Student Blog: Take a Break: No Literally, Take a Break

Up until two days ago, my world hadn’t moved for a week. I wasn’t processing an unimaginable horror or frozen in place- I was waiting for a cast list. 

For context, my university recently held callbacks for our Fall 2025 season, which for any non-theatre majors essentially means that my fate for the next semester is currently hanging in the ether (or that we’re waiting to hear about roles for next semester if you want to be less dramatic about it). 

Audition season, as per usual, seemed to fall within the busiest few weeks our school has ever experienced, with people quite literally running out of class to submit auditions and bringing their homework to callbacks in order to get everything done on time. With all of the chaos surrounding our auditions, once the process was in the hands of the directors, we all froze. It seemed like every conversation or even passing remark was characterized by curiosity about the cast list. What began as excitement quickly morphed into anticipation, then anxiety as we waited. And waited. 

At a certain point, my friends and I knew we needed to get away from everything for a while. As theatre majors living on campus, we live in an echo chamber to an extent. We have classes together, hang out together, eat together, live together- and when we’re anxious about casting, the anxiety spreads like wildfire. With that being said, we knew we needed to step away from school and not think about what was coming, so this past Saturday we packed up and spent the day at the beach. We put a gag order on talking about casting, and had the most peaceful day we’d had in months. The only thing we could say on the drive back was “...we should do this more often,” no mention of the cast list or our previous anxieties.

In any case where your passion is integrated into your work, it can be easy to forget to take a break. I love theatre so much, so it can be difficult to remember that it’s still work, regardless of how much I love the outcome of it. In that, it’s hard to remember that rest is important, and that even though I’m choosing to study and pursue theatre of my own volition, it’s still valid when I need time away from it. 

Whether it’s physically getting away or finding a way to mentally detach from theatre (or whatever your work/passion is), it’s so important to be able to compartmentalize and preserve your work/life balance. Burnout is a risk when you pursue literally anything, especially something so all-encompassing as theatre. It’s easy to pour so much of yourself into something you love, but you cannot pour from an empty cup.