This week, JustArts spoke with Jessie Field '13, who wrote and directed a musical production based on the life of environmentalist author Rachel Carson, Always, Rachel, for the Senior Theater Arts Festival.

JustArts: Could you tell us how you chose the topic of Rachel Carson and her life's work as the focus of your musical?

Jessie Field: That's a question I ask myself sometimes. I guess it was in some ways luck because I started reading a biography, and it just really got to me. I immediately thought that the arc was so dramatic and the issues were so strong that I just couldn't walk away from it. I started writing the play three years ago, right after I read the biography.

JA: Do you have a personal connection to the material?

JF: I think it's personal for everybody. I think the issues are very strong for me certainly-the biggest ones of environmentalism and feminism certainly. You feel them all the time but I think it's also about a love story and that's always what I'm interested in as an artist-just finding the connection between people and sharing it.

JA: You said you've been working on it for three years. How has the work been spread out?

JF: In the beginning I started very slowly at a very comfortable pace for me, which is too slow. And then as it got closer, I produced more than half of it in this last year. But it's hard to really say because the first half was so much research, was so much reading through all the biographies and all the letters and all the materials. It took me a long time to feel like I knew these characters or these people or this time period enough to dare to write a play before that. This year, especially last semester, was getting it done and then putting it into production.

JA: How did the process of actually making this into your thesis project come together?

JF: The process was crazy! I don't know why, but from the moment I started writing it, a couple weeks later, I was like this is going to be my thesis. And the department was very much like "Yes! Go do it!" And these wonderful, wonderful, crazy Brandeis people took this idea and made it their own and jumped on board this crazy train without so much as seeing a script. I got my actors. Some of them know me, some of them I had worked with before, but they hadn't seen the script! I was just like "I have this idea..." and they were like "We love to act, we love you, let's do it!" And I could cry just thinking about it. It meant so much that they were willing.
My co-director is actually my best friend, Alisa Roznerita '14. But my advisor said to me, "Jessie, if you're going to direct this, go find someone who can look at it and tell you this looks like sh*t, this is awful, someone who is brave enough to tell you that. And so I picked Alisa, and she did every time. I needed that. The team of people who worked on it were the best. The way they took on the work, and made it their own, and loved it as much as I loved it.

JA: This is your last official production at Brandeis; what have you learned with this production that is different from the others?

JF: I've done so many productions here, and I really think that, in a way, every one has been a little bit safe. And I've been moving, through my time here, towards things that are less safe. The first show I did was Proof, a show that I actually directed, and it was very small, and it didn't require a lot of stuff. And I went further-I went to do Into the Woods and we went outside in the woods and it was a very risky production, but I knew the score, I knew the people. And so this was, for me, very much letting go of control. Because I didn't know how this was going to look, or sound, or work. It ended up meaning the most, by far. And I am changed forever... and all that stuff.

JA: Do you hope to continue with theater as you move into the professional world?

JF: I do! I do entertain that crazy fantasy. I'll be in the area, I'll be trying to work as a director or as a writer, trying to pursue this script, I think, first. And you know, eating rocks and living in boxes. It's scary for all of us! But you have to try. Because it means so much, and that's what brings you alive. You can tell-I never talk like this!

JA: Is there anything that you hope that people who saw Always, Rachel will take away from it?

JF: I'm grateful for anyone who came! I just wanted them to get what we're going for. Certainly, overall, I just want them to be inspired to recycle and care about our planet because it's really in trouble. And to think about other people. But the message overall, of that story, to me, is to have the courage to do what matters to you, no matter what. Even if it's hard, or scary or terrifying, and it is. Always! The most important things are the most scary things. But go do it!

-Emily Wishingrad and Rachel Hughes