Spring Break
Things I've learned, with Prof. Marc Lapadula
Issue date: 11/8/07
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Perched above the Homewood campus in the Gilman bell tower, aspiring playwrights and screenwriters spend their Friday afternoons with Marc Lapadula. Lapadula sat down with the News-Letter to discuss his experiences as a student and a writer.
"In my childhood, Northern Virginia was far different from the place it is today. Now it's all McMansions on small plots of land. Back in the 1960s there were huge farms and dense forests, and the possibility of adventure existed in these areas that became limitless extensions of our backyards. In those days our parents didn't have tight leashes on us ... My early years definitely made me become more independent. I've been a wanderer for as long as I can remember. I've always enjoyed going on long walks and hikes. I love visiting new places. I get restless when I'm just sitting around planted somewhere for too long. I have to keep moving. I need the stimulation of meeting new people.
"My parents divorced when I was five or six. My father wasn't really around much once he moved out. We'd see him on Sundays for brunch. He was a trauma surgeon at Georgetown, and my brother and I would accompany him to the hospital after we ate as he performed his rounds with patients. We'd see all these tragically sad accident victims. One after another. Our brunch never got a chance to settle all that well in our stomachs. Some of his patients had gone through windshields or been stabbed in a domestic dispute. Still others had been badly burned in a fire or fell several feet after being electrocuted on long ladders during the construction of I-66 near our house. It was a lot to take in, but we stood dutifully in the background as he visited each one of these people. It was all quite moving. I saw physical and emotional suffering firsthand, and I was amazed at how calm my dad was throughout it all. Even if one of his patients suddenly went into a seizure (which happened one time), he was always cool and collected in medical emergencies. Non-medical emergencies were another story, however.
"In my childhood, Northern Virginia was far different from the place it is today. Now it's all McMansions on small plots of land. Back in the 1960s there were huge farms and dense forests, and the possibility of adventure existed in these areas that became limitless extensions of our backyards. In those days our parents didn't have tight leashes on us ... My early years definitely made me become more independent. I've been a wanderer for as long as I can remember. I've always enjoyed going on long walks and hikes. I love visiting new places. I get restless when I'm just sitting around planted somewhere for too long. I have to keep moving. I need the stimulation of meeting new people.
"My parents divorced when I was five or six. My father wasn't really around much once he moved out. We'd see him on Sundays for brunch. He was a trauma surgeon at Georgetown, and my brother and I would accompany him to the hospital after we ate as he performed his rounds with patients. We'd see all these tragically sad accident victims. One after another. Our brunch never got a chance to settle all that well in our stomachs. Some of his patients had gone through windshields or been stabbed in a domestic dispute. Still others had been badly burned in a fire or fell several feet after being electrocuted on long ladders during the construction of I-66 near our house. It was a lot to take in, but we stood dutifully in the background as he visited each one of these people. It was all quite moving. I saw physical and emotional suffering firsthand, and I was amazed at how calm my dad was throughout it all. Even if one of his patients suddenly went into a seizure (which happened one time), he was always cool and collected in medical emergencies. Non-medical emergencies were another story, however.
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