Moving Forward...

One week ago I completed my course with LAMDA. I had a wonderful time and honestly my friends/family are probably going to get sick of me talking about it. Our final week was spent in rehearsals for our shortened production of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. I had the opportunity to play Caesar and Calpurnia. The roles challenged me in many ways and I loved it! It was challenging because I was sharing the role of Caesar with another castmate, so when I was Calpurnia (Caesar’s wife) he was Caesar. We had this really cool moment in the middle of the scene where I took over as Caesar. In the play this moment is when Calpurnia says her last line so it allows for a smooth transition. Honestly it was hard to tell in rehearsals if the switch of Caesar’s would read well but based on the audience’s reaction it worked really well! Honestly, I had one of the easier roles in the show because I was Caesar when he died so for over half of the show I was just playing dead on stage. However, I made sure to still apply myself as much as I could to the lines I had, especially since I am relatively new to working with Shakespeare. It was really wonderful working with the director of the course on our production. Nick is very knowledgeable in all things Shakespeare so he helped me understand what I needed to do to make sure the words could be understood by the audience. Our showing was the first one of the day and then we just got to watch the others, Macbeth and King Lear. It was awesome watching my other classmates perform and create the world in front of us. All of our productions were stripped back, meaning we didn’t really have costumes or set pieces. This allowed us to focus on the words and the story. It was a great day full of great art. Now without sounding too boastful, I was really proud of myself when I finished. Not only did I not miss a line, I also felt I was focused throughout the show. If you have known me for a long time you know I used to struggle A LOT with memorizing lines. It was so much of a struggle that it became a fear for a while. I would become stressed leading up to a performance of forgetting my lines, letting everyone down, and getting yelled at that I would tense up and kinda blackout when performing. I can say now that I have mostly worked through and gotten over that. I think the main thing that has helped me has been finding positive theater environments and assuring myself I have done the work, and I know what I’m doing. One thing that I am still working on that applies to this is understanding COMPLETELY what I’m saying and why I’m saying it. I think I used to convince myself that I knew what I was saying but, I don’t think I did at all. I don’t think I believed myself when I was onstage. Working on Shakespeare has forced me to realize that and I am better for it. When performing Shakespeare if you don’t understand what you are saying then the audience won’t. So, I really had to know what I was doing. My goal is to continue to work on this going forward. Acting is a skill and a craft, you have to keep working on it. 

This leads me into what you are all probably going to ask me, because it makes sense too. “What’s next for you?” That is a great question that I honestly have so many different answers for. The simple answer is “I don’t know”. The longer answer includes: hanging out with friends, auditioning, updating my website and reels, reading for myself, reading plays, working on new material, finding a day job, writing a screenplay, writing short stories/a book, cooking, baking, watching live theater, possibly starting a podcast, taking care of myself, and hopefully performing/getting booked. So, it is not that I won’t be busy, it is just more about applying myself to what’s in front of me right now and not getting upset at what I don’t have. I have found that I feel lost when I don’t feel connected to my craft, so instead of blaming it on not being in school anymore or not being booked, I am trying to take the initiative myself. I know it won’t be easy because mental health will get in the way, but I’m determined to try. Just like this blog and my vlog when I was away, I am doing it for me, not to please or impress others, just to make myself proud (or my younger self proud). I will of course keep you all updated on what I do and how I’m doing, the good and the bad. However, right now I’d love your input. Let me know what you want to hear from me! Would you be interested in more blog posts about theater, acting and my life? Would you listen to a podcast about being in your 20s with a liberal arts degree just trying to figure things out? I’d love your opinions on this! I have loved sharing this part of my life with you all and I hope to share more in the future. To finish this blog post I would love to share some quotes my professor Dickon Tyrrell shared with us. Enjoy! 

“Love the art in yourself and not yourself in the art” 

~Konstantin Stanislavski

“Don’t regret anything in life. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience! When you win, you win. When you lose, you learn” 

~Professor Richard Feynman 

“Always be you. There’s only one of you, so be the best that you can be.”

 ~Angela Lansbury