Inspiring Students, Working With Love - As a producer and director, working with young students, I’ve faced many challenges. This year, I asked my students to enact the story of the young girl, Sadako Sasaki, who died as a result of the bombing of Hiroshima. 

It was a simply written script, geared to children, without much elaboration on stage direction or set design.  It was a blank canvas.  The possibilities were endless.  Which was, of course going to prove to be both wonderful and demanding. 

I was sure that bringing a story of destruction and death, sorrow and pain to a of 10-12 year olds and teens was not going to be easy.  But the group took to it immediately.  They lay on the stage, listening to me read definitions of war and peace, reading the death toll count of WWII and excerpts from accounts of the Hiroshima bombing. They knew that this was a real event, changing the lives of everyone. They recognized that it causes repercussions even now. And they simply listened quietly and took it in.

I started out as an actor in the Santa Fe Performing Arts Teen Ensemble eight years ago.  Within six months, at age 16, I was a paid intern, first as a production assistant and box office assistant.  Within a year I was an assistant director, quickly moving into stage managing and costume designing.  Now at 24, I am producing and directing plays at the SFPA with four directed/produced plays under my belt, and another one starting this summer.

When the play, A Thousand Cranes, by Kathryn Schultz Miller, was brought to the table by our choreographer for our Spring 2009 semester, I had never heard of it.Bringing the reality and the depth of this story to students 8-18 was going to be an unusual experience for me as a director.  When it came time to rehearse, once casting was complete, the next layer of the process began. 

I expressed to my students that throughout the process, I never wanted to see them up on stage "acting," an interesting request to make of a group of actors-in-training.  I asked my students to instead use their lives up until now, using every emotional moment they could recall, to bring nothing but reality to the stage.  I asked them to simply be present with each other, to use their senses to guide them through the emotional moments in the script.  To really look at one another, listen, and respond with what was real for them.  Nothing in the script was to be over-dramatized. I only wanted them to use the words and choreographed movement to guide them through the telling of such a sad and powerful story.  And really, what better group to tell this story, and spread the message of peace, than youth?

My partner, Corvas Brinkerhoff and I are part of an art collective, relatively new in Santa Fe, called Meow Wolf.  Meow Wolf was created to breathe new life to Santa Fe, providing a space for live music, creative social interaction It encourages artists of all mediums to express themselves. What Meow Wolf does best  is create massive art installations.  The set design offered open-ended possibilities. Meow Wolf's interest in collaborative relationships made this a perfect match.

The Meow Wolf group, from 2-15 people, met weekly to conceptualize the set, build it in the workshop, put it up on stage and paint it in just three months. It was a whirlwind of energy, creativity, frustration, disappointment and excitement all at once.

Throughout the process, the most grounding part was watching how my partner Corvas rode the emotional and stressful waves. The amount of time and energy he threw into the project made it possible for the set to go from an on-paper concept to reality. What emerged was fully functioning platforms and stairs to climb on, with layers of mountains built onto them and lovely stars hung from the ceiling.

Even when he felt his work was done, Corvas still lent a hand when I needed one. And he always provided a shoulder to rest on, an ear to listen and plenty of hugs at the end of the day. The assurance and support he gave me through the most challenging experience of my career was beautiful. It was wonderful to see what a good team we made throughout the process.

As for my future in show business, as long as the work serves me as an artist, and I can continue to bring light and love to my students, I will keep at it.  Each project I have worked on has given me valuable tools for my life both in and outside of the theater.  I can take the experience and knowledge I've gained in the last eight years wherever I go, bringing performance art to children and adults alike. 

I look forward to continuing to direct plays and know that when the time comes, I will be ready to embark on creating my own theater with programming for all ages because through performance art, we can bring any story to life, letting it dance and play under the lights.