Ensemble Member Lawrence E. DiStasi and Anjali Bhimani in Metamorphoses, 2012. Photo by Liz Lauren.
Butler Classics is proud to present our first spotlight where we will be featuring stories of individuals who have contributed to our Classics department. Claire Kedjidjian is a 2016 grad of the Classics Department and the Theatre Department at Butler. Since graduating, she has worked with several theatre companies in various cities and currently calls Chicago home. She is the Company Manager at Lookingglass Theatre Company, where she works alongside fiercely talented actors, designers, technicians, and administrators to create challenging and exciting art. When not working on a show or in the audience of another, you can find her running through the streets of Chicago. In her own words, this is her story.
“You cannot step into the same river twice” –Heraclitus
In the fall of 2015, I took a Philosophy course to round out my Classics minor at Butler University and to prepare myself for my impending graduation that spring. I felt like I was in over my head in a class where the other three students were Philosophy or Economics focused. As a Theatre major and budding stage manager, I was told I had a “unique perspective” but didn’t realize what that meant until recently.
The Heraclitus quote above came up during class in one of our many discussions about change—which philosophers believed in it, which did not and how those thoughts fit into our present realities. I’m big on quotes, so I tucked this one away in the back of my mind because I thought it was totally brilliant (and I still do). The water in a river is always flowing from Point A to Point B. The river is still technically the same entity wherever you are along its course—the canal adjacent to Butler’s campus will always be the same canal—but the water never stops flowing. The water is not the same. Not only that, but you are not the same person when you step into a river at 18 as you are at 22 or 25. A week, a year, even a minute makes a difference.
Now, over two years out of college, I see my “unique perspective” that I was told I had. My entire young adult life has been composed of participating in various plays and musicals, 49 to be exact since high school. Letting each one go has not gotten easier over time like I assumed it would. Doing theatre has taught me about how fleeting and precious moments are. Sure, I’m being cliché, but HELLO that’s the world I live in. “Seasons of Love” is one of the most cliché things out there but I don’t know where I’d be without Rent.
My tech director in high school always said before every show “You will never do this show ever again on this night, with these people, in this space.” And I would yell at him for making me cry, but I was always thankful for that reminder. He’s saying the same thing that Heraclitus was saying.
I try so hard to hang on to shows after they’ve closed, but it’s a futile and impossible effort. It’s particularly trying as a young twenty-something who’s moved around from job to job six times since graduating in 2016; I yearn to find something that sticks, that’s permanent, that’s more like a cup of stagnant water than a raging river, but that’s also nearly impossible. Now before I turn completely into a Stoic, I want to also take note of how magical that is.
I’m currently the Company Manager at Lookingglass Theatre in Chicago. Back in 2012, I saw Lookingglass’ production of Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses. It’s been a completely full circle experience for me, but that’s beside the point. For those that don’t know, this show is a collection of vignettes based on Ovid’s original myths from his work of the same name. I still think about that show all the time: how they built a pool as the stage and how at the end the cast, in unison, all holding candles, proclaimed, “Let me die the moment my love dies. Let me not outlive my own capacity to love. Let me die still loving, and so, never die.” The impact that this show has had on me will never change. Seeing everyone onstage in that moment will always be there in my brain. So, I can’t step into the same metaphorical river twice, and to be frank, that really sucks. That being said, I take comfort in knowing that I’ve probably been a part of something that’s stuck forever in someone else’s brain.
Forging ahead in the world as a recent grad is really really hard, but at the end of the day, it’s nice to know that the water will still flow downstream.
Check out a clip of the dance Claire designed and choreographed for her Greek Art and Myth class during her time here at Butler Classics: facebook.com/…sics/videos/138387046331624