Max Kanter storms Midd theater

Author: Tess Russell

Given the unseasonably warm spells we have been experiencing at Middlebury this month, it is certainly a wise move to check the forecast before leaving your dorm. So when Max Kanter '10.5 told me that he was "obsessed" with www.weather.com, I immediately chimed in that I, too, was a frequent visitor to the site.

Kanter explained the fascination in a manner befitting his Geography major, remarking that the phenomenon of weather is just "so global."

"I usually check eight or nine different cities around the world at least a few times a day," Kanter said. "I also like to look at the Doppler readings and track the movement of thunderstorms. It's part of my regular routine at school - I'm on there way more than I'm on Facebook."

At which point I became both confused - I thought the Doppler effect had something to do with trains - and more than a little charmed. An idiosyncratic, Facebook-trumping fixation with something as seemingly mundane as the weather? I definitely had a true Campus Character on my hands.

The Scottsdale, Ariz. native's international worldview makes perfect sense, though, when you consider both his future plans - he hopes to study abroad in Cuba - and his past endeavors. When planning his "Febmester," Kanter shunned the "pay to volunteer" route in favor of a more meaningful experience and enlisted in the small-scale Voluntarious de la Esperanza (VE) project in Santiago.

VE is a student-run organization that operates a network of children's after-school enrichment programs for at-risk students living in some of the Chilean capital's most violent and drug-ridden neighborhoods. Small groups of four to five leaders teach workshops on social issues and also organize fun theatrical and artistic activities for the students - a perfect fit for Kanter, an active participant in the Middlebury College Musical Players (MCMP).

Kanter's skill as an entertainer comes out within moments of meeting him, whether in the simple act of mugging in his huge sunglasses - "I love them because they alienate people," he joked - or in his hilarious imitation of one of his fellow volunteers in Santiago, a fellow American whose Spanish left a lot to be desired.

"¿Chicos, como estan?" Kanter shrieked in an anglicized accent. "That was literally the only thing she could say. She was really neurotic and all of the kids were terrified of her."

One night, after many hours spent coordinating a soccer tournament for their students, Kanter awakened to find this housemate, sleeping inches away from him in a room "half the size of a Battell double," repeatedly poking him and whispering his name. When he finally asked her what the problem was, she pointed into the dark and swore that she saw a ghost - but not just any ghost.

"She insisted that she saw a male ghost, with his legs crossed, smoking in the corner of the room," Kanter recounted. "I mean, can you imagine that level of detail? How ridiculous! I was so tired that I just said, 'Wow, I see it too,' and went back to sleep."

Kanter's involvement with theater at Middlebury has been consistent, dating back to last year when he managed to convince his whole floor that he had been recruited as a starter to the varsity hockey team but quit to join MCMP. More recently, he lent his talents to this fall's ill-fated production of "Merrily We Roll Along," which was interrupted by a McCullough fire alarm on its last night, and has also signed on to choreograph and stage manage the upcoming musical adaptation of the famed anti-marijuana propaganda film "Reefer Madness." This coming weekend, he will play the strapping young sailor Anthony Hope in "Sweeney Todd" among "the best, most professional cast" of which he has ever been a part.

Perhaps it is partly this solidarity that attracted Kanter to theater in the first place. He praised the sense of community here as one of his favorite things about Middlebury, and gives back himself as a member of the SGA iversity Committee, even coordinating the College's first Privilege Week as an opportunity to create an open forum for the discussion of socioeconomic diversity on campus.

"When I visited here, it was that established, solid sense of community - which students really seemed to respect - that really sold me," Kanter said. "I also love Vermont, especially compared to where I'm from, where all the landscaping and architecture is so fake. People just aren't meant to live in the desert."

At which point he could not help but fill me in on the current temperatures in Arizona - 60s and sunny, in case you want to feel really depressed.