Miranda

Every year we had something that was called progression, but everyone knew that it was a bit of a joke.

You had to go and perform for him and...

the other tenured professors to keep admittance into the program and no one was really judging your performance.

But he specifically was in charge of all of the finances of the department.

So he had a huge say in who got what money.

There's usually four or five plays and he would always direct one and then

All of the other professors would always direct one, and then there would be a couple of student-led shows.

But his shows were always the most coveted shows because you were going to get unlimited access to him and his unique acting teaching methods.

So he could do basically anything that he wanted.

As you were going into your junior and senior year, he taught the more capstone classes that mattered more for your graduation or carried more weight.

And because...

Everyone thought that he directed the most unique and artsy plays.

He held all of the casting power.

So all of this to say he had as much power as you can have being the department head of a pretty small theater department at a pretty small university in Oklahoma.

But to all of us, it felt like he was in charge of our futures.

My sophomore year, I was cast in my first play of his.

It was a show called Love and Information.

It was this immersive piece of theater where we would eventually perform it in a warehouse.

The idea is that the audience would walk around and catch these clips of scenes as they were happening live in person.

I was cast in this play of his, and it was a very small cast.