Launch, Showcase, and Internship: Oh My!
What a spectacular and truly mind-bending semester it’s been! I don’t mean to repeat myself too much from my last post, but I’m very thankful for all the effort everyone has put in to ensure the students at my school get the most out of their altered experience. A couple of these being my senior class’ Launch and Showcase. Both were recorded and edited by the film staff and students from the school and presented online (in the Launch’s case: to a paying audience; for the Showcase’s case: to agents nationwide). I feel exceptional having more recorded work of my performance capabilities than ever before, and working through it all proved to be such fun! My favorite part out of all of it was being able to perform for the first (and last) time on the Cowan Stage. Unlike my peers, I had been the only member who hadn’t been on the stage at all during my college career—and the recording of my showcase pieces was truly a transcendental experience. It was absolutely surreal taking up the stage all by myself and performing two pieces I had such joy sharing. I wondered how it must have felt for my peers on opening night, in front of a full audience. I hope that when I return for our in-person showcase that I might have the chance to be up there again.
What was that? Another showcase? You heard me right: our school is bringing those nationwide agents to Otterbein for the chance to perform live! What a truly wild time and not something I would have expected—what with the way this pretty dreadful year had been going. However, through the New York-based company The Growing Studio, my class and the class prior will have the unique experience of performing to an in-person list of agents and theatergoers in our spring semester. I can hardly wait! I’ll be sure to update further and list all of the lovely details here on my blog as the days draw nearer. But for now: we rehearse and wait!
And speaking of The Growing Studio: I, alongside four other Otterbein performance students, have been given the remarkable opportunity to intern with the company in the spring! I’m especially excited since I’ll be monitoring Zoom classes and learning a lot about the business with their help. They seemed incredibly thrilled to have us all, and it sounds like we’ll all be pretty busy. Quite the turn of events this year, huh? I’m fairly surprised myself that a year full of so many listings of terrible news could also hold within it such potential for growth and change! I still can’t believe some of these things as I write them, but hopefully in the coming weeks as I spend hours each day working for The Growing Studio I’ll begin to accept the reality that I can still create art in a time of great social distance.
Below is a small intro to the Senior Launch. Feel free to watch and enjoy!
