Letter of Application

Dr. Bubblicious and Members of the Search Committee:

I'm writing in response to the job posting for Associate Professor of Theatre at Northwest Middle Arkansas State A&M Technical College for the Criminally Deranged. I expect to receive my PhD in Theatre History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May of 2007, and I would make an excellent addition to your department's faculty. Oh, hell, who are we kidding here? I would be an addition that would require the creation of entirely new words, far beyond the paltry, mindless tripe of "excellent" and "well-qualified." I am in fact an elemental power in the theatre world, a dynamic whirlwind of life-changing genius, insight, and emotional depth. You want me. You know you do.

No, seriously, you need to stop looking at my letter of application that way. It's making me uncomfortable. I understand your deep-seated personal lust for my staggering intellect and mind-hurtling instructional abilities, but you must show some sense of decorum.

But I get where you're coming from. My directing experience is jaw-dropping. I've directed plays so moving that afterwards, people sat for eight straight hours in the darkened theatre, staring in awe at the empty stage. After seeing my production of Wee Willy Winky Goes to the Duck Farm in Buffalo, New York, one woman changed her name to "A Play Directed By Tyler Smith." I'm not making that up. I have attached a copy of her driver's license to this letter. Also, the Idaho State Home for Emotionally Destroyed Persons has a special wing dedicated to the catatonic audience members who saw my heart-wrenching staging of the Blotto Blottenstein trilogy, My Son is a Leper, My Son the Leper Has Been Hit By a Bus, and My Paralyzed Leper Son Will Not Even Give Me a Hug Anymore.

But really, my shining record as a director pales in comparison to my accomplishments as a teacher. Let's just consider a list of the students who have passed through the hallowed ranks of my various theatre classes: U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Brad Pitt's personal assistant, Socrates and Plato (I failed that moron Aristotle), Benjamin Franklin, William Shakespeare, Lando Calrissian, and of course, Bobby Renfield, the man who is widely credited with the invention of water. Through my rigorous curriculum of juggling, sandwich-making, and critically applied boomerang physics, I mold young minds in to the kind of slightly-older minds that will, someday soon or many many years ago, change the shape of our world as we know it.

Now, before you read further, Dr. B, stop for a minute. Take this letter of application, crease it sharply just below the previous paragraph, and tear along the crease. Now take the top half of the letter, set it on fire, and throw it away, because everything I've talked about up to this point doesn't even deserve to be written on the same piece of paper as my accomplishments as a scholar and historian. You've read my attached CV, so you know what I'm talking about, and I won't waste too much of your precious time on this subject. My nuanced re-examination of the cultural implications of the Ringtailed Lemur Repertory Theatre in Madagascar has revolutionized the entire field of live animal performances of Eugene O'Neill. Further, consider that my most recent book, A Complete Mathematical and Cultural Justification For Damn Near Everything has been read by literally every human on the planet, as well as numerous house pets, and we're talking about a work that only justifies damn near everything. Just think of the impact that subsequent volumes will have - volumes that can be published by your university, or by your university's arch rival, by whom I will surely be employed if you don't hire me as soon as possible.

So, to sum it up, I pretty much dominate space and time. The only question you might have, and I understand this, is which office at Northwest Middle Arkansas State A&M Technical College for the Criminally Deranged do I want? I want the one with the wet bar, jacuzzi and plasma TV. Make it happen. I'll see you next August.

Love,
Tyler