Cast and Crew

Being at Yale Divinity School was like being on set for a two-year filming process.

The cast and crew formed a community that was unique to that particular time.  

Recently, I watched quite a few interviews with the cast of The Sopranos.  They felt like working on the show was like creating a family.  They are still good friends to this day, although it's a rare occasion when they can all be together all at once.  They also said that the show "spoiled" them in the sense that other sets are usually not so cohesive and communal.  Sometimes, when all the right people are cast for all the right parts, and the writing is amazing, pure magic happens.  

That is what Divinity School was like for me.  My cohort was knit together by threads of experiences and conversations that previous and future cohorts did not experience.  The crew--our professors, administrators, and the staff of Marquand Chapel--supported us fully, and we were free to express ourselves because of that support.

As in acting, we brought our full selves to the process--and yet, because of the chemistry of the community, we also brought our best selves.  Actors shine on screen in a way that does not always happen in real life, because only on set are the conditions there.  In Divinity School, I often glimpsed what heaven must be like--and I knew that outside of that bubble of time and space, I would probably never taste it again, to that extent.

Actors often end up dating each other, and that's understandable, because only those who share an experience have any idea what it was like.  How do you explain a miraculous journey to someone who wasn't on it?

I hadn't necessarily planned on marrying someone from Divinity School going in, but I did fall in love with a fellow cast member.  On set, it worked.  In that community, we were compatible.  Even after filming ended, we went on enough interviews and promotional tours together that the magic continued to develop.  

As those community-building settings grew fewer and far between, we worked hard to sustain the chemistry we had sparked with each other.  And even now, at the end of it, I'll still remember the good moments, when the camera was rolling, and we were at our best.

And that's a final cut!