{"id":919,"date":"2019-11-19T20:21:03","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T20:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/?p=919"},"modified":"2019-11-20T01:00:02","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T01:00:02","slug":"yes-and","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/yes-and\/","title":{"rendered":"“Yes, and…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_1242<\/a>Improv comedy relies on a central principle called \u201cyes, and\u201d<\/a> that dictates participants respond to new ideas or actions from their peers with the phrase, \u201cyes, and.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two actors are pantomiming a dinner scene when another walks on stage and asks whether his pet skunk is welcome in the restaurant. One of the diners reaches in his pocket and says, \u201cYes, and he\u2019ll get along great with my new pet tarantula!\u201d<\/p>\n

Christopher Plummer, \u201902, spent time in Chicago\u2019s famous improv schools after he left À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ with a theatre degree, but he said the \u201cyes, and\u201d rule meant even more when he returned home to Ontario, where he\u2019d grown up and earned his associate degree before transferring to EOU.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had the highest of highs and lowest of lows in my life after moving home to Ontario,\u201d he said. \u201cOntario had been a \u2018no, but\u2019 place in the past \u2014 my goal is to make it a \u2018yes, and\u2019 town.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after moving home to live with his grandmother, Plummer started dating a man who became controlling. The two broke up, but the man began stalking Plummer.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe came to my house, and basically he punched me in the face and split my lips, so I started to panic and then he pulled a gun on me and held me at gunpoint for five hours,\u201d Plummer said. \u201cI\u2019d never been through anything like that in my life. I come from a place of privilege where that doesn\u2019t usually happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plummer went to Project DOVE<\/a>, a nonprofit that provides services for domestic violence survivors, for a restraining order. After he told the advocate he was gay, Plummer said she went to work providing services.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey made space for me. They bent over backwards for me, and they saved my life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A new LGBTQI+ survivors group grew out of Plummer\u2019s experience. He said people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and other non-heterosexual orientations are often afraid to seek help for domestic violence and sexual assault. Plummer worked with DOVE staff to reach these communities in Ontario, the next closest one he found was in San Diego. He stayed on as a volunteer with DOVE and now serves as Outreach Advocate for the organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the work happened there, I got more keyed into the community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In the two years since the assault, Plummer has become a pillar of his community. He started a monthly LGBTQ brunch to create camaraderie among those who often feel lonely or unseen. He also initiated a fundraising campaign to replace the senior center\u2019s leaky roof. With fellow members of the Coalition for Ontario, he works to expand understanding and involvement in local civics, including volunteer and community improvement projects. Making use of his MFA, Plummer teaches improv classes to kids in the Latinx community. He also helped organize a city-wide Community Serve Day, when church-goers spend a day organizing the food pantry, painting a bridge or working in a garden.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I moved back, there were a lot of people who didn\u2019t have hope,\u201d Plummer said. \u201cMy friends and I wondered what could we do to give people a little bit of hope. It\u2019s fun to see, little by little, these pieces come together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1083\"In Chicago, Plummer had worked corporate jobs and participated in large protests, but he said the return to Eastern Oregon reaffirmed his commitment to family and positive action.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to be really critical and negative, and it led me down some pretty dark paths,\u201d he said. \u201cI just got tired of it and decided to focus on solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bitterness and anger he felt after attending demonstrations in Chicago didn\u2019t work in his rural town of less than 12,000 people. But his passion for affecting change found its perfect fit.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I learned from EOU, is that you can be in a small town and never, ever be bored. There are so many opportunities to be part of something.\u201d<\/div>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of need in Chicago, but it\u2019s hard to affect change you can see directly,\u201d Plummer said. \u201cIn Ontario, I can go and stand with seniors and say, \u2018You deserve a roof that doesn\u2019t leak in your food,\u2019 then you put the work in and they see the first couple thousand dollars come in. You can see that appreciation on their face and how they carry themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plummer said his 96-year-old grandma inspired the project. When his many commitments begin to seem like too much, he said living with and caring for her keeps him grounded in routine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI promised my grandma when I was 7 years old that she would never go to a nursing home, and I meant it,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery Friday we go to seniors\u2019 lunch, we watch movies and eat together, we go on long drives on Sundays and stop for ice cream or coffee. I have to protect that relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, he said his Saturdays keep filling up with new projects: a mud volleyball fundraiser for the Tri-County Anti-Trafficking Task Force<\/a>, or giving the local fire hydrants a fresh coat of paint.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I learned from EOU, is that you can be in a small town and never, ever be bored,\u201d he said, remembering his years on campus as a golden era when he came out for the first time and built close friendships. \u201cThere are so many opportunities to be part of something and help in Ontario. I came home to do good things in a community that gave me everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plummer said some of his friends from improv groups in Chicago are on Netflix now, and he\u2019s happy for them, but still feels he made the right choice in coming home to be with his grandma.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy family is everything to me,\u201d he said. \u201cI found that when I was onstage doing anything in Chicago I kept looking out for my family in the audience and they were never there. It was a hollow feeling, and it made what I was doing kind of ridiculous. I only have my grandmother for a certain amount of time, so I didn\u2019t want to miss out on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, and he found a way to keep making people smile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Improv comedy relies on a central principle called \u201cyes, and\u201d that dictates participants respond to new ideas or actions from their peers with the phrase, \u201cyes, and.\u201d Two actors are pantomiming a dinner scene when another walks on stage and asks whether his pet skunk is welcome in the restaurant. One of the diners reaches […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":380,"featured_media":924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,46],"tags":[23,30],"class_list":["post-919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-stories","category-fall-2019","tag-alumni","tag-transfer"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/380"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1026,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions\/1026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}