Student Blog: What Writing This Blog Has Taught Me About Myself
At my lowest point, I started this blog and it ended up teaching me more about myself than success ever had.
I started writing this blog last fall because I felt like I had nothing going for me in my theatre career. I was watching all of my classmates being cast in Otterbein University mainstage musicals and if they werent cast in those they were being cast in the many student directed shows whose sole purpose was to give opportunities to people not cast in maintsage shows.
For the first year and a half I was at Otterbein I auditioned for 15 different productions, was called back for 10 of them and was cast in none. I was beyond worried, and I really started to doubt myself and doubt if I had what it takes to be successful in this industry. In my head, I thought if I couldn’t get cast in shows at my college, then I had no business thinking I could be successful at this.
Because of that, I started more seriously considering my backup options. I really loved journalism in high school and wanted to continue pursuing it, so I began taking classes for a Journalism and Media Communications minor and started writing this blog. My first blogs were about indirectly improving your craft and redefining success because that was all I knew at the time. But I was having a very hard time trying to put a positive spin on The Situation (i) was in, because honestly, I didn’t even fully believe what I was writing.
Of course I knew it was right, that getting cast isn’t the only way you can be successful and that there are so many ways to improve your craft without actually being in a production. But when you are in that kind of situation it is hard to trust that the things you know deep down are true. It’s like when you are going through a breakup and all anyone can tell you is that it’ll get better. Of course it’ll get better, and you know that, but in that moment boy does it feel like the end of the world.
Now looking back on this blog and seeing how far I have come since feeling so defeated, I really do know that everything I wrote is true, and all of the cliches people say have some real truth to them. Everything that is meant for you won’t pass you by.
For example, this summer I sent in a tape for a production of the Sound of Music in Ireland. My whole family is from there and I am getting my dual citizenship, so I thought it was perfect. But I was told they werent accepting international auditions. Not booking that show, though, led me to be able to audition for She Loves Me at a different theatre, book Amalia, and be able to study Shakespeare abroad in Oxford.
Or take the cliche that good things take time. Otterbein definitely took it’s time before my good things started happening, but after waiting that year and a half, I just finished playing Ella in Cinderella, I start rehearsals for She Loves Me at their professional summer theatre next week, and I booked the dance ensemble in the fall production of Curtains.
So looking back, what has surprised me most is how much truth and knowledge I already had in me, even if I didn’t fully believe it or see it all working out at the time.
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