Student Blog: Theatre Resolutions

Somehow, 2021 has both flown by and dragged on. Nevertheless, here we are on the precipice of 2022. Looking toward the new year is exciting, yet daunting, especially for those who love theatre. How will the COVID Omicron variant affect how we perform? Will getting the variant have long-term effects on our voices and bodies? Will Broadway shut down again? Will my next performance be on a screen or behind a mask? I can't answer those questions for you, and neither can most. The best we can do is, well, our best. We can work to protect each other by masking up, getting vaccinated, and staying healthy. Looking past COVID, we can do our best by staying hopeful, being kind, and working hard. Some of you may have New Year's Resolutions geared towards theatre. I want to discuss how to make healthy resolutions that leave you empowered and improving.

New Year's Resolutions are notorious for being ambitious and then being abandoned soon after. The easiest way to avoid falling off the proverbial wagon is to make healthy, achievable goals that avoid discouraging slip-ups. For a broader example, consider weight or exercise goals. An ambitious and hard-to-maintain goal for someone who has never worked out before would be working out every day for an hour. An easier-to-maintain goal would be working out three days a week. Less demanding goals are easier to achieve, which gives you more motivation to work for them. With the proper motivation, you can work up to the larger goals like working out every day. A theatrical example would be to warm up vocally for an hour every day. A more reasonable goal would be warming up for an hour once a week and warming up for fifteen minutes every other day. Once you recognize the benefit of warming up every day and you have the motivation, you may want to warm up for thirty minutes instead of fifteen. Small steps create bigger, more achievable goals.

Another way to create healthy resolutions is to cut out very specific goals. An example of a very specific goal would be losing fifty pounds by the end of the year. Why no specifics? You'll find yourself tracking your progress day by day or week by week and being discouraged if you aren't seeing results as quickly as you think you need them, causing you to give up completely or take unhealthy measures to achieve the goal. An alternative to the fifty-pound resolution would be to track overall wellness as it improves with weight loss. Your progress may come in different forms than you are expecting. A specific theatrical example would be to play a certain character in an upcoming musical. A broader, healthier example would be to play a character you love within the year. While it's good to know who you want to audition for, it may cause you to act unwisely toward other actors, be overly disappointed in the event you do not get the part, or be unable to enjoy the show. With the broader goal of playing a character you love, you have the opportunity to look for the best in every role you play. You may discover you love a character you've never thought of playing. The same goes for all broad vs. specific goals. While specific goals can leave you disappointed or discouraged, broad goals encourage you to look for the good in your situations.

What happens if your goals are too broad, however? A vague goal like "be better at acting" is very hard to track. It's difficult to see progress when you don't have a standard to judge by. Avoid foggy resolutions by narrowing down what specifically you want to improve. Instead of "getting better at acting", focus on smaller chunks of your larger goal, like, "find a connection to my characters" or "improve acting out sadness." Track your progress with notes, videos, or help from an acting coach, director, or friend. Celebrate your small improvements to keep up your motivation.

My final tip for resolutions is to compare yourself to only one person: you. Don't fall into the trap of comparing yourself to friends, influencers, professional actors and singers, models, or your own unrealistic standards. The only person you have to prove anything to is yourself. You are enough. You don't have to be the girl who played Cinderella or the guy who played Clyde Barrow. That means, as well, that other people don't have to be you. Not everyone has the same talents, but each person can bring something to the table, so celebrate your wins and everyone else's, but don't compare those wins to each other. Everyone is different, and that's what makes theatre great.

Happy New Year friends. Stay safe, happy, healthy, and hydrated,

Jana Denning