Meet: Alexi Sargeant
ALEXI SARGEANT is a writer, director, occasional actor and game designer living in New York City. www.alexisargeant.com
Catholic Artist Connection (CAC): What brought you to NYC, and where did you come from?
ALEXI SARGEANT (AS): I came here right after graduating Yale in 2015 to work at First Things as a junior fellow and assistant editor.
CAC: How do understand your vocation as a Catholic artist?
AS: I’d say my art is absolutely Catholic, though sometimes secretly. I certainly think of my work as a form of subcreation—collaborating with God’s creative power through the gift of being made in His creative image.
CAC: How can the artistic world be more welcoming to artists of faith?
AS: I think the arts, like all industries, should show reverence to God and respect to the people he created by allowing them a true Sabbath to rest and worship. This will require sacrifices on the part of theaters and other companies to accommodate the Sabbath obligations of Christians and other religious believers. We can set a good example in the companies or casts we run by honoring the Lord’s day and keeping it holy.
CAC: Where in NYC do you regularly find spiritual fulfillment?
AS: I’ve really appreciated the beauty of the liturgy at St. Vincent Ferrer, where I attend Mass and volunteer as an altar server.
CAC: Where in NYC do you regularly find artistic fulfillment?
AS: I’m on the advisory board of Turn to Flesh Productions. I also arrange play-readings in my home including, most recently, Measure for Measure on Mardi Gras (on the theory that Shakespeare’s Vienna is a city desperately in need of Lent).
CAC: How have you found or built community as a Catholic artist living in NYC?
AS: My wife, Leah Libresco Sargeant, is a community-building maven. Her book on the topic, Building The Benedict Option: A Guide to Gathering Two or Three Together in His Name, came out this August from Ignatius Press.
CAC: What is your daily spiritual practice?
AS: My wife and I pray together in the morning and at night. We schedule Quiet Nights each week and try to include praying Vespers.
CAC: Describe a recent day in which you were most completely living out your vocation as an artist.
AS: I got to see my play, Writing Stories for Children: OR, How to Give Birth to Gods, read by a talented cast in a Turn to Flesh-organized reading. The audience seemed very enthused, including by the outlandish stage directions, like the one calling for a wolf made of light to bound onto to the stage.
CAC: But seriously, how do you make a living in NYC?
AS: I’ve held a variety of jobs. For some time last spring, I worked as a tutor for a homeschooling family who live in the East Village. It is good work if you can get it, especially because helping young kids develop language arts skills is very rewarding.
Currently, I am working for a Catholic devotional publication, Magnificat, as assistant to the editor. It’s great to bring my editing skills to bear on my job again, and it’s wonderful to be involved with a publication that serves the spiritual lives of so many Catholics.
CAC: What other practical resources would you recommend to a Catholic artist living in NYC?
AS: The Performing Arts Library of Lincoln Center is a lovely place to read and study. Get a NYPL card!
