A Final Piece of Art: Muscle Memories
I always knew what I wanted my thesis to be. I am a senior BFA Acting major with a double minor in Creative Writing and Psychology, and since I declared my major, I knew the project I would work on to complete it.
Starting in my senior year of high school, I began to create a book out of the collection of poems I had churned out over the years, and finished that book at the end of my second year of college. As a Creative Writing minor, I have always had a great love for writing, and so the idea to transform the poetry book into a play for my thesis seemed to come quite naturally, actually.
Muscle Memories is a play adaptation of the poetry book muscle memories, written by me, directed by me, and co-directed by Veronica Nardo ’26, who is also performing and choreographing in Muscle Memories as her thesis. The play follows Ovis as she is forced to relive her trauma by watching her younger self, Agnus, endure it for the first time. Ovis is caught in a toxic partnership with Deprimere (mental illness) and interferes as he tries to get his clutches on Agnus. Muscle Memories is about how mental illness is cyclical in nature and how there is a sick, twisted comfort that comes with being at your lowest, a comfort that comes with Deprimere. It’s also about fate versus free will. How much is in your control, especially when you are mentally ill? Are you doomed? It certainly feels like it. The play itself is cyclical in nature. The ending is reminiscent of the beginning, which coincides with Agnus reliving the piece. Agnus goes through the show experiencing everything for the first time, and by the end, she turns into Ovis, starting the show again as Ovis, in a disastrous loop.
This project feels like the perfect overlap of my major and two minors by getting to discuss mental health through the lens of creative writing and performance, and it feels like a culmination of what I have learned. Not only am I the author and director, but I also play Ovis and The Author, and work as the producer, and costume and makeup designer. As you can imagine, this show is not only a huge undertaking, but a lot to take in content-wise, but I cannot be more proud of the beautifully messy and grotesquely creative piece of art I have created with the cast and crew I have.
In the end, you still can’t save your younger self, stop the flow of time, or change your choices, but maybe you can heal the small piece of her that still lives in you.
Come see Zara Peters ’26 and Veronica Nardo’s Capstone Muscle Memories in The Little Theater on Thursday, April 23, at 8 p.m.
