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"I'm a person to whom many things have come later in life," said Diane Coloton, a doctoral voice performance student at the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington. "I'm a late bloomer."
 Diane Coloton Coloton arrived back on the Bloomington campus with her beloved dog's ashes in tow. Now she's ready to perform her doctoral recital, a classical piece so difficult it's been done at IU only twice, and 'A Little Night Music.' Send in the clown. |
It seems fair to suggest that there are plenty of folks who might not consider moving from New York City into Eigenmann Hall to be a blossoming experience. Not so Coloton. For her, returning to IU, where she earned a bachelor's degree in piano performance 30 years ago last fall and a master's degree in voice, signified personal growth, new horizons. Even living in a dorm with fellow students young enough to be her children opened a door--to stand-up comedy.
"I registered for class two years ago on my birthday," said Coloton. "It felt great, despite the fact that I had to march out to the mall to get my first bifocals after filling out all the forms.
"I came back because I had done about all I could do as a performer. I got a fair amount of work as a singer and teacher in New York. I realized I was going to be 50 and doing this and that to get by in New York. I was a gifted musician, and I wanted to be a musician all day, every day. I thought, 'I can do this if I go back to school.'
"This sounds silly," she said. "I had been through a divorce, but it was really the death of my dog that freed me to return to Bloomington. Even he didn't need me anymore."
So, she left most of her possessions in New York, packed the belongings she needed to bring--including the ashes of her dog--and returned to Bloomington.
She found a lot of things to be different this time around. The student ID cards, for example. "You can bank with them, use them to pay for copies--they do everything for you but unhook your bra." Which brings us to stand-up comedy. At 46, she was a bit of a novelty in Eigenmann, but a popular one.
"The kids in the dorm would tell me, 'I just think you're awesome.' One young lady in particular laughed at everything I said. She got wind of a contest on campus and said, 'You've got to do this,'" said Coloton.
"I had so many things going on, but I told her I'd try to get stuff together. If it wrote itself, I'd do it. Sure enough, I sat down and it all came out, and I was terribly amused by some of my stuff.
"Most of the material was personal," she continued. "For example, after my divorce I had a couple of relationships with younger men. One of my jokes about dating young men was, 'When he was cutting his first teeth, I was cutting my first wedding cake,' that kind of thing. It tied up some loose ends for me, and while the kids laughed, I think women my age would find it even funnier."
Coloton, who won a Fullbright to Vienna and taught voice briefly at the University of Minnesota and the University of New York at Oswego, is an assistant instructor in the School of Music. She studies voice with Patricia Havranek and is working on a doctoral recital Friday, April 23 (8 p.m, Auer Hall). She'll sing Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire--a piece so difficult it's been done at IU only twice. She's also appearing as Desiree in Bloomington Music Works' production of Sondheim's A Little Night Music May 14, 21-22 at the Waldron Arts Center. She'll sing Send In the Clowns at one of the inaugural events of the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre Monday, April 26.
To those looking for new challenges, Colston said, "Be courageous. I admit my first night back in my dorm room with all my boxes and my dog's ashes in the tin, I sat and cried, 'What the hell did I do? Am I out of my mind?'
"But it's worth the risk. It's not that you are creating a different identity for yourself, but that you're finally arriving at where you are supposed to be."
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