I want to start by reminding you that there is no nepotism in choosing WesCelebs. None. The fact that I spent fall break eating Jess’s mother’s bagels and lox has nothing to do with her choice as WesCeleb. I mean, who else could enlighten you about how to drown a bee, polygamy, and the only good reason to tie a bicycle to the ceiling?
Katey Rich: Why do you deserve to be a WesCeleb?
Jess Chayes: I’m actually experiencing some WesCeleb guilt. I’m not sure that I am the best possible WesCeleb, but I would have to guess that it has something to do with my obscene involvement in theater.
KR: Why is it obscene?
JC: I’ve developed sort of an addiction to doing plays here. I try to do at least two a semester, as well as being a theater major and devoting my summers to it.
KR: What do you mean by “doing plays?”
JC: It started out as just stage managing and then it was directing, and now I’m making a triumphant return to acting.
KR: How triumphant is triumphant?
JC: Very triumphant. I have always loved theater but been sort of terrified of acting, and I did it in high school because that was how you got involved in theater, but since I got to Wesleyan I’ve shied away from trying to perform. But after doing “Chiang Kai-Chek” with Lily [Whitsitt ’06] I’ve found it’s an incredibly rewarding experience to perform. Then I got cast in “The Faculty Room.” I’m very excited about exploring this side of the theater process.
KR: Tell me about “The Faculty Room.” How’s it going?
JC: It’s about a group of teachers teaching in the middle of nowhere, an unspecified geographical location somewhere in America. We’ve only had three rehearsals, but it’s going really well. It’s a small cast and [director] Mike James [’07] clearly knows what he’s doing or pretends he does.
KR: Tell me something random about you.
JC: My wife Haley [Moss ’07] and I own a fish named Sohcahtoa.
KR: Tell me about your relationship with your wife.
JC: I have so many wives.
KR: Then tell me about your multiple wives.
JC: I guess I have a habit of cohabitating well with other women. Elissa Kozlov [’08] and I lived together over the summer at NYU and interned together and put together a production in Scotland, and that started my referring to very close female friends that I live with as my wives. And my new wife Haley is equally fabulous.
KR: What happens when you have to have a real domestic partner?
JC: Hopefully I can still call him my wife.
KR: How do you respond to people who didn’t understand “Chiang Kai-Chek?”
JC: I heard that the review was kind of helpful. A lot of people who didn’t understand the play really appreciate hearing criticisms on it. I just got so close to the idea of it. Our goal was to create a world where things that cannot be mapped were mapped.
KR: And that’s why you tied a bicycle to the ceiling?
JC: Exactly. As long as the power of memory and interconnectedness made some dent in peoples’ consciousness as they watched the show, I’m satisfied.
KR: Tell me a story about something that happened to you recently.
JC: A couple of weeks ago I was eating soup in the CFA courtyard and a couple of bees started buzzing around my soup and I’m kind of afraid of bees. I just sat there and watched them, and one of them kind of drowned in my soup. It was kind of thicker soup that I had expected it to be, and certainly than the bee expected it to be. I watched this bee struggling for 30 seconds until it finally died in my soup. Then I thought to myself, God you’re a terrible person.
KR: Did you eat the rest of the soup?
JC: I spooned out a bunch of it and ate the rest of the soup.
[I try to get Jess on the record about her opinions on Harriet Miers. She suggests another topic.]
Can I give you my thoughts on Facebook introducing features on Sundays [the new photo feature. Check it out!]?
KR: Yes. Please.
JC: It is a terrible, terrible idea. Ask anyone at Olin last night.
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