BWW Blog: Study What YOU Love

Hello Broadway World!

I am so thankful to be featured as a student blogger this semester. It truly is a fantastic opportunity. Through this blog, I plan to express the realities of being a double English and Theatre Arts major at a small liberal arts college. I will share my experiences, reveal my triumphs and failures, and hopefully encourage aspiring artists to keep moving forward.

But let me preface this by saying that this is not an advice column. I am not a sage with years of experience. Aside from loving theatre wholeheartedly my entire life, I am fairly new to acting and I am also a freshman. I have no idea what lies ahead. What I do know is that I am willing to put in the hard work and effort. Theatre is what I am most passionate about. I cannot simply give it up.

My first semester at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts went smoothly. I was only an English major at that point and was happily spending hours editing my short stories and essays for various English courses. I was reading fabulous stories, essays and poems daily. When assigned to write an essay about my aspirations, I fabricated a rough draft that mirrored how I normally answered relatives when they asked me the same question during the holidays. Get good grades, graduate, get a good job in publishing/journalism/speech pathology. The occupations would vary, but I never could bring myself to reveal what I truly wanted to do. Throughout my life people veered me towards doing theatre only as a hobby. Who was I to throw caution to the wind and actually pursue my dream career? The idea of living the "cookie-cutter" lifestyle had been ingrained in me for so long. It was not until my professor handed back my rough draft with the comment: "what if you hate it?" scrawled above my paragraph of claiming my "aspiration" was to be a speech pathologist who acted on the side. It was then that I realized that it was not worth giving up the only thing that kept me motivated during high school. Who cares what other people say? This is something I want to do. I am willing to work hard and endure the ups and downs. I now have the opportunity to receive proper training and actually study the craft I love so much. When I handed in the final draft of my essay, I finally revealed my true aspirations. Then, within the next week, I added Theatre Arts as a second major.

Though I want to focus more on acting, it is so important to learn everything about Theatre Arts. So, this semester I am taking Technical Production 1, which is fascinating. I was so oblivious to the intricacies and the myriad of people involved behind the scenes. This semester, our tech class will mainly focus on: stage management, production management, carpentry, props, sound, lighting, and costuming. So far, I have learned "behind the scenes" terms and identified all the technical needs in August Osage County by Tracy Letts. This week we covered building techniques, types of lumber and drafting. I am so excited for what lies ahead, but also skeptical about the fact that I will be soon wielding tools using saws. Yikes. Hopefully, I will have all my fingers and toes intact by the end of the semester.

Photo: The only saw I feel comfortable around!

Picture Courtesy of KATS Kennett

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