There are many sides of Jackie Chapman ’08 – Alpha Delt Critic, Senior Interviewer, unofficial Second Stage historian. There were no tea or wizards or wizards making tea during our conversation, but I wish there had been. Also, in the ultimate mark of Wescelebdom, she has her own Facebook group for people devoted to hunting her down.
Elyssa: So this is my first WesCeleb interview.
Jackie: This is my first WesCeleb interview too!
J and E: Oh my god, what a coincidence!
E: So I noticed on your Senior Interviewer description, your future involves ‘an embarrassing amount of tea and books.’ What’s with the tea?
J: Actually, the Admissions Office had asked us to fill out those bio things at the end of second semester junior year, so I’d just done comps [COL Junior Comprehensive Exams] and there was crazy theater stuff going on, and I was just like, how dare you ask me what I’m planning to do after senior year! I don’t even know what my thesis is going to be about! At least I know that everything I’ve written there is definitely going to happen. I have no idea what my future holds, but I know that there will be tea. Tea’s a really big part of my life I guess. My dad’s from London, so he drinks a lot of tea – actually he doesn’t drink a lot of tea, so…
E: Your parents are kind of an interesting couple. Explain.
J: Well, like I said my dad’s from London. My mother grew up in the Bronx, but her sister and her parents grew up in Puerto Rico, and I grew up in Yonkers, New York. My family’s pretty ridiculous. It makes dinner interesting.
E: So you’re a COL major. How would you convince a freshman to major in COL?
J: I wouldn’t want to convince them. I’d want them to make that decision on their own. I wouldn’t coerce them into joining my major.
E: That’s a good answer.
J: Thanks! You’re interviewing people who interview now. I should start asking you questions.
E: Oh god, don’t start.
J: Why Wesleyan?
E: No, please, don’t make me regress. So, what’s my other question? So you don’t have any graduation plans at the moment?
J: I mean, do I plan to graduate? Yes!
E: That’s a good plan. You also took a class in Harry Potter freshman year?
J: You’re making me sound like a mess! Yes – freshman year, second semester, they offered a student forum in Harry Potter, and a lot of us were in it. It was really cool, it was a great class, I got a credit in it.
E: What did you study?
J: Harry Potter. I mean, we were looking at different aspects each day. There were five books out at that time, so we talked about them individually and talked about different themes, whether it was race or class or politics, all sorts of different things.
E: What’s the racial reading of Harry Potter?
J: Well, actually we were having a debate over whether the issue between wizards and muggles was a race issue or a class issue. I was saying that whenever you have those kinds of dynamics in America it ends up being read as a race issue, but I think in England it’s much more of a class issue when you see those kinds of dynamics. But I think it can be read as a struggle between any kind of minority or majority. But it was a huge debate. We didn’t really come to any conclusions.
E: That’s so heavy. So I wanted to ask what’s with the Facebook group, ‘We Hunt Jackie Down’?
J: Well – I’m very busy, is essentially what that comes down to, and I have every intention of keeping in touch with lots of different people at any given moment, and I am notoriously bad at this, but try really, really hard. So I do keep in touch with a lot of people, but very sporadically. So basically [the Facebook group] is a place where everyone gets together. It’s kind of a joke, but sadly it’s not that much of a joke.
E: What do you do in Alpha Delt exactly? I’m still not sure. Weren’t you the secretary?
J: I was the secretary last semester, doing secretary stuff. This semester I am the Critic.
E: Who’s the Critic? Do you just criticize people?
J: No! It’s more like what we like to say is the emotional compass of the house. I’m the Pledgemistress, and I do that, but insofar as dealing with members of the house currently, it’s more about talking about the house and how it is and how people are treating each other as siblings and as members. It’s just keeping my fingers on the pulse of the house and talking to people. I like to talk. And listen.
E: You also do lighting for Second Stage? Is that what you do?
J: Second Stage is the production team for theater, so we all work together to help shows use the space. For Second Stage, specifically what I do is I am the Strike Coordinator. My job is to coordinate the strike between the show that’s moving in and the show that’s leaving. I kind of organize the best way to take things down, and where things need to go, and make sure everything runs smoothly and safely.
E: Striking means a show’s going up?
J: Striking means a show’s going down.
E: So it’s not like a labor union deal.
J: No, it’s not. Essentially what it means is after the last night of your show, which is usually Saturday around eight o’clock, we have to take down all the sets and put away all the costumes and props, clean up the space, so that way the next show that moves in has a nice clean area. Once we can get that cleaned, then the old show that was just there can leave and the new show coming in can start loading in their stuff. It’s a matter of taking down different lighting instruments so that new instruments can go in different positions, stuff like that.
E: Do you have thesis ideas right now?
J: I’m actually thinking about doing my thesis about Second Stage; I’m thinking about writing a history of our organization. It’s our thirty fifth anniversary this year, and we don’t actually have a written history of how we evolved. We did start out as an acting troupe, and now we’re a production team. So I’m thinking about something that traces the history of Second Stage’s relationship with the CFA, with the University…possibly putting up a show if I have time, and basically doing restoration and preservation of our old posters. We have all the old posters for every show, but they’re kind of sitting in a drawer right now.