Tonight Nancy Giles will talk.
Wednesday night, the actress, writer and TV personality did a lot of listening.
What is this arts village about, she inquired during a visit to the Bowling Green State University
residential community.
Michael Lee, a sophomore dance major, explained that the arts village allowed students interested in the
arts to live and study together, forming even deeper bonds. Not all arts major though as a show of hands
demonstrated.
An Oberlin College graduate, Giles told the 125 or so students gathered for her talk that "you are
getting all the things I didn’t get when I was in college. I’m a little jealous. I’m a little
resentful."
That feigned jealousy didn’t last long. As Giles spoke but also took every opportunity to elicit
students’ reactions.
When she mentioned that she had played viola, a couple students whooped. Told by one student that she was
setting her viola aside, Giles urged her not to. Giles if she still played she could work it into her
own performances.
An artist never knows what will eventually be useful. It could be playing the viola, or a required
science or economics course.
Giles told the students that she started out wanting to be an actor on a situation comedy. "The
black member of the Partridge Family."
But she also always wanted to write. She ended up with a degree in creative writing from Oberlin because
she couldn’t land parts in the school’s shows to qualify as a theater major.
In contrast to the openness students described on the BGSU campus as well as the arts village, Giles said
Oberlin when she attended 1977-81, was more fractionalized. There was the African Heritage House, the
Asian House, and the Women’s Collective.
"A lot of the comedy I do now," Giles said, "comes out of how separate and segregated the
campus at Oberlin was."
She did get to see a performance by the Second City comedy troupe from Chicago. "I’m as funny as
these babes," she thought.
So having graduated, she wrote a letter to the troupe pretending to be a manager pushing a rising star
comedian. She re-ceived a form letter back. But a few months later, a secretary remembered the letter
and contacted Giles about upcoming auditions.
At Second City she learned comic improvisation. Today on campus she’s teaching these improv methods at a
workshop for theater students as part of her day-long residency.
Giles’ visit will culminate with a public performance tonight at 8 in Kobacker Hall in the Moore Musical
Arts Center.
Learning these skills is important. "It opens a lot of doors." It taught her how to think on
her feet and developed confidence.
At Second City she did have to struggle with the misogyny and racism embedded in American comedy, often
finding herself working alone.
Later asked if she ever performed on Def Jam Comedy, she replied: "No, I wasn’t black enough."
But, she told students, such racial divisions are breaking down. "I’ve seen things change a lot.
Since the election of Barack Obama I’ve never seen so many commercials that are ethnically
diverse."
Her Second City experience helped launch a career that found her acting in movies including
"Big" and "True Crime" and on many TV shows, performing stand up comedy, delivering
commentaries on CBS and doing TV voiceovers.
"You’re watching the Food Network’s ‘In the Kitchen,’" she intoned for the students, who burst
into laughter and cheers.
"This can’t be my greatest achievement," she said.
Giles urged the students: "You must hang onto the idea of what you want to do right now. Just hang
on to the idea that there are a lot of ways to get to where you want to go, and there might be other
places to go."
Giles’ visit is part of the annual Hansen Musical Arts Series, sponsored by former BG resident DuWayne
and Dorothy Hansen.
After Giles presentation DuWayne Hansen said Giles’ advice and counsel delivered with warmth and humor
was just the kind of thing students should be hearing.
The series started in 2003 with an appearance of Sesame Street’s Bob McGrath and has included jazz
composer Terrence Blanchard and Harvard scholar Howard Gardner,
"Every year is different," Hansen said. Though he and his wife attend all the events during the
residencies, they don’t "meddle" in selecting the visitors, leaving that up to faculty and
students.
