Catching Up with Anne Haney DeMelo
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Anne Haney DeMelo directing actors at MSA for her upcoming film.
Story and interview by Lindsay Barnes, Former Headmaster of MSA and current Board of Trustees Member
From her sixth-grade year on the Hill all the way through to her graduation in 2008, Nelson County native Anne Haney distinguished herself in a myriad of ways. Stellar classroom participant. Academic achiever. The brightest smile on campus. Determined athlete. National Honor Society member. Accomplished performer. Kind. Curious. Insightful. Anne was all these things, and more. Upon graduating from Miller, Anne earned her B.A. in Comparative Literature from U.Va. and her M.F.A. as a John Wells Directing Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University. Already in her young life, Anne is recognized as an accomplished director of stage and screen. Recently, she returned to the Hill to shoot scenes for an upcoming film, which The Bell Tower hopes to feature in a future issue. In the meantime, Anne and her former MSA headmaster, Lindsay Barnes, looked back on her Miller School years.
LB: Did Miller School’s “mind, hands, and heart” approach to secondary school education play a fundamental role in shaping the person you are today? If so, how?
AHD: Of course. I always tell people that MSA allowed me to become myself. Those high school years are so tough, emotionally and psychologically, and I feel very lucky to have lived that part of my life in a community that was so hardworking, so loving, and so unique. Miller’s program encouraged us to continuously grow in a way that made space for students to try and to fail -- which let me learn early on what my real values were, what I was drawn to and what I cared about.
LB: As you progressed through the grades at Miller School, did you find yourself preferring some academic disciplines over others? If so, which ones and why?
AHD: Yes, I was drawn to literature, languages, and writing courses. Those were spaces in which I felt the most expressive — the world and all the different ways of interpreting it sort of opened up for me in those classes. They introduced me to how powerful storytelling can be, but also how complex, how variable and how relative.
LB: Of all the adults (teachers, administrators, staff members) with whom you came into contact at Miller School, who are some of your most memorable or most influential and why?
AHD: My English teachers, Peter Hufnagel and Chris Ross, introduced me to some of the books, ideas, and ways of being that shaped (and continue to shape) me. Peter was one of the few adults by whom I felt truly seen and heard at that age — and the power of that, for a young person, is invaluable. I learned precision and rigor from Peter. And from Chris Ross I learned a really deep sense of play, of experimentation, of how to embrace the strange and unexpected. Those core values are fundamental to the work I make now, and who I am.
LB: Outside of the classroom at Miller School, which experiences or events did you find to be the most important in preparing you for U.Va. as an undergraduate and Carnegie Mellon as a graduate student?
AHD: Running cross-country. The film on which I’m presently working touches on how heavily psychological distance running is, which was something I was fighting through during those years. The regular practice of going out and pushing through a grueling distance run — and then doing it again the next day, and the next — helped me build a mental stamina that I’m very grateful for.
LB: What do you primarily remember about your very first visit to the campus at Miller School?
AHD: I remember being really intimidated! By the size of the campus, by how smart and kind everyone was. I was really worried I wouldn’t get accepted. I wanted to be there so badly.
LB: As you look back at your years on the Hill, what three adjectives best describe your view of the Miller School community?
AHD: Intimate. Rigorous. Warm.
