"You do you, man" (or, Mi CASA es su CASA)

It's been a wild couple of days!

Some backstory:

I'd always admired Anne Alsedek's onstage work, but getting to see her work as an arts educator has been a privilege and a treat. I got my M.Ed in '08, and not long after returning to Harrisburg, Anne took a chance on me and gave me the opportunity to teach theatre classes at Open Stage.

She gave me a chance to explore every idea I had, supported me terrifically, and gave me amazing advice constantly from years of accumulated teaching wisdom. She actively mentored me and truly influenced me as a teacher. Anne had me teaching adults, kids, teens, and 'tweens. She gave me hope, confidence, and faith that I might one day teach theatre full time, despite the odds. I still get excited every time I see former students Aaron Bomar or Sushma Saha do terrific work in local theatre, and those two and others I taught there do that regularly.

Clark and Melissa Nicholson had given me similar opportunities and support at Gamut Theatre before I returned to school for teaching, and they've given me opportunities since numerous times. I'm excited to return to GTSA this summer as an Acting teacher, for one thing. I owe Amy Alleman and Jeff Luttermoser a huge debt of thanks for involving me in that, too. To see kids I (and many others) taught at Gamut now fully on their way into professional careers of their own, working in LA and New York and DC and Philly, fills me with wonder.

For the first four years of my full-time teaching career, while I spent my days and nights and weekends working at being the best English teacher I could be, the chances I had to be a theatre teacher (mainly at Gamut and Open Stage) were my lifeblood to a dream.

In 2012, I took a leap of faith and followed that dream to Susquehanna Township, and helped them start a School of the Arts, a school-within-a-school arts program with strands in Fashion Design, Visual Arts, and Performing Arts/Theatre.

I quickly realized I had a lot of work here if I wanted it, and I dove in. Our students were soon mounting four productions a year and an audition portfolio showcase. Each marking period we focused on a different performing arts genre and mounted a production from within that genre. We did David Ives' All in the Timing (modern comedy), Frankenstein, Little Women, and Flaherty & Ahrens' Lucky Stiff. We produced an original student-written children's show and adapted a full-length film version of A Midsummer Night's Dream with student-written screenplays. The actors performed their roles in one scene, shot the next, directed the next, produced the next one, and edited the one after that. We paid homage to our school district's amazing Jewish community with a Holocaust memorial drama presentation of an ensemble-driven I Never Saw Another Butterfly. We mounted The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee with nothing paid for but the rights and our music director's stipend. This year we put on four shows with no budgetary support whatsoever; I don't know how we did it, but we did! (Please note: every public school district in Pennsylvania had a tight year for funding this year while our state legislature and governor refused to finalize a budget and state aid was essentially cut off for the better part of a full year, so our tight times were justified, nor were we alone in dealing with them.) One was Aristophanes' The Frogs. Another was a tribute to our school district's incredible African American community called Struggle & Triumph; I've never been prouder to be a part of a show in my life than that purpose-driven, heartfelt work. I dove in and got our Drama Club producing a fall play again, started an improv troupe, and this year that club put on an additional four one act plays. I dove in and got to start a spring cabaret with our Musical Club, and last year was honored to direct our Apollo-nominated production of Aida. Four years went by in a blink, partly because I was jumping from show to show pretty much the entire time. It was an amazing ride. I learned a lot. It was, without a doubt, my dream gig, even if it wasn't easy.

I met Lisa Weitzman years ago when she and I (and many other good friends and colleagues) helped Clark start the TMI improv troupe at Gamut. She was the theatre teacher at CASA, a program Anne had helped found years ago as the Harrisburg Arts Magnet School.

In 2014 I lucked into a marvelous opportunity and was hired to replace the director of Theatre Harrisburg's Last of the Red Hot Lovers (the original director had to drop the project due to valid conflicts and life events--they weren't mad, but they needed somebody and the auditions were happening relatively soon). Lisa came to audition--I was thrilled, and she read well for literally every role. She was fantastic in the show. A couple nights after rehearsal, pretty much whenever it was raining, she would give me a lift home. I walked to those rehearsals because our house is only a few blocks from Theatre Harrisburg. Every time Lisa drove me home we would get to talk shop and swap notes. They were some of the best teacher to teacher conversations I've ever had. We both had this sense of shared giddy glee; "Oh man, I can't believe we each get to do this for our job!" We also had a realistic sense of how challenging the work actually is, and could share those struggles openly and honestly without naming names or throwing anyone under the bus. It meant the world to me at the time; I needed it! I was running too fast, doing too much, and feeling like I was spinning out of control.

CASA posted Lisa's job a bit ago, and I thought about Anne and Lisa and what they'd built there and I just had to see what I could do. Would I get an interview? Would I get an offer? Could I even consider it if I did get an offer?

Well, I did, I did, and I could.

So, this August, I should be starting at the Capital Area School for the Arts as a new theatre teacher, and I could not be more excited about this new adventure!

One wonderful addition to the adventure will be the chance to try to support my friend Stuart Landon (Open Stage's Associate Artistic Director) as he builds a bold artistic musical theatre experience there for the students. Stuart is one of my favorite directors to watch work, and he gets young actors to dig deep and reach high for their dreams. He helped me acclimate to STSD when I started here four years ago, and he's been a great colleague and support to me. He also is a remarkable team builder, and theatre is a team sport.

As far as I know, at this point I believe Susquehanna Township plans to hand the reins of the SoPA to my good friend and valued colleague Stephanie Ungerer. Mrs. Ungerer has a BFA in Acting from NYU; these kids are in great hands with her, and I know better than anyone that she is going to love working with them and they with her. Her shift allows another great colleague of mine, Bill Burns, to return to teaching Drama and 11th grade American Lit, which he is as well-versed in as any person I have ever met. The STHS SoPA is ambitiously tackling Arsenic and Old Lace and Little Shop of Horrors next year, fundraising on their own and bravely venturing ahead like the motivated young artists they are. I hope they will still let me come improv with them on a Tuesday here and there if I can... and I hope they don't mind if I cry and cheer when I come to their shows, because I am really going to miss them. I've taught kids, but I've also met families, been hugged by proud grandparents, met uncles who traveled from Georgia to see their brother's kid in a musical, had parents chip in their time and energy just straight up volunteering to help these kids build and paint and sew and raise money. The night Aida opened, my wife held my hand as I tried to breathe, and the kids were amazing, and the dad in front of me who looked like he would rather be anywhere else in the world for the first twenty minutes of Act One turned around after the curtain call, recognized me as the guy who'd made a little speech before the show, and asked me: "Did you direct this?" "Yeah, I did," I said, kinda sheepishly. The dude grabbed me up in a bear hug, lifted me off the ground, and bellowed loudly, "You did a great f---ing job, man!!" I don't know if my directing has ever been paid such a glorious compliment. There are countless priceless memories from my short four years here (and believe me, it went by in a blink). I will forever entwine my time at Susquehanna Township with the birth and first four years of my daughter's life. This place is heart and home to me now, and I love it.

I'm going to miss the toughest faculty I've ever seen. The people I worked with in Susquehanna Township have been through it, folks! And they've held their heads up and kept hard charging for the kids. The students and families of this community are in my heart permanently. We love living here.

So, before I dive in on this one, I need to thank every person who ever had a kind thought or comment for me in the past four years, because I needed every single one of those. Thank you. Every student who was a part of SoPA or Drama Club or Musical Club, every parent of every one of those students, every colleague who encouraged us, every administrator that got a kick out of what we did, I have love for all of you.

Told my students today. I was dreading it, and they handled it like champs. Every year some kids leave our program, and others join it anew. They've grown used to seeing collaborators come and go. They smiled, kept their composure, wished me well... They continue to amaze me and make me proud. "You do you, man," said my little buddy Ari D. I will miss ALL of them. They are great, great kids. I told them I wasn't going to strong-arm any of them into joining me at CASA, because that kind of decision is best left to students and parents to make together as a team in my opinion and because "you all have a good thing here, and I know that."

But I am super excited, too, for this new opportunity. Every new gig is a new adventure, and in the theatre world a good career is spent bouncing through all sorts of new adventures along the way. Every new adventure is a new opportunity; to meet new people, to absorb new ideas, to learn and to grow.

I'm looking forward to mine, and grateful for where I've been.

This is why I don't blog much. Worth it!

Discarded Facebook Post

It hurts my heart and my soul to see people discriminating, hurting, and hating in the name of Jesus. Forgive us, Lord, and guide us that we may find a better way forward, a way that looks more like the love you showed us and called us to show others.

I rarely speak in the voice of my own faith on here because this is such a wonderfully diverse community (the social media and internet community, I mean), but the lamentations of my heart cried out this morning.

I am a public sector employee, and I can do this and have such personal speech be constitutionally protected. I cannot, however, deny an education to my gay or Muslim or atheist students (just three examples) or demand they conform to Christian doctrine and expect to keep my job. Frankly, I don't believe I could do that and also expect to keep any shred of Christian dignity, either.

We live in a complex and wonderfully diverse web, and we have to live and work together genuinely and joyfully, hand in hand and heart in heart. We have to reach out to one another. We are all Americans. Our nation needs to heal.

It's just science

An heroic retirement...

When I was fourteen I was cast in a neat little supporting role in the second-ever production of a then-new musical, Quilt. It tells the story, as a patchwork musical of scene and song vignettes, of just a handful of the many incredible stories in the AIDS Memorial Quilt. Our director was a man named Cary Libkin.

We'd just moved to State College the summer before, and while it has always been a magical place to me, I was fourteen and had just been made to move away from my girlfriend, who was, in my view, of course, incredibly awesome. I was adjusting from the capacious kind of openness one takes for granted in the country to the hustle and polish of life in a small but successful college town, a place brimming with energy and intelligence and draped in the joy (and angst) of youthful energy. My initial adjustment was something like stunned shock. I was enjoying the place, meeting incredible people briefly, then getting lost again in the swirl of newness and strangeness. One of the things my parents had said to me to sell me on the move was how I'd have more chances to be involved in theatre productions. We moved after the notices for apprentices and auditions had been posted from the local Barn-housed community theatre (don't knock it 'til you've tried it, and they are an incredible community theatre, I might add), so my summer was spent drawing all the time and wandering off to buy comics and CDs with my allowance money, earned mainly in yard work then. Had I known, I'd have summered with some of the greatest apprentices that Barn has ever seen (I'm biased, clearly), the pals I'd soon come to know and love in my high school theatre club. But alas, I spent the summer chumless and sad, a mopey teen. I made one friend that summer: Chris Sheridan. I met Chris at a comic book drawing camp I attended for about a week. Chris was friendly and an incredibly talented illustrator, something he now does professionally and for a cool company who makes a video game I love whose name rhymes with Splants Versus Mombies. But other than Chris, and my of course wonderful family, I was a bit lonely.

Some time shortly before summer ended and school was to begin, my mother brought to me an audition notice for Quilt, which was being produced by Penn State's URTC (University Resident Theatre Company), the producing arm of what was then PSU's Theatre Department (now School of Theatre). I auditioned and was cast. I felt lucky and delighted to be meeting and working with such a diverse, talented cast. Cary had found a gem of a group and made a patchwork wonder of it. He cast majors and non-majors alike from the student body, graduates and undergraduates, professors and retired community members, and me and a couple other scrappy local kids (well, I wasn't local, I was new, but you know) in the show, too. From rural, rural Pennsylvania I'm suddenly working with all ages, races, backgrounds, etc. on a play about a quilt to honor victims of AIDS. It was the experience of a lifetime, friends. I was continually blown away by the talent, friendliness, and joie d'vivre of my castmates, nearly all older, and all much more theatrically experienced than I. I loved the artistic parallels in the play about the beautiful nature of patchwork in art and craft and human relationships and communities, and I loved the way Cary cast the show to reflect that truth. Diversity is a crucible of sorts, but one that can lead to extraordinary greatness in those who embrace it. This cast did, in my opinion, and we had one of those show moments as a group that ends often in hugs and tears and life altering, soul building moments. You know, show biz.

Cary was our plucky and fearless leader, always energetic and cajoling. He had the biggest smile I had ever seen, and he wore it with joy, even in moments deeply challenging.

Soon after Quilt, I fell into a long and love-fueled working relationship with State High Thespians, my theatre home for the next four years, a place that has nurtured scores of theatre lifers before and since. Before I graduated, Cary was the director of a brand new program, Penn State's BFA in Music Theatre.

I auditioned for Cary's program because applying to Penn State wasn't really optional in my family. Penn State's also a terrific school in a terrific town with a strong theatre program. I wanted a BFA in Acting, but PSU didn't offer one (and they still don't, to my ever loving wistfulness). I could sing (I was an all state tenor, I'll have y'all know, and it am not ashamed to brag about it, because I loved that sangin' stuff, and I still do, and I worked real hard at it, pardners). I could not dance, really, no matter how many classes my wonderful friend Eamonn coerced me into taking. I also auditioned with a sinus infection the size of Atlanta. Through my haze of illness and cold medicine, I apologized ever so profusely to my auditors, who laughed at my candor and told me to not apologize in auditions, and that I'd done fine. They then offered me admission to the BA program, which I was hurt about, but unsurprised. For me, my college options were not a difficult choice: I could either go to a BFA program in Acting at a terrific school that cost a small fortune, or I could go get a BA in Theatre at Penn State for about one-twentieth of the cost, once my scholarships and such kicked in. I loved PSU's Theatre program. I'd been in it, briefly, as a young kid from the community. I'd watched their shows for years, and their devotion to hard-working professionalism and onstage excellence had more than won me over. It was a no brainer. "No debt," my dad mentioned more than once.  He was right, and I knew he was right.

I've never once regretted my choice. Penn State prepared me to work in the theatre, and I did and I have, in many different arenas and in many different roles, onstage, behind the scenes, and in the classroom. Additionally, I've seen more folks from the program go on to astonishing professional successes of their own than I can count. Penn State's Music Theatre program is rightly lauded as one of the best in the country. Cary, and a cohort of brilliant collaborators, built it, and chose kids they knew could go out and get it for themselves with talent, determination, professionalism, and drive. I flirted with musical theatre the whole time I was at Penn State. I've always preferred plays and films to musicals, but musical theatre is a grand American institution, and an astonishing and thrilling thing to be a part of, truly. The best musicals are as good as any fine art in the world. No one needs me to point out this fact, right? I bugged them to let me take dance classes, and you know what? They did, in spite of my eternal leftfootedness. Bless Spence and Kevin, my dance teachers, Lord, for I was slow of study to their art. It did not come to me naturally, let's just say. The BAs, MFAs, and BFA designers all have great successes of their own to which they may point. Our school as a whole is a success, and we are proud.

I am so proud to have known Cary as a young kid at a critical phase of my life. His mentorship and nurturing of my young theatrical aspirations was precisely the kind of professional, safe, heartfelt, and inspiring teaching Penn State is known for. Jerry Sandusky is not the Penn State story; he's one manipulator who managed to destroy children and betray a large community of good people. People like Cary Libkin are Penn State; that's what the "we are" means. We are united. We are all in this together. We are stronger as a team than as individuals. I saw Cary embody that in the way he directed and in the way he ran the PSU Music Theatre program. In spite of my lead-lined dancin'  shoes, Cary always gave me a shot at musical auditions, as did his colleagues, and I'm grateful, because I had some wonderful experiences, learned a ton, and worked with a bunch of Broadway-bound talent.

Now I teach theatre, and I hope I can see even a fraction of the success in my students as they move forward that Cary has seen his students achieve. He'd probably say he's proud, but he'd probably also say something pragmatically wise, too, like "I hope they're happy." He announced his retirement today, and a flood of memories came pouring back, which then became this post. I realize that I have been subconsciously trying to emulate him (and many others who've inspired me) in numerous ways as a teacher my whole teaching career. I dress like Cary sometimes. He always looked professorial, professional, and comfortable, dapper and precise. It suited him. Some of my best moments as a director have been Cary moments, moments when, even when it wasn't easy, I kept my cool and tried to keep the team together, and we all got a chance to come back together and show our audiences and each other what we could do as a team. I think he taught me that lesson quite admirably. Others have shown me that selfless path of leadership, but Cary, man, he mastered that, in my opinion, in a way few folks can.

I just had a crazy four day long stomach virus, so I can't (I literally physically cannot) raise a glass of anything alcoholic in his honor, but I lift my ginger ale in his honor anyway and toast a great man, a great teacher, and a great leader, and one of the folks who absolutely lit a fire under me for this great art I love. I will always cherish him for that. I'll also always cherish him for continuing to push me to excel, to believe in myself, and to go for a life in the arts. I remember having meetings in his office as an undergrad where he'd encourage me with pragmatic honesty, comradeship and camaraderie, and good cheer. I wasn't in his program, keep in mind. He did this anyway. That should say something about the man as a teacher. I have so much to thank the man for, I barely know where to begin.

I'm thrilled for him that he's getting to bring this chapter to a close and move on to new adventures. I think he nailed it, y'all. 

Teachers are something, aren't they? They absolutely mold us.

Santa Died.

My friend Jay Miffoluf died.

I started this as a Facebook post, but it got too long. It's a blog post, I guess. Too much to say... The man leaves too big a void.

Jay was the mayor of my theatre community. We all have big shoes to fill. I hope we can honor his legacy by drawing even closer together. I'm inspired by seeing things in the newspaper from artistic directors in Harrisburg talking about how when one of us succeeds, we all do. That good will truly does bond this community of artists together. Jay Miffoluf was an enormous part of that; the linchpin, really. We've lost not one (community theatre stalwart Mark Arner), not two (Jay), but three (I can't believe I had to go back and rewrite this sentence, but Jim Woland, one of our area's finest scenic designers, and a teacher, artist, advocate, and all around great man, is also gone today) of our most devoted, dedicated, passionate theatre people this week. I just want to get all the theatre folks in central PA together in one big room so we can just sort of be together and share hugs and stories. And tears.

I am so sad he is gone, but I am also filled with awe at the way he lived. He was one of a kind.

The first time I was in a show with Jay (OSH Christmas Carol '04) he drove me nuts all through rehearsal. He was sarcastic and griping. Those who knew him all knew that side, too. Once the show opened, this cantankerous guy suddenly mellowed and was constantly bringing us gifts, notes, cookies, kugel, food, pick-me-ups, aphorisms, silly songs, stories, a genuine ear, and an open heart. I thought maybe the sharper side of Jay was actually some kind of stage fright, or stage awe, perhaps. He always held the stage in high esteem, and he never, ever, in all the time I knew him, acted like acting was easy. Silly sometimes, it sure is, but never something to be taken for granted. For him it remained daunting, sacred. He respected the stage with total sincerity. I always admired that about him and aspire to be that devoted.

I've been teaching all day and should be grading finals now, but I can't. I think it's weird that I have this need to eulogize people when they pass on, but I think it's simply that I am my mother's son, and I process much of my feelings in writing. It's what she taught me to do. It's what she does, too. I share things like this because every one of the people in my Facebook "friends list" is a real person who's meant something real to me. My god, we are all going to be gone one day. It's a lot of grief. It always sucks.

Jay was one of those people who'd be the first to champion everyone else's success, and the last to ever really accept praise directed his own way. He marketed the shows he was in, too, but I would bet it came more from a desire to share the work of his castmates. I imagined him looking at all of us down here, all of us sad we couldn't say our goodbye, him mumbling something about how he wouldn't have wanted all that fuss and attention anyway. Shambling off. 

My mother in law said to me today that sudden death is easiest for the person who dies, but worse for all of us left here. I hope it was easy for my friend. He'd been through many struggles with his physical health. He was Philly tough about it, though, and just kept on working, kept on commuting hours a day just to do another show in another theatre or see someone he knew on a stage.

I tried to buck myself up all day for my students. Then they'd leave the room and I'd think about Jay and Lori and get choked up.

I kept having songs in my head all day, too. "Anatevka" from Fiddler on the Roof. That's the song when the ensemble of that show basically wanders away into the void. I know that show was a favorite of Jay's. "Oh, Death" by my friend Joe Gualtier as Lost Companion, which has become a loop in my mind every time someone I know dies. Also, weirdly, Steve Martin's banjo riff about how no one on the banjo ever sings, "Oh death, and grief, and sorrow, and murder." That one felt morbid to me, and may just be some inner emotional backlash against too many folks dear to those of us who make theatre in this little part of the world passing on lately, but... I felt a little better realizing that Jay might have loved that routine, even if a "young whippersnapper" like Steve Martin made it up. It has a vaudevillian's zest about it, and so did Jay. Jay was fond of the "old man" quips. He was in his fifties going on his nineties sometimes, and he liked it that way. He was somehow out of his era and somehow also ahead of us all.

Some close friends came over tonight basically so we could talk about Jay and be together. We all agreed that a favorite memory was his wholly rescripted (he had directorial permission to do so), wildly invented classic radio DJ character "The Big Whopper" for our Classic Rock Cabaret. He went to Theatre Harrisburg and got a crazy costume (colorful jacket, wild bow tie, the works) just for the show, if I remember correctly. He was a hoot and a half in the show, and he had just as much fun bopping around quietly backstage thinking up new material.

He was my neighbor.

He was my daughter's first Santa.

He was a curmudgeonly teddy bear. He even played one of those, too, in a Popcorn Hat show, I kid you not.

He could be huge. He could be quiet. He was Whitmanesque.

He was a guy who'd call you up if he thought some offhand comment he'd made had hurt your feelings. He'd take you out to lunch and he'd just talk to you about life and stuff. There was no agenda other than enjoying being human.

I had to keep Hamlet (albeit an edited Hamlet) in my wheelhouse for two years straight. Having that unfortunate young man romping around in my heart and head for that long involved spending far too much time staring the silent, sad monster we call death square in the face. Part of Hamlet's madness (feigned or no) stems from being too close to death. When people close to me die, I feel like death has come back for more, more loss, more gut punches. At those moments, I feel a kinship with Troy in Fences, ready to fight the monster if need be, looking for my baseball bat. I thought of my friend Ian today, too. Jay played King Hamlet to his Prince Hamlet in a full length production a few years back. Both were astonishing, as was the whole show. So many lines from that seem appropriate. Ian nailed it on his Facebook. "He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again." Accompanying the quote was a picture of the two of them, the young prince haunted, scared, and in awe of his father's noble ghost. Perfect. And again, for the umpteenth time today, the tears welled and choked me.

Jay leaves behind him a wife who he adored with every fiber of his being. Lori is one of my favorite people in the world. I just want to give this dear person, someone I admire and am proud to call a friend, a hug.

Hmm. Sometimes the words still aren't adequate. I'll just have to keep grieving. At least I won't be alone. Jay leaves behind him a village he helped build, brick by brick. We will miss him more dearly than words can say.

A Painting for Her Nursery

I haven't done a painting in years, but a new friend reminded me what fun painting can be.  I'm realizing, too, that my preferred artistic outlet (theatre), is going to be less and less available to me as a new dad, so I am hoping to write more and to create more visual art as a coping strategy.  Film projects are more manageable, too, especially the shorter film projects.

Anyhow, this is for our baby girl's nursery.  It's not finished... I ran out of white paint partway through the sky, so I am eager to add another layer of highlights, then perhaps a few more detailing layers, but I have a feeling it may be hanging in there unfinished for a while.  My friend Bill has a blog about being a dad (and being a dad-to-be right now) and he put it eloquently when he spoke of the mistakes in their nursery mural: 

"Throughout the drafting, chalk-lining, taping and painting, we reminded ourselves that we were creating the mural 'out of love, not perfection.'

Becoming parents, after all, requires coming to terms with our imperfections."

Here it is, my imperfect painting for our baby girl... an abstracted view up the Susquehanna River Valley, looking north... sunrise, midday, sunset, and night (24"x48").  I'll add a photo whenever I can get it to a more finished state:

... and a little slideshow, too.

Holes, and Waking Up Ready

When people you care about die, they seem to leave holes in you somehow. The holes don't really ever go away, either, I've found. You just become more and more like swiss cheese as the years go by and the griefs pile up.

By the same token, when incredible things happen, it's like being adorned with some extraordinary power-granting gem (okay, yes, I made a Green Lantern reference), or breathing the freshest air or drinking the purest juice imaginable, or waking up invigorated and ready. That last one is something that I think has happened to me maybe six times in my life, so to me it feels like a pretty incredible event. Not a morning person over here.

One of my favorite students abruptly left this world a little over a week ago. Today was his memorial service. My administrators graciously let students and teachers attend, even though it was in the middle of the day. That's the right thing to do, and that seems to be what motivates them, in my opinion. Hence, I tend to like working for them. I've been around for students dying in the five or so years I've been working in public schools. This was the first time I knew the student so well... well, the first time since a classmate died in high school.

There's ready-made cliches for these occasions, and the fact that they're cliches makes them feel a bit wrong, even though they are actually wholly accurate. They are too young to die at this age. It isn't supposed to be like this. No parents should have to go through that.

Maybe part of why it hit me so hard is because Alexis and I are expecting a child at the end of August. We've already been through a miscarriage, so the whole event, while exciting and beautiful beyond measure, is also fraught with fear and a quiet sort of terror. I'm a little nervous about trying to be a good dad, but mainly I am just afraid of the random darkness of this fallen world sneaking up and snatching them away before this child really gets a chance to live it out.

It may be that, partly, but probably it's more to do with the fact that I knew this kid. I knew the intelligence that hid behind a quiet facade. I knew the soft heart that hid behind hard armor. I knew much more than a name and some grades and some anecdotal evidence. I cared. Once you're caring, you're already, on some level in this life, digging into yourself and building a nice comfortable hole in yourself, somewhere for them to live cozily. Then, when they're gone, you're left with that hole.

What a capricious, malevolent, cold world. What a wonderland of delights, too. When weighing the two extremes together, the highs and the lows of life, it's hard for me to regard it with anything but a strange blend of both wonder and terror.

Today I tried to mourn one of my favorite students. Tomorrow I find out if we're having a boy or a girl. And that, my friends, is death and life, sitting together in about as overwhelming a yin and yang as I've encountered.

I like art and literature because they strive to explain these great mysteries of life, and they usually do so (when they're doing it well) in non-dogmatic ways, ways that retain room for the mystery itself to still captivate and flourish.

I keep hearing a song a friend of mine wrote when I think about this new hole I'll be carrying around. "Death / He looked me straight in the eye / He said you're never too young to die / His words / They rang true in my heart / And that was the worst part / Oh, Death..."

Family is forever

I gave some serious thought to the idea of deleting that last post. I felt like I was lashing out at Penn State, and I love Penn State. Penn State is like a part of my family. Faults don't have to kill the love.

But what happened can never be undone, so I might as well own up to the anger of my reaction. I hope if anyone was hurt by what I said there that you might forgive my bitterness. I'm not generally the kind of person who lets bitterness linger and last forever. At least, I don't think of myself that way. If it makes any difference, I'm trying to forgive myself for that bitterness and anger, whether it was justified or not.

When Paterno died, I was deeply upset. It did have such a ring of tragedy to it. I admired the way his family chose to honor him, and I feel he deserved that honor. I finally went to the statue of him by Beaver Stadium with a lump in my throat.

When he died, story after story came up in my friends' facebook feeds and in news stories that told of an incredible number of anonymous acts of gracious kindness and remarkable generosity he did for people, routinely and over the course of many decades.

One key thing that changed my perspective on Paterno's role in this horrible Sandusky story was a short op ed piece written by a child abuse attorney. This attorney calmly pointed out a few factors about mandated reporter laws. First, Paterno was a mandated reporter. This has been acknowledged. Secondly, the people he reported to were exactly the people he was supposed to report to, by law. Had he violated the chain of communications, he could have jeopardized the credibility of his potential testimony. This was something I didn't know because no one was saying it in the media. Hearing this, I was able to finally see that Paterno actually did exactly what he was supposed to do. He trusted the men above him to do the right thing, and they hadn't given him any indication that he shouldn't. That broke my heart a bit, realizing this, in light of my initially buying into some of the vilification that had come towards him. I can now still think of him as a hero. He was not perfect, or a saint, but I can see goodness in him again the way I used to. Doing so makes me honestly a bit ashamed that I doubted the guy. It was so hard, when this horrible story exploded, to see anything clearly.

I am too emotionally tied to Penn State to let anger fuel my feeling for the place. If others feel that way, though, I can't blame them. And if still others feel more loyal to the place than ever, I can see their position too. I feel stuck in the middle now. Others have picked up the banner for accountability and change and are willing to shout and fight. Many of them have far more power and influence than I ever will.

What a hard end for Joe... scandal... doubt... public rage... lung cancer... betrayal... yet the man was calm and even happy because his family surrounded him. His son said he died with a clear conscience. I think that's amazing.

The black Nikes swish through the perfect grass; the khaki cuffs slap lightly after; the clash is over, the quiet re-settles, and the feet meander home through the cold, grey Pennsylvania twilight. The scoreboard is meaningless; the game was all.

I wrote this for Joe. He walked home after every game. To me, this is more about the grey misty walk into the mysterious afterlife. I hope the man gets to keep peace with himself, with his soul. He loved poetry. I hope he got to see it. It may not be a great poem, but it's from the heart.

I'm not sure what "we are" anymore, but I am sad and angry, and I pray for something better.

Nothing in this past week is more important than the sad fact that a small group of young boys had their lives destroyed by one sick, selfish man.

People keep politely using the term “alleged” to describe the actions of a clearly horrifying monster. The evidence is stacked. The courts will surely have their say. If anyone thinks for a moment Jerry Sandusky did not do these things, they are naïve to a dangerous degree. The state attorney general’s office acted carefully and spent years building evidence. They knew they couldn’t move without an airtight and overwhelming case, because if they did, the army of public opinion would overwhelm the credibility of the case, and the institutionalized blindness would be enabled to perpetuate itself.

I am sad in the extreme that these horrifying, abusive, monstrous acts happened.

I am, I guess, a little bummed that Joe Paterno got swept up in it, too, and I could easily see almost any man struggling to do the right thing when confronted with the possibility of having to send a trusted friend to jail in order to do the right thing. However, I cannot help but feel immensely disappointed that, when confronted with a chance to live his lifelong credos, one of my childhood heroes elected instead to act with a disturbing degree of cowardice.

What I feel as a lifelong football fan is dull and inconsequential in the face of things that are so much more important. I am saddened with each new media story I see focusing on Paterno or the football program at Penn State at all. A crime happened here, folks, and it’s a crime weighty and consequential enough that no one should really be giving a crap about football. It’s a freaking game. Get a grip. Screw it. Forget about football right now.

I am angry that Penn State continues to allow itself to be an institution that isolates itself from reality. It looks around at the picturesque mountains of Centre County and feels alone in its mountain hamlet. Because of this, it can become the nation’s number one party school without any social consequences. Because of this, it can allow something as horrifying as this to occur. Because of this, it remains entrenched in a cultural climate that is fundamentally unwelcoming to nonconformists and minorities. Because of this, it becomes the most celebrated corporate recruiting station. Because of this, it can tolerate utterly stupid, mongrel acts of mass riot... repeatedly, and never for any reason greater than alcohol-fueled football fanaticism. Because of this, it can put football first.

As an institution, Penn State has allowed itself to behave like an aging alcoholic in denial. It has allowed itself to behave as though it cares for nothing greater than its own public image. The slogan “success with honor” has become more important than actually achieving success with honor. There were points in the university’s past when it had success with honor (and it didn't print that slogan on a t-shirt at that once-honorable time in its past), but it has since sold out royally and drunk its own kool aid.

I see good, sane, rational people who went to PSU or grew up in State College defending the instituition this past week, and I don’t exactly understand what they feel they’re defending. The university will suffer for these crimes, and the university deserves to suffer for these crimes. There will be legal consequences and financial consequences and consequences that forever impact the story and reputation of this institution. There will be scars from this that will never go away and never stop hurting. There is no healing from this for Penn State. The school can move forward, and should, but they should also pay dearly for allowing this to happen, and they surely will. I read my own words and they feel awfully jaded... and I bet most of those sticking up for the institution have heartfelt reasons for why they feel that way. I can't assume to know better.

What I hope can come of this eventually, though, is a shift in culture there. I would like for State College to assume a greater responsibility, perhaps starting with the assumption of police responsibility for all of University Park. I would like for Penn State to humble itself and put a stop to the excessive drinking, which is so entrenched that it merited a feature story on NPR, one where "gown" appeared very bullying to "town." Enforce a culture of sobriety if it means anything to them as an institution; clearly it hasn’t meant a damn thing for decades now.

I would like for their admissions office to be a bit more judicious. Perhaps there is a template for riotous and vulgar behavior that could be screened in admissions applications. Hundreds of other institutes of public education have managed to not be defined by drunken fools and the decision-making of moronic douche bags. Perhaps Penn State could, for once, sincerely endeavor not to allow such foolishness to happen, instead of turning the blind and winking eye to that, too.

I feel so much more sorrow for State College, a remarkable community of good-willed families and forward-thinking people, than I will ever feel for Penn State. Penn State, for all its remarkable accomplishments (and the list remains extensive and impressive), allowed some despicable and vile cultures to take hold. The bacteria in those cultures spread into a virulent strain of a stupid, horrifying, and apish disease. This past week we’ve witnessed some of the results of what can happen when blindness replaces oversight, when corporate personhood replaces humanity, and when distractions become the main focus and education becomes a distraction.

I’m directing Antigone right now with a group of wonderful and dedicated high school students, and one moment that gives me chills is when the blind prophet Tieresias tells Creon:

Creon, all men are wrong at times.

This is known.

We are all of us fools at moments in our lives.

The man who is no fool in his heart

will always try to make things right.

The man who sees his folly,

who sees the darker half of his evil self in the mirror,

and decides to change course from his darker path,

he can be saved.

Men who will parade their iron mettle,

who will never examine themselves,

who brag of their hard-headed stubbornness,

these men make themselves look pathetic and stupid.

So I guess what I feel is sadness and bitterness that anyone can think much about football at a time like this, as that is indicative of the larger change that is necessary. I am sad and bitter, too, that Paterno, who knows a great deal more about Greek literature than I do and the nature of tragedy--it exists that we might learn to make wiser choices--chose the actions he chose, and also chose the inaction. PSU Football has for a long time been a symbol of doing things better, but if that symbol becomes intensely problematic (and it has), can the school manage to change itself for the better or will it simply keep perpetuating its own problems?

I pray for the childhoods Sandusky ruined. I pray for the hearts he has broken. As the sun continues to come up over what people once lovingly referred to as Happy Valley, I doubt it can ever be really considered that anymore, as one of its heroes has driven a dagger into its heart and twisted the knife. But as that new day dawns again and again and the world moves inexorably onward, I hope for justice for those victims. It should result in their destroyer being prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. It should result in serious legal consequences for any and all who allowed it to happen and did not do nearly enough. It should also result in an end to the isolationism, naïveté, crass corporatism, base stupidity and horrifyingly blind selfishness that has come to define an institution that knows much, much better. It should result in matters of grave consequence.

Much of the workforce, student body, and body of alumni of Penn State have their perspectives firmly in place in a healthy way. They celebrate the way the school shapes minds and character for the better. They appreciate the good things and don't overhype the things that ultimately bear little relevance to making life better. I would offer that the vast majority of the people associated with Penn State believe in what it has done for all the right reasons. This is not a hopeless scenario. Many friends and alumni are suggesting we shift the focus to philanthropic efforts aimed at ending child abuse. This is a wonderful start to the change that must happen. I'm going to make a donation to RAINN right now.

-Robert Campbell (State College Area High School '97; Penn State University '02 BA Theatre Arts / Honors & '08 MEd Curriculum and Instruction) started going to Penn State Football games with his dad when he was six. Most of his extended family got degrees there, and several of his immediate and extended family have had long careers working for Penn State. He loves his adopted hometown of State College, which he moved to at the age of fourteen. He believed in everything Joe Paterno brought to the institution's identity, as did hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of others. Joe at his best seemed to think life was about a great deal more than football...

Homecoming 2011

This short piece was a sample I wrote for my students as part of an assignment they had to do replicating some aspect of the American transcendental experience...


-----


On homecoming weekend, I went home for the first time in many, many years.

When people ask me where I’m from, I usually tell them I’m from State College. Sometimes they need assistance figuring out just where that is, so I use my open left hand as a map of Pennsylvania and point to the root knuckle of my middle finger.

State College is a neat little town. It’s clean, it’s friendly, it’s vibrant. It’s filled with hustle and bustle, color and life, fun and smart people. It’s got a few too many fraternity types wandering around drunk at three in the morning, but beyond that it’s generally pretty safe, too.

I moved to State College when I was fourteen, and it wasn’t long before it felt like home. It was a better fit for me. A lot of who I was fit in there better than it did where I grew up. The nerd in me, the artist in me, the performer in me, the thinker in me, and even the football fan in me all fit in better in that town.

I grew up in the sticks. When people think of northeastern Pennsylvania they generally think of coal mines, flooding disasters, the Pocono Mountains, and not much else. I grew up about twenty minutes west of Wilkes-Barre in a little hollowed-out patch called the Back Mountain. Dallas, Pennsylvania is the only real town to speak of in the Back Mountain, and the rest of the area there is pretty rural: two-lane roads zig-zag between rows of forests, hills and creeks. The terrain is steep and claustrophobic, and where it isn’t there’s basically nothing but farms.

Rural America is often gorgeous. Even when it seems dirty or broken, the haunting charms of Americana can infiltrate one’s soul. The people in the country are almost always a little extra: the friendly folks are extra friendly, the tough guys are extra tough, the mean kids are extra mean, etc.

I found, as I got older, that the Back Mountain wasn’t going to support me as an artist, as a performer, as a nerd. I couldn’t be myself there, not fully, anyhow. Country strong doesn’t leave a lot of room for intellectual or artistic pursuits. Lucky for me, we moved.

I miss the beauty of my childhood home, though. I miss the jaw-dropping autumn colors; only two hours south, it’s just not the same. I miss the wind in the trees. It just sounds different in those mountains. I miss the haunted feeling of our two-hundred-year-old country house as it breathed and creaked in the winter. I miss the loneliness of the country, that feeling of space and time just to oneself that is so easy to find there, and so hard to find anywhere else.

The last time I’d visited was about five years ago. My wife (we were just dating then) and I went up to Scranton for a minor league baseball game. We know one of the coaches. It was a nice visit. On the way home, I detoured through the Back Mountain and showed her some of my favorite old familiar sights. Memories get more powerful with age. The ghosts of that place hadn’t gone anywhere; they were still there, and I could feel them tugging at me.

In the interim, some of my best friends had discovered Ricketts Glen. It’s an incredible place to hike and swim and camp. Ricketts Glen is one of the more gorgeous state parks in Pennsylvania, and probably one of the more underrated gems of all America’s state parks. It’s a short distance from the house I grew up in, nestled in the hills and hollers of the Back Mountain. Two robust creeks run down the middle face of a steep rock mountain, and every couple hundred yards these streams drop off a steep slate cliff, creating a powerful waterfall vista. There are more falls in Ricketts than I can recall; one after another they come, each unique, each powerful, each gorgeous. In autumn, Ricketts Glen is on fire with oranges and browns, yellows and reds. The hiking there can be treacherous, and it’s a heck of a workout, but the payoff is phenomenal.


These friends had always invited me to come along to Ricketts Glen, and I’d always been busy and had to say no. This weekend, I could go. They were all excited about the gorgeous place and the gorgeous hike. As for me, I was mired in old anxieties and nostalgia, part sadness and part joy, at the prospects of going back home.

I think I cling to my past more than most. I’m not sure why. Revisiting the past, though, always puts a strange taste in my mouth. That was then, and now it’s different, I suppose. Going home is a wistful, bittersweet experience.

That day we got up early, rode two hours north, and hit the hiking trails before ten in the morning. The first hour or so was rough. I was reminded just how out of shape I am. Eventually, though, my lungs adjusted and I found a steady pace. The falls were stunning. Ricketts Glen was in all its Tolkien-esque finery. The water rolled over those slate falls and my childhood flooded over in my mind. It had been too long.



We can’t escape our pasts. They will always creep up when we least expect it, for better or worse. It’s best to just go toward the nostalgia, to shake off the dust and embrace it again. As we crested the mountain, I got my second wind. Maybe I finally felt country strong.

-----

One week later, I woke up next to Alexis and she mumbled something about meeting up with her sister Brianna and some friends to go for a run at Wildwood. “It’s about a 5k,” she murmured, half-asleep.

Wildwood is my favorite place to hike around here. It’s no Ricketts Glen, but it’s a special place, an accidental gem of a park around an old public works drainage spout that collects stream runoff. American lotuses flower and flourish there, a rare find in this part of the country. It has brackish swampy spots and steep hillsides, wooded coves, wooden walkways, birds everywhere, and teeming plant life.

“I want to go with you,” I said.

They all jogged one direction, and I walked the other. My wife and friends are training for a 10-mile run for the arts this spring. I like to walk.

I popped in my ipod earbuds and rambled into the swampy side passages, raised wood platforms weaving through the dense swampland in a serpentine twist. The Indigo Girls sang “Galileo” and I thought about my mother-in-law’s fat dead cat with the same name. He was such a sweet boy. The walk was some kind of weird nineties retrospective, replete with Weezer, Luscious Jackson, and Nirvana. When I turned around to head back, I felt lighter at first, then for a brief moment I felt something like fear crawling up behind me.

I thought of Emerson and Thoreau, and realized I was about to teach them, albeit briefly, in my American Literature course. I got the idea for this project with the fresh cold air of fall in my lungs, walking in the tamed wilderness of modern America.

House and Home

I don't blog very often, but when I do, I need it.

I'm back for another year of teaching this fall. Tomorrow marks my first official day back. I will be in my room this afternoon setting up once again. I am filled with excitement. My rosters are full of amazing students, my courseload is challenging, yet exhilarating, and I genuinely like where I work.

However, I am sad to see this time go. I need to bury my summer first.

This summer was unlike any other. Alexis and I closed on our first home. I have been yearning to own a home since I was 23 years old. I am now 32. Nine years of pining away finally ended. For much of that time I was working full-time in the theatre in central Pennsylvania. This was great fun, and I still work part-time in the theatres in the area, but I didn't think I would ever be able to afford a house doing that work full-time. Fortunately, I knew I loved to teach, and I knew I had a chance to be in a great teacher training program, one that works especially well for lateral career shifts. All of that worked out. Alexis got a better paying job, though still in the nonprofit arts world. A couple years of saving, a lot of luck and support, and poof: here we are.

Our house is charming and lovely. It's everything we could have wanted in a first home--nothing too fancy, and not without problems, but in all an excellent little house. I am hoping it's our last home, honestly. I, like anyone who ever moves anywhere, feel pretty strongly right now that I don't ever want to move again.

I took a bunch of photos along the way, so here goes...

This is the front of the house:

... and this is the back.

Not bad, right? Pretty quaint. Here's some of what we've done with it.

BEFORE

The patio:

The den:

The living room:

The breakfast nook:

The master bedroom:

Spare bedroom:

The kitchen:

DURING

We did a fair amount of painting. I didn't document much of that, but I have a few process shots from the den.

Special thanks to our intrepid paint crew: Joe G (den and dining room), Brianna D (dining room and breakfast nook), and Zach B (dining room).

AFTER

Once all the boxes were unloaded, round one of painting completed (our breakfast nook, dining room and den were painted--the kitchen is in the plans for painting later), some furniture was purchased (although most of it we already had, or was graciously given to us by our moms)... we had a house.

Kitchen / breakfast nook:

These old ladder-backed chairs were the same ones my family ate breakfast, lunch and dinner on when I was a kid. Those kinds of things mean a lot to me. We have a Barbara Campbell Thomas original on the back wall.

Alexis' mom got us an exhaust fan and microwave--Alexis and I installed it with the assistance of our friend Joe... thanks, Patti!

Living room:

Furniture set (couch, loveseat) from Discount Mattress and Furniture King. No frills, no extra costs passed along to the consumer. We got a great deal. Everywhere else we looked was overpriced, in our opinion.

Alexis had one of our favorite paintings (by my sister Barbara) mounted and framed...

Dining room:

I still want to get a better curtain rod and move those curtains up higher. This room went from a peachy color to this gray. I think paint color names are often silly. This is called "elephant skin." I do love the color, though.

Patti also got us this antique dish hutch... classy!

The dining room is a nice little showcase for several of my sister's paintings, too. The table was my family's dining room table for many years while we were in Huntsville, PA. I remember my mother made my brother a chocolate cake that was shaped like Darth Vader's head, and we ate it at this table, among other things.

The den:

Gamut production posters (Robinson Smith, designer) in frames, all from shows in which Alexis or I were cast...

This furniture came from Rich and Patti's basement family room. Both items are very comfortable. We're lucky to have them. Paintings in the den are by my sister as well as local artist Garrick Dorsett.

The entryway:

Our foyer features another '90s-era Barbara Campbell Thomas painting.

Guest room:

The bedrooms all have curved walls where the roof meets the walls of the house. They are a basic beige, a very neutral color. Our paint choices were pretty bold, so we're holding off on painting them for now. Neutral isn't always boring, I keep telling myself. I welcome any suggestions for color or paint techniques.

This room was a total team effort--knitted afghan courtesy of my mom (I got that afghan over ten years ago--it has held up quite well), beds from my folks (I grew up sleeping on these bunks), one mattress from the Campbells in State College, one purchased, and bedding from Patti. Paintings by (you guessed it) Barbara and her friend Tia Factor. I guess we should get bedspreads, too...

Spare bedroom:

Our old futon, which came to us via Rich, Patti, and Brianna, now lives in semiretirement up in this cool little room with loads of built-in shelves. This room also has a painting of my sister's, one she gave me for Christmas many years ago.

Master bedroom:

Yet another painting of Barb's and a plant we got from Patti adorn the far wall in here, along with many shelves of family and friend photos. The bedside tables and tv stand bookshelf were my grandfather's. They're oak, but they'd been pretty banged up after I had them for a few years (I moved with them quite a few times), so I gave them a black lacquer treatment. The Japanese prints were also my grandparents', a memento of a trip they took to Japan. Alexis uses my grandmother's dresser, and I have one that was handed down from my brother Matthew.

The patio:

When I was little, my grandmother used to always tell my sister, "Someday this will be yours." I asked my mom what I was getting one day. She said, "What do you want?" I gave it some thought, then said I wanted Nana's porch furniture. This summer I got it. I love having items from my family. It makes me think of them more often. I think of my grandparents when I sit out here, and that makes me happy. Nothing store-bought could ever compare. Special thanks to my mom, Ellen, for weeding the patio brick on the day we moved in.

So that's it for now. I have a whole horror story / saga of struggle, redemption and triumph to share about the basement, but I'll do that another day. We're surrounded by art and furniture from family that stretches back to before we were born, mementos of times with the family and friends we hold so dear. Friends and family are welcome--just give us a heads up when you're coming. Be blessed. I know we are.