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| Bridget Kim Class of 2019 |
The cast was purposefully crafted to be diverse, not only in ethnicity, but in perspective. Shelby is an African-American RA who claims she does not see color, my character Grace is an Asian-American who eventually gets fed up with her best friend’s avoidance, Fiona is a Caucasian student who was raised in a predominantly black neighborhood but gets in major trouble for an insensitive picture she draws on Alyssa’s (a high-achieving African-American freshman) bedroom door, the list goes on. Baltimore works to showcase people from various corners of America: individuals who want to have civil discussions, who want to fight about everything, who want to ignore what hurts, who simply want to live in peace. But the key message that echoes throughout the play is that we cannot refuse to listen to others simply because we assume there is no possibility of agreement. We must attend to every conversation, no matter how difficult it is to have.
Walking to rehearsal one night, I was caught behind a stopped train blocking my path to the theater. A man who had just finished working on the new academic building for the day joined me at our timely standstill. As we made polite conversation, the chitchat naturally began to turn toward the election that would be occurring in a few days. We courteously asked each other who we were casting our ballot for, and although we supported different candidates, we civilly asked questions to which we were genuinely curious to know the answer. There was no fighting or yelling or blaming; we simply spoke and listened. Before I delved into "Baltimore," my answer to a situation like that would have been to put earphones in and avoid any conversation of that nature in the first place. Reactions like that do not seem to have much of a place in our world now, and I believe one of the first steps to navigating the chaos and uncertainty is by accepting that the mess is even there.
Some of my favorite lines are delivered by the dean of the university that this play is set in: “You cannot choose whether or not to believe in history. You have the ability to reshape all this mess. You, indeed, own it.” The process of being in "Baltimore" taught me lessons that I could not receive in a classroom. To be able to live outside of your own skin for a while and delve into someone else’s, to live and learn through another being’s eyeballs, is a treat and a task. I’m thankful for this experience, and I’m thankful that I go to a school that allows me to do all the things that I love.
Bridget Kim, of Morehead, Ky., is a sophomore McConnell Scholar studying political science, classical languages, and linguistics.