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Meet the literary fellow

posted by Karen McKevitt on Tue, Jan 10, 2012
in School of Theatre

By Julie McCormick

Greetings from the literary department! I’m Julie, this year’s Peter Sloss Literary and Dramaturgy Fellow. I’m writing from what I like to fondly refer to as the “lit cave,” a tangerine-colored office that I share with Madeleine Oldham (Berkeley Rep’s resident dramaturg and director of the Ground Floor), roughly 30 feet of shelving filled with plays, and a 13-year-old wiener dog named Hilary.

I arrived at Berkeley Rep by way of Milwaukee and Northfield, MN, where I attended Carleton College and studied English literature. As a recent graduate in a world of job cuts, dizzying career shifts, overflowing graduate programs, and debt, I’ve tried to be very realistic about my options and not to get too attached to any one thing. As a versatile person with a wide range of interests, I could find satisfaction in any number of paths, but when I learned what literary managers and dramaturgs were, I actually laughed aloud. It was too perfect. Literary takes everything that I not only enjoy doing and am interested in (research, writing, and talking about theatre), but also need to do to feel fulfilled and combines it into one extraordinarily attractive package.

The literary department is also an excellent home for a year because it marries two warring parts of my personality — the artist and the academic. As a curious and creative person growing up in a community that valued all things artistic and interdisciplinary, I’ve dabbled in a little bit of everything: theatre, all kinds of music, visual art, writing, dance…you get the idea. Some themes have been consistent (like theatre and writing), but others have woven in and out. In high school I remember passionately wanting to be a violinist some days, an actress on others, and a brilliant novelist on the rest. Yet at the same time, this is also when I realized that I had the makings of a dyed-in-the-wool academic — that reading and then writing about literature was something that I not only enjoyed, but that made my pulse race and me feel vitally alive in a way that performing onstage couldn’t even graze with an outstretched fingertip.

With this realization, as well as a growing understanding of how deeply unsuited I am to the life of an artist (I don’t want to devote my life to honing “my craft,” I want to stay up late and read!), I quickly donned the large glasses and giant shapeless sweater of the budding scholar and happily burrowed into mountains of 18th-century novels, early modern dramas, and endless rereading of Judith Butler and Edward Said articles.

A thicker pair of glasses, a BA, and one carpal-tunneled wrist later, I emerged victorious but also somehow unsatisfied. The contrapuntal theme of theatre kept knocking, but it grew increasing difficult to open the door and reconcile my desire to make beautiful things and share them with others with my fears of failing and the calm, rational, analytical mind I was trying to cultivate. My months at Berkeley Rep have given me useful handles to describe these two states: generative artists (the people who create) versus interpretive artists. Over time, fear and genuine preference have edged me out of generative art territory and into the interpretive realm. (I’m happy to be here now, but check back in 20 years, you never know.) But the word “artist” is still there. How can I make these fairly academic pursuits of mine into art?

Emma Rice, the director of Kneehigh’s The Wild Bride, provided me with the answer, or at least, a different question to ask myself. I was lucky enough to do a phone interview with her (you don’t need to say anything, I already know my job is the coolest), and she said something that has continued to stick in my brain ever since. She was talking about how she believes in letting instinct guide creative work: “If you think too hard, it all comes through the head. And personally, I think the head is one of the least interesting bits of the human experience. I think it’s those sorts of deep, dark, iceberg-y feelings that are the most interesting ones to explore.” As I move forward with my fellowship, it’s something I want remember — that while a lot of my work involves my mind, I shouldn’t neglect using other parts of my anatomy, like my gut, and, well, my heart.

(Since writing this article, Julie has been hired as a literary associate. Kathleen Martinelli will be joining us as the new literary fellow.)