My Name Is Jess(ica)

We invite you to contribute to this blog by telling us what your name is. Tell us at contact@emigranttheater.org, and join our conversation. Jessica Finney, who directs My Name Is Rachel Corrie, tells us her name(s).

“Hi, I’m Jess.”

“Hello, my name is Jessica.”

Sometimes I don’t know which I’m going to say until it has already come out of my mouth. To be sure, I was born Jessica Diane Finney 30 years ago this past July. Most of my family calls me Jessica. Most of my friends call me Jess. Sometimes I prefer one or the other, but mostly I’m fine with both. I’m a chameleon. I adapt to whatever situation is in front of me. Just don’t call me Jesse; for some reason that rubs me the wrong way.

I am fascinated with the gray area that is life. I’m always pondering the big questions and tend to get caught up in the minutia of the smaller questions as well. I approach life with the curiosity of a child. I am easily overwhelmed by emotion. Sometimes I put myself down for being so “emotional.” Sometimes I am in awe of how deeply I feel. And even though I sometimes search for definition in my personal life and work, I am inherently grateful to have the opportunity to embrace this beautifully confusing shade of gray.

Rachel Corrie and I were born in the same year, only months apart. When I turned 30 a month ago, I began to wonder what Rachel would have been like had she made it to see this year in her life. Would her idealism have stayed intact? Would she still be involved in activism? Would she look back on some of her writings and shake her head in disbelief at the thought that her parents had published them? Like me, Rachel felt. Deeply. Like Rachel, I want to make a difference. Countless others share our connections.

I chose my college and started my higher education with the express intent of graduating with a degree in International Studies with a concentration on Africa so that I could join the Peace Corps and head to West Africa to teach HIV/AIDS awareness. I signed up for French class to help me on my way. I auditioned for a play because a sweet boy in my orientation group was going to and I thought, “Oh, that might be fun.” I got cast (he didn’t), and the rest is, as they say, history.

Theater, for me, is a laboratory for the perpetual student. My curiosity is rewarded with discoveries and connections between actor and audience. My aim in all the plays I direct is to spark dialogue: in the rehearsal room, in the theater, in the car on the ride home from the play, in a personal revelation months or years down the road. Sometimes I can realize those aims directly— I overhear the dialogue as patrons file out of the theater or people tell me about their revelations later. But most of the time I am left in the gray area, curiously hoping. I hope that you will embrace the gray with me, not searching so ardently to define life in black and white.

And you can call me Jess. Or Jessica.