Student Blogger: Jenna Napolitano

Hey! It's been a minute since I've written, but oh so much has happened in the last few weeks. From spring break adventures to being seen at my first (two!) Equity Chorus Calls and performances in between, March Madness is certainly underway.

Audition season is about halfway over, yet a majority of us do not know what our plans for the summer are. We are either still waiting on an offer from a theatre who has not finished their auditions yet, or we have already heard "no". No matter what your story is, long story short, the waiting game is HARD. The question is, how can we survive the waiting period without driving ourselves into the ground and becoming certifiably insane (I learned the hard way last year...)?

It is a widely known fact that ballet is the hardest style of dance to train in, and requires the use of muscles that the average person would not even know existed. The isolation of different body parts to properly execute ballet combinations is extremely difficult to mentally understand, let alone physically do, evidently making it a very stressful art form. Despite ballet being a nearly impossible art form to perfect, it is the ground foundation of any style of dance and sculpts your body into its best form, essential for any performer of any facet.

Being in such a concentrated environment as a conservatory program (not to mention in a city school), it is nearly impossible to escape the pressures and emotions that come with being a musical theatre or dance major. If you're not in class you're at an audition or a rehearsal, you're at home practicing a scene for class or watching a documentary on theatre history. No matter what you're doing, it somehow relates to the career path you've chosen. And sometimes it's more than enough, and you feel you want to drop this crazy career completely and get a "normal" job.

Even though I am just one year older, I learned a lot last year from running auditions and going to auditions of my own, and I strive to not make the same mistakes I did last year.