“Since the beginning of time, seven ancient white men on yachts have controlled the world. These white men created Religion to assure that their will was not only done, but worshiped like gospel. Or rather, as gospel…Then, once people stopped dying of the plague and the arts began to move away from the church, they created science to do the same thing. Thus, the Enlightenment…”

This is how my first day at Playwrights Horizons Theater School of New York University began, about 11 months ago. My legendary Design teacher, Michael Krass, spoke with stern intensity that demands nothing but full attention or utter rebellion.

“Coloring books are tools of these white men. It is your job to defy them, to color outside the lines. Don’t be sheep.”

What is this man talking about? Does he really believe that people had yachts 35,000 years ago? He doesn’t look like he’s joking. Is he trying to scare us? Think about the old man smell emanating from seven coots who are tens-of-thousands of years old. That’s scary enough right there. If this is some sort of metaphor, what does it have to do with coloring books and sheep? Sheep. “Any of numerous ruminant mammals of the genus Ovis, of the family Bovidae, closely related to the goats, esp. O. aries, bred in a number of domesticated varieties. Also, a meek, unimaginative, or easily led person.” Sheep. How do I keep from having close relations with a goat? Isn’t that an Albee play?

Okay, this line of thinking isn’t helping me at all. One thing I’ve learned this year and especially this summer is that successful, professional people are just people. Even you, Michael Krass. So I can and will figure out what you’re trying to say.

I have spent a lot of time worshiping certain theater-makers: Mary Zimmerman, Sarah Ruhl, Julie Taymor, Anne Bogart, to name a few. They have become gods in the pantheon of my bookshelf and dominated my mind. I read Bogart’s A Director Prepares furiously, blacking the columns with notes and pictures. I longed to direct Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses or Ruhl’s Eurydice. I’ve spent days watching Julie Taymor productions at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

This spring, when I was finishing up applications for internships, I remembered that Bogart’s SITI Company had a summer theater workshop in Saratoga Springs, New York. It’s not even that I had to “remember”–I had been obsessive about Viewpoints for years and had been planning to apply for the program when I thought I could be accepted. So when I was, like, thirty. This program was my apex; the thing I planned to do that would solidify my identity as an artist. On a whim, I decided to send out an application. I felt accomplished just in the fact that I sent it. I by no means expected to get in. But then I did.

At the program, Anne Bogart talked about my giant, inflamed mosquito bite with me. She showed us her favorite movie. She told us a joke about a naked nun and wore her hair in a ponytail. She called my yell-singing rendition of the 50 states song magnificent. Her tranquil grey-blue eyes teared up on the last night, and she thanked us, the program participants, for sharing our art with her.

This sounds presumptuous, but Anne Bogart and I are essentially the same thing. We are smart people who want to be creative, who want to create our lives rather than live according to someone else’s plan. I am going into my second year of college and starting my work as a Creating Original Work major, which means I am going to be studying something kind of related to performance art. You could also say I’m training to be a sort of theater Frankenstein, sewing together the gooey, mismatched pieces of acting, directing, design, stage management, playwriting, and dramaturgy to create a fierce theater-being that’s really weird but hopefully interesting. The part that excites me the most, however, is that I get to put the stuff that’s up here (pointing to my head), out there (pointing to the space in front of me, which represents a stage). And that’s exactly what professionals are doing, too.

After being with SITI for a month I came here to Redmoon, and I am learning even more intimately that amazing people are real and living and friendly (!), even when they are Frankensteins, like me. I’ve learned that most of the artistic staff does lots of things for the company. Jim, the artistic director, works imaginatively with the administration and as a designer and director for shows. Vanessa, the artistic associate, directs, acts and organizes Redmoon for Hire. Frank, the associate artistic director, directs and organizes, too. They are theater-makers whom I can admire and see everyday. This internship has afforded me fantastic opportunities to get to know these people and to understand the ins and outs of a Chicago theater. I proctored auditions for the NY production of Hunchback, and met Leslie, Hunchback’s director. I’ve worked closely with Michaela, the Marketing Director, on audience surveys. I listened to Jim speak to his desire for democratic theater. I am actually doing things that will benefit the theater, not crappy internship busywork. I have yet to make one copy, and I’ve been consumed reading the fascinating things people write about in surveys. The audience really gets Redmoon’s ideas. People are entranced by Redmoon’s tradition of building art out of everyday objects, allowing junk to be the foundation for fantasy. Everyday objects give fantastical art a sense of legitimacy, and these everyday objects are, in turn, initiated into a larger, more imaginative world. The common becomes uncommon; the magical becomes practical. People are writing in their surveys that they see that magic and junk metal go well together and that magic is connected to visual stimulation. In Redmoon’s world, broken things are useful and the impractical is practical. The audience understands this, I understand this, the artists understand this. When we enter the playing space for a Redmoon production, we are not trying to break the secret code of a genius whom we can hear cackling in the distance. We are doing just what Jim talks about–creating a theater for the people.

So when I think about my obsession over theater professionals, I realize that I make them less gods and more idols. I cannot think of these people as their words and images alone. Transcendent work must come from an earthly body; it has to be tangibly created in our world while it lifts our minds. These theater professionals deserve my respect, and the best way to value their accomplishments is to retain awareness of their humanity and of my own. I think I will come away from this summer with immense confidence in my own abilities and the power of theater as a medium. People want communication through text and image. People are intelligent and sympathetic to artists. And these artists, in turn, are not gods or idols, and I am not a sheep. Successful artists are mentors and shapers. They brought me into this world, and now it is my responsibility to create in it as they did.

–Julia