RSA grads challenged to tell truth through storytelling
By Laureen F. Guenther Times Contributor
Photo Courtesy of Kelsey Krogman
Forty-six scholarships and awards, totalling about $40,000, were presented to Rosebud School of the Arts (RSA) students in all four years of study.
One-year certificates in theatre foundations were presented to seven RSA students, and five students received two-year diplomas.
Fellow of Rosebud School of the Arts (FRSAs), RSA’s highest honor, was conferred upon six women who completed RSA’s full four-year program. Cassandra Garbutt and Maggie Mackenzie graduated with FRSAs in acting. Natalie Kloster, Stephanie Lanting, Caitlyn O’Connor and Bethany Wickens received FRSAs in theatre arts.
Each new FRSA was honored by a slide show and a speech from her faculty advisor. Paul F. Muir, RSA’s education director, also welcomed the new FRSAs into the RSA guild.
Muir challenged the graduates as storytellers, as “tellers of truth with a capital T,” to consider what it means to have one’s voice heard, and to consider the responsibility it is to listen.
Movements like #MeToo have enabled women’s voices to be heard in a way they’ve never been heard before, Muir said.
He quoted singer/songwriter Mary Gauthier, who says an artist’s job is to reach communion with truth, and to bring that holy light into the world to soothe souls trapped in dark places.
RSA graduates are well-acquainted with telling the truth, Muir said. They’re true storytellers, who seek to articulate and express truth in all its facets and complexities, and the world needs them.
“We need them to continue to speak truth,” he said, “to shine a light into those dark places. To offer solace to the wounded, the hurting, the aching. To offer a kind of story refuge to souls seeking a home.”
“This is what it means to transform culture,” he added, referring to RSA’s mandate to inspire students to become catalysts for transformation. “This is what it means to enrich lives, by expressing God’s gift of creativity, hope, joy, forgiveness and love through the arts.”
Muir encouraged the new FRSAs to tell stories. “Tell your stories. Tell the stories of others. Tell the stories of this land and of other lands. Tell the stories that make a difference. Tell the stories that need to be told. Tragic. Funny. Historical. All the stories that need to be told, for all the reasons they need to be told. And as you tell the stories you are meant to tell, do so from your true self, in love and in humility.
“Stories have the power to reach even to our hearts and minds and plant the seeds for a much- needed transformation. This is your task, storytellers, to plant the seeds of transformation,” he added. “When you are asked to speak, I charge you to speak. To speak with courage, to speak with strength, to speak from truth. And to speak with love. I suspect your voices will be more important now, and in the years to come, than ever before.”