People always say to turn your passion into a career. This only seems true if the kid says "I want to work in science" or "I want to be a police officer," and it becomes a problem when the kid says "I want to do theater." There is nothing wrong with working in other fields; sometimes more practical fields. However, I am tired of the stigma that comes with trying to turn toward theater for my education and future career. It is either a dead-end career or something athletes declare when they have a full scholarship and plan to go professional (not always true, but I ran into it enough). So as much as it is obvious to tell from previous articles the passion for the big stage, I want to give a more detailed background on what it means to try to make theater your life.
As any university student knows, the first year or two usually has a decent amount of general education courses. Once a student is done with these, classes become specific to the major and are usually a variety of courses on one thing. This is true with the theater major, however, it covers more than just acting courses. Theater students become historians that must know both straight play and musical theater history that can go as far back as ancient Greek till yesterday. They become technicians that have an obligation to not only learn skills in crew, but put in hours to achieve the knowledge and grade. In more focused schools there are movement courses and physical training that has to be done and up kept between semesters and even school years. Even when not relating toward specific courses, theater students need to keep up with the current events and politics that go on with the theatrical world. A theater student's workload doesn't end there.
For most students, as long as they attend the last class or do the couple hours of work that pertains to the courses, they are done and can enjoy their evenings. Theater students don't have that luxury. Whether you are in the program for performance or technical, you're more than likely loosing your evenings. They are gone because of rehearsals, light hangs, work calls, or even the personal time home prepping for the next rehearsal. This is on top of our workload as students with homework and essays. Evenings are spent and weekends are lost for the sake of theater. If a theater major doesn't do this, they aren't serious or to be trusted.
As demanding (and sometimes sacrificial) as it sounds, it never feels like that. If you are in the major because of that passion and urge, those hours are nothing. Most of the time it becomes more rewarding than ever expected. Just from my experience alone, I worked almost every aspect of a staged production from crew to sound design and starting management. Every student who wants to be in the program manages to thrive in something that becomes unique to themselves while being connected to the fellow classmates and faculty of the program. Even if some people out there still think the theater student is unrealistic or a joke, or there are some out there afraid of this when committing to this field. I quote the words of a wise professor, friend, and stage manager, "A bad day in the theater will always beat the best day in an office."
