Talk to Wooster
Spring 2007
Growing Old, Staying Young, and the Creative Process
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| Allana Mortell, Megan Crane, Jason Schob, Danielle Behnke, Betty Rea, Bob Schang, and Shirley Huston-Findley react to an improvisation. |
Assignment: The biography
SEPT. 28: “Today was the first day we met with
the other members of our course, the elders. I walked into the class today
feeling very excited and nervous at the same time. Neither group mixed
with the other until we were told to do so. It was almost like there was
an invisible line separating the two groups. The elders positioned themselves
on one side of the room, and the college students on the other side.”
FROM THE JOURNAL OF DANIELLE BEHNKE
But very soon, the invisible line disappeared, as class members plunged into their first assignment. Elders were asked to bring a photograph or personal memento that illustrated a meaningful time in their life. Students were asked to pair up with an elder, conduct an interview, and write a biography that placed their elder’s shared memory in a particular time, place, or social experience. At the conclusion of the exercise, the biographies were presented as a gift to each elder.
Interviewing, writing, and research skills were sharpened. And friendships began. Laetitia learned that Betty had been a volunteer with the Red Cross during World War II. Bebe learned that Kate was a feminist. Allana learned that Dave had been an actor and model.
Assignment: Improvisations
NOV. 2: “As improvisations become daily, I’m
starting to get the hang of it. I actually volunteered to go first today!
Acting started to come naturally to me, and I wasn’t sure if it was
because I was in a comfortable environment or if I had it in me this whole
time and just didn’t know it. It was fun to see how creative the
elders could be when they started their improvisations. I was very impressed!”
FROM THE JOURNAL OF MEGAN CRANE
In order to conduct their improvisations, the class abandoned their formal classroom in Wishart Hall in favor of the James N.Wise acting studio. Class members performed for each other, responding to their professor’s instructions: “ Pretend you’re listening to someone reminisce and you don’t care. You’re bored,” or “Take these props—two rubber pig nose masks—put them on, and see what happens,” or “Be yourself. Think about a very sad memory and share it with a sympathetic listener.”
The purpose of the improvisations, says Huston-Findley, was two-fold. First, they served as a starting point for a written script and the class’s final project—a performance. The second purpose was to break down barriers. “Acting forces people to be vulnerable,” she explains. “When you’re on stage, you have to focus on being creative, on being in the moment, on working collaboratively with someone else. You can’t focus on the careful facade that keeps people from knowing who you are.
“Our improvisations helped the class to be open to possibilities and to be spontaneously creative.”
Most of the improvisations focused on memories—pretend, slapstick, familiar, goofy, poignant, and real. Class members howled with laughter when Tim and Jack donned the pig noses and reminisced about the pig convention they had attended. The class grew quiet, as Allison shared a real memory—the song her favorite babysitter sang to her, and how Allison felt when she learned that her babysitter had been killed in a car accident.
The students were both challenged and intrigued by weaving together the real and the pretend.Wrote first-year student Nathan Comstock, “The fusion of memory and the creative act of establishing a reality within the scene yields far more unusual and creative results than an improvisation that’s completely fabricated, especially when several people of different ages and backgrounds are contributing memories and creative abilities.
“This bodes well for our endeavor.”
