The Convergence

What in the world is a person thinking to double major in Theatre and Religious Studies while participating in a scholarship program like CODA? I hope what I post below will help bring some light to this issue. I am applying to attend seminary in the fall of 2008. As I have told people this during my college time, they reply with one of two responses:

1) Having that theatre background will certainly help you as a preacher.
2) Those are certainly two very different subjects.

I like to believe, though, that neither of these responses is correct. I see a great parallel between the goals of theatre and the purposes of religious ritual. Below I have posted my scholarship essay for Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. The question I have answered is: What are your convictions about one significant issue facing the church and/or society? How might the church make a faithful response to that issue?

Worship: Community Theatre

American churches have throughout their history been faced with the reality that in order for their communities to flourish, they must “compete” for followers. Religion must be attractive, more attractive than alternative activities in which people could engage. This “free market” religious culture, however, has led to a crisis in the Christian community. Seeking to lure people into our churches, we have sacrificed the language of our faith, devaluing the power and majesty of God and supporting the commercial, consumer culture that surrounds us. I believe that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) can respond with creativity to reinvigorate the language of faith, and in doing this can reinforce the responsibility and commitment required to be a member of Christ’s church.

The language of the church is vitally important in our practice of Christian worship. How we speak of God and celebrate our relationship with Jesus Christ provide a foundation for our faith. Our culture continues to bombard us with images on television and the internet. We desire enjoyments that come at a click of a button or by dialing the telephone. We continually grow impatient and lackadaisical in our pursuits. If what we need cannot be easily attained, we seek something else. Seeking to meet these ever-changing desires, churches sacrifice theological depth and active worship engagement for a “consumer service” that relies on elements of popular entertainment to keep the attention of the congregation. I believe the reformed heritage of the Presbyterian Church (USA) uniquely prepares us to consider new ways of engaging our congregations in worship and maintaining the language of our faith.

Worship in the Presbyterian tradition has always been central to the life of the church body. Even amidst our modern culture and our technology, I believe that the Presbyterian Church possesses the creativity and the knowledge to maintain the majestic language of worship. There are several ways we can reinvigorate our worship so that the people who enter our churches see a vibrant body, seeking to commune with each other and with God. In his book John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait, William Bouwsma examines Calvin’s views on worship, and I believe his words speak to our worship today. Calvin believes that worship should involve the whole person. He particularly celebrates King David’s dance before the Ark of the Covenant as an example of the whole person engaging in worship. He states that we should, like David, “exercise ourselves and employ all our senses, and our feet, and our hands, and our arms, and all the rest, so that everything is put in the service of God and magnifies him” (Bouwsma 225).

The worship of our tradition, however, has moved away from Calvin’s original thoughts on the active participation of all people. Our worship tends to be rather stoic compared to Calvin’s view. Call and response prayers, reciting creeds, and hymn-singing are the primary ways in which the whole body of believers engages together. Now Calvin recognized that not all people worship most fully when dancing like David. Not being in the culture of the Hebrew people, we must discover new ways to engage the senses in our worship. When we find ways to utilize touch, taste, and smell as well as seeing and hearing, we can create a community actively engaged throughout the worship process, recognizing their relationships with each other and their need to respond to God’s call.

A more sensory practice of worship participation speaks to the Reformed belief about worship, that God is the audience and we are the performers. Soren Kierkegaard wrote in depth on this subject, talking about God as the “critical theatre-goer who looks on to see how the lines are spoken and how they are listened to.” In this case “the listener ... is the actor, who in all truth acts before God” (Kierkegaard 181). Kierkegaard is correct in his theatrical imagery of worship. He defines the theatrical role of the congregation as active listening before God. In our modern culture, however, many people feel connected when they “do” something. Understanding that God is the audience is not enough for a people of “doers.” We desire ways to express our love, our repentance, our response to God’s word actively in worship.

As a theatre major, I relate well to Kierkegaard’s understanding of the theatre of worship. I believe the metaphor speaks even more deeply. Anyone who studies theatre or participates in it seriously understands how much an actor must prepare before picking up a script. He must have the training and the vocal and physical technique required to engage the text. Once given the text, he breaks it down, discovers his character, and then begins to rehearse with others, always allowing for his role to change and grow. The actor prepares for weeks before presenting his work for an audience. If we believe that worship is a drama presented to God by the congregation and the worship leaders, we must recognize the necessity to prepare the community for the performance.

Recognizing that the bulletin is the “script” for the service, we must take the time outside of worship to study our “text.” We must examine the prayers and the creeds used in the service. We must familiarize ourselves with the hymns and practice them before our performance for God. This can occur through a variety of study classes on worship participation. Active participation of members, though, also requires their aid in crafting the service. We must call on our participants, young and old, to join with our pastors and music leaders to write prayers that come from the people and are read by the people. We must look for ways to engage the biblical text actively in worship that involves more than a “lay reader.” Making worship the responsibility of the community requires that we study the language of our faith and look for new ways to express what we believe about God.

When we engage the body of believers in our worship, everyone sees that he or she has something “at stake” in the worship process. Active engagement also helps us to understand the importance of worship for our daily life of faith. Joining in community to experience the sacred is a rare occasion in our modern culture that celebrates individualism. We need this time of community, and we long to participate actively in it. When we do this, we educate our people in the language of our faith, we place God at the center of our worship and our lives, and we reinforce that we can only be Christians in community, worshiping and serving God together.

Rhodes Radio

Rhodes has a radio station! This initiative started almost two years ago, and was originally going to be a major CODA project. After having run into some very difficult barriers, we had to drop the project from the large agenda the program attempts to carry out. Some dedicated students, however, and the Rhodes Activities Board picked up the pieces and have assembled an online radio station for the college. I've listened to it briefly, and some of the material is pretty good. My belief is that as it gains in popularity, the quality of programming will also continue to improve. Either way, it is certainly exciting that a tiny college like Rhodes can now broadcast things to the world.

The live audio stream is kind of hard to access, so I will try to explain how to do it. Go to www.rhodesradio.org. At the bottom of the screen are posted several different audio players. Click on the play you use most often. Make sure you save the file to your desktop. To access the radio, then, right-click on the file on your desktop and drag your mouse over the "open with" option. Then select your player. When you do this one time, it should save it in your library so that you can continue the stream whenever you wish. Hopefully they can make this process a little easier soon.

Rocky Horror Success

So Rocky Horror is over. A successful run to say the least. We sold out every performance, bringing in more than 1000 people into the McCoy Theatre. Half of those numbers were students, 504. This data was collected from the ticket stubs from the show, so there is some margin of error in the calculation, but we have a fairly good reason to believe that these are pretty accurate.

So what is it about this show that made it a success? Was Rhodes College yearning to see men in high heels and fishnet hosiery strutting around on stage singing rock n roll music? We discussed this in two meetings I've had over the past three days and have come up with some fairly interesting ideas. Several people mentioned Dylan Hunter's (Frank 'n Furter) legs. While fun, this isn't something we can continually try to utilize in the future as Dylan is a senior this year and can't flash a leg from behind a curtain at every show from now until eternity.

More seriously we discussed the attraction of a large cast, the show being a musical, and the large amount of movement and high energy in the production. I had several people tell me they thought the show was "awesome" but had absolutely no idea what the plot was. From a Rocky Horror standpoint, that's perfection. People coming and having a good time; that's the entire purpose of this kind of show.

A more universal aspect, however, is the pre-show hype that Rocky was blessed with. You could hear people on campus two weeks before opening saying anything from, "Why would they want to do that show?" to "I'm so excited about Rocky Horror this year; I LOVE the movie!" This resulted in people being turned away at the door on opening night and coming back over and over until they could get in. This pre-show buzz, if it can be replicated, provides a vital element to creating a theatre of "Standing Room Only."

The second, obviously, is that the actual production lives up to the hype. If the show flops, everyone leaves disappointed and tells their friends to stay away. Instead, people told their friends that they "had to see it." There's nothing that a team like ours can do to ensure that the quality of a production will live up to the hype.

But we do have a say about hype. We can find new and creative ways to try to raise awareness of upcoming productions that aren't as "doomed for success" as Rocky was. We must find ways to pique the interest of the campus community so that every show is being discussed days before the first curtain speech is offered. This is our mission, and the success of Rocky Horror has given us reason to be hopeful.

CODA Symposium Evaluation

The CODA New Directions conference was hosted at Rhodes last Thursday and it was a very successful day. The CODA scholars gathered at 7:00 a.m. to prepare for the event that began at 9:00. I had the privilege of hearing several presentations as well as serving on a panel about the value of creative campuses. It was very nerve-racking to be placed in front of an audience of people desiring to learn how to cultivate creativity in and around Memphis. I certainly consider myself no authority on this topic, as were the other panelists, including the chairperson of the Arts Memphis organization, executive directors of the Memphis Symphony and Opera Memphis, and a professor from the Memphis College of Art. But I was willing to give it a chance.

Lauren Kennedy, the other senior CODA scholar, was also supposed to serve on this panel, but due to a family emergency she had to drive to Dallas that morning, leaving me as the only current college student for a panel discussion on "creative campuses." The discussion was facilitated by Dr. Steven Tepper, the assistant director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University. His current work centers on the role creativity plays in the importance of the college experience, and how the creativity fostered by a college or university can impact the city of which it is a part.

Dr. Tepper had sent us a series of questions about this topic, the first of which dealt with "signs of cultural vitality" in your city and how colleges and universities can contribute to creating this vitality. The other members of the panels spoke eloquently, but seemed to speak from a more "political" approach than I was expecting. By "political" I mean they reacted like politicians in a debate, re-working the question posed to speak on what they wish to articulate. Many of the talks centered on how their organization is working to creative more cultural vitality in Memphis, but very rarely did they mention how an institution like Rhodes could help to create that. Nor did they provide much insight into Dr. Tepper's question about what they would like the cultural landscape of Memphis to look like in ten years.

Using what we've discussed in CODA and what I've witnessed in our trips to New York and San Francisco, I tried to articulate what I understand to be cultural vitality. In order for a city to have a thriving cultural landscape there must be a sense of "communal ownership." This must be "our" city. While Memphis has many bohemian districts that cultivate new arts and many established arts like the symphony and opera, what it lacks is this communal ownership of the city. The suburban sprawl has people living 40 miles from each other and calling themselves Memphians. Some Memphians avoid going "downtown" at all costs. A driving mentality of many citizens deals with three private questions: Am I safe? Are my children in a good school? and do I have a good job? If the answers to these three questions are "yes," then many people are satisfied.

So what can a college do to create a communal ownership of a city like Memphis? Through partnerships like those that the McCoy cultivates with Playhouse on the Square, through partnerships of the Rhodes Singers and the Memphis symphony, Idlewild Presbyterian Church, and other organizations. It's through CODA initiatives that bring artists to campus for talks and master classes. When you introduce passionate, intelligent, driven students into the world of cultural policy, they can bring about change. They will introduce new ideas that come from a college experience that encourages taking risks.

I believe that the symposium was a success, and I hope everyone learned as much about new methods of creating a culturally thriving city as I did.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night...

So last week was the first experiment of the newly-formed Standing Room Only. We showed the film Curse of the Demon as a promotion and educational opportunity for students to gain some cultural knowledge into what exactly they're coming to see when they come to the Rocky Horror Show at Rhodes. Overall, we were pleased with the event.

Our first setback, however, came from the weather. There is always a danger of trying to host something outside, which we wished to do. We had reserved the Rhodes ampitheatre for the film, but right at 7:20, a giant deluge of rain soaked the campus. Luckily, we had decided literally minutes before this to move the event into our backup location, one of the lecture halls of the Biology building. I must praise the members of Standing Room Only for their amazing flexibility in this time. I've seen genuine freak-outs when events don't operate according to plan. This team, however, moved quickly, swiftly, and created a successful event out of probable chaos.

Thanks to Robert Shreve, the president of the Alpha Tao Omega Fraternity and various word-of-mouth advertising (and facebook invites and posters), we had an audience of around 40 people. About 15 of these individuals were somehow connected to the Rocky Horror Show, and the other 25 were outside guests. With the terrible weather and the fact that it was the Thursday after Fall Break, we were very pleased with this. In the future, however, it would be better when organizing these events to pick a different day. Two days after a student holiday makes it difficult to drum up an audience.

Chris Davis, the director of Rocky, gave a 10 to 15 minute presentation about the "mind candy" that is the Rocky Horror Show and how its inspiration came partly from the B-Movies of Hollywood, particularly those of the horror and science fiction varieties. You can watch a short part of his talk by clicking on the Youtube link.He made clear the reference to different elements of these films that can be seen in Curse of the Demon that Rocky tends to mock in various ways.

Overall the first event went well. My only concern was the result of an oversight on my part. When telling the cast about this movie night, I never expressly mentioned the overall purpose of these kind of events. The whole purpose of this experiment is to make the theatre at Rhodes more accessible to new potential audience members. And we succeeded in attracting these kinds of members. In order for an event like this be work correctly, though, those in attendance must feel comfortable, they must relax, they must be able to receive what the cast/artist/musician has prepared.

The "theatre kids" were certainly comfortable among their peers, but their rather boisterous laughter and the sharing of inside jokes or the reciting of lines from the show at various moments in the movie made the "non theatre kids" uncomfortable. And I fault myself for this. I never made it clear to those of the inner circle of theatre supporters that we must intentionally create a comfortable environment for these kinds of endeavors.

This being said, the evening was a huge success, and I am very pleased with how everything turned out. Now for the final promotions before opening night on Halloween!!

Homemade Theatre Podcast

For anyone interested, professor Dave Mason of the Theatre Department at Rhodes has, with the help of students, created a podcast that you can listen to. The content is made up of radio sketch comedy pieces interspersed with music from garageband.com (it is legal). In future "episodes," weekly arts updates, interviews with artists and directors, and other interest things will be posted. If you use itunes, do a search for "homemade podcast" and look for the image featured in this article. Otherwise go to the website: http://yavanika.org/homemadetheatre and you can access the episodes from there. More interest and input is welcome, so contact me if you are a Rhodes-affiliated person and wish to participate in this.

Science Fiction Night

Standing Room Only is the name of the new organization that I have created to help the McCoy Theatre at Rhodes College promote and educate students in theatre at Rhodes. The first show of this season is the Rocky Horror Show, which most likely will not be difficult to promote. You cannot, however, take this for granted. Most students my age have not attended the midnight showings of the film nor know every single call line. They didn't live through the early science fiction and horror movies that Rocky Horror pokes fun of. This was the starting place for our team with this show.

To educate and promote, therefore, we're hosting a movie night in the ampitheatre of the college on Thursday, October 18 at 7:30. The director of our production, Chris Davis, will speak about our production and its relation to these early horror and science fiction films, and then we're going to show "Curse of the Demon," one of the songs referenced in the opening number of Rocky Horror, "Science Fiction/Double Feature" (Dana Andrews said prunes gave him the runes and passing them used lots of skill).

We're having free popcorn and inviting all of campus to attend. This event functions to educate our audience on the context in which the original production was created and to help them better understand what the Rhodes production is doing when referencing the terrible horror films of our generation.

Working with Rhodes Activities Board, we will be promoting the evening through e-mail, posters, and facebook fliers. We have also scheduled meetings with the presidents of the various Greek organizations on campus to gain their support. As I was told at a recent CODA meeting, if you can make members of your target audience feel like they have something at stake in the project, you are more likely to create something that will be more widely supported. By requesting the support of these organizations, we have the opportunity to bring students into the theatre who previously have been uninvolved.

Bodega

Whether you're into "traditional" Scottish music or not, if you have the chance to see the group Bodega group perform, you really should go. I had the privilege of seeing them perform at Evergreen Presbyterian Church as part of their annual Clanjamfry festival. This five-member group and teenagers uses traditional Celtic instruments, but put their unique flare and rock style into it. The instruments include fiddles, a harp, an accordian, guitars, electric bass, flute, and bagpipe.

The group has been touring most of the summer in Italy and America and will return to University soon. If you're in Scotland, check them out, or if you hear they're coming anywhere near you, be sure and go!

It's About Your Essence

Last week at Rhodes was the August Wilson celebration, and I had the privilege of seeing Charles S. Dutton perform. Wilson was African-American playwright raised in Pittsburgh wrote a ten play cycle, with each play set in his hometown (appropriately named the Pittsburgh Cycle). Each one of these works describes the lives of African Americans in that decade, and Dutton has interpreted many of Wilson's characters in cities throughout the world.

Dutton's one-man show Goodnight Mr. Wilson, is a testament to the work of Wilson, as he works through the characters in five of the ten play cycle. I don't particularly want to talk about his stage performance, however; I would rather discuss what I observed of him around the theatre and in the conversations he had with the audience.

I was in the theatre the first night he was in Memphis and sort of poked my head around the door and watched him doing his warm ups. He was marking the show, putting on the different hats and delivering some of the lines. With no one in the theatre, his intensity and his attention to detail were incredible. And he preached this kind of dedication. In his after-show talk with the audience he described that the "great" actors, those who thrive in their work, put this attention into all parts of their performance. You must always be operating at the highest level from the very first performance; you must possess the technique to help you to get through those nights when you aren't "feeling it," and you have to be rehearsed well enough and live in the character enough that you give the same performance regardless of the time of day or the crowd.

His best explanation of this was after he had completed his monologues during his performance and took a break to talk with the audience about the various characters. He talked about the business of acting, how it isn't to be treated as some means of fame and glory; "if you want that, get in line," he said. Instead, it's about presenting a message, it's about filling a need in your life to perform, to give yourself to an audience. "Every time you step off stage," Dutton said, "you have to leave some of your essence out there in the character." That's what the great actors do, and that is what is required for the works of playwrights such as August Wilson.

Interdisciplinary Study

Today I had the opportunity to have lunch with Dr. Daniel J. Levitin, author of This is Your Brain on Music. He is on a book tour across the country and stopped in Memphis, and I was invited by Dr. Sharp, the Dean of the Fine Arts at Rhodes, to come to a lunch with him.

Before the lunch I had the opportunity to read some of Dr. Levitin's book, and it is a fascinating read. He discusses various neurological discoveries related to music and perception by the brain. Which cortex is influenced by different pitches, rhythms, and alterations? How can people with no professional training still be expert listeners in music? Levitin discusses these and various other questions.

In a chapter dedicated to "expertise" in the musical field, Levitin discusses what makes people experts in their musical field. Is it the countless hours of practice? He confirms that this is necessary. Is it training? Yes says that this is true as well. But, Levitin admits, many people have these parts of the puzzle solved. How is it then, that certain people have that "star quality" that others do not? His answer is in the expressiveness of their performance, where they emphasize certain notes, make phrases, work with silence. It is these elements, not included in the score, that separate the great players from the rest.

What I feel Levitin left me, however, is a renewed hope of the arts, generally speaking, being considered a valid field of study in other departments. Before becoming a leading scholar in music and the brain, Levitin was in a rock band, a common guy. Today at lunch I was able to participate in a discussion with professors of art history, theatre, philosophy, music, and neuroscience. I was able to learn from people in disciplines I normally would have nothing to do with in a discussion of the arts. When we can make the arts part of the study of other fields of research and education, we can validate its worth in an academic way. Daniel Levitin does this in This is Your Brain on Music.

You Have to Keep your Ears Open

Yesterday was our first meeting for the Rocky Horror Show to be produced at Rhodes College, opening on Halloween night. Read thrus are always fairly boring (and I often find them rather unhelpful), but it is often at this opening meeting that the director shares some insight into his or her goals with this particular production. If our education and promotion team decides this evening to begin our work for Rocky Horror, I already have some insight into where to begin.

Now, you're probably thinking, "what in the world do I need to know for the Rocky Horror Show other than to wear my tightest leather pants and facepaint?" Well there actually is something. The original production of this musical incorporates many references to pop culture of the late 1960s and early 1970s. From the references in Science Fiction/Double Feature to particular songs and characters, the play is meant to speak to these "trends" of the time. In many ways it mocks them.

This is an important understanding for an audience member to have. Chris Davis, the director of this production, does not wish simply to reproduce a satiric understanding of bad science fiction and horror movies from the 1970s, there have been plenty of bad movies and television shows since then that we might reference. However, these references will be subtle, and it will take an audience member prepared to look for these if he or she wishes to have the full experience of the production.

So where do you begin? Let's start with the characters, particularly Brad and Janet. This entire play is intentionally full of "bad" acting (which can be more of a challenge than you think). It utilizes the emotions of a soap opera mixed with Star Trek, the 12th generation. Yesterday Davis mentioned a particular artist who visually represents the emotional scale of Rocky Horror, Roy Lichtenstein. Deeply influenced by soap opera and comic books, Lichtenstein's work takes seemingly ordinary situations and intensifies them to "high drama." It is this way that the characters live in this play. Could these kinds of images help in the visual promotion of this play?

Another example comes in the song "I Can Make You a Man." In this song, Frank describes to Brad and Janet how in just a week's time he can make a man with the "Charles Atlas seal of approval." Who is Charles Atlas? A valid question an audience member might consider. Now comic book fans might understand this reference, but the common audience member probably won't. O'Brien (the play's author) is referencing a particular advertisement from comic books of the 70s.




Charles Atlas workouts can help make a wimpy kind into the hunk of the beach. Useful to know if you want to get the joke and understand the satire here. How can we teach Rhodes students (most of whom I would presume don't read comic books) to get these references? More on that later.

Team-Building

For the first time, team yet-to-be-named met in the classroom of the McCoy Theatre at Rhodes College to discuss the best implementation of the project I have designed to lead during my senior year. I will briefly describe our mission below, but first I must provide some background information.

The McCoy Theatre is the campus-run theatre at Rhodes. During its twenty-seven year history, the theatre has produced some challenging and controversial material. And this has been intentional. It comes from a faculty and student understanding that the theatre exists not only as a means of entertainment or as a distraction from everyday life. Instead, it is provides new perspectives for looking at everyday life. Theatre challenges our prejudices, disrupts comfort, raises questions about personal and societal identity. To put it more bluntly, theatre provides a means of seeking truth.

Why would a college theatre opt to pursue this more challenging route of producing theatre? Part of the reason comes from being a part of a liberal arts campus. The contemporary philosopher William Nord describes two kinds of liberal arts education; Rhodes College fits into the second category, a tradition that "takes as its patron saint Socrates, and it is moved by the continuing search for truth. It values free, reasoned inquiry and tolerance; its is skeptical." A campus community designed around these principles inherently requires a theatre that aids its larger purpose of seeking truth.

Unfortunately, students don't necessarily see attendance at plays or theatrical discussion groups as an extention of the liberal arts system of which they are a part. The production of plays is outside the academic realm; it is extracurricular, separating it from the larger curricular goals of the college. My senior project is an effort to change that attitude.

I have asked a team of five- Lindsay Johnson, Jessica Batey, Katharine Gentsch, Luke Branim, and Kevin Collier- to help me in this endeavor. This capable, hopeful, and insightful team will work on methods to help educate students at Rhodes to envision theatre as an extension of their education, as something in which they must participate in order to fully experience their time at Rhodes. Our goals, therefore, are two-fold: Education and Promotion.

In our first meeting, ideas for promotion were plentiful, including visual reminders on campus, casts wearing their costumes on opening day, scenes from the show being performed on campus, etc. The educational side, however, was met with some ambivalence. It was my feeling that some of the team members are skeptical as to how possible it is that we can expand the understanding of theatre of the average Rhodes student. I plan on convincing them of this, though; we can make it work!

My inspiration for this education process comes from the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, California. For each of their productions they provide a series of essays, lectures, and discussions to give their audience insight into the meaning and message of the production. If we can provide this information for the mainstage shows at the McCoy each year as well as potential discussion groups and talks with cast, directors, and designers, Rhodes students will graduate with a new understanding of theatre, a passion for the challenges it raises, and they will seek this in whatever community they enter.

The challenge I posed at the end of the meeting was for us to ponder where exactly to begin. How will we promote these educational opportunities, making them appealing to students already bogged down in schoolwork? How will we organize a play promotion system that can be codified into a series of steps for future students (and other theatres) to utilize? That comes next week (as does a name for our team).

A Post-Modern Play

Word to any future theatre-goers: if you see the name "Edward Albee" on a poster for an upcoming play, you probably aren't going to experience some sappy romantic comedy, journey through a super-human epic, or even find a particularly tangible plot line. Albee helps define a post-modern look at the theatre, where the action on the stage becomes secondary to the meaning conveyed by the text and by the actors.

While abroad last semester, I saw Albee's play The Lady from Dubuque in London. The play takes place in a living room and deals with the subject of death and the meaning of life. These themes are discussed through heated party language and the cries of pain from a cancer-ridden woman and her care-taking husband. It's powerful. At the intermission an elderly American couple stood up in front of me. The wife stretched her arms over her head and commented to her husband, "We should have gone to a musical."

Last weekend in Memphis, I went to see Albee's classic, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at Circuit Playhouse. Much along the lines of Lady, the general action of this play comes secondary to the almost philosophical musings of the characters throughout the journey, as we deal with reality verses illusion, the dangers of lust for power, and the secrets hidden in every relationship. I thought the production was craftily done. The quiet intensity of some moments and the bawdy truthfulness of others aided in shortening what could have felt like a marathon of an evening (as the play is almost three hours in length).

My opinion differs greatly from that of Christopher Blank of the Memphis Commercial Appeal. I encourage you to read his review of this production. Maybe it is simply because this was my first experience seeing this play performed that Mr. Blank and I differ in our opinions. I can compliment him, however, on understanding Albee's overall message, helping to alert potential audiences of the thematic elements of the play so that they enter the space in an appropriate mindset to receive what the cast, directors, and crew have prepared to share with them. To put it more simply, the play is Who's Afraid of Viriginia Woolf, not The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf.

Is it possible for the average audience member to attend a play like Albee's unawares of what they are about to participate in and leave feeling anything other than annoyance at how late it is? Are the emotions of the play enough to sustain the playgoer so that he reminds in the moment with the actors and not looking at his watch? This is possible even when the play is done well. And it is because of this that we must continue to educate our potential and current audiences, to promote questioning and yearning, to foster an attitude of seekership when coming to the theatre.

America the Theatrical

"There is no literary enjoyment more within the reach of the crowd than those one experiences in sight of the stage. Neither preparation nor study is necessary to feel them. They seize you in the midst of your preoccupations and your ignorance. When love of the pleasures of the mind, still half coarse, begins to penetrate a class of citizens, it immediately drives them toward the theater."
-Alexis de Tocqueville

In his defining work Democracy in America, there hardly appears to be any subject of American life that Alexis de Tocqueville does not address. After spending ample time on the subjects of government, the separation of powers, the capitalist economy, and American freedom and equality, Tocqueville addresses the arts in America. While he finds pleasure in all the forms of art- visual, musical, and theatrical- it is the realm of theatre that he finds most fitting for democratic peoples.

The quote to open this entry helps to explain this. Theatre in democratic nations is not so much an intellectual as an emotional endeavor. Because of this, it speaks more universally, from the most educated noble to the poor peasant. It is also the most democratic art form in that the playwright, actor, and directors cannot produce a play simply for one person, as can be done with particular musical and visual arts expressions. Plays must satisfy a large audience; theatre necessitates that audience or else it cannot exist. In this way, the people dictate what is performed for them.

Tocqueville later ponders, however, that despite an increase in the theatrical spectacles of American culture over the forty or so years since the ratification of the Constitution (Tocqueville was writing in 1830), "the population still indulges in this genre of amusement only with extreme restraint." He goes on to offer possible reasons for this including the Puritan heritage of early America, the lack of political catastrophes that inspire great theatrical rebellion, the working spirit of Americans whose only rest is on a day they spend worshiping God.

Let me jump to the present. I am a student at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee and part of a program called the Center for Outreach in Development of the Arts. As a senior this year, I have been charged with creating a new program for the college or community that fits into the mission of CODA - to prepare undergraduate students in the principles of aesthetics, cultural policy and professional practice with which the arts invigorate culture and enlighten lives. CODA works creatively with Rhodes College faculty, staff, and its network of arts leaders throughout the region and beyond to translate the ideals embodied in the fine arts into an integral part of student learning and living.

Having read Tocqueville in the last five months, I felt as though his words on the theatre still resonate, at least on my small liberal arts campus, a place that prides itself on cultivating the "pleasures of the mind." We, of all places, should have a student body that is theatrically literate and supportive of our plays. It is my mission this year, therefore, to discover how we can broaden the theatrical perspective of our student body and create a campus climate where we seek "mind pleasures" as well as the "heart emotions." As this blog continues, I will chart my path through this journey, along with several detours about particular arts events and seminars in which I participate.

Join me, and together we'll seek those pleasures of the mind together.