At U-M, 'Hedwig's' John Cameron Mitchell takes on role of professor

In John Cameron Mitchell's classroom, students' phones go in a popcorn bucket.

The actor and filmmaker, best known for his 2001 cult hit "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," is a visiting professor in the University of Michigan's Department of Film, Television, and Media, teaching a course this semester he's labeled "Problemagic Cinema." Class kicked off Monday at Ann Arbor's State Theatre, where Mitchell — his hair colored half black, half white — first asked his students to kindly part with their devices and place them in an empty popcorn bucket, where they could pick them up at the conclusion of class.

The bucket wasn't thought about ahead of time, it was just what was around. But the important thing is that phones aren't in students' hands, or silently tempting them in their pockets, so thei