Wow – a year since my last entry, really? I suppose it makes sense since nothing exciting happened last year – at least nothing I necessarily have to share with other people. And especially since hardly anyone ever reads this anyway.
But I guess it’s time again to write something, if only to update those friends in Europe who want to be updated on what’s going on here. Remember, though, what I’m saying here is just a few thoughts, and by no means any final decisions. By now, it’s my fourth semester (so after this, only one more to go until I have my BA) and I’m spending it abroad – USA. Nebraska. Kearney. To be even more specific: Theatre Department since, seeing how much time I spend there, I seem to live there more than in my room, but that’s fine because it’s brilliant, it really is. I actually take four Theatre courses here (Intro to Stagetech, Survey of Dramatic Literature, Lighting Design, and Play Direction), and I only ever have to leave the Fine Arts Building for my two English courses: Beginning Poetry and Literature of Horror. While Horror Lit is a really amazing course (lots of vampire lore and generally a very cool class), I’m not going to talk about anything English-related because the most important thing is – you get the idea – Theatre, and since I haven’t talked to a lot of people from back home, I’m going to give you much more details about this… And I mean much more! (I even found a role-playing group here, which is pretty amazing considering that I was sad not to play while I’m here. So we’re starting our Deadlands campaign next week and it promises to be lots of fun!)
Now, I was very positively surprised when I got into the Theatre Department here because the atmosphere is simply great. The god-honest truth is that the whole Theatre department just seems to be like a huge family: everybody knows each other, everybody knows what’s going on, everybody cares, and everybody probably spends a lot more time there than other students in their departments. (To quote Kyle: “These few steps outside to smoke a cigarette is as far as my chains let me go.“) Unlike the Theatre courses (if I can even call them that) back at RA, everything here is incredibly practical, so we need to do stuff. A lot of stuff. Like hanging and focusing lights (because of my Lighting Design class, but also because I’m Assistant to the Head Electrician), building things, and so on. Naturally, there’s a lot of work to be done in theatre productions and everybody’s involved in it here in some way or another. On a different note, I’m directing two one-acts this semester for my Play Direction class (and, truthfully, I wouldn’t even be in there if we hadn’t managed to pressure a freshman into dropping the course because it was full – and I did that with everything I had, gave him the whole dramatic sad-faced puppy-eyes guilt-trip of “I’m only here this semester and I will never get the chance of taking this course again!”) and of course, for that, we need to have rehearsals, and a lot of them. Generally speaking you need one hour for each minute on stage, and since the first show, a cutting from a full-length play, is supposed to be 30 minutes, that means 30 hours of rehearsals within, roughly, a month. So with all the things I’m doing here, my schedule is constantly full. I could honestly not tell you much about the rest of Nebraska – or the rest of Kearney even, for that matter, because I never seem to leave the Theatre department, but I’m enjoying it and that’s why I’m here anyway.
Directing – by the way, it’s a cutting from An Inspector Calls – is tons of fun and very satisfying. That’s partly because I got my absolute dream cast – basically all the people I wanted to have – and all five of my actors do a brilliant job and catch up on things quickly. (More quickly than I’m used to. Oh my, everything’s so professional here!) They practically do whatever I want them to do, mostly without even having to tell them to do so, bring in their own ideas and some interesting character interpretations that I hadn’t even considered before. And seeing that it’s me who’s directing it, there’s some slapping (real slapping of course, no fake stage-slaps), yelling, threatening, and so on. We still have three weeks to go until the actual performance, which means 15 more rehearsals, but I’m already very positive about the outcome. As far as I’m concerned, they do a very good job. I mean, if they even manage to scare me during every single rehearsal – and, hell, I’m the director, I know what’s going on and shouldn’t be shocked anymore! – then that probably means that they are really good. (Or maybe just that I am that pathetic. I’d go for the first answer because it makes me happier.) So we’re starting to use our props soon, and then I need to think about the costumes, but I already have. A little. I’ll probably start to freak out about everything approximately two weeks before the rehearsal, so that means I still have a week of just being happy about it. It’s a lot of work, but I wouldn’t want to miss that experience for anything in the world.
That goes for every single experience I get here. UNK – or UNK’s Theatre Department – is the best thing that could have happened to me right now. Now, what do I do back at RA? Sure, Theatre and Media Studies. And what does that mean? A bunch of theatre and film theory, and the only practical experience I get there is the TheatRA committee. However, in theatre business it’s much more useful, much more important to have practical skills. Sure, theory is nice and can be a good complement, but it’s not the main focus – or that’s how I see it, especially since I got here. And everything is so incredibly exciting here – only a few days ago, one of my actors accidentally shot a 2”-staple into his thumb when he helped me with a project, and that was quite a scary sight and resulted in someone taking him to the ER.You don’t get anything like that at nothing-but-theoretical RA, eh?
Truthfully, I dread going back, I’m not even trying to deny that, and why should I? What I do here is exactly what I want to do, so I completely lost my heart (and soul) to the UNK Theatre. What am I supposed to do back at RA anyway? Sitting there reading about all kinds of stuff – and for the most part not even theatre, but film stuff, which is interesting but not my main focus? Writing about it instead of doing it? Theorising about theatre without experiencing it, when I know that there is some other place where I can do what I really want to do, what, so to speak, calls to me? And doing that for what, another year? Now, RA might be nice, and the RA environment might be nice, but it’s not what I want, or need – not without actually doing things. The way I see it, going back to RA for another year until I got my degree would be a complete waste of time for me. I’m not saying it’s been a waste of time until now; quite the opposite because without RA, I would have never found out what I actually want to do. Originally, it was Philosophy and Anthropology, and then, completely due to my tutor’s intuition, it’s Theatre and Media Studies – and now I’m here, also thanks to RA, and discovered my passion for the theatre even more. But going back would be a waste of time. And as nice as RA might be, I’ve never felt so utterly accepted and belonging somewhere as I do here, and it makes me sad that I have to leave this behind again.
So am I considering staying here? Why, yes, of course; I’ve talked to quite some people about it in the past week – mainly, of course, my Theatre people because I don’t seem to have much contact to other people anyway – because I don’t even have time for that sometimes. The thing is, I’m having the time of my life here and I wouldn’t want to leave that so soon. In addition, it’s much more favourable for me and my future than going back. But of course there are things in the way; first and foremost, visa issues, and then, probably, financial issues. However, if there is any way I could possibly make it work, I will. Nothing’s been decided yet, and I don’t even have information about all that visa/financial stuff, but I am seriously considering staying in the States, at least for my Bachelor degree. I’m not planning to stay here forever; no, my long-term plans are still a Master programme in Great Britain, but for the time being, it would be the best thing that could happen to me. If I do have to come back – and right now that’s more probable than staying, I suppose – the only university thing I would really look forward to would be – surprise, surprise – the TheatRA committee, and in that case I’ll definitely run for the Directing position because that would mean that I can at least do exciting things over there.
I love it here. I really, really do, and I make the best of every experience I get here, even if it means counting my bruises because I (repeatedly) ran into a ladder, or hit myself with a lighting instrument – because that’s just what I do.
On a different note, though, because of all the theatre work and my courses, I am way behind on every single course I have. Which is unusual because I’m normally the one to catch up on things quickly, but I don’t seem to find time for that. (I’m afraid my Poetry class, more than any other class, has to suffer from that because that catching-up list is constantly growing. Rapidly.) That’s very obvious, too, when you consider that I’ve never been able to take naps, and yet Kyle seems to wake me up quite often because I fell asleep in the Theatre department. (To my defence, those comfy chairs are just too comfy, and there’s probably a reason why they don’t have arms.)
But I’m not complaining, on the contrary; I love every moment of it, and the Theatre people, just like me, are all somewhat crazy, in some way or another.
I suppose you can’t be a Theatre kid and not be weird…