KU News Release

Graduation stories: KU student uses power of the theater to help change the world

Kate Giessel

LAWRENCE — You see, there was this cactus.

And in her 7-year-old brain, Kate Giessel knew something bad was going to happen to that cactus. She watched mesmerized, always mindful of the prickly succulent and its certain peril.

And even if that experience at the Larned Community Center was less than high art, the now-24-year-old Giessel recounts it as her first exposure to the power of theater — the power to capture the imagination, the power to illuminate, the power to make a difference.

“Ultimately, a good night of theater lasts more than just one night,” she said.

Giessel is preparing to leave the University of Kansas with bachelor’s degrees in theater and linguistics and a minor in Latin American studies. She has always loved language and even enjoyed diagramming sentences in grade school.

“Languages are living things,” she said. “What is fascinating are these strings of sounds that we’ve assigned meaning and what they say about us as a community.”

The combination of her majors came together this year as she took the helm of a one-act play, “Linguish.” The play was part of the 2008 Undergraduate Student One-Act Projects, presented by University Theatre and TCK Trust and Financial Advisors.

“Linguish,” set in a small room in which four strangers are in quarantine, looks at a fictitious disease that causes aphasia, the neurological condition that takes away a person’s ability to process language.

Giessel spent about 18 months researching the play, talking with advisers in theater, English and neurolinguistics. She wanted to be sure she directed an accurate and sensitive production, and her actors delivered heartfelt performances. But still she felt like her show lacked a sense of greater purpose — something to make it last beyond a single night at the theater.

Then, about two weeks before the play was set to open, a 22-year-old friend suffered a stroke and lost the ability to speak.

“When I heard about my friend, I suddenly had much more of a sense of urgency to do it right,” said Giessel.

At performances, she distributed information on stroke awareness. She knew this was her opportunity to make a difference. If someone who attended her show later remembered what he had learned, her work would have transcended a night’s entertainment.

“Even if there’s just one,” she said as her eyes welled with tears.

Although she isn’t sure of her long-range plans, her first stop after leaving KU will be the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Vienna, Va., where she will work to help the arts leave a light carbon footprint. Raised on a farm, she was taught to treat the Earth with respect.

No matter where life takes her, she likely will return to Kansas eventually.

“I love the Midwest. This is the land and the people who taught me everything I know.”

Giessel is the daughter of Tom and Sheryl Giessel and a graduate of Larned High School.

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