Interviews have been edited, condensed and arranged by topic to allow a coherent story to emerge.

DAVID WEXLER (show creator, writer, producer): My only regret is that we weren’t renewed. I think it would have been really cool to follow them for four years. If there’s any project that I think about what it could have been — I think the first year was great. I think we could have had three more of them. So that’s my only regret.

JORDAN ELLERMAN (cast member): That’s a tough one. See I don’t know. The thing is, I think I would just because it hasn’t been a big deal in my life since. There hasn’t been long lasting repercussions from me doing the show. And it did help me out a lot — I was able to pay for an entire semester’s tuition, and I was able to pay for my rent. Just on money basis alone I’d say I’d do it again.

DAVID WEXLER: We were really one episode away from, if we had one more strong performance that we would have been renewed. And I think if it was renewed it would have opened up more communication, and it would have been all it could have been.

ANDREA ENDRIES (cast member): You know, that’s really hard to say, because I think that everything happens for a reason. The way that my faith is, I know that God had that show happen for a reason, I know that it taught me things. … I got tons and tons of messages, like, for two years, from people asking questions about faith and asking questions about how I was saving myself for marriage. … I know that there was a reason for it, but at the same time I don’t think I could be a part of that world right now where I am.

DAVID WEXLER: There were two camps. One was really interested in taking it to the University of Arizona, the next school, whatever school it was. I loved the idea of following them until they graduated. I thought that would have been a beautiful piece of television, and that would have been really exciting to me. I think people would have begun to get it more, that this is about the characters, the relationship problems, their family problems, their school problems.

TRICIA DICKINSON (UW marketing director): We understand now how to advise students for opportunities for reality shows and we have had several requests since that show. We also understand our interest in getting involved with reality shows as a campus, which is negligible. It’s not something we’re interested in.

LOREEN STEVENS (independently contracted casting director): I’d be very interested to see, are they graduating now? How are they doing? I’ve had people say to me, “Oh, I wish they’d have a reunion, I want to see where they are now.”

DAVID WEXLER: I think there’s a nice arc in the first season with Kevin, even. I think he’s a bit of a partier and then he gets his act together, if I remember correctly, and starts doing really well in school and stuff like that. That really interests me. And then, you can see — imagine when he starts sophomore year.

RYAN RAINEY (incoming Badger Herald editor-in-chief), in a 2010 Badger Herald news article: One of the stars of MTV’s “College Life,” the infamous Kevin Tracy, was one of three University of Wisconisn students whose North Brooks Street party was busted Sept. 11 [2010] by UW police. The fine? A whopping $86,000. Tracy, along with roommates Travis Ludy and Mitchel Klatt, hosted a house party which, according to an MPD report, attracted over 200 people.

TRICIA DICKINSON: Just think about what this is putting out there about yourself, if that’s the way you want to be known not only as a student, but in your life beyond UW-Madison. This stuff, once it’s on film, tends to live on.

COLIN SCHMIDT, in a comment on Jason Smathers’ 2009 review: Good luck to the freshman on the show, you are brave, can’t wait to see you in 4 years.

JORDAN ELLERMAN: I’m still in Madison. I took my first year at UW, and then I took a year off with the intention of getting in-state tuition. But I couldn’t find work for the first few months, and … I had to make a decision, like, should I go back to school, or should I wait another six months to be able to get in-state tuition and go to UW. So I decided to go to Madison Media Institute. I’d been thinking about it when I looked at UW, and it’s — my two passions are writing and music. I did creative writing at UW, and I’m doing music at Madison Media Institute.

ANDREA ENDRIES: I wanted to be a sports broadcaster. I was getting my, you know, my videos put together, I was doing interviews, everything was going exactly the way I wanted it to go, just as planned. But while I was down in Florida, … God tried to ask me, “Are you doing everything you’re doing for you, or for my blood,” for God’s plan or my own. … And who knows, God might take me back there once I do this for a while, but as of right now I decided to go full time into ministry [for qlp.tv]. … I’m living currently down in Nashville, Tenn. … But I tell everybody down here, I’m like, I’m always a Badger, no matter what.

JORDAN ELLERMAN: I don’t see anyone from the show anymore. There were two web people, who were web. They were on webisodes that never got aired. That was Dan and Anna. Dan I still see, we party, we go to the bars. I did a little production [under the name DJ Umi], and he raps, so I was making beats for him and stuff.

ANDREA ENDRIES: Besides Josh (now working as an engineer in the west suburbs of Chicago), I really haven’t seen them — I mean we’re Facebook friends. There was one, Anna, who I don’t know if you’re aware of, she did some of the web stuff, but she was killed in a car accident.

JORDAN ELLERMAN: Anna was probably the person on the show that I was closest to, and she actually passed away. She was my closest friend on the show and I hung out with her a lot, especially during filming. You can actually see her in a lot of my footage.

ANDREA ENDRIES: I look at the MTV world as like this little bubble, so I can’t believe I was there. But I wouldn’t want to be there now.

DAVID WEXLER: I don’t think we could have done anything differently, it was just too bad. So. I think it could have been a really big, a really important piece of TV if it went on for four years. I think everyone would have finally gotten it and it would have been something very interesting.

(Updated May 11, 2012 at 9:05 a.m.)

The following ArtsEtc. Seniors created this project

Sam Berg is an ArtsEtc. Reporter. He was Space Ghost at the 2008 Freakfest and is graduating with a degree in English.

Holly Hartung wrote for Arts Etc as a reporter and Dairyland Down-low columnist. Freshman year she thought College was her favorite study spot until she realized she had actually been at the Historical Library. She is graduating and moving to Berlin this summer to journalize, German style.

Katie Foran-McHale is an outgoing Arts Etc. Staff Writer. She lived in Chadbourne as a freshman in 2007-08 and will graduate next week with a degree in journalism, communication arts and music performance.

Joe Nistler is the incoming ArtsEtc. Content Editor. He lived in Sellery, the heart of College Life country, as a freshman in 2008-09 and will be finishing up in fall 2012 with journalism and Italian degrees.

Lin Weeks is the outgoing ArtsEtc. Editor. He lived in Bradley Learning Community as a freshman in 2008-09 and will graduate next week with a degree in economics.

The show starts in less than three minutes. They raise the small cups. Tilting their heads back, the liquid cascades down their throats. It sinks into the dark.

Suddenly, stage lights glow, amps crackle and as the fermented fog clears, the four find themselves standing in position inside a music hall. The audience is intently watching, so they begin.

Spicer, Basque, Digras and Woody comprise the Canadian rock band Plants and Animals. Currently on tour in the United States and Canada, they will be performing in Madison on Saturday.

Ten years ago, Plants and Animals released its first eponymously titled EP. Three more records followed. One of them, Parc Avenue (2008) was twice nominated for the prestigious Canadian Juno Award in addition to the Polaris Music Prize. The band has headlined for handfuls of artists, including Gnarls Barkley, Grizzly Bear and The National. Saturday’s show will debut songs from the band’s new album, The End of That (2012).

“It’s been really fun,” Basque said. “The tour has been the first time we tour with a bass player. We usually tour as a three-piece. So it’s exciting.”

Basque is Plants and Animals’ guitarist. He sees himself as having a “melodic role” while the band composes new music.

“Warren (Spicer) often comes with the blueprints of the songs, and I always try to think about how we can color it or make it sound modern, but at the same time add special color to it — a special quality,” Basque said.

By modulating elements like delay and reverb, Basque helps the group find texture in its music. “Warren often says ‘Put some sauce on that,'" Basque said.

Plants and Animals has its origins at Montreal’s Concordia University, where Basque studied jazz guitar and composition.

“For five years I played with this weird, experimental orchestra. It’s like a big band: four trumpets, four trombones, four sax, guitars, bass. And we were playing modern composition by local composers,” Basque said.

At the same time as Basque, Spicer also was studying at Concordia. Their paths eventually crossed through mutual jazz circles.

“We liked the same music, so we started hanging out and playing guitar together,” Basque said. “We started playing each other's compositions.”

Thereafter, Basque performed with Spicer and Woody, who had already been jamming together in their own ensemble. Together, the trio composed the tracks that became Plants and Animals' first EP.

“At the time, it was halfway between rock music and jazz. And it was instrumental,” Basque said.

Basque’s background in experimental music helped influence Plants and Animals’ style. While the band is often associated with classic rock, the three prefer the label “post-classic.”

Plants and Animals’ latest release, The End of That, makes extensive use of bass, played by Digras. Basque thinks including the bass has helped draw attention to each band member, not just the novelty of having a new bassist.

“It’s a record where we wanted all the individuals in there,” Basque said. “It works as a whole, but you can also listen to just one. … You can recognize the people playing. That was something that we were after with (this) record.”

Another feature of the album is its introspective lyrics, sung in Spicer’s country vibrato. At times, the melodies feel amusing. At other times, haunting.

“It seems obvious for a singer to try to make an emotion. But I think the thing with Warren (Spicer) — he can bring people together with his voice. I think he wrote lyrics that were really direct and easy to catch on right away,” Basque said. “There is more meaning to it than what’s already there.”

Basque says concert attendees should expect something that is both “sad and edgy” yet “laid-back and easygoing.” Like “Baudelaire,” he joked.

Plants and Animals will perform at The Frequency this Sat., May 12.

JASON SMATHERS (Badger Herald Editorial Board chairman in spring 2009), in a review of the show: Hey, do you want to know what college is like? What’s that? You say you’re a high school student who forgot what school you applied to after Spencer’s latest blowout with Heidi wiped your mind of all memories in the last week? Hmm. Well, do you want to ride on the fumes of a Midwest-based “Hills” with fairly boring people and “Cloverfield” with keg stands camerawork? Yeah, I don’t really either.

DAVID WEXLER (show creator, writer, producer): Once I realized I wanted to do this real reality, I thought: Why have professional cameramen film it? Why have the network tell the story they want to tell? Why not have real stories with real kids?

LOREEN STEVENS (independently contracted casting director): I just didn’t — for me, I just didn’t know if it might have been a little too ahead of its time to give the kids their own camera. … When I have people send in videos, I ask them, “Were you jumping on a trampoline when you took that video? Because part of taking a video is holding the camera steady.” … Holding a camera, learning how to frame your shot, figuring out lighting, it’s not something you give a kid and say, “Hey, go do this.”

DAVID WEXLER: For critics, it actually was kind of a critical hit immediately. It was a relatively cheap show to produce, and we had a lot of viewers, so that’s a hit in many respects.

ALEX WEPRIN (broadcastingcable.com), in an April 2009 blog post: The series premiere of “College Life” on MTV delivered a 1.18 rating in the network’s target P12-34 demo and 1.16 million total viewers Monday night, according to Nielsen live plus same day data. That is up slightly from the last major series launch in that timeslot, “Run’s House” spinoff “Daddy’s Girls,” which debuted Jan. 5 to a 1.15 rating. … “College Life” is also a much cheaper series to produce than “Daddy’s Girls” as it does not use an expensive camera crew or feature a cast that is already known to viewers.

SUE WITTHUHN (mother of a 2008 UW freshman): As a parent, you’re kind of looking at it as a disappointment because you’re hoping your kids are there having a lot more positive experiences — not just positive, but more experience that would be of value since you’re paying all this money for them to go there.

HANNAH CURLEY: (senior in high school class of 2009): I didn’t love it! I was watching it with my two friends and they were going to Georgetown and Gonzaga, and they just made fun of me for coming here. I thought [the show] made it seem like such a joke at UW-Madison. The people in it seemed petty and like they didn’t care about anything.

JOSH HICKSON (cast member): When I would go out or something a guy would say “Oh, you’re the guy from ‘College Life’” and say something dumb every once in a while. But no one ever really got in my face about it. Someone may be a hater out there somewhere.

HANNAH CURLEY: I never met anyone [in the cast] officially. I think I saw one of the girls freshman year and we tried to talk to her, and she wasn’t havin’ it.

KYRA SHISHIKO (2008 UW freshman): [Jordan and I were] chilling on someone’s porch, and he’s just like “I’m so sick of talking about ‘College Life’ with people,’” but you could tell he kind of liked it. But for whatever reason, I just thought that whether it would boost his ego or whether it would annoy him, I never wanted to mention it. So we hung out a few times, and I don’t think we ever mentioned it or brought it up.

JORDAN ELLERMAN (cast member): Especially on the weekends when people were drunk. It was — I don’t get recognized anymore. Like, very rarely. Very rarely. And I’ve never been recognized anywhere else. Maybe one other spot besides Madison. But mainly on campus, I definitely had to deal with drunk people coming up to me asking about that. Sometimes I had enough patience and I’m in a good enough mood to talk about it, and sometimes I’d completely blow people off.

ANDREA ENDRIES (cast member): People were more easy going about it than you’d think because they didn’t know really what was going on. … We were still finishing filming while they started airing the first episode. And once that happened, that was really hard because then everybody knew, you couldn’t go anywhere without someone recognizing who you are and what you’re filming, and you have some yelling “Oh, there’s the camera!” and then people are trying to get in it, or they’re trying to push you out.

JOSH HICKSON: A lot of [my friends] thought it was cool to be on the show, but a lot of them also were like “I can’t let my personal life out to everyone in America to watch it.”

JORDAN ELLERMAN: My friends from home, I had to hear about it from them. Usually it was them making fun of me because the show, the footage I turned in doesn’t really represent me very well as a person. … As far as my friends from Madison go, they were involved from the get-go, so it was nothing new to them when the episodes started airing and stuff. None of my friends cared either way. They were really great.

JASON SMATHERS: No one really cared about the thing other than Kevin Tracy.

LOREEN STEVENS: I liked Kevin and Jordan. … I guess because I’m much older and they kind of represented people who had a real story, and just, something that you want to tune into. The whole key is to have something that you want to find out what happens next. I think Kevin is a very smart kid who does the typical things that kids do when they’re away from their parents for the first time, so that just felt relatable to me.

JOSH HICKSON: I would say Kevin’s story with the alcohol and bad grades and stuff is pretty bad-looking on UW. But if they would have let us film at UW, we could do the football experience and like all the game day stuff, and people actually studying for finals in the right location compared to some random library.

LOREEN STEVENS: In some ways I feel like Jordan was the most relatable, if not for the timing of the — you know, he was kind of an artist, sensitive. Kevin kind of fit the party-boy. And the two women, I don’t know if I — just in terms of relatability, I would say that the guys seemed more relatable, but that’s just me.

ANONYMOUS (comment on Jason Smathers’ review): “College Life” had the potential to be a successful and relatable program for students all over the country from various institutions, but MTV definitely blew it. … However, I would watch Kevin Tracy all day. … I think he’s hilarious.

JASON SMATHERS: A lot of people as freshmen especially go in there trying to essentially destroy their high school personalities. That’s what it is; it’s a scorched Earth campaign against the high school me.

ANONYMOUS (comment on Jason Smathers’ review): As a teacher of Kevin Tracy, I am so embarrassed for him. His mom must be mortified.

JORDAN ELLERMAN: Kevin, I used to hang out with a lot, probably the most. … He’s a lot of fun, like, he’s a nice — he’s a really nice guy, if he likes you and if he’s your friend. But if not, I mean, he’s just kind of a bro, so, you know, things happen. But he’s a good friend; I like him.

JOSH HICKSON: I wasn’t a big fan of Kevin and his lifestyle; I just don’t like that lifestyle. Everyone else was alright. I don’t know; I didn’t have any issues with them.

ANDREA ENDRIES: [I didn’t know anyone on the show well] besides Josh. Josh and I are still good friends.

JORDAN ELLERMAN: Andrea I’ve probably said ten words to in my life. Josh, a couple of my friends — like, one of my good best friends — he has friends that are mutual friends with Josh so I’d see him at parties a lot. And he is just — he’s a tool. He’s a giant tool. You can even print that, that I said that, because I don’t give a fuck. That kid is a giant tool.

JOSH HICKSON: [laughs] Um … I don’t know. [That’s] his opinion?

JORDAN ELLERMAN: Who else is there? Lindsay Zadra, I also have mutual friends with her; a bunch of my friends went to high school with her. We partied together sometimes.

JOSH HICKSON: The whole Lindsay thing was weird. They showed us arguing about something, but I don’t think that even really happened that way. … They could have showed me meeting other girls and going to different concerts and stuff, but they didn’t. They just followed the whole Lindsay story and the Andrea story.

JORDAN ELLERMAN: I hate — I shouldn’t say that. I’m not a huge fan of MTV, and I’m definitely not a fan of reality TV. So the whole thing, it really wasn’t me. It’s not the essence of my personality, so I don’t really like talking about it.

ANDREA ENDRIES: For a little bit I thought I wanted to play Hollywood superstar, and there’s so much more to life being recognized, you know, and being noticed and I’m glad that I was able to taste that and then be able to say I don’t want it.

John Dadzie, as he’s known offstage, has been making music for more than a decade. He has come far since his early years as a youth who was too big for his britches.

“When I was 18 I told myself by the time I was 25 I should be a millionaire, but that kind of didn’t happen,” Dadzie said. “I worked at Gamestop at one point. I just decided that if I don’t do this, then I’m fucked, really. I was just chilling and DJing on the side. The drum ‘n’ bass thing picked up really well though.”

From the ’90s and into the early ’00s, electronic music has undergone remarkable change. Dadzie has kept his tastes in tune with this progression while keeping hints of his old taste on the road to dubstep prominence.

“I come from a hardcore and drum ‘n’ bass background so it was just the logical progression. I’ve been kind of part of the third wave of drum ‘n’ bass and so that’s been [the] focus of my sound,” Dadzie said.

After years of producing drum ‘n’ bass under the moniker Infiltrata, Dadzie took hold on the explosive wave of dubstep that has been taking the nation by storm. With his change in sound came the adoption of his new alias, 12th Planet (the title of a pseudoscientific book by Zecharia Sitchin).

“I’ve been producing under the name 12th Planet since like 2006,” Dadzie said. “My crew out here [in Los Angeles] will have dubstep parties in the LA area. We’re probably one of the first five or six crews in the area who will host dubstep parties. It kind of just grew into popularity with the genre. I just kind of went with it.”

At this point in his career, Dadzie is living every aspiring house DJ’s dream. He’s worked with acts like Skrillex and approaches his music with the laid-back confidence of Lil Wayne after a healthy dose of sizzurp.

“I’m thinking about bacon, bitch, straight up,” Dadzie said, describing his attitude going into production. “I’ll experiment, just playing around with all the new toys, all the new software. Something cool happens and the light bulb comes on.”

In a town overflowing with shaking bass lines and squeaking synthesizers, it is not hard to wonder whether the explosive genre is hitting a creative wall. Dazdie sees no limits to dubstep’s creative potential.

“That’s the beautiful thing about dubstep. It’s like a melting pot of different genres,” Dadzie said. “Regardless if you like guitars or electronics, it’s going to be dubstep. With people like James Blake making it, I think it’ll just continue to draw influences from other genres and just go with the trends and last forever.”

Like alternative rock and progressive rock, Dadzie feels dubstep is building the foundation for new sounds yet to be heard by listeners.

“It’s already shown an influence in multiple different genres. I think it’s just going to become another part of music. It’s just an alternative to house music,” Dadzie said.

The audience in Madison will witness 12th Planet’s inaugural performance in the city. While he has never been here before, Dadzie is excited for a crowd of Wisconsinites who have garnered an understandable reputation.

“I’m looking forward to meeting a bunch of Badgers,” Dadzie said. “They like cheese, dubstep and beer. It’s really great coming into a college town. They’re really starting to embrace the dubstep stuff.

“Man, I wanna take some cheese and spray it all over everybody, but that’s already been done here. Just expect a lot of good tunes and old tunes, good times and beer spillage.”

12th Planet performs tonight at the Majestic Theater. Tickets are $22 at the door. Doors open at 8 p.m. and the show begins at 9 p.m. Also playing: Von.

UW psychology majors Mary Frances Martinco and Thomas Murphy revamped Active Minds, a student-run mental health awareness, education and advocacy organization, last fall to increase dialogue about these issues.

Martinco, having dealt with anxiety upon coming to the university in 2009, is no stranger to stigma. “I struggled a little, especially coming to college. It was a really hard transition for me, and I know that it is for a lot of other people, but I never really felt like I could talk about it, because I didn’t understand that other people were feeling the same way,” she said. “I didn’t know what I could to do get help on campus.”

Although University Health Services offers individual and group counseling, Martinco said the unending enthusiasm that tends to revolve around UW can lead to people struggling with mental health issues and disorders to stay silent, or worse, to exacerbate their problems and make them question their self-worth. A lack of exposure to information about disorders can also spark victim-blaming mentalities.

“Especially on this campus, it’s such a party school, it’s so much about having fun all the time. I feel like there’s not much of a sense that maybe people aren’t having that great experience,” she said. “And there’s just like a big deal when you come to college that everything’s going to be perfect, the time of your life. I just feel like people who have depression, or anxiety or anything, they just don’t feel like it’s normal.”

Spreading awareness

UW Active Minds has hosted an array of awareness-boosting events throughout the year, featuring hot cocoa giveaways, stress relievers and more.

In March, UW Active Minds, the National Alliance on Mental Illness-UW and UW Suicide Prevention joined forces with Redamte Coffee House to host an evening of music, poetry and artwork to spread awareness about the effect of mental health issues on the UW campus. Performers, including members of a cappella groups Fundamentally Sound and Tangled Up in Blue, shared their stories. And student artwork, as well as a board where attendees could share how mental health related to their lives, was on display throughout the month.

“I feel like expressing yourself is very important,” Martinco said. “People are scared of what’s going on in other people’s minds, or in their own minds.”

The group also works closely with UHS to improve student accessibility to mental health services on small and large scales.

Previously, when a student called the mental health crisis line at UHS, the first question the call operator would immediately ask them was their student ID number.

“We thought that was a little impersonal, so we got that changed,” she said. The group is also working on trying to make it easier for students to make appointments and building a resource list for off-campus mental health providers. Currently, UHS has a cap on the number of individual counseling sessions a student can attend, which may be frustrating for students who need long-term attention.

Stress relief

UW Active Minds also focuses on stress management and relief for the student population. The group celebrated National Stress Out Day in April by handing out stress balls to students at Union South, but with finals just around the corner, Martinco is coordinating a large-scale stress reliever Friday at noon — “The Scream.”

She and other Active Minds members will be stationed atop Bascom Hill. If at around noon, you find yourself thinking, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore” pouring over papers and textbooks, you can let it all out with a synchronized scream.

Martinco recommended exercise, lots of sleep and venting to friends as tools for getting through finals week unscathed.

“My mother always tells me to work out, and I never listen to her. But whenever I do, it really helps a lot. So I encourage people to do that,” she said. “At least take a break and do something you like once in awhile. If it’s rewarding yourself with a couple hours of trashy TV or something like that, … just reward yourself for the time you put in.”

Getting help

Some problems cannot be solved with a scream about finals. But none can be solved with silence.

Activeminds.org offers resources for students struggling with mental health problems, as well as strategies for students who are worried about a friend. The three most important things a friend can do, the website says, are talk with them without judgment, share their concern by helping their friend get support from someone with mental health expertise and take care of themselves.

“If you notice something’s not quite right with your friends, just ask them, and then listen. Don’t judge them; just listen openly to what they say. If they’re your friend, they will really value what you tell them,” Martinco said. “Always offer to go with them to UHS. But you can’t necessarily be your friend’s therapist for the sake of your own mental health.”

UHS offers 24-hour crisis intervention for students or for those concerned about a student at (608) 265-5600 ext. 9.

Moving forward

Next fall, Active Minds hopes to offer a one-credit internship program, where interns would be involved in planning events, hearing a speaker on a mental health topic and how they relate to college students each week. Martinco said the group focuses on positive psychology.

Involvement with UW Active Minds, she said, gave her an opportunity to help others that she could not have found elsewhere.

“I wanted to help, but I didn’t know how, and finding this organization gave me the drive I needed, knowing I would have support,” she said.

For more information about the group or how to get involved, email uwactiveminds@gmail.com.

DAVID WEXLER (show creator, writer, producer): I never really wanted to work on reality shows, but I thought, "What if I could redo the whole reality format?" I came up with this tagline, you know, “You’ve seen reality; this is real.” So to me, that was sort of compelling, because, whether you know it or not, this whole reality craze, people sort of started falling in love with the documentary again. I don’t think enough was said about that.

JAMES FRANZONE (area coordinator for UW Housing): It never really felt like it was grounded at UW-Madison. Because they could only film inside their rooms because the university had limited what they could show. I remember one scene when one of our residents was in a library, but it was the Edgewood library. We could tell that.

TRICIA DICKINSON (marketing director, UW Communications): We did not allow them to film on campus. Some of the b-roll you see are actually shot at Edgewood College.

DAVID WEXLER: You have to work on story arcs. As much as this was real — and it was, there was nothing reenacted; it was as real as reality shows get. But you still need story producers to help mold and help tell the story. To tell the story is a really difficult thing that you wouldn’t realize.

JASON SMATHERS (managing editor for The Badger Herald in fall 2008): We saw some of the trailers and I think we started spotting things like, “Oh, that’s definitely not a dorm room here.” I don’t know if that was ever figured out, but it seemed like some of the shots that were taken were definitely of dorms elsewhere. I could have sworn I saw a Mizzou character somewhere. I was like, what the hell, did they think no one would catch that?

JAMES FRANZONE: At times we would look at it and go — you’d see stuff in windows and go — "I think that’s the University of Missouri showing right now." It was never really Madison.

JORDAN ELLERMAN (cast member): I hope I don’t get in trouble [for talking about MTV’s editing], because I’m just going to be 100 percent honest with you, because I don’t really give a shit. So I hope I don’t get in trouble. But yeah, some of the stuff — you know, it all happened, that’s why they added it, but there were some things as far as my storyline goes that were misrepresented.

JAMES FRANZONE: We knew when they were faking stuff. They’d show scenes [when there] was a policy violation being confronted. I think there’s a scene when they have the house fellow knocking on the door. Well, they can’t film that so we knew they had recreated it. So it was a little disappointing. We were getting a little bit of the curtain pulled back from reality TV. We were like, “Yeah, that kind of happened and you kind of recreated it for the show.”

ANDREA ENDRIES (cast member): They were honest; they did portray my life. I mean, everything I filmed, everything they showed, was all my footage. Like, that’s all true. But what’s interesting to me is how they are capable of editing. … Let’s say I had close to 60 hours of footage, they used about an hour. You know? So they can take anything they want and chop it up and put things from October with things from December and things from August, and then they can put people’s names in. [MTV has] the liberty … to do all that. So it’s just, it’s my story, it is! But it’s made more dramatic.

JOSH HICKSON (cast member): It reflected bits of [the cast members’] personalities, but not, like, the whole person. Every storyline focused on something instead of the overall person.

JORDAN ELLERMAN: I think they said my mom worked three jobs to put me through college, and that just wasn’t true. … That wasn’t really an issue like they made it seem. They made it seem like I was going out and being selfish and spending all this money on my tattoo when my mom’s working these three jobs to try to put me through college, when in reality I paid for my tattoo with some of the money that I made from the show.

KYRA SHISHKO (UW freshman in 2008): [Their portrayal of Jordan was] pretty accurate, from what I knew of him. He took me on a very mediocre date, just like he did with a girl on the show (laughs). But yeah, I mean, Jordan liked to just hang out with friends, partying with friends, he really likes electronic music and dubstep, and that’s his jam. And he may not have been a particularly interesting character to watch, but I mean, who would? He’s a normal guy.

JORDAN ELLERMAN: There’s one episode where I get, like, super fucking smashed, and I’m, like, drunk as shit on the floor of a bathroom. I’m mumbling into the floor and they subtitled it, but they subtitled it completely wrong. … I was making out with some chick earlier, and they captioned it like I was saying “I could have laid her.” And I was saying “I could just lay here,” I think. I mean, I’m not a caveman, even when I’m drunk, so I don’t know why I would have said that I could have laid her. Just little things like that.

ALEXANDRA REED (ex-Badger Herald writer), in a 2009 feature about the show: Alex — the Texan that struggled with a boy on the first show — decided to share her story without MTV feeding her lines because she felt strongly about the campus knowing what was happening behind the scenes. "I thought I was going to get a chance to film things that mattered," she said. … However, when the stream of content entering the editing room started changing, Alex felt penalized. "I was basically given an ultimatum. They said my footage was lacking and indirectly told me there was not enough drama in the content that I was filming," she said.

MIKI HIRANO (Lindsay’s roommate early in the show’s run): I feel like [Lindsay Zadra, who took over the bulk of Alex Viser’s time on the show] definitely — she told them what kind of character she wanted to be portrayed as. She wanted to be portrayed as the goody-two-shoes who is very studious and who is at the library all the time. (Zadra did not respond to requests for interview.)

ALEXANDRA REED, in a 2009 feature about the show: As the majority of her film continued to be “lacking,” Alex explained she and MTV came to a mutual agreement that she would no longer be a large part of the show. “I’m still filming now, but I already know that I’m not going to be a significant part of the series, and I’m perfectly fine with that,” she said.

MIKI HIRANO: [Lindsay] made me look like a high maintenance bitch and whore. I went to the gym and had a boyfriend at the time and so he obviously is changing his gym clothes and left his jeans and stuff on my bed. And then she videotaped like: "Oh my gosh, there’s clothes on the bed." So it looks like I was just messing around with guys and stuff.

JAMES FRANZONE: We had heard producers were encouraging more exciting things to happen. That’s when we kind of worried. We worried that people were being prompted to try to do things to encourage drama.

DAVID WEXLER: We would sit with them and go over everything: “Do you want to say this, do you want to do this thing?” And that was important, it’s something you don’t really get in reality shows.

JORDAN ELLERMAN: I saw every episode before it aired, and I got to OK all of the footage. We did do that, we’d shoot footage, we’d turn it in, and we’d kind of sift through all this footage and kind of explain what was going on to the producer.

MIKI HIRANO: Some of my relatives don’t even talk to me anymore because I look like I represent the family as a whore. … It ruined a lot of the relationships I had even within my family.

JAMES FRANZONE: Giving college students cameras to record their lives sounds like an exciting idea unless you really know what college is a lot about, which is kinda hanging out, watching TV, studying and going to class.

DAVID WEXLER: We were really proud of these students and we didn’t want to show them in a negative light. The idea was, I wanted to follow their progression through college. At the end of the day, that was it. Why highlight negative aspects?

Interviews have been edited, condensed and arranged by topic to allow a coherent story to emerge.

LOREEN STEVENS (independently contracted casting director): I think that you always want to have your archetypes. You know, everyone sort of fits into some sort of representation. But when I’m casting, I’m always looking for relatable and likeable.

JORDAN ELLERMAN (cast member): Well, I was living in Lakeshore dorms, and I got dropped in Jorn, which is like overflow housing. I was trying to get into another school, so I signed up a little late. I first moved in and there was a dude living there; his name was John. He had done a video submission over the summer and he kind of told me about it.

LOREEN STEVENS: It was doing research, reaching out, doing outreach to the students who were about to be entering their freshman year. So I did a lot of that via Facebook. … I had a cousin who went to high school in Chicago who had a lot of friends going to Wisconsin, so I kind of had an instant connection that way. She went to Glenbrook South.

We reached out to them just to see if they were interested and then asked them to send video, knowing I would come there. From what I hear, just so you know, I don’t think the University of Wisconsin ever signed off on that job. I think it was a little tricky.

DAVID WEXLER (show creator, writer, producer): There was a very small period when this kind of got online, and we were like, “Oh man, the school year is approaching.” So there was a very small window to do it. Then we, I think we sent some casting directors to Madison, and between that and the tapes we picked our cast. I really wanted to look for an eclectic group, which I think we got.

JORDAN ELLERMAN: I went to two one-on-one interviews, and then they did a trial run with 10 students and they gave us all cameras. And then they cut it down to five of us. After two weeks, one person dropped out.

LOREEN STEVENS: I can speak in general terms about what my audition process was like. You know, usually we’ll have some sort of questionnaire, and then the person comes in, somewhere. It can be — these were self-made videos, and then there are callbacks.

ANDREA ENDRIES (cast member): When I did get involved … I was walking toward the union and they just came outside and stopped me and were like, “Are you a freshman? Would you like to audition for this show we’re doing?” And I had not heard about it; I had no idea what was going on.

LOREEN STEVENS: You could ask the most general questions, and it’s really like people shine on camera or they don’t. Even if they had the most interesting story the world has ever known — “The Lord himself walked the earth” — if they don’t have a personality that kind of, you know, pops, for lack of a better word, people can’t tune in. There’s just this certain magic that certain people have, and generally speaking people that are good for reality TV have performace in their background.

ANDREA ENDRIES (cast member): When they brought me in, it was literally like the president of that show, or whatever, came in and he’s like, “We want you to do this for us.” And it was really last minute, and I did not know it was through MTV until I left.

DAVID WEXLER: It was hard, because we were asking them to open up their lives to this. And they were really wonderful about it.

ANDREA ENDRIES: [Josh] was kind of an add-on because obviously he was, you know, in my videos and they [MTV] were like “We want Josh! We want to hear his side of the story.” So, that became kind of entertaining, you know, both being from the same home town and stuff.

JOSH HICKSON (cast member): Andrea was the one who auditioned for the show and like, got on it, and since I was around her so much … they wanted to hear my side of the story, so then they gave me a camera.

DAVID WEXLER (show creator, writer, producer): It was a lot of footage. We would shoot on mini DV tape. These new cameras had come out — I think they were Panasonic cameras — they were HD cameras but they still shot on mini DV tape. We gave each person a mini camera package. It had a nice lens, a camera, a microphone that would just kind of clip onto the camera and as much tape as they wanted.

JOSH HICKSON: They edited to make a lot more drama than really was happening. Obviously it’s MTV, and that’s what they were going for. But it wasn’t that bad.

DAVID WEXLER: Two hours of doing your math homework isn’t really beneficial to anyone. But if you meet with a teacher and do this and this and this, it’s beneficial. So, right, we taught them not to just roll camera and talk with their friends for two hours. They got better — by the end it was old hat for them.

JORDAN ELLERMAN: I saw every episode before it aired, and I got to OK all of the footage. We did do that; we’d shoot footage, we’d turn it in and we’d kind of sift through all this footage and kind of explain what was going on to the producer. And they’d just give us pointers, like, “Oh, when you go to talk to this person about this, you should tell them this.” Or, “Maybe you should film that.”

DAVID WEXLER: I think more at the beginning there was a little more hands-on, “How do you do this.” But no, I remember, you’d meet with students and they’d have a whole stack of waivers and camera footage and we’d have to clear it all, stuff like that.

JORDAN ELLERMAN: They stopped pretty early on — at least for me — trying to get me to do things, trying to tell me, like, “Oh, well you should do this.” They stopped that after a couple weeks because I would just not do it on purpose because I didn’t want to do something just because they said.

DAVID WEXLER: And then we’d, I think, actually mail the tapes to New York where we were cutting the whole thing. We had a whole team in New York working on it, and we had some producers working on it in New York. So that was it — you’d just kind of edit the stories together for the half hour and see how it played out, and then you’d screen episodes. That was the situation.

JORDAN ELLERMAN: That one episode where I’m really drunk and on the floor, I was iffy about it when the guy showed me, and I told him, “I don’t know about this, I gotta talk to my parents and think about it for a night.” And he was like, “Yeah, OK, get back to me before the end of the week, you know, and if you’re not okay with it we’ll change it.” And then I called him a couple days later, and he was like “We already sent the tapes, blah, blah, blah.” He kind of pulled a fast one on me. I wasn’t very happy about that, but, you know. Oh well.

JOSH HICKSON: We kind of just would turn in footage, and they would edit it whatever the way they wanted. And then we would preview it a couple weeks before the show came out — we previewed like four at a time. And then like we would make suggestions on real minor edits, but besides that they kind of decided the way it would go.

- - - - -

DAVID WEXLER (show creator, writer, producer): I think the first documentary I ever saw was “Hoop Dreams.” … It followed these kids in high school playing basketball, and I had ended up re-watching it kind of recently, and I thought this four-year period is really interesting to me, and I had thought of the time when I had kind of changed the most in four years. I thought it would be fun to follow that, to follow that progression.

TRICIA DICKINSON (marketing director, UW Communications): [David Wexler] had sort of an interesting back story. From what I recall he was from the New York area and did not want to come to school here. It was not his top choice, and he ended up coming here and loved it. He really felt like this school was an amazing place and it heavily influenced him, and so he thought it was the perfect place to tell the story of the amazing experience of the University of Wisconsin.

So, he came and pitched us that story. … We certainly agreed with this concept — that Madison is an amazing school that changes a lot of people’s lives. Students come here and do wonderful things and because of the experience they have here, they leave and do wonderful things. So that was the whole concept of the show he was suggesting.

DAVID WEXLER: MTV immediately wanted to go the UCLA, USC route, sort of the sexy, sleek, blonde, everything you would think. And, by the way, I have only the greatest things to say about MTV, I can tell you how I think they handled the whole thing. But I really wanted a raw, kind of, "This is what my college life was like." I wanted to show it off. … I couldn’t imagine any other place, really.

Unfortunately, what happened is, we kind of got the green light and then the dean switched right when we were about to shoot.

LORI BERQUAM, in a 2009 press release: We understand the power of MTV and were initially honored to be considered for a program that could showcase our unique experience. But the "College Life" they’re selling is nothing more than a stereotype that disrespects our students and harms our institution and the value of a UW-Madison degree.

DAVID WEXLER: I think I can kind of see where this person was coming from, you know, “Right when I come in, is it a good idea to have this thing?”

TRICIA DICKINSON: Right around the time we were getting comfortable saying, "Yeah, I think this could be interesting, maybe it could be a documentary, maybe it could be something cool," he sold the show to MTV. And that happened without us knowing.

What happened, from our perspective, is that once MTV got involved, the focus of the show shifted. At several points, we said, "We don’t like the way this is going. We’re not comfortable signing a contract." At that point, things sort of just broke down. … We had a sense of what they were looking for, and that’s why we said, “The university doesn’t endorse this show.”

DAVID WEXLER: What wound up happening is it kind of almost turned into this exploitation film. Almost from the first frame on. We had this slate that said, “This show has not been approved by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.” That’s sexy for ratings; that’s sexy for shows. That’s not what I wanted, though.

I didn’t feel like we were allowed — you can’t show classrooms, you can’t show libraries, you can’t show anything on campus, so, what else are you going to see? My hands were tied at this point. So at this point it began gearing toward a little more of the social life versus the academic life. And again, I don’t blame the university.

SUE WITHUHN (mother of a 2008 UW freshman): I know Madison has a lot to offer out and about with the bars and the social scene, but I thought maybe some of the clubs could be highlighted and the whole Union experience could be highlighted. It was mostly, if I recall, house parties.

ALEXANDRA REED (ex-Badger Herald writer), in a 2009 feature about the show: The university has received criticism for choosing not to endorse the show, as without campus footage, the scope of the program would be very limited in what it could depict. Berquam agrees it was a possibility MTV could have chosen to film volunteer work and student organizations, but that’s not what they chose to do. "We struggled with the idea that this was reality TV and what would actually make for good TV," Berquam said. "We knew it wasn’t going to be cramming at the library for an exam. We have a responsibility of protecting the value of a degree," she added.

KYRA SHISHKO (UW freshman in 2008): All of the shots are in dorm rooms or house parties. Like, there could be no shots of campus, which is everything here, so they couldn’t show anything. … You know, going to the Farmers' Market, Rec Sports, there’s so many things people do here, even as freshmen.

DAVID WEXLER: Even if you look at our cast of characters, which I think were great, I mean, we were really trying to showcase the university in the best light. One of them is this girl Andrea, who had never, I think, drank. She was just this kind of religious, straight-laced, powerful young woman. And everyone else, really, I think we tried to stay away from parties as much as possible.

ANDREA ENDRIES (cast member): When UW took their endorsement from it, what happened was I could no longer show my student organizations, I could no longer show that I was in the student library or the fact that I was getting a 4.0, you know, I could no longer show those things, so all my story became about was boy drama and party drama.

And I get that that’s what MTV is interested in anyway, but it’s like I couldn’t really show what I felt like was my story, because the school took away a lot of my story. And so that was frustrating. I understand that not everyone, not all the other characters had the same story, and so they had to be careful.

That was tough, but, you know, what are you gonna do? I get where the school’s coming from.

JOSH HICKSON (cast member): I kind of get where they're coming from. I would say Kevin's story with the alcohol and bad grades and stuff is pretty bad looking on UW. But if they would have let us film at UW, we could do the football experience and like all the gameday stuff, and people studying for finals in the right location compared to some random library.

JORDAN ELLERMAN (cast member): The show was about our personal lives, it wasn’t about UW. ... I would have loved to film the clubs I was in and some of the really fun things I did in class or some of the things at the Memorial Union. I think it could have been great for UW, and I think they screwed up. I really think they did.

All the people on the show, save for Kevin, all the people on the show were good students. Lindsay Zadra was valedictorian of her high school. Josh and Andrea were really good students. I was getting straight A's when I was at UW. We all would have loved to show a little more of what UW had to offer and shed it in a positive light. We just didn’t get the opportunity.

JASON SMATHERS (Badger Herald managing editor in Fall 2008): I think that people around here thought, well, this is a great opportunity for us to explain what it is to be a Badger and show how much, just pure fun we have on this campus. I thought people were going to imagine it as, "You get to see life as a Badger," rather than "You get to see four kids in college." I think that was the draw. Nobody cares about a bunch of kids in college — if that was the case then we’d still be watching “The Real World” and shit like that.

TRICIA DICKINSON: Wisconsin is a different kind of school. It attracts a different kind of student. We’re nationally known, and what the show focused on was the most mundane, stereotypical things people think about college — basically relationships and bad decisions about alcohol. I understand it goes on here at UW. It goes on at a lot of schools. But seriously, that’s not at all the most interesting stuff that goes on here. Of all the stories — all that goes on here — that’s what they chose to focus on? It just wasn’t that interesting to me as a consumer, someone who watches TV.

The best way I can summarize it is to say that it was a great concept brought to us by passionate alumni, which I totally appreciate, but it was the execution that just didn’t work.

ALEXANDRA REED, in a 2009 feature about the show: Overall, Berquam does not criticize Wexler’s original intentions and said she was optimistic about the possibilities of the show — but was ultimately disappointed. "I think [Wexler] had higher hopes than actually what ended up on screen," she said. "I worry about these students." Surprisingly enough, Berquam’s suspicions are false. Wexler says although he would have loved to work with the university, he’s been "pleasantly surprised" with the results of his work.

DAVID WEXLER: I think I remember — I think the university didn’t seem thrilled with it. There was a lot of confusion, and again, there wasn’t really a forum for me to explain it to them. So I remember that being negative.

Again, I just wish that, if we had the opportunity to work more with the school, we could have molded it more into what we wanted it to be. I mean, I was looking at some really entertaining, really PR things, just to really showcase how awesome the university is. I think that once there was that divide, like MTV versus the school, it was really hard to have anything except negative feelings.

Recalling the conflict between an abusive husband and his wife in the film “Mudhoney," Norah Jones’ (born Geethali Norah Jones Shankar) fifth solo album Little Broken Hearts ponders the tension between infidelity and self-consuming desire. Jones adopts the image of the femme fatale by recreating the film’s theatrical poster on the album’s jewelcase. Although her starlet features suggest girlish innocence, Jones' pursed lips and gritted teeth reveal her sinister intentions. To her talent for plucking black and white piano ivories and coils of guitar wire, Jones adds murder and chloroform.

Born to renowned sitar player Ravi Shankar, Norah Jones has traveled far since her debut. Her first album, Come Away with Me (2002), garnered eight Grammy awards, placing Jones firmly into the American jazz canon. However, Jones has consistently demonstrated her talent for thriving in multiple music genres. With The Little Willies, Jones performed country ballads; with the late Ray Charles, blues standards; with Talib Kweli, hip hop jams. Her work is prolific. Nearly every year, Jones has released an album, either solo or collaborated. She has made multiple cameo appearances on television and starred in a feature-length film.

Many reviewers have described Jones’ darkening tone within her lyrics. However, it would be a mistake to view her gravity as one-dimensional. Jones' previous solo album, The Fall (2009), addressed heavy themes in humorous ways, comparing the follies of passion to “Chasing Pirates.” In the track “Man of the Hour,” Jones concludes that the ideal man is, in fact, a dog. Similarly in much of Little Broken Hearts, she imbues humor into sadistic lyrics by delivering them playfully.

Jones follows a classic narrative arc — each track pushes the story along. Act one begins with the scene of Jones’ departure from a burnt-out romance in “Good Morning." Yet, even as she recognizes its clear failure, she is also attuned to her reluctance to make the decision to leave: “And maybe powerful actions/ Or powerful feelings/ Will keep me from going,” Jones admits. She has revisited this issue multiple times, as her “thoughts on leaving/ Are back on the table.”

Jones finds resolve in her anger, expressing it in the title track “Little Broken Hearts.” But while she ponders this feeling during “Say Goodbye,” Jones experiences guilt like a repeated blow to the face. She admits to her indiscretions and describes parables learned through infidelity. “Well, it ain’t easy to stay in love/ If you can’t tell lies.” Neither she nor her partner leaves their relationship untarnished.

Jones’ internal conflict continues to saturate the second half of the album, at times appearing bipolar. When she finally does leave during the song “Out On The Road,” she concludes that the only way to escape destruction is to remove any trace of her relationship altogether. This includes the original source of her partner’s temptation: his mistress, “Miriam.”

The haunting climax of Little Broken Hearts is Jones’ moment of vengeance. She becomes sociopathic, singing of the happiness that murdering Miriam will bring: “Oh Miriam/ That’s such a pretty name/ And I’ll keep saying it/ Until you die/ Miriam/ You know you done me wrong/ I’m gonna smile when/ You say goodbye.”

Little Broken Hearts explores a messy conjunction of feelings. Jones applies truisms and tropes to her experience, making them personal and shamelessly public. She is able to transform them into cohesive patchwork. Jones clearly did not enjoy the experience, yet the album still revels in her self-destruction. Spun through her breathy alto, Jones has fallen and effectively dragged the listener down with her.

By the end track, “All A Dream,” we are dazed without a resolution to Jones’ pain. One thing remains clear, however. Like Sidney Brenshaw in “Mudhoney,” Jones knows she can never fully detach.

“You never hurt/ Someone who wants to learn/ To be your slave.”

4 stars out of 5

The play, which is composed of original skits produced by the teenage members of Proud Theater, speaks out on issues faced by the LGBT community. Skits can range from humorous, to dark to, occasionally thought-provoking, said Callen Harty, community outreach coordinator for Proud Theater.

“The culminating show at the end of the year is the compilation of pieces the [teens] have created throughout the year,” Harty said. “We take the best pieces and create a show of 20 to 30 skits.” The bulk of the selections are theatrical pieces, but members occasionally submit written word submission as well as their self-composed music,” he said.

All of the skits presented by Proud Theater are based on real-life experiences, Harty said. “We gather the youth together every week and trade theatrical pieces on their own life stories,” he said. “All of them are original.”

The average age of a Proud Theater participant is around 15, although the organization has allowed kids as young as 12 to participate in its theater program. “Typically, the youth in our group tend to be more activist,” Harty said. “They also want to be in a group with other kids who understand them.”

Although there are adults employed with Proud Theater, Harty said the role they play in the creative process is minimal. “As adults, we need to guide that [creative] process,” he said. “But since it is created by the youth, they have more say in our organization.”

The program attracts both teens interested in professional theater and those who just seek a place to be free, Harty said. “We have kids who have never, ever done theater before,” he said. “They are often incredibly shy, but they want to be part of the creation process.”

For 2012, the members of Proud Theater wanted to create a unique experience. “The title is a reference to 2012 supposedly being the end of the world,” he said. “What if someone came from another planet and the whole world was … destroyed?”

The annual themes vary depending on current events. Although humor is always a part of the year-end show, outside factors can determine what topics the students choose to cover. For example, the year Wisconsin decided to ban gay marriage saw an uptick in the number of serious skits being presented, Harty recounted.

The enormous amount of creativity, coupled with a never-ending lack of material, keeps Proud Theater going, Harty said. “We’ve been doing this for 13 years, and we haven’t come close to running out of usable material,” he said. “There have been lots of really powerful skits and powerful pieces, in different years and for different reasons,” he remembered.

One production particularly stuck out in Harty’s memory. In a skit titled “The Gauntlet,” a character who is being bullied displays his inner wounds by wearing a velcro vest. Every hurtful word the bully says is added to the vest, and the play culminates with the main character throwing off his vest and walking away. “He was carrying those hurtful words, symbolically and literally, wherever he went,” Harty recounted. “It was very powerful and moving.”

“We put on a very high-quality production,” he added. “All of the mentors have been involved in theater for years. Not only do we want to help them share their stories, we want to do it in high quality.”

Proud Theater was founded in 1999 by a 15-year-old girl named Sol Kelley-Jones, who partnered with Harty to create a theater company that would speak for LGBT and racial justice. Proud Theater was the end result of combining her passion for theater with her support of LGBT rights.

“The goal was to change the world through theater,” Harty said. “We’re a very unique theatrical and youth organization. We’re basically non-hierarchical.”