Surviving Seventy-Two Munchkins
This is my brief bio for my application to Columbia's MFA in Theatre Directing. I think it says it all!
I became a theatre major on a dare.
A friend in undergraduate college bet methat acting was all about unbridled emotion—that sort of theatre which involvesa lot of scarf-flinging and little else, and precisely that sort of theatrewhich I hated—while I maintained that there must be some order in acting, and interest in the well-being of others.
I took that theatre course—fully intendingto roll my eyes—and instead, I fell in love. Here was a place to challengeme; here was freedom in discipline; here was all the world in miniature; here, simply, was home.
Immediately, I changed my major fromCreative Writing to Theatre, with an emphasis in Directing. My muddled thinking was: "Theatre is such aridiculous and impractical profession. I'll take it in college, because clearlyno one actually makes a living in the arts!"
Which only goes to prove that God lovesgood dramatic irony.
Salome at Anathan Theatre in 1999
My Senior Thesis Project at Franciscan University of Steubenville
My first teaching position out of collegewas for a K-8 private school. There Itaught both music and art, and was informed that I would direct and produce The Wizard of Oz, with no budget, noscript, no support, and all 425 students participating. I had 72 Munchkins. (And 64 cornstalks, 64 poppies, and the fifthgrade boys were typecast as flying monkeys.) At one point, while making poppy headbands out of wire, red paper, andglue, I was watching a documentary on the making of Riverdance. A voice over ina posh British accent drawled: "At one point I had ninety actors! NINETY! I had never worked with a cast that large." I threw my glue sticks at the TV and criedthat I would kill for ninety actors! I went each day to tech, chanting to myself:"If you can survive this, Emily, you can survive anything!"
I guess I did.
A few of the sixty-four poppies!
More than ten years later, I am still aprofessional director, educator, author and playwright. I have taught theatre to students rangingfrom ages seven to seventy, in formal classrooms, seminars, and rehearsals. I've directed almost fifty productions,founded three unique drama programs (two in schools, one independently), andexpanded a fourth. I have written andhad produced over fifty plays, four of which are published with Playscripts,Inc., and which have played from Chicago, Illinois, to Dublin, Ireland, toChristchurch, New Zealand.
In 2000, I studied Shakespearean verseacting with former members of the Royal Shakespeare Company in London andStratford-upon-Avon, England. In 2006, Ifounded my own summer Shakespeare company, Gaudete Academy, for adolescents andyoung adults. In 2009, my first five actiambic pentameter play, Cupid and Psyche ,premiered in Boston.
Grumio, Lucentio and Petruchio brave the crazy wedding partyin Gaudete Academy's 2010 production of The Taming of the Shrew
I have yet to be saddled with another castof hundreds, but I have had the transformer blow half an hour before show and the show still go on with audiencemembers holding flashlights (French Butler). I've had mycast plagued by walking pneumonia (King of Fools), performed despite African weddings dancing loudlyabove our heads (Taming of the Shrew AND As You Like It), and created rules for rowdy adolescents, such as: "Thefurniture is not for fun" (Tempest).
I've also had the privilege of putting onsome damn fine plays—plays that still live vibrantly in my soul, and which to returnto is the essence of 'bittersweet.' It'sa strange thing to create a world and then destroy it. But beautiful, too. And I wouldn't dare change it.
I became a theatre major on a dare.
A friend in undergraduate college bet methat acting was all about unbridled emotion—that sort of theatre which involvesa lot of scarf-flinging and little else, and precisely that sort of theatrewhich I hated—while I maintained that there must be some order in acting, and interest in the well-being of others.
I took that theatre course—fully intendingto roll my eyes—and instead, I fell in love. Here was a place to challengeme; here was freedom in discipline; here was all the world in miniature; here, simply, was home.
Immediately, I changed my major fromCreative Writing to Theatre, with an emphasis in Directing. My muddled thinking was: "Theatre is such aridiculous and impractical profession. I'll take it in college, because clearlyno one actually makes a living in the arts!"
Which only goes to prove that God lovesgood dramatic irony.
Salome at Anathan Theatre in 1999My Senior Thesis Project at Franciscan University of Steubenville
My first teaching position out of collegewas for a K-8 private school. There Itaught both music and art, and was informed that I would direct and produce The Wizard of Oz, with no budget, noscript, no support, and all 425 students participating. I had 72 Munchkins. (And 64 cornstalks, 64 poppies, and the fifthgrade boys were typecast as flying monkeys.) At one point, while making poppy headbands out of wire, red paper, andglue, I was watching a documentary on the making of Riverdance. A voice over ina posh British accent drawled: "At one point I had ninety actors! NINETY! I had never worked with a cast that large." I threw my glue sticks at the TV and criedthat I would kill for ninety actors! I went each day to tech, chanting to myself:"If you can survive this, Emily, you can survive anything!"
I guess I did.
A few of the sixty-four poppies!
More than ten years later, I am still aprofessional director, educator, author and playwright. I have taught theatre to students rangingfrom ages seven to seventy, in formal classrooms, seminars, and rehearsals. I've directed almost fifty productions,founded three unique drama programs (two in schools, one independently), andexpanded a fourth. I have written andhad produced over fifty plays, four of which are published with Playscripts,Inc., and which have played from Chicago, Illinois, to Dublin, Ireland, toChristchurch, New Zealand.
In 2000, I studied Shakespearean verseacting with former members of the Royal Shakespeare Company in London andStratford-upon-Avon, England. In 2006, Ifounded my own summer Shakespeare company, Gaudete Academy, for adolescents andyoung adults. In 2009, my first five actiambic pentameter play, Cupid and Psyche ,premiered in Boston.
Grumio, Lucentio and Petruchio brave the crazy wedding partyin Gaudete Academy's 2010 production of The Taming of the Shrew I have yet to be saddled with another castof hundreds, but I have had the transformer blow half an hour before show and the show still go on with audiencemembers holding flashlights (French Butler). I've had mycast plagued by walking pneumonia (King of Fools), performed despite African weddings dancing loudlyabove our heads (Taming of the Shrew AND As You Like It), and created rules for rowdy adolescents, such as: "Thefurniture is not for fun" (Tempest).
I've also had the privilege of putting onsome damn fine plays—plays that still live vibrantly in my soul, and which to returnto is the essence of 'bittersweet.' It'sa strange thing to create a world and then destroy it. But beautiful, too. And I wouldn't dare change it.
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