crazy little thing called art

so i'm in milwaukee, wisconsin. competing at the American College Theatre Festival. yeah i'm that cool. i fought and bled and raised some money to bring in a respondent (representative of the Festival) to see A Streetcar Named Desire in November when I played Stella, managed to get nominated by said respondent and now i'm competing with my friend lisa. ok so we had he preliminary round today and we didn't get past that, but no one from anderson ever has. i'm not losing hope though. tomorrow we get feedback from the judges about the three minute scene we competed with this morning, and i'm hoping to get some good tips. learning is good. and that's what this week is all about. now that the competing part is over, the rest of the week is workshops and shows, from which you can learn as much in one intensive week as you can in a semester of liberal arts studies. this will be a good week. thanks to everybody who supported us along the way : ).

i had a late lunch with ronn, my theatre professor from au, today (long story but basically we ended up having to rely on him and a school credit card anytime we want to buy food... but i'm still thankful to the sponsors who made it possible to be here) and it was really great to sit around and talk about acting and coaching and directing and etcetera. i have yet to completely settle on what function theatre will have in my life beyond this point, because i'm starting to realize it may have to be all or nothing, at least for a little while. or at least it will definitely have to be all if i want it to be more than a hobby. nobody gets into the arts for free or easy. but then i have to really figure out why i'm doing it and where i would like that to take me. i didn't audition for any nyc schools or anything because i knew any attempt to get "famous" would go to my head and make me a horrible person. or just horribly depressed. but you gotta fend your way through no matter what. and in case some of you haven't noticed... i only take risks when i have a general idea that they could possibly work out. im a selective risk taker. i guess it makes you look good though, because when you don't do things you will probably fail at, you can convince people that you very rarely fail. my apologies to anyone who i've convinced of that. it's not true-- i'm just a coward a lot of times. so all of that to say- i need to keep taking risks and maybe even take some more to find out if i'm just doing this because i'm sufficiently "good" at it to at least keep my head above water for now, or if i'm going to find out how to make it work with my general life plans.... you know, try to care about people. or if, to a certain extent, they don't have to mix.

and thus the circle continues. i'm just gonna go to workshops and shows and keep thinking for now.