The 12 Days of BirthMas: Day 1, Alma Mater

I wanted to spend some time leading up to the 2009 iteration of The Birth reflecting. Reflecting on staging a production, reflecting on staging this production, reflecting on the season, reflecting on literature, reflecting on acting.

This is a crazy time of year for me and I thought this would be a helpful way to pull back the curtain a bit and let you see what goes into this sort of process.

Thus I present to you, the 12 Days of BirthMas! (Technically the first performance is the 13th, but you get the idea).

Day One: Alma Mater

Astonishingly, it has now been more than 10 years since I started college at Gardner-Webb University here in North Carolina. 10 years is a long time. I can remember being dropped off by my parents at my new academic environment and, moreover, my new home. They dropped me off, my mother in tears, only to have to return moments later due to some item I left in the car.

Then they left again.

From that moment a journey began that has lead me here. My ‘here’ currently is in reference not just to my geography (Charlotte) but also to my artistry. It’s weird to consider oneself an ‘artist’. It feels pretentious to say. It’s easier for me to say “I’m a waiter who wants to be an actor” than it is to simply say “I’m an actor”. Either way, my time and experience at Gardner-Webb stoked the already glowing embers of my skills and craft as a young actor. Under the tutelage of the inimitable Keith Cassidy, former theater professor and current friend, I came to understand the power of story-telling and the importance of truth in performance.

While at GWU I had the opportunity to adopt many personas in my pursuit of honing my craft, whether it was as Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream on the main stage or recreating scenes from Good Will Hunting in acting class. Under the direction of Keith and in the company of peers, we pushed and challenged ourselves in the pursuit of artistic integrity. “It was good, I liked it,” no longer worked in expressing appreciation for a thing – anything. Why was it good? Why did you like it?

And now here I am, 10 years later, having been invited by my former home to return. Out of the blue, to me at least, I received an email back in May to be the guest speaker at GWU’s Dimensions program. Dimensions is the school’s weekly campus-wide convocation. It’s an odd feeling being on the receiving end of such an invitation I have only been back to GWU a handful of times since I left and certainly never in any official capacity. But today, December 1, 2009, I return not as student but as performer. From the same stage where I put on so many other skins, I get to, at least one more time, Live Real in Imaginary Circumstances as The Innkeeper, Wise Man and Shepherd. Not only that, it’s in service of a play – a piece of art – I created. That’s a weird feeling. Though to be fair, The Birth has grown into much more of a collaborative experience than a single person’s presentation. From the words of author Frederick Buechner to the music created by some incredibly talented friends of mine to the hushed, enrapt attention of an audience that is as much a part of the performance as those they’re watching – all form a moment in time that could not have existed had my parents not tearfully deposited me onto that campus those years ago.

Today I get to share The Birth with a new audience. It will be a truncated version (I mean, you gotta get them to come to the actual show somehow, right), but it will be real and it will be home.

_____

The Birth runs December 13, 14, 20 and 21 at 6:30 and 8:30 pm at Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte. Visit thebirth.net for more information and to buy tickets.

Advertisement