Monday, February 21, 2005
Can't hardly believe it's over
The GTA weekend is over, and now I'm that satisfied kind of exhausted. It was SO great to see everyone. I mean literally everyone, even the people who usually give me hell (Jamaal doesn't read this, does he?) Everything went so smoothly, I couldn't have asked for anything better. Well, maybe a better cross-section at Sunday's general meeting, but that was a very productive meeting nonetheless.
The new theater is INCREDIBLE. Just amazing. huge and advanced and exciting, and I dare say even beautiful, even though it's currently a very dangerous and leaky construction site. It is going to be inspiring, and I think that's the best thing about it. Honestly, it never occurred to me that we could try for an alumni show in there, but now that the seed has been planted, I'm really jazzed about the idea. I hated doing community theatre because I didn't like the attitude people brought to it. GTA, I know, would take it seriously. The right kind of serious.
Allow me to wax poetic for a moment: I have heard many different people from all different classes at Georgetown mention what they felt was the defining word or concept for their time in Georgetown theatre. I remember at the 2000 M&B banquet Susan or Lisa or someone naming artistry for their four years. Saturday night, one of the Hall of Fame inductees (was it Tim Fischer?) said it was mentorship for them. For the class of '03, which I still contend had a unique kind of coherence as a group compared with the classes directly before or after us, I believe the idea was professionalism. We were always talking about being serious about what we were doing, treating each other with a professional kind of respect, and treating the organizations we worked for as important institutions. Sure, we failed at this all the time, but that's not the point. The point is that we were striving for something bigger than a bit of fun with lights and costumes. We believed that what we did was important, even when we never had any intention of putting it on a resume.
It's this last point that makes the continuation of student-run theatre at Georgetown so vitally important. While of course I agree with Christina Ciocca's point on Sunday that adversarial posturing of the student groups against the department is counter-productive and a bit disturbing, there is a larger point to be made here. The student groups must continue to exist because there is at core a difference between the student at Georgetown who comes to study theology or economics or French literature and the student who comes to study acting. The last 150 years have shown that the former need not be less passionate, inspired or talented than the latter. They simply have different goals--even if they end up in the same profession. It is no safe assumption that graduates of the theatre department will become theatre professionals and graduates of the psychology department will not. The survival of the student-run theatre programs means the possibility of success for a whole group of people who will earn degrees in things like international politics and go on to work in any number of other industries. I know I am not the only one who believes that the time I spent in the theatre made me a better student of other things in the classroom, made me a better intern in the summers, and made me a better employee after I graduated. It's not just the time I spent in the costume shop, although I loved that. It's the time I spent in the office, selling tickets, serving on the Midnight Theatre Committee, bouncing Midnight shows, recruiting freshmen. Having a creative outlet is wonderful and important, but having students run the organization is fundamentally different that working on a show ulitmately directed by a faculty member. The entire dynamic changes when there is a grown-up in charge. It takes the edge off responsibility. It gives everyone an out. Putting students in charge forces them to resolve problems amongst themselves--a skill that I cannot overstate the importance of in "real life" business. And I think it's clear that the university understands this--witness the success and growth of the Corp. But what the Corp has is a vocal, prominent, active group of alumni who bring money to the university. This is what student theatre needs, and that is what I intend to work for. We as alumni owe ourselves that much.
All of that said, I'm so glad that everything went so incredibly well this weekend. Sally is breathtakingly amazing as an event planner, as we all saw. I think I actually had more fun at this one than the previous two, which I did not help plan, and that's a testament to her leadership.
oy, ok. back to work. not work work, but GTA work, if you can believe.
The new theater is INCREDIBLE. Just amazing. huge and advanced and exciting, and I dare say even beautiful, even though it's currently a very dangerous and leaky construction site. It is going to be inspiring, and I think that's the best thing about it. Honestly, it never occurred to me that we could try for an alumni show in there, but now that the seed has been planted, I'm really jazzed about the idea. I hated doing community theatre because I didn't like the attitude people brought to it. GTA, I know, would take it seriously. The right kind of serious.
Allow me to wax poetic for a moment: I have heard many different people from all different classes at Georgetown mention what they felt was the defining word or concept for their time in Georgetown theatre. I remember at the 2000 M&B banquet Susan or Lisa or someone naming artistry for their four years. Saturday night, one of the Hall of Fame inductees (was it Tim Fischer?) said it was mentorship for them. For the class of '03, which I still contend had a unique kind of coherence as a group compared with the classes directly before or after us, I believe the idea was professionalism. We were always talking about being serious about what we were doing, treating each other with a professional kind of respect, and treating the organizations we worked for as important institutions. Sure, we failed at this all the time, but that's not the point. The point is that we were striving for something bigger than a bit of fun with lights and costumes. We believed that what we did was important, even when we never had any intention of putting it on a resume.
It's this last point that makes the continuation of student-run theatre at Georgetown so vitally important. While of course I agree with Christina Ciocca's point on Sunday that adversarial posturing of the student groups against the department is counter-productive and a bit disturbing, there is a larger point to be made here. The student groups must continue to exist because there is at core a difference between the student at Georgetown who comes to study theology or economics or French literature and the student who comes to study acting. The last 150 years have shown that the former need not be less passionate, inspired or talented than the latter. They simply have different goals--even if they end up in the same profession. It is no safe assumption that graduates of the theatre department will become theatre professionals and graduates of the psychology department will not. The survival of the student-run theatre programs means the possibility of success for a whole group of people who will earn degrees in things like international politics and go on to work in any number of other industries. I know I am not the only one who believes that the time I spent in the theatre made me a better student of other things in the classroom, made me a better intern in the summers, and made me a better employee after I graduated. It's not just the time I spent in the costume shop, although I loved that. It's the time I spent in the office, selling tickets, serving on the Midnight Theatre Committee, bouncing Midnight shows, recruiting freshmen. Having a creative outlet is wonderful and important, but having students run the organization is fundamentally different that working on a show ulitmately directed by a faculty member. The entire dynamic changes when there is a grown-up in charge. It takes the edge off responsibility. It gives everyone an out. Putting students in charge forces them to resolve problems amongst themselves--a skill that I cannot overstate the importance of in "real life" business. And I think it's clear that the university understands this--witness the success and growth of the Corp. But what the Corp has is a vocal, prominent, active group of alumni who bring money to the university. This is what student theatre needs, and that is what I intend to work for. We as alumni owe ourselves that much.
All of that said, I'm so glad that everything went so incredibly well this weekend. Sally is breathtakingly amazing as an event planner, as we all saw. I think I actually had more fun at this one than the previous two, which I did not help plan, and that's a testament to her leadership.
oy, ok. back to work. not work work, but GTA work, if you can believe.
