My First Post: Thin and Thick Description

I will explain my blog later but for now, please enjoy this entry of thin and thick descriptions of two locations: Shooting Star Savanna and Hixon Hall.

Shooting Star Savanna:

The Shooting Star Savanna has lots of thick, barky trees reaching up to create a canopy above. It seems to stretch far and wide out north of the Johnson Science Center. Two squirrels scramble down a nearby tree trunk and disappear into the underbrush - a dense carpet of tall grasses accented with striking yellow blossoms atop waist-high stalks. One can hear birds chirping and callin gin the forest beyond and the winds sends a rustle through the foliage overhead. Facing awway from the Science Center into the trees, the only manmade residents of the savanna are the occasional infromational sign and the stone council circle on which one sits. Life and death seem to be one in this landscape as the arbor climbing towards the sky are countered by the lifeless stumps and forgotten logs which pepper the floor of the mini-forest. With the sun hidden by the leafy curtain alone, the wind blows from the south and carries a cold touch of fall. A lone ant mozies the length of a large leaf and comes to settle in the center. Despite the lack of manmade objects, the occaisional roar of a car or motorcycle slices through the rustle of wind. A twig snaps and I look to see the cause but there is no movement. Whjile looking in the direction of the noise a single white flower catches my eye, capturing my attention from the sea of green with its yellow froth. The lone blossom calls my name from its perch next to a tree. It basks in the spotlight the sun has thrown its way.

I can't help but wonder what lies deep in the Savanna. I want to leave the council circle and venture further until I can't see the buildings that for so long have represented Lake Forest College. I wonder if there are more of those beautiful white flowers nestled somewhere else in the wood and what they represent, or if there are none and that white blossom is just another of the yellow ones nearby that was unable to sustain. What then would that mean for this landscape? This is not the first time I have paid a visit to Shooting Star Savanna but I know that many people have never seen it. As the years pass, it seems the new generation of Foresters is aware less and less of their surroundings. They only know of the new student center and the new library and soon the new sports center. Will they come to know or even to visit or at least to know of the savanna before it is cut down and replaced with some new and potentially unnecessary building. I see that lone white blossom and identify with it. It reaches for the sun while the other yellow flowers linger in the darkness, overshadowed by those who came before them. The trees seem to represent the ubiquitous “they” who’ve set precedents and the yellow growths, those who follow. I take my cue from that out-standing white flower and search for my own spotlight.

Hixon Hall:
The converted carriage house on South Campus is a dismal looking structure. It's barn like design does not seem to speak to an actor as an ideal performance space, nor does a random passerby think the building is a theater much less a storage space. The overgrown bushes envelope the side of the building and vines climb the walls and support beams. Several large oak trees shade the building from the sun and cast dark shadows from the lamps that surround the building at night. The cobblestone path leading to the building is cracked from the weight of so many trucks and people trampling to pass the building or unload supplies. One enters the building to see a quaint, some would say tiny, lobby complete with a rickety old spiral staircase which snakes its way to the cozy, some would say cramped, tech booth above. Upon entering the performance space proper, one sees that it is a large black box with dusty risers stacked against the Southern most wall below the booth. The space is intimate, some would size small, and seems to be convertable. Though the room is devoid of color and remains in darkness, nature is not bannished from the area. A leak of rain water plops from several holes in the ceiling and a vine creeps in from the outside. The musty smell of age gives the building its unique, weathered and worn character.

Hixon Hall, and therefore the Alan Carr Theater, holds many memories for me. It was the first college Theater I ever set foot in and it will forever be in my memory as one of the most difficult, dangerous spaces in which I have performed. I have seen cracked floors, shattered windows, leaky roofs. I have experienced broken bones, torn flesh, fights, laughs and love. All in this space. It is my home here on the campus. I come to Hixon to get away from everything else. I come here to smell the must of the mothballs; to taste the heavy air of laughter and tears; to hear the voices of my friends ringing through the rafters and permeating through the walls; to feel my freedom being expressed as never before; to see where my life might be in ten, fifteen, twenty years. Yes, the building is musty, cramped, old, dangerous, smelly. But it is comfort, feedom, love, family and home. Two years ago when the Theater Department decided to make major changes in its operation I saw the reflection of what would happen the Garrick Players in the oldest tree on the property as it was cut down at the roots. The tree had been there as long as Hixon had and to see it destroyed rang through as the future of the company. This building is where I was born and where I've grown up. What would I do without it.