To be, or not to be. That was the theater question.
Wandering around aimlessly during my senior year of high school, I debated as to what major I should jump in to for college. Being rather lazy, I chose theater at ISU. That was...interesting.
Say what I will about ISU theater, but the crowd there was very...not me. At the high school level, where I am enjoying it, it was fun. I got high praise and thought why not jump on that bandwagon at the college level. There is so much fun that I had during my semester and a half at ISU and so much the opposite that it really begs the question of what I was doing with my life and it showed me that I had no idea. I blame it in part due to the attitude of the people I did theater with at ISU, but I know it is also my own making in part.
Damn it, let's get to the actual story and some clarity. I first got a taste of theater at the college level when I went to try out for a scholarship. I was paying my own way through college and needed as much assistance as possible. I think it might have been summer time, and clearly way too late for me to change my major. The ISU theater building was composed of a couple of buildings. The room I went in to to wait while I tried out was clearly a classroom, but it was a theater classroom. Desks were pushed to the side to make space for stage space in the front of the classroom, and this room had windows on three sides. There was one door to enter and exit, and we all gathered around the edge of the room keeping mostly to ourselves. This was the first time I think I really met theater people outside of my own high school in a setting where we were going to perform.
I had no friends with me, but you could tell that there were factions of people there who knew each other. ISU has the tendency to bring large group of Chicago and suburbs of people down for the school year and this was clearly happening here. There was a couple of people that I recognized who I would alter share classes with and, of course, have crushes on. In particular, there were two girls, one a curly haired red head named Deliah, and the other a short haired brunette named Kerry. They were good friends and I really thought to myself that I would be happy being with either of them, but that would never be.
The thing that surprised me and showed me how unprepared I was for this experience was the number of people that were giving a performance to a wall. Apparently, and this was something I never learned to do in all my time of doing theater high school, talking to a wall was the way to prepare for a monologue. What I thought was funny and looked like crazy people turned out to be my undoing as I prepped my own way and didn't get any scholarships. That kinda irked me later on when I found out that a lot of those kids actually had their parents paying for their schooling while I didn't have the same luxury. I don't think I ever learned who actually got the money, but it irks me still to this day.
I don't remember the monologue I gave. I don't really remember doing anything in front of the people. But I do recall wanting to get out of there as soon as possible.
Flash forward to the actual school year. I believe I was in my green frosted tips phase for the hair, and had the thought that I would be meeting up with weirdos like me. At the first theater party that I went to, I actually got a little gothy makeup on and headed out with a group of peeps from my acting class. I stood out like a sore thumb. Really bad. One girl came up to me and said she was happy that I came out as who I was and I was comfortable being myself around everyone. I took the experience instead as a way to show that I had no fucking clue what was going on and that I might have made a terrible, terrible decision about my college path.
I had a couple of acting classes that first semester, and the teachers were really sticking their noses in the air at everyone. I was told repeatedly that theater kids fail, make no money, and never get recognized for anything. That, at best, I might be a background extra or end up working on a stage crew. That theater degrees were nothing. Basically, to not get in to acting. There wasn't so much the culture to learn that I thought would be the experience with a subject matter I did enjoy, but instead it was trying to tear you down at any moment. Even my classes that were the basic gen ed classes had more enthusiasm for the subject matter than my main course.
I get setting reasonable degrees of expectations for students, but we are just starting here, so would a little encouragement not help?
I signed up to help out in the prop shop as part of my practicum, a lab type of class work that was required for theater students. I did props in high school, so I thought this would be a good fit. The guy I had to help pretty much did it all himself, never taught me a think, but complained constantly about all the work he had to do and how much time he had to put in. There was some advice on how to get ahead in the theater game, but it added to the idea that the department was pushing people away as much as it could.
I did have a class to go with the practicum one, where we learned more about crafting the stage and set designs. The teacher there was the most encouraging, as he knew that many people probably weren't there to learn and were only there because it was required of them. I do clearly remember one rule that he said, and that was if you respect the tool, the tool respects you. He made this clear many times, as he did not want anyone to get injured while building sets and helping out.
The first time I heard the phrase "..and I'm just playing devil's advocate here" came from an asshole teacher who was a fifth year student helping out to get credit so he can graduate. I don't think he was a teacher or wanted to be a teacher, but he did get that phrase stuck in my head and hate it anytime I heard it. Anytime anyone would answer a question he had about a play or what happened, instead of just trying to steer the conversation another way or expand on what the student answered, he would belt out that phrase in a way that made you feel dumb for answering his question. You felt that you got it wrong, even if it was the right one and he was just trying to get a conversation started. I don't recall hearing that reply to any of my answers because I kept my mouth shut in that class.
Sigh. He would throw his arm in the air as if picking the thought from out in the open ether of knowledge that we all should have been sipping from as he did.
Annette. Antonio. Nick. Rachel? Deliah. Kerry. Johanna. Those were members of my class. There are many others, but the faces and names are lost in the past.
The big turn off for me started when we had to try out during the first week of our second semester. Part of our Acting 1 class was preparing us for how to audition during that week. We would have to do one monologue and one singing piece since there was going to be a musical that semester. I flopped the music piece seriously hard. I had no musical talent, and it showed. I couldn't even tell you what it was that I was supposed to sing, it was that bad.
Before I get in to my main monologue, I should mention that there were a few people from my high school who had graduated before me and went to do theater. There were the people in high school theater who never really talked to me and had an air about them that they were better than me even in high school. I never liked that, and I hoped that they were in the minority of what I would experience in college. I should have known better, but all things in hindsight.
As for the monologue, I had picked a good one. I took a speech from a comic book called Transmetropolitan. The main character is a journalist from a future city in the same vein as Hunter S. Thompson. I had a speech where he talked about new religions forming and alien lifeforms and just a wonderful takedown on religion. It was a speech right up my alley. It was something that they hadn't heard before and no one else would do. And I nailed it. The other theater students in the audience thought the same, and told me so afterwards.
I felt that I was on the right path. I thought that it would show off my talents a bit and get me noticed. But...then the postings came for who in the freshman class would get parts. We were told that there usually aren't that many to give, and that 95% of the freshmen probably wouldn't get anything.
Several did get parts. Double digits, if memory serves. I wasn't included in that number out of roughly 35-50 students who had to try out, if memory serves correctly.
I attended classes. I trudged on. There was a hallway that the theater kids claimed as their own on campus called the airport lounge. I never got the chance to hang out in that area. Never got invited to a game of four square that was popular to play. I tried. I really did want to connect with people. But outside of my classes, nothing.
I began to look toward other areas of friendship, with people who I felt cared about me and gave a damn. I still had connections with the people in the grades lower than me in high school. I had a growing connection with a strange group of kids that I worked with at Steak n Shake. I don't know if it was part me retreating from the rejection or retreating back in to the familiar with Steak n Shake were I knew what I was doing, or if the facade had been laid down about theater for me to the point that I didn't want to do it anymore. I never thought myself as a great actor who would make it big. I had a passion and I wanted to see what was next with it.
You have to surround yourself with some positive people at the right moments in your life. People who embrace life and encourage you to follow your dreams. People who will be there for you when needed. I never got that from the teachers and most of the theater kids at ISU. It was a special club with cliques built in and encourage in a way that I thought I had left in high school. I wish I had the courage to call some of the people out on it at the time, but I didn't. For as weird and unique that theater kids can be, you would think that taking someone in who is different would be the norm. That was my approach to the craft. Doing theater at ISU was my first big lesson that you can have all the talent in the world, but if you don't kiss the right ass or know the right people than out you go. You can call it showbiz, but this isn't Hollywood we are talking about here, this is theater in the middle of Illinois. Where they paraded the fact that a Star Trek actor and Laurie Metcalf were there. Where John Malkovich attended the school (albeit it very briefly but this was only mentioned in hushed tones and played down a lot).
Maybe if I didn't have the crutch of staying in the town I graduated in, maybe things could have been different. I think that and then know right away that it isn't the case. I know now what I should have known then, that you forge your own path. You make your own friends. You be you and let the world catch up to it. I had some good times in college. But ISU's loss would become my own gain. Due to the cost of paying for ISU, there isn't really a way that I could have stayed on and still paid my bills that were coming in. I started amassing a credit debt that wouldn't be overcome for years. Leaving ISU allowed me the chance to become a manager at Steak n Shake, but that is a story for another time. One that leads to some great people and decisions in my life.
I'm not done talking about college life forever, but I am done talking about the ISU theater part. For now.
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