It's you.

"I have learned that neither kindness nor cruelty by themselves, independent of each other, creates any effect beyond themselves; and I have learned that the two combined, together, at the same time, are the teaching emotion."

"We neither love nor hurt because we do not try to reach each other."

--Edward Albee, The Zoo Story

Posting these because I think they're extremely relevant and I don't know why. Well, I don't know the first one yet. The second one I get. The first one I don't, but I do. I absolutely understand it in a way I can't intellectualize. I think it's important. I think it's extremely important.

I feel like my main work right now is trying to figure things out. Like I am on some theological mission to figure out the places of puzzle pieces. I'm encountering things in the broadest sense, much less for the minutiae of daily life and more for the cosmic significance they hold, like I am weaving together my personal mythology. There is nothing that is irrelevant, because God is in all things. It's what all my thought is bent on.

A glimpse of the weave

Well, I've officially had all of my classes.

Verdict?

Joy!

I mean, really, today I had two design classes and Voice and Speech. Does it get much better than that? I don't think so.

I'm taking 12 classes this semester, though 4 of them are 8 week classes. I'm currently spending 25 hours in class. 8 of those will go away after 8 weeks, which is when the Production Season will start and we'll be in tech all the time.

Woohoo!

Lots of writing this semester. Lots of unexpected playwrighting. There's the Playwrighting Practicum class I got into, and then there's also Playwright/Director Collaboration (can I go just one semester without having a class with "collaboration" in the title?), where we will also be writing plays. Then there's also Music Composition, writing in a slightly different sense (I'm tickled that I'm in a Music Composition class). I've got a huge variety of classes this semester. Classes that are old standards. Classes that are brand new. Classes that are about getting away from thinking. Classes that are about using your intellect. Classes with teachers I've never had before. Classes with brand new teachers. Classes with teachers I've had before in studio, but this time in an academic setting. Classes with teachers I've had time and time again (including two classes with the only teacher I have had every single semester of college). It's thrilling, really. I'm in two classes that are physical--my classes used to almost all be intensely physical at the beginning of my college life, but as I've moved into the directing/design world, we've sat in chairs much more frequently. It is nice, though, having some rigorously physical classes. My Masked Drama class is one of those classes where the instructor had us improvising movement for over an hour and we collapsed afterward. Voice and Speech remains glorious, and physical. For the past three semesters, I've fought to be in that class, and there's always been the moment where I thought it wasn't going to happen, and then it always does... so when I get into that classroom for the first class of the semester, it's like a weight has been taken off and I breathe so much easier. (Today I had a weird actor moment when stretching my right hip. Apparently I've been storing a lot of emotional tension there because I started to cry out of NOWHERE. And I've never been one to do that. It was actually close to one of those almost-creepy acting class breakdowns you hear about, except that I was discreet. Straaaaaaaange. Must have been something stored in the body. Our bodies are so odd.)

Anyway. One of my classes reminds me hugely of this blog. It's my Re-Inventions of Love class, and last class our teacher introduced us to a lot of concepts by having us watch a Joseph Campbell interview which talked about love and myth, including Christian myths and the example of sacrificial love in them, and chakras, and the importance and validity of human suffering... and basically, EVERYTHING I'M EVER INTERESTED IN. I read selections from the Upanishads (Hindu scripture) for his class, and there are definitely huuuuuuge correlations between these and Christian mystics. And some of the things my Voice and Speech teacher said today are along the same lines. It is beautiful, what God starts to make clear. It's like some glimpse at the grand design.

Also, for that class we have to read the Song of Songs. I've said it before and I'll say it again; Song of Songs is the most intoxicating thing I've ever read. I think for my final paper or project I will be examining romantic expressions of spiritual love. Because I mean... what else?

Lots of exciting theological stuff happening in that class, which will fill the void left by Montreat... since I'm not teching theological conversations every day.

Maker of Dreams is going well. We had PHTS Open Calls this weekend which was rather well-attended. It's such an adorable little play, slightly odd to encounter in this environment, today, that there are some people who have read the play who have just immediately been charmed. Ranging from teachers to classmates to actors who I called back. It can be quite enchanting and I think it fills a void, because it doesn't subscribe to what I feel to be the overwhelming general point-of-view that the world or humanity is something naturally evil and desolate. I don't subscribe to that point-of-view either.

The idea of putting up a show is still terrifying, and I wholeheartedly believe that you have to be masochistic, insane, or both to volunteer to helm this process. However, I have never claimed to be sane, and I was one of two people in my Voice and Speech class that knew what a hair shirt was. There is a comfort in knowing that I've done it once. I've done exercises where two people run straight at each other, and then one person drops to the floor and rolls, and the other person leaps over them. It's scary because it's based on momentum, instead of on stopping and sizing up the situation. But actually, if you do the thing that seems to be "safer" and hesitate, that's when injuries occur. "Your confidence will keep you safe," is the phrase I've heard. I feel like that's closely related to putting up a show. If you stop to think about the magnitude, you might fall and break your ankle. You just have to go. On my studio evaluations from last semester, one of my teachers wrote that doubt is my only adversary now... and I've thought about that a good deal and I think there's a huge amount of truth in that. But what hits it home for me (always), is the unshakable belief that I am being called to do this... so if I doubt myself, I am doubting God. That's what gets me. That's what makes me push through it all. Desperate, clenching, stubborn trust in God.

I am what I am, and what I am is...

...the happiest.

First day of studio. Three hours of auditions for the musical I'm dramaturging afterward. (Useful for me in many ways; "I don't think she's right for this show... BUT she might make an excellent Pierrette for mine!") More play-reading afterward. Everyone's attempting to get their teams together, and thus it's the crazy season of people-approaching-people. PHTS kids are very difficult to say "No" to because they're so GOOD at seducing you into their project. (The passionately talking about the piece, and why they need YOU and YOUR EXPERTISE.) I might be working on six shows again, thanks to a dramaturgy request that completely surprised me (someone who I didn't think would ever approach me to work on his show). Six is my limit. I swear. I will not go over six shows. I will not go over six shows. I will not go over six shows. (I did six for the past two semesters, so maybe I will simply always be at that number.) We'll see how the Production Calendar shakes out. I did most of my designer-seducing last semester.

Today was being back in that building, surrounded by the best people. No, really. Simply the best people. Inspiring. Stunning. Terrifying. Dizzying. Surprising. Thrilling. Overwhelming. All in the best of all possible ways.

I will now go swoon, pass out on my bed, and dream about dancing on the moon.

Here I go again on my own...

1. CLASSES START TOMORROW AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are my "academic" days... where I take classes that are not through PHTS. I kick it off with my really awesome Reinventions of Love class. You might say, "Colleen, how do you know the class is really awesome? It hasn't started yet." I say, first of all, the class is called Reinventions of Love, second of all, it's being taught by one of those incredible teachers from PHTS that I rave on and on about. Even though it's not a PHTS class. I will likely be swamped with work for this class in the best of all possible ways. Thirdly, I've chatted with the teacher about this class on multiple occasions and he's so excited for it (it's brand new). And, fourth, it will be filled with awesome people who I like, such as Lindsay.

Second, I JUST got off the waitlist and into Tisch's Playwrighting Practicum. I did a lot of playwrighting before coming to NYU, both in high school and in summer programs (one that was founded by Sondheim, ftw!), but haven't taken class in it since--simply because I had a lot of classroom background in playwrighting and wanted to use those hours for something else. I'm very excited to go back to it now, though. And I get to daydream about potential plays to write. (Really, the fact is that every single play I've started for a while now has been the same play trying to get out in various ways. It's always "guy has been left by girl who was somehow his muse and interacts with some shade of her to confront his grief"... and then something happens. Perhaps that one should actually come out and I can stop writing it.)

My other non-PHTS class I don't have until Thursday, but that's the elective Masked Drama, which I've wanted to take for ages but it's never fit into my schedule until now.

2. Stephanie has finished moving in, we've had our first visitor (who brought us cookies), and we've decorated the walls. Still a giant blank spot on the floor, because that room's actually too big for the amount of furniture we have. We're considering an installation art piece made out of the random things we have from the fact that we're in theater school. (Stephanie: I have strips of red vinyl. Me: I have a self-inflating whoopee cushion.)

3. Saw Rock of Ages tonight for the second time. (I got a comp.) Rock of Ages is probably the most ridiculous thing on Broadway right now, but since we all know I still want to be a rock star, I not-so-secretly love it. It doesn't try to be anything it's not. It says, "Hey, let's have a good time by belting out 80's metal. We know our characters are shallow and our plot is very thin, but we're gonna ROCK IT." And they do. I appreciate that honesty. Also, any show that starts Act II with "The Final Countdown" and ends with "Don't Stop Believin'" is okay in my book. Also, one of my teachers worked on it.

4. Stepping outside of my apartment today, I smelled the distinctly New York smell that I remember from high school, when I would visit or do summer programs. It was a warm reminder of when I first fell in love with this city, and how much I dreamed of actually living here. Going through an old binder, I found a paper I wrote for Becker that was dated November 15th, 2005, that expressed my wish to study directing at PHTS. I had my first production meeting of the semester today (for the musical I mentioned I'm dramaturging), which was a joy. Later in the day I got a call from my costume designer (I guess still potential costume designer, since we don't have a production calendar yet, but she's a second year and therefore less bound by it and she's thrillingly excited for the piece), which turned into an immediate coffee date where we walked around the Village and Soho, discussing the play, and art, and how dissatisfied we are with the lack of care in today's world, and loneliness, and vulnerability, and performance style, and William Morris. (And I was able to identify the brand of trenchcoat she was wearing by texture alone.) Both these meetings were nice was to ease into the semester, and re-energize myself on the projects.

5. In church yesterday, we sang "Lift Every Voice and Sing". Hymns in hymnals are often categorized by theme ("Easter" or "Jesus is Lord" or "Christian Life"), and I noticed that, in the Episcopal Hymnal 1982, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" is categorized in "Christian Responsibility". I thought that was beautiful--the idea that it is not just our joy, but our responsibility, to left every voice and sing 'til earth and heaven ring.

Also, the sermon was on suffering vs. the Lord of Abundance, with a special appearance by Job. Clearly right up my alley.

6. I think as Christians we are called to love ourselves. To acknowledge the sin, yes, but only for the purpose of repentance. Dwelling in our sin saying "we suck we suck we suck" completely takes away what Christ did on the cross, which was freeing us from our sin. So we must love ourselves. And we must love others more. And we must love God most.




I think this is going to be a very interesting semester, to say the least.

About the rich, ripe, round, red rosy apples they call forbidden fruit!

This is a giant post about the Fall of Man. I am not a learned theologian (though I can hear Rhonda's voice popping in telling me I need to go to seminary). I don't come to a giant dramatic conclusion. But I have been thinking, a LOT.

I had never really paid a huge amount of attention to the Fall of Man. I mean, sure, I knew it just as well as any other kid who went to Sunday School every week. My senior year of high school, I played Eve in The Apple Tree (my only leading role and it had to do with religion. Telling), so I looked more into it then, but that was more based on Mark Twain's Diaries of Adam and Eve (which are GREAT). But as far as the doctrinal significance of that moment, it's seemed very much like a given, to me. "Okay, I get it, Adam plunged us all into sin forever, we suck, we're totally depraved, I get it, Calvin," (as Calvin shoots me a look from my dresser) "BUT there is prevenient grace that frees us from our sin. Get it? Got it. Good." (I need a Wesley mask to face off with my Calvin mask. Battle of the Johns.)

However, I just read CS Lewis' Problem of Pain, which is essentially "CS Lewis explains Christian doctrine without using buzzwords and occasionally even laughing." It got me thinking a LOT about the Fall of Man, translating Lewis' thoughts into my own language, and I actually lost a lot of sleep because I could not stop thinking about it.

The story goes:

Adam and Eve are happy in the Garden. Yay Eden.
There's the tree of the "knowledge of good and evil" that God says, "Don't eat the fruit of that tree or you shall die."
The snake comes and tempts Eve, saying, "You won't die, you'll become like God, knowing good and evil."
Eve tempts Adam.
Adam and Eve go "chomp!"
The first thing they realize is that they're naked and they sew fig leaves together.
Then something must happen and they take their newfound "clothes" off, because then they hear God walking in the Garden and they hide because they're naked again. So they hide.
God asks Adam where he is.
Adam says, "I heard you, but I was naked, so I hid."
God then knows they've eaten of the tree and curses them all.

I will NOT discuss "whose fault it is". Conservative Christians take to blaming Eve and thus put down women. I'm not a feminist by any stretch of the imagination, but this is really just using the passage to blame women, because Eve is technically the second link in the chain... if you want to blame anyone, blame snakes. (Besides, when a snake comes up to you and tempts you in a Fosse-style dance number... oh wait, that's The Apple Tree again, sorry.) I'll refer to the choice as being Adam's, because that's how I've read theologians talking about it, from back before they were using the passage to suppress women, when they just didn't acknowledge women. The blame game is stupid to me in life, so I'm not particularly interested in it in my theology.

To me, there seem to be two major things at play here. One, there is the idea of "knowledge of good and evil". Two, there is the question of obedience. I'll tackle "knowledge of good and evil" first, as that's what I know the littlest about.

It would be easy to read that God was being manipulative and tricky telling them that the fruit of this tree would make them die when they clearly did not die. However, it goes against a basic Christian belief (namely, the belief in God's goodness) to do so. There are many other kinds of death besides that of the physical body, and I believe that is what God refers to in that statement. That comment actually makes a lot of sense if you look at what happened. They made a choice that could not be undone, that changed the essence of their being. For even if God had NOT evicted them from the Garden, their experience of it would have been forever altered and significantly less pleasant.

What I find the most interesting is that the first experience after eating the apple is shame.

It is not, like the snake implies, a sense of knowledge that thrones Adam and Eve above all else. In fact, it's the opposite. Being a nerd, I relate it to the Total Perspective Vortex in the five-book trilogy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. The Total Perspective Vortex on Frogstar World B is a torture device that produces a scale model of the entire universe to give the person inside of it a sense of proportion - the vast infinity of all of creation, and his or her own minuscule position inside of it with a "You Are Here" marker. This knowledge generally makes the person inside go insane and die.

The argument could be made that shame being the first emotion after eating the apple means that the human race is naturally inclined towards evil. I am not convinced by this argument, because I don't believe God would create anything naturally inclined towards evil. I think this, the first sin, brought evil into the world. Pandora's box, in a way. I think knowledge of what they'd done and the significance of that are certainly enough to cover the shame and everything else that happened. Evil was actually created by man. God merely allowed the possibility of it.

But why would a good God allow the possibility of evil?

And here I move into part two, the question of obedience, God's nature and the part that kept me up all night (aka: GOD IS MORE AWESOME THAN I EVER REALIZED).

Working with the Christian idea of God, there are a few basic essences of God being God that should be stated:

1. God is good. God does nothing that is evil.
2. God is sovereign. There is nothing that is out of God's control. This contains both the idea of God's omnipotence (God can do anything) and omniscience (God knows everything).
3. God is self-contained. This isn't discussed much, but God has no needs. God does not depend on anything but Itself. In many Christian theologies, the doctrine of the Trinity illustrates that God is entirely self-sufficient. God's needs, God's desires are all met by God. God isn't lonely. God isn't bored.

I think the true goodness and awesomeness of God lies in that third point. Because it then follows that anything God does to reach out of Itself is a choice.

This is huge. I know of nothing more powerful than a choice. I know of nothing stronger than a choice. I know of nothing more beautiful than I choice. I know of nothing more romantic than a choice. People talk about "destiny", "fate", "we were meant to be together", and yes, yes, yes, I hear you. But those are responses to human need, desires, and emotion, and all of those things are fickle. Tell me that you choose me even beyond those temporary inclinations and then we'll talk. A full-bodied choice can do anything. Tales are told about the power of the human will--the human will has its power from choice. I'm a big fan of choices. They're terrifying because of how much they hold, but they're essential.

God, not being subject to such human whims, operates soley on choice. There is a lot of language in the Bible about being "chosen people", but I think that scripture has been read primarily as "we're better than others", not in awe of the miracle that the Lord of everything, the only entirely self-sufficient being, has chosen us. Has chosen to love us. Has chosen to desire us. And, if He needs us, He only does because He has chosen to. When He says He will never forsake us, it is because His choice is so strong that He can assure that.

Wow.

God, being good, and having created Man in His image (probably the most potent, mysterious phrase in all of scripture), gave Man the ability to chose, which is what we generally refer to as "free will". He gave Man the full ability to chose, holding nothing back and offering the strongest and most dangerous choice - the choice between God and Man.

As Eden is depicted, there is a relationship between God and Man that is unparalleled today. God pours out His love and attention to Man, who in turn pours his love and attention to God. It's the ideal relationship in a basic sense. Since Man's love and attention is fixed solely to God, it follows that Man does not sin, because if he follows the will of God, there is no sin, because the will of God is good. In fact, really the only the Man can do wrong is disobey.

"Obedience" has a negative connotation where I am. I'm sure that connotation is different in different circles, but where I am in New York it summons the idea of mindless sheep, of people with no backbone who only want an easy life, and of people who want others to make choices for them. And, indeed, the call to obey has been used for evil plenty of times in the past, and even still today, even by members of the church. The command to obey is what has caused people to view religion as the "opiate for the masses" or as a way of controlling people. It is probably the most misused commandment. It's easy to manipulate people with it.

But, I'll say, if I ever get another tattoo (there are no current plans, for the record, I've just found myself writing this on tonight), it would be the word "obedience" on my right wrist. This would probably be a surprise to most, as I've never been the most obedient person. I'm not at all the most rebellious, to be sure, but the idea of being obedient to someone just because they're, say, your parent, has never really made sense to me. (Now, to be fair, my parents were never really the "because I said so!" kind of parents. They were generally very reasonable. I think this probably made me rather reasonable. And often I have acted in obedience, but not actually out of any feeling that I should be obedient, but that obeying made sense at that time.) But, since I trust and believe in God's goodness, I know that when I disobey God (which is often), it is because I am letting my fears and my pride get in the way of the work that needs to be done. Obeying God is radical today, and is an act of rebellion in the eyes of every single person who has used religion to control. Actually obeying God means loving with a love so radical that it threatens the people in control. It scares them. People who obey God are either lauded as saints or thrown in prisons. Or both. Funny how often that happens. Remember the one human who truly obeyed God was deemed a threat to all authorities.

However, obeying God is very, very difficult for us to do. It is uncomfortable, it is painful, it is contrary to a lot that seems natural for us.

Why?

Because of that first instance of disobedience. The choice that was presented was the Other (being God) or the Self. And Adam chose the Self, creating evil, setting sin loose, and condemning Mankind to a fixation on the Self. God knew that once it started, it would never stop. For God to have undone that one action, while possible for God, would have meant taking away our free will, for with freedom comes consequence. God "cursing" Adam and Eve may have been less of a curse and more of a proclamation of what inevitably follows such an act, because what they once were had died, and a new species with death and evil had been created. This is where the "by dust you were created and by dust you shall return" phrase comes in, which suggests that there was no death before this moment. 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 says "..by man came death" and "..as in Adam all die." By a mystery I will probably never fully understand, this moment caused evil and death, and now here we are today. Still disobeying (because every sin can be called disobeying God), but with a more terrible variety than Adam could have imagined.

And the very root of our sin is in that one choice.

Self, or Other.

Human suffering, as I understand it, in our disagreements up to our wars, is a result of imperfect love. We loved perfectly in the Garden, but since that choice, we've been unable to do so, because perfect love puts sole focus on the Other over the Self.

I have to pause for a moment to speak a little bit on the negative effects of altruism. I have an index card on my wall with "Denial of the self through altruism is just as bad as denial of the self through purposefully harmful means," which was my theme for my final Design project first year, chosen from a list of things I wrote down that I believed. The project involved people standing on chairs, a lot of imagery about self-mutilation, suicide, insanity, and the mental health problems doctors face... and ended with an image of a gummy bear hanging itself with the word "ALTRUISM" over it and the song "On The Good Ship Lollipop". And I stand by that project, because it's true. There's a very real situation where a caretaker can pour so much in to caring for someone else, particularly if there's medical issues involved (physical or mental), that they cannot take care of themselves anymore and end up depressed. This is a fairly common occurrence in teenagers now, because a majority of teenagers are depressed, and the duty to take are of a friend who is depressed and possibly suicidal is real. And if that friend is relying only on you, then there is a life weighing on you, and the effects that can have are astounding. There is a way that altruism CAN become a form of self-mutilation. It's something that seemed inescapable, because if you stay, you'll continue to crush yourself, and if you go, the other person will crush themselves. And there's the guilt factor of, "Well, you're supposed to help others," that prevents you from ducking out, as well. I dealt with this for a good chuck of junior and senior year. Then I met the most incredible person who ended up acting as my long-distance therapist, in a way, and gave me the best advice: "If you find yourself getting angry, that's when you need to pull yourself out of it. That's when you need to say, 'I love you, but we need to find someone else to help you.'" I don't know how to navigate this situation in the theoretical - that's how I navigated it in the practical. There are ways that we get wrapped into pain that is not even sacrificial, because it does not help anyone. And that is a huge, huge danger.

That said.

People might object with me on this, but hear me out. Perfect love (use of word "perfect" inspired by Wesley's "striving towards perfection") puts sole focus on the Other over the Self. It is true that the the Self DOES benefit from this love, but only if the Self is willing not to benefit at all. It's this strange little paradox that crosses a lot of religious boundaries... that the first must be last, that to gain life one must lose it. (This is explained aptly in the Harry Potter series--Harry must be willing to entirely lose his life, completely, for the good of others, which gives him the power to ultimately defeat Lord Voldemort.)

Such love is dangerous. I said I wouldn't do this, but I know of no better example, so I'll touch on it briefly: Toby, from Sweeney Todd. He loves fiercely and as close to perfect as anything I know. He adores Lovett. He would do anything for her. Anything. Toby would do anything for Lovett even if it meant hurting himself. Think: what's worse to Toby; for Toby to be hurt or for Mrs. Lovett to be hurt? For Mrs. Lovett to be hurt. And again, what's worse to Toby; for Mrs. Lovett to hate him, or for Mrs. Lovett to be hurt? The former is devastating... but the latter is worse. (I have textual evidence to back up my conclusions, but I'll spare you the indepth textual analysis. If you're interested, though, I'm happy to oblige. Also, if you don't know Sweeney, I apologize and invite you over for tea and a movie.)

I believe that Toby is the most powerful and dangerous person on stage, far more dangerous than Sweeney. You can do a lot more damage to someone else if you are not afraid of hurting yourself. Your punch will be devastating if you're willing to shatter your hand. I actually think that Toby could have changed the ending of the piece had he not been hiding in the sewers.

And thus we come to it.

Toby was hiding in the sewers.

The cause of much screaming and angst on my part, because I absolutely understand why. It is the reason I run away to New York (my Lovett is in Virginia). It is because the situation became too much to handle. ("Wildly he tries to break down the door. It is too solid for him. Whimpering, he stands paralyzed.") It is too much to begin to comprehend and causes denial and retreat. Understandably so, but still we are left as almost-heroes. Holding and comforting the Self at the very moment where if we pushed forward, we could perform what people now label as miracles.

Oh, Adam. We can try so hard, but you condemned us to this. It takes an extraordinary amount of will to escape this. The strongest choice in the world. Those who we call "saints" are those who have worked to put their whole focus on the Other over the Self, trying to reverse the choice that Adam made. Impossible, because of our nature, but some valiant attempts have been made. (Though the saints are always insisting in their own sin, because they are hugely aware of every moment where the Self is not pouring out to the Other. Which is most moments.)

In creating evil in the world, suffering was born. Thus, suffering is also a human creation, which God uses for good. God does not cause suffering, we do that well enough on our own--it is God who swoops in with the light in the midst of it.

And the thing that gets me the most is that God chose to embrace us within all that we wrought within His perfect creation. God chose to make Himself human. God chose to limit Himself to the experience of humanity, fully take on the evils of suffering that we created, and keep loving. Acting always with love, not just for one or few, but for all. Toby's love inspired violence, at the end, because he was fighting violence against one person. But Christ fought violence against all, even those who committed acts of violence against him, and so responded with only love, towards all.

You may say, "But Christ was God." Yes. But Christ was God, limited. Christ was God chosing to embrace all of the desires and whims that He is not generally subject to (being self-contained), all of the whims we face every day. The only thing retained was God's will, in a way... in Christ's complete obedience to God-the-Father's will. (Confused yet?) Christ showed us that it is possible to be released from sin and death, through his life, death, and spectacular resurrection. It just so happens that it's the hardest thing for us to do. Still, though, I can knowingly say that there is a great joy in suffering for someone you love.

Christ completes this cycle as mentioned in 1 Corinthians: For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

God continues to make all of Mankind's hideous trespasses into something glorious.

This is, for me, the beginning of an investigation. While I've had the shape of it for as long as I can remember, it's been surprising useful to look into the specifics as I continue to work to live in obedience to God's will.

Something I will note without coming to a conclusion about it because it still confuses me hugely: I know one person in particular who seems to live in the exact opposite way of the saints as described above. As far as I can figure out, it is like he has accepted selfish intent as a given and decided to use it instead of be enslaved by it. Very often, I've seen him use that selfishness to incredibly good and loving ends. It is fascinating and maddening and contrary to everything I've ever been taught or believed. I cannot tell if it's saintly or demonic. It challenges me, and for that I am grateful.

I would also like to take this moment to note, for whatever significance it may hold, that I am allergic to apples.

I LOVE NEW YORK CITY OH YEAH NEW YORK CITY

One fine day before break, I was at PHTS on a day when several students were saying "goodbye" to PHTS before they left for winter break. This was often accompanied by tears. The Associate Director of PHTS then asked me if I was going to cry. I said, "No. What'll happen is I'll leave and sleep for a long time and then you'll send out an email about curriculum and I'll get extremely excited and post a blog about how much I love PHTS."

I LOVE PHTS!

I was cruising somewhere around Newark at 1:50 when the email arrived on my phone. I start typing madly on my phone while trying not to flail because someone was in the seat next to me. I typed and was about ready to send my response asking about Voice and Speech... when we entered the tunnel into New York and I lost service. Email ended up being sent as I was getting off the train at 2:17.

No one can ever accuse me of having a lack of enthusiasm.

I sometimes wonder/it wouldn't surprise me if PHTS faculty take bets on our responses to these kinds of things. Like, "I bet this person, this person, and this person, will respond immediately." "I bet this person will ask a question about this." Or, "I wonder how many minutes it will take for Colleen to respond asking something about Voice and Speech?" I cannot gush on about what classes I'm actually taking yet, as that's yet to be finalized especially because of (always) my voice and speech obsession, but there's some old favorites from last semester and some exciting new classes. I'll be back in that building soon and I'm tickled about it. Lots of grinning happening today (slightly unfortunate because that's still slightly painful because I'm over two weeks out of my surgery and still have swelling on the right side. Not really visible, but definitely there, opening my mouth to eat is still sometimes tricky. I really just want full range of motion of my jaw again. That's all).

I went to run some errands (K-Mart!) and sat down on the island in the middle of the Astor/Lafayette/8th Street intersection (by the Alamo) and just grinned. That's it. Just grinned. One of the things the whole ARGS budget trouble has done is reminded me of how lucky I am to be here and get the kind of education I'm getting. As the start-of-the-semester emails from various teachers and administrators have started rolling in, seeing their names in my inbox has lit my heart with, "Oh my goodness, I love them!"

Speaking of ARGS, the Governing Board meeting was today. I haven't gotten the official updates yet, but this has popped up on the Progress-Index: "Chesterfield schools chief will not cut Appomattox governor's school". Not much there except the superintendent saying he does not intend to cut Chesterfield's participation in either Governor's School. YES! There's still a lot of budget concerns to work out beyond that, but that's a sigh of relief... and a sign of sanity within this whole issue.

Lots to do before classes start. Mainly because I know there's no hope of things like "slacker first classes", particularly with one of my academic classes. I've had the teacher before and I'll be enormously surprised if he DOESN'T assign us five books to read after the first class.

Now I'm going to go work on the 8 page production office proposal form that's due tomorrow at 6pm.

love it love it love it. Welcome back, indeed!

Carry me home, straight into your arms...

August 22nd, 2007, 3:20pm (leaving early the next morning): Maybe I should start packing.

May 9th, 2008, 1:14am (after seeing Gypsy): I have been so busy these past few days that I have not started packing. I leave in the morning.


I don't have a particularly good track record, do I? I think this one is pretty good, packed by 12:30am when I leave this house at 6:30am. I'll be returning to Switzerland New York on an 8am train. Caught two Richmond theater shows in the past two days. Of course. Lots of reminders of things I love. Now I'm running off like Toby from Sweeney Todd or Aaron from Coram Boy.

Sleep now.

EDIT: Immediately after I posted this, the song the lyrics that are titling this blog is from came on my iPod shuffle.

This is where we began, being what we can

I visited ARGS today, which involved me driving to ARGS alone for the first time. It was great, until I got off at Jeff Davis instead of 95. And then I ended up going onto 288 when leaving because I realized I didn't know how to get back to Bon Air. Suburban navigation. It will always baffle me. (In my defense, I didn't live in Bon Air when I was going back and forth to ARGS every day for four years.)

Anyway.

It was delightful to be back their during a school day, largely for the "some things never change" factor. I sat in on Show Choir working on the number "Hair" which was being revamped because Becker thought it was too sterile. ("This whole show has no basis in..." "Anything remotely show choir?" "Right. It's like... show choir performance art.") He was, of course, forgetting the lyrics/making new ones up all over the place. I, of course, had been jamming to that song on the highway on the way over.

Becker: Okay, let's take it from, "the splendor, the wonder, the uh-buh-duh." [The lyrics are "the beauty, the splendor, the wonder of my hair."]
Me: Some things never change.

Becker: What are you eating?
Me: Food?
Lindsey: She hasn't eaten anything yet.
Me (in a British accent for no apparent reason): I haven't eaten anything all day!
Becker (glaring): Some things never change.

Becker: Let's do it once as a roll-off, and then once in unison, and then Colleen and I will decide which looks best.

While the black box now has florescent lights (I voiced my stout disapproval), and Becker's office has been completely rearranged (the fire marshall apparently came in and had some words), much is the same. "Colleen - Theatre and Its Double" is still written on his white board from when I borrowed it two and a half years ago. Stoneking still has his death boots. Show choir is still bodyrolling. Walking into the sub-basement, you still hear someone playing a piano sonata and someone practicing drums and someone scatting.

I ended up staying there longer than I meant to (because I NEVER stick around school buildings, NEVER EVER) because I ended up in a meeting about the budget and board meetings and that kind of thing. It was a handful of students, a couple alumni, and one of the teachers, chatting about a meeting coming up and questions to be raised and how to present things, etc. I won't go into the specifics of everything here, but what I will say is this:

ARGS has worked through a lot as it has struggled to get on its feet and establish itself and its programs. The crisis it is currently facing with budget cuts threatens all of that work and is probably the biggest crisis ARGS has experienced to date. And what does ARGS do? It takes an awful situation, and engages the students. The students, who love the school and want to do something. The meeting was all about finding out all the information we can, analyzing it to raise questions, and then presenting those questions in an effective, informed manner. Some of this analysis is even really intense classroom math things that I absolutely didn't understand, but the more math-minded people were jumping at. In short, I saw ARGS taking this scary situation and using it as an educational opportunity. Incredible. Inspiring. Especially when I know a lot of people (not at ARGS) actually just want the students to shut up and be quiet.


Snapped this on the white board in the black box (heh). At the top there's a bit of IPA. At the bottom there's a bit about the voice. And in the middle, the word "semiotics", which we at PHTS tend to call "composition". I have no idea why it's written there, but it made me grin. ("The unison looks cleaner right now, but I like the idea of the roll-off because they come into unison for "haaaair" and that contrast is really exciting. And the coming together makes semiotic sense.") It really should not be a surprise I turned out how I did.

Baby, don't wait for the moon...

I was on my way to the dentist this morning and was not particularly in the best of moods. I have not been sleeping well (read as: I have not been sleeping). I have been completely unable to turn off my brain. I have been extremely discouraged by the lack of humanity in the comments and discussion about potential Governor's School closure. I have been thinking a lot about the fall of man, selfishness, and Toby from Sweeney Todd. I was considering doing a post about how we cannot escape the consequences of the fall using Toby as an example (so much anguish in my life about why Toby ran away and wasn't there when Lovett needed him, because I absolutely understand why and wish I didn't), which would probably include a deconstruction of the stage direction, "Wildly he tries to break down the door. It is too solid for him. Whimpering, he stands paralyzed." Then I decided that spending hours writing out Sweeney Todd analysis, while comforting, would indicate that I'd regressed at least two years. I have reached the point that comes in every break, the, "Okay. Done with break. I need to get back to New York immediately," point.

Then I was on my way to the dentist, which I was not looking forward to, as much as I do love and respect everyone at my dentist's office. (No really, they're extraordinary people.) But as there is still some swelling and pain in my masseter muscle, I wasn't particularly looking forward to keeping my mouth open for the time required for a cleaning.

But then I got an email, and I can very happily say:

I am directing The Maker of Dreams by Oliphant Down next semester.

(yes, Oliphant.)

So now everything is preproduction work. Start some composing. Pull out the commedia books that I brought home but haven't looked at for fear of unapproved heartbreak. Hunt for images hunt for images hunt for images. (Emily's mother gave me an alphabet book for Christmas and when I looked at it I was like, "This is SO Maker of Dreams.") Go to ARGS tomorrow and squeal over it with Becker, the only other person in the world who knows this play.


And back to New York on Thursday. Mmm... back to real winter. My favorite.

Pierrot: I can't sing when it's cold.

Pierrette: Ah, you're like the kettle. He can't sing when it's cold, either.

--The Maker of Dreams. Whee!

There's no song for this one.

I have spent the day, unfortunately, reading comments on the RTD article. I would like to take the liberty to repost one of them. When I first read this comment, I thought it was posted in sarcasm or jest. Reading subsequent comments, I realized it was posted in all seriousness.

Ending CPS participation the Governor’s School is a good start, but here is a short list of some other expenditures that CPS can eliminate immediately:

1. All English as Second Language (ESL) instruction

2. Individual “aides” for students with disabilities who accompany a single student for the entire day

3.Chorus

4. Art

5. Theater

6. Teaching Chinese (or any other language other than English) in elementary schools

7. Breakfast programs

Once you break out the red pen and start eliminating the non-essentials, its really not that hard to detrmine what can be cut.

The real support this comment gathered was terrifying.

I think I will print this out, and post it somewhere prominent in my room or carry it around with me next semester. It is a visceral reminder of what we are still fighting and why I do what I do. Thank you for that.

Or I can start a scream across the whole damn South, and never shut my mouth until they understand!

I'd like to take a moment to talk about my high school.

I am a proud graduate of Appomattox Regional Governor's School for the Arts and Technology in Petersburg, VA. I'm a Musical Theater Major from the class of 2007.

Hold up.

Wait a minute.

Major? In high school?

Yes.

Appomattox Regional Governor's School (hencefoth abbreviated as "ARGS") is a magnet school drawing from 14 different school district across central Virginia. It's a full-time school, so students take both general academic courses (English, Mathematics, Science, History, Languages), and specialized courses in various arts or technology-based disciplines. Each student is of a certain "focus area" or "major"... I believe the current existing focus areas are: vocal music, instrumental music, theater arts, dance, visual arts, literary arts, and technology. (When I was at ARGS, "theater arts" was split into "Theater" and "Musical Theater"... I believe they are one major, now.) Within each focus area, you can specify further, and you are also able to take classes in other focus areas as well. In fact, any "arts"-related major is required to take a "technology"-focused class, and any "technology"-related major is required to take an "arts"-focused class. Admission to ARGS is through an application and adjudication process. You must be in good academic standing, and you also must go through an audition or portfolio review. It's actually rather similar to applying to college.

ARGS is part of the "gifted education system" of Virginia, which I have a few words about.

When I was in second grade, I had just moved to Virginia from southern Maryland (just outside of DC), where the public school system was, frankly, better. I'd been doing things far more advanced in 1st grade. And thus, I was in 2nd grade in Virginia, and I was failing math. Yeah. Makes no sense to me either. Apparently they decided I was bored, and put me in Advanced Math, and suddenly I was fine. How they figured that out, I have no idea. So I toddled along in Advanced Math for a while, and eventually they took me and several of my Advanced Math friends out of class and had us take what I remember to be this really, really easy test. Apparently what this test was was an "aptitude" test, to see whether we'd do well in "gifted education". My results showed that I would, so I was offered a place in Manchester Middle School's "Center Based Gifted" (CBG) program. And after attending open houses, I decided to go to Manchester. Largely because they took more field trips.

Here is what I'll say about CBG.

I had phenomenal teachers. Really, I did. I had phenomenal teachers and phenomenal peers. And I had a great time in class, learning a lot more than I suspect I would have in a "normal" program. And great teachers. I mean it. Truly great. (I have been blessed to have had an unusual number of incredible teachers throughout my life.)

However... here was my problem with the whole system:

The system seemed to say, "Let's gather up all the gifted students with high test scores, and shove them into an already overcrowded public middle school that's not doing particularly well so they will raise the school's test scores." There was a huge socio-economic divide between the "gifted" kids and the "non-gifted" kids and the tensions ran HIGH. The school did not encourage integration--quite the opposite. The only class I had with non-CBG kids was Orchestra. We had a separate lunch period. The hallway tension between the two groups was unmistakable, though, and the insults hurled were potent. And the overcrowding was awful. I distinctly remember one class change where a teacher had to stop everyone in the hallway because students were being trampled.

Again, the education I got was phenomenal. The environment it happened in, I hated. Absolutely hated. Add to that that it was middle school, and middle school is a horrible time in an adolescent's life. I adopted an extremely negative world view in middle school. Seethingly negative. For a lot of reasons. I was easily the most pessimistic, cynical person I knew. I was good at playing the little ray of sunshine when I had to (at church), but it was not a happy place, and not the least of my pessimistic theories of the world was that, to the education system at large, I only mattered for my score on the standardized test. (Which, looking back on it... is probably true. Of course, there were people within that system, namely those magnificent teachers, who cared about me far more than I would let my bitter, jaded self believe or accept.)

The straw that broke the camel's back was, though, the extreme importance placed on schoolwork. Which, duh, it's an education system, of course, but with the added burden of "being gifted", it grew to outrageous proportions. One night, I was sobbing because I couldn't think of a topic for my science fair project (science has never, ever been my forte). And that night, I thought there was something distinctly wrong feeling like a failure as a person because of a science fair, which, I suspected, was not THAT important in the grand scheme of things. And that was the night I decided, "I want out." I did not want to participate in this system of "gifted education" anymore, because it was turning me into a grade-obsessed creature. I suspected there was more to life than that. So thank you, but goodbye.

When I entered eigth grade, the focus became on, "Apply to high school!" which translated to, "You're thirteen! Decide what you're going to do with your life!" Awful. Terrible. My county, Chesterfield County, had contracted the herpes of gifted education. "Specialty centers", much like the CBG program, had sprung up in EVERY SINGLE HIGH SCHOOL IN THE COUNTY. I'm not kidding. Two of them had IB programs. Monacan had the "center for the Humanities". There was the Clover Hill Math/Science program that inevitably over half of the CBG graduating class went to every year (all my friends ended up there - I knew there was no way in HELL for me). There was a "leadership" program, whatever that meant, there was even "Spanish immersion". The idea of going to your home high school, as a "normal high school student" was shocking. Most people in CBG applied to at least five high schools. The idea of going into another program in this kind of environment was sickening to me. Educators harped on the "school within a school" thing as getting the "best of both worlds". Maybe in some Uptopian school, but that was NEVER my experience. I would have loved the CBG program if it was in its own school. Its own building. There was one program, Monacan's Humanities program, that sounded vaguely interesting to me, and I applied more because of peer pressure than anything.

Then there were the Governor's Schools.

I was skeptical, because I was skeptical about gifted education in general, but I went to the open houses of both of the Governor's Schools I was eligible for. Those were Maggie Walker for Government and International Studies, and ARGS. Both of these schools, unlike the "school within a school" system, were entirely composed of students who had applied and been accepted. Maggie Walker, I knew, it was well-established as a school. ARGS, I had heard distant rumors about. It was brand-new (it was actually three years old when I was in eighth grade). I'd heard crazy stories about the arts kids like... never going to class, or something. (I remember asking one of my Math teachers about that when specialty high schools were mentioned in class. He said that wasn't true, that they did go to class, but a lot of class was focused around individual artistic projects. What I didn't know then, but know now, was that his son was the then star of the ARGS Musical Theater department. Graduated the year before I came to ARGS.)

I went to Maggie Walker's open house, but I wasn't particularly interested, much to the chagrin of my mother. It seemed great, but it was the kind of place I'd sob over a paper again, I felt, and I didn't want that. So I didn't apply. Again, much to the chagrin of my mother, who felt it would be a great place for me, as I'd participated in the Model UN there before (I represented India on Disarmament and International Security) and had a strong interest in being a lawyer.

But I'd gotten the information sheet on ARGS... and I was intrigued. More intrigued than I tried to admit to people. And I wanted to apply to ARGS for musical theater.

This was actually really funny.

Because while I had grown up listening to Rodgers and Hammerstein and Andrew Lloyd Webber (I knew every word of Joseph, even all the colors of his coat), and had always shown an interest in musical theater, I had never done any musical theater. Ever. I'd actually never done any theater. I scoffed at my middle school's drama department which did things like, "Who Wants To Win a 20 Dollar Bill, hosted by Geek Dorkman!" and refused to get involved on principle. (MMS developed a real drama department after I left. Of course.) I'd never taken classes because I was in Orchestra. Unless you count the musical theater summer thing I did after 4th grade, where we did an American Girl play and selections from Cats (I played Mungojerry and my "choreography" was running around on stage making a mess... but it WAS the first of many, many times I was cast male), or the Moods'n'Tunes musicals at church, where I sang "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree" with my father, I'd never been in a show. And it's true. I didn't know what a rehearsal process was by any stretch of the imagination. ARGS was the place for the kids who did shows in Richmond theater. I didn't even know Richmond theater existed. In fact, I am pretty sure I showed no serious aptitude or interest in going into theater as a career until I started looking at going to ARGS for high school. The only thing I could trace it to was Halloween 2001, when I saw Sweeney Todd, which was the start of the most overtaking obsession I have experienced in my life thus far. I saw Sweeney Todd, and I became incredibly, incredibly curious about musical theater.

So, I would apply to ARGS for musical theater.

My parents were very confused, and I seem to remember them telling me I wouldn't get in if I applied for musical theater. I could apply for vocal music, or literary arts and probably get in. Or even violin. Or even technology! But musical theater? Really?!

Yup. I wanted to apply for musical theater.

And I am very, very stubborn.

I went to the open house. I remember very little about it except wandering into the "black box" (which I thought was the coolest thing in the WORLD having worn all black since Februrary of 6th grade--I had no idea that a "black box" is a very common concept in theater nowadays) where the theater and musical theater majors were leading improv games. It was "Freeze", as I recall. And I watched, and laughed, and this girl, who I believe was Emma, came up to me and said, "Are you applying to ARGS?" I nodded. "What's your focus area?" "Musical theater," I answered. Probably extremely quietly, as I had no conception of making noise above a certain decibel level in those days. Speaking wasn't my thing. "Oh, you'll be PERFECT!" she said, and suddenly she dragged me onto the stage.

...

...

...

I had no idea what was going on. I'd figured out the rules of the game, yes, but I was on stage and had no idea what to do with that. Cue: terror.

I ended up improv-ing with another eighth grader who had been randomly pulled onto the stage, an extremely tall boy who I'd seen at the Maggie Walker Open House (familiar face! Yes! Comfort!) And it was less improv, and more of us talking about Metallica on stage for a very short amount of time because it got very painful very early on and someone called, "Freeze!"

I was shaky and scared, but TOTALLY applying to this school.

Application? No problem. Essay? Pfft.

Audition?

Another story.

Based on my audition, I have no idea how I got into ARGS. The biggest part of it was the singing audition. I sang "Think of Me" from Phantom of the Opera because I could only sing classically. And I really mean ONLY. I thought "belting" was a bad word. My freshman year at ARGS, my musical theater teacher had me sing "I Hate Men" and I sang it like opera. I had incredible technique, especially for my age... but technique that enabled me to blend in a choir extremely well. Not solo technique. I also had no volume. None. At all. I am surprised they heard me. Not kidding. They had me sing "happy birthday" to try to get me a little louder, but I couldn't. This was actually a constant struggle for me throughout high school. My junior year, one of my classmates said to me, "Colleen! I HEARD you!" Last year, my voice and speech teacher told me I could tone it down on the volume because I was becoming more resonant which was making it louder automatically - and that was HUGE. This Christmas Eve at 7pm, my mic was muted and no one was at the sound board when I read the Christmas scripture, and I thought, "They have to HEAR this. THEATER SCHOOL, GO!" and some people thought my mic was on. Yessss.

So for a major part of the audition, they just couldn't hear me. Whatsoever. I was being drowned out by the piano. Which is a crappy piano and it's really hard to get sound from it.

The dance section? No idea. I'd never done choreographed dance before beyond the occasional choral step-touch. I smiled a lot. I think. "Theater games" (improv, which I still hate), equally painful. I was saved because I did a "neutral scene" (where they give you lines that really don't say anything and you have to fill them in) where they were talking about "Do you have the time?" "No." and I happened to be wearing not one, but two watches, so it gave me something to do. (I did that scene with, in fact, the same extraordinarily tall boy I improv-ed with at the open house.)

And that was that.

There was nothing left to do but wait. My parents thinking I wouldn't get in, me hoping I would.

And then I was waitlisted.

...so no one really won that battle for a while.

Adam, the tall guy, and I singing "The Song That Goes Like This" from Spamalot, junior year.

Then one day shortly thereafter, I got a call, saying, "We wanted to wait and send you a letter, because this is the kind of thing that you should get to open the letter for, but... you've been accepted into ARGS, and there are some people who are coming and shadowing on Friday, so you can come shadow on Friday as well, if you like!"

"Shadowing" means following a student from your program around for a day to see what an average day is like. It also means you get to not go to your school for a day. Clearly, "shadowing" is one of the most awesome concepts in the world, and that Friday, I caught a bus to ARGS.

I was immediately pounced upon, by both Hilary and Brittney. "ARE YOU A SHADOW?!" "...yes?" "WHAT'S YOUR MAJOR?!" "...musical theater." Being musical theater and theater majors, they immediately started fighting over me. They took me to the office, made sure I knew where to go, and I ended up shadowing Hilary for most of the day. Since it wasn't a regular "shadow day" I was particularly fawned over. I was quiet, and spent most of the time writing. "What're you writing?" "A novel." "Oh, cool. I wasn't sure if you meant like... stories or music." "I write music too." "YOU'RE THE NEXT MATT!!" "This is my shadow, her name's Colleen, she's a musical theater and she writes novels and music." (I was never called "the next Matt" again. When I actually got to the school I was "the next Sam", forever, which is now really hilarious.)

The thing that got me, that day, was the joy.

I had never seen so many people so enthusiastic about their school. They were so happy, so interested, so at home. And they wanted me there. People asked me throughout the day, "ARE YOU GOING TO COME?!" and at the beginning of the day, I wasn't sure. By the end, I was saying, "Yes." Had I talked with my parents about it yet? Nope. But I was going ahead and saying "yes." Because of the joy, because of the feeling of immense pride these students had in their school, which was something I'd never witnessed before.

I was in eighth grade. I didn't know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. It's silly to think that I would. I didn't look at ARGS like I looked at college, looking for the opportunities I'd have to create work and whatnot. I came to ARGS because I felt a different kind of education was happening there than the one that made me cry over a grade.

And, truth, it seemed more fun.

When I came to ARGS, I actually knew very, very little about musical theater. I had Rodgers and Hammerstein. I had Andrew Lloyd Webber. And I had my Sweeney Todd. That was pretty much it. My family got into Ragtime, had seen a production at Dogwood Dell the summer before. Sweeney and Ragtime were probably the most "obscure" musicals I knew at the time, and they're not obscure at all (not compared to "Bark!" or "The Last Starfighter: the Musical" or "Weird Romance"). My first day as a student at ARGS was actually show choir camp before my freshman year started (it was the year of Hairspray, and the Branson trip). I arrive at ARGS with Becky (our parents knew each other and thus did that awkward "arranged friendship" thing. Becky's great, I love her, but the first few weeks were strange), and were immediately greeted by Sam, wearing bright yellow jazz pants, who directed us to Regan and Emily after complimenting my shoes. It was a day of all of the freshmen sticking together in a scared, silent clump as the older kids did their thing and ran around this confusing building and danced, which I sure couldn't do. But one conversation I had that day, I still remember clear as a bell:

I saw Sam handing a book of Ragtime vocal selections to a girl, Kris. Little did I know that both of them had been in the production I'd seen a few months before.

Me: That's a good musical.
Sam, after the slight pause that I'm pretty sure was surprise that I actually spoke: It's the best musical.
Me: No. Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is the best musical.
Sam: I LOVE YOU, LET'S TALK. Did you see the concert version with Patti LuPone?

...the significance of this question is something very difficult to impress upon minds other than mine. That concert version had happened almost two years before. I had been completely and totally obsessed with it. And obsessed with Sweeney Todd only through it and the Original Broadway Cast Recording, because this was before the 1982 version had been released on DVD (which didn't happen until April 20th, 2004). The 1982 version, which includes much of the original Broadway cast, is a film of the tour, and was an INCREDIBLY rare VHS. My brother had seen it because his drama teacher had gotten the last copy sold used on Amazon. I had tried to locate it, but any copy I could find was well over $100, which is a fortune for a middle schooler. Thus, my entire Sweeney Todd obsession, up to that point, was only visually facilitated by the pictures I could scrounge up... and the concert version. Now, most people I spoke to did not know Sweeney Todd. A few teachers of mine knew it, though my Orchestra teacher refused to speak of it because it freaked him out so much. And no one, NO ONE I met knew the concert version. I would try to talk about the concert version with people, but NO ONE KNEW IT. I could not discuss the incredible look Patti LuPone gave that absolutely summed up her entire character's journey at the end. I could not go on about the giant choir and how terrifying it was, not with anyone who could aptly respond. And now, here I was in a giant, terrifying new school, with this strange guy who was wearing yellow pants and liked Converse, AND HE KNEW THE CONCERT VERSION?! HE, IN FACT, BROUGHT IT UP BEFORE /I/ DID?!

I was home.

And indeed, ARGS was my home for four years. As a Musical Theater major, I was always at school. Literary arts majors could go home and work there... but since our work was collaborative, we were at school. All the time. School from 8:30 - 3:30 (or 3:40? It changed during my time there), then rehearsals from 4-7. Then tech week, where we didn't go home. (Truth: my grandparents lived just outside of Petersburg at the time... I lived at their place during Annie's tech week, to save me the 45 minute drives back and forth. 1.5 hours including carpool drop offs.) I was there all the time and I loved every minute of it. Summers were the worst. I was chomping at the bit to go back to school. Any opportunity I had. We'd get emails saying, "We're going to clean the Black Box and need some help," I was THERE. I was annoying about how much I wanted to go back to school. There are journal entries of, "I haven't been to ARGS for 64 days. I don't know what's going on." I loved, loved, loved that school.

In my time at ARGS, I not only took full high school loads of English, History, Science, Math (though I had two years of high school math under my belt before I came to ARGS, so I only took two years of math while there), and German, but I took:

Foundations of Theater (remains one of the most useful classes I've ever taken)
Acting I, III, and IV (I skipped II, somehow)
Musical Theater Techniques I and II (classes which no longer exist, hehe)
Four years of Show Choir
Screen and Film I and II
Directing/Playwrighting I and II (only time II has ever been offered)
Modern Dance
Musical Theater Applied Voice for Seniors
Recording Technology (which I was convinced I'd never use again. Now I do sound design. Never say never.)

Fact: you don't get these classes at any other school. Acting, maybe. There's the "all-encompassing" high school "Drama" class, I guess. Show choir, yeah. But to get this in depth, in high school? It's unheard of.

I knew nothing about theater when I entered ARGS, basically speaking. By the end of my freshman year I had a mini-encyclopedia knowledge of musical theater. People started calling me the next Sam, which was huge because Sam was the star and Sam was going to the NYU CAP21 summer program (and came back talking about "actions" and we were like, "...what?") and Sam knew more about musical theater than anyone else in the world and Sam disappeared to New York practically every weekend. (I recently was talking with Sam about A Little Night Music. There's a revival on Broadway now that he's seen, and he asked me if I knew the piece. Of course I knew the piece. I owned the script of it in high school. He said, "I didn't know it, really." And thus I found out there was a Sondheim musical Sam didn't know in high school. OH THE SHATTERED ILLUSIONS!) I didn't learn all I learned about musical theater by sitting and memorizing the nominations and winners of the Tony Awards. I absorbed it, by being in this environment that was so excited about it. Because what that environment did to me was it awoke a passion in me I didn't know I had. My musical theater teacher for the first two years, Mrs. Ingram, was vital to that. As was the head of the theater department and Sage of Theater, Dr. Fenn. I was running around excitedly, leaping, and jumping and they told me, "You know, you've got something here."

Because not everyone from ARGS pursues their focus area for the rest of their lives. Because it's silly to think you know what you want to do in eighth grade. A surprising few of us from my musical theater graduating class are actually pursuing theater. Which is great. I am convinced of the value of an arts-based education. The lessons we learned doing shows together are the same lessons people need working on a corporate team together. My cousin is going into nursing and was talking about how you want to be assigned to a unit that's like a team, and I thought about the essentials of collaboration and how well-prepared someone who has a background in the arts would be to enter that kind of environment. And when you study theater, you're studying the world. Dr. Fenn said that all the time, and it's true. My freshman year we did A Raisin in the Sun - you know how much we learned about people, and history, and social injustice from doing that play? It's HUGE.

And for those of us who have ended up pursuing our majors further, ARGS was a phenomenal jumping off point. I honestly had no idea I cared so much about my work until Dr. Fenn, who did not know me well at the time, pointed it out. I had no idea not everyone had so much fun on set construction crew or was so happy in rehearsal. ("It is characteristic of the power and vehemence of love that all things seem possible to it, and it believes all men to be of the same mind as itself." - Dark Night of the Soul) And I was chatting with Mrs. Ingram about Sweeney, of course, and she threw into my head the idea of directing it, right around the time my sophomore year when I started to be dissatisfied with acting. Then Becker came in and we'd talk and he'd say, "You really need to read The Empty Space." And then I did and I said, "He talked about this guy Artaud a lot... do you have anything by him?" and he handed me The Theater and Its Double and said, "Be careful with him, he's crazy." And then Morrie Piersol came in and Dr. Fenn said, "Colleen, would you like to stage manage?" and Piersol, particularly being from the professional theater world, ended up showing me the ropes of running a production.

ARGS was the place it began. The Empty Space was required reading before I entered PHTS--I'd just finished reading it when I got the list. I have now read The Theater and Its Double five times for various classes and papers. There are so many things, ideas, concepts that were tossed to me at ARGS, sometimes in depth, sometimes in passing, that are absolute STAPLES of my training in New York. Most of it is far beyond "high school level". The fact that I had not only heard of, but DONE some Fitzmaurice voice work before college was mindblowing. We did one day of it. They only do a week of it in first year to introduce it because it's the base of the second year voice and speech curriculum, but it's still a bit to sophisticated for first years. HIGH SCHOOL?! Seriously, no one does Fitzmaurice work in high school. The entire unit we did of Grotowski work helped me plunge into Viewpoints much quicker than I would have otherwise. Second year acting at PHTS, filled with exercises we did in Acting III. I did clowning in high school. Laban effort actions - I walked into first year voice and speech at PHTS one day to see them written on the board and started laughing hysterically. The entire concept of composition. These are things you just don't get in normal high school. When we learned IPA, it was me and the kid from LaGuardia (Fame school!) who already knew it. When I've mentioned, "Oh, we talked about this in high school," people have asked, "What high school did you go to?!" and no one would guess it was this small, budding 350 student arts and technology-based high school in Petersburg, Virginia.

The opportunities there are growing rapidly. The school was only seven when I graduated, so there were sometimes things that we wanted to see happen that just couldn't yet, but I'd like to believe paved the way for other things to happen. (Like my senior directing project. Sigh. It would've been awesome. We tried really hard.) I'm jealous of some of the opportunities there now. But I loved being a part of the school and program's development. I love that I took classes that no longer exist. I love that I'm in the school's rule book. (The director of the school instated what he called the "Carter and Colleen Rule" allowing non-distracting bandanas and hats to be worn when it's not class time. It's not listed as "The Carter and Colleen Rule", but that's what he calls it. The bowler hat did its work.)

And what of the bitter, cynical, depressed pessimist who left middle school? It has been a slow process. A very slow process, because it's environment and background and mental processes and medical things. But starting with ARGS, and continuing through PHTS and Montreat, I have become the most honestly optimistic person I know. It had a vital, VITAL beginning at ARGS, the beginning of a huge healing process, because before ARGS, there was never anything I truly loved.

Tonight, I went back to ARGS to see their production of Working: the Musical. This is one of those opportunities that I am jealous of - the senior theater arts class put this together themselves, as part of a class. Staged it, designed it, performed it, publicized it. And it was thrilling. Truly thrilling. Some things didn't work, surely, but that's the point. That's how you learn, and this production was very bold and I know they have learned, and will continue to learn, a lot from it. It is a joy for me to see that school continue to grow. I walked in tonight and they had floor mics. FLOOR MICS! I flipped.

Why am I gushing all of this out now?

Chesterfield County is cutting expenses, and in looking at how to do so, is considering stopping sending students to both ARGS and Maggie Walker.

Chesterfield County sends the most students to each school. ARGS has 356 students this year, and 129 of them are from Chesterfield.

If Chesterfield County "eliminates participation" in the Governor's Schools, they both face, at best, severe budget cuts, staff cuts, and program elimination. At worst, they face closure.

Here is the Richmond Times-Dispatch article.

I have often thought it was a miracle I got into ARGS in the first place. Chesterfield County buys the most "slots" per year as far as sending people goes. I was waitlisted from Chesterfield County. Had I lived in any other district, I would not have gotten into ARGS.

I am upset, and gushing, and saying everything I think right now. It's not articulate yet. It will be. I will take words and hone them and sharpen them and weave them and use them, because I don't know of anything else worth fighting for so fiercely. Because, for me, and for others I know, ARGS was more than a school. Sam, that intense musical theater guy, came into ARGS as a saxophone major and wandered into a Godspell rehearsal and said, "I want to do that." I was drawn to ARGS, and I didn't just an education. A whole world opened up to me, a world that was fascinating and beautiful and still intrigues me every day of my life. A world I fell in love with and chose to pursue. A world with life and vitality. I came in hating everything, including myself. I discovered love at ARGS. And instead of being the depressed kid wearing all black sitting in the corner writing something cynical, I became the dorky one wearing all black leaping onto stages (occasionally banging my knee really badly) and running around with a five pound binder muttering about "if we stage 'Pirelli's' as a semiotic battle for the crowd... where they're physically moving between Pirelli and Todd... with the Beadle in the center... the Beadle is no longer relegated to 'oh we happen to be using the Beadle how quaint' but make him another active participant, and if the crowd is all over at Todd's side... then Pirelli works desperately to regain with the oft-cut toothpulling sequence, that can make the toothpulling actually VITAL.. especially if we really in the Beadle's favor with all of this... because Pirelli does NEED the Beadle's favor...", pulling out rehearsal blocks and (yes) chairs to represent people and set up scenes and block, block, block, all the time. Babbling incoherently to those around me.

Taking a break while blocking "Epiphany". With a chair. Of course.

People sometimes ask the question, "Did ARGS help you get into NYU?"

This is a really silly question.

I could tell you that I presented that five pound binder to the head of the drama department at NYU at that time and said, "This is what I do in my free time." I could tell you that I had to have a monologue prepared, and I spent hours in that Black Box with Becker coaching me on that monologue, him taking time out of his busy schedule, often his entire lunch break, because he insisted on seeing it every day a week leading up to my audition. I could tell you that the quality of essays required at ARGS made my admissions essay significantly stronger.

But really, if there were not ARGS, I would not be at NYU. Period. If there were not ARGS, I probably would not have even applied to NYU. If there were not ARGS, I would probably be a lawyer. And I think I'd make a decent lawyer, but I think I make a much better theater artist. If there were not ARGS, most of you reading this would not know me. If there were not ARGS, I wouldn't care half as much.

But there was ARGS. And I got into NYU. And thanks to the combined powers of both of them, because ARGS has helped me grab onto PHTS with vigor, I think I will actually be able to make my living in the theater, which are words not easily said. I could brag, about my current teachers, list credentials and awards and nominations and recordings and people they've worked with or talk about how I knew some of their names even in high school (I was actually the biggest fan of one of the first year acting teachers. I owned every recording she was on and wanted to steal her vocal chords. Now I know her and I cannot bring myself to steal her vocal chords, she's just too nice). And when I write the actual, articulate letter I might throw some of that in to try to get across the caliber of people I am privileged to encounter every day. And one of the things that continually blows my mind is the belief many of them have in me and my work. And none of that, NONE OF THAT would be there if it weren't for ARGS.

It's not "it made a difference in my life." It made my life what it is. Not by handing it to me prepackaged to reheat, but by putting me in an incredible, stimulating environment with people who cared, deeply. That is the kind of education we need in this world.

(and for the record, I love my life.)

One day my sophomore year, I came into my Pre-Calculus class and my teacher was listening to a musical. I listened for a while, trying to figure out what it was, and was soon joined by Elliott, a junior musical theater major. He was also unable to identify it. Our teacher told us it was Kiss of the Spider Woman. Before every class from then on, he'd play a musical for us to guess. Once, he was playing Kiss of the Spider Woman again. We still didn't get it. When he told us what it was, we said, "No fair, you did that one before!" He said, "Yeah. And you still don't know it." This past semester in college, I co-directed Kiss of the Spider Woman.

For my 18th birthday, my friend Carolyn made me a to-scale model of the ARGS stage. Because I needed to stare at a stage to block things. (And blocking things was my favorite past-time.) So I thought I could only block at ARGS so she brought ARGS to me. It's in my room here right now, and I keep glancing at it. Seeing that stage tonight, being in that building, reminded me of the love I have for it. How many hours I poured into it. My blood is on the wood storage wracks in the stagecraft room. That stage, which you'll see if you look at the third picture on that RTD article, is my native stage. Two weeks into my freshman year, Jerry Herman (composer/lyricist for Mame, Hello Dolly, Mack and Mabel, Milk and Honey, Dear World... to name a few), Don Pippin (who musical directed everything Paul Gemignani didn't), Susan Egan (original Belle in Broadway's Beauty and the Beast, voice of Meg in Disney's movie Hercules), Karen Morrow (original cast of I Had a Ball), and Jason Graae (original Sparky in Forever Plaid, original Mendel in Falsettos) came to do master classes and performances at ARGS. I, scared meek little freshman, was asked by Mrs. Ingram, who knew I could read music, if I would be interested in page turning for Don Pippin. (What she did not know is that I happen to be a professional, extremely skilled page turner. I am not joking. It's an art.) I spent the afternoon in dress rehearsal with these Broadway names, had a delightful conversation with Jerry Herman about the name "Colleen", and that evening was standing in the stage right wing with Don Pippin, waiting to follow him on stage. And I remember thinking, "This is where it begins."

Yup. For me and for so many. Chatting with people after the show tonight, I was reminded of how great of an effect ARGS has had on so many people. The seniors performing tonight were freshmen when I graduated, and watching how much they've grown was incredible. I had a conversation with Kelsey, who designed lights for Working, who's gotten into NCARTS for lighting, about the lights in the show and design in general, and it was delightful, especially as design isn't a huge thing for students at ARGS yet. Though, for students who are interested, like Kelsey, the opportunities are there. (If she goes the technician route, I'll throttle her. The girl has IDEAS. Lots of them. Design, design, design.)

ARGS' building, for the record, is the old Petersburg High School building. It's renovated, but as the same outward appearance. My grandfather graduated from the old Petersburg High School, and his class was given a print of a sketch of it when they graduated. When he passed away, that print was given to me. I have that, and I have the model of the stage, and I cannot stand the idea of those being emblems of a school that no longer exists.

And by the way, Carolyn, who made me that model? She's now a first year at PHTS.

Oh, and crazy musical theater Sam? He went to NYU, starting at CAP21, then transferred to PHTS the same year I started there. He's still doing musical theater (just finished a run of Forum), but now also does strange postmodern dance theater pieces. (It was strange that people called me "the next Sam" because he was so TAP SHOES and I was so BLOCKING. Then we both ended up at PHTS.) He's working. He's making a living.

Oh, and Kris, the girl he was in Ragtime with? Also went to NYU.

Oh, and Emma, the girl who dragged me on stage to improv at the open house? I was chatting about her with the artistic director of an off-Broadway theater company of growing prominence. Then he put me on a student board of theirs.

It might seem like a small incidental school in Virginia, but it has changed (dare I say saved?) lives.

There is a Governing Board meeting on Thursday, the 14th, that's open to interested parties, where the director of ARGS is presenting the additional budget cuts (after several rounds of previous cuts) that the Governing Board has asked for. That's the day of my train back to New York, so I cannot go, but one of the teachers is collecting letters from students and alumni. And I'll be damned if I don't write the best bloody letter I will ever write. And do whatever else I can do. Campaign in the streets? I'll go full-out Les Mis on this if I have to. It matters.

Hugging the stage during Cinderella strike, senior year.

"Look at all the things you've done for me.
Opened up my eyes
Taught me how to see
Notice every tree
Understand the light
Concentrate on now...

Look at all the things you gave to me.
Let me give to you something in return.
I would be so pleased."

There is still more to see.

We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog to give you...

THAT is not snow, ladies and gentlemen.

Oh, fine, yes, technically it is snow. But just because snow has made its rare appearance in your lives does not mean the schools should get a 2 hour delay.

A 2 hour delay. I kid you not.

For that.

Nat (shakey old lady voice): In my day they never closed school for dustin's-a-snow like that! When I went to college in New York City, we'd get feet-a snow and nary a class canceled...

Colleen: Nat?!

Nat: ...and we'd hafta walk to school, uphill both ways, across the Brooklyn Bridge, in the snow...

Colleen: NAT!

Nat: ...yes?

Colleen: What're you doing here?

Nat: I miss Tongues!

Colleen: Well, I miss Tongues, too. But you don't see Stanley or Larry hanging around like this, do you?

Stanley: YO!

Larry: ....hi.

Josh: Heeeeeelloooo.

(a faint sound of marbles is heard in the vaguely upstage left background)

Colleen: Heeeeeey guys. What's going on?

A chorus of various voices: (chanting) WE MISS TONGUES. WE MISS TONGUES.

(sound of marbles grows louder)

Colleen: Okay... uhm... this isn't funny anymore. Guys! GUYS!

Chorus: WE MISS TONGUES. WE MISS TONGUES.

Colleen: ...wait... are those marbles?! NO, NO, NOT THE THE MARBLES, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

(a cacophanous crash. Then silence.)

Nat: Wheeeen you diiiiiieee, you diiie forevaaaaaaaaa!





[This is a clear indication that Colleen needs to leave the house. Luckily, she WILL be leaving the house today. Twice, even.]

[Also, this post is lovingly dedicated to Lindsay, Molly, and Will, whom she used to see every day and now sees never. It's a problem.]

For bits of string...

Last night, my friend Emily (and her mother) took me to a crafts store.

This is dangerous.

The Ritchie side of the family is very crafty. I remember Grandma's quilting room from her house when I was little--a place of magic and color and fabric. This Christmas, the grandkids received our choice of watercolors that Grandma had done (she picked up watercolors I guess sometime when she was in her 70's? and is phenomenal), and one of my cousins gave incredible hand-crocheted doilies as gifts while she sat there SPINNING HER OWN YARN. Knitting, crocheting, beading, painting, sewing, even down to cutting your own hair, are all standards in the Ritchie household. I strongly take after that side of the family. There were the beaded lizards that I made (like every other 12 year old girl). Painting rocks. The cake decorating class I took with one of my cousins (to this day I have a hard time eating a certain kind of icing because I made so much of it). Knitting, starting in high school because our ENTIRE show choir learned to knit my freshman year (I seem to remember a show choir lock-in where one of the guys, Sam, snuck into the girls-only sleeping room to join our knitting circle). I started painting recently, more out of necessity from having abstract colors in my head and needing to tell collaborators, "It looks like THIS." Then there was first year Design class, where we would have a lot of crazy assignments and everything became potential art materials. (I remember using paint, posterboard, duct tape, string, saran wrap, a dried rose petal, these metal prong fasteners I found at Staples and I still have no idea what they're actually for but I used them for everything, electrical tape, a hairbrush, scarves, a violin, water, a water bottle (used separately), towels, various articles of clothing, rope... and there were others with far more creative materials.) I still have a box of things with interesting textures or colors that I call my "design box". I remember it was to the point where none of us threw anything away and if we saw something that could POSSIBLY be used for a project discarded on the side of the street, we grabbed it. (This is how not one, but TWO of my friends, have mannequins.) I remember walking with my friend Lauryn by Washington Square Park in winter and finding a frozen, dead squirrel, and both of us admitting to the other that the first thing that went through our heads was, "...I should save that and use it in a Design project." (We didn't.) The summer after my first year, I had the hardest time adjusting to life outside of PHTS, so I would stay up until 3am and then make random art projects out of whatever I could find, because that was my idea of "normal".

Crafts stores are DANGEROUS places for me to be. I'll find some texture or shape and say, "I HAVE TO USE THIS FOR SOMETHING." Or I'll see kits and say, "Look! I can make a WINTER SCENE. With SNOW." "Why, Colleen?" "I DON'T KNOW, BECAUSE IT'S SNOW. AND IF I GET THIS OTHER KIT I CAN ADD A WATERFALL TOO." If it were up to me, I would buy the entirety of Ben Franklins and fill every inch of my life with these projects.

I mean, all of this is theoretically wonderful until I realize I also need to buy textbooks.

I left last night with my wallet fairly intact. I splurged on a Willow Tree ornament of Mary, Joseph, and child, as a bit of Christmastide decoration since creches are so expensive. (Before next Christmas, I'm making myself a creche. Out of what? I have no idea. Probably found objects, like we at PHTS do.) And I got a packet of various cheap silver crosses. (Crafty AND religious? Nail in the coffin.)

LEFT TURN: I am sometimes jealous of Catholics.

I participate in many different Protestant denominations. I was born Baptist, raised Methodist, spent the summer the the Presbyterians (and Calvinists!), and go to an Episcopalian church when in New York. There are doctrinal and political reasons I don't move over to Catholicism. Catholicism is a different ballgame. I'm FASCINATED by it, but as a searching practicioner, the Catholic door seems rather closed to me. (Epsicopalian is the closest.) But I am sometimes jealous of Catholics, because Catholicism is so PHYSICAL. Transubstansiation, the idea the the communion elements actually physically becoming the body and blood of Christ. Rosaries. Holy water. Incense. Catholics engage physical sensation more than any other branch of mainstream Christianity I can find. Protestants do it occasionally. But even in Catholic theology (which I admittedly know little about), there is a focus on the physical. The physicality of the miracles. There's a lot of Catholic art that puts a HUGE emphasis on the physical body.

(slight tangent: and something I find so fascinating is the sensuality encouraged in Catholic practice. Because I think often people equate sensuality with sexuality even though the two are NOT the same thing. And Catholicism seems to deny sexuality as much as possible while encouraging sensuality. Whereas I think Protestantism links sensuality as always having to do with sexuality and is slightly uncomfortable with both. Also, why is there a huge link between asceticism, which is about denying the senses, and mysticism, which is THE MOST SENSUAL THING EVER?)

I like physical representations of things. I like things that are sensual. I tend to feel so much that I need something to express it physically. And Catholics get all of the physical repsentations.

No fair.

SO.

I decided to make myself a set of prayer beads.

Beads and prayer have often been linked. There's the obvious with Rosaries, but I remember doing crafts in Vacation Bible Schools of making a bracelet with different colored beads to represent different things to pray for, Emily had a thing of prayer beads from being raised Episcopalian, that kind of thing.

I like beads.

I mentioned the lizards earlier, but I've been making things with beads all my life, and got into beading big time in high school because I was getting so tunnelvisioned into theater that even Becker (King of Tunnelvisioned Into Theater In High School) suggested I get a hobby.

I have about eight people who I consistantly pray for, for various reasons. All are close to my heart. Some I worry about a lot. Some are huge figures in my life. Some I've encountered rarely but feel a kinship with. Some, I don't know if they have anyone else praying for them. They are the people I generally pray for without words, but actually pray with pure emotion. And when things get to a "pure emotion" place, that's when I want something physical (since I don't have words to hold on to).

So I chose a different cross for each person, and put together strings of beads that represented them to me, and affixed them together via some larger beads at the top:


I'm rather pleased with how they came out. They also make great sounds.

And thus, the potentially monetarily dangerous trip to the crafts store turned into a devotional exercise.

And to tie it all back in... my grandmother came in while I was making these to ask if I was interested in making a beaded necklace. Finding me clearly beading already. Ritchie family.