As a part of their spring play production this weekend, high school students will be performing a play, The Wild Horse and the Race Horse, written by Ensworth alumna, Sally Seitz ’13. We caught up with Sally to see what she has been doing since graduating from Ensworth.
Sally you are a 2013 Ensworth Alum, how do you think Ensworth prepared you for the college experience?
Ensworth prepared me for my college experience in that it taught me to take my work seriously. Mr. Berry and Ms. McLarey taught me to trust my own voice, particularly within my creative writing, and to never shy away from a creative risk. I think the most important lesson I took from Ensworth was that I learned how to be part of a community.
Tell us a little bit about what you are studying at Middlebury?
At Middlebury I am a Theater-English joint major with an emphasis in creative writing, and more specifically, playwriting. It’s kind of like a double major, but I only have to write one thesis, which for me, will be a full-length play that is required to be produced on campus. Most of my semesters include three theater classes and one English class.
This semester I am taking African American Literature, Beginning Directing, Advanced Playwriting, and a class called The Creative Process in which we create all types of art—theater, dance, music, visual, literature— and focus on the process in which we come to that art rather than the actual product. Overall, I would say that I am getting a liberal arts view of theater. I am learning to playwright, act, direct, stage-manage, produce, and even design. I am never without a creative project. Furthermore, my theater education at Middlebury is pushing me to think as an intellectual artist, and to not be afraid to challenge conventional ideas.
We are so excited to see your one-act, “The Wild Horse and The Race Horse”, performed on May 1 and 2 at the Ensworth Theater. Tell me how you and Mr. Berry decided this would be a great choice for these actors.
Mr. Berry knew that he wanted to put on the Fantasticks this year, which is an awesome choice for high school theater, but the only problem is there aren’t a ton of female roles in the musical. Mr. Berry, Mr. Miller and I were trying to come up with a one act that could be a partner piece to the musical, but frankly, there are very few one acts with multiple female parts that are appropriate for High School Theater. As a result, Mr. Berry put me up to the challenge to create a short piece that featured many female roles and would discuss a theme that was challenging, but appropriate for the Ensworth community. Mr. Berry gave me the freedom to write about anything within those limitations. The Wild Horse and the Race Horse is a play about women who grew up together, but now live very different lives, very far away from one another. Without giving too much away, I wanted the play to express that no matter how far away, or how different your life is than how it was when you started, the people you grew up with were there for you as you grew from a child to an adult. Time is not a constant, but home is. Perhaps not a physical home, but the people that are home to youThe Ensworth theater program is a place of community that values tradition, growth, humor, and more importantly, friendship. I wanted to write a piece that expressed the importance of these values.
If you could relive any Ensworth memory or moment which would it be and why?
Wow. That is a very hard question, and it’s hard to just pick one. But I think I would have to say the moment I would want to relive is during senior year awards day in which my best friend Justice Swett received her admission recognition into the Naval Academy. I have never before felt so proud of anyone, and at the same time so utterly terrified of the inevitability of growing up.
