St. Thomas partnered with Wonderlust Productions, a professional community-driven theater company, to create a performance project called “Dear Future Self.” It addressed ideas about the university’s slogan “all for the common good” and what the “perfect” Tommie would look like.

“Dear Future Self” was performed by St. Thomas students and Wonderlust Productions staff March 14 in Scooters.

Amy Muse, the chair of the English department and advisor for the theater club, invited Wonderlust Productions for semester-long residency at St. Thomas.

“I wanted students to have an opportunity to perform on campus and to find ways that we might find more about St. Thomas — about who we are and who we want to be — by getting people together to talk with one another,” Muse said.

The performance was put together in five weeks. The first three weeks included the gathering of different perspectives through story circles. Wonderlust co-artistic directors Alan Berks and Leah Cooper and stage manager Madi Miller, a St. Thomas junior, welcomed students, faculty and staff to share their ideas about the common good at St. Thomas.

“The goal here was the goal from all of our projects, which is to give people a chance to think more deeply about who they are, about why they’re here and what they’re doing,” Cooper said. “But more importantly, to listen to each other and learn more about everyone around them.”

After gathering over 50 stories, St. Thomas students and Wonderlust staff got together two weeks before the show and began creating it, rehearsing it and memorizing it.

“There are so many levels to St. Thomas, good and bad, that people need to see and be aware of because there’s a lot more perspective on this campus than just one,” Miller said.

Student performer Bizzy Stephenson was shocked when she was reading through the stories that had been collected.

“I don’t know whose story that is because we collect them anonymously, so I was sitting there like, ‘This could be my professor, this could be the person I sit next to in class, this could be my roommate,’” said Stephenson, a sophomore studying secondary education. “If we could all realize how different we are, I think it would be easier to treat each other as humans.”

One of the rules in Wonderlust Productions’ projects is that people who perform don’t play themselves.

“It gives them a chance to embody somebody else’s perspective,” Cooper said. “All of the students you saw performing were saying other people’s words and other people’s perspectives. We just think that that shifts people’s ability to understand difference better.”

In the show, there were different perspectives about what doing good really means, having privilege, making change, volunteering for required service hours, individualization and stereotypes. A dance about the stressful life of college and a song called “Dear Future Self” were also featured.

Bernard Armada, a communication and journalism professor, attended the performance with some students from his communication ethics senior capstone course. They had a story circle in their class earlier this semester.

“We wanted to use the story circle as a way of bridging the gap between what the common good means and how that translates to being an ethical communicator,” Armada said.

Senior Annie Nawrocki, one of the students in the communication ethics course, enjoyed the performance.

“I think the way we all internally grapple with the definition of the common good was very well articulated on stage through the stories that were told,” Nawrocki said.

Senior Amanda Post, sitting next to Nawrocki, added on to that.

“I think that they did a really good job picking stories that were both very relevant to us, as students, and finding a big picture idea of where we’re at as a university,” Post said.

Wonderlust Productions has been working with communities and creating plays for the last four years.

“When the play is clearly relevant to the community and the community participates in the making it, I think that’s what theatre is supposed to be — it’s a reflection of the community,” Berks said.

Samantha HoangLong can be reached at hoan1058@stthomas.edu.