Media love for the upcoming �ֲ���ý Dance Festival from The Boston Globe, Portland Press Herald, and WBUR 

From July 10 through 31, campus will be buzzing with activity from the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival — a yearly dance experience that offers dance training and performances from renowned artists and draws audiences from Maine and beyond. 

In May, as a “not-to-miss” cultural event happening in Maine this summer. Also that month, The Boston Globe featured BDF on their list of

Then in June, WBUR sang BDF’s praises — “bracing for a bold program” — in a piece headlined . They highlighted “The Marthaodyssey,” which former Martha Graham Dance Company member Jesse Factor will present on the Schaeffer Theatre stage. The mishmash of drag performance and Graham technique imagines what might have happened if Graham had choreographed Madonna’s 1990 Blond Ambition tour. “A trip to Maine may be in order for those who enjoy contemporary dance,” writes WBUR’s Shira Laucharoen.

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Members of the �ֲ���ý College Youth Community Action and Transformation Lab urge adults to talk politics with young people in the Portland Press Herald

Nathaniel Zuckerberg ’26 and Linnaea Herring, a senior at Yarmouth High School, authored a piece for the Portland Press Herald Both Herring and Zuckerberg are members of the Youth Community Action and Transformation Lab led by �ֲ���ý Assistant Professor of Psychology Elena Maker Castro. This lab conducts research for the Can We? Project — an initiative that provides Maine high schoolers with the communication tools needed to participate as engaged citizens in a democracy. Zuckerberg and Herring “ask every adult with a young person in their life to start that political conversation you may have avoided” because they have found that teenagers are “ready and eager to practice dialogue.”

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�ֲ���ý Film Festival covered by News Center Maine, WGME

News Center Maine and students Shelter Gimbel-Sherr ’27 of Seattle and Nate Shore ’27 of Kennebunkport, Maine, about the 2026 �ֲ���ý Film Festival. The festival, which ran from May 12 to 17 and was entirely organized by �ֲ���ý students, featured over 45 films as well as panels of filmmakers, professors, and students.

Gimbel-Sherr and Shore highlighted how the festival has a special interest in promoting work from filmmakers and actors from Maine, including a Maine filmmakers panel that featured distinguished guests such as screenwriter Desi Van Til, and actors Dustin Tucker, Matthew Delamater, and Xander Berkeley. Shore talked about focusing on bringing together student filmmakers from Maine schools such as Southern Maine Community College, Colby College, and �ֲ���ý College. He said, “it should make a really great collaboration between the colleges.”

On WGME, students how the festival hopes to bring film to the larger Maine community. One way they do this is by making the festival completely free and open to the public. Manogue said that the festival board wants to “make film more accessible to all of our community members,” and Benningfield added that accessibility is “one of the driving factors in our mission.”  

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The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education covers appointment of Victoria Neason Wallace 

In a story headlined , The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education features Victoria Neason Wallace, who was just named vice president for enrollment and dean of admission and financial aid.

“She comes to her new role from Colby College in Waterville, Maine, where she has been serving as executive director of strategic initiatives within the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid,” the paper writes. “Before Colby, Neason Wallace was senior assistant director for student volunteers in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.”

Neason Wallace will join �ֲ���ý on July 1.

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Portland Press Herald and Maine Public highlight Phyllis Graber Jensen’s career retrospective at the �ֲ���ý College Museum of Art

Phyllis Graber Jensen — director of photography and video for the college — is the subject of a career retrospective on display at the �ֲ���ý College Museum of Art from June 12 to Sept. 19 called Phyllis Graber Jensen: Picture Stories.

The Portland Press Herald on display at Maine art museums this summer. This retrospective features photos from throughout Jensen’s career, and the Herald notes that “throughout, what emerges is her commitment to the medium as a critical mode of communication and historical preservation.”

Maine Public’s State of the Art featured Graber Jensen in a . Titled “Picture Stories,” host Heather McDougall leads Graber Jensen through a 28-minute interview about her life (including her groundbreaking advocacy for women in sport as a teenager) and her career. McDougall asked about Graber Jensen’s transition in 1995 from a hard news environment in Boston, working for the Boston Herald and shooting breaking news and icons such as Leonard Bernstein, to communications and marketing work at �ֲ���ý in 1995: “Was it something you were seeking out or did it just sort of happen and then you just leaned into it?” 

“I was skeptical that I could make the transition from being a journalist to being a marketing photographer,” Graber Jensen said. “But in the end I think the people that I work with, some of whom had journalism backgrounds, and the place that �ֲ���ý is, allowed us to realize that we’re not journalists, but we use the tools of journalism in terms of storytelling. And I think that’s where the exhibition title came from in terms of ‘Picture Stories.’

“I also believe that �ֲ���ý understood the value of using images to tell the story of �ֲ���ý. And at one point I worked with a colleague who was also a talented photographer, Mark Glass. And so we were producing a lot of photography and that became part of the storytelling tradition and we had an editorial director who was very supportive — Jay Burns — of visual storytelling. It became easier and easier for me to be who I was and pursue my interests and way of telling the story.”

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Commencement in the Sun Journal: Regalia and reveling

In a , photographer Russ Dillingham captured moments of joy, hilarity, bystanders playing hacky sack, and the classic moment of “check the mirror” before walking across the stage at Coram to receive a diploma. Not to mention speakers Sebenele G. Lukhele ’26 and bestselling author and honorand Deborah E. Harkness. 

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Mara Tieken talks about the challenges faced by rural students once they land at elite colleges, to Inside Higher Education and Education Week.

In an article, headlined “,” Inside Higher Education Editor-in-Chief Sara Custer draws on Professor of Education Mara Tieken’s work as inspiration for an opinion piece. 

Custer references a conversation Tieken had on IHE’s podcast The Key throughout her piece, including the way Tieken advocates for colleges to rethink how they support rural students once they arrive on campuses far from their homes, not just in terms of miles, but in cultural markers. 

Tieken argues that colleges need a vocabulary around the rural experience, not unlike the way they approach the influence of race and class on students’ access and experience of higher ed. “We don’t have that vocabulary for how geography matters,” Tieken told The Key on 

Through her research, Tieken also found that identifying as rural can help students see the benefits of their background that may be hidden by negative stereotypes about rural communities in pop culture and the media. “Whether or not it’s a part of your identity, you’re still facing the same barriers that are tied to those identity markers. And so, if you don’t see it as such you internalize it [and think], ‘It’s about me. It’s my fault. I’m not right. I’m just not good enough,’” she said. “They need to hear these messages where their rurality is actually celebrated and they can see how it is an asset in their life.”

Tieken was also quoted in a June 11 story in Education Week headlined Tieken is an expert on the pitfalls of school closures, which are often perceived as a way to save money.

“The assumption is just so baked into the logic of closure decisions that it’s assumed closures will save money, so it can be really hard for leaders to combat that thinking,” Tieken told Education Week. “This is a really important piece of evidence as districts navigate these conversations and decisions.”

�ֲ���ý Theater’s production of Everybody sold out every performance at Gannett Theater last week — waitlists at the door, eager audience members finding out they’d gotten seats  five minutes before curtain — and the room earned that anticipatory urgency. Associate Professor of  Theater Courtney Smith, the scenic and projections designer, built a world that wrapped around you rather than played in front of you. It was immersive and a little disorienting, in exactly the right way.

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ 2017 play, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, takes a risky leap of faith in inviting its cast into a game of role swapping. Before each performance, the cast members playing “Somebody” draw lots to decide who plays Friendship, Cousin, Kinship, Stuff, Everybody. The �ֲ���ý production also added a few other roles to the lottery, Strength, Beauty, Mind and Senses.

All these different roles, memorized by everyone and shared by the whole cast, could lead to dozens of different possible versions in any given production. The performance you witnessed would have been the only time it happened exactly that way.

Director and Associate Professor of Theater Tim Dugan shaped an ensemble that held that strangeness without flinching. For Adam Joseph (AJ) Matos ’26 of Springfield, N.J., and Noah Skinner ’26 of Sugar Land, Texas, the play was part of their senior theses, working with a cast that had to be ready for anything. As lighting designer, Skinner lit a world that had to feel ancient and urgent at once. There were many big questions on hand, including the nightly guessing game of who would play who? The answer? Everybody.

The cast includes: Mo Al-Jabry ’28, Graham Austin ’28, Aidan Bergeron ’27, Julian Boutin ’28, Jack Fisher ’29, Connor Gerraughty ’26, Josie Kim ’27, Jenny Liu ’29, Emily Maffezzoli ’29, Samantha Manogue ’26, Ruby Marden ’27, AJ Matos ’26, and Patrick Stronski ’27.

The following were also involved in the production: Costume Designer & Director — Rebecca Armstrong; Associate Costume Designer — Marcel Nagy ’28; Sound Designer — Emily Duncan Wilson (Brandow Family Fund Guest Artist); Associate Directors — Kate Norry ’28, Nicole Rossilli ’27, Elaine Wang ’27; Stage Manager — Sarah McOsker ’28; Associate Stage Managers — Queenie Tsang ’28, Colin Kenny ’28; and Associate Projections Designer — Evan Cox ’26.

Carrie Cushman talks Museum of Art’s Marsden Hartley Legacy Project on Maine Public

Carrie Cushman, director of the �ֲ���ý Museum of Art, spoke about the museum’s current projects .

In conversation with Heather McDougall, manager of music and people at Maine Public Classical, Cushman, who joined the museum in August 2025, discussed the excitement of arriving at �ֲ���ý. The museum is preparing to launch the Marsden Hartley Legacy Project, an online digital catalog of all known paintings and ephemera by modernist painter and Lewiston native Marsden Hartley, which has been in development since 2019.

“We’re really lucky that this is happening at �ֲ���ý, and we will be the home of it and responsible for stewarding it into the future,” Cushman told McDougall.

The �ֲ���ý Museum of Art was founded because of the Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection, Cushman explained, comprising over 400 paintings and ephemera by Hartley — by far the largest collection of Hartley’s work — which Hartley’s niece donated to the college in 1955. 

“We have people coming to the museum almost weekly requesting to see work from the collection, and many are artists who are looking for inspiration in this 20th century modernist who is finally getting his due,” Cushman said.

Additionally, Cushman’s exhibition The Worlds of Ilse Bing was featured in a in the online magazine What Will You Remember?.

The exhibition is on view through May 24 at Wellesley College’s Davis Museum, where Cushman previously worked as the Linda Wyatt Gruber ‘66 Curatorial Fellow in Photography. Exploring Bing’s rise to prominence, coinciding with 35mm photography’s growing popularity, the exhibition “brings her work into conversation with her creative influences and with those who she influenced in the worlds of modern art.”

What Will You Remember? also included the �ֲ���ý Museum of Art’s exhibition Shellburne Thurber: Full Circle, co-curated by Thurber and �ֲ���ý assistant curator Samantha Sigmon, in its February roundup. On view through March 21, the exhibition demonstrates how Thurber’s photography has “visualized interior work that is private, domestic, psychological, or insular.”

Mara Tieken opines on rural schools, students in The Hechinger Report; Women Writers, Women’s Books

Though public school closures and consolidations are becoming increasingly common, they rarely serve their intended purpose of saving struggling school districts money, writes Professor of Education Mara Tieken in an .

For school districts with declining enrollment or decreasing state and federal funding, “school closures may seem logical,” Tieken writes. “Close schools, ‘right-size’ districts, save money. Problem solved.”

However, she explains, school closures require additional transportation and renovation costs, often leading to districts saving little to no money, while students’ test scores and future college and employment outcomes decrease.

Tieken has extensively researched and written about rural schools and their students. On Feb. 5, she published a piece about the process of developing her latest book — Educated Out: How Rural Students Navigate Elite Colleges—And What It Costs Them — in an .

While writing the book, which explores how students from rural places experience attending a small elite college, Tieken developed an approach to research characterized by slowly developing relationships with the students she was interviewing, she writes.

“We often think of research as a one-way process, a passing of ‘data’ from ‘subject’ to ‘researcher,’” Tieken writes. “But that approach is neither ethical (in fact, it’s often quite exploitative) nor useful. So much more can be learned when the relationship is actually relational.”

The 13 years that Tieken spent researching and writing the book taught her to be a more patient teacher, she says, with an expanded awareness of the struggles that her students from rural backgrounds may be facing. The book culminates with suggestions for how academic institutions can better support rural students.

“All those recommendations that I make in the book’s final chapter?” Tieken writes. “I have to do them, too, and I feel obligated—in a really good way—to encourage others to do them, as well.” 

Caylin Carbonell ’12 gives public talk exploring daily life, labor dynamics in colonial New England

Caylin Carbonell ’12, an assistant professor of history at Bowdoin College, gave a public lecture about labor dynamics in colonial New England households, .

The talk, entitled “Laboring Lives and Hidden Stories in Colonial New England,” was the second installment in a series of free online lectures hosted by the Lincoln County Historical Association, based in Wiscasset, Maine.

Carbonell shared insights on “the daily lives inside colonial households as the country was beginning to take shape, with a focus on laborers, often a diverse group ranging from enslaved and indentured people to hired workers, including Indigenous, African, and European women and men.”

She also discussed the challenges of uncovering the stories of 17th and 18th century laborers from incomplete or nonexistent records. Carbonell, who majored in history at �ֲ���ý, is currently working on a book manuscript that closely explores daily life in colonial New England households.

Boston Globe, Sun Journal cover MLK Day at �ֲ���ý

The held during �ֲ���ý’ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day,  “From Silencing to Empowerment: Exploring Anger, Justice, and Post-traumatic Growth Among Refugee Women and Women of Color,” led by Yun Garrison, assistant professor of psychology, and Fowsia Musse from Maine Community Integration.

During the workshop, Garrison and Musse presented a framework of healing from trauma that they developed by examining the experiences of refugee women. For Musse, herself a refugee from Somalia, and other Somalian refugees and immigrants living in Lewiston, the workshop was particularly topical, the Globe reports; Musse said that anxiety caused by the Trump administration’s immigration deportation agenda led her to reflect on past trauma from her immigration experience.

“When something traumatic happens, how do we hold both anger and peace at the same time? Because sometimes they are pulling us in opposite directions,” Garrison said. “Maybe love and healing can bridge this. I do not know, but that’s what I’m sitting with right now.”

The Lewiston given by Myisha Cherry, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside.

Cherry’s address — “What Do We Do With All This Fear?” — explored the day’s theme of “Love, Anger and the Struggle for Justice” by closely examining and interpreting MLK’s writings and words.

The Sun Journal quoted from President Garry W. Jenkins’ introductory remarks addressing the day’s theme, sharing his interpretation of how love and anger may intersect in the pursuit of justice.

“I would rather spend my days in a space of love rather than a space of anger,” Jenkins said. “But we don’t always get to make that choice. … In linking these two, we have to wrestle with how they exist together — both in tension and in harmony.”

In sharing MLK’s thoughts about fear, Cherry explained that not all fear was negative; it can, in fact, be harnessed and transformed into a powerful force for change, the Sun Journal reported.

“We should be maestros as opposed to mere masters of our normal fears … and we should transition that normal fear into courage,” Cherry said. “Courage is just not doing something in spite of your fear, it’s taking your fear and matching it up with confidence … and engaging in action.”

As the Sun Journal reported, Cherry linked this healthy fear to MLK’s nonviolent protests and actions, urging all in the audience to use their “normal” fear to advance causes they care about.

“What we should do with this fear is make something beautiful out of it,” Cherry said. “This is a time of fear for lots of us … Turning to King has been illuminating, and I find that fear doesn’t mean that we are weak, it doesn’t mean we’ve given people the upper hand. It means that we’re sensitive to injustice. It means we value the people we’re fearful for and we value the principles that we are scared we are going to lose.” 

Brian Shankar Adler featured in DownBeat magazine’s cover story

Brian Shankar Adler — percussionist and �ֲ���ý instructor of drum set, tabla, and other hand percussion — and Grammy-award winning soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom released their debut album once like a spark, in their February issue’s cover story, “Making music in the moment.” 

The magazine used the stage at Olin Concert Hall as the setting for a photo shoot with the two musicians, who have performed extensively in Lewiston and Portland, Maine as a duo.

“We played each other’s compositions, and the music came alive instantly,” Adler told DownBeat. “Over the years, we built up a hefty book of tunes and a musical language with which to communicate.”

Without chorded or bass instruments, the brass-drum duo is a rare one, DownBeat reported. The combination makes for a unique, melodic sound, with roots in jazz, North Indian Hindustani, and Indonesian musical traditions.

“The way I see it, music is interconnected and has the power to communicate beyond borders,” Adler told DownBeat. “Listening to and playing jazz, it’s evident that the music has roots beyond America and arms that extend to virtually every corner of the world. When approached with open ears, curiosity and a sense of respect for the traditions, the possibilities for exchange are really limitless.”

Art New England reviews current exhibition at the �ֲ���ý Museum of Art

On Feb. 5, of “Precision and Expression: American Studio Ceramics from the E. John Bullard Collection,” the current show at the �ֲ���ý Museum of Art, co-curated by Assistant Curator Samantha Sigmon and Lecturer in Art and Visual Culture Susan Dewsnap. “…Bullard sought diversity and individuality in his acquisitions,” Little writes. “He also embraced humor and joy: many of the pieces will prompt a smile.” 

Calling it an “entertaining and enlightening exhibition,” Little highlighted an “exquisite vessel” by Mark Bell, “Spherical Vase,” ca. 2011, which he said “exemplifies the Blue Hill, Maine, artist’s seamless style.”

Little also explained the motivation behind Bullard’s generous gift to the museum. “The collector’s longtime ties to Haystack and the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine, inspired his gift, as did the college’s ceramics program led by Susan Dewsnap, who co-curated the exhibition and accompanying catalogue,” Little writes. “Bullard envisions future students exploring and learning from these singular objects. That vision is already happening: interns at the �ֲ���ý Museum researched artists for the catalogue and labels.” 

Carolina González Valencia, associate professor of art and visual culture, was tired of the ways that she saw representations of women like her mother on the screen. She was weary of the ways that she did not see her mother Beatriz on the screen. She hated seeing dynamic people like her mother — who is funny, creative, and opinionated — portrayed as quiet and humble domestic workers. Her mother has a “big personality,” and González Valencia, who is accustomed to using art and film to reach an audience, wanted to create a narrative that captured the complexity of her mother’s experience — as a domestic worker in the U.S., but also as a full and complex person. 

The result is How to Clean a House in 10 Easy Steps, which is in final post-production this month, and will be complete by the end of the year. A recent grant from Unbound Philanthropy gave the final push to bring the film toward completion. In its early stages, though, the biggest obstacle was finding how to authentically tell a story featuring domestic workers that felt new … and true. 

When González Valencia began the process, she sat down to talk to her mother, Beatriz Valencia, about her work. In these early conversations, she saw her mother shrink into a prescribed role. There didn’t seem room for her mother’s complexities to show up in a film when she approached it as a documentarian. She also was aware of “the complicated waters of having this power of representing another person.” González Valencia began really thinking about how to approach this project — meant to represent a domestic worker in the U.S. — collaboratively. 

González Valencia has frequently drawn on collaboration to access authenticity. In an installation in Beirut in 2018, she posted a question (“Are you afraid you’ll keep moving forever?”) on flyers that hung across the neighborhood where she was in residency and invited responses via text. Her 2019 “Video Postales” featured photographs and videos shared by artists to accompany lines from González Valencia’s writing. The result was surprising and beautiful — accessing something more true than she could have created alone. Tapping into her collaborative instinct as well as her background in performance art, González Valencia engaged her mother in some improvisatory exercises. 

“Let’s pretend I’m a journalist and I’m here to interview you and you’re a very, very accomplished person,” González Valencia said to her mother during the early stages of the film. “What do you want to be very accomplished at?” Her mother immediately responded that she would want to be a famous writer. What emerged was a central fictional character around which the collaborative genre-bending film took shape. 

As soon as the fictional writer emerged as a character that Beatriz played, her mother spoke more freely and truthfully to her daughter. “That fiction allowed us to be more honest,” González Valencia said.

González Valencia likely already knew that this film was going to push against boundaries. Documentary is a complicated genre that sometimes poses as simple or straightforward. 

“I was really interested in pushing what we can do as a documentary. It’s a form that needs to be questioned because it comes from a legacy of a very colonial way of looking at the ‘other.’” González Valencia was not traveling to a new land to represent another culture, but she knew that she could still fall into the patterns of misrepresentation if her mother was not empowered as a collaborator.

González Valencia notes that other artists have blurred genres — drawing from fiction to access the truth. Author Claudia Rankine, for example, is creating a sort of “collage” in her writing, which has served as a model for González Valencia in her art. She also cites two Belgian filmmakers as influences: Chantal Akerman, who explored her own relationship with her mother in genre-blurring documentary films, and Agnès Varda, who blurred fiction and fact in her documentary films. Models like these allowed González Valencia to collaboratively create a documentary about her mother as a domestic worker, who is playing the role of a famous writer in parts of the film. 

As the semester wrapped up, González Valencia traveled to Splendor Omnia just outside of Mexico City, which she described as a dream studio. This is her first feature-length film, so the experience at Splendor Omnia will not only allow her to finish the film in a very high-end way, but it is also offering González Valencia an education. “It’s kind of like a school to me,” she said. 

How to Clean a House in 10 Easy Steps is the result of what happened when González Valencia and her mother dared to let go of the factual in favor of the truth. Of course deciding upon an approach for the film was only the very beginning. González Valencia’s project has received a slew of grant support. The production of the film has been made possible by support from sources that include the Sundance Film Festival, Abundant Futures Fund, and the LEF fund. The most recent $50,000 grant from Unbound Philanthropy enabled the film to move into post-production.

González Valencia has high hopes for the impact that her film can make. Primarily, she wants to contribute to ongoing conversations about narrative structure, domestic work, and immigrant rights. 

“I don’t believe in the single story,” González Valencia said. And when you are part of a group that gets represented by a superficial, single story, the stakes are higher. “I’m interested in being part of the conversation that complicates it, that shows that there is not one story.”

González Valencia and her mother are certainly pushing back against a single narrative created “from the perspective of pain and trauma.” González Valencia hopes that this film can show that “when we talk about immigrants, when we talk about domestic workers — we are people full of joy and laughter.” Especially now, she hopes the creativity and joy of the film — which includes a musical sequence —  will “help people to feel closer.” 

At their sold-out show at Portland’s State Theatre on Oct. 20, Big Thief, a Brooklyn-based indie-folk band, had a message for �ֲ���ý: “Thanks for all the love,” said Buck Meek, guitarist and vocalist. “Sorry we couldn’t make it yesterday.”

This was followed by an explosive cheer from the audience, which included a lot of �ֲ���ý students. Then lead vocalist Adrianne Lenker chimed in. “It’s been amazing to watch what you’ve been doing,” she said. “Thanks for playing our songs.”

What led up to this moment? It was the result of more than a year of student creativity, community, and persistence that began as a simple solution to a problem in �ֲ���ý’ music scene. 

During the fall of 2024, Audrey Cole ’26 of Minneapolis, Minn., Jonah Yaffe ’26 of Dallas, and Stella Gould ’25 were looking for a way to showcase musicians on campus who weren’t part of existing bands. Cole and Yaffe are the co-presidents (or “emperors,” as they call themselves) of the �ֲ���ý Musicians’ Union this year. BMU is an active and large organization; they regularly put on concerts, connect musicians, and collaborate with the student-run radio station and literary magazine, snaggletooth. If you ask most �ֲ���ý students, they can likely rattle off a list of BMU founded bands. Blue Razz Sassafras, Don’t Teller, Cole and Yaffe’s own band, The Lot Lizards, often perform in house basements, in local bars, and even at school-run events, like last year’s Gala. These bands are the club’s bread and butter, but Cole knew there were more musicians at �ֲ���ý, with a lot to offer, but no regular band to play with. She’s met some at BMU general meetings and encountered others socially.

“There are so many people I talk to who don’t even go to the meetings but who want to perform and play with a band and just don’t have the capacity,” says Cole.

Here was the solution: a one-night-only collaborative concert, where anyone could sign up to join a band for a day and take part in an all-day outdoor show. There had been single bands playing on Mount David before, but this time they were looking for it to expand to a collective concert They needed something to capture the essence of �ֲ���ý and get people excited. 

Enter Big Thief, a Brooklyn-based indie-folk band, fronted by hyper-specific and poetic lyricist Adrianne Lenker, with an extensive acoustic and electric catalog. The band had played Portland’s State Theatre in Feb. 2023, drawing a packed crowd that included �ֲ���ý students and alumni. “�ֲ���ý has a big crunch element,” Cole says, referring to the large sector of the campus population who can be seen on any given day wearing Blundstones as they carry their cross-country ski bags to their environmental justice class. “So people are definitely listening to Big Thief. I went to see them freshman year, and a million �ֲ���ý kids and �ֲ���ý grads living in Portland were at that concert. So it was evident they were big here.” 

The first Big Thief tribute concert at �ֲ���ý took place in October 2024 on Mount David. It was a cold October afternoon, but dozens of students showed up in puffer coats and beanies, staying past sunset to sing along to the songs they knew so well, their phone flashlights waving in their hands. “It was so special,” Yaffe says, “People still tell me it was their favorite night of the year. And then this summer I was looking back on photos and really wanted to commemorate it somehow. It just felt like something that should keep happening.”

When planning this year’s show, they considered other groups, like maybe a Beatles or Wilco night, but nothing seemed like it could quite capture the same energy. So Yaffe decided to take things a step further. He created an Instagram account () dedicated to the project, posting photos and video of last year’s performance every day, along with hoping to catch the band’s attention, and maybe get them to show up to campus. They even offered some food recommendations from Commons, glimpses of a logo for the event, and a video from Mount Katahdin.

“Buck Meek ended up following me, and I actually got in contact with their team,” Yaffe says. “They gave us special permission to listen to their new album early, sent us signed vinyl and posters, and I was emailing with their manager for a while.”

This year’s Big Thief tribute concert  was scheduled for October 19, the day before the band’s tour date in Portland, and it was even bigger than last year’s. “People we had never met before showed up,” Cole said, “Like so many people.”

People showed up to Big Thief’s show the next day, too. About 2,000 of them. So it was very rewarding to hear Meek shout out �ֲ���ý live on stage, but Yaffe says that the Instagram account means a lot more to him than a connection to the band. “I like that I can scroll back on it and see all these absolutely amazing memories from this amazing night,” he says, “It’s like a public scrapbook. It’s great.” 

Like @bates_plays_big_thief, the new tradition of Big Thief night has gone beyond just a love for the band. It’s a chance to come together, meeting with friends and strangers on Mount David to create something. It is a marker of community, and a reminder that even during midterms, and the time when days get shorter, there is still space for spontaneity and joy in the outdoors. It’s about the feeling of being in a crowd where everyone is singing the same words. It’s the type of evening that makes �ֲ���ý feel small in the best way.  

Her electric violin at the ready on her right shoulder, Mavy Ho-Le ’26 started to slowly tap her foot on the stage at Olin Arts Center. It was Saturday Oct. 25 and the first strains of Radiohead’s 2016 song “Daydreaming,” were beginning to emerge from Fitter Happier, a Radiohead tribute band based in Portland. Ho-Le, of Gorham, Maine, was one of five �ֲ���ý students and community members with string instruments grouped stage left, ready to join in on cue.

There was at least one aficionado of Radiohead among the �ֲ���ý musicians, Xucheng Zheng ’27 of Shanghai, China. Sitting in front of Ho-Le, Zheng likely recognized the song before lead singer Jeff Beam sang a single melancholy note on that Saturday night. Zheng, who is used to playing with an orchestra, was particularly eager to play “Daydreaming,” a favorite Radiohead song. 

But Ho-Le, a neuroscience major who has been playing electric violin professionally for years, had to feel her way into the song. She’d had less than a day with the sheet music to practice, and even though she works regularly as a professional musician when she’s not focused on her neuroscience major, it was almost all new to her. “I only know ‘Creep,’” she said later, referring to Radiohead’s breakthrough single from 1992.

That didn’t matter; the beauty of the event was that Radiohead expertise wasn’t required to be swept up in what happened on stage at Olin between Fitter Happier, made up of Beam, Sam Peisner, Scott Nebel, Elliot Heeschen, Rob Cimitile, and Pete Dugas, and the �ֲ���ý musicians. “It was electric,” Ho-Le said afterward.

The audience of more than 100 seemed to agree, from the little boy dancing wildly on his mother’s lap to the young person who shouted “you guys sound amazing” after Beam expressed his pleasure at playing in Olin, saying “it’s kind of the Carnegie Hall of Lewiston.” 

The collaboration was put together by Stuart Gurley, who manages both Olin Arts and the applied music program at �ֲ���ý. His goal was to give �ֲ���ý students a taste of the life of a professional musician as well as a chance to “take their skills that they learn in their lessons and their ensembles, and see how active working musicians utilize those in different professional environments,” Gurley says. Artists come to �ֲ���ý regularly, and work with students in master classes, Gurley said. “But this is different. It puts them on a more equal footing with the artists themselves.” And in perhaps a different genre. 

He’d done something similar before, bringing Beatles Night with Spencer Albee to �ֲ���ý in early 2020. Albee is known regionally (and) for his Beatles tribute band, Spencer and the Walrus, which for the last two decades has been selling out two and sometimes even three nights at the State Theater in Portland each Thanksgiving. Ever since Gurley coordinated with Albee to bring that Beatles experience, backed by student musicians, to �ֲ���ý, he’d been looking for opportunities to do something similar.

Gurley understands that the ensembles and coursework and lessons that happen at �ֲ���ý are essential, but he also knows what it means to work in the music industry in 2025. It’s not easy, but it might be easier if he can help students find intersecting commonalities between academia and the music industry.

“You can have all your experience here at �ֲ���ý and go out and get a gig in an orchestra or, if you’re really lucky, in a jazz band,” he said. “But there are unfortunately just fewer and fewer of those opportunities these days.” The best chances to make a living playing live music are in the realm of popular music, he explained. “And there’s a lot of groups from Radiohead right on down to very small acts that need violins and horns to tour with them.”

The genesis for bringing Fitter Happier to �ֲ���ý actually took place at one of his own musical gigs. As Gurley told the audience in Olin as he was introducing Fitter Happier, he’d been talking to a good friend and musician he was working with at a wedding gig. Long breaks (and waits) are typical of such gigs, Gurley said. And during one of those breaks, the friend made the argument that Radiohead was the most significant and important band out there.

Gurley had his doubts, but pondered this, considering his own past as a teenaged fan, and the band’s use of electronica. “They were one of the first bands to really integrate electronica in modern production ways, with new technologies, and new modalities of thinking,” he said. “And now it’s everywhere.” Radiohead easily fits into the spectrum of music studied at �ֲ���ý, he said. 

Moreover, a lot of students might already have the band on their playlist. TikTok has played a role in the resurgence of Radiohead and other musical acts, including Sade and Kate Bush, often leading to chart-topping hits years (even decades) after the initial release of the song. In the case of Radiohead, the Hulu series The Bear used “Let Down,” a Radiohead song from OK Computer, in the show’s Season 1 finale. In August of this year, 28 years after its release, the song charted on the Billboard Top 100 for the first time. 

Zheng, who described herself as a Radiohead fan before the concert, was energized by the collaborative nature of the opportunity. “Now I really want to try playing with a band,” Zheng said. 

Aidan Buck ’29 of Arlington, Mass., said he was only a “moderate” Radiohead fan before the Fitter Happier concert. “I haven’t listened to their catalogue in full, but what I’ve heard I really enjoy. I’m a big fan of experimental music as a whole.” Most of his musical training came by ear or was based in improvisation, he said.

“I wanted to be part of this concert because it sounded like a cool opportunity to play experimental music at �ֲ���ý with peers, faculty, and the greater L/A community.” 

He’s played instruments his whole life, from the trumpet in his middle school’s jazz band to bass in a rock band in high school. Typically he plays string instruments, but for the Fitter Happier show, he played the flugelhorn.

“I didn’t know much going into the first and only rehearsal on Saturday afternoon,” Buck said. “And as someone who can’t sight read music very well, I turned to my ear training and figured out my flugelhorn parts by listening to the original recordings of my assigned songs. Once I was able to get my parts down pat, I think the horn and string sections sounded really nice and made a great addition to the already awesome band.”

There was also something in the collaborative experience for Fitter Happier. As Beam, who considers Radiohead “the Beatles of this generation,” explained before the show, the �ֲ���ý musicians allowed Fitter Happier, which was touring in Vermont and New Hampshire, to do some songs they couldn’t do as a five-person band, including the many songs that Radiohead recorded with strings and horns.

“Not full orchestra stuff,” Beam says, “but songs that we can’t necessarily replicate without extra players.” After the accompanying horns and strings left the stage of Olin for the last time, Beam asked the audience to give the students a hand. And then paid them a high compliment: “I wish we could have them out here the whole time.” 

One of the destructive torrential rains that have characterized this summer in New England hit Lewiston and Auburn on July 25.

Across the Twin Cities, the evening storm dumped nearly four inches of rain in less than two hours. It flooded streets, buckled pavements, and briefly shut off electricity to hundreds of residents.

In �ֲ���ý’ neighborhood, the municipal stormwater drainage system was overwhelmed by the runoff. That meant that instead of entering that system as intended, much of the rain falling on �ֲ���ý stayed at �ֲ���ý, backing up into buildings and damaging walls, floors, and some equipment — and sparking an impressive cleanup response by the college’s Facilities Services team.

One of those buildings was Chase Hall — nearly ready to reopen after a 14-month renovation that is making this century-old student center a place that’s more welcoming and easier to navigate.

The storm hit one day after all the new furniture for Chase had arrived, three days before the city of Lewiston was scheduled to conduct its formal occupancy inspection, and less than a week before Student Affairs staff were scheduled to move in.

Most of the damage consisted of wet wallboard and carpeting (some of which was installed just hours before the storm). For the most part, the flood was less than an inch deep, but that was enough to necessitate throwing away new carpet and replacing strips of new wallboard adjoining the floor, along with the attached trim strips called “cove base.”

The stormwater affected portions of the lowest floors of Chase: a Residence Life office suite, the ground floor lobby, the Student Affairs offices in the former College Store site, and the bottom level of the new Central Stair.

That Central Stair location, in fact, was the scene of the most concentrated water damage. The pit at the base of the new elevator shaft filled up with water, which immersed and thereby ruined both the device that controls elevator speed and the cable that raises and lowers the car.

Still, as Senior Project Manager Paul Farnsworth pointed out during our visit on Aug. 1, the pit sequestered a lot of water that could have caused more widespread trouble elsewhere.

So now, more than two weeks after the deluge, where do things stand with Chase?

The city inspection that precedes the building’s certification for occupancy has been rescheduled for Aug. 25. An opening ceremony for the remodeled Chase is planned for Sept. 7.

And sometime in between, on a date or dates still to be determined, staff for Residence Life, the Center for Purposeful Work, and other Student Affairs functions will move into their new offices.

Just to give you some perspective, Student Affairs’ first heavy lift of the new school year — helping the new �ֲ���ýies of the Class of 2027 get settled in — commences on Aug. 31. (For a different kind of perspective, the Bobcat Den reopens Aug. 28 after being closed for much too long.)

If the cloud-and-silver-lining metaphor seems tacky in this instance, it’s still true that the storm’s impact on Chase could have been much worse. Much of the building’s new furniture had been placed in storm-affected areas, but waterproof legs and feet resisted any damage. Replacement of the damaged wallboard is underway, and replacement carpet will be laid after the walls are repainted.

And as Farnsworth pointed out, “If this had happened three weeks later, everyone would have moved in and I would have had to move them all out again.”

The storm’s scrambling of the original Chase timetable has even conferred certain advantages. For example, with the move-in delayed, the project team has been able to tackle so-called day-two items — tasks normally left until after the certificate of occupancy has been issued. “We’re able to get a lot of that work done now, rather than having to come back after the building’s occupied,” said Kristi Mynhier, �ֲ���ý’ project manager for Chase.

In at least one case, in fact, the storm even hastened Chase past a major milestone. As Mynhier explains, it was desirable to get the HVAC system running to help dry out the building. That entailed connecting the system to the campus-wide network of HVAC sensors and controls. So that got done faster than anticipated.

Meanwhile, in areas of Chase that didn’t get wet, the renovation is winding down. With the countertop and other woodwork now in place at the Overnook, the first-floor lobby is about done. The glass walls and doors have been installed around the reception area for the Office of Intercultural Education. And technicians are installing card-access readers in a variety of locations.

As noted, Chase wasn’t the only �ֲ���ý building harmed by the storm: Carnegie Science, Smith, Hedge, and Kalperis halls were the others. “Merrill Gym and Lindholm House had water that was removed, but no real damage to finishes,” notes Jay Phillips, director of Facility Services operations. (There was water erosion and other damage to the campus grounds, too.)

Phillips adds that some 40 �ֲ���ý staffers, including custodians and folks in the building trades, were involved in the clean-up and subsequent repairs. A crew from the cleaning and restoration company ServPro also helped out.

Nearly a week after a storm soaked floors in Chase Hall, getting things dry was still a priority. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

An Aug. 1 image from the Student Affairs office suite shows the aftermath of the July 25 rain: new carpet has been discarded, a 12-inch strip of wallboard removed, and a dehumidifier and fan are drying things out. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Just prior to the July 25 deluge, this Residence Life office had been fully carpeted. Stormwater entering through an HVAC condensate drain soaked, and spoiled, parts of the new carpet that were subsequently stripped out for replacement. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

One outcome of the July 25 stormwater backup into Chase Hall was a profusion of trash cans staged on the loading dock for emptying. But soon the dock, with furniture like something from a Parisian sidewalk cafe, will be a place for repose and for socializing. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

A new Purposeful Work interview room on Chase Hall’s second floor. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Plastic covers still protect much of the new furniture in a second-floor lounge in Chase Hall. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

At 89 inches, this television in a second-floor Chase Hall lounge is �ֲ���ý’ largest flatscreen. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Sitting at a new table amidst other furnishings awaiting deployment, a member of the Consigli Construction staff works in Chase Hall Lounge. Note the remodeled ceiling, and the relocated wall in the background. The territory beyond will belong to the Center for Purposeful Work. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

At one time this wall separating the Central Stair and Chase Hall Lounge was the rear outside wall of Chase Hall. During the recent renovation, the old window openings were restored and reglazed to add visual interest to the building’s interior. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Inspired by �ֲ���ý Manufacturing Company bedspreads, woven in Lewiston, decorative metalwork has been applied to the front of the Overnook in Chase Hall’s first-floor lobby. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Chase Hall’s newly renovated main lobby. The stairway to the left of center leads to Memorial Commons. The corridor at center, adjacent to the new Overnook, leads to the Central Stair. The new staircase behind the column emerges on the second floor at Skelton and Hirasawa lounges. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

The stairs and corridor to Memorial Commons have been snazzed up with new paint, floor and step coverings, and handrails. The blue material provides temporary protection to the new flooring. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

This seating area in the Center for Purposeful Work backs up to the so-called lightwell, a former stairwell that still encloses one of Chase Hall’s two Campus Avenue entrances. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

New paint, carpet, and furniture in a dean’s office in Chase Hall. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

A view of the Central Stair and its elevator. Note the stylish new handrails. The blue plastic floor protection conceals oak stair treads and flooring (visible overhead) made from cross-laminated timber. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

The reconstruction of Chase Hall’s main Campus Avenue entrance was nearly complete on Aug. 1, with just some missing trim and cleaning up to attend to. The doors predate the building’s renovation and were refinished for it. Note the textured brick pattern where the benches meet the building: projecting Flemish bond. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

When a building is flooded, Phillips explains, “It’s critical to get vent holes drilled and walls opened, drying equipment deployed, and lots of air moving within the first 24 hours, or the risk of mold growth increases.

“Our people responded exceptionally well, and their initial response along with continued action the next day prevented further damage and potential mold growth. I’m always impressed by the incredible work our folks perform and their great professionalism under pressure in these difficult situations.”

Projection room: Immersive Media Studio all but done

�ֲ���ý’ new Immersive Media Studio, located in a former classroom and computer lab in Coram Library, is close to completion.

Funded by a $500,000 grant from the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, the facility will support instruction in and production of high-tech performances and installations incorporating sound, live action, and projected imagery.

When we visited on Aug. 1, all but a final coat of wall paint, a white “4K” formula that shows projected images to especially good advantage, had been applied. Black floor tiles were placed this week. The ceiling had been coated in matte black paint. With cables newly strung from the control room next door, the ceiling pipe-grid was ready to support the projectors, theatrical lights, and speakers that will cast the digital spells.

Still in their boxes, those gizmos and others were stockpiled in the control room. Technicians from the West Coast firm DBPC had spent the back half of July in there installing computers and controllers, with plans to return and finish up this month, in time for the start of classes.

Tin-knockers get ducts in a row in Hathorn Hall attic

With installation beginning the last week of July, the new retractable stairs that provide access to Hathorn Hall’s attic are in place. Getting to the attic is still a climb, but now a visitor is spared the claustrophobic aspects of the prior arrangement — a steep ladder, jammed into a closet in a faculty office, that topped out in something like the Munsters’ living room but without the laugh track.

Bright new lighting and solid, easily accessed walkways have put an end to the Munstery aspects.

Also in the attic is a new HVAC machine that replaced an obsolete unit, a substitution that in large part was the impetus for the Hathorn attic project. Cote Corp. of Auburn, known for challenging feats of hoisting and rigging, removed the old machine and brought in the new one, which is roughly the size of a chest freezer. Happily, the elevator was large enough to fit each unit, albeit with tolerances as close as an inch or two, says Brian Lanoie, �ֲ���ý project manager.

The HVAC work also entailed the replacement of a lot of air ducts, work done by the tin-knockers of Nason Mechanical Systems of Auburn. Still to be done on the HVAC front is connecting the new equipment to its power supply and to the campus-wide control network.

More broadly, carpentry contractor M.W. Hoss of Portland needs to restructure the attic floor where a hole was cut for the HVAC equipment (a smaller hole at that location where the new stairs are mounted still remains) and refinish the corresponding third-floor ceiling.

This view was taken from the top of the new retractable ladder serving the Hathorn Hall attic. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

New ventilation ducts in the attic of Hathorn Hall. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

The installation of this new air handler was a key goal of the summer’s refurbishment of the attic of Hathorn Hall. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Carpenters for M.W. Hoss of Portland, Maine, built this new ladder leading up to the Hathorn Hall belfry. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

And all that work, taking place through August, will complete this phase of the Hathorn attic project. The next phase, the replacement of the ringer for Hathorn’s bell, has yet to be scheduled.

Garcelon Field turf: ‘Bouncy and cushy‘

With athletic practices scheduled to start before the end of August, the overhaul of a landmark sports facility at �ֲ���ý is nearly finished.

Home to Bobcat lacrosse, soccer (occasionally), and — with the deepest historical roots — football, Garcelon Field has received a new playing surface this summer. A product called Legion, made by Shaw Sports Turf, the new artificial turf replaces the surface that was installed in 2010 and had reached the limit of its useful life.

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An aerial view of Garcelon Field before and after its turf replacement. Use your mouse to grab the slider (or swipe your finger if on a phone or tablet) to reveal more or less of each image. (Branden Rush/�ֲ���ý College)

Both products comprise a grass-like plastic matrix that’s infilled with a mix of sand and crumb rubber. And both surfaces were installed by R.A.D. Sports of Rockland, Mass.

While the Legion is essentially complete (as is a replacement for the 2010 chain-link fence that had surrounded the field), Garcelon remains closed for another week or two while punch-listing and some tests are being conducted.

The turf came in massive rolls that were spooled out into place across the field by specially equipped tractors. But we were interested to learn from Chris Streifel, �ֲ���ý project manager for the turf replacement, that a significant proportion of the installation was performed by people using hand tools. Their work included finalizing the placement of the rolls, tweaking their seams, and — perhaps most interesting — setting in all but the biggest markings on the turf.

As a multi-sport field, Garcelon uses different colors for markings pertaining to different games. Most of these graphics can’t be fabricated at the factory and have to be created by hand on site. “So a lot of customized stuff would be done right on the field, and they would cut out pieces and sew in new pieces,” explains Streifel, the college’s director of capital planning and construction.

“Then somebody goes through and checks all that. So they actually spent the last week just going over in fine detail all of those seams.” Note that this is all done on hands and knees.

“And now you can’t even tell” that the work was done by hand. “It all blends together like it was always together from day one.” Streifel adds, “It’s a lot of fine detail and a lot of expertise.”

A close-up of the new Legion playing surface on Garcelon Field shows the artificial grass and the sand-and-crumb-rubber infill. (Jay Burns/�ֲ���ý College)

The north end of the newly resurfaced Garcelon Field. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

As Garcelon Field is a multi-sport facility, different colors indicate markings on the turf for different games. Most of these field graphics were sewn in by hand. (Jay Burns/�ֲ���ý College)

The colors pop on Garcelon Field’s new Legion playing surface. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

A view of the new Legion playing surface, made by Shaw Sports Turf, on Garcelon Field. Many of the markings shown were cut and stitched in by hand. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

“It was a very smooth project,” he notes. Because �ֲ���ý issued its request for bids on the project early, the college was able to get a high slot on R.A.D.’s calendar and avoid the cumulative delays that are almost inevitable over the course of a busy contractor’s summer. “I have nothing but good things to say about the R.A.D. Sports team and Gale Associates, our designer.” Gale is based in Portland.

“The field’s awesome,” Streifel continues. “It’s so fun to step on. It’s so bouncy and cushy, and if I was going to get tackled hard by somebody at this point, that’s where I’d want to have it happen.”

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update loves to hear from you. Please send questions and comments about past, present, future, and past-perfect construction at �ֲ���ý to dhubley@bates.edu, with “Campus Construction” or “Does this work make you tense?” in the subject line.

The �ֲ���ý community comprises many smaller ones, and no community harmonizes better than �����������������.

On Wednesday night, the Crosstones, one of �ֲ���ý’ half dozen a cappella groups, rehearsed in the Olin Arts center, and this camaraderie was in full voice.

“Crosstones are my favorite part about �ֲ���ý,” says Katie Allard ’19 of Ridgewood, N.J. “If I could have rehearsal 24/7, I would. It’s just like one big family.”

Newcomer Sam Findlen-Golden ’20 of Amherst, Mass., thoroughly enjoys being part of the bass section. “It’s a blast. We get all the low notes in the song and get to make all the ‘dum dum’ noises.” Singing with the group has set a sweet tone for his first year. “It was the first big thing I got into here and it’s been a formative thing in terms of going through my first year,” he says.

Luke McNabb '17 of Glastonbury, Conn., belts out the high notes in his solo of Aerosmith's "Dream On."

Maddie McLean '17 of Hood River, Ore., conducts the group.

After the group moves to an Olin classroom, Madeline Clark '20 of McLean, Va., works with her section on a challenging part of a song.

Members of the Manic Optimists, done with their own rehearsal elsewhere in Olin, watch and listen from the other side of the glass doors.

Sam Findlen-Golden '20 of Amherst, Mass., works to blend with fellow bass singers.

The group began rehearsal in a spot favored by ����������������� groups, thanks to its reverberant acoustics: the lobby between the closed doors of the �ֲ���ý Museum of Art and the rest of Olin, known as the glass box.

There, they ran through a few songs at full strength. While they were performing, members of the Manic Optimists, who had finished their own rehearsal elsewhere in Olin, gathered on the other side of the glass doors to watch and listen.

Here’s a clip from the Crosstones’ rendition of “All These Things That I’ve Done.”

Co-president Maddie McLean ’17 of Hood River, Ore., enjoys the role that music plays at �ֲ���ý. It’s a very inclusive, fun, and kind community. We all support each other and we all go to each other’s concerts,” she said. Declan Chu ’17 of Winthrop, Maine, adds,  “We push each other to be better.”

Chu elaborates on the impact of �ֲ���ý �����������������. “It doesn’t just end at �ֲ���ý. I’m still in contact with alums from the Man Ops and TakeNote who were seniors when I was a freshman. And it’s really nice to have that network,” he says, pausing to laugh, “as a senior trying to get employed.”

McLean sums it up: “You usually leave this rehearsal exhausted, but really happy with what you did.”