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Paulo Coehlo's The Alchemist

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In Paulo Coehlo’s The Alchemist, the alchemist is asked, “Why are you an alchemist?” His response is simply, “I’m an alchemist because I’m an alchemist.” It is as straightforward as that. I am a theatre artist. There is not a cute story about how I saw a show when I was younger and was inspired; it is simply who I am to the core of my being. I am fortunate that my time in theatre has brought me to places like Cincinnati Music Hall’s stage, the mainstage at Playhouse in the Park, the Guignol Theatre at the University of Kentucky, and other theatres that lend themselves to being name-dropped. However, the theatre that I have done that has most shaped my worldview and molded who I am as a person has happened in the most unlikely of places: dormitory …show more content…

I sat in my sorority dining room at a table with six other Kappas, “So, what was your – uh – first sexual experience?” I had already asked this question to friends from home, relatives, and by sending a poll out to people in various social media groups on the Internet. As I heard story upon story about underage girls being taken advantage of, drunkenly “consenting,” and people feeling pressure to just “get it over with,” I knew that this was not going to be the lighthearted project documenting a few silly “first time” stories that I anticipated. Going All the Way turned into a play aiming to tell the stories that society tries to avoid talking about, in addition to some of the clumsy and adorable first time stories. It started a dialogue among audience members about the objectification of young girls, what individuals count as a first sexual experience, and the pressures that young people feel in terms of what to do with their bodies. There was a realization among audience members that a shift in how we talk about sex needed to …show more content…

I looked more closely at the issues and subject matters that our community needed to discuss. With that necessity for dialogue in mind, I knew that giving a voice to those dealing with mental illnesses and attempting to lessen the stigmatization of mental illnesses and the stigmas surrounding suicide were topics that I not only wanted, but needed to cover. The subject of mental illness has influenced more of my theatre projects than any other subject. It has led to my acknowledging my own family’s struggles with various cases of mental illness, my going into classrooms and working with middle school age girls on body image, and most recently, this past summer, it led to my working with six other individuals on a documentary theatre piece called The Brogan Dulle Project. Brogan Dulle was a 21-year-old University of Cincinnati student who grew up down the street from most of us. He went missing May 18, 2014 and was found eight days later, having taken his own life. Over those eight days, the city of Cincinnati and Brogan Dulle made national news with the amount of people that were out searching for him. He was a close to home representative for something that we do not usually talk

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