In his first year in Waterville, Uri Lessing felt like an outsider. He was from the Midwest and couldn’t quite read Northeasterners. He struggled to get settled. He even reached a point when he talked to his wife—who, after getting a job as Mirken Director of Academic and Public Programs at the Colby Museum of Art, was the reason he ended up in Waterville—about moving away. But Lessing and his wife decided to stay, and he eventually began to find his place here, through his job and acting and film, among many things.
Possibly his most important role in the Waterville community is as a teacher; he has been teaching fifth grade here for years, and teaching in general for over two decades. He has a passion for his job and a talent for understanding children, one that began long ago. In a college psychology class, after a project focusing on developmental psychology in kids, his professor was very impressed by his skill in “finding insights in children.” Since then, he has worked in special education and at a youth shelter, which he found “immensely rewarding.” And now he teaches fifth graders at the Hall School in Waterville, an age he loves because it is a transition period, a time when kids are still open to and excited about learning, but are becoming more mature individuals. Lessing “like[s] to let [his] students learn about their own strengths and weaknesses, and then accomplish things.”
Despite the time and energy he puts in to teaching, Lessing’s involvement in Waterville is by no means limited to his job. He became a member of the board of the Maine Film Center, and says that after some time he “kind of fell into being president, which has been just tremendous fun.” He is still president today, continuing years of interest in film, a time which stretches back to well before his days as a film critic in Kansas City.
He has also acted in a number of productions at the Waterville Opera House, reviving a theatre career that had seemingly ended with a one-line role in a high school musical. When the Opera House put on a production of Spamalot, he decided he wanted to audition, just to “give it a try.” He got a fun part, loved it, and has been acting in the productions ever since. In early November his hair was still tinged green from his role as Frankenstein’s monster in Young Frankenstein.
Lessing loves acting in the productions because he values “creating together.” As opposed to passive forms of entertainment, in acting, he can be involved. He’s excited to be outside of his comfort zone, excited to be a part of something creative, something made by a community, however big or small. This is the attitude, it seems, he takes in all parts of his life. Whether it’s in the fifth grade classroom, at the Maine Film Center, or at the Waterville Opera House, Uri Lessing always seems to be creating. He’s created an exciting learning environment for fifth graders, countless productions at the Waterville Opera House, and a place for himself in a town that for a while he thought he could never fit in to.