MFA Equivalency

I have been asked to direct Thoroughly Modern Millie at Solano College Theatre, something I would be absolutely delighted to do. In order to get the job, I need to establish that I have, through my theatrical experience, the equivalent of a MFA in Theatre. Which I do. So part of the paperwork process involved a personal statement about why I feel I am qualified to direct, what my experience has taught me, things like that. So I wrote several versions of the statement before I got anywhere near something coherent. I share them with you now:

This is the first thing I wrote:

"Since 1989, I have been doing almost nothing but theatre. While there have been other things that have, from simple necessity, occupied my time – jobs to pay rent, boring classes to transfer credit – my overarching focus for the last twenty years has been excellence in all things theatrical. When I started out, I never expected to be a director; nor did I expect that I would design sets, costumes, lights or sound. Dabbling in the more technical disciplines was at first a matter of required credit. And, had all of my directors been geniuses, or were I more inclined toward complacency, I may never have struck upon the directorial path. I owe it all to a mid-rehearsal revelation at age 19 that my director was mediocre at best, and that I could do it better with less preparation, a smaller budget and worse actors. The Gods of Theatre may have been listening; if there are no Gods of Theatre, I suspect I may have sought such a difficult situation in order to test myself. Either way, I learned a great deal.

[(I had bracketed this section in preparation to rework or cut it. -- E.) In the Spring of 1989 I was a Sophomore at Hayward High School. Up to that point, owing to the Hayward Unified School District’s devotion to the lowest common denominator, there was no actual Drama teacher at Hayward High. We had had English teachers foisted upon us in the well-meaning but entirely false assumption that because Shakespeare wrote plays, and because they were in English, any English teacher must know enough about theatre to ably instruct eager young minds starved for structure and the honing of their raw skills. This is rather a bit like assuming that an illustrator, having studied human anatomy, could successfully perform open-heart surgery.

What changed in 1989 was that someone, somehow, decided to hire a Drama instructor for the Spring. She decided to direct a mild little comedy and I, having been forbidden by my parents to take any more Drama classes until I raised my grades, had absolutely no intention of auditioning. I was tricked into it by a friend, and by some miracle I was cast in a comic role. The rest, as they say, is obscurity. It was the notion that by doing my homework I would sooner escape Hayward High for some fabled theatrical collegiate Valhalla that got me, slowly, to raise my grades. By my Senior year, I was no longer a consistent academic failure.]

From Hayward High to the Theatre Department of Chabot College, and thence to Las Positas College and and – again, I suspect what Gods of Theatre still exist must have chuckled when I was accepted – The Boston Conservatory. Which is exactly where I found myself directing plays with no preparation, no budget and some (not all) terrible actors, in a tiny, drafty, bitterly cold or – if the heat was on – stiflingly hot blackbox theatre. It’s also where I began to get true theatrical training, which is precisely what I needed. Owing to the number of credits I’d accrued in the California Community College system, I transferred in as a Junior. Juniors at The Boston Conservatory take Directing from Steve McConnell, and it is Steve McConnell – though he would shudder to hear it – whose instruction utterly changed my approach to Theatre and, as a result, changed my life.

(This paragraph was the beginning of something earlier that I had moved in order to tidy up; it hangs at the end of the piece only because that's how I found it today. -- E.) I had already spent four years in constant theatrical endeavor, never realizing that I ought to have been focusing on transfer to another place; it was my dissatisfaction with my own work which lead me to audition for The Boston Conservatory."

It was too much narrative, not enough fact. So I abandoned that approach before finishing and I tried this:

"Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, focuses on the “10,000-Hour Rule” – the notion that the key to success is a matter of honing a skill for 10,000 hours. Using this as the basis for evaluation, let’s do a little math:

The average community theatre person (we’ll call her June) rehearses 4 hours per night five days a week; the average rehearsal process takes six weeks, and the shows run – on average – two to three weeks. Let’s be generous and assume that she lives in a community that supports the arts: her show runs four weeks. So 4 hours per night multiplied by 5 nights a week is 20 hours per week. Even on performance nights, most actors are at the theatre for about four hours. So six weeks of rehearsal plus four weeks of performance (adding an average extra eight hours of technical rehearsal, and generously assuming she has five performances per week between Thursday and Sunday) is ten weeks. Ten weeks at 4 hours five days a week plus extra tech = 208 hours.

There are 8,760 hours in a year. Assuming June has a day job and family and a pet rock, she probably has time for about three shows per year. That’s 624 hours a year. At this rate, it will take June 16 years to master her skill. By that time, June is bitter, jaded and resentful of all the younger actors or directors who are going places.

Thankfully, I am not June. I am Edward. I am not a community theatre person; I am a professional director and actor; this is what I do, it is what I am, it is my life and my legacy. Once I found theatre, I focused so completely upon it that my family despaired of my ever seeing the sun or attending a family gathering again. Since then, I have regained some degree of balance in my life: sunlight and family are equally as important as theatre. But my zealous devotion to this art began in my Sophomore year of High School when I was a sponge in an artistic desert, so it is perhaps easy to understand why and how I chose this path, or perhaps how it chose me.

My theatrical epiphany occurred in 1989. That’s two decades of constant theatrical endeavor. Here’s the difference between our fictional June and myself: June listened to her parents and became a Dental Hygienist, while I ignored my parents’ harping about jobs and money, choosing instead to spend every possible hour in or around the theatre. Between daytime theatre classes at Chabot College in Hayward and rehearsals at night, I had blissfully (and quite accidentally) created a miniature theatrical conservatory for myself: six hours of classes per day, three hours of rehearsal at night, six days of rehearsal per week, plus summer productions multiplied by four years comes to just under 4,000 hours. I count more than just my theatrical classes in these hours, as an ignorant actor is a useless actor and everything I’ve learned outside of theatre – from music theory to Chabot’s now defunct ISLS program – has made me a better performer.

There were and are, of course, better theatrical programs (about which I wish I’d known at the time) than those offered at Chabot and Las Positas Colleges. Then again, it was my frustration with the occasional mediocre director that spurred me to transfer to The Boston Conservatory in Autumn of 1995. Had I been delighted with the quality of everything, who knows what I might be today? Probably a Dental Hygienist.

What I wanted was to eat, drink, sleep and bathe in theatre. That’s exactly what I got in Boston. Classes began at 8:00 am, generally running until 6:00 pm; rehearsals began at 7:00 pm and often ran until 11:00 pm, sometimes later. Eight hours a day of classes alone, plus another four hours of rehearsal: twelve hours per day. More focused, more intense and certainly better than the theatrical education I’d had up until then, but all total about 5,000 hours.

So if we conservatively estimate that by the time I graduated in May of 2000 I had 9,000 hours of practice, I am confident that in the intervening years I have – as both actor and director – easily topped the 10,000-hour mark.

I feel that it behooves us as artists to give back to the community, to pass on our knowledge and share what we have learned with as many other performers – regardless of their age or ability – as we possibly can. I have twenty years of diverse experience in theatre upon which to draw, and I feel it is my duty to use what wisdom may be distilled from my experience to enrich the lives and education of other people.

The Boston Conservatory’s directing program is probably its best-kept secret. When I applied and auditioned in 1995, I do not believe there was a word about it in the catalog or application. At that time I still thought of myself solely as an actor, in spite of having directed actively since 1993. But I transferred into that school as a Junior, which put me into Steve McConnell’s class in directing. Imagine the theory and practice of directing as taught by a slightly more personable Professor Snape. Funny as that idea is, it’s Steve McConnell – though he would shudder to hear it – whose instruction utterly transformed my approach to Theatre and, as a result, changed my life.

Now, I live and create by the following rules:

There is no such thing as “good enough”.

Perfection is unattainable.

These two admittedly contradictory phrases form the core of my approach to directing and acting; the first spurs me to swim upstream and avoid lazily floating with the current: I am always aiming for the divine creative pool at the source of the river. The second phrase keeps me balanced in my creativity because, while I know that perfection is unattainable, it is nonetheless the best possible goal: it is by striving for perfection that we reach new heights. People who aim for “good enough” can run for Congress. This leaves the rest of us to the passionate pursuit of excellence in all that we do."

This was okay, but I felt that I spent too much time doing math . So I refined it:

"Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.

The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession.
-- Sherlock Holmes, The Valley of Fear, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

My name is Edward Hightower and I am a director and actor of skill, renown and humility. According to Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, it takes 10,000 hours to achieve mastery of any discipline. I have been consistently working in theatre since 1989 and I have well over 10,000 hours of focused theatrical experience. So, on the Gladwellian scale alone, we’re pretty safe to assume that I am the right man for the job of directing Thoroughly Modern Millie. Ah, but looking at the two quotes that begin this statement and therefore set the standard of measurement herein, more data is called for.

I have been directing since 1993. My first directorial endeavors were short plays of my own composition, a fairly common occurrence among young actors – every actor wants to direct and/or write; the question of whether or not they are any good at it rarely occurs to the vast majority. The vaguely talented measure their ability in a flawed mirror, which explains the crazies who believe they will be the next American Idol.

There are two advantages that separate me from your average thespian:

1) I successfully ran the gauntlet of The Boston Conservatory’s undergraduate directing program – in all respects save the degree awarded the equal of any directorial MFA program and, frankly, superior to many that I’ve investigated since obtaining my BFA in 2000.
2) The innate ability to see to the heart of most theatrical matters, clearly identifying that which needs attention and fixing it with zest and aplomb. As part of this ability, I am deeply aware that there are vast theatrical disciplines in which I have only dabbled: stage management, music direction, design of sets, lighting and costumes, choreography. It is therefore a pleasure and a relief to work with a creative team whose skill sets allow us to bring forth a masterful result.

I believe it is the duty of an artist of any discipline to share the benefit of their knowledge with the populace at large. Directing is most assuredly an art, and in my mind the most challenging, because it is the only discipline that requires the artist to preside over the seamless integration of every other fine art to create one cohesive and – in the case of Thoroughly Modern Millie – toe-tapping, frothily delightful whole.

What better way to share my knowledge and love of my art than to give back to the students and community of Fairfield by directing this production? Having already worked at Solano College Theatre as an actor (Max Bialystock in The Producers; Freddie/Philip in Noises Off [2009 Arty Award Nominee]; Frog in A Year With Frog and Toad [2008 Arty Award Winner: Best Lead Actor in a Musical]), and having found myself simultaneously in a positive mentorship role with the students and a superb working relationship with my fellow professionals, I relish the opportunity to share the diverse fruits of my theatrical experience in a whole new way.

Given the data in my resumes, transcripts and this statement, I am confident that the mystery of whether or not Edward Hightower is the right person to direct Thoroughly Modern Millie is solved; professional experience is the best possible classroom and mere theatrical theorists probably don’t understand how difficult it is to sing and do a triple time-step while staying in a straight line; my knowledge is personal and practical. As Sherlock Holmes once said,
“… when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Edward Hightower
November 20, 2009
Livermore, California"


And now, frankly, I'm embarrassed that the above is what I actually submitted. Sherlock Holmes? What the hell was I thinking? Too bad I have to wait until 5:00 to start drinking.

© 2009, Edward Hightower. All Rights Reserved.