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life as normal. Theater is a purified version of real life, an extraction, an essence of human behavior that is stranger and more tragic and more perfect than everything that is ordinary about me and you.”
    The Head of Improvisation plucked a tennis ball from the canvas bag at her side and tossed it across the group at one of the hopefuls. The boy caught the ball in the heels of both hands. “Don’t look at the Head of Acting,” the Head of Improvisation said. “Pretend he isn’t there. Look at me.”
    She held her palms open and the boy tossed the ball sheepishly back. The Head of Acting made a savage little note on his clipboard with his pen.
    “Let’s think about the ancient world for a second,” the Head of Improvisation said, shifting to tuck her legs underneath herself. “In the ancient world a statue of Apollo or Aphrodite did not exist to trick people into thinking that the statue really was the god, or even that the statue really was a true likeness of the god. The function of the statue was simply a site of access. The statue existed so people could approach or experience the god at that site . Yes? Is everyone with me?”
    She tossed a tennis ball to another hopeful, who flinched but managed to catch it and lob it carefully back. The Head of Improvisation caught it and held it in both hands for a moment, pushing thoughtfully at the balding fur, indenting the hard rubber of the ball and letting it snap back against her hand.
    “So this statue is definitely not the real thing ,” she continued. “The statue is not Apollo himself—anybody would agree with that, right? And it’s not a facsimile of the real thing either. It’s not a likeness of Apollo, a clue to what Apollo might actually look like, or what clothes he might actually wear. It’s neither of those things. The statue is only a site which makes worship possible. It is a site which makes it unnecessary to seek that particular connection elsewhere. That’s all. Why is what I’m saying important?”
    She tossed the tennis ball at a girl across the group.
    “Is it because that’s what theater is?” the girl said quickly, catching the ball neatly with her fingertips and pausing to answer the question before lobbing it back. “Theater isn’t real life, and it isn’t a perfect copy of real life. It’s just a point of access.”
    “ Yes ,” the Head of Improvisation said, catching the ball and slamming it decisively into the palm of her other hand.
    The girl smiled quickly and darted a look at the Head of Acting to see if he had seen her triumph. He wasn’t watching.
    The Head of Improvisation said, “The stage is not real life, and the stage is not a copy of real life. Just like the statue, the stage is only a place where things are made present . Things that would not ordinarily happen are made to happen on stage. The stage is a site at which people can access things that would otherwise not be available to them. The stage is a place where we can witness things in such a way that it becomes unnecessary for us to feel or perform these things ourselves. What am I talking about here?”
    The question was too specific, and the hopefuls frowned at her in silence and pursed their lips to show they didn’t know. The Head of Improvisation was almost quivering. She scanned their faces quickly but without disappointment, already pursed and half-smiling as if the answer was waiting to bubble up and out of her in a kind of overflow of joy.
    “Catharsis,” she said at last, crowing out the word. “Catharsis is what I am talking about. Catharsis is a word that all of you should know. Catharsis is the thing that makes your job worthwhile.”
    October
    In the foyer there were two porcelain masks rising like glassy conspirators out of a porcelain basin filled with water. Comedy was turned away, staring with gleeful dead eyes down the corridor past the secretary’s office and the trophy cabinet and the loos. Tragedy craned upward. The tragic mask