Middlebury Magazine

  • Recent Stories
  • Menu
    • Features
    • Essays
    • Q&A
    • Podcasts
    • Review
    • Videos
    • About
    • Advertising
    • Contact
    • Support
    • Writers’ Guidelines
  • Search

Dispatches

May I Have a Word?

During the pandemic, as the arts have struggled to stay relevant in a virtual world, one artistic director came up with a brilliant idea to showcase local talent.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
February 12, 2021
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • Email icon

Online classes, online meetings, online yoga—it seems like just about anything and everything is being made available online these days, thanks to a pandemic that necessitates physical distancing.

But what does that mean for the arts, where listening to a concert or watching a play in person makes the experience so rich? How have directors and producers adjusted? For Melissa Lourie, founder and artistic director of the Middlebury Acting Company, that has been her concern since last March. Without the stage, and loath to try to produce plays on Zoom, a limiting platform at best, she has worked to come up with ideas for entertaining, virtual performances.

In the fall she turned to the written word. “We have so many talented writers in Vermont,” she says. “I thought about getting some to write short monologues and then filming them. I approached famous local writers like Jay Parini, Julia Alvarez, and Chris Bohjalian, and to my great delight, they all gave me material.”

When it came to a topic for the monologues, she veered away from COVID and the current state of affairs, and instead wondered what life would be like 10, 20, or 30 years from now? “So I asked these writers to create something set in the future and keep it to about five minutes.” She titled the resulting project “Flash Forward: Voices from the Future.”

With a deep well of talent at the College, and indeed, around the state, Lourie found plenty of great material to work with. From Middlebury, she received powerful scripts from Parini, D.E. Axinn Professor of English and Creative Writing; Alvarez ’71, writer in residence emerita; Dana Yeaton ’79, associate professor of theatre; and Rob Cohen, professor of English and American literatures and creative writing. In addition, she asked Peter Hamlin ’73, Christian A. Johnson Professor Emeritus of Music, to create the music and sound that would tie all the monologues together in a final presentation.

"BBQ & A with Billy Day," written by Dana Yeaton '79 and Ro Boddie, one of eight monologues created for "Flash Forward: Voices from the Future."

Once she had eight monologues in hand, she found the actors and directors she felt would be right for each piece. The next hurdle was to find a way to turn the vignettes into short film pieces. Once again, the College was able to provide the talent. Through a connection she learned about Fayza Shammin ’20.5, a film/psychology major and accomplished filmmaker who had access to the state-of-the-art equipment owned by Middlebury.

Shammin was intrigued by the project and the prospect of working with the team, but she was a little wary about the scope of it all since she was still a full-time student. However her first conversation with Lourie went well. Shammin says, “I felt reassured that as ambitious as our timeline was, I would be working alongside truly talented writers, actors, and directors whose stories were not only special but relevant to our current moment.” She adds, “I was most excited by the concept of creating an anthology rather than a true series. The way these films thematically relate to one another is all the more powerful given how much they vary in content.”

Shammin was in charge of the cinematography and editing of all eight films, including all of the effects/motion graphics and title sequences. Filming took place over the month of November at locations within a small radius in town, due to her quarantine protocols. In December she went back to get the extra shots she needed and, by the end of January, she had completed the films. She says of the process, “None of the pieces turned out exactly according to script primarily due to the time limitations. However, I think all of the films turned out stronger once cuts were made because our teams were forced to go back and forth in editing sessions—sparking creative rearrangements we would have never landed on otherwise.”

“Fayza is mature beyond her years,” Lourie says. “At first we looked into hiring a professional filmmaker but it was too much for our budget. Fortunately for us, we got this wonderful student who has professional level skills and made the time to work with us. I knew very little about filmmaking, so I had to rely on Fayza’s judgement about most every decision we made. I discovered that the real magic of filmmaking happens in the editing room, and Fayza is particularly interested in and expert at that aspect.”

The project had its debut on February 6 in coordination with the Town Hall Theater. You can watch all of the monologues here on the Middlebury Acting Company’s YouTube page.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent Stories

Features

More Than a Game

In a critically acclaimed work of nonfiction, Abe Streep '04 introduces readers to the Arlee Warriors, a high school basketball team on a Native American reservation in Montana, where life's challenges are abundant.

By Alexander Wolff
Photograph by Devin Yalkin
October 21, 2022

Munya Munyati Has A Few Stories to Tell

Catching up with a young filmmaker who is rapidly making a name for himself at Vice.

By Mara Dolan
Film stills by Munya Munyati
September 16, 2022

Reverberations

A transcontinental move, a career discovered, a landmark speech studied and translated—and an identity reshaped.

By Clara Clymer, MA Translation '22
Illustration by Anna Gusella
April 2, 2022

The Road(s)

A little over a year ago, a writing student headed south to Florida for no other reason than J-Term was forced to go remote. She soon found herself reporting on an environmental justice battle that was roiling the state.

By Alexandra Burns '21.5
Illustrations by Yevgenia Nayberg
March 2, 2022

Dispatches

Silo Transformation

A common sight in the Vermont countryside becomes a public art display on the Middlebury campus.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Photo by EJ Bartlett
November 10, 2023

No Risk, No Gain

From an early age, Elsa Alvarado ’18 knew she wanted to be in politics. Her perseverance led her to a leadership role at the Pentagon and a political path forward.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Photo by Adam Ewing
October 19, 2023

Japan Wants to Dump Water from a Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean

Middlebury's Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress thinks that's a terrible idea.

By Sierra Abukins
August 11, 2023

When Mini Golf Meets Reproductive Justice

A summertime staple becomes a first-of-its-kind teaching tool.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photographs by Todd Balfour
June 30, 2023

Welcome to All Things Scottish

Toward the end of the academic year, a group of Midd students turned Battell Beach into a setting that more closely resembled a Scottish moor.

By Caroline Crawford
Photograph by Brian MacDonald
June 30, 2023

Let’s Dance

How can one's digital experiences be interpreted through performance art? Choreographer Maia Sauer ’22 and a troupe of recent Midd grads attempt to find out.

By Alexandra Jhamb Burns '21.5
Photographs by Alexis Welch '22
June 2, 2023

The Repatriation

The Leopard Head Hip Ornament returns to Africa.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Courtesy Middlebury Museum of Art
February 16, 2023

Adventures in Filmmaking

Two professors and an alum have embarked on a journey to take a screenplay from its creation to the end product of a full-length feature film.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Still Photograph from The Swim Lesson Proof of Concept
February 14, 2023

A Night Out

For one evening in December, Atwater dining hall hosted a student-dining experience unlike any other.

By Caroline Crawford
Photographs by Paul Dahm
January 20, 2023
View All

Essays

Making Democracy Real

An Update on Our Conflict Transformation Initiative

By Laurie L. Patton
Illustration by Brian Staufer
January 20, 2023

Q&A

The Making of a Teacher

Hebrew Professor Michal Strier reflects on her life an education—in Israel and the States—a journey that led the Language School instructor to the undergraduate College for the first time this year.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photograph by Paul Dahm
May 19, 2022

Quotation

A summer immersed in a language can do wonders, as veterans of Middlebury College’s famous language-learning program can attest. The lockdown is clearly going to amount to the equivalent of about two summers, and there are mini-Middleburys happening in millions of houses worldwide.”

—John McWhorter, writing “The Coronavirus Generation Will Use Language Differently” in the Atlantic.

Podcasts

Old Stories Being Told Differently, Part 2, featuring Carolyn Finney

Our guest for episode three of season three is Carolyn Finney, who is a storyteller, author, cultural geographer, and self-described “accidental environmentalist” whose work explores the intersection of identity, privilege, and our natural surroundings. In part two of this two-part interview, Carolyn joins host and president of Middlebury, Laurie Patton, to discuss how her upbringing and family history in Westchester County, New York became the foundation of her life’s work.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
October 2, 2023

Old Stories Being Told Differently, Part 1, featuring Carolyn Finney

Our guest for episode three of season three is Carolyn Finney, who is a storyteller, author, cultural geographer, and self-described “accidental environmentalist” whose work explores the intersection of identity, privilege, and our natural surroundings. In part one of this two-part interview, Carolyn joins host and president of Middlebury, Laurie Patton, to discuss how her upbringing and family history in Westchester County, New York became the foundation of her life’s work.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
September 18, 2023

Every Book You Write Is a Mystery, feat. Rebecca Makkai, MA English ’04

Our guest for episode two of season three is Rebecca Makkai, MA English '04, a critically acclaimed novelist and short story writer. She joins Laurie Patton to discuss her teaching career, overcoming writer's block, her time at Bread Loaf, dabbling in other genres or mediums for inspiration, and her deep personal roots to Vermont.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
May 30, 2023

Review

Editors’ Picks for September and October

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
October 6, 2023

Editors’ Picks for July and August

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
August 11, 2023

The Morse Code

A remarkable journalist helped create community in a small Vermont town.

By Tim Etchells ’74
August 4, 2023

Videos

Creating Community Through Hip Hop

For three days in March, the sounds, styles, and fashions of global hip hop converged on Middlebury for an electric symposium.

By Jordan Saint-Louis '24
April 17, 2023

Pomp and Unusual Circumstances

As viewed from above.

By Chris Spencer
June 1, 2021

Davis the Owl Returns Home

Having recovered from life-threatening injuries, a beautiful winged creature is released to its natural habitat.

By Andrew Cassell
April 22, 2021
Middlebury College
  • Alumni
  • Newsroom
  • Contact Us
  • icon-instagram

The views presented are not necessarily those of the editors or the official policies of the College.

© 2023 Middlebury College Publications.