Confession #35: 8 Reasons Why I Am a Theatre Major

Here's an example of a typical conversation I have with people when I first meet them:

New person: (after I've told them I'm in college and where I go) So what's your major?
Me: I'm a theatre major.

(And then, they usually say one of these statements)

New person: Oh! So, what do you plan to do with that?/Oh, that's nice/cool/interesting.
Me: Yeah, it's great to be doing what I love. 

And then the inevitable question that I hate more than anything:

New person: So... what are you going to do after you graduate? 

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After having had this same conversation several times since I started going to Sam Houston, I've decided that I would make a post about why exactly I am a theatre major, so those of you who have wondered the same things about me can understand and can stop asking these questions, which quite honestly, I'm getting tired of trying to answer.

1. Theatre = Life.
Theatre, for me, is about life. It's about living in the moment, letting the emotions of your monologue or the lyrics from that chorus number wash over you and let it fill you up to the point where you have no other choice BUT to react in some way, whether positively or negatively.

2. Theatre is where I can find out who I am.
Acting is both about lying and about being real. You lie, because... well, you're not you. You're portraying someone else, a character, who you may or may not relate to on any level. And at the same time, it's about finding out who you are. As you get to know the character you also start making discoveries about yourself. You come to learn things about yourself you never knew before, and then in the end, you're a better person for it.

3. Theatre makes you feel.
Theatre is all about feelings and emotions; it's stories, lies, truths, love, loss, pain, joy, anger. If it makes you feel, it means something. I have seen so many shows, and every time I go see one I always feel something different. Shows have made me laugh, they have made me cry, they have made me angry. I think that, as a society, we have forgotten how to feel; we teach children that crying is wrong, that if a boy cries he is weak, and that if a girl cries it makes her weaker and therefore cannot ever be strong. We teach men and women that emotions are "pointless", that they get in the way and that any negative emotion is a "bad" emotion and should be medicated away. People need to FEEL. They need to be able to feel; to cry, to be angry, to be joyful and happy. And theatre makes that happen for so many people.

4. Theatre brings you a variety of amazing friends.
When I first started doing community theatre, it was mainly with family friendly, church-centered groups, so therefore most of the friends I made in theatre were friends who were usually younger than me (although I did meet a few adult and teenage friends from when I did my few shows with the Houston Family Arts Center) but mostly, they were friends who had grown up having the same values instilled in them as had been instilled in me. When I started attending Sam Houston, I knew that I would be around different people than I had gotten used to, but I was excited to be changing to a different theatre scene. I have made so many amazing friends in my first year at Sam, and I am excited to all the other friends I will make in the next few years. They say that the people you were friends with in college usually don't remain your friends after graduation, because then you all go off in different directions and will never see or hear from each other ever again. I hope that will not be the case with my new-found friends at Sam, because I can see us all staying friends for a long time.

5. Theatre forces you to see the world from different viewpoints.
While most people would be content to stay in the safety that is their Comfort Zone and not have to think about things that might seem contradictory to their belief system or set of morals, theatre forces you to stand in someone else's shoes and see the world through their eyes. One good example of this: last semester, I did a scene in my acting class with my good friend Chris from The American Clock by Arthur Miller. The scene we did was from later on in the play (if you've never heard of it or read it, go look it up. Seriously, talk about a great script!) and my character was... well, to put it bluntly, she was a Communist, and she really was passionate about her politics and her belief that Socialism was going to save America. Or when I did a scene from Beth Henley's Abundance (actually I've done two scenes from that now, but anyway) and my character was basically a mail-order bride who had come out West along with another girl to meet their husbands. I've never been in either of these situations, but I had to pretend that I knew what it was like to be that person, in order to make my performance believable and real. There are other examples I could give, but it would take up more time to go through them all.

6. Theatre makes me feel accepted.
Let's face it: I don't quite fit in anywhere. I have always thought that, ever since I was little. I thought that music and choir would give me a place to belong, but instead, it only made me feel more isolated. When I started doing theatre after I left CBC (supposedly having been "cured" of my anorexia) my mom told me about auditions at the local community center for a musical. She told me that she almost DIDN'T tell me because she was afraid that if I auditioned and didn't get a role that I would just fall back into my anorexia behaviors. But I did get a role (my first lead role) and... well, the rest is history. When I started going to Kingwood as a music major, I thought I had found my life's calling, but, as certain event unfolded in the three years I was there, I began to see that, perhaps, this was not what I was meant to do. In a way, it started feeling like high school all over again. So, when I finally got accepted to SHSU, I knew it would be an opportunity to see if theatre was where I was meant to go. And it is.

7. The feeling I get when I'm on stage is a feeling I can't find anywhere else.
When I'm on stage, whether singing or acting, or even dancing, I get this feeling that I have never felt before. It's better than falling in love! It's a feeling that, once you feel it, it becomes like a drug; you need more, you crave more, you can't get enough, and you will do anything to get back under that spotlight again. It's not easy to describe. It's like being on top of the world, only better. When you can make an audience laugh, cry, or sing along with you, you feel like you've done something truly worthwhile.

8. While it's not easy to explain every reason for why I love theatre and why I chose to pursue a degree in it, here are some quotes that summarize every reason perfectly.

"The theatre is the only institution in the world which has been dying for four thousand years and has never succumbed. It requires tough and devoted people to keep it alive." - John Steinbeck. 

"Being onstage is just a feeling you cannot duplicate anywhere else because the energy that the audience is giving you forces you to give more energy. It's such an output exchange of energy. You can't do that anywhere else."- Aaron Tveit. 

"That the scarey thing about theatre - it doesn't live on. But that's actually the most beautiful thing about it, too. That's why it's more beautiful than film and certainly more beautiful than television, because it's like life. Real life. Any picture you take or any video that you make of yourself is not really you, it's only any image that represents the experience you had. In theatre, the process of it is the experience. Everyone goes through the process, and everyone has the experience together. It doesn't last - only in people's memories and in their hearts. That's the beauty and sadness of it. But that's life - the beauty and the sadness. And that's why theatre is life." - Sherie Rene Scott

"Movies will make you famous, television will make you rich, but theatre will make you good." - Terrence Mann 

"There is that smaller world which is the stage, and that larger stage which is the world." - Isaac Goldberg.

"They say for every light on Broadway there is a broken heart, an unrealized dream. And that's the same way in every profession. So you have to want it more than anyone else, and you have to be your own champion, be your own superstar, blaze your own path, say yes to every opportunity, follow your instincts, be eager, and passionate, keep learning, nurture your real, lasting relationships, don't be a jerk, and free your imagination so you can become all that you want to be." - Sutton Foster. 

"I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being." - Oscar Wilde. 

"Acting is not about being someone different. It's finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself there." Meryl Streep.

"The world's a stage, but the play is badly cast." - Oscar Wilde.

"With any part you play, there is a certain amount of yourself in it. There has to be, otherwise it's just not acting. It's lying." - Johnny Depp.

"All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed." - Sean O'Casey. 

"In the theatre we play. That's why we call them 'plays', right? We're playing together. That's a sweet and gentle way of saying it. Except it's very real. It's grown-up play. And that's how we stay in touch with the child within us." - Chita Rivera, excerpt from the book 'The Alchemy of Theatre'.