Penn-Ultimate!

Got a chance to spend some time hanging with Sean Penn when he came to town on Tuesday to speak at Middlesex Community College's One World Series, detailing his efforts to help rebuild Haiti, decimated by a killer earthquake in January, 2010.





 

The event at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium was pulled together by the college's Student Activities Crew.  Backstage with the Academy Award winner, it was refreshing to see how unpretentious he was and how passionate he felt about the cause that's dominated his life for the last three years.

Penn has quite the storied Hollywood career, headlining movies like Mystic River, Gangster Squad, I Am Sam, Milk, Casualties of War, and of course, Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Penn wasn't in town to toot his own Hollywood horn, though, swearing off any Hollywood talk and instead insisting on keeping the dialogue with the 700 folks in attendance focused on Haiti.

Backstage, Dan Martin was keep a tight lid on things

Mary-Jo Griffin, along with Lt. General Ken Keen, who was in charge of military relief efforts on the ground in Haiti, and whose son, Ryan, is a psychology professor at MCC.

Mary-Jo shows the power of social media, tweeting live and texting back and forth with an unnamed pain-in-the-neck co-worker.  (She's does this during movies, too.)

On stage, Sean was passionate for his cause, fielding questions from a group of MCC students.

Getting the MCC swag on stage

Members of this year's class of Paul Sullivan Leadership Institute Fellows

The event can't go off seamlessly without an army of volunteers behind the scenes

The Student Activities Crew, or Gang, or whatever you want to call them.  Rebecca take note:  Melissa actually WAS in the picture at the time of taking.

Our resident Hollywood maven, Judy Burke, chats it up

Backstage, Dean of Students Pam Flaherty is beaming because Sean donned his MCC sweatshirt.

Photographer/moderator Paula Dias, and President Carole Cowan join forces with Sean.

And finally, the man on the other side of the camera lens for all of the above shots, MCC's own Argo, Kevin Harkins, he of www.harkinsphotography.com

A great day with a great guy, he was a genuine article, and a lot of fun to be around.  My personal highlight of the day was backstage with the star, trading Steven Wright one-liners back and forth.  He does a dead-on impression of the stand-up comedian and MCC alum.

Overall, a stu-Penn-dous day!