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This entry has been on my mind since May. Five months of thinking does not lead to any greater eloquence; five months is part procrastination and part learning to let go of the need for the writing in the blog to be gorgeous, to be finished. (I’m learning.)

For the last eighteen months the pedagogy, content and product of Ideas in Performance has been at the forefront of my mind. This extraordinary course always seems to create a lasting mark on its students; this past year it has left its mark on me.

Why?

While I learned a lot from my students’ research (and from living vicariously through their interviews and site visits) and I saw some theatre that still haunts me (Cynthia Nixon’s performance in Rabbit Hole continues to fill my heart), I realize that Ideas in Performance lingers in my head because the technology we employed to mine the course and share its resources opened my thinking to the great possibilities that lie ahead for student engagement of what we teach. Capitalizing on our students’ facility with technology as a natural extension of living their lives is akin to our jumping into a swiftly moving river; we’re going to get somewhere faster than if we stand on the bank and wave as they pass. I’ve gone from being the naysayer to being energized by exploring how we can connect the content of our courses more easily and completely with the perspectives of our students—perspectives of the world that are vastly different than they were just five years ago. Jumping in (with even the tiniest ability to swim) kept me from missing the boat.

The world is changing so rapidly. Ideas in Performance allowed me the chance to allow those changes to affect me, instead of digging in my heels and dismissing technology to honor and defend the written text. (I mourn that newspapers and books seem less important than ever before but who am I to carry this torch? In so doing, my students are likely to parade past me.)

The success of Ideas in Performance and the reason it still resonates with me has little to do with the skill set that I began to develop as a result of the technology training and more to do with the fact that on a mostly-weekly basis for the semester prior to the course and during the semester of the course, I got to spend time with Martha Burtis, Jim Groom, Andy Rush and Jerry Sleazak. These thoughtful, talented, smart and quite patient Instructional Technology Specialists took the learning objectives I articulated and developed an approach to the seminar that allowed me to accomplish its unique research goals while recognizing that the tools of gathering source material have changed since I first taught the course almost fifteen years ago (and even since I last taught the course just five years prior). What an immense luxury to have a dedicated time to meet regularly to talk about teaching. I think that’s why Ideas in Performance lingers so prominently in my thinking; I spent a lot of time preparing to teach the course and, along the way, connected the dots in a variety of ways that are finding their way into my other classes.

So, this is my ode to Martha, Jim, Andy and Jerry—long overdue, yet no less heartfelt. They deserve my highest praise, my deepest thanks and my enduring gratitude for spending so much time working with my students and me to create such a dynamic space for all of us to learn together. Thank you, Martha. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Andy. Thank you, Jerry. Your ultimate success will be measured in the next generation of blogs and wikis that will grow from the seeds they planted in Ideas in Performance.

Speaking of which . . .

This semester my students pursuing senior projects in acting are creating blogs and research collections online. (No more formidable binder at the end of the semester! No more waiting until Finals Week to read their process reflections!) Immediately I asked Martha, “But if they are awarded Honors for their projects, what will they turn into the library? There won’t be a document.” “We should,” she wisely countered, “not limit the project based on what the library is today, but rather we should help the library see what it needs to be in the future.”

True . . . if our work is changing, our libraries will change to accommodate the knowledge we are creating. Ours is a slippery slope of ever-shifting paradigms. At least I no longer fear that I’m walking on quicksand.

And now we have stage write. Soon we will launch Green Room to give our majors a wiki in cyberspace in which to gather (since the architecture of duPont Hall does not provide this vital space to build and strengthen our community). We have stepped into the next dimension of teaching, learning, discovering and sharing.

Terrifying, yet quite certainly thrilling.

One of the most compelling aspects the blog offers is the opportunity to sort out thoughts, feelings and ideas. Writing is a mechanism by which we can seek understanding of what we are seeing, hearing, reading, performing and feeling. Not only does the blog offer the chance to create a journal of those musings, it initiates conversation. Sometimes clarity emerges from thoughtful solitude, at other times from lively conversation. The blog seems to offer both.

For me the blog challenges my sense of needing to be finished with the thinking . . . and to have the writing reflect the end of the journey. Because the writing is public, I want it to be at the end and not in the middle.

Hmmm . . . I sense a certain them here. My first entry in stage write discusses finding myself in the middle, and the certain discomfort that results.

The blog should be more conversation and less espousing. The blog should be more in process and less complete. The blog should reflect the journey and not, necessarily, the destination.

I need to be more comfortable writing in the middle, allowing myself to sort out my thoughts in the blog, pondering the questions and releasing myself of the need to have the answers.

My struggle with the blog reveals a metaphor that expends beyond its cyberspace.

When is a blog merely a web page? When it sits for months and months without feeding. (Somehow Jerry Sleazak’s dire warnings to my students last spring come back to admonish me.)

My blog has become an embarrassment, an object of ridicule from my industrious students who have become more serious committed bloggers than I have turned out to be.

Having seen three ninety-minute no intermission plays this week, I wonder if our audiences patience for sitting still in the darkened theatre is waning. Are playwrights writing smaller plays to accommodate our waning attention span? While the hour and a half in the theatre has seemed the length for the plays we have seen, I wonder if my own particular glee at discovering that the play is more than a one-act but less than a full length tells me that my ReplayTV/DVD/TiVo/entertainment on demand psyche is beginning to take hold of my theatergoing sensibilities.

We have great expectations for those ninety minutes in the theatre. We demand compelling stories with strong resolutions that should help us to comprehend (or forget) the world we leave behind when we step into the theatre. That’s a lot to ask of a play, much less a play to which we only give ninety minutes of our lives. And while I love the gift of unexpected time the ninety-minute no intermission play returns to me, I know that more often than I need to give more than an hour and a half to the theatre if I am to be touched by its transformative power.

Just before visiting Epcot I finally finished Educating the Net Gen, an e-book edited by Diana & James Oblinger that reveals fascinating information on how students learn, where students seek information and how higher education needs to respond to a student mindset that is largely different from their instructors. When Diana Oblinger delivered a plenary at the Faculty Academy 2005, I was taken aback by what the research implies about our students.

Marc Prensky reports that by the time today’s students reach the age of 21, they will have spent half as much time reading as they have playing video games. This might imply that students are less experienced readers than we might hope and might be more interested in pushing buttons on a console than facing a page of type. No surprise that it was at the Academy that I had my first exposure to the interactive classroom, where students have their own clickers and can respond to on-the-spot polls and quizzes in the classroom. The research portends that a clicker-enhanced classroom might engage the students far more than a professor in front of a chalkboard (or whiteboard for those who teach in newer buildings than ours). What I took from the Academy is that students don’t value reading as much as we value reading. That’s a disconnect with some consequence.

How do you teach theatre if students resist reading plays? Our students need to read; we need to help them become facile readers of the text whether they intend to act, direct, design, build or critique. I have always been fond of Gordon Davidson’s observation, “The work begins with the word.” At some point students need to understand there is no bypass around the need to read. Reading does not at first seem as engaging or thrilling as navigating the many levels in the world of their favorite video game. Reading requires commitment, focus, discipline and a willingness to create in the imagination what the words themselves merely begin.

The pavilions of Epcot feature a fascinating array of exhibits exploring the land, sea, technology, safety and entrepreneurship. While I anticipated the sensory overload of color, light and sound I was surprised by the absence of text in the exhibits. Every exhibit employed hands-on stations to explore the content most without any accompanying instructions. Step up to the monitor, put your hands on the keyboard, push the button, and respond to the voice. Having just finished Educating the Net Gen, I noticed immediately how the content was being delivered to the mostly-younger learners, as well as how at ease they were with the expectations of each exhibit some of which were fairly sophisticated, yet generally relied on very few words. If we minimize the need for text, are we under-preparing students for the inevitability of what they will face in our classrooms?

Granted, the absence of text makes the exhibits all the more accessible to an audience of global attendees. To choose the most effective translations would be to ignore some languages; the repercussions of offending visitors must be always on the minds of those who think about such things at Disney. Even so, I wonder if the informative artist biographies and explicative text I look forward to reading when I go to art museums will become rare as museums begin to understand that reading does not connect today’s patron as fully with the art as it did in the past.

Odd, really. I loved to read as a child. My mother wanted me to read less and play more. I always looked forward to joining the world of the characters I discovered in the books I checked out of the library. I felt fully involved whenever I opened my book. Would I have read as much in a house with a tv/dvd/vcr/computer/Xbox? Probably not.

Why can we not say “You have to read”? We can’t talk about the play until you’ve read it. Does my reliance on the printed page and (my nostalgia for the world it offers) render me a dinosaur?

I had hoped that my post on Take Me Out would generate some conversation, largely because I want to understand the perspective of our students on topics like this.

Stefanie comments that her peers are most interested in hearing themselves talk, reinforcing the values they already have, and eventually just getting a job and moving on with their lives, and I find myself disturbed (and not completely surprised) by her observations. I wish more students embraced more fully the fact that being in school is such an enormous opportunity to become a person of intellect, understanding and compassion. The chance to devote oneself fully to learning new things will be a rarity in post-graduation life. I appreciate hearing directly from a student who was involved; Stephanie’s perspective underscores how complex are our feelings and how the situation was far more complicated for everyone than the article could convey.

I wish I had said I cannot comprehend the vacuum that would prevent students from broadening the backyards of their minds, much less the horizons. That sums it up for me. Thank you, Kyle.

And comments on Andrew’s blog offer yet another student perspective on the controversy. I was pleased to discover Andrew’s blog; I wonder now how many of our students have their own blogs.

I must confess that as we were sitting ever so close to the stage in the very small SoHo Playhouse on Monday night and the actor in Confessions of Mormon Boy removed his pants to change clothes, I immediately thought of Take Me Out. Was he going to be naked just six feet in front of us? Had I given the students ample notice? My mind raced as I concluded that I had not talked about nudity with the students (having not anticipated this possibility).

After a minute or two, no nudity. He put his pants on and continued the play. Even in my relief I found my mind wondering if the teeny-tiny briefs he wore (and to which he referred in the course of the play) could be viewed as salacious by a student caught unaware.

I had to shift my focus back to the action of the play, hating the momentary retreat from the world of the play into the life of the class, hating the second-guessing that occupied my mind when it should have been elsewhere.

I cannot believe that already we have been traveling a week. Our days are very full and they are flying by.

The several days in Orlando were really terrific. The students split their days between volunteering for SETC and attending workshops. I enjoyed listening to their impressions of the presenters and am pleased when they are able to be both appreciative and critical of the content that is being presented. As always, SETC confirms easily what they already

Since there is a great diversity among conference attendees, listening to the students describe their peers is amusing. Since our department has very little tolerance for creepy theatre kids, I am gratified when our students understand how self-focused, attention-seeking behavior is an obstacle to success in their work. The sheer volume of attendees at SETC presents unlimited opportunities for observation of this sort; volunteering throughout the conference required them to not only observe, but also to interact with a variety of personalities.

I succumbed to Epcot. I had decided not to go since I saw Saturday as an opportunity to sit by the very lovely winding spa pool (with soft new-agey music emanating from speakers hidden deep within the blooming bushes, not to be confused with the waterfall pool, an enormous water park-like destination on the other side of the building that featured very loud tunes blasting from very visible speakers). But the excitement of Tori, Jon, Jess and Peter enticed me to venture into the land of Disney.

My only other visit to Epcot was 14 years ago. Unlike that trip where Gary and I wandered around the lake enjoying the walk while marveling at the whole idea of the place, this time I felt escorted by Disney experts. I could not help but catch Jon’s bug of excitement a child-like wonder that was nothing but infectious. He knew where each country and pavilion was located and how to manage expediently the few lines we encountered. Having mistaken Alice in Wonderland for Snow White, I was relieved when he began offering the names of the costumed characters we encountered without my having to show my ignorance by asking.

I’m still taken aback by the whole idea of it . . . the replication of the world in easy-to-swallow doses with lots of opportunities to buy stuff. I’m troubled to think that this is as far into the world as many of Epcot’s visitors ever intend to venture; I’m not convinced that global understanding is much enhanced by the very soft, safe and sanitized representations of culture that Disney has made easy for us. But isn’t that what our society seeks? Isn’t the proliferation of franchised businesses because some marketing experts have determined that we prefer to eat the same food and buy the same products in every town, everywhere? I, for one, mourn the loss of that which is unique to the culture of every town. Why travel if you simply land in the same world with slightly different weather? There is something menacing about the safety we are creating for ourselves.

But Epocot is Disney, after all. And it is a happy place. So I pushed my misgivings aside and allowed myself to be there and to enjoy it for what it was (and tried not to think about how much it really wasn’t like England, Germany, France . . . . ) And I got my picture taken with Winnie the Pooh and Tigger . . . what’s not to love about that? that?

I read with great interest the controversy that grew out of a UMW Student Leadership Program trip to Take Me Out at Studio Theatre in Washington. As Tierney McAfee reports in the February 2, 2006, edition of The Bullet, several students were offended by the play’s content and the fact that OSACS [Office of Student Activities and Community Services] director Tami Goodstein neglected to warn them about the nudity. Erica Jackson’s companion article seems to infer that the Goodstein has resigned her position as a result.

In response to student concerns Bernard Chirico, Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students, ultimately removed Goodstein from her leadership of the summer program. When the students came to me, they discussed with me what they felt, Chirico said. They found the play offensive, and I appreciated where they were coming from.

As reported, the story disturbs me on many levels. Theatre demands a dialogue between actors and audience; sometimes that conversation can be difficult. I am intrigued by that conversation and never more so than when the theatre engages our students, many who never considered the theatre for anything other than entertainment. When a play challenges a students perception of the world as they think they know it, therein lays a fertile and powerful opportunity for dialogue.

McAfee reports that Chirico believed that the students should have received fair warning about the nudity, and be allowed to choose whether to participate in the trip.

I would give students an opportunity to opt out if they feel that it’s something that would make them uncomfortable, Chirico said. I don’t even want to use the word uncomfortable because being in a classroom and discussing issues can make you uncomfortable, but if someone’s going to find something that really goes against people’s personal values in a setting like that I think they need to have the opportunity to opt out.

. . . in a setting like that?

It’s a play in a theatre. Professional actors performing the text of an accomplished writer in one of Washington’s most respected theatres! What am I missing? . . . something that really goes against people’s personal values in a setting like that . . . seems to imply that the students were kidnapped and taken to a strip club where they were made to watch unseemly acts.

Take Me Out juxtaposes America’s favorite pastime with its darkest homophobic fears. A hit in London and New York, the play won the Drama Desk Award for Oustanding New Play, The Tony Award for Best Play and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Studio Theatre’s production was nominated for the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Resident Play last season. Take Me Out is, unarguably, an important work. Parts of the play take place in a locker room; the nudity inherent in the script is neither gratuitous nor salacious. It’s what people do in a locker room take off clothes, shower, put on other clothes.

The immediacy and potency inherent in actors working on the stage creates a vulnerability that some find threatening. Is it when an actor speaks from the stage we recognize our responsibility to the conversation? Something in the theatrical moment feels dangerous, yet ripe with possibility.

I believe a liberal arts education should keep your mind catapulting from one belief system to another as you discover that the world is filled with people who look, talk, act and believe very differently from yourself. At some point your education should be a catalyst for wondering what it is you really believe. In so doing, you create for yourself a rich opportunity to construct a value system and moral stance for yourself . . . drawing on all you know about the world in which you live, and all you know about the people who share that world with you.

College is an opportunity to discover yourself, to discover the people with whom you share this planet and to begin to understand the great wealth of difference that surrounds us. To surrender to your own fear of difference is to retreat to a world that looks ahead like what you’ve left behind. Isn’t educating yourself about expanding your world, deepening your understanding, accumulating experiences and embarking on all that is possible?

Do we really want students to opt out of that which makes them uncomfortable? Is that really in the best interests of our students, and the world in which we are preparing them to lead?

According to McAfee, some students agreed with Chirico. I don’t think this play should have been mandatory because it was important to some members of our group to maintain their purity, [Junior Stephanie] Parker said. Seeing nude men was a violation of this effort to preserve that purity. To me it seems that it was an unintentional violation of their religious beliefs.

I am trying to understand how seeing a penis somehow threatens one’s purity. Even if I accept that as true, I have to wonder from whence comes this premise. Parker seems to posit that the offended students were suffering an assault on their faith. If so, did not their god create their bodies and those with whom they share the earth? And if their god created their bodies, why would simply seeing the handiwork of their god somehow threaten that which makes them pure? I just don’t understand.

While the article leads us to believe that students were offended by the content and the nudity, McAfee reports mostly on the nudity causing me to wonder if something else is afoot. While the appearance of a nude (male) body on the stage might be surprising, I wonder if a play that deals with the repercussions of a successful baseball player’s moment of coming out is more challenging to the students than a naked body. Perhaps that’s just because I cannot fathom how a person with no clothes can cause such a moral conundrum.

Why do many students arrive in our classrooms wishing only to be affirmed for that which they think they already know? Increasingly students seem to think (at 18 years old) that they know enough about themselves and the world to have immovable opinions on many issues. What, I wonder, do they expect to get our of a liberal arts education? If you think you are so certain you have the answers (and I daresay that most don’t even know the questions) then you are setting yourself up to be the same person in four years that you were when you graduated from high school. If you don’t want to grow, to have your intellect, your emotions, your beliefs challenged, then you are in danger of wasting the opportunity your life offers and if your values come from your Christian faith, then you are wasting the life your god has given you.

Our faith and our values are strengthened by questions. To use faith as an excuse to avoid thinking is to hide from our responsibility to ourselves, and to our community.

Most curious of all is that these students were participating in the Summer Leadership Program. Should we not demand that our student leaders grapple with difficult ideas and confront their own biases towards difference? Don’t we want them to learn (as Take Me Out might reveal to a listening audience) that the search for truth is fraught with complicated detours that often yield unexpected (and meaningful) consequences?

As Take Me Out might hope to illustrate, our reaction to difference can teach us about ourselves and help us to grow into more concerned and capable citizens of the world. If we allow ourselves to sit with our discomfort, we might actually understand something meaningful that could render us more understanding, more compassionate and, quite simplymore human.

Our education has less to do with finding the answers than with growing comfortable with the uncertainty of the questions.

In class last week we talked about research and the fear that results in working with passion. I’m intrigued by how our own fears hold us back, even in something as seemingly safe as conducting research. To declare our interest in a topic and commit to its fulfillment is to risk failure. But we also risk success and the certain reward of process. Fear seems ever present.

My good friend, Allyson, reminded me of the fear inherent in learning when we talked last month about her pursuit of the cello. Having taken up the instrument fairly recently, she observed “It’s really different to be bad at something.” Allyson reminds me that to be a student requires bing vulnerable to the uncertainty of what we do not know. Implicit in learning is a certain loss of power and control, but also the extraordinary potential of discovery that can be transformational. Isn’t that what we ultimately seek when we read, when we embark on a journey, when we take our seat in the theatre? In order to learn something new, we have to first admit to what we do not know.

Nearly a year has passed since I began thinking about teaching Ideas in Performance, particularly with regard to how much the world has changed since we last offered the course in 2000. I’m struck by the simple notion that this semester students will spend more time filtering information than they will looking for sources. The prospect of sifting through all of the available material seems daunting.

For me that is the greatest challenge of our world keeping abreast of the discipline without drowning in the process. As Martha has encouraged me to expand my thinking to include technology in the pedagogical mix, she has also encouraged me to think of information as a constantly flowing stream. This represents a tremendous shift for me, but necessary in order to create balance among the overwhelming volume of information that is merely a click away.

The thought of engaging technology to create both context and opportunity for our work this semester excites and frightens me. My own epiphany returned to me the sense of how thrilling learning (and teaching) can be; being at the precipice of the unknown is at once both terrifying and exhilarating.