Guest Blogger: Lauren Ward

Anyone who's ever been involved in theatre can probably give you a mile-long list of stressful events and situations they've encountered on the stage and behind the scenes. Of course, you rarely ever notice these times when you're watching us perform. That's part of our job; we have to be able to work around the kinks for the sake of the audience. However, some of these matters are slightly more pressing than the usual 'kinks.' As it should happen, my school has just started work on its production of the classic musical Oliver! The set show dates are May 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th. We started working with little more than a month to put the whole thing together. This isn't the first time that a lot of us have dealt with such circumstances, and for anyone else who can relate to them, I've developed a short list of pros and cons, playfully entitled 'The Good News' and 'The Bad News.'

Last weekend, during a slight break from preparations for Oliver!, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Georgia Thespian Conference (affectionately referred to as Thescon, or THESCAAAHHHN by my friends in troupe 5362). I can genuinely say it was one of the most fun times I've had to date. Kindred theatre-loving spirits from far and wide (AKA, the state of Georgia) came together to do workshops, to sign up for college auditions, compete in individual events, and to watch shows put on by their peers. It was incredible to me that even though most of us had never seen each other before, everyone was treated like a friend to everyone else; I found myself having a five minute conversation with a complete stranger about a common show we had done and (coincidentally) both worn t-shirts for. Attending this convention was not only an extremely educational experience, but also rather humbling, and it was quite special to be able to get a larger-scale representation of what the art form is all about.

Everybody knows the old saying: "There are no small parts, only small actors." Back in December, my theatre troupe at school was in the midst of filming auditions for our production of Ghost the Musical when our director announced that there would be a separate round of auditions for those specifically interested in ensemble positions. This came as a nice surprise seeing as the majority, including myself, tend to go for the leads or supporting roles when audition time rolls around. Similarly, it's happened many times where I've been disappointed when I've gotten "stuck" in the ensemble when I was expecting something a little "bigger." I got to thinking about why the ensemble gets overlooked or underappreciated so much, and whether or not I should have been disappointed. After all, I never seemed to have less fun doing a show because I wasn't a lead role. I think people tend to consider the ensemble as a comparatively small or insignificant role in the span of the entire production, and from this I began to make conclusions about whether or not the old saying reigns true: Is there really no such thing as a small part?