Communities
Tim Collins '02
Living his creative vision
"Self-reliance is essential for the career I've selected," says Tim, a successful solo performer touring throughout the country. "I don't typically work with a director or supporting staff, so in the course of developing a show, the only person I have to consult is myself. All of my efforts must come from my own motivation and want, and Marlboro was the perfect environment to foster artistic passion and crystallize a creative vision."
Tim's acclaimed one-man show, A Fire as Bright as Heaven, is the culmination of several other works that he began writing while at Marlboro, during an exchange program in London that coincided with the 9/11 tragedy. A Fire premiered at the New York City International Fringe Festival to rave reviews and was awarded "Best Solo Performance" at the Dialogue ONE Solo Theatre Festival at Williams College. The play was nominated for a 2009 Kevin Kline Award for outstanding new play and published in Plays and Playwrights 2009.
In the meantime, Tim has also toured with improvisational comedy companies and taught acting and creative writing to children, adults and teens, including teens in prison, the subject of one of his new works in progress. "I'm also working on a show that addresses the issues of dating violence and sexual assault," he says. "A show that will really get at the way society conditions young men into behaving: the sort of internal script that boys have to wrestle with that may subconsciously limit their sense of self and the means by which they interact with the world."
"My Plan of Concentration was a profound life-question, a doorway to a larger reality of challenges, questions and limitless hope. That's the opportunity Marlboro provides, the chance to establish and construct this doorway that leads into a world of our own choosing, our own creative choices. I won't forget that."