Miranda Park ’17 at SITI Company.

Hi there, and welcome to my blog series! In these posts, I will try to navigate and share the teachings and insights I’ve encountered during my month-long intensive with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company, in residency at Skidmore this June. These posts will contain some confused rambling, partly because I’m trying to fully absorb all the things I learn, but mostly because I’m trying to find some vaguely eloquent and concise way of doing the teaching justice. I’ve also never written a blog before or even read one before tonight. So for inspiration, I decided to check out Anne’s most recent blog post on the SITI Company website (check them all out, seriously). I think that in saying that I may have set myself up against some tough competition, but here goes.

Every summer, SITI Summer Intensive participants study and create compositions for the play or idea that the company is working on. This summer, our focus is on Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Again, I’ll be totally truthful and say that before this summer, I had only read or seen a few of his plays (The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya), and read some of his short stories. I was very young when I saw both productions, and I don’t remember much, given that I fell asleep in both. (The MXAT kids will revoke their friendship when they read this, I can feel it.)

Fellow Skidmore student Michael San Roman ’17 (right)  directing SITI participants.

So when I was thrust into a room on the first day with theater artists ranging in age from 20 to 50 and Anne asked us what was at the heart of Three Sisters then told us to perform whatever that was through ideograms, I threw myself in headfirst. And mostly I failed. There were some compelling moments, sure. But on that first day, in front of Anne Bogart, I felt failure when I fumbled the lines we had been given fifteen minutes earlier. I felt it again on the second day and throughout the week, when I was told time and time again to find relaxation in the tension during Suzuki training. And then, just as I was losing steam, one of our teachers, Leon, told us that the training we do at SITI is failure-based. It’s important to live in failure; it’s much more interesting than living in success. So I’m holding on to that, trying my best, and learning with every fumble.

I wish I could quote all the fantastic things that I’ve heard here, but there’s so much all the time that it’s not really possible. I’ll just include some highlights instead:

“You’re not alone in a solo show. You have the space and time to take care of you.”

“As long as you are alive, silence is something other than the absence of sound.” (-John Cage. They LOVE John Cage—I think I do now, too).

“You must be fully committed to an idea but also fully committed to change.”

“You’re not ready for that yet and you look pretentious.” (I thought I looked more lost and silly than pretentious, but you know, opinions differ).

So I think that’s about it for this week’s post. Can’t wait to post more updates as the weeks go on and as the Company comes together for Sunday night Game of Thrones.

Good vibes

~Miranda
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Miranda Park ’17 is a blogger for the Skidmore Theater Living Newsletter and General Manager of Skidmore Theater.