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Full circle
By Erica Cali
I was14, a freshman in high school, when I
attended my first ISTA Festival. It was in Geneva,
Switzerland, and while I can’t recall specific details,
I do remember my excitement at meeting likeminded students from other international schools,
and how quickly we bonded over theatre games,
movement exercises and performances. A few
days at that Festival and I was hooked. For each
of my four years of high school, the fall ISTA
Festivals were the highlight of the semester.
In subsequent years, I travelled to Rome and
Berlin with my theatre teacher and 8 or 9 other
students, with whom I would develop life-long
friendships. We grew close not only at the ISTA
Festivals, but throughout the entire experience
of preparing for and traveling to and from each
of the Festivals. Even though these experiences
were over 20 years ago, I still have vivid memories
of running to catch a train to Berlin at 2am in the
morning after spending hours wandering the Basel
train station and performing for a few skeptical
Swiss shoppers. I remember sitting in a field just
outside Rome, under the stars, talking with some
new friends about the performances we’d seen
that day at the Festival, the workshop leaders we’d
learned from, and learning how to articulate - for
the first time - what theatre really meant to me.
I knew, even then, that these were life-changing
experiences. Each time we returned to school,
we brought with us a renewed excitement for
our art and a desire to implement everything we’d
learned from the ISTA artists. Each and every
ISTA Festival would reignite my passion for theatre.
Looking back on those key moments of creating
theatre with individuals from all over the globe,
I now realise that ISTA began to show me what
good theatre does best: it begins a conversation.
Good theatre causes us to examine ourselves and
our world, to consider what changes need to be
made and it inspires us to action. This is what I am
attempting to teach my students today.
In my life after high school, however, I got
too smart for my own good. During my years
in college, I ended up spending way too much
time listening to the (however well-intentioned)
‘voices of reason’ within my own head steering me
away from theatre and toward more responsible
disciplines. I tried to ignore my desire to pursue
my art, proudly refusing to major in theatre.
Fortunately, however, this was short-lived. I ended
up fulfilling all of the requirements for a double
major, and after graduation, set off with my degrees
in English and Theatre, still not quite sure what I
would do, but knowing that there was just no point
to try to ignore that part of me.
Education was also in my blood. Having grown
up on international boarding school campuses,
in a family of educators, I was destined to teach.
However, at that point in my life, I wasn’t quite
embracing my love for teaching either. I wish I
could have told my 22 year old self to just do it.
Go teach theatre! Teaching and theatre had been
part of who I was from the beginning. At 7, I was
www.ista.co.uk
teaching all of my friends to ride bikes and play
the piano, and at 8, I established Erica’s Basement
Theatre in my parents’ basement, charging a
dime for our neighbors to watch each weekly
production. But hindsight, as they say, is always 2020, and as a college student, I just thought I knew
better. I was convinced I knew it all.
Shortly after graduation, however, the stars
aligned and I was fortunate enough to land an
internship at a theatre in Southern California
where I was able to perform and work within
the educational outreach programme. It was a
dream. I soaked up everything I could in the time
I was there and I knew that someday, this is what
I would do. I would teach and I would perform;
I would find a residential theatre with a strong
educational programme that produces work with
integrity and excellence.
When my internship ended, I moved to
northern California to teach English at a boarding
school, where I quickly picked up some theatre
classes and helped direct shows as part of their
outstanding theatre programme. The learning curve
was steep, but was exactly what I needed at that
point in my life. In my second year there, however,
my mentor and theatre department colleague
asked me with love and sincerity, not to neglect
my own art. She knew I loved what I was doing
in the classroom, but reminded me that I couldn’t
ignore my identity as a performer and asked me
to consider looking into graduate school. So I did.
I went for it and auditioned for the biggies (Yale,
Tisch), but settled on a smaller school, The Boston
Conservatory, to gain more versatility as a performer
by focusing on musical theatre. A few years later,
Masters in hand, I did what every musical theatre
performer must do after graduation: I moved to NY.
Ah, the world of auditioning for Broadway. It is
a life of early morning casting calls, waiting in lines to
be seen by bored producer’s assistants, competition
and rejection. As tough as it was, I wouldn’t have
traded it for anything. It was exactly what I had to
do at that point in my life, and it wasn’t all bad. I got
a few shows in and out of NY, met lots of incredibly
talented people, got my equity card, and enjoyed
the life of a professional actor, for a few years. It
was an important time during which, as anyone
who has experienced it can attest, 95% of your
time is spent desperately trying to get ‘the job’ while
only 5% of your life is spent enjoying those glorious
few months (or more, if you’re lucky) when you
are actually being paid to do your art! Most of the
time, I was auditioning and trying to figure out how
to support myself while I left my heart and soul in
the audition room each day. It was pretty draining
and a far cry from the theatre I loved. The fierce
competition causes one to quickly forget what ISTA
had taught me, that good theatre can inspire and
move people to action. The life of auditioning for
Broadway has no time for that. You are forced to
be preoccupied with constant self-promotion. It
had its highs and plenty of lows and certainly taught
me a great deal about ‘the business’ that I am now
able to share with my students.
I had two ‘day jobs’ that kept me alive during
those years , one was teaching. I worked for a
professional subbing company that placed subs
in private and independent schools throughout
Manhattan, so when I didn’t have an audition, I
was in the classroom. At a few schools, I was even
able to teach theatre! I started some after-school
theatre programmes and got to share my love of
theatre with students all over NY. On the good
days, I was managing to have my foot in both
camps; I was teaching and performing, even though
the jobs were only temporary.
My other job at the time was working for
some Broadway theatres as an usher. I got paid
to see every show on Broadway. The best part
of it all, however, was that it was there that I met
my husband. We were both on the same path,
busy taking acting jobs in and out of NY, but quickly
realising we were wanting more. We wanted to
travel, teach, pursue theatre and we wanted a
family, so we took off for Europe. We spent the
next few years teaching English through theatre in
Italy and taking full-time teaching jobs in Switzerland.
Our school in Switzerland sent us to London to be
trained in IB Theatre and it was like being back at
ISTA again. Being surrounded by like-minded people
on fire for their art and being excited to bring that
reignited passion back with us to our school and
our students. I had finally found my way back. I was
home. My journey had, in a sense, come full-circle.
And now? Mike and I are both using our
training and experience to direct shows and teach
theatre at Korea International School, where Mike
teaches MS Drama and I teach HS Theatre, and I
am so excited to finally bring a group of my own
students to an ISTA Festival this October! I have
been sharing some of my ISTA experiences with
my students and they are getting very excited to
experience it first-hand. We made the move
to Asia because this is where some of the most
exciting things are happening in theatre. Schools
are funding and building huge performing arts
programmes, and there is even more room for
growth! While arts programmes are getting cut
to pieces in the US, they are growing by leaps and
bounds in Asia. So here we are.
My journey continues, however, since I’m
still looking for that place where it will all come
together. That magical place where my husband
and I can be teaching while also being able to
cultivate our own art through performance. I
know it is out there somewhere in our future,
and I am doing my best to plant the seeds now. I
am currently working on a number of projects
to bring my dream to fruition, adapting plays and
workshopping new works, in order to be an artist
creating theatre while at the same time teaching
future generations how to do the same with
integrity and excellence that will inspire change
in our world. As my current school is a very
technologically advanced one-to-one school, I am
using technology to connect with theatre educators
and practitioners across the globe. I have begun
to create a network of like-minded individuals who
have been resources and inspiration to me on my
own journey in the classroom and on the stage. I
hope to be the same for them.
It’s been over twenty years since I experienced
ISTA as a student, and my memories have
remained with me. Much of what I learned at
the ISTA Festivals helped shaped the person I’ve
become and helped determine the artist I am still
trying to be. I am doing my best to continue the
conversations begun over 20 years ago in Geneva,
Berlin and Rome, continuing the dialogue now in
Singapore, Sydney and Seoul. And it won’t end
here. My hope is that my students will bring these
conversations to other places around the globe,
creating theatre with artistic integrity and excellence
that begins dialogues and inspires change.
Scene | Issue 1 | 2012-13 September 7