The Minneapolis Star Tribune recently published an article about the life and career of Phil Adamo, professor of history at Augsburg College and 2015 .

The article focuses on Adamo’s engaging approach to teaching history and his personal history with academia. As a young man, he decided to forgo a college education in favor of a career as a clown with the Ringling Bros. Circus. Eventually, the constant demands of performance wore him down. “I was exhausted by performing so much, and I started to think that I wasn’t funny,” he said. “That’s a bad thing for a clown.”

Returning from the circus, he enrolled as a medieval studies major at Ohio State University, where a senior project involving a summer in a monastery led to an award-winning dissertation and propelled him toward a career in academia.

The article also depicts Adamo as an ardent supporter of having a liberal arts education, which he says “gives the benefit of having a better life, a more interesting life, a better understanding of who you are as a human.”

Read Augsburg professor left circus to bring history to life on the Star Tribune site.

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The festival, now in its 17th year, the Minnesota Fringe Festival includes 168 shows from a variety of different artists, and all shows are selected at random. This year, the festival features Levi Morris ’10 in Son of a ____! (that is the actual title, read about it in the StarTribune), Amber Davis ’09 with Savage Umbrella in Ex-Gays, and Miller’s show, Even the Gods Dream, which she wrote, directed, designed, and stars in as Boann, the Water Spirit.

Shows run August 4-14 in venues in Uptown, Downtown, the West Bank (including two stages at Augsburg College), and in St. Paul.

We asked Miller about Even the Gods Dream and her role in it. Congratulations on getting into the festival Molly, and break a leg!

AC. Ok, I can read what your show is about on the Fringe site, but will you tell me in your own words about it?

MM. Even the Gods Dream is a story about the consequences of change and what it means to be alone. Boann, a water spirit, comes from a long line of princely figures. Her paternal relatives are all well remembered in stories and legends, while she herself is married to a prominent figure of society. Like her mother, and her maternal line before her, Boann is expected to live in the shadow of her husband and her male relatives. However, she is discontent with her role and frightened by the fact that her husband is distant and seemingly uncaring. So Boann searches for a way to change her status and ends up upsetting the magic which holds the world together and initiating a series of relationships which explore the depth of loneliness, the need for intimacy, and the power of lust.

AC. Where did you get the idea for this story? Is it based on the myth?

MM. Boann, as a character, has been swimming in my head for some time, unrealized. She makes her appearance into my art and poetry every now and again, but it wasn’t until last summer when I discovered her story and everything fell into place. The play is based on a series of myths surrounding the birth of Aengus, the Celtic god of dreams, who was said to be begotten and born in one night. The original source material for these myths, however, are widely varied and do not focus much attention on Boann. So, to bridge the gaps between the stories, I added a few dreams of my own.

Now, even though this play was based on mythology, and it does contain some mythical elements, it is not your average mythic play. The characters in Even the Gods Dream are not meant to be heroes or villains and the choices they make are neither good nor bad. The characters act in their nature. It is the nature of a water spirit to want to move. It is the nature of the High King to expect submission. And it is the interactions of these natures that initiate everything in this play. Any change or behavior is started from natural, rather than moral, character and yields both positive and negative results, shaping the world from antiquity into what it is today.

AC. Did you write this while you were in school?

MM. I did. I started working on the script late last summer and worked on it with vigor throughout the school year. In the fall I took a class with John Harkness called “The Medieval World.” The class focused mainly on medieval literature and mythology from Norse, Anglo, and Celtic societies and, for my final project, I worked on this script. After the class was over, I continued to edit and develop the script. A script is never completed, in my mind, it continues to change and shift throughout the production process, and sometimes afterward. I fully intend to keep working on this script, expanding it into a full-length production.

AC. How was the show selected for the Fringe festival? Is this the premiere?

MM. The Minnesota Fringe Festival is set up by lottery. All artists interested in producing a show submit an application early in the year and, in December, a drawing is held. They randomly select shows via ping-pong balls with show numbers sharpie-markered onto them until all the venues are filled. The rest of the shows are placed on a waiting list and, if shows drop out, the producers are contacted and offered a place in the festival. In December I was placed on the waiting list and, in the middle of July I was contacted and offered a spot. It has been a mad rush ever since.

This is the shows’ premiere. It has never been performed before. Looking back, it is a very young script. Usually scripts are a little more mature (having been revised and worked several times) before being put onto a stage.

AC. Who is in the cast and crew with you?

MM. There were five of us intricately involved in this process. Tony Carlson, who is a recent graduate of the Perpich Center for Arts Education and a future student of the Eugene Lang College in NYC, was the choreographer for the show and my major support during all of this. He does fantastic work and I honestly can say I could not have gotten this far without him. My actors include myself; my brother, Tristan Miller (future student of the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts); Miles Neuvirth (co-founder and playwright for the WayWord Wordsmiths Theatre Company); and Hillary Hanson (currently attending the University of Minnesota in Rochester, Minn.).

Along with our core group, several others have made contributions to our project: Chris Rueber has been an unending source of support and has advised me throughout this whole process, Rae Jacobs has been my costume consultant, Vika Ishchuk has photographed and videotaped rehearsals for our records and has helped with publicity, and Vicki Joan Keck has also helped with publicity and postcard printing.

AC. Anything else?

MM. Come see the show!

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But Josh Davis’ project isn’t like most. For more than two years, Davis has spent the vast majority of his free time working to construct a full suit of armor. Based on armor of the late 1400s, Davis’ work is currently on display on the Link Level of Lindell Library.

On Thursday, Davis, a senior who will graduate with a degree in medieval studies, will don the suit and put on a demonstration on the green space between Lindell Library and Oren Gateway Center. The 3:30 p.m., presentation entitled “How to Arm a Knight” is part of the two days of Zyzzogeton, which celebrates the creativity and scholarships of undergraduate students.

“I want to clear up the myths about armor,” Davis said. “It’s not that restrictive. It’s not that heavy. I just want to clear up the misconceptions.”

Davis became interested in medieval studies after arriving at Augsburg. He secured a part-time job at Arms and Armor, a company located just north of Dinkytown which produces historically accurate items, and started making armor.

After making a half suit of armor, Davis began work on the recently completed suit. He began the project in the fall of 2007 and finally completed it in the past 10 days. To call it a labor intensive process would be an understatement. After originally keeping track of the time he spent on the project, Davis stopped when he reached 1,000 hours, a mark that is the equivalent of 25 weeks of 8-hour work days.

“Basically it was three years of my social life,” Davis said. “It was a lot of late nights, overnights, whenever I had time. But it was what I loved to do. It was a release, it was relaxing, trying to see a shape in your head and then make it.

The suit is made out of sheet steel of varying thickness. It includes 20 individual pieces that fit like a puzzle to form the complete armor. Many of those pieces, however, are made of a number of smaller pieces of steel that were riveted together. Each leg, for example, is made up of what had been 13 separate pieces of steel, many of which were place on top of each other to increase strength.

Building the suit required Davis to shape the steel with a hammer—pounding heated steel over or into a form to produce the required curves – while using a pattern developed so it would still fit him. Davis also made each of the buckles and straps on the suit.

“The hardest part is finishing it,” Davis said. “I can rough out a form in an hour or two, but fine-tuning it, sanding out the hammer marks and making the hinges and buckles took a long time.”

In addition to historical texts, Davis based his suit on what he saw in England while studying abroad during the fall semester. After spending August in an international summer program on war and society in the middle ages, Davis spent the semester at Oxford. On weekends, he supplemented his knowledge through trips to museums and time spent with medieval enthusiasts.

That time helped Davis refine his armor and he said that he feels much better about the final product, especially the legs.

Davis said he hopes to make another set of armor for himself, this one out of spring steel, a metal that is more durable. In addition, he would like to find a way to make a career out of armor construction.

“I love to do this,” he said.

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of 2006 as part of the History 440: Religious Experience in Medieval

France course. He reflects on the experience:

“It is hard to convey in words my experiences during three weeks in France, walking a medieval pilgrimage, praying in a cathedral, studying as monks did in the twelfth century – especially since I did these things in the twenty-first century.

Upon arrival, I still carried a remnant of the United States in my head. This doesn’t surprise me at all, but what does surprise me is how quickly my modern sense of time and lifestyle left once we started the pilgrimage.”

Pilgrims in the Middle Ages walked the very same trail we did with intentions of making right in God’s eyes their sins and transgressions. As I took the first few steps on the very same trail, with a loaf of bread in hand and the bitter taste of coffee still in the back of my throat, my mind was far from reconciliation in any spiritual sense. I was simply in France to experience the country in a way that few tourists get to. I had no intention of suffering for the sake of my sins, or undertaking a path towards fulfillment. How quickly that changed.

Before the first day was over, I grew resentful of my fellow students on the trip. It’s hard to spend long hours under stressful conditions (hiking!), with the same group of people, no matter how much you like them. I began to understand the chronicles we’d read of pilgrims who wandered solo. The rocky terrain grew troublesome on my feet and gave me blisters. The sun caused me to sweat, which in turn made the clothes I wore stick to me in uncomfortable ways. My pride kept me going the first day without complain, as did the experience of new terrain, queer landscapes, and the strange botanical formations that sprung up at every bend in the trail.

By the end of the first day on our pilgrimage I had found myself a decent walking stick. To the pilgrims in the twelfth century the stick symbolized more than a physical tool necessary to complete a long trek. It became an extension of the Trinity in each pilgrim (two legs of the pilgrim, plus the walking stick equals three “legs” of the Trinity). It was their crutch in times of need, especially when the struggle made them question their choice to undertake the pilgrimage in the first place. I only say this because not having a good walking stick made the trek more burdensome than it needed to be. I mean this in more than a physical manner. Walking the trail was fine enough without a stick, but it left my mind free to wander because I had nothing to do with my hands. Yet every time I’d find a stick, I would soon grow weary of its little defects, and abandon one stick for another one that I thought would suit me better. Somehow, finding the right stick grounded me.

Each day I struggled to hold my anger to a suitable level. I even grew weary of my best friends on the pilgrimage. It was not until I entered a certain mental state, which St. Benedict addresses in the first word of his book, that I was able to experience the pilgrim’s route with a newfound calm. I began to listen. That’s the first word in the Rule: “Listen!” It started with my footsteps and the footsteps of those nearest me. The rustling of my fellow pilgrims, their voices added to the voices of animals we encountered along the way. Listening to the outside world made me more aware of the inside world, and I began to listen to myself. Thoughts gave way to feelings.

Emotionally, I’ve had a lot going on for the past few months. Our third night on the pilgrimage, I discovered a piece of myself that I had thought lost to spiritual stagnation. I discovered, invariably, that by listening I was enlightened to a bit of my own inner stuff. As I dealt with sore blisters, pummeled pride, and temptation, I think I felt what medieval pilgrims must have felt. And I also started to understand the reason St. Benedict (and also my professor in the course) stressed the word ‘Listen’ so heavily. Passing parts of the journey in silence forced me to be open with my experiences, externally and internally. By the time we reached Conques, our final destination, my emotions had leveled. I had listened to myself, until the monotonous walking eroded my inner turmoil.

Of the three weeks I spent in France learning about medieval religious life, I discovered many new ways of thinking and learned of many interesting customs from the Middle Ages, that I never thought could have meaning in my own life. I’m happy I took the trip, and feel as if a piece of history, that I’d previously only read or heard about, had some sort of an impact on my life, much more than any text book ever did.

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