Patty Flanigan 38 Years
“Patty Flanigan taught me so much, but she also showed me who I was and gave me confidence to think that I was capable of doing amazing things. Patty inspired me, and every student, to be creative and to allow our hearts and minds to guide our actions.” Katherine Cummins ’06
Jay Bachemin
“Students flocked to Patty for many reasons, but among them was her willingness to treat fifteen-yearolds as nuanced, accountable, sovereign human beings, even on the days when we didn’t deserve it. We were fully-formed in her eyes, and we mattered. She honored the full range of our teenage needs, particularly the need to bear witness and create. To Patty, these were deadly serious activities, and I’ve carried that lesson with me for the rest of my life. I feel an obligation to testify and to do so in a way that will move and change large numbers of people. I believe that obligation was born on her stage.” Anne Morriss, Class of 1993
“So many of those students whose pictures hung on your walls continued on as actors or other members of the theater community, thanks to you. Those pictures made us feel like we were part of a very important fraternity, and it gives me the chills even to talk about it. But even those of us who did not end up in the theater still must credit you with our success. For me, the self-confidence, fearlessness, willingness to question authority, sense of adventure and sense of self all can be traced to my four years with you. “Thank you for pushing us beyond all of our limits, thank you for giving us a comfortable place to express ourselves as teenagers, thank you for giving us and teaching us tremendous responsibility as students, thank you for enabling us to experience every aspect of the profession and the craft, thank you for indulging and encouraging our dreams and passions and making us believe in ourselves, thank you for giving us the self-confidence and feeling of self-worth to be successful adults...” Elida Kamine, Class of 1999 “Patty was a huge inspiration to me and continues to be. Pretty much everything I hold of value today I started to learn from Patty Flanigan. [A few examples follow.] Art and the search for meaning improve all of us. It is the best we can do. Honor the last show by planning the next one. There are few things more gratifying than doing good, hard work. Every one of us brings something useful. You can do the extraordinary in a high school cafeteria with a bunch of teenagers and some black flats. Incredibly, she taught all of that by example.” David Humphreys, Class of 1983, Lifetime Patty Flanigan Fan Patty took great pride and joy in the performances of her students (in this case, the improvs of Performance Group).
“Over the 14 years since I left Seven Hills, I don’t think a month has gone by without a situation where I wondered what I would have done without what I learned from you. It goes so far beyond the theater. As you always said, plays are about people and their feelings. In the same way, theater skills are life skills, at least the way you taught them. Because of you, every time I have had a challenge to face, I have known how to calm myself and get ready to shine. ... I think most of the lessons and experiences I had with you in theater are so integral to my life and personality that I can’t separate them out specifically. Confidence and living big, consciousness and openness, how to connect more deeply, insistence on excellence, all of these things and so much more were built during those eleven plays over seven years.” Kirstin Weeks, Class of 1996 7