Student Blog: Back to School: Junior Year!

Back to school back to school back to school! First semester has started and we are almost at the end of week two! That is so crazy. This semester is already wild and I’d love to just catch y’all up about what I’ve been up to and what I will be up to this semester.

I am now a junior musical theatre major at The Dobbins Conservatory of Theatre and Dance at Southeast Missouri State University or Dobbins/SEMO for short. I can’t believe I’m already a junior, but I’m excited to be back at it. My classes so far have been pretty cool so far. I am in about 8 classes. Some of my favorites so far include Voice for the Actor, Musical Theatre History, Tap, and Broadway Dance. Voice for the Actor has been so so wonderful, we are currently learning the Kristin Linklater technique and working through her Freeing the Natural Voice book. So far it has been really interesting, the course is all about connecting with your inner voice as an actor and also learning how to listen to your body and what it’s telling you. We’ve done a lot of different exercises about all that fun stuff and I’ve enjoyed it a lot so far. I’ve also really enjoyed my Musical Theatre History class as well, we are working our way through history and seeing how it has influenced the way we do theater now. My dance classes have also been a blast, in Broadway Dance we are basically just learning choreography to big group numbers in musicals and learning what it is like to be in a more rehearsal environment and how to pick up choreography quickly. We start out first dance number tomorrow and I can’t wait. I’m also loving tap, I took tap for 6 years in grade school and I forgot how much I loved it and also missed it. I’ve started my voice lessons back up again as well and am liking having those again. I have 9am classes every day, so that is kicking my butt a little bit, but overall I’m liking my schedule this semester so far. My duties as the scholarship chair for Alpha Psi Omega has also begun, we had our first two APO meetings of the semester and they went so well and we are about to begin our rush week so that will be fun and exciting as well. I’m loving being a part of the exec board with all these cool people. My job at the on-campus library has also begun again and it's nice to be back.

Project/theatre-y wise, I’ve got a few things coming up that I’m really excited about. First up, I am writing for Roulette III: Through the Decades here at SEMO! Roulette is a night of completely written, produced, performed, and directed by students here at SEMO that we do annually. This year's theme is through the decades, which means each play takes place in a different decade starting with the 1970s-2010s. We just had auditions and I could not be more excited about this project. It is so cool. I’ve never had auditions for something I wrote, so it’s crazy that people want to be in my little play and they haven’t even read it yet. My play takes place in the 1970s and I’m obsessed with it. I got to do a bunch of research about the time period and it’s been a blast. The show will be one weekend in September, so it’s coming up close and I couldn’t be more excited. I’m also writing for a few other student-produced shows going on as well so those will be coming up here in a bit.

I have also just been cast in this year's signature series show, The Lanford Wilson One-Acts. Every year my school holds the Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival, where writers submit full-length or one-act plays, and we then choose a full-length play winner to then be put on and produced at our school, same for one-act plays.

We select a few one-act plays to then be put on and produced on stage for the first time ever which is super cool. I was in one of the one-acts my freshman year, so I’m excited to get to do them again this year. They are always so fun and it’s so cool to see brand-new work being produced and put on for the first time. I love getting to be a part of new plays and new work in general. It’s something I have a huge passion for, so I’m really eager to be apart of it as an actor again. The Lanford Wilson Short Plays will be premiering here at River Campus October 26th-28th. If you are in Cape Girardeau, come see us! Click here for tickets and more information.

Finally, I started a podcast with my best friend! This is probably one of my new favorite adventures. My best friend, Josh Neighbors, and I started a podcast called Now That It’s Just Us and I’m so happy about it. We just dropped the first two episodes this past Monday, and a new episode will drop every Monday. It is so fun and oh so silly and it brings me so much joy. For right now, we are only on Spotify, so if you wanna give us a listen click here:

One really cool thing I got to do to conclude my first week back at school was go see probably one of my favorite bands in the entire universe, of course, I’m talking about the Jonas Brothers, with my bestie and roomie Courtney. After a long first week of classes, this was definitely needed and I had a blast.

That’s my semester so far a little bit about what is to come! I’m definitely already starting to feel a bit overwhelmed, but I’m learning how to balance things and how to say no to things as well. Overall, I’m really joyful about everything going on and I can’t wait to see how everything is going to turn out. I hope you all are having a great start to your fall and as always, go do great things!

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