Beginnings
I have a clear memory of a vocabulary lesson in sixth grade English: the word was "pragmatic." I loved the word immediately. I have always been drawn toward utility. For me the useful and the beautiful are one. I prefer any gift that is useful over something strictly decorative. Baskets, boxes, bags and small holders of things are appealing to me. Art is best, I think, when it teaches something important about living or can be used in daily life. I am drawn to calligraphy for the message that infuses the artwork and to beautiful pottery in that can be used to hold food. Textiles that cover the body, warm the bed or cover the floor interest me. The highest compliment I know as a teacher is that some teaching has proven useful to a student. Utility, the summum bonum.
I have a reverence for the practical . . . the pragmatic. I don't know where this deep sense comes from. It seems that I have had it from earliest memory, and it forms the basis of my personal values. This attraction led me into theatre. Theatre offers a concrete form for expression, for community. It provides something that we all need- scheduled community organized around work that results in a gift. I loved studying theatre in college because it gave me a place to go every evening and be with others in a way that was not merely social. We did something together; we expressed ourselves to one another using a playwrights words. When we had finished the process of rehearsing we invited a big group (the audience) to our party and played for them, with them, in front of them. And then we closed up our work, struck the set, put away the costumes, wiped clean the makeup tables, threw away the wilted flowers from our admirers, and celebrated with a cast party where we ate, danced, sang and congratulated one another for our mutual work.
I've often thought I was in it for the parties and the unique sense of belonging that develops within the cast of a play. I liked having a fixed ending: closing night. This "family" then went its separate ways. A new community formed with each new project. Because the act of creating theatre together meets so many human needs -- community, expression, order and celebration--it is a form worth preserving and developing.
It was unexpected that I became a Drama teacher. Professor Raymond Hodges, Chair of the Theatre Arts Department of what was then called Richmond Professional Institute (now Virginia Commonwealth University) called me in to suggest that I apply for a job as the Drama teacher at St. Catherine's School for Girls in Richmond, Virginia. He had seen in me something that pointed toward this calling. I had no training as a teacher. Literally the thought had not crossed my mind. I was interested in Theatre but mainly as an actress. I knew hardly enough about this wide and deep profession to act in it. Soon I would be teaching it to others.
We sometimes teach out of our own ignorance and as the writer of Jonathan Livingston Seagull pointed out: "We teach what we most need to learn." That was indeed my case. St. Catherine's School hired me in the summer of 1964 to begin as "the Drama teacher" for the whole school. I even had my very own theatre, McVey Hall, a sturdy proscenium house that seated four or five hundred students. In addition to the formal school auditorium, McVey Hall had an office for the Drama teacher and an entire Costume Shop behind it.
The Costume Shop was packed with dusty boxes filled with an overabundance of used articles given by the Jr. League after they were rejected at the church thrift sale. Weekly some lady would appear at the back door with a "donation to the costume shop." There were also old costumes that had been sewn for school plays going back at least 50 years. My predecessor had been a round faced white haired woman who had lovingly cared for these garments, collecting them over the years and cataloging them in boxes labeled "Hats, Men, felt, fedoras (1930's)" and in crayon handwritten on the same box "Archies' bowler."
I maintained that wilderness of cloth and gilt and memories during my two years as a resident teacher there, chain smoking menthol cigarettes in my office when I wasn't teaching or directing. It fell to me to direct the annual St. Catherine's Day pageant, an event that honored the Senior girl who most personified the qualities of the school's namesake. It was an odd ritual to my mind. Poor St. Catherine died having been tortured on a wheel. I can't remember ever knowing what her crime was, but I do remember clearly that the Lower school girls all did artwork for the big day rendering their youthful vision of what it looked like to be tortured on a rack. All along the wall of the Lower school were appalling pictures, stick figures and some better, of a woman with blood gushing out of her, spread eagle, nailed to a giant wheel. Early porn as far as I could tell which everyone took very, very seriously.
The pageant itself was a big deal. The entire school got to vote on who would be "St. Catherine" and her maid of honor or I think it was called the "Standard Bearer" (the runner up). As the Drama teacher I was the very first to know the name of the chosen since it fell to me to outfit her to appear on stage in a tableaux as the martyred Saint. There was a box marked "St. Catherine's Day - Costumes" In it were a series of costume pieces and crowns and props used every year for this event. It was a tradition that the girl chosen as St. Catherine would wear the same dress that had been worn by all the other St. C's from beginningless time. When I pulled out THE DRESS I was horrified to see that it was literally falling apart. It had been altered so often that the seams and darts were shredding and the waistline had pulled apart from the shirt. It was probably a size 7 in today's measure and perfect if you were doing a wax figure of Mrs. Amersham, the old woman who at 94 was still waiting for the groom to arrive amid the cobwebs in the Gothic novel.
What needed to be done was to design a new gown for St. C that "fits all sizes". So I created a design of a flowing "mu-mu" garment held together by a golden cord at the waist which crossed the body decorously. I cut a piece from the heirloom dress worn by 50 years of St. Catherines and sewed it into the hem of the new costume to honor the tradition. I considered those young women to come over the years and future Drama teachers who would be saved the long night of alterations of the old gown. I wonder if that costume survives?
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