When Caitlin Marshall '05 arrived at Brown as a sophomore transfer from Barnard College, she enrolled in French, Arabic, Chinese and linguistic theory classes. But it was her fifth class, the popular TA 23: "Acting," that would leave its mark.
TA 23 led to a theater arts concentration and a minor role that first semester as a Russian cook who played bongos on stage in a mainstage production of "The Seagull." Since that role, when she decided theater was "all I wanted to do," Marshall has become a formidable dramaturge and actress. In March, her full-length original play "Karaoke Kid," the story of a deadbeat karaoke singer in a dilapidated Florida city, premiered at Production Workshop. Marshall, who also directed the play, was praised in The Herald's review of "Karaoke Kid" for her "sharp linguistic prowess" and "knack for intriguing characters."
From the start, Marshall wasted no time immersing herself in the theater at Brown. Following her part in "The Seagull," she was cast as Anna in another mainstage show, "Anna Karenina," a student-adapted musical of Leo Tolstoy's classic.
In the spring of her sophomore year, Marshall directed "Romeo and Juliet" as part of the Shakespeare on the Green festival. Her outdoor staging required shutting down the section of Thayer Street outside the Sciences Library. To score the play, Marshall coordinated the use of sound systems in several cars, which were both parked and driven along Manning Walk.
Among many other roles in the past three years, Marshall played Bat Boy's adoptive mother in "Bat Boy: The Musical" and a blind man in "The Misanthrope," both her junior year. She also was the musical director for "Fucking A" last semester.
Though she had been a member of the drama club in high school in her native Hingham, Mass., and had considered applying to conservatory for voice, Marshall decided to matriculate at Barnard, where she was not involved in performance except for an a cappella group. She did not consider theater a serious option for the future, partly because acting was not a highly respected profession in her hometown.
"Everyone said, 'You should either be a classic musician and not do theater at all, or go be a doctor,'" Marshall said.
The second Tuesday Marshall was at Barnard was Sept. 11, 2001, a day that made her take a hard look at what was important to her. At Barnard, "I really just felt that I didn't know what I was doing and that I wasn't going to end up being who I wanted to be in four years," she said.
At Hingham High School. Marshall had started a "climate committee" with a teacher to address issues of homophobia and reduce tension between the predominantly white student population from Hingham and students being bussed in from inner-city Boston. She then worked for the Anti-Defamation League giving speeches around Massachusetts about her school's experiences, how to form climate committees and better peer counseling - an experience she said had a definite theatrical quality. And it was at Brown where she began to answer a question that she had wondered about before college - "I wanted to figure out how politics and theater and music were all working together," she said.
The politics of art is a subject that Marshall has thought a great deal about in the last three years.
"I was really interested in making things better or making things for the community that would serve the community," she said. "I don't believe in art for art's sake."
Marshall believes in the force of theater to change people. "I would be a horrible civil rights attorney ... (so) I realize for me to make a difference would be through writing plays or telling stories that are relevant," she said.
Marshall's current project is a one-woman show she wrote, in which she plays three characters. The play, which is set in 1916 and features songs from Berlin cabaret of the period, is focused on a historical figure named Emmy Hennings and her decision to be a singer during the war.
"It's kind of my response to (the question): How are we artists today supposed to make art given the current political and climate?"
As for next year, Marshall did not get into any of the notoriously competitive acting and music conservatories she applied to. She plans to live in New York or Chicago, get a job, save some money and reapply to all the conservatories next year. Marshall is also trying to build her repertoire as a singer, learn to play piano proficiently and score her own music.
