today i feel: pensive
today i'm hearing: the postal service -- give up
today i'm thinking: when did i turn into a grown-up again?
today i'm hearing: the postal service -- give up
today i'm thinking: when did i turn into a grown-up again?
As a warning: I have posted this elsewhere. So, apologies to those of you who may have read this once, twice, or three time already.
So here's the low-down on Kiri's life:
A couple weeks ago, my parents got this phone call from this school in New York. They saw me at Illinois High School Theatre Festival in 2006, and they wanted me to come to an audition for their programme in Chicago on 9 February. My da called me and told me about it and, needless to say, I was shocked. I gave up on the whole acting thing (mostly because Segun made me cry at my very first college audition), and was all ready to start on a new frontier: one that involved having a definite job! And this new plan has been going fairly well. I think I'm a pretty good stage manager, all in all. At any rate, it's a great way to express my OCD tendencies.
But if there's anything I've learned from theatre, it's that you don't turn down an audition. So I got together some monologues and I threw together a resumé and I took the six-hour train to Chicago and I auditioned. And I thought it went okay, you know, pretty well. The judge seemed to like my performance and didn't mock my bad Long Island accent, so that's good, right? I saw Paiga, we had a lot of fun, noodles were consumed, no harm done. I came back to Carbondale and started to settle back in to my stage managing/dramaturging world.
Then I got a phone call from this same New York school. And, as it turns out, the woman I auditioned for is the artistic director of the conservatory. And, as it turns out, I was in her top picks from this audition. And, as it turns out, she didn't just like my performance, she really liked my performance and she wants me to come.
To New York.
To study at this conservatory.
To get training for on-camera acting.
And this puts me in a very interesting spot.
I like it down here; I really do. I've made some really great friends and a couple of pretty formidable enemies. I love the campus and the theatre programme. I've made professional connections that I feel will greatly benefit me in the future. I've worked on original productions of plays and learned from award-winning authors and hung upside down by my ankles and climbed monoliths in the middle of nowhere. I feel like I've grown and benefited so much from this area, this school, these people that I've met in the past year and a half. And my record collection has greatly increased, which is always a good thing. But I feel like not going for this whole conservatory thing would be a massive mistake. I feel like if I didn't do this, I would hate myself for the rest of my life.
Right now, I'm planning on sending in the application and the transcripts and my ACT scores (did I even take that? Jesus, it's so long ago...). And I'm thinking I'll do all that and just kind of wait and see. But if I do get the call or the letter or (god bless technology) the email that says, Yes, come, we want you to be here... I don't know what I'm going to do. This place feels like home now, you know? Well, after Chicago, that is. And I've already left home once in my college career. And this home doesn't have crazy dogs or brothers or grandparents or anything like that. Which will probably make the process much more difficult.
I don't know. I just feel like I'm making a bad decision or a wrong decision or not making a decision or there is something negative about my decision-making process. And I know I've talked about this with Paiga and Chelsea and Randy (kind of) and my mum (not really), but I'm still feeling very lost and confused and...overwhelmed. A lot of that, actually.
It's an awful lot to think about. And I'm still very, very small.
What do you think?
6 comments:
New York is very far from home. Going there may be a disaster (and an expensive one at that), but if you don't go, knowing you, you'll agonize over it for months and likely regret it for the rest of your life. Acting is what you were meant to do. For many years, you've made your actual existence your stage - putting on a façade of down-to-earth normalcy that falls to pieces whenever you become emotionally aggitated. An outlet of this nature can offer you the opportunity to put exhaustive energy into creating new identities for yourself in a professional context; maybe then people will have the opportunity to get to know the real you without the difficulty of peeling a personality onion.
...Gee. Thanks.
You should go because now is the time in your life when you can do things and have them not work out for you and it won't matter very much. If you got this opportunity in ten years it would be a great deal harder to act on and it would be far worse if it didn't turn out.
As it is, you could get a chance to go to New York (and it is the very centre of the theatre in this land of ours') and be in the scene and learn so very very much. I used to have a great friend, shannon keith kelley, who lived in nyc and was part of the theatre there. He was an actor and playwright and many of his plays were done in the city. Now he lives in Chatham, outside of springfield. But he has done a lot of comm theatre in spfld and lots of professional gigs, making training films, etcetera. In any case, he was much better off in the whole game for having spent a lot of time in the city. And he was a very nice fellow who was sweet and good to paige when she was Piper's age.
And New York; it's a hard place to live in some ways. But it is so fascinating. The art that is there. The museums. The shopping (and not like shopping here, but like in a big city with access to the truly intersesting stuff). Plus the multi-cultural reality. Everywhere you go you can hear several different languages being spoken.
So, if they make you a good offer you think very seriously about going. The one thing I will tell you from a perspective standpoint having lived a long time is this: there will always be things you look back on and wished you had done or not done. But there will not be that many opportunities to change everything. Some of them you will try and some of them will turn out okay. But this is one that you may come to hate looking back on and wishing you had tried it. Seriously.
And the fact of the matter is, you are a good actress who may very well be a great one. How do you feel about this art? If you do love it you may owe it to the art to be the best you can. You will have to thicken up your skin and accept as a belief that you really are good. If you can't do that, then perhaps you will be better as a tech. But I have been around this block a few hundred times and I can tell you, you are a good actress.
I remember thinking at Into the Woods how utterly remarkable that this little pixie friend of Paige's was singing the Bernie Peters part and blowing my mind. And I still think that show is one of the five best stage shows I've ever seen, including stuff in London's west end and off broadway.
But, don't let me influence you, Ms. Palm. Your destiny is your own.
Just want to point out that if you're too much of a chickenshit to leave your name on a blogger comment, you've surrendered your right to be listened to.
*snaps*
And Kiri, you already know my feelings on this matter. Lemme know if/when you know what's going down. Or what is up. Or...both. :P
Ahn, generally, it is better to regret having done something than to regret having not had the courage to do it if doing it is what you wanted, and so on. Like everyone else says.
I think it is a nasty habit to observe what one loses and what one has to gain. Things are never the way one imagines they will be, and so it is best to just not think about it, and to just flip a coin on it. If you don't like the answer the coin gives you, then you at least know that.
As oddly as it may sound, thinking never solved anything. Better to be an Alexander and cut your Gordian-knot. Act now, worry later. Is it not absurd to worry without having done anything? I would think so, at least.
i vote for new york. everyone else has said everything. goethe said, "as soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live." now's the time. give it a try.
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