From the Ground UP's "To Be"

Last night From the Ground UP, a new theater education non-profit in Portland, debuted their first show, To Be. A piece devised by twelve local high school students under the direction of Anna Crandall, Chantal DeGroat and Katherine Murphy Lewis, From the Ground UP seems to be providing an essential service in the personal development of these young people. 

As teenagers, they are in the process of finding their own independence and individual self-hood, all while trying to be part of a community. With that in mind, I was particularly interested in their use of archetypes to define themselves. Each of the twelve played a god of something like courage, comedy or expression by working towards embodying a trait prominent in their own personality. It seems like an important step in the process towards self-identifying. I was even more interested to learn in the talk-back that the directors had assigned the archetypes to the performers, but did so in such a way that the kids could identify with and embrace their characters. I’d like to learn more about the role that archetypes figure into notions of self-hood, but it seems like From the Ground UP facilitated an important step in the development of these teenagers’ development.