Early cartoons led nontraditional student Michael Lente to writing plays

University of New Mexico student Michael Lente has always been a storyteller, starting from an early age.

"I began as a cartoonist at age 6 but, when you see the world through the eyes of a cartoonist, you also see the world through the eyes of a storyteller. It's just a matter of perspective. I graduated from cartooning to writing stories, then to writing novels to writing plays which I am currently doing. I'm having a great time."

Lente recently won this year's Excellence in Undergraduate Arts Research Award for his two-act play Fifth World Coming.

The UNM Excellence in Undergraduate Arts Research Award recognizes outstanding arts research by UNM students. Winners receive an $800 departmental award. Two Honorable Mention winners each receive $200 departmental awards.

A sixth-year senior, Lente is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in Liberal Arts with concentrations in Theatre Arts to include dramatic writing and stage/screen related courses. Secondary concentration is in Italian language, literature, culture, and history.

Lente, 73, is also a Navy veteran who has already retired from a previous occupation as a physician assistant. Looking for further challenges, he then decided to pursue his research and degree.

"I was bored of retirement. I always believed that one must continue to learn, and it was time to pursue something I really wanted to do for myself, not to satisfy some requirement for a future profession. My profession now is as a student, which I hope will continue into the MFA program. I figure the day I stop learning is the day I die. I prefer to continue learning and offering my works to whomever will notice. And, in addition, hanging around the university also keeps me young, energetic, and in touch with current generations of students. They are, after all, our future. I want to stick around long enough to see how others progress. They always give me great ideas for script writing. I'm probably about a decade or two behind in writing all the scripts that other students have inspired."

Lente calls his unique writing style "Native American Mystery Science Fiction Theatre." "I feel that there's more need for stage plays inclusive of science fiction topics combined with Native American topics. It makes for an interesting blend. I've researched all these topics to combine them into a cohesive whole as well as to convey a sense of what Native American storytelling might evolve into," Lente said.

During the 2023 winter holiday break, Lente completed Fifth World Coming, which encompasses all the components of his Native American Mystery Science Theater style.

Lente's research stretched wide and deep to include Native American issues and history, personal stories as told by his grandfather and his own personal visions. In addition, he researched topics such as ventriloquism, puppetry, magic, anthropological, ethnological, linguistic, alien and UFO topics, astronomy, exo-biological studies, and associated theoretical physics topics.

"My research process was less structured and scientific and more right-brained in nature," Lente said. "I've relied mostly on inspiration and gut instinct to follow a course of discovery of the imaginative process of the mind. This wasn't difficult, as I've been in the creative arts all my life and have relied on that 'light bulb moment' of expression which occurs in an instant. That instant must be immediately recorded or one tends to lose an idea or concept for a creative work."

Harking back to his early comic strip creation, Lente added, "Think Disney, Warner Brothers, and all the older pre-computer-generated image era when an imaginative brain relied upon actual imagination and not upon any type of computerized AI to do one's work. This is where the research process begins and continues until final completion. The formulas of creativity cannot be easily mapped but, rather, must be experienced." 

Lente was inspired by the need to create and offer more stage plays and screen plays that include often-overlooked facets of Native American culture - "the use of oral and written storytelling modified and updated to fit into contemporary themes, yet which maintain traditional story subject matter with new, introduced views. The necessity of dusting off the old ways by iconoclastically changing the modes of presentation and the changing of paradigms seems to work for me." 

Winning the Excellence in Undergraduates Arts Research Award made Lente feel validated: "And surprised. And happy to see that research can be more than formulas and test tubes. The test tubes of the arts exist within the creative mind and, so, I am more convinced than ever that research in the arts can only proceed into concrete results which will become an adjunct to the humanities."

He hopes to eventually be admitted to the Master of Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing program and make Fifth World Coming a master's thesis or project.

Lente expressed gratitude to his grandfather, Frank Lente (1898-1993), "the storyteller of our Indian ways." He also cited UNM professors Eric Ehn, Juli Hendren, his theatre arts professors, Italian Professor Rachele Marongiu Duke, and Margaret Connell-Szasz who teaches Native American History.

"I also acknowledge all those who have inspired my scripts with a word, action, or idea of which they were never aware. The creative process is ever continuing."

To the untraditional student − or a traditional student, for that matter - thinking about going back to school and pursuing a degree, Lente urged, "Follow your dreams and don't allow obstacles and discouragement to stop you from your goals. As was once said by Admiral Farragut during the battle of Mobile Bay in 1864, 'Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.' I'm an old Navy guy so I can say things like that. But it applies to anyone who has a dream. Follow those dreams no matter what."

Honorable mention

Rising junior Lilly Porter, who has a double major in Viola Performance and English, won Honorable Mention for her project Inspiration, Transformation, and Connection: Bringing Audiences into UNM Classical Concerts.

Graduate Andrew Roibal, a Fine Arts major, won for his Honors Thesis exhibition Other Worlds 1.

Besides her double major, Texas native Porter is pursuing a minor in Honors Interdisciplinary Liberal Arts. Her project was an analytical report titled Inspiration, Transformation, and Connection; Bringing Audiences into UNM Classical Concerts, which was part of a larger portfolio about varying issues related to western classical music. The report drew on her concerns as an aspiring violinist and violist.

"It was intended to cast light on the need to raise audience numbers at UNM Department of Music concerts and included a survey of groups in Albuquerque likely to attend these concerts as well as interviews with faculty and staff from the music department. It reflected a lack of audience engagement with western classical music, which is something I continue to fight against as a music major and marketing assistant for the UNM Department of Music's Keller Hall," Porter said.

"This project taught me that through raising awareness we keep music alive and no matter how small something may seem it can be more important than we know," she said, adding, "This project was the beginning of things I never could have imagined as it showed me that my voice as a musician and writer could be used as a unique tool to fight for what I believed in. Additionally, it was vital to me as it sparked my interest in increasing audience size and engagement with classical music at UNM, something which led to my current job and also supported my love of social commentary in writing."

Roibal is a Native American artist based in the Southwest. After spending many years doing artwork as a hobby, he pursued art in college to develop his skills across a variety of mediums, specifically photography. His preferred subject matter includes portraits, landscapes, and miniatures, portrayed in vivid circumstances through a lens of indigeneity. Roibal also recently won a Covington-Rhodes award for Fine Arts.

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.