#field work term

[benningtonpostbac]

Current student James Abele talks about his decision to switch from the Humanities to pursue a career in medicine – and why he chose the Bennington program. 

[signinginseattle-blog]

The End

Here it is! The final post.

In my head, I organize life by how time passes. There’s Bennington Time (fast), Washington Time (slow), et cetera. Now, I can add ADWAS time. Time passes differently there. Each day flies by, but projects drag so slowly, slogging through public-service bureaucracy to the finish line. This made leaving very hard for me. It felt like I had been there for only a few days, but the projects I had going felt like multi-year endeavors.

One of the most frustrating parts for me was leaving with projects unfinished. There is nothing I hate more than an incomplete task. In the time allotted, I was unable to finish nearly every project I started. Ideally, I would have a yearlong internship (or a paid permanent position! Which I was kind of offered!). Seven weeks was just enough to get really into a lot of things. I left my boss with a half-repaired cello, a lot of ideas and contacts for summer camp, and an organized closet. I never made it to cleaning out the games closet, but at least I finished the arts and crafts closet.

If I were to do this in the future, I would want some way to map out what I was doing and when, so everything could be wrapped up in the time allotted. Unfortunately, at a place like ADWAS, that is impossible. Pardon my language, but shit is hitting the fan there 24/7. We don’t have the luxury of focusing on one thing at a time, because there are residents that need our help and a kid wants to do a project for school and the cops are probably in the lobby. This sort of chaos, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me, is good for me. I want everything to be organized, but I am learning how impossible that really is. It’s okay!

One of the things I greatly appreciated about living in Seattle and working at ADWAS was the ability to participate more in direct action. ADWAS itself is a form of direct action. My first term at Bennington, I felt quite isolated and unable to do anything to cope with and resist the current political situation. My field work term was highlighted by an encouragement to go out and participate in community action. My co workers and I did just that! It was a refreshing difference to the stagnant collective depression that I feel sometimes at Bennington.

Here’s the most important thing I learned at ADWAS; the “big deal” but also super obvious realization I had: I need to be doing more ASL. Much more than I am able to do at Bennington. With this as my primary reason, I will be transferring after spring term. I am sad to go, but I know it’s what’s best for me. I could “make it work” at Bennington, but frankly, it’s not practical. I am not going to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year, fly 3,000 miles way from my family in political turmoil just to “make it work”.

This is not to say that Bennington was a mistake. I think, for my freshman year, Bennington was absolutely the best decision. I have been given freedom to explore and learn in a beautiful, supportive environment with great friends. Without Bennington, I wouldn’t have done field work term, and without field work term, I would’ve probably had this realization a whole lot later. The real life work experience from these past seven weeks was so important in my overall learning about myself and what I want to do. I think that if I was sitting in an ASL classroom somewhere else right now, I would still feel very doubtful and unsure about my direction. Now, I am returning to my final term at Bennington with an internship under my belt, but most importantly insight and clarity about where to go next. Thanks for reading.

[signinginseattle-blog]

Week 7

Yesterday was my last day working at ADWAS. 7 weeks went by much faster than I thought it would! I feel like I was just getting started with everything. Just starting with the cello, just starting to plan summer camp and the auction, just starting to get to know all the kids… I will reflect more on that in the final extra-reflective post.

During my last week, I got to attend a meeting at a high school with one of the moms and the school counselor and nurse. The daughter has missed a lot of school due to health issues and needs accommodations. We got through the meeting and it had its highlights, but was definitely not without its frustrations.

Firstly, it has taken us two months to arrange this meeting. Why? We needed an interpreter. Yes, organizations are required by the ADA to hire interpreters, but that doesn’t make it any less of a hassle to get them. Secondly, the interpreter was 20 minutes late. Interpreters are supposed to show up at least 15 minutes early to any event. This particular interpreter is not well liked in the area, for many reasons besides lateness which I will not get into.

While the interpreter was busy being late, the nurse and school counselor decided that since my boss and I (present as advocates) knew ASL, that was enough to start the meeting. We know ASL, but we are not interpreters. ASL interpretation is a very specialized skill that takes a lot of training to do. Remember what I said in my first post about not speaking in front of a Deaf person without signing to include them? That’s exactly what ended up happening. Of course we were going to sign to explain what the nurse and counselor were saying, but that was taken to mean that we could be interpreters. We had to stop them several times.

While the meeting got the job done, it was a good example for me as to why proficient interpreters are needed in education and other public settings. A lot of really good interpreters freelance, and can get the pay that they deserve. Courtroom and educational interpreting pays so little that most of the people working in those arenas are not great. This causes big problems, as seen above. Schools don’t have the money to afford freelance interpreters, though that is the level that everyone should be entitled to. Just like my frustration with finding extracurricular activities and the cello, so much of this comes down to who can afford what. It’s infuriating

[caldwellfwt]

the finale

Well, this is it. My last day of my first Field Work Term just ended.

I need to start off this reflection by saying that although I had seen a City Theatre show before taking the internship, I wasn’t aware of the scope and extent of the work City Theatre actually does. Nan Barnett, the Executive Director of the National New Play Network, said it best, so I’m going to paraphrase a chunk of her speech from City Shorts:

“There is no other theater in the country that is doing this kind of work at these many levels in your community.”

 A list of the programming I was exposed to: City Shorts, Summer Shorts, the Short Cuts School Tour, Shorts Gone Wild, City Wrights. Five different programs (not counting the forthcoming Winter Shorts) that I was able to take part in. I helped with both the Short Cuts and City Shorts tours as well as read at least - and this is a rough guess, I should say - 400 plays, some of which were new submissions being considered for 2017-2018 programming and most of which were past scripts.

The reason for that is, my major task was updating and organizing the City Theatre production archives, making sure all produced scripts were accessible and accounted for. I was largely successful in this endeavor, except for a handful of plays that are still out somewhere in the nether. I guess those weren’t mine to find. Plus, I had access to the entire production history of a 22-year-old theatre company, which was something I didn’t think I would ever have so soon, which, forgive my informal enthusiasm, is pretty darn cool!

I’ll sandwich the okay between the great, since this is a reflection and I shouldn’t sugarcoat everything (even though there’s nothing bad to sugarcoat). The only part of this FWT I would consider a “low point” is that I wasn’t as involved in production as I would’ve liked to have been. Although I assisted with front of house for City Shorts and got to go out with the school tour, I was doing more administrative/literary work. I was very much a Literary Intern rather than a general one, which was not bad or enjoyable, but just a bit different than I expected. In hindsight, though, I think I should’ve expected this. The winter is a particularly literary-heavy time for City Theatre, since they get so many submissions for Summer Shorts. (Last year they got 1,3000 and so this year they had to cap submissions at 550.)

The best thing about City Theatre is its size. Although it’s staple of the Miami theatre community (and indeed a “rite of passage” for many South Florida artists), the core staff of the company is relatively small. Usually, there were only five or six people in the office, including me. The most people I ever saw in the office were ten, and that’s only because some board members came prior to the City Shorts opening. This meant there was no bureaucracy in or hierarchy to get lost in.

Beyond the logistics of the programming itself, my advisor Susi Westfall made sure that I was privy to everything that it takes to run. I was in there in the midst of grant applications, board member meetings, donor meetings, conversations about expanding and networking, et cetera, and although I didn’t directly take part in most of that I learned a lot from having it on my periphery. The most important lesson I learned from Susi was that theatre management is way more important than people realize. You can be a great playwright, but if you don’t have the right skills you won’t be able to run a theatre company. Likewise, gathering your actor friends may be easy, but you won’t sustain a group without vital parts, so you need to also grab your accountant friend, your marketing friend, your designer friend - in other words, you need to know the business side of show business. Otherwise, you’ll flounder.

Over this FWT, I think I became more independent and confident. I was thrust into a new environment that was very different than I had ever been in. My first few weeks (and even the internship in general) was a crash-course in Who’s Who in the South Florida theatre community. As I became accustomed to the way things worked and who did what, it was much easier for me to understand what I needed to do, when I needed to do it, and who I needed to assist.

Being back home for FWT was convenient and enjoyable, but I also felt that it sort of stifled my ability to be independent. In many ways, it felt like I was back in high school - you know, spending 6 or 7 hours out in the day and coming home at night for dinner and sleep. For a first FWT, though, I can’t deny that being home was the best choice financially, and it was great to be in town to see some relatives and friends that I hadn’t seen in a while.

The final verdict: I bonded well with the staff, I got to see City Shorts in three very different venues (which as a director was ridiculously interesting), and I made some great contacts that will definitely come in handy when it comes to summer internships and post-graduation things. This FWT was truly a wonderful experience, and I can’t wait to work with City Theatre again one day.

[caldwellfwt]

auditions + MMB

Today I got to assist with auditions for the “Summer Shorts” festival (although regrettably, I won’t be here for callbacks). I checked in actors, collected headshots/resumes, and got to share some banter with artistic director Margaret and accompanist Carol. I really think there is no better way to understand how to format a resume and know what is and isn’t a good headshot than being exposed to 40 in the span of seven hours. (I think, in the long run at City Theatre, I’ve learned a lot by simply being exposed to so many things, even if I didn’t actively take part in what I was being exposed to.) Although I didn’t get to see every audition, I heard all of them, which is great as an actor because you focus on the words (and the intention behind them - the tone, the emotion, the intricasy of the language). It was a bit like listening to a radio play!

On that note, Leslie’s play: “Mention My Beauty.” This may have been the most affecting performance I have ever seen, and it is surely not going to leave my memory for a long, looong time. Before she began, Leslie explained that she wanted this to be theatre in it’s most distilled form: just a storyteller telling a stories. No theatrics, no extra trimmings. Much like a radio play, she let the audience fill in the details with their imagination. There was a talkback after the show, and although she talked about many things, what stuck with me most was when she explained that this show was very much her own. No one else could perform it with the raw emotion of someone telling their own life story. No one else has pitched her a way to do the show in a wholly original way. What made it so moving, I think, was that it was so personal and simple. 

I loved every moment of it.

[caldwellfwt]

workshop with Leslie Ayvazian

Today I got to do a workshop with playwright Leslie Ayvazian. City Theatre is hoping to expand their playwrights’ weekend “CityWrights” into year-long programs of workshops and whatnot. This was basically a test-run.

The workshop was amazing! I hadn’t been able to write so freely and without fear in years. Leslie didn’t have an interest in revising our work. She stressed the need to listen to writing (our own and others’) and linger on the words. She gave us three sets of prompts, from which we wrote three passages and read them aloud. We weren’t allowed to comment on any writing, especially not our own. We just let the writing speak for itself. It was wonderful to be in a room of writers and let the words flow freely. Definitely a great kick-off for my final week. (Leslie even called me a “riot!”)

Some of my favorite excerpts from what I wrote:

“I was a science nerd back then. I wanted to be a zookeeper when I grew up. Now, I study theatre - an animal of a different kind.”

“That was Disney, though. It was all make-believe. It was all fake. Fictional characters in fictional situations. The smiles on the workers were fake, the spacecraft people posed with in front of Space Mountain was fake, and the chicken tenders were probably also very fake.”

“I named the bike after Mike Pence because it’s usually pretty useless and I sometimes forget it exists.”

“Did I care? No. Because I’m a Caldwell. Descended from a long line of stubborn Irishmen who never listened to the women in their lives, even when they should’ve.”

Tomorrow, I’m attending a free performance of Leslie’s play “Mention my Beauty”, essentially a memoir about growing up in the 60s and 70s. The performance is just her, standing at a music stand, and reading from a notebook. No director, no production values, just a writer reading the writing that’s come from a lifetime. It’s a pretty radical format; as Leslie explained, no woman has really done this before. Men have done “stand on stage and read”-style performances, but women have been forced to up the production values to be taken seriously. What Leslie does in this performance is effectively say, "I’m here. I’m a writer. I’m a woman. And you will listen to me.”

[caldwellfwt]

week 6 (!)

It's hard to believe there's only one more week left of my first Field Work Term! Things are starting to wrap up, which is bittersweet. I'll definitely miss City Theatre and my co-workers (and warm weather - a bit). But before I wax sentimental or become too reflective (I'm saving that for my final post, of course), I'll move on.

This week was pretty uneventful (especially in comparison to last week's kick-off of the tour). I'm continuing my archival work. As part of that, I've been uploading every play City has produced in its 22-year history to Literary Manager, putting in playwright contact information, play summaries, character breakdowns, etc. I've become used to certain playwrights' styles and voices. I can pretty much tell by the playwright how a play will be. A few examples: Paul Rudnick is deliciously and obscenely funny, Rich Orloff is thoughtful (and also hilarious), Richard Dresser is excellent at crafting character, and Staci Swedeen takes somewhat mundane situations and makes them interesting. And, of course, there are the surprises from single-play playwrights that catch me wonderfully off-guard (like "Drinking the Goddamned Sun", which I read way back when).

Speaking of surprises, this week I got to read a ~top secret~ play that City Theatre is looking to produce in partnership with another local theatre TBD next March. (Okay, maybe it's not ~top secret~ but I don't think I'm at liberty to be talking about it and don't want to risk it.) Without going into detail, the play is a visceral response to the Trump administration. It reads almost like science-fiction; if it was written twenty years from now, it could be a history play. It's a really engaging character study that doesn't shy away from being blunt and is a scathing indictment of complacency. Reading it made me think about the intermingling of art and politics and what kind of art I want (or need) to be making now. I wish I could write a profound statement that resulted from that thinking to end this post, but I'm still unpacking all those ideas in my head.

[signinginseattle-blog]

Week 6

We had a table set up for the staff to paint little heart canvases for the auction too. They needed a reminder.

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The BIG DEAL of week 6: I got a cello!!!!! Asking people for money really works sometimes! As you read in week 4, one of my jobs is to help the kids find extracurricular activities. One of our residents is active in her school orchestra, but needed one of her own. I have been looking around for ways to get a cello basically since we got here, and it has been nearly fruitless. It’s hard enough to get donations for things that aren't food or housing, and especially hard when you aren't a school orchestra teacher. There are a lot of programs aimed at helping out low income orchestras/musicians, but you can only request aid if you’re a music teacher.

My time at ADWAS is running out, so I decided to reach out to local service clubs such as Zonta and Altrusa. I knew from my high school stint as Lakefair Queen that service clubs are an often untapped resource. They are how I paid for Bennington! I sent letters to many clubs and only got a response from one. Miraculously, one of the members had a cello from their son’s high school orchestra days that they were willing to donate! It has been hardly used, but is also 20 years old. Definitely going to need some maintenance. I am super excited to see it and figure out what next steps we need take.

This is only one of the unfinished projects that I will be leaving behind at ADWAS, and it is so frustrating!! Every day, me or my boss says “Can’t you/I just stay for the whole year???” I hate leaving projects behind, especially ones that I am fired up about. I have been talking to all of my friends, and they can’t wait to get back to school. I am feeling just the opposite. I’m just getting started! I love my job!!!