I don’t know exactly how to explain my love for acting; it’s always been a part of me and I really don’t know how to phrase it other than this: asking me why I want to act is like asking me why I breathe. It just sort of… happened. Now that I’ve started, I can’t stop; it's what I need to survive. I’ve always been known as the smart girl, people would tell me that I can go in so many other directions, so why would I choose this? Why would I choose a risky path when I could choose a definite path? They’d ask in such a negative tone and I’d simply reply with, “Why would I want to spend my life doing something just to get by when I could spend my life doing something I love?”.
I was introduced to the performing arts when I was in kindergarten. From the very moment I started, I knew that acting would be the only thing I’d want to do. As a kid, other kids wanted to do the same but eventually
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I got older, it was so much harder for other people to dream. I would be in a room with other people my age and we’d all get asked, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”. Other kids wanted to be pilots, engineers, doctors, teachers and I’d say I wanted to be an actress. I was always told that it’s not something that’s practical and that I should choose something else but every time I’m asked what I want to do with my life, I’d confidently reply with “An actor.” As a kid, I used to force my brothers and cousins to pretend to be different people with me. I guess that seems like something normal for a child but it never stopped for me. I’d constantly imagine myself being different people no matter where I went. Whenever I’d step on the stage, I’d feel the need to become someone else. I’d recite a monologue I know or convince my friends to improvise a scene with me. When I was in the third I was bullied for being in the drama program in my elementary school.
Though other kids made fun of me because I had the confidence to get on the stage and perform, I still found that I wanted to act much more than I wanted anyone to like me. Drama class was always my way out from the rest of the world. Sometimes I would bring my food to the theater and beg my teacher to let me and my friends eat there and almost every time she let me. We didn’t need extra rehearsal time but we couldn’t stay away. It was almost as if gravity was pulling my body towards the stage.
I’m not normally a person who shows much negative emotion; when I’m upset I don’t really show it. This is kind of weird for a person who has been through the things I have, but it’s just the way I am. Acting is sort of my outlet. I’m no longer Amaya, I’m someone else; someone who does have feelings. I reuse or ‘recycle’ past feelings and situations and put it into the characters I play. When I’m acting I almost feel like I’m in another world, a parallel universe where I can be whoever I want to
be. Not only do I love being other people, but I love when I can also be myself. I enjoy playing characters that are a lot like who I am as a person. When people think of me they always mention how I’m funny and gregarious. Playing a character that is meant to be funny is probably when I’m happiest. Being able to make other people laugh and well, feel anything at all starts a fire inside of me, a good fire. I want people to be able to look at me as any person and relate to me. If you think about it, in schools we learn that we live to work. We learn that one day we’ll be done with high school, then we’ll go to college, and we’ll have to get a job to make money. One thing they don’t mention, is that we should have a career doing something that we love. A lot of the time people like me (who are interested in the performing arts) are told that we can’t do what we want, but I think that anyone who gives up on what they want because of other people, shouldn’t do it. I don’t care if people say that I can’t get far wanting to pursue acting. I know that I’d much rather die doing something I love than live a life doing something I’m unhappy with. Why would I want to be unhappy for the rest of my life? There’s a big difference between being alive and living your life.
Performing or public speaking of any kind is difficult, but that difficulty can help to build confidence. Fine arts gives students the ability to perform and build confidence with their own support team of people who do and love the same thing. Not having to perform alone and knowing that everything possible has been done to ensure a good performance helps performers be confident in themselves and in their abilities. “Puneet Jacob, former choristers and current assistant conductor, says kids are often afraid to perform because of fear of failure.” (Lefebvre) The more a person faces their fear, especially when they do well and the fear is disproved, the less afraid he or she will become. When students work on music or a play for months on end, they become much more confident in themselves and what they can do than they were when they first began.
Whether it is on the stage acting out roles in a school musical or up in the booth working the lights when I am part of a show I feel at home. It wasn’t until eighth grade until I began to enjoy acting. Our school had a mandatory eighth-grade play in which all eighth graders were required to participate. At the time I wasn’t too sure about the play. The show was The Little Mermaid, and being a typical eighth-grade boy, I thought the show was too “girly.” It wasn't until I received a call-back that I became interested in the show. I remember I ran home to my dad and after asking him what a call-back was, I asked if he could help me in any way possible to get the role of Prince
I got into theatre my Junior year and It has changed my life. I am more outgoing and more likely to step out of my comfort zone. It has also helped me strengthen my time management skills. Theatre has also opened my up to a whole new group of people. I do community theatre in a town 30 minutes away from my hometown and I did not know anyone who did the community theatre and now I have strong friendships with all of them and I would never have gotten that without Theatre.
Don’t let your nerves get to you. It was a Friday afternoon in the hot, muggy, and humid auditorium. It was the opening of our new musical, Little Shop of Horrors. All I could see when I looked through the blue curtains of the stage were all the people talking and carrying on about their children. Of course people are going to brag about their kids, it’s acting. Some kids are good, some, not so much. I’m freaking out because this is the first time I’ve been on stage to act in a musical since I was in elementary. I was all nerved up and persistently telling myself, what are these people going to do if I mess up? What if I look funny? I was getting overwhelmed and agitated.
From a young age, I was very curious. Curiosity caused my mind to see everything from a different perspective than most. I saw what could be improved and how I could improve. For example, when it came to editing movies, I was always able to see what could how it could have been better or I questioned how they had created it. My curiosity led me to try many different activities throughout high school, such as film camps, stage managing for plays, yearbook, and even creating videos for Rochester High School’s awards day. Finally, my junior year, I decided it was time I made films of my own for competitions. I wanted to have something that I could call my own. When it came to the two films I did for contests, I was there throughout the whole process.
The career that I chose was Performing Arts, more specifically, Musical Theatre. I would perform as a singer, dancer as well as an actress, gaining the title of a performer. My career in a small view is performing different plays and musicals for people and making everyone happy. I chose this career, because I love performing and I’ve always done some form of it through elementary school until now. I had always enjoyed singing and playing music, but when I performed in front of the student body in Play Production II, everything changed. I had learned that I loved acting and singing the same amount. I decided, if I could do one thing, I would perform in some sort of musical. It is important to understand
I started this hobby in 6th grade as an effort to put myself out there. Overall, I have participated in only three official plays. Sadly, this year, I suffered from a busy schedule and had to refrain from participating in this year’s school play. This hobby is important to me because it exposed me to many great works of theater and literature. More importantly, this gave me a voice, which helps me with public speaking majorly. Being yelled at to be louder for a month has clearly made an impression on me. I am often commended by my peers and teachers for not only providing life and character to my speeches, but I also show the ability to project my voice. Drama has given me the opportunity to give great speeches and at the same time, takes away my stage fright and
Theatre has always been a topic of interest in my life. I would watch movies and be more intrigued by character choices, make-up, costumes, and background instead of the actual movie itself. I would find myself thinking of things I would have done different in a film, especially films that were based off of books. So, in the 5th grade, at Handley Elementary, I made the decision to enter SASA middle school in the Theatre concentration. I really liked Theatre, but I eventually grew tired of being on stage. I enjoyed things like critiquing monologue pieces, building sets, being part of the stage crew, and analyzing scripts more than actually performing. In the 10th grade, I was assigned to be the assistant director of a play entitled “The Rope Swing”, which was part of the fall production at SASA in 2012. Since then, I have assistant directed three shows and I’ve fallen in love with directing.
It is a way to escape and channel emotions. Just like any other art form. Theatre allows people to put themselves out there. Uta Hagen, theatre teacher and legend, says that it is not about losing yourself in the character, but about finding yourself in the character. Uta Hagen explains in her book Respect for Acting that emotions occur when something happens to people. It momentarily suspends the persons reasoning control and are unable to cope logically. She says to use a release object (acting) to bring out emotions such as triggers or a physical action. Also, she says there is no time to wander through past adventures; one should not be forced to deal with something buried. She is basically saying to transfer emotions into art. Alleviate the pain. This can be done with any form of art. But theatre allows an actor to be someone else and live truthfully in the moment. In a recent interview with G-Star School of the Arts teacher, Brian Edgecomb, he discussed how he has seen theatre heal students and himself. Edgecomb discussed that he lost his mother at a young age and felt alone. He discovered theatre in his teenage years and said he never felt more alive. As if his mother was always right by his side. He took the character’s circumstances and found himself in them. As for students, he says that there are many that come in extremely shy and anxious. They are starting something new and scary for them. After a few months he has seen a drastic change in them. As if they were completely different people. They were outgoing, confident, and fearless. His goals are to push every young student out of there comfort zone, which is exactly what theatre
It made me proud, but her artistry made her the black sheep in a family of medical professionals. Being her daughter and only child, I felt compelled to carry on the tradition of an artful, entrepreneurial career. Like so many other pre-teens, I pinned my hopes on becoming an actress, after discovering a passion for the performing arts from playing Wendy in “Peter Pan” and Ursula in “The Little Mermaid.” I soon learned though that being behind the curtain was much more my style— stage makeup application, learned from watching drag queen tutorials, fulfilled my artistic
Ever since I was a young kid I’ve been outgoing. I was the shameless five year old that would try to crack a joke to a group of my sixty year old family members. I’ve always enjoyed being in front of people and I have been a performer for fifteen years. In dance, I have been the performer but also the choreographer, in which I have made several pieces that range from serious to humorous. I’ve realized that through my years of dance, that I no longer want to continue with it but that I like creating productions that involve comedy. One of my biggest passions is writing and as I was reflecting on what career would best suit me, I came upon the idea of comedy screenwriting. I don’t shy away from making heavy situations light hearted and I love
Every since I can remember I have liked to watch movies, I would never watch a scary
I have loved acting for as long as I can remember. At age three I entertained family members with reenactments of my favorite movie scenes and at thirteen I was cast in the American Conservatory Theater’s first Shakespearean performance through the Youth Conservatory—A Midsummer Night’s Dream. For the last five years, those eighth-floor classrooms in downtown San Francisco have served as a second home in which I thrive as an actress. When my mother enrolled me at A.C.T. I began taking acting very seriously and committed myself to training. Eventually, I decided that I wanted a career in the film industry.
Many artists say that they were born to do art, that it was always in their blood and that they cannot remember a time that art was not a part of their lives. For me, this was exactly the opposite. I was always trying to do my best in science and mathematics and art was not even on my radar until I was a freshman in high school where I met my first inspiration for art, Zack Smithey. I was lucky enough to have Mr. Smithey as a guide for the start of my art career all four years in high school and he really pushed me to develop my portrait work. He helped me develop the foundation of my artwork, but at that point I was merely duplicating what I was seen and really had not developed an aesthetic of my own. For me, art was a challenge for me to
Theatre had been a huge part of my life the past two years. It was introduced to me my junior year and I fell in love. I love the adrenalin rush I get right befor stepping on stage and because of theatre I am more likely to step out of my comfort zone. It has also helped me strengthen my time management skills and it continues to help me meet new people. I got into theatre my Junior year and It has changed my life.