Student Blog: Back on the Horse

Feeling burnt out from theater is a privileged way to feel. To close my review of Rosie Glen-Lambert’s production of X by Alistair McDowall I proclaimed that, to me, theater is the coolest thing in the entire world. Perhaps it’s a naive sentiment coming from a college student who does not directly depend on theater as my livelihood, but I have never felt burnt out to the point where I question how much I want to be in another show. There have been a handful of times that I selfishly wished I didn’t have rehearsal so I could have a night in and relax, but after having too many of those kinds of nights, I realized how essential theater is to my bodily function. 

In the winter quarter of 2024 (beginning one year ago) I struck out on my auditions. I got a couple callbacks, including one for the aforementioned X, but failed to seal the deal on anything. Just got unlucky. It happens. But it was the first quarter since freshman year that I had no show. I felt as though I lost my figurative membership card, or like my state of belonging had expired. Everyone I knew seemingly had booked something and was loving what they were working on. Making plans to see any of them got harder and harder because it’s not like we’d be seeing each other regularly as part of a set schedule. That grass over there on the other side of the fence was a lustrous, pristine emerald. Leaving campus before 6:00 was just… wrong. Almost like my parasympathetic nervous system had combed through my email to autonomously reread each rejection. 

After this sadness had run most of its course, I tried to find any ways possible to still participate in the theater community. I luckily still had an acting class, studying Shakespeare under the inimitable Marco Barricelli, and poured as much as I could into the work. I equated the final monologue presentation to a real performance. Sure it wasn’t huge, but it was a chance to perform, and a chance like that is something I will always fulfill to the best of my ability. I started writing again after publishing very little in 2023, and I think without a doubt that 2024 is the year with the most pieces I feel proud of. I also started preparing early to direct a song in Muir Musical’s staged cabaret event that took place each spring for the last three years. When directing applications opened, I had multiple pitches locked and loaded, settling on a dreamy, vicarious dance of “A Soft Place to Land” from Waitress. 

When a show I’m in closes, I often find myself wildly impatient to get back on the horse. This is not to say that burnout is fake or that I disregard it, though. Not having a show going on makes academic burnout a lot more formidable. The motivation to chip away at my workload by writing papers slips away pretty easily when I don’t get to feed my soul by attending rehearsal. But in my experience, loving what I do alleviates the feelings of necessity or compulsory-ness that a lot of work can carry. It’s what I was put on the planet to do. I feel that if I never lose sight of that fact, I will have the courage to face burnout head-on when it shows itself and come out the other side even stronger.