#wacdrama

[knowledgeispowerful]

Lots of Lasts

A few days ago I had my last Easter here in Chestertown. I’m always working on shows and so haven’t been able to make it home for Easter since starting college. But I have spent each Easter with my friend Taylor and his family who come down to Chestertown and host a big dinner for a bunch of us. It was a ton of fun, but it was also another last. 

For me, I keep recognizing all the little lasts I’m having. Last advising day, last time I’ll get an email like that, last guest lecturer, etc., etc. But I’ve been kind of ignoring my big lasts. The ones that have been such a huge part of WAC for me that I had to ignore a bit to deal with things. I think Easter was one of them. Knowing next year I won’t be having Easter in Chestertown with friends was really weird for me. It was bittersweet. 

But nothing was as bittersweet for me as performing in my last full production here back in March. I’m not ashamed to say that I cried. Hard. And a bit during the show even. I have been acting at WAC since my first semester here and I have changed so much as a person because of the department and the people there and the characters I have played. So ending Silent Sky was incredibly emotional for me. I didn’t cry when my theatre thesis wrapped, but I woke up on the last morning of Silent Sky already an emotional wreck. 

All that day I felt waves of sadness, pride, confusion, happiness, I was just all over the place. For most of that show I could feel the urge to cry. I wasn’t choked up or losing it, but I knew I could in an instant. So when I finally reached an emotional scene where I could cry in act two with my friend Mark, I let it go. I got to say goodbye, or in reality my line “Thank You,” which fit just as much, to the department, and all the amazing times I have had onstage. Then I pulled it back together, finished the show, and let a tear or two fall during the bows. 

While that wasn’t my last time acting here (I still act in class and other little things) that memory is one of the most wonderful of the past semester. Yes, it was bittersweet for me, but I love thinking back on that show and that moment and the overwhelming amount of love I had in my heart at that moment for everything WAC has given to me. I know in a few years I will still look back on that moment with as much love as I do now. Time and space cannot change that for me.

[knowledgeispowerful]

🎭 #wacdrama #wedoplays

[knowledgeispowerful]

#wedoplays

(Picture Below- Silent Sky, directed by Professor Brendon Fox, March 2017.)

I want to talk a bit about the arts at WAC today. I really love them, which makes sense as a Theatre and English major with a music minor. I’m a bit of a theatre geek, and I am more than ready to just devote my life to theatre, even knowing the odds of being truly successful.

So WAC theatre has been a huge part of my life. It took me from a smart-ass high school theatre kid who thought she knew everything, to a slightly older, and hopefully slightly wiser, theatre person who is more than aware of how much she still doesn’t know, but also knows what she can offer.

In the theatre and dance department at WAC you don’t choose a track. You aren’t just an actor or designer or director. In order to graduate as a theatre major you have to take classes in performance, directing, design, technical work, and history and analysis of theatre and plays. You have to participate in shows as an usher, help build sets, take them back down, and work on shows in a fuller way too in your time. It’s the complete experience, and truly prepares you for the outside world.

I declared my theatre major fall semester freshman year. I knew where my life was headed and didn’t feel like denying that. A lot of people say a theatre major is an easy or useless major, but trust me it’s not.

For starters, on top of writing/directing/performing a full show for your thesis, you also have to write a five-chapter thesis paper. Some are about 60-70 pages. Mine’s currently about 105 (there’s a lot of historical information about Macbeth that needs to be discussed). You start your thesis your junior year, and though the professors are always there to help you, it’s your baby. You put the team together, you figure out the logistics. It’s all yours.

And it’s not a useless degree. Even if you don’t end up onstage theatre training is incredibly useful. I know a lot of people who were theatre majors who have gone on to be great teachers and lawyers because they know how to hold their own in front of a crowd and speak convincingly. I know some theatre majors who have become doctors or engineers, but say they carry that confidence with them from being able to be onstage in front of people, and use it in their lives and careers. Being a theatre major doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll end up onstage someday.

I love the theatre and other arts programs at WAC here and could (obviously) talk about them all day. I won’t though, cause this is already getting long. But I will end with this. When we get theatre and dance department emails they are always addressed, “Dear majors, minors, and family.”

No matter who you are, or what your major is, when it comes to the arts at WAC, you are always part of the family.