TOPSHAM, Maine — If Central Maine Power were somehow able to connect Rose Tuttle to its grid, the company would immediately gain access to a source of clean, renewable and seemingly limitless energy. It becomes apparent about ten seconds after being introduced to her that she is a dynamo.
“When I first met Rose, her energy hit me,” says Nat Warren-White, who directed her in 2022 in a stage production in Freeport of “Our Town.” “I said, can this be real? I mean, is this honest? Is she putting this on? Of course she’s not. It’s just who she is.”
This spring Tuttle graduated at the top of her class from Mt. Ararat High School in Topsham. During the last two weeks of school every senior does what is in effect a passion project.
One student’s project involved making a dress. Another did one on archery. Tuttle wrote, produced, directed, edited, and acted in a 25-minute film called “5 Facts on Recovery.” It was inspired by her own experiences in high school a couple of years ago.
“I knew I wanted to do something about mental health,” she says. “But I didn’t know how in-depth I wanted to go with it, because I struggled with anorexia when I was a sophomore and it wasn’t really something that I shared with anybody at that point.”
The key to telling the story on film was to strike a balance. The aim was to deliver a serious message about diet culture and body image and related issues, but to lighten it with occasional touches of humor.
Mt. Ararat required that there be mentor for “5 Facts on Recovery,” so Rose turned to Warren-White. Her directing turned out to be so assured that he offered much more in the way of encouragement than specific ideas.
“I’ve worked with a lot of young actors and high school and college students. I taught college acting for years,” he says. “I haven’t met anybody with [her] kind of absolute, on-the-spot instinct.”
The next stop for Tuttle, who began making home movies when she was about nine years old, is Columbia University in New York, where she plans to study film. She is, characteristically, bubbling with enthusiasm about what lies ahead, both in college and beyond.
“Ideally, I’d like to direct films with a bigger crew,” she says, a big smile on her face. “That would be nice. Or act in them. Or direct and act in them. Or write. Everything, honestly! I would be happy doing anything in the film industry.”