The Bowdoin Orient

In The Feminist Manifesto’s most recent column, authors Hayley Nicholas ’17 and Emma Roberts ’17 re-appropriated the term “SWUG” to mean women who’ve “come to know [themselves] a little better.” While we applaud this show of confidence and all conversations that occur over pumpkin pancakes, we think that the term SWUG contains many hidden meanings that the article never addresses. Nicholas and Roberts bring up a host of interesting questions, but instead of answering them, they paint the path to SWUGdom as a linear progression from a party-going but unhappy first year to a confident, sweatpants-wearing senior. We hope to not only unpack and disrupt this singular journey but also answer some of the questions that the initial article brought up along the way.

“Why are SWUGs typically seen as jaded, callous women who can’t find men?” “Does this term imply that boys could never be washed-up, or that they always have been?”

The term SWUG arose after an article published by a female senior at Cornell University. The term seeks to normalize the idea that senior women have aged out of the party scene and are less attractive and less desirable, than underclass students. By the time they reach their last year at college, senior women are supposedly “washed up” because they have no power in the social scene. Some women, in an attempt to throw off those regulations, employ the word SWUG to say, “who needs this whole immature college party scene anyway?”

The foundation of SWUG also rests on the assumption that senior men have moved on to younger women and it is taboo for senior women to hook up with younger men. We want to acknowledge the heteronormative framework of the term: while anyone of any sexuality can identify as a SWUG, the term originates from a framework that is inherently heteronormative, so we are analyzing it as such.

So, indeed, if we believe that the term is coded with the patriarchal and misogynistic aspects of hookup culture, men cannot be washed-up. That is not to say that men at Bowdoin do not experience issues of self-confidence or that they do not have challenges navigating the social and hookup scene, but rather that men have a power and privilege throughout their four years here that women cannot access.

“Is being a SWUG bad, or is it a feminist reclamation of a formerly sexist insult?”

Embodying some of the characteristics associated with SWUG isn’t “bad,” and some might even choose to call it a “feminist reclamation.” Yet, we think it is important to break out of the SWUG framework altogether. “Washed-up” is synonymous with irrelevant. Thus, the term suggests that women’s place on campus is directly tied to her relevance in the social/hookup scene. To find “confidence in SWUG life” is to tie one’s self-worth directly to their weekend-night habits, and we believe that we’re much more than that. We have found confidence over our time here when we led our first club meeting, taught our first TA session and invited people over to our house to cook dinner. It is from those moments—which have taught us to be self-assured women who are valued beyond our drinking habits or party attire—that we have learned how to be confident in our social choices.

Each year, like clockwork, an article shows up in the Orient about SWUGdom or SWUG life, illustrating a paradise of not-giving-a-shit. These columns would have you believe that confidence is amorphous and is thrust upon you senior year—a rite of passage reserved for senior women. We urge the women on this campus to fight against this illusion. We can help foster confidence in underclassmen by creating spaces where women can, as Nicholas and Roberts say, speak their minds.

As Julia Mead ’16 wrote last year in an article entitled “Embracing SWUGdom,” “We’ve shuffled through enough male-dominated social spaces in the last three years, and now we say no more.” We agree wholeheartedly, but we are not content with the notion that everyone must struggle through these seemingly mandatory three years. Instead, we urge women on this campus to create these social spaces themselves and invite other women in with open arms and sweatpants-welcome signs. We refuse to accept that only senior women have the privilege to feel at ease on this campus. We urge senior women to look upon their younger classmates and work to create meaningful connections between all class years. The social scene might have labeled us as washed-up, but know that we’re jumping back in.

Jodi Kraushar and Caroline Montag are members of the Class of 2017.

Katie Kinkel ’13 has a constantly evolving relationship with the study of English. While she originally planned on getting a Ph.D. in English after graduation, she is now at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she will receive a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) in English after two years. 

“I ended up becoming increasingly interested in creative writing when I was [at Bowdoin],” Kinkel said. 

Kinkel said she felt that the program would offer her the structure she needs to write best.“I’ve been aware of Iowa as a program for a while, and it just looked really great,” said Kinkel. “There are readings all the time, and I came [to Iowa] to visit and it seemed like a really lively literature-loving community. When I got in, it was a pretty easy decision to make.”

Kinkel said that the English department provided her with considerable support during her years at Bowdoin.

“I think it’s a really awesome department and there are people who have a variety of different specialties and skills but they’re all great as people and I feel lucky to have known them and worked with them,” said Kinkel. “It’s hard not to be there anymore.” 

However, Kinkel said that the writing program at Bowdoin was fairly small in her time, and she worked exclusively with Writer-in-Residence Anthony Walton on her poetry. 

Additionally, Kinkel worked with Professor of English Peter Coviello on a summer research fellowship before her senior year. 

“I wrote on Frank Bidart, who is a poet that I really love who is really well known for his dramatic monologues, but he writes in the voices of other speakers—some of whom are characters that he created and some of them are real people,” said Kinkel.

During her senior year, Kinkel worked on an honors project with Walton, a book of poetry, titled “Sleep of Reason.” Walton began helping Kinkel with poetry her freshman year after her then-advisor suggested she contact him. 

“I very sheepishly sent him some of my poems; he was really nice about it. I took a couple of classes with him, and I did an independent study for the last two years of my time at Bowdoin,” said Kinkel. 

She added, “I don’t know that many people who had the chance to have that close and prolonged working experience, and I’m infinitely grateful for that.”

Outside of academics, Kinkel wrote regularly for The Quill. She also participated in Glascock-Mount Holyoke’s intercollegiate poetry competition in her junior year. 

Looking back, Kinkel said she wishes she was more involved in the writing community. 

“I would have encouraged myself to be more social as a poet,” she said. “There were a lot of other poets at Bowdoin who were really smart and really talented, but we never really got the chance to sit down and talk about it.”

At Iowa, Kinkel is able to interact and exchange ideas with her peers. 

“It’s a small group of people, but the people here are so talented and they have so much to offer and they really want to talk about your work all the time and help you,” she said. 

Kinkel is currently working on a new book based on great works of art, historical and philosophical texts, and the ways in which women have been depicted as objects or fascinations. In the future, Kinkel is hoping to publish and possibly get into teaching. She has been teaching undergraduate poetry classes at Iowa. 

“I think that has been an unexpected but awesome thing that has come out of this—that I love to teach creative writing. It is definitely something that I am considering doing,” said Kinkel. Kinkel is also toying with the idea of writing for TV or film. Ultimately, she is trying to make the most out of her current experience. 

“It’s all up to you—you could learn nothing at an MFA program or you could dramatically change your work, and it is all up to the amount of work that you’re willing to put in and the time you want to spend with your professors and your work and your peers,” she said. 

An exhibit featuring contemporary Inuit art titled “Cape Dorset and Beyond: Inuit Art from the Marcia and Robert Ellis Collection” opened yesterday at the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum. The exhibit is part of a larger effort by the museum to redefine itself as more than a purely historical center. 

“People tend to think of [the museum] in a historical sense, but we really try to communicate what contemporary life is like in the arctic, and of course, contemporary artists are one way to do that,” said Arctic Museum Curator Genevieve LeMoine. “The art frequently goes back to traditional times, but there’s often modernity in it as well.”

LeMoine added that the exhibit is “a way to introduce the modern northern world to southerners.”

The exhibit is organized thematically by subject. It includes work by Barnabus Arnasungaaq and David Ruben Piqtoukun, both well known contemporary Inuit artists. 

Much of the art is rooted in Inuit mythology—for example, a carving of the Inuit sea godess Sedna.

“The pieces are so nice. There’s lots just to look at and enjoy. They’re accessible in that sense… They’re beautiful, elegant, interesting,” said LeMoine. 

The pieces themselves cover a range of themes, touching on spirituality and humans’ connection to nature. All the pieces are of either Canadian or Alaskan origin. 

“It’s very interesting that, although we have other collections from other collectors of Inuit art...there are very different types of pieces,” LeMoine said.

LeMoine anticipates that the exhibit will be unexpected as well as informative. 

“In Maine there are not a lot of people who are familiar with Inuit art,” she said. “I think they might be surprised at how much variety there is in it, the different choices people make when deciding what they want to have in their home.”

The exhibit opened yesterday with a talk from Arctic Museum director Susan Kaplan, titled “What’s in Your Closet of Curiosities?”

Piper Grosswendt ’11 graduated from Bowdoin three years ago, but her busy schedule working as an artist in Washington, D.C. makes her feel like she never left. 

“I’m always doing something, like when you’re in college,” said Grosswendt. “I still feel that motivation and pressure.” 

Grosswendt is a creative assistant at Honfleur Gallery, Vivid Solutions Gallery and Anacostia Arts Center, where her day-to-day responsibilities include working with artists and managing art exhibitions. She also curated a show of contemporary art titled “Primary Urges” at Honfleur Gallery. 

“[My job] is basically doing everything it takes to put on art exhibitions six times per year,” said Grosswendt.

“At the art center, I do some exhibition coordinating, but also a lot of work with people who rent the space for music and theater or dance performances. That has given me more art management skills,” she added.

In her free time, she rents a studio so she can work on her own art.

Grosswendt was editor-in-chief of the Orient during her senior year and anticipated that she would go into journalism upon graduation. 

“I had no intentions of being as active in art as I am now,” she said.

She spent a brief period working as a communications intern at the Phillips Collection, a modern art museum in Washington, D.C., where she realized that journalism just was not her true passion.

Though she ended up taking a different route, she said that her work as a journalist prepared her for her career. 

“The skills that are most directly transferred [to the real world]...I gained at the Orient, not in the classroom,” said Grosswendt. “I found it very helpful to be in contact with people who were not immersed in academia—calling the police station in Brunswick, or going door-to-door talking to neighbors.”

At Bowdoin, Grosswendt was a double major in English and visual arts, although she didn’t take her first visual arts class until the spring of her first year. 

“Professors [at Bowdoin] make the art classes really vigorous, intellectual and cohesive. The learning environment really got me excited about the department,” she said.

Grosswendt felt that skills she learned in visual arts classes prepared her for life after graduation without being too career-focused. 

“[The classes] helped with professional development: photographing your work, figuring out how to explain your work to someone [unfamiliar with it] in an efficient way,” said Grosswendt. “But I think appropriately the focus, or at least how I took it, was to make and develop artwork.”

Grosswendt took the Senior Studio class, taught by A. LeRoy Greason Professor of Art Mark Wethli in the fall and Associate Professor of Photography Michael Kolster in the spring, which brought in local gallery owners and artists. 

“That [was] really valuable, just to be taken seriously by people who weren’t professors, as an artist,” she said. 

In the spring after her junior year, Grosswendt received a McKee Photography Grant which she used to fund a project that transferred her photographs of buildings around Brunswick onto printmaking plates. 

Grosswendt plans on going to graduate school to get a Masters of Fine Arts in either painting or art therapy. 

“I kind of graduated thinking I would have some office administrative job and I’m really glad I don’t,” she said. 

Come for the guys in short shorts, but stay for everything else. From the acting to the directing to the makeup, “The Rocky Horror Show” is sure to entertain (and likely shock). 

“I want it to be kind of like an escape,” said co-director Maggie Seymour ’16. “This is a story about people who don’t fit in, and I think it’s a great way for everyone at Bowdoin to recognize that there are times that you just can’t.”

Seymour and her co-director Marcella Jimenez ’16 worked to represent the traditionally interactive aspects associated with the  Rocky Horror franchise in their production.

Throughout the performance, actors break the fourth wall by crashing into audience members, sitting on their laps, and squirting them with water.

In addition, the audience sits in the middle of the production—the three performance spaces are at the front, back and side of the venue. 

The musical, written by Richard O’Brien, tells the story of a newly engaged couple—Brad and Janet—who enter the home of a crazed, transvestite scientist named Frank N. Furter and chaos ensues. The musical was later adapted into a film “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” in 1975. Both the film and musical have a worldwide cult following. 

In their directorial debut, Seymour and Jimenez didn’t shy away from taking chances with their production. 

They decided to stage the show in Ladd House, since it is “just opposite to anything that would be in Pickard,” according to Jimenez. 

The directors felt that the environment of a College House was better suited to stage a production with more mature subject matter. 

“You can be as sexy as you want to be in this place and it’s safe,” said Jimenez.

Audience members at the Thursday night premiere lauded the directors’ decision to stage the production in a College House.

“I’ve only seen the movie before, so it’s a lot different watching it in a social house, but I thought it was a good space and it was really interactive and interesting,” said Julia Binswanger ’16. 

Roya Moussapour ’17 agreed, “If they had done it in a regular theater, it wouldn’t have worked as well.”

However, the space posed some problems because of its lack of a traditional theater setup.“You need lighting and set and entrances and exits and places for people to do makeup,” said Jimenez.

“It’s been a lot of teamwork which has been awesome,” Seymour added.

The show stars Sarah Levy ’16 as Janet, Adam Glynn ’17 as Brad, and  Max Middleton ’16 as Dr. Frank N. Furter. 

“Working with our actors is easily the highlight for us,” said Jimenez. “We have such a talented cast and they all take direction so well.”

“A lot of people in the cast you don’t look at and think ‘that’s Rocky’... You think, that’s your average Bowdoin student,” said Seymour.

Seymour and Jimenez also emphasized the importance of costumes in the show as a means of creating a completely different world.

“Our costume designers [Julia Mehlman ’16 and Francesca Dausch-Rivera ’16] are phenomenal. They are both huge fans of the show and super innovative,” said Seymour. “Without the costumes, you can’t do Rocky.” 

The show has been funded by the Class Council of 2016 and various College Houses. 

The performance will take place at Ladd House tonight and Saturday at 8:00 p.m.

Editor's note, Friday April 4, 2014 at 12:12pm: The original article stated that performances would be at 8:30 p.m., the article has been corrected to reflect the correct time, 8:00 p.m.

If dancing were a varsity sport, Laura Keller ’15 would be the captain. As a member of Vague (jazz) and Obvious (hip-hop) and the lead choreographer of Arabesque (ballet), Keller’s life on campus revolves around dance.

“It’s a large commitment. I’m spending like 10 or 11 hours [a week] in the studio at rehearsal and then I have to spend time outside of that to choreograph as well,” said Keller. “My friends always know that I have to run off to dance in the evening.”

She said that as big a commitment as dance is for her, it’s also an escape from the rest of her day. “I can do homework in the afternoon and then take a break doing something that I love and then go back to doing homework,” she said. 

Although she is a classically trained ballet dancer, Keller has been trying different types of dance her whole life. 

“I’ve been dancing since I was three, just like every other girl, except I actually stuck with it,” said Keller. 

“I started out doing jazz and then had to switch to ballet because I needed the ballet technique to advance in jazz and then just fell in love with ballet,” she added.

In high school, she picked up ballroom dancing when ballet became too much of a commitment.However, she added, “ballet has always been my one true love.”

At Bowdoin, Keller joined Arabesque at the beginning of her first year and Vague  during the spring. She was also involved in the Salsa club during her first two years. Keller was was worried about the amount of time she was spending on dance, but she could not resist joining Obvious.   

“The hip-hop group just looked like so much fun so I decided to audition and join that one as well,” said Keller. 

Keller is not the only student involved in all three groups. 

“There is a lot of overlap, especially this year,” said Keller. “I would say two-thirds of people in all of the groups are in at least two of the different dance groups. There are a five of us that are in all three.”

Keller added that there is a growing partnership between the  dance groups. 

“We’re doing a collaborative piece between those three groups. We’re doing a dance to ‘Same Love’ so it’s a little bit more of a political piece but it’s been a lot of fun,” said Keller. 

“The main challenge is trying to come up with choreography that seams together all of the styles, but also is something that everyone can do,” said Keller. “So, for example, the people in the hip-hop group who don’t have any ballet training, how can we add the ballet without having it be too technically difficult?”

The piece will be performed on April 30 at the student groups performance and at the Vague show at the beginning of May.

Danae Hirsch ’14, who was the leader of Vague last semester, came up with the idea for the project. Keller mentioned that the leaders of various dance groups all liked the song and were interested in working on the piece.

“We didn’t want it to be associated with any one dance group in particular, but thought it would be a really cool thing to show the union of all of the dance groups,” Keller said. 

Keller said that due to the project the groups are more connected now than ever.

“We would never have been able to pull off this collaborative piece before hand, because there were people who did each different style and that was all that they did. It is really nice to see that change happening now, from the dance community being more segmented to being more cohesive.”

She also noted the positive atmopshere the dance groups provide. 

“[The dance community is] definitely a smaller group of people, but we are all very tight-knit. It’s like having my own family. I love everyone that I dance with,” said Keller.

Not only is it a small community, but it does not always get as much publicity as other groups on campus, likely because of the complexities of performing.

“For dance we need a special kind of stage, and it needs to be big enough, it takes a long time for us to prepare just one dance because it’s all choreographed by us and then we need to teach it and clean it,” said Keller. 

“It’s not as popular a thing for people to see but it is definitely on the rise,” she said.

Yowon Yoon '14 stumbled unexpectedly upon his music major and honors project. Yoon came to Bowdoin thinking he would major in Biology and Computer Science but after thoroughly enjoying his piano lessons and music theory classes, he declared a music major and is now composing a three part piano concerto.

“I didn’t start doing any music theory until I came to Bowdoin,” said Yoon. “I played piano, and in order to take lessons for credit, I had to take a course, so I took intro to music theory.”

His concerto is a part of a year-long honors independent study, advised by Professor of Music Robert Greenlee in the fall and Associate Professor of Music Vineet Shende this semester. It will be performed by the Bowdoin Orchestra at the end of April.

Yoon said that he enjoys composing despite the difficulties it poses.  

“The biggest challenge has been trying to write for instruments that I don’t really play…I’m trying to make sure that I don’t write boring parts for people,” said Yoon. “Each instrument is so unique in terms of its timbral quality that being able to internalize all the different characteristics and combine them—there are infinite combinations.’

His inspiration for the piece came mostly from Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff and Polish composer Witold Lutosławski.

“My goal is to emulate Lutosławski’s use of texture and textural differences as well as Rachmaninoff’s ability to incorporate a singable melody in a more complex harmonic context,” said Yoon.

Yoon, who has been playing piano since he was five, has stopped solo performances for now to focus on his project, although he still continues working with the Bowdoin chamber ensemble. He has found that composing has shifted his attitude when it comes to playing music written by others.

“I don’t really feel sad about not performing now,” said Yoon. “The biggest difference now is when I’m playing something I am much more aware of the composition itself, having spent hours and hours myself writing 30 seconds of music. When I was playing before I would just play through it...but now I’m trying to understand what the composer was intending, and then if I mess up I feel really bad.”

The faculty at Bowdoin have been instrumental in Yoon’s learning process.

“The music department in general is really strong, especially since the faculty outnumber the number of honors students,” said Yoon. “Vineet Shende, Robert Greenlee, Mary Hunter, and George Lopez--who is not a professor but teaches piano and gives concerts… They are all really supportive and they are all really good.”

Yoon argued that the strength of the department and student instrumentalists is sometimes overlooked.

​“There’s a whole slew of musicians who aren’t involved with the Bowdoin Music Collective who are phenomenally talented,” said Yoon. “You’d be surprised how many instrumentalists there are at Bowdoin.”

Although Ben Cumings ’15 believes he peaked a decade ago, his late-night talk show (as well as his forthcoming involvement with theater and improvisation) would suggest otherwise.

“The funniest I’ve ever been or ever will be was in middle school at the cafeteria table when I was making my buddies laugh and making the dumbest jokes and people were just dying around me,” said Cumings. “And that’s the best feeling in the world.” 

It was that feeling that prompted Cumings to join the Improvabilites, Bowdoin’s improvisation group, and then to create “Don’t Sleep with Ben Cumings,” a live late-night talk show that will debut later this semester at Jack Magee’s Pub. 

What performances are you involved in on campus?My friend Alex Pensavalle and I are trying to make an electronic equivalent to Bowdoin Music Collective’s (BMC) Unplugged. We act as a sort of subgroup of BMC. We are going to try, at least once a week, to perform either at Chase Barn—maybe the Pub—and then some of our friends’ parties. We just want to get out there on campus. 

How would you describe the Electronic Dance Music(EDM) scene on campus?Well, I don’t hear a lot of it. When I was a freshman and sophomore and I went to social house parties, it was mostly just top 40. I wouldn’t even categorize what I play as EDM—it’s almost a weird electronic genre. How would you describe the music you play?I think the easiest way to describe it is trip-hop. It was basically this underground movement in the early ’90s that followed hip-hop and the introduction of electronic music into the industry.  So that’s kind of resurfacing now on the West Coast, which I am really excited about. I would say dub-step, hip-hop and jazz. How did you get started DJing in general?So basically I got really lucky and all of my freshmen roommates loved music as much as I did, so I got the old school hip-hop, and I got introduced to a lot of new stuff when I got to Bowdoin. My friend Alex Pensavalle—who I work with most of the time—he first started using Ableton (the software we use) his sophomore year. He got really into that and I just sort of jumped on the bandwagon.  What is your DJ name?It’s in the works right now. I am kind of just going with DJ ViraJ because I never really use my real name. People just call me VJ, so it’s nice that I have that. How are you trying to get your music out there?Every Thursday I want to get at least an hour set in. If there are even more people in line, we would start having a sign-up sheet that is called Open Decks, which is what we want to call our event. We could get some EDM, and all sorts of electronic music. The way I see it, electronic music is like the jazz of now because there are so many categories of where it’s going. We really want to push people to join.  How do you plan on incorporating your work with electronic music into your life after graduation?This summer I plan to drive to Los Angeles after graduation. I’m going to set up shop there, get an internship at a talent agency or casting agency. Then, at night, Alex Pensavalle and I are going to try to get some DJ gigs in L.A. Eventually the dream is a performance at the Low End Theory club. That would be awesome.   And for the more serious questions…Who is your celebrity crush?I’m going to have to go with Keira Knightley. It’s always been Keira.  What is your guilty pleasure song?I’m a big Nine Inch Nails fan. That’s kind of a guilty pleasure, because that’s not exactly the type of person I am.  What is the song everyone must listen to before they die?“Hell is Around the Corner” by Tricky.

Anything to add?I would just say, for people kind of looking for new groups, come check out what we’re doing. 

Tim Sowa ’14 does not just write poetry, he lives it. For Sowa—an economics major and music minor from Connecticut—written and performance poetry is more than just a creative outlet, it is a lens through which he interacts with the world. 

Although Sowa did not become involved in Bowdoin Slam Poets’ Society until midway through his sophomore year, he began writing before college. He said that in his senior year of high school, he was somewhat of an “American cliché of suburban three sport athlete.” 

Sowa described himself as a “closet poet” and mentioned that, “I didn’t attach myself to my creative side.” However, that all changed once he arrived at Bowdoin.

“Kooky and honest” is how Nick Walker ’16 describes the band Westrio that he and fellow sophomores James Sullivan and Jacob Ellis formed last year after performing together at a cross-country talent show. 

“Weird, definitely weird,” said Sullivan. 

“I would say that we’re energetic,” Ellis added. 

In first grade, Tim Hunt  ’14 joined a boys’ choir, telling his mom, who was concerned over his supposed tone-deafness, “I am going to do this and you are not going to stop me!” Ever since that defiant act, music has been a huge part of Hunt’s life. At Bowdoin, Hunt is co-musical director of BOKA—one of the two co-ed a capella groups—as well as a trombonist in the Jazz Combo. 

Hunt, a neuroscience and French double major from Oakland, Calif., has been constantly expanding his musical interests and talents. Hunt’s early experience in the boys’ choir was formative in his passion for music and was heavily influenced by the choir instructor. Hunt said his teacher was “really talented at instructing and he had a great knowledge of the male voice.” 

In fourth grade, Hunt decided to pick up the trombone,  “partially because it looked like a lot of fun and it made a lot of noise and I liked the idea of moving around,” he said.

Gilgamesh, Humbaba and Enkidu might sound like gibberish to most, but to Mark Hansen ’14, those words are automatic. Hansen’s eyes light up when he talk about the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” a poem about Mesopotamian mythology. Hansen, an Earth and Oceanographic Science (EOS) major, is currently working on a visual arts independent study with the classics department in which he will recreate the epic through a series of annotated illustrations. 

Hansen is a storyteller at heart. He learned about the poem in a classics mythology course with Classics Lecturer Michael Nerdahl, his current advisor on the project. After his class, he was hooked on the story and wanted to explore it further as well as examine it through a visual arts lens. Hansen said his passion for the project “came from a scholarly interest and a love for myth.” 

Hansen has always been interested in writing and illustrating. He has taken numerous art classes both on and off campus, and interned this past summer at the art museum in his hometown of Anchorage, Alaska where he learned more about the curatorial side of art. He hopes to someday write and illustrate his own books.

Bowdoin’s student theater group Masque and Gown channels caffeine and creative juice into their annual 24-hour show this weekend.

The process launches today at 7 p.m. and finishes tomorrow night with a show of completed works open to the public in Memorial Hall. The event is open to all students, but is geared towards those who have never participated in theater at Bowdoin, or who might not have the time to commit to a full-scale production.  As of press time, 30 students had signed up for positions as writers, directors, actors or technicians. 

The show’s layout is part relay race and part marathon.  Before the event begins, all the participants are broken into three groups. Then, tonight at 7 p.m., the groups split and the writers start crafting three short plays. The writing process lasts until 7 a.m. tomorrow, at which point they pass the baton to the directors and actors. This next group rehearses all day, and the tech team arrives later to coordinate lights, sounds and set until the curtain rises at 7 p.m.