler hat. Eerie. Very eerie.

Cleansed by fire; I may seem only half-glued, but I can see right through you

I'm currently reading the autobiography of Alice Cooper. It's largely about golf.

So yes, Alice Cooper, inventor of shock rock 'n' roll, who would appear onstage with snakes, who accidentally caused the death of a chicken during one of his shows, hated by parents in the 70's, who had longer hair and makeup before anyone else. Apparently becoming addicted to golf helped him get over his addition to alcohol. I bought it from the Barnes and Noble bargain priced section, because I love that era of metal (I was absolutely obsessed with it in middle school, and came to school once my junior year of high school jokingly outfitted with Cooper-esque makeup... on picture day), I still want to be a rock star, I've read my biography of Ozzy Osbourne multiple times, and this had Alice Cooper holding a fake bloody golf club. It was also six bucks. What's not to love?

I'm loving it so far. Straightforward, funny, smart, honest, incredibly positive. Not, perhaps, what you would expect from someone who used guillotines as effects on stage, but one thing I find so refreshing about Cooper is that the theatrics of rock 'n' roll (largely innovated BY Alice Cooper the band) are silly to him. He is a showman, and Alice is the role he plays. Groucho Marx once called him "the last hope of vaudeville". Indeed, I've been seeing him referred to as "theater rock". I appreciate that.

I did some Googling to find out more information. He's playing at the National in Richmond on September 29th. And I found this quote about his faith (he is, in fact, a born again Christian):

"Drinking beer is easy. Trashing your hotel room is easy. But being a Christian, that's a tough call. That's real rebellion!" - Alice Cooper

So there you have it. I agree. Actually being a Christian is, and always has been, extremely radical. Rebellion for even the king of nightmares.

Learn Your Lessons Well

"So, what did you learn?"

This question appears in my life a lot, usually after an experience so hugely changing that it seems like folly to even try to comprehend what just happened in a soundbyte small enough to answer. I've been asked this by many teachers after journeying for a year in their class, and I always hate it a little bit because as I try to think quickly enough to form words that encompass everything that has happened, I sit there looking stupid and unthoughtful for a long time and if/when I finally say something, whatever it is falls woefully short of the impact the class has had on me. I would be entirely unsurprised if, when I died, I found myself face-to-face with God asking me what I learned. Of course, trying to sum up everything in a sentence tends to be a futile effort. All of our experiences keep working on us throughout our lives. But pointing at smaller lessons within the whole is useful. Articulating things is useful. That's a lot of why I've been blogging in the first place. Articulation is useful and sharing is joyous. So...

Ten Things I Have Learned This Summer

1. Love love love love love love love love love love love. Actively. DO IT. IT WORKS. IT IS ALSO THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU WILL EVER DO.

Love everyone. Every. Single. Person. You don't have to like them, but believe in the best of them. Love is a loaded word, and I think loving everyone is about understanding. It is not about discounting or condemning actions we do not agree with - but understanding their motives instead. No one acts truly believe their actions are evil. There is something underlying that we probably don't know about. We are not in a position to judge; it would be on woefully incomplete data. Our job is to love. Assume the best of people - it actually makes a difference. There was once a study where tachers were told that certain young students showed particular intellectual aptitude, but were also told they should treat all students the same. In fact, these students had not done any better than the others on the aptitude test, but they did indeed progress faster than the rest of the class, just because of the unspoken expectation of the teachers. Expectation they weren't even acting on. This stuff MATTERS.

2. There is something to be learned from every single person and situation. God is sovereign. God is in everything.

3. Relate everything back to the world. This was starting at the end of last semester, and has been solidifying this summer. I think it really comes from high school, when I was interested in a lot of things other people didn't care about. I heard a lot of, "Colleen, shut up, no one cares." It was, and still is, a strange adjustment coming to PHTS where the majority of people DO care about what I have to day. (And why the response to this blog has been so phenomenal.) Still, though, I tend to have obscure interests that people don't automatically care about. I can't count on every audience caring about what I care about. (This is my one critique of one of my teacher's shows I saw last year. I thought it was thrilling, exciting, groundbreaking, even, but I felt like the creators assumed that everyone already cared about the subject matter. I didn't. I came into the theatre knowing I didn't care about this, but open and excited for the show to help me care about it.. but it didn't take that step and I felt partially removed.)

Being out in the world, not surrounded by theatre majors, has made me more deeply realize how important it is to be able to say, "This is what I care about, and here's why you should care about it. Here's how it affects you." The most effective lectures I heard this summer were when people took things from theology or something else that seemed far removed, and showed how they shaped our daily lives. THAT is something we can use. This is not to say that this is always cut-and-dry, this isn't about doing theatre pieces loaded with current events info. I happen to think that abstraction has a lot to do with it. I think it is actually more of a Wesleyan idea (oh my goodness! John Wesley! I'm back with the Methodists again!) Methodist churches tend to have clear windows. We'll have some stained glass, yes, but definitely a lot of clear windows. This is so that we can have an eye on the world as we worship. We need to have an eye on the world in everything we do.

4. Observe without judgment. I observe all the time, and the power of observation is not to be underestimated. I love observing. But observation is often linked with judgement. I believe this is because people have a lack of love, and an obsession with right and wrong, and place value on ability instead of on people. So often placed in leadership positions, I know I have to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the people I'm working with. And yes, I've taken people off of things because I know they couldn't handle it. But it seems to me putting them on that particular thing wasn't likely using their gifts in the first place.

5. Get rid of this unuseful idea of right and wrong. All right, Christians! I know! We've sinned! We're all sinning! We're totally depraved and we live in a cesspool of sin! I get it! But we need to get over it. (Yes, Prebyterians, I'm looking at you!) Yes, I think prayers of confession are very important, and help keep us humble which is VITAL. But Christ didn't die for us so we could sit here moaning about how it's all our fault and how awful we are. I don't care if you cringe talking about atonement, substitutionary or otherwise. Christ died so we would no longer be held down by sin.

Here's what I've observed: we get so tied down by doing things "right" or not doing the "wrong" thing that we are unable to learn from our failure and even our successes. The right/wrong, yes/no, black/white mindset blinds us to colors. Somehow, we've done something right or wrong and we thank God/lament that we did so and don't pay attention to what led us there, and shoot in the dark again trying to hit "right". This isn't how it works. We are moving along a journey and there are parts of "right" and parts of "wrong" in everything.

I completely acknowledge that we need something to help us stay on track, towards the positive. I have spent time with Calvinists this summer, after all. I propose "creation"/"destruction". Perhaps the Faith and Environment people got to me... but I think as an artist it makes sense. We don't have much of a stigma about creation/destruction. It is more accepted that creation and destruction can be inherent at the same time - new life after a forest fire, or even the basic agricultural season. (Who understand the secret of the reaping of the grain? Who understands why Spring is born out of winter's laboring pain, or why we must all die a bit before we grow again?) It is also in the story of Christ's death and resurrection. There is redemption in destruction, but none in "wrong". For myself, I'm going to refocus towards creation as opposed to towards right, especially as creation, to me, is the direct continuing on God's work in the world.

6. Don't blow into a mic to mic check it. Really. This is the worst thing you can do to a mic. On nice mics, you might blow the ribbon. Also, don't stop talking when people are checking your mic. Like, "Is it on?" (silence). The sound board is probably far enough away that the people checking can't easily say, "Yes!" for you to hear, and the reason you might not hear your mic at first is because we start lower and then turn the mic up, so that we don't get nasty feedback immediately when you start talking. Stage monitors are a privilege, not a right; use them wisely. Make sure your mic pack is on before you go onstage.

7. The value of a life spent in service is not to be dismissed.

8. The Spirit working through you performs miracles. The Spirit is vital. You are vital. Holly collaboration.

9. When I confront problems, I often find they're not as big as I thought they were. When I don't confront them, I don't find this out and they grow in my head and often in reality. I need to remember this.

10. Never forget joy, never lose hope. We choose the actions we take. We can choose to hope, we can choose to praise, or we can choose not to. Sometimes the choice is very hard. A depressive episode hit on Tuesday, the day before I left Montreat. Since leaving Montreat already wasn't going to be the happiest endeavor, everything was terribly different. My temper was very short and the effort required to choose positivity was staggering. (It's like trying to have quick reactions while moving in molasses.) I'm still working on how to deal with that, in particular, how to make sure that what's going on in my head and body doesn't hurt others around me. But even within that, you can still make the choice. Even when it's the hardest thing to do. We sang "Great is They Faithfulness" in church on Sunday and I noticed the lyric, "Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow," and I thought, "Yes." "Morning by morning new mercies I see." God is there with that hope always. But it is up to us to choose it.

Maybe it's just me, but I really do believe joy is vital. Maybe I've been living my life with undercover joy (oh no! Light under a bushel!). But so much comes back to joy. There's something about release and expression in that. I got a comment about my acting in a scene I was in last semester, directed by my absolutely brilliant friend Allie, who brings out the best in me. I loved the character and the scene and could identify with it far too closely to be legal. I mean, the character was obsessed with an opera, had seen it twenty-eight times but just HAD to travel to see its closing performance. I mean, it's not like I approached my parents in the summer of 2006 to explain exactly why I should be allowed to make a trip up to New York to see Sweeney Todd close when I'd already seen it seven times, especially when I'd have to start my senior year of high school the day after I got back. Anyway. The comment was, "I just saw joy." Seems significant with joy being a guiding force that I've denied for a good amount of my life.

And now, because it is also useful:

Five Things I'm Currently Immensely Curious About/Obsessed With

1. How can theater training help pastors (beyond what I've already thought about voice work for preachers and lay readers)? How can the storytelling focus of directing translate to sermons and services?

2. How can the technical aspect of sound and a mic work (frequencies, etc.) and the emotional, expressive aspect of voice work interact and interplay with each other?

3. In novels, a writer can describe what is going on in someone's head. How can we do that onstage? I know a lot of it has to do with framing moments, but I'm wondering how we can really twist the form. Not Jordan Harrison style narration, but more character psychology. Slash how can we more obviously show how one thing affects another?

4. I visited with my brother on Sunday. He's five years older than me, we are a very interesting pair, and he has always been into video games. When we were younger this meant getting motion sick as he made me watch him play Quake II, but now I'll listen to him talk about what certain video games say, how they engage the player, their use of music and sound, even the mise-en-scène of video games. We're all after the same thing. Getting messages and ideas across, affecting the audience viscerally. How can theatre and video games learn from each other? (In this vein, I'm interested in the Entertainment Technology Center at CMU.)

5. Intimacy. I don't understand it, what it is, how it functions in life. I know that I crave it and I'm absolutely terrified of it. I know it has to do with how much I love voice work. I know when I've hit on intimate moments and I'm amazed by it. I definitely don't know what to do about it. I want to work on tackling this, figuring out what my deal with intimacy is. I think theatre can create intimacy between everyone in the space. I want to do that.

I think the thing I'm most curious about, though, is what's in store for me. Starting my third year of college, I'm having to think about what happens the day after I graduate. Especially since theatre doesn't have the greatest employment rate, I've got an unacceptable amount of student loans, and New York is not a cheap place to live. I've got ideas that I can act on, some plans, but really, I have no clue. I doubt I'm going to have an easily trackable, marked "career" in one thing. I think it will be enormously exciting. What God has revealed of his plan so far is thrilling.

People asked a lot if I'm coming back next summer. It's extremely likely (read as: almost definite) that Montreat will hire me back if I apply, which is probably the closest thing to "job security" that I'll ever experience. I cannot predict my life in a year, and I don't want to give a definite answer when I honestly don't know. I loved it there. I would love to go back. If God wants me there, I will be there. If God wants me somewhere else, I will be somewhere else. That's what it boils down to.

My immediate future, however, contains the dentist. I have no been flossing well and thus have deal with between-teeth cavities. I'm always interested in Novocaine and how it affects speech, so that will be fun.

(I almost disgust myself at times. Here's the bright side of getting my teeth drilled!)

Praise be to the mind of God

Four loads of laundry. FOUR. And I haven't done the delicates yet.

I'm in a very weird state of limbo right now, post-Montreat and pre-college. I've spent the last few days unpacking (but not entirely because I have to repack shortly), seeing movies, seeing the occasional person, acquaniting myself with my new electronics (new pretty Google shiny phone) and getting addicted to bad pop music. (I skipped this phase of my life. While everyone else was swooning over the Backstreet Boys, I was sitting in a corner with Sweeney Todd calling all of them idiots. Guess it had to happen sometime.) I've got a housesitting job in a week, but other than that not much is on my plate. I'm using the time to relax, see people, meet with some of my teachers from high school (I have meetings to pick the brains of my teachers in college all the time, why should I show the ones from high school any mercy?), read more, do the research/daydreaming/planning part of preproduction, and generally girding my loins for next year. I have also spent a good chunk of the morning investigating whether or not Potiphar was a eunuch.

I'm at my church right now, sitting in my mother's office. I went to the early service and sat in the back house right corner of the balcony (as always), because, surprisingly, my mother told me at the dinner table last night that I wasn't doing anything in worship. Generally I'm singing or reading or doing something when I'm here. I have two more Sundays, though, she has opportunity to use me.

Today's service had both a creed (I champion the importance of creeds) and one of my favorite hymns, from The Praise We Sing (the United Methodist Hymnal suppliment): "Praise the Source of Faith and Learning". It reminds me of The Hidden Sky, an beathtakingly gorgeous musical that deals with this whole science vs. faith ridiculousness. The main character, Ganil, finds beauty and God in her discovery of the Fibonacci sequence.

I particularly love the third verse.

Praise the source of faith and learning
That has sparked and stoked the mind
With a passion for discerning
How the world has been designed
Let the sense of wonder flowing
From the wonders we survey
Keep our faith forever growing
And renew our need to pray.

God of wisdom, we acknowledge
That our science and our art
And the breadth of human knowledge
Only partial truth impart
Far beyond our calculation
Lies a depth we cannot sound
Where your purpose for creation
And the pulse of life are found.

May our faith redeem the blunder
Of believing that our thought
Has displaced the grounds for wonder
Which the ancient prophets taught.
May our learning curb the error
That unthinking faith can breed
Lest we justify some terror
With an antiquated creed

As two currents in a river
Fight each other's undertow
Til converging they deliver
One coherent steady flow
Blend, O God, our faith and learning
Till they carve a single course
Till they join as one, returning
Praise and thanks to you, their source

Wonder is so important. It's the cousin of curiosity, which is life.

Today in church I started to say, "And forgive us our debts" in the Lord's Prayer. The Presbyterians have gotten to me!

Now, for no particular reason except that they were on my mother's desk, I present two pictures of Little Colleen. Click to enlarge.


Who reading the blog remembers Marketplace, 29 AD? Best Sunday School EVER. I think I still have one of my tribe necklaces, I think when I was in the tribe of Joseph. Or maybe Judah. This is the rope-making station. There were other cool things, like brick-making, which kind of hurt because sometimes there were stones in the kiddie pool we stepped in to mix the... brick-making solution. I also remember making soap. I'm the second from the right, sporting an awesome robe. The dress I'm wearing had a little holographic thing on it which made fun noises when you ran your fingernail over it and I'm SURE I annoyed my parents with that. Who can name everyone in this picture?

I have to comment on what an adorable small child I was. It's kind of ridiculous. (What happened?) Somewhere in the world there is video footage of my father and I singing "Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree" when I was smiliarly small, and terrified in the stage lights, but singing very in tune.


That face I'm making? The intense concentrated face? I still make that face all the time. I was really was a serious little child.

Happy Sunday.

And it comes to be

Hello, all.

Traveling went well and I have arrived back in Virginia safe and sound. One of the first things I did was set up a sound system, make it into a karaoke machine, and then try to mic my cat. (She was too shy to meow into the microphone but I did pick up some purring.) After a trip to Barnes and Noble to pick up a journal for Tongues (successful), attempt to find a book light that take AA batteries, since I have a ton of slightly used AA batteries from Montreat (our search was unsuccessful), where I resisted a biography of Lord Byron (I might give in before I go back to New York), I'm now settled in my room, playing my iPod on my newly-rigged sound system, even though I have perfectly good iPod speakers, just because I can and because I miss AV.

I miss the cicadas.

I don't want to leave now that I am loved

I don't want to leave, but I'm ready to. I've got work again at 2. They'll sign me out shortly thereafter, take my keys away (noooooo!) and then I'll meet up with my parents and Emily. We'll pop up to Lake Junaluska soon, Russ, Emily, Hilary, possibly Amanda, possibly others will go see Julie and Julia tonight. And tomorrow morning I'll be back to VA.

Keep watching the blog. I have a lot more to say.

Also, those of you who are friends with me on Facebook - there's an epic video of the AV/Aud Olympics from Thursday. I linked to it on my profile. I'm going to see if I can find a way to post it here. I would also like to point out that there was never a rehearsal for the AV/Aud Olympics. Ever.

I'm now going to sign off the internet for the rest of my time here. I will see you after.

Life Has Infinite Joy

(I italicize all lyrics/poems in this entry. This, however, is not a lyric. Nor it is a poem, unless you want it to be.)

The view from Assembly Inn is gorgeous. I was never much for nature when I was young. My brother and I were of the computer nerd variety. One summer, we went outside, only because my computer needed dusting. We sat it out on the gravel of the driveway, wincing from the sun, freaking out at bees and generally acting like the pale insomniacs we were, unused to sun or heat. We ran inside as quickly as we could after blasting my computer and anything that buzzed by us with compressed air. Having been deemed allergic to the entire outdoors, particularly anything green, I've stayed huddled inside most of my life, and moved away from the suburbs and into the city as soon as possible. The one exception was when I would come to Lake Junaluska and Montreat in middle or high school, where you could barely keep me inside. There is something about these mountains that opens me up to nature, and stills the part of me that freaks out when flying insects zoom by.

Even going to the grocery store, here, is beautiful. The parking lot of Amazing Savings on 70 has a magnificent view. But I don't believe that anything is inherently beautiful. We decide what is beautiful. We find and choose beauty. So then I've asked myself, "How can I find such beauty when I go to Morton Williams on 23rd?"

I have genuinely smiled more often than I can remember this summer. I have been so full of joy.

Many years from now,
Will I still have this mad joy?

Montreat is indeed "a place set apart". Something about the landscape and the people and the work that happens here makes it easy to see the beauty. Easy to see God. It is a thin place. It is easy to encounter beauty and discover joy. But I'm only going to live here for a couple more days. It is time to come down from the mountain. How do we hold on to the experiences we have at places like this? How do we use them to change the way we live? I think it's in living. In experience. In senses.

I went to look for joy
Silm, dancing joy
Gay, laughing joy
Bright-eyed joy
And I found her
Driving the butcher's cart
In the arms of the butcher boy

When I first heard this, I rejected it. That was not my idea of joy. It was too simple, too common to be joy. This summer, though, I've realized that joy comes hand-in-hand with living. Experience. Sensuality. Feeling. Emotion. You can find it crafted and pointed in a theatre, and you can find it majestic and towering on a mountain, and you can find it excited and shimmering in a local talent show, and you can find it wild and sprawling in the grocery store. Everything is valid. Every experience, every emotion, every sense. Life is for the alive.

I worked a barn dance the other week. I hadn't really gone to barn dances this summer, often because I was working some event. (AV doesn't normally have to work the barn dance, but there was a different band that week that didn't have their own sound system.) These free barn dances are traditions at Montreat; they started in 1968, and the same person has been calling them since their beginning. Watching everyone from small children to teenagers to the elderly join in this tradition, a part of this culture, my eyes started to tear up. It was one of the most beautiful things I had never seen. Life, a celebration.

I have historically scoffed at things that I consider to be "simple" (or "normal", but I don't use that word much anymore). I ran away from the suburbs to Study Art In New York City. My mother has heard me say, "I'm probably not getting married," often (usually suffixed with, "..but if I do, I want the Widor Toccata as my recessional,") because the assumption that I would definitely grow up and marry some nice gentlemen is one I rejected as being too common. But I'm also attracted to simplicity. I first really noticed it in my earnest desire that comes up every so often to become a nun. I'm not meant to be a nun. I know that's not using the gifts I've been given. But the simple, ordered, focused lifestyle appeals to me, probably because my mind whirls a mile a minute and there is everything but simplicity inside of it. Similarly, at the barn dance I thought about a quiet life, a small job, a house, a family, and the biggest weekly event being the weekly barn dance. The sensation and color brimming inside that picture warms me, charms me. It is beautiful.

Ironically, the reason I can never be fully satisfied with that life is because it's too beautiful. Life, really, is too beautiful, and it fills so much that must share it. I must run and tell everyone.

Despite my so-called "maturity", I have recently discovered that I am actually five years old. I am so easily excitable. It's very easy to make me happy. Yes, I'm often very calm and collected, but tell me that I'm able to take Voice and Speech next semester and it's like telling a small child that they get TWO birthdays this year. It's almost ridiculous. There is so much emotion, so much sensation, so many thoughts, and I have to share it. When something extremely excited happens, I tell my roommate, I call my friend, I call both my parents, preferably separately, because it's actually too much for me to handle, myself. I think this is part of the reason I love classic musical theatre. I don't think I've ever seen such a celebration of life as in a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. She is in love. She has to sing about it. They are living and loving and surviving in Oklahoma. They have to sing about it. It must be done.

I read all of the gospels this summer. (I'm working on Acts now.) A theme throughout all of them is those who are healed running and telling everyone they meet about what has happened, even if Jesus specifically tells them not to. They are filled with such joy, they cannot keep it in. It hurts to bottle anger; it also hurts to bottle joy. When we have an encounter with God, with the Holy Spirit, with the living Christ, we are compelled to shout it. Moses and Miriam singing when the Israelites are saved from Pharaoh. The Magnificat. The Samaritan woman, after meeting Jesus at the well, saying, "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?"

I believe in the sovereignty of God. This means I believe that God is in everything. Yes, everything. I am often attracted to dark stories because I see the light in them. It's nearly impossible for me to get away from it. And because I see it so clearly, and because I love people, I am constantly called to say, "Come, see!" It it too much for me alone, too much to be expressed in any way but art.

To be honest, art even falls short. People may argue with me, but I think that nothing can ever be truly expressed. Language is both freeing and limiting. I am obsessed with that which is untranslatable, and the ways we try to express it. But in trying to express, we create something new, something surprising and unexpected.

We never know what affect we will have, or what we create will have. One of my dearest friends has been going through some rough times, not unlike, at the core, the rough times I went through that inspired my final design project from my first year of college. I attached the first stage of that project - a collage text - to an e-mail to her back in June, in hopes that she might find some echo in it that resonated with her. Over a month later, she told me that she had been poring over it and that it anchored her when she sorely needed anchoring. When working on that text, probably at 3am, I had no idea what audience it would eventually reach.

I have no idea about a lot of things. All I can do is attempt to guess at strings.

What I do know is that there is so much more to the world than I or any of us can imagine. Because there are more people than we could ever hope to know, there are more ideas, there are more experiences, there is more beauty. Because God cannot be defined to any of our systems. I know, in some place deep inside of me, that there is more to the world and to life than we immediately see. In each voice, in each touch, in each sight there is a glimpse, a discovery of something we have never known before. There are more colors than those we recognize in this world. This I speak with absolute certainty, because I've seen one. In one of my most powerful synaesthetic responses, I saw a color that does not exist. Not a combination of any colors I know, but a completely new color I had never seen, one that we do not know in our world. There is more than what we think we know.

Life is running recklessly with arms outstretched, fingers spread, into this exciting unknown, sped on by curiosity and joy. Jesus said that one must become like a child to enter the Kingdom of God. I joke about how I grew up out-of-order, or too fast. My mother called me her "serious one". I was 7 going on 35. And now I wonder whether I just grew up backwards, if I grew up to become a child.

There is a theatrical piece that one day I will direct. This was made clear to me two years ago, despite my Moses-like protests. Leonard Bernstein's MASS. It is a magnificent piece, straddling the religious and the theatrical and the secular, weaving together many different views on religion together to come to an honest start to a search, not a "tie it all up with a nice pretty moral" conclusion. It's so absolutely my kind of piece, but you'd have to be insane to really want to do MASS because it calls for a choir, a street chorus, a boys choir, a full orchestra, a band, recorded sound coming through various parts of the house, banners, liturgical dancers, rock and blues soloists, and several operatic soloists. (It was commissioned for the opening of the Kennedy Center and has rarely been performed in full since. I saw a not-quite-full production at Carnegie Hall last year.)

Coming out of the most intense, forsaken darkness of the piece, is a single strand of hope in a child's voice, singing a simple song of praise. Slowly, his voice is joined by others, repeating Lauda, Lauda, Laude!, until they grow and burst and swell and the whole space sings and echoes with joy and praise. When I saw MASS at Carnegie Hall, all I wanted to do was stand up and join in the song. What I see is a song that does not stop. What I see is the song spreading to the audience, to the world, as everyone cries out laude, laude, laude, resonating across these mountains and valleys, seas and plains, cities and sidewalks, into the heavens and God's ear. This song is woven into everything. It is God. It is the Spirit. It is the Universe. It is wonder. It is beauty. It is hope. It is joy. It is love. I have seen it this summer in the mighty mountains and in night skies where the moon and the clouds create ethereal colors. I have heard it in the prayers of conference leaders before opening the doors at keynote, and in the soaring harmonies of vast choirs. I have felt it in the caring words of teachers, the guiding hands of potters, and the embrace of pastors. I have stood dumbstruck by it while looking at architecture, or at the Met or Cloisters or PS1. I find it giggling and hidden down allies in New York. I am moved by it in the valiant efforts of a people working to survive. I tasted it in a kiss, and it tickled my ear in the whisper of a confidence. It has reached out to me and grabbed hold of me as I've sat sobbing in the last row of a theater's mezzanine. It is present in everything and everyone, whether beautifully obvious or craftily hidden. It is in the stories we tell, in the words we speak, in the smiles we give, in each breath we take.

That is, it is there if we choose it. If we choose to seek it, live it, and share it.

It is easy to chose destruction and negativity. I have been there, I know it. It is even easier (and far worse) to not make a choice at all, and drift into apathy, which is akin to falling asleep when we have been clearly instructed to "Keep awake!" I have been there, I know it, too. But I have made a choice, to devote my life to this song. This is what I celebrate. This is what I serve. Simply, the fact that there is good in the world. That is worth my life. Service to this song is service to the world, and all the miraculous people there are to love and learn from in it. I know of no better way to spend a life.

And the song she sang, believe me,
Will never, ever leave me,
And it will be upon my lips 'til the day I die

And it will be upon my lips 'til the day I die.


I will still have this mad joy.


Alleluia! Amen.

Gone away, gone ahead, echoes roll unanswered...

Most of summer staff is gone. Yesterday, everyone closed out their worksites. For AV Crew, this means clearing out and inventorying our equipment in the Aud, cleaning the booth, washing the AV van, moving equipment, walking through spaces, collecting TVs, and throwing out old equipment. It was a long day, where we worked hard and played hard. I won rock-paper-scissors and got to go, along with Heather and Grayson, to wash the AV van. We went to one of those places where you feed it quarters to wash it yourself, and we had a blast. (We were highly amused by the tri-color protectant, and how it changed colors.)

Another fun event of the day was AV aggression being let loose. It started with one of our members taking a hammer to an old microphone. It ended in a full-on "let's hurl old wireless transmitters at the ground!" session. It was much like the scene where they beat the photocopier in Office Space.

I've kept mine to bring to load-ins and say, "This is what happened to the LAST piece of sound equipment that gave me crap!" to scare the sound system into behaving.

Today, while everyone moved out, I worked worship. I like staying longer. There was a staff dinner last night, and the end-of-summer slideshow, which lead to the giant move-out this morning. I thought working worship after all the ending events would be anticlimatic. In some ways, it was (except for the WIDOR TOCCATA!), but there was a very comfortable energy as those of us remaining sat scheduling for this next week.

I had to move into Balsam during the heat of the day. And the day is VERY hot indeed. Dragging all of my stuff up a hill during my lunch break is not exactly my idea of a good time, but Balsam is beautiful. Not really at the surface, but it's fascinating architecturally. I'm not sure what the original house was, there are so many additions and repairs. I turned a corner and found the original outside of the house, while inside. There are a number of small level differences, strange twists and turns, and I have a beautiful view. Too bad I'm only there for a few days.

While the AV and Aud Crews explored parts of Montreat I'm not supposed to tell the public about, one particular location made me say, "Site specific theater! Right here!" Russ then said, "What about Sweeney Todd in this space?" and I said, "OH GOD!" and I think it was one of the most genuine reactions I have ever had. I am very glad to have met Russ this summer. He's the first person I've met who is a directing major NOT at PHTS, and it's exciting to see what's different and thrilling to see what's the same in our training. He takes the main principle of improv (saying "Yes, and") into how he lives his life, which allows me to easily live without fear of embarrassment. I say, "Mooooooose!" he yells, "MOOOO-OOOOSE!" (this did happen). I bought a book of Irish fairy tales, and he was like, "Oh my God, I want that." He's genuine and doesn't take crap, and really one of the most delightful people I've ever met. He's also directing Edward Gorey's Helpless Doorknobs next semester. He was looking for plays, and since I was also looking for plays, I handed him this play and said, "Read it, it's crazy." I'm so excited for his production, even though I probably won't be able to see it.

Russ is one example of the amazing people I've met here, and his constant affirmation is enabling. There are so many beautiful people here to learn from.

Also, the fact that I say, "The sky," whenever someone asks, "What's up?" made it into the Mumble (the summer staff "yearbook"). I've been doing that for many, many years and am proud it was acknowledged.

I'm ready, I'm ready now!

Very quickly, the summer is wrapping up. I was telling myself, "You know, the summer's ending," before, but today as I sat in the Moose I realized it was the last day of Clubs and the last day of the last Youth conference, that we close out our workspaces tomorrow, and that almost everyone would be gone before worship ends on Sunday. The few of us who are staying on for a couple more days are going to be packing up and moving into Balsam, one of the other lodges, for our last few days. The parents and Emily will be here on Tuesday, and we'll leave Wednesday morning. I have asked that we go to Bojangles for Cheerwine and cinnamon biscuits. I did some Google Map searching and found out that there's a Bojangles in Brooklyn, but I'm not sure if I trust Bojangles that far north, much like I don't trust the Cracker Barrels in Connecticut.

In the last few days, I read the entirety of The Art Spirit, by Robert Henri. The Art Spirit was the assigned book for one of my classes first year, but as it is a collection of letters, lecture notes, and the occasional article, we never sat down and read it all the way through - usually the teacher would have us choose ten pages (any ten pages) and read it. The beauty of The Art Spirit is you WILL find something inspiring in any given ten pages. Open it up to any page, really, and you'll find something that will change your life. Our teacher referred to The Art Spirit as our new boyfriend. And while I've picked it up occasionally when I've needed inspiration, I've never sat down and read all of it before. So I spent the last three days snuggling with Boyfriend, and it's been delightful. A journey, even. I started out slightly panicked about art and next semester and all of that, which is what started my reading, I think, but by the end the anxiety was transformed into excitement. I've been writing a bit for a big future post, and I saw some of the same language used in The Art Spirit, which was startling and beautifully affirming.

When I closed the book, my first thought was, "I'm ready for Tongues."

There is a part of me that has been nagging myself about preproduction work. Preproduction work tends to include a lot of research into the subject matter, the playwright(s), the original production. A lot of finding impulse images, sounds, textures, films, anything. A lot of rigorous thought about the play in the space, what to look for in cast and in designers, etc. Preproduction is an extraordinarily busy time for a director, and to be honest, I've been putting it off. A part of me has said, "GO!" but another part has said, "Wait." I said I'd start it after I knew for sure it would be approved. And I poked at books by Sam Shepard and Joe Chaikin, but to no avail. I couldn't get into it. To be fair, I did an intense script analysis presentation on Tongues last semester, so I've got a lot of basic work already done, but for as much work as you've already done, there's more you are now able to do. I chastised myself for laziness, but it didn't help. I'd start to think about the play and the journey and all that other stuff we talk about and my head would twist into knots. I'd try to think about design concepts and would get ideas and immediately second guess them, do that whole, "is there support for this?" game with myself and eventually combust. I gave up and swore I'd get really into preproduction when I got back to VA.

Henri was a painter. (I once went to a museum in Charleston, SC, and saw one of his paintings when I turned the corner. I squealed, "BOYFRIEND!" loudly and got strange looks from passerby and my mother.) The Art Spirit has a lot to do with painting, though most of it also leads into larger ideas of art. I found a lot of clear parallels between directing and painting in The Art Spirit. Henri speaks of painting what you see - it is the seeing that is difficult. The sensations evoked in you when you see your model; this is what you paint. "Two people may declare to each other the wonder of a sunset or the loveliness of a woman, but, although they agree, each has made his own selection. Two painter before a sunset or a woman put down on canvas the order of their seeing, and thus they communicate to each other their separate ways." To show what happened to you, you paint the face how you see it. This does not mean painting painstakingly realistically, but selecting what will get across what you see.

This makes a lot of sense to me in thinking about directing. I encounter a play, it makes me feel things and see things and hear things, so I then work to get across those things to an audience. Usually there are physical sensations, especially with me, because I'm obsessed with sensation. Usually there is also some kind of message to get across. The idea of actually painting what I see, onstage, is very basic, and freeing, and I was absolutely ignoring it for a long time.

In thinking about design, I've been very conflicted. This play doesn't call for a lot in the stage directions. (Except for sound. YAY SOUND.) I do not want to bog it down, so I've been thinking that strong, simple choices are going to be key. I'm decent in my head on set, enough that I think I will soon be able articulate the goals of the set and what I need it to do to a set designer. Not so much with costumes and lights. ("How complex should these be? If I'm not trying to suggest a specific time or place, how do I deal with icons? Can there be such a thing as truly timeless? If there is, do I really want to use it or is that neutral? Is there a place to choose neutrality or is that a lack of choice? Should I be trying to suggest a specific time or place? Should that change with the voices? Color! How do I deal with it?! How can I get these to focus on sound? Is there some other message in the play but not coming out yet that I should put in costumes or lights? WHY did the original production use a Mexican blanket?")

At one point while reading, I thought, "I want color in the lights in Tongues." Why? Because I'm synaesthetic. Because sound and color are always connected, in my brain, and I like it. Because I've wanted to theatrically start working to connect people's senses and if I have color related to sound, that starts it. Because some people connect to color more than they connect to sound, and I could be able to draw these people into sound by using color. Because if I'm doing a play about sound, it makes a lot of sense to use design elements to crack open the beauties I see within sound.

I'm still a bit lost on costumes, but I'll get there.

Beyond this, I sensed that there was something more important than the preproduction research, that there was something else I needed to do to untie my knotted brain.

One of Henri's major points is that the artist must live. The artist is inspired by the sensations of a full life. This is not a popular view. There is the idea that the artist can only truly live through his art. This idea, along with the picture of the "starving artist", used to dominate my beliefs and point of view. It was a view I romanticized. I tend to romanticize unhealthy views. (The main reason I don't smoke or drink is because I romanticize them in an unhealthy way, so I know if I started it would be very easy for me to become addicted.) And there is an extent, I still believe, that the artist is separate from life. From the world. I think Kandinsky hits on it in Concerning the Spiritual in Art with the idea of artist-as-guide. (Concerning the Spiritual in Art is also incredible and I think Concerning the Spiritual in Art, The Art Spirit, and I could be in a successful polyamorous relationship. PHTS-types, I think everyone should read this and if you want to borrow it, let me know.)

But what I'm starting to think, what I've experienced, is that we make art because we are drunk on life. In my experience, it is when I experience and then am so full, of gratitude or sadness or joy or hope, that I simply must share it. I experience too much for just me. And I care too much about the world not to share.

I recently typed up a short summary of Tongues to post on facebook for my fellow PHTS project students. Coming back to it, writing the summary, I realized the summary was so much about what I'd learned and experienced this summer. It was all there from the beginning. In the play, in me, but it was the parts of the play I could SENSE were there but were still muddled and confusing. Things I would have tried to understand through analysis and preproduction work, but I don't think I would have been able to comprehend.

What happened? I went away, and I fell in love with life. I've never been in love with life before. And not to put down preproduction, but that was just as important as preproduction work.

Live rigorously. Work rigorously. Both are important to each other.

There were also bits in The Art Spirit about not stressing about critics, juries, salons (again, painting). I was so thankful, reading that, that I don't have to worry about that just yet. That's the greatest thing about going to theater school - it's SCHOOL. You don't really have to worry about the box office and reviews. One could argue that you have to worry about what the teachers think, or something, but that's stupid. It's YOUR education. (Henri also says that "The only education of any value is self-education, and I wholeheartedly agree.") I'm thankful, again, that I'm not in the kind of place where you "have to work in your teacher's style", but rather develop relationships so that your teachers know your aims and goals and can give you feedback to help you along, that you then choose what to do with.

In fact, I found the most accurate description of PHTS in The Art Spirit. Page 223, for those of you who have it:

"A school where individuality of thought and individuality of expression is encouraged. A school and instruction which offers itself to the student to be used by him in the building of himself up into a force that will be of a stimulating value to the world. That he may use the school, its facilities, its instruction, that he may know that the school and the instructors are back of him, interested, watching, encouraging, as ready to learn from him as to teach him, anxious for his evidence, recognizing in him a man--another or a new force, giving him the use of its knowledge and experience, only demanding from him that he work both mind and body to the limit of his endurance to find in himself whatever there is of value, to find his truest thoughts and find a means, the simplest, straightest, the most fit means to make a record of them."

See? Even got the intensity of second year into that ("work both mind and body to the limit of his endurance"). That's PHTS. That's how I've been using PHTS, at least, and it works well.

It is bedtime. Pancakes at the Moose at 8am, then work space closeout. Apparently we're going to have to get the AV cleaned. I'm afraid the windows leak too much for the car wash. We'll see...

It's the Final Countdown!

I am currently sitting in the booth, waiting for the Talent Show to start. I'm turning on and off mics when they need me. Tonight is the last AV/Aud Olympics. I offer you a pictorial play-by-play of last week's Olympics in tribute. Click them for larger versions. Photo credit goes to Jeffery, the photographer from Omega.

The Broom Race!

Cord Wrap! My main event. I feel like this is somehow related to lassoing.

Russ with the cord.

My "beat you again, Russ!" face. Ignore my bald spot.

Heather jumping over Russ in the limbo!

Mic joust!

Trash toss! (Yup, it made it in. Also, I am clearly trying to fill the space Viewpoints style. I am such a theater major in the Olympics.)

The chair lift. (Also, have I ever made a more Becker-like face?)

Uhm, this is my favorite picture of Russ and I EVER. What are we doing?! Being fabulous. Clearly.

Heather in the Energizer-Off. Energizers are basically dances to songs that they do to get the conferees pumped before keynote. There are certain moves that are favorites. This is like a Dance-Off. (Remember when I asked if I've ever made a more Becker-like face? OH WAIT. HERE I AM THE SPLITTING IMAGE OF HIM. Ridiculous. If I could overlap the Becker laugh audio that should accompany this face, I would.)

Will in the Energizer-Off. Impressive.

Heather retaliates. My feet are not on the ground. This is also a really good shot of Grayson's pants.

Will raises the stakes.

Heather takes center stage and wins with "Aisha". Russ is clearly praising Jesus. Grayson is adding levels to the composition and I appreciate it.

The chair fight. I'm not sure what's the most intense: the fight, my face, or Russ.

Human pyramid! You can see my legs through some of the people because clearly I'm being a theater major again and spotting.

Blake winning the table set. AV is trying to figure out where the XLR plugs into the table. Hmm...

Chair sit. Eric (on the left) is trying REALLY HARD.

Chair sit again, Eric falling over.

We're currently blasting "Lip Gloss" in the Aud. It makes me think of my (first) studio group freshman year, Blue Group.

BRING IT, AUD CREW!

ETA: One of the best AV/Aud Olympics yet. We did a four-tiered pyramid, I was randomly drafted to the second-from-bottom tier. THERE IS VIDEO FOOTAGE.

And I'm so damn lucky to have lived here

Sometimes I am so overwhelmed with gratitude for the people in my life. Sometimes I worry that people think I'm sucking up to them when I make multiple attempts to try to express it, but it's not that. It's a genuine attempt to express that which is bursting out from me. Right out of my sternum. I used to write letters. In 8th grade, we wrote letters to one or two of our teachers as part of Teacher Appreciation Week. In high school, Jessie and I started the tradition of "Make-Seniors-Cry" letters. We'd write letters to the graduating musical theater seniors about how much we looked up to them. We continued writing these throughout all of high school, and I found myself again penning letters to teachers about how much impact they've had on me, and how grateful I am. (One teacher got two letters, and I still don't feel like I've fully expressed my gratitude.)

My letter-writing tended to stop after high school (though the first year voice and speech teachers almost got one), partially because of the nature of the relationships changing, and partially because I am having an increasingly hard time putting this feeling into words. I like words. I like language. I like speech. (Obviously.) But they are not enough. I don't know what is. It is like molten gold bubbling out of my chest. I physically spaz when I'm very excited, I'll leap around because it is too much to keep in.

So I don't know how to express it. I don't know how to tell you what you mean to me. There is not language strong enough or colors bright enough. But I will constantly try. Right now I'm so grateful it almost hurts. (Or, so grateful that I'm going to have to start working on a COW piece to try to let some of it out.) But this is the kind of dilemma that's good to have. I'd rather be bursting with gratitude and love and joy than anything else.

I love you.

Thank you.

My cup overflows.