Student Blog: Meet Jake Esparza

Willkommen, bienvenue, and welcome to my first article with BroadwayWorld! I am beyond excited to take you into my life and my love for theatre! Over the next four months (and beyond, who knows!), I will be sharing everything from my daily routine as a full-time college student, to my theatre background, to my budgeting methods to support live theatre in my area, and more!

But, before I get into any of that, let me introduce myself: my name is Jake Esparza, and I’m a first-year sophomore at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona where I am studying both marketing management and musical theatre! I fell in love with musical theatre when I was in sixth grade and I’ve been hooked ever since. In the last seven years, I’ve performed in school, local, and community theatre, as well as assisting with tech for smaller plays. In my junior year, I co-directed an original, 5-act play at my high school, and in my senior year, I got to direct a brief, one-act play. During my senior year, I also participated in Season 4 of BroadwayWorld's Next On Stage and placed in the top 15!

After I completed my final high school musical (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) last March, I began writing brief reviews for local and touring shows in my area. Admittedly, doing so was somewhat of an excuse to go out and see productions by myself, but these reviews became a standard routine for me. I made a new profile to publish my reviews (@jde_theatre on Instagram!) and started seeing shows more frequently. By May, I began writing full-length critiques of each show I attended, and I published them via Google Docs. I carried this routine through the summer, intending to stop when university started up in order to focus on any new productions I might be collaborating on.

By the time I was starting my first semester of college, however, I learned that my university’s theatre department prohibits freshmen who are not primarily studying musical theatre from performing in school-sanctioned productions. While I am studying theatre, my primary study is marketing, which unfortunately means that I am not eligible to perform this year (next month, I’ll go into more detail about this and what it’s like studying both of these fields at once.) As a result, I decided to increase my theatre-included writing so that I could still, to a degree, keep theatre at the forefront of my life. I expanded from solely writing reviews to  articles covering other theatre-related topics, mostly in regards to the state of the greater Broadway/theatre world and other random things that piqued my interests. Looking back now, I’m honestly grateful for this turn of events, as it has allowed me to truly settle into my university and focus on both my classwork and my writing.

During my first semester, I took my first theatre class: Race and Ethnicity on Stage and Screen. This course provided a detailed look into how different races and ethnicities have been portrayed historically onstage, and I believe it was the perfect class to begin my studies of theatre. It helped me to not only appreciate the progress that theatre has made in inclusivity, but also encouraged me to advocate for change in the theatre world today.

On New Year's Day, I launched my own theatre journalism brand (titled JDE Theatre), where I publish all of my reviews and articles. To kick off my website launch, I got to visit New York City and review 9 individual shows - seven musicals and two operas. And now, as a student blogger for BroadwayWorld, I get to expand my audience and share my love of musical theatre with all of you! I could not be more thrilled to have this opportunity, and I cannot wait to take you into my life as a theatre/business student, a writer, and - above all else - an unapologetic lover of musical theatre.