A Cast of Leaders

In Swan Lake, the prince falls in love with a swan who is transformed into human form. Odette, as she is called, is ultimately betrayed by the prince and must become a swan once more. By tradition, each choreographer rewrites the end of the ballet. In some versions, Odette dies. In others, both of the lovers commit suicide. In the production that the students are seeing tonight, Odette bids her prince good-bye and gently drifts away, sur les pointes, as the other swans engulf her. It is not clear whether she is ascending to some sort of swan heaven, is rejoining the swans as their leader, or is doomed forever just to be part of the flock. The ballet ends unresolved, leaving the prince onstage alone.

At the New York State Theater, in Lincoln Center, the students stand in front of the marquee with the sadness of friends who realize that tomorrow they will not see the faces that they’ve been looking at for the past four months. All told, the students have seen 32 plays, 6 musicals, 19 operas, and 9 ballets. They have encountered the equivalent of a combined cast of thousands. Yet the most memorable characters that they've met are not the ones that they've seen onstage but the fellow students whom they've been sitting next to.

"To me," says Elias, "this has all been about working with people you love to be with, and about the extent to which you can make that your model of how you operate."

They make their final good-byes to one another and to Bruce Payne, and then drift off into the night. Instead of ascending to swan heaven, they descend into the subway.

For the Duke students, the semester -- their personal Act One -- is over. Now they must become artists of their own lives.

Stevan Alburty (alburty@earthlink.net), a freelance writer and technology consultant, lives in New York City. He spent his formative years acting and directing in community theater. You can contact Bruce Payne at Duke by email (payne@pps.duke.edu).