Do you have fond memories of your time at St. Stephen's?
There were so many! They fall into two categories: this abiding sense of the wonderful things that went on all the time and some specific incidents.
First of all, the boarding experience was life-changing and made me the person I am. When you're a teenager, you forge such strong relationships because your emotions are so powerful, everything is new and constantly changing. I had two roommates in two different years, Kathy Fisher and Marina Rheault and I remember one night being in the room with them, talking about anything and everything, being domestic, making the space beautiful, and having this profound feeling of belonging, of rightness with the world, and closeness to other human beings. That warm feeling is something I always have when I think about St. Stephen's.
So that's one general thing, a big one. Another was the incredibly high quality of education and the way the teachers, specifically Jack Ullman and Peter Rockwell, made history come alive. We're in Italy, the most extraordinary historical playground in the world, and they made full, magnificent use of it. I remember the first paper I wrote for Jack Ullman in my Medieval-Renaissance class sophomore year. I have no recollection what I actually wrote about, but what I got back was astonishing and revealing - Mr. Ullman had read my paper with such care and interest, with such long, thought-provoking comments in the margins! Two things came to my mind, the first was, "Oh my goodness, this stuff is interesting," and the other was, "Oh my God, I, as a person and as a student, have thoughts and ideas worthy of this level of commentary." That started my lifelong passion for history and informs my playwriting all these years later.
I remember the time the boys moved Steve Altschul’s Fiat '500 to the chapel porch one night [laughs] and I remember being in my dorm room one day around noon and hearing this tap on the window...I looked out there’s Peter Semler! He had climbed out of his window, down a pipe on the exterior of the building, and, having realized he couldn't climb all the way down to the ground, he knocked on my window to get back inside. There was also a certain amount of sneaking out after hours that went on, nocturnal trips to the Protestant Cemetery, Orange Park, the Vittorio Emmanuele monument - [laughs] is it OK to tell you this?
Reflecting on my time at St. Stephen's, it was a time of adventure, belonging, and genuine intellectual stimulation. I went to a great college, but those history, English, and art history classes at St. Stephen's awakened me intellectually as nothing else has since, lighting a spark that has led to lifelong curiosity.
