Jim Amidon — Cody Grady has less than a month left in Crawfordsville. He’ll graduate as a theater major with the rest of the Wabash College Class of 2010 on May 16.
But rather than coasting to the finish line, Grady stepped up in a big way and will enjoy a “senior capstone moment” when the Wabash theater department presents the classic Shakespearean play,The Tempest, which opens Wednesday.
Grady has spent the last four years behind the scenes of the Wabash College Theater. He’s been a stage manager, properties master, technical director, and set designer. He spent a summer researching and cataloging Wabash’s vast dramatic history — collecting posters, programs, and cast lists, while reaching out to alumni across the country.
Now as he prepares to graduate, he’s had the ultimate Wabash theater experience: he’s co-directing The Tempest with his professor and mentor, Michael Abbott.
“I want to thank Professor Abbott and the department for giving me a great four years here,” Cody told me. “There’s no better way for me to leave the Wabash stage than by pulling the strings behind the scenes of a very ambitious and prominent production. Just as it was Shakespeare’s farewell, it will be mine as well.”
I’ve written a good bit about theater — and the arts generally — this year. In many ways, the arts at Wabash demonstrate the richness of the liberal arts. And by their very nature, the arts are collaborative and require participants to listen to one another, experiment with new ideas, and form a collective finished product.
Cody’s Wabash experience mirrors that ideal. He’s taken courses in science, foreign language, and history. His co-curricular activities have focused on the theater, but not exclusively. His study abroad experience in England helped him mature and develop confidence.
His return to campus for his senior year has been filled with hands-on opportunities for him to apply what he’s learned throughout his time at Wabash — from across the academic disciplines — to his work with the theater.
From stage managing for The Bacchae, to his role as technical director for the stunning production of Terra Nova in February, to his co-direction of The Tempest, Grady has learned much about collaboration, which will serve him well throughout his life.
“Theatre is inherently cooperative, and Wabash’s department works very well together on a regular basis,” says Grady, who calls Redkey, Indiana, his home. “With a show this ambitious — both technically and the fact that its a classic theater piece — everyone really had to come together to pull this off. All the actors have been great to work with; every night we reinvent the show, and each night it is better whether that’s from adding a tech aspect, on the suggestion from an actor, or direction from Mike or myself.”
Grady and his fellow cast and crewmates in The Tempest aren’t the only Wabash artists having capstone, year-ending experiences.
Wabash’s senior art majors — who have spent four years learning art history and practicing different techniques — will host an opening of their Senior Exhibition in the Fine Arts Center tonight.
Seniors Miguel Aguilar, Juan Diaz, Korey Pazour, David Rosborough, Michael Scott, and Dan Sutten will have their work on display in the Eric Dean Gallery from now through May 16 — visual art that has been influenced by the full range of courses in the liberal arts these young men have studied.
The paintings, sculptures, video, and photographs they have produced also reflect their roommates, professors, the pop culture they live in, sports, travel, as well as their personal successes and failures.
The end of the spring semester is always an interesting time at Wabash. There are students who already have been admitted to medical or law schools or accepted job offers, and are biding their time until the “real world” beckons.
Others, like the seniors involved with The Tempest, the art exhibition, Thursday’s Brass Ensemble concert, and next Sunday’s Chamber Orchestra concert, are facing their own “final exams” in their artistic pursuits.
Seeing the students pull all of their Wabash experiences together in a creative pursuit reinforces how the curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular come together for a full and rich liberal arts education.
Which takes me back to Cody’s comment about how the actors in The Tempest had to “come together to pull this off.” Students of the arts at Wabash are forced to pull everything together — and do it when so many of their fellow students have shifted into coast mode.
Note: The Senior Art Majors Exhibition opens tonight at 8:00 p.m., and remains on display during normal gallery hours (8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday) until May 14. The Tempest, by William Shakespeare, opens Wednesday and runs through Saturday with an 8:00 p.m. curtain every night. The Brass Ensemble Thursday begins at 8 p.m. in Salter Concert Hall. The Chamber Orchestra concert Sunday begins at 7 p.m. in Salter Concert Hall. All of these arts events are free and open to the public.
