a tribute

we were just children, really.

wide eyed, open-hearted, ready for serious play. 

excited to be living, eating, sleeping, breathing in such close quarters with members of the opposite sex.

most of us newly liberated from the constraints of living at home and even from the academic rigors of our respective colleges and universities.

we were 18-22. we had chosen to sacrifice the conveniences of modern technology and shopping malls in exchange for a few months of isolation with nothing but each other, our imaginations, the heroic authors of our plays, and some of the most gifted teachers of theater we would ever have have the pleasure of working with. 

we lived near the ocean and woke early every morning to breathe in the salty air.

we had only been there a few days before the world shook with the collapse of its own heart. 

we barely knew each other's names but we were each other's family now.

i had stolen a few precious moments of sleep after breakfast when i heard voices outside my window speaking of a plane crash. we were all gathered. there was no internet, no cnn to turn to. our cell phone service was patchy at best. there were a few new yorkers in the group. they needed answers.

they told us what they knew, which wasn't much. it sounded unlikely to be true. too horrific. too cinematic, even. we were scheduled to make masks that day, so we did. there we were, dipping strips of newspaper into paper mache, creating characters for ourselves, imposing personalities unto these new faces we had devised. 

that next night we performed scenes from the book, nights at the circus, by angela carter. we had worked spontaneously and hurriedly, with little structure and organization.  the leaders stepped forward and tried to dictate the process. we became lions, tigers, trapeze artists, and ring masters. we performed for each other for the first time. we were all in awe of one another. i watched my new peers transform themselves and i was humbled to know that these would be my fellow collaborators for the next few months.

someone said we had created the first theater since 9/11. we relished the thought; we felt we had contributed something to the collective consciousness of the country. the nation's psyche was suffering and we had just made art from its ashes. it was an exhilirating idea. maybe we had.

the next day they sent us a psychiatrist to talk about our feelings. no, we didn't want to discuss our feelings, we wanted answers! we were hungry for facts, statistics, concrete information, please. we had no talking heads to rely upon. we had been mercifully sheltered from images of bodies jumping from windows, like falling stars dropping from an ashen sky.

he told us what he knew. he knew a lot. we were shocked. we were insatiable. we COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. we lived by the long island sound. all we knew was the peaceful lapping of the water and our own voices.

a week later we left for england to spend two weeks studying with the royal shakespeare company. there, abroad, we were treated like heroes. we had done nothing to deserve the accolades, but we accepted them all the same. somehow, just by being ourselves, we had become survivors.  we had never been prouder to be who we were.

we were returned to a country that was devastated by something so horrific it was really impossible for us to conceive of without the aid of visuals. we continued to live peacefully, but we were stronger, closer, irreparably bonded. we made theater every day. in the shadows of inconceivable suffering, we found each other's light and made something new.