Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of articles profiling senior artists and their involvement in the arts at Dartmouth.
In between classes and hurrying off to the shop to begin work on the set for the forthcoming Mainstage production "Far Away," Sarah Hughes '07 agreed to meet with The D for a brief interview regarding her extensive involvement in theater at Dartmouth.
The winner of the 2006 Dodd Drama Prize, the president of WIRED!, the president of the Displaced Theater Organization, and one of just three theater majors in the Class of 2007, Hughes has certainly made her mark on Dartmouth theater.
Hughes' approach to her passion for playwriting is quintessentially Dartmouth -- she has managed to pursue her love for the dramatic arts without entirely limiting her focus to them. She praised the department's intimate size and approachable professors for allowing her "to do virtually everything [she's] wanted," without demanding that her life be consumed by theater.
Hughes artfully brings the wealth of her experiences at the College and elsewhere into her theatrical work. Everything from her poetry and design classes to playwright Sam Shepard to the Dartmouth social scene serves as inspiration for her plays, into which Hughes pours the breadth of her observations and adventures. She gracefully carries her years of experience and enthusiasm with her out of the Hop and well beyond the limits of Dartmouth's campus.
In a perfect example of Hughes' incorporation of her experiences into her creative expression, she transformed several weeks spent participating in Katrina Relief with Hands on Gulf Coast in Biloxi, Mississippi, into a successful one-act play, "Dreaming Biloxi."
Last year Hughes' "Dreaming Biloxi" was the recipient of the Ruth and Loring Dodd Drama Prize for the best play by an undergraduate. The award provided for a full production of "Dreaming Biloxi" directed by visiting professor Ruth McVeigh of the University of Iowa. During the spring, Hughes elected to do an independent study, allowing her to attend rehearsals of her production and maintain an integral role in its process and development.
On a whim, Hughes also submitted the play to a playwriting contest in Atlanta, GA., and upon winning was able to attend a week-long workshop where she continued to edit and share her work.
Hands on USA, the umbrella organization which runs the Hands on Gulf Coast program, contacted Hughes this summer, and on Sept. 3, "Dreaming Biloxi" debuted at the Saenger Theater in Biloxi. The production featured the Main Street Baptist gospel choir as themselves. As a committed member of H-Croo this fall, Hughes was not able to attend the actual performance, but says she spent "the last two weeks of August" on the phone with the director, aiding him throughout the preparation process.
Hughes expresses surprise at the exposure of her work outside of Dartmouth, but anyone who has experienced her emotionally charged and undeniably real "Dreaming Biloxi" will understand the recognition it has received. Hughes confronts head-on the visceral, dramatic and uncompromising realities of disaster relief, and, in her own candid voice, beautifully conveys the painful rewards of volunteering.
Perhaps one of the most difficult elements of experiencing something like Hurricane Katrina is the process of articulating it to those who haven't shared that experience, an issue that itself is explored in "Dreaming Biloxi." But Hughes renders the atmosphere with incredible poise and honesty, refusing to ignore the particularly gruesome and challenging truths of the hurricane's aftermath, insisting that she "couldn't not" write about the life-altering devastation she witnessed.
There is a sense of social responsibility that accompanies Hughes' dedication to her art, so it seems natural that she also expresses an interest in education. She spent last winter teaching playwriting to fifth and sixth graders for Northern Stage, a professional theater company in Burlington, Vt., and is considering the possibility of theater education after she spends this summer interning for the visiting New York Theater workshop. But only time will tell. "I think [one] can never get enough life experience," Hughes said.
It is "life experience" and human nuance that Hughes captures in "Dreaming Biloxi" and that she brings whole-heartedly to her art. After all, theater, Hughes said, "is just what I want to do."
