Student Blog: “May The Journey Feel as the Finish Line”

March 2021

"May the journey feel as the finish line"
Creating and running a Device Show through Zoom.

Hi! Thank you for clicking into this blog, I am so excited to share with you my experience and journey through this amazing process of doing online theatre.

6 months ago, when we were told that we would be doing an online play, honestly, I was not motivated. For our audition we had to prepare a monologue from Divine Comedy, which I admire and respect, but here between us, I thought we were going to do something boring. Few days after the audition, they told us who was going to be our Director, but we were not assigned with characters or anything, the only "task" we had was an interview with our Director before the Rehearsal Process started.

In that interview, I felt so comfortable, I felt that I was talking to a friend, of course I was nervous but since that moment I started feeling joy and excitement for this play, which everything was an uncertainty but getting to know our Director and her thoughts, made me feel peace.

In the first couple of Rehearsals, we were talking about how we wanted to do something meaningful and different. The most amazing thing is that we were through Zoom, and we were getting to connect and share ideas in a deep way. We took an existing play, and analyzed it and we started creating our own.
We all agreed that we missed this experience of doing live Theatre so our goal to do everything live, which *spoiler* we accomplished it!

The thing that I am most impressed is that we didn't have a straight plan, we were experimenting rehearsal by rehearsal, but there was a jump of faith and trust that we were all in.

In some of our Lab that we were doing, I got to compose a song with a couple of friends, we didn't know how important this was going to be. This song was the opening for the show every night. Everyone was singing and dancing through the melody and lyrics we created.

I mention this quote: "May the journey feel as the finish line"-- every rehearsal felt like a win, we got to make every rehearsal meaningful, we were having fun and had that spark of creation and connection.

Many people may have the idea of "What matters the most is Opening night and the other performances" but, oh boy! No! The "mayor" goal was to have a play to present but every step we took for arriving up to this point were everyday wins, everyday goals.

People who saw the show, loved it and felt their lives were different, everyone felt how much heart we put into this.

Personally, I had the most amazing time creating, connecting and leaving my Mexican print, of course Wi-fi issues and some moments of lack of creativity were part of the process but I think that all of it was the most meaningful and honest thing we could've done.

Now we are done with our performances, the cycle is coming to an end but I couldn't be more proud and thankful to have created a strong and pure
- Claudia Quintero, a Mexican and passionate girl.

Drawing Credits: Hannah Hertel