My College Lessons

Things I did that I benefited from doing in college:

-Took advantage of working with a guest director/designer. If one comes - do it, no matter in what capacity, no matter the experience of the director/designer. Work with as many different people as you can.

-Assisted Bill Buck. He's a completely different designer than Emily. Neither of them are wrong or right, but mixing their methods (as well as Liz Coco's) helped me get through bobrauschenbergameria and create my own way of working.

-Constantly challenged myself. I chose projects I didn't think I could do. 49? Yeah, right. And then did them.

-Worked with people I respected. I was picky about the things I was involved in - I didn't say yes to everything.

-Assisted designers (particularly a fellow student). I learned so much. Assisting is one of the best things I think you can do. ever.

-Devised new work.

Things I wish I did More of:

-Saw more theatre. I started making some trips up to DC my senior year to see some theatre and it changed my perspective a lot. I had spent too much time just doing theatre in my own little JMU box. Yes, it's important to do theatre and we learn by doing. We learn by seeing as well. We better ourselves by being challenged by other people's work. This is why I am so pumped about Forum's membership program for college students. It allows us to not only see professional theatre, but see the professional process and that's so important. And I'm being blown away by how many people are hesitant because they're too busy. If you want to be a professional theatre person (in whatever capacity) you have to see theatre. The end.

-Assisted directors. Yes, we learn a lot about by doing and messing up and figuring it out (the Theatre II model) but we also learn by observing. I've assisted twice now, both pretty brilliant directors, and have learned an incredible amount about directing. You can't teach directing. Especially not out of a book. You learn by meshing other people's methods with your own. You learn by not only observing, but assisting, in the process of experienced and diverse directors.

ADDITIONALLY you most likely will not be given senior year opportunities when you graduate. You will be assisting and interning and to someone who would hire you as an assistant they care less about how brilliant your pictures are and how many shows you've designed and more about how you work with people, which they will find out by calling people you've assisted or seeing that you've assisted the same person more than once. Directors/designers/etc want people that have assisted before to assist them.

-Went to more of the workshops JMU offered, even ones that didn't pertain to my particular interests.

-Spent time on activities outside of the theatre community, went to football games, met new people that didn't do theatre, went hiking.

I'll keep adding to both of these list.