She’s a College Graduate, Now What?
Whelp? It’s been almost 4 months (1/3 of a year!) since college graduation, and in that time I’ve managed to…? What have I managed?
I will say that there are times when I feel like I’ve not truly accomplished much in that time because I’ve been living at home in Minnesota. And yet, when I take a step back, I’ve actually gotten to do quite a bit.
The largest thing is that I’ve been busy with a show! Over three of the past four months I have been rehearsing and performing with an incredible group of people in the Rochester Repertory Theatre Company’s production of Jeffrey Hatcher’s The Turn of the Screw as The Woman. This was the first show I’ve done without a mask since the pandemic started, and, while we were all careful and stayed safe, I will admit it felt a little odd to see the whole of people’s faces. A good odd, but still odd after constantly masking for a year-and-a-half.
A side note: please, please, PLEASE continue to mask/be safe, and PLEASE get vaccinated if you haven’t already—we just got back to theaters re-opening for in-person performances. Please help in the effort to keep transmission rates down so that we can continue to perform for live audiences and…you know…save lives. Now! Back to your regularly scheduled blog post!
This was, by far, the most challenging project I’ve ever worked on. Not only was it the first play I’ve been in for some time, but I was also one of two actors! While my counterpart played several different characters and had to manage the constant switches between them, I got to focus on the overall arc of the character, while also managing the memorization of half of a show. Before this project, I had an incredible amount of respect for actors who perform one-person shows; now, I have the absolute utmost respect for them. The lines were 100% the hardest part of this experience. And yet, I came into it with a strategy.
The above picture is how I worked to memorize my lines—flashcards. While my book for this show was certainly larger than others, it really worked in my favor. I had quite a lot of down-time at work, so I was able to run my lines pretty often and was able to feel confident in having them learned!
Other than that, I’ve been working on prepping audition materials and preparing to move to Chicago within the next couple months! I might not have a lot of physical evidence to show what I’ve been working on these last few months, but it’s the whole iceberg analogy—lots of invisible work going into a small amount of visible product!
Anyway, that’s the update on me for now! Until next time!
