Tuesday, January 17, 2006

My thespianism still half-closeted

Laura and I are working on her final speech. After talking to her about a specific part in the speech and how she should deliver it, she says to me:

"I have a question."

"Yes?" I say, flipping through the pages, anticipating what part she is about to ask me about.

"Why aren't you in drama?" she asks smiling.

I shake my head smiling. I've been asked this by almost all of the drama majors who have seen me perform or do any sort of theatre work. Sometimes, I'll explain to them as to why I do not study theatre and only do it as something extra. But not this time.

I look at her slyly and smirking I say, "Oh, I'm not going to answer that..."

"You know", she says, "it is never to late too join..."

I've also heard this said many times before. I am not at all tempted to join. As much as I love drama and theatre -- it is one of my favourite things -- I do not want to study it.
The thing is, I have vast interests that lie in various areas. I am interested in things such as drama, singing, dancing, writing, languages, history, politics. Being a logical and practical person, I decided that I would study something that I love, that would be useful for many things, and that I could continuously build on. That is why I chose to study Languages double majoring with Liberal Arts. My rational is that I am paying thousands of dollars to do post-secondary education, and I would rather spend it on learning and fortifying languages and improving my writing skills and brain power.

I figure that drama is something that rarely requires a B.A. Although it is true that the more theatre training you have, the better you become, directors who are looking for actors for their production, will base the majority of their decision on your audition and any other extra abilities (such as piano playing or singing for a specific part, for instance). They will not discredit you if you do not have a Drama Bachelor's degree; as long as you are a fantastic and dedicated actor, they'll like you and couldn't care less whether or not you took your Production 3 class. Of course, extra training can never hurt; studying theatre can give you contacts and make you prepared for auditions and for the outside "theatre" world. Oh, and it can make you a better actor, too.

Besides, the drama group at Bishop's is crazy, and I rather enjoy and feel safe being on the outskirts. By the time they get out into the "real world" and start sorting out their huge, emotional, and dramatic problems, I will already be dazzling directors by being fantastic, dedicated, and free of all "Drama student" symptoms.

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