I'm Back

 It has been several years since I posted to this blog. I hope those who followed me will find me again. I hope you will share this with friends and share your thoughts with me.

My life has changed considerably since I last vented. In 2018, I decided to go back to school. I had already been teaching acting at the University of Bridgeport and wanted to expand on that. So I interviewed at Western Ct State University and, despite forty years' experience in the business, was told I needed a Master's Degree. I was despondent when I left that meeting. It seemed my years of working as an actor, even on Broadway, my teaching experience at a private university, the plays I had written which won awards when I really didn't know what I was doing, the fact that I operated a theatre company in a neighboring town... All this  was nothing when compared to an imagined academic who possessed none of my experience but had the degree.  

On the way home, I happened to stop at the office of our local arts council where I noticed a brochure for the WCSU Masters Program in Creative and Professional Writing.  "Why not," I thought. Two years, low-residency. I could stay home and write. And because I was an old fart, I could go for free! It was a no-brainer. I applied, sent a writing sample and attended my first residency within weeks. Turns out I could only attend for free if I went part-time and I had an agenda: get the degree so I could teach.  So I opted for full-time at half-price and gleefully embarked on my two-year journey. Lo and behold, the University came back to me immediately. It seems they were short a teacher and suddenly my years of experience, plus the fact that I was indeed pursuing my degree at that self-same university, were enough to secure me a position teaching Introduction to Theatre for non-theatre majors.  Now, there are people who love theatre and can't imagine a life without it. I was one of those people. My students were of a different persuasion. Many had never seen a play. Many had only seen plays at their high schools. The class met for an hour and fifteen minutes two times a week so taking them to see professional theatre was out of the question. Because of the hastiness of my hire, I inherited a syllabus that was guaranteed to make these newbie thespians hate the experience. In subsequent semesters, I kept Aristotle to a single lesson, posted his "rules" for future reference, and tried to find plays on tape or film that might stir an interest and, hopefully, lead to them one day buying a ticket to a play. We watched classics like "Death of a Salesman," "Twelve Angry Men," and they liked seeing Lee J. Cobb in two roles.  We compared different versions of "Hamlet" and "Romeo and Juliet" presented traditionally and reinterpreted contemporarily. We watched Mamet's "Oleanna" for an abject lesson in "why are you even in school?" While I subjected them to at least one Greek tragedy, it was the Jean Anouilh version. The best example of Aristotelian structure came from a modern play: Christopher Demos Brown's "American Son" for its adherence to the Three Unities and an almost textbook tragic heroine, but also because the discussion of race was something they could really latch on to.  My best day was at the end of my last semester there when a student approached my after class and said she had purchased tickets for "Take Me Out" on Broadway as a birthday present for her sister. (I did give them a content warning, just to be safe.)

I didn't get to blog during that period. Between teaching and getting that degree, the reading and writing that pursuit entailed. I just didn't have time. But the state budget cuts, exacerbated by the pandemic and low student enrollment brought my teaching career to a halt. Now, I write. The degree may or may not have gotten me a job for very long, but the two years I got to concentrate on writing were magical. I now have four full-length plays under my belt, a collection of short plays that is soon to be published, and a novel due to be released in July, 2026. I also have a stash of random thoughts, flash fiction and bad poetry which I may share with you, my dear friends, from time to time. 

I hope you will enjoy and share as you see fit. I am so looking forward to reconnecting!

Kate