Last February Anne suggested that Hiram, Mom and I come see an original musical written by her college drama professor. “It’s based on the bad stories from the Bible,” she explained. “And it’s weird, edgy.”

She wasn’t kidding. The Northwestern College play, which is titled Terror Texts, was haunting, hard to watch, sad. It impressed me so much, I wrote about it in my March column in our church newsletter. I wasn’t the only one impressed by the show. A man from an organization that watches college shows, provided feedback to the cast. He suggested they resurrect the show in the fall and enter it in a national college contest. So they did. This fall, the new improved version of Terror Texts premiered and even garnered an AP story that ran in newspapers nationwide and on state television.  The article was positive and thought-provoking, but Anne says the college has gotten a lot of hate mail concerning it. She comes home tonight for Thanksgiving break, and I hope to learn more about the controversy.

But for now, I’m going to brag a little. When you read the AP story, pay particular attention to the description of the wedding dress. Anne, who works in the costume department, created the thing. She said it was really fun to spray paint it and then singe it. To think her maddening habit of  dressing her Barbie dolls in Kleenex years ago led to one of her creations being mentioned in an article that ran nationwide. That’s our Anne!

Hmm…come to think of it, before our Anne gets home tonight I need to hide the Barbie dolls and the Kleenex, and the spray paint and the matches and my wedding dress. It’s the price of creativity. Or maybe, it’s the price of college.