Tuesday, March 2, 2010

A combination of depression and elation



In less than three months, I will be done with high school...forever! My four years of high school were the four most mixed, in terms of good and bad, years of my life so far. In those four years, I have performed in eight shows, directed one, and won my first, and so far, only acting award. In that exact same amount of time, I have been on zero dates, took very few chances in terms of a social life, and of the parties where alchol was served, only two had people within two-three years of my age. Dramatically the years have been very rewarding, socially I didn't make a dent.

Two weeks ago, I visited the University of Evansville. I loved the campus, the people, the program, and the brief glimpse that I had of the cast parties. I plan to make up for the lost time, in terms of partying, when I get to college. I also had my audition/interview for the Evansville Department of Theatre, which overall I think went well. I could have said some things better in my interview and not wandered during my song. The week after that I attended a Master Class at Wright State and had my audition for the Acting program the next day. For no apparent reason, I was much more nervous for Wright State than I was Evansville, which is odd since Evansville has higher placing over Wright State for me.

The title of this blog entry is a lyric from the song "Tonight at Eight," from the musical She Loves Me. The song is about a nervous intellectual who has a date later that day with the girl of his dreams. The song has a nervous pace and fast lyrics that lend well to my style of performance. I used this song for my Wright State audition. I performed this piece first out of my three in order to expel most of my nervous energy.

I used this line specifically to state how I feel about going to college next year. Most of my classmates have been accepted into their top colleges and are already buying swag from said school. I, on the other hand, have to hold off buying such things as I have to wait and see what's going to happen. It's not that I don't have an ideal college, Evansville has pretty much cemented itself at the top of my list; its that everything is still up in the air. For Evansville, there are twenty spots for guys in the Theatre Performance major per year for the hundreds upon thousands of guys that audition for the program, I don't need to be Jo Guido to see that the odds are indeed against me. With Wright State, there are thirty-two acting spots, while it is the least popular of the two performance majors, my chances slim as now Wright State allows people to apply for Musical Theatre and Acting, so if people don't find their way into the Musical Theatre slot, there can take my potential spot in Acting. I am elated for the new chapter of my life that is about to begin but depressed over the fact that I might not go where I hope I would.

I know that as an actor, this is the reality I live in. It takes me to the highest states of ecstasy and deepest pits of depression. That auditions are mostly luck but still rely heavily on how I present myself. That coming out of college, I won't have steady work unlike some of my friends who are majoring in science, medicine, teaching, etc. This is the only life I could ever live. I could not imagine myself filing reports, attending conference meetings, or stuck in any form of square-shaped hell that is the typical office cubical. I know that if I am rejected from Evansville or Wright State, the story doesn't end there, my life doesn't go kaput. I have other options, there is more than one way to skin this cat called the career of acting. Besides, there is always NKU.

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