I was recently asked the question, “Why did you decide to
major in theatre?”
I paused.
“How do I put this without sounding lame or, worse, like I
have no life direction?” I thought to
myself.
The story of how I became a theatre major is a bit of a long
one.
For those of you who don’t know me well, you may be
surprised to learn that I didn’t start out as a theatre major. No sir, I was
going to be practical and pursue a degree in public relations, despite my love of acting. PR sounded fun,
and hey, I’m sure I could do a show here
or there if I had free time.
It took exactly three months for me to realize that I really
didn’t belong in the PR world.
Unfortunately, I didn’t know
what other options were to be had. All I knew was that I loved people and loved telling stories.
And then one day in my Intro to Human Communication course,
an upperclassman theatre major, who later became one of my best friends, and the then
artistic director for the IWU Theatre Department came to discuss theatre as a
major.
I was in awe of what they had to say.
It was like they had crawled inside my head, took the
aspirations of a five year old who loved to perform, combined them with a
nineteen year old’s yearning to somehow impact people, and made a lesson plan out of all that
information.
And it didn’t sound stupid, or immature, or impractical.
It sounded awesome.
It sounded so awesome, I’m pretty sure I had a huge,
ridiculous grin on my face the entire time.
And I swear I heard a very small voice, that was not my own,
say, “Do it.”
I’d like to say that
I marched over to the registrar’s office that same day and changed my major.
But then this story
would be over far too soon.
So I waffled a bit, thought over pros and cons, and finally
came up with a plan, albeit a lame one.
I’d audition for the musical in a few weeks time, and if I
got a role (it didn’t matter how small) I’d start considering switching majors.
I’m pretty sure you can guess what happened.
Fast forward nearly four years later, to the girl currently
writing this post, who is asked very frequently what she wants to do with
her life.
There are so many things I’d like to do.
I want to inspire, excite, and yes, make people cry.
I want some little girl or boy to look at my performance one
day and think to themselves,
“I want to do what she’s doing; I want to be on a
stage like that.”
But really, I just want to tell stories; I want to paint a
picture of someone else’s life.
That’s why I majored in theatre.