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• Abigail Bowling helps Auburn residents make performance art with memories

Theatre Management graduate helps Auburn schoolchildren, seniors make performance art with memories

Abigail Bowling, a recent Theatre Management and Creative Writing graduate, interned this spring with the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities to show generations of Auburn residents that their personal stories can be powerful performances.

Bowling worked with elementary school children, high schoolers and seniors across Auburn to help them craft performances based on their personal, transformative experiences.

“These moments could be something as simple as the time they heard a song for the first time and they knew it was going to be their favorite, or it could be the time a sibling was born,” Bowling said. “You can take something from your life, even if you thought it was small, and make it a work of art, something that makes you feel proud of yourself.”

She began each class by asking the group to find that moment and write a haiku or poem about the experience, a process inspired by UNIVERSES Theatre Company Co-Founder Mildred Ruiz-Sapp, who devised original work with Auburn students in 2024. Participants then read those poems aloud as performed monologues.

Elementary school students shared memories that spoke to the childlike excitement of catching a fish and taking a trip to Disney World. One high schooler’s story focused on their worldview literally changing after getting glasses. Seniors shared the stories they want to pass along after years of lived experience.

With each population, Bowling said she prompted participants to consider the feelings, the senses and the environment of the moment.

“The possibilities are endless because even though it's their personal experience, we all experience things differently,” Bowling said. “When it's memory, we might have a different outlook on what it was like, so it’s like the person now is going back into that experience, not who you were at the time.”

While their stories are different, each generation displayed the same shyness at sharing their personal stories. Every group worried about what those around them would think, expressed hesitation to try something they’d never done before and struggled to find a moment in their lives they thought was worth a story.

Bowling created a supportive environment by focusing less on perfection and more on expression. She and other participants supported each other by reading each other’s work, and by the end, the feedback on the program was positive.

She said overcoming negative emotions to create art speaks to the need for more outreach programs in the arts.

“I’m hoping they have something for themselves to bring them back to that moment,” Bowling said. “Their experiences, even if it’s something that seems small to someone else, are important. The product is less about the performance and more about how they feel about it, and hopefully that feeling is empowerment.”

Throughout the spring, Bowling brought the program to students in St. Michaels’s Catholic School’s fifth grade class, Auburn High School’s creative writing class, the Auburn Senior Center and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

She’s also conducted outreach work through Auburn’s Mosaic Theatre Company, including a performance series for seniors about vaccine confidence, and shared her own personal performance in this season’s “Body Maps,” devised alongside performance artist Tim Miller.

At Auburn, her management experience includes Auburn University Players president, poetry staff for the Auburn Circle and production assistant for the department, including credits for “Orlando,” “Violet” and many more.

Bowling will spend the summer at Colorado’s Aspen Music Festival and School, then pursue full-time opportunities that offer more chances to support people through the arts.

“With theatre, and all other performance, the work we’re doing is embodying an experience – getting people to actually use their body to create art,” Bowling said. “That’s why theatre is in a unique position of using the arts to bring a little whimsy, joy and confidence to people.”

For more information about outreach opportunities in the Department of Theatre & Dance, visit the College of Liberal Arts website.

Tags: Alumni Theatre and Dance English Center for the Arts and Humanities Community, Outreach and Engagement