My favorite time of the school year is coming up! Audition. Season. Woo! In my program we audition for the winter and spring show together. And no matter how your school’s audition progress goes, most people can agree on one thing. We are all nervous. While we do our best to look and feel confident in the room, that does not shake away the jitters in our brains. I’m here to tell you some of my favorite tips and tricks for calming those little audition nerves!

Academic integrity is about a student’s responsibility and honesty with their school work. Of course there is so much more involved with this term, but the main point is that you should be expected to have “Academic integrity”. As I have mentioned before, on many occasions I have felt my motivation for work fade in and fade out. It’s hard to maintain the passion for school work and the academic integrity of it all, but do not let that all disappear completely!

Since I’ve gone back to school, my time has been split between classes, writing for my college’s newspaper, and lots and lots of theater. I’m in two productions right now—Legally Blonde and Newsies, also known as arguably two of the most iconic 21st century musicals—and auditions happened to be just a few days apart, making the first week of September a theater-filled week of craziness.

This past week, I had the absolute pleasure of debuting a brand new play of mine at my school, Dobbins Conservatory for Theatre and Dance. This is probably one of my new favorite pieces I’ve ever written and I’m sad to let it go so soon, but I could not be happier with how it went. This month, I wanted to talk briefly about Roulette, what it is, how I felt about it, how I came upon writing this piece, and just how cool it is that I get to do this.

Despite my love for performance, I often find myself falling into the mindset that I’m making a mistake choosing acting as my career path. That it’s not worth all of the work, the blood sweat and tears. But whenever I experience live theatre, I’m reminded why this is what I’m doing.

I realized that I wasn’t getting what I wanted to get out of my schooling. To fix this, I had to listen to my body and rest when I was tired (which was one of the reasons I started cyber school in the first place) and also advocate for myself.

When I started my program in media and broadcasting, I realized how extremely important integrity is. It can make or break my future career in media. To me, integrity is closely connected to how trustworthy and dependable you are as a person. As a student, that can be reflected in your behavior. People can see your values as a student. And you will carry them with you through your professional life.

I am entering my final year, and part of it is working at our school’s radio station. And on my first day of the new semester, I found out that I was going to face my biggest challenge yet. I will have to host my own late night radio show. There were a lot of things that I didn’t expect going into this job. And that’s when I felt grateful for having a theater background.

As prepared as I was for my 2nd year, leaping back into action after three long months of the summer has landed me in a spot where I’ve suddenly forgotten the pace of my rhythm.

Academic integrity, to me, means a lot of different things. Not just submitting honest work on time, but doing each assignment to the best of your ability. So how do I maintain this, despite the struggles with mental illness, and a packed, rehearsal-filled schedule?

Second week into classes, the back-to-school season is up and running! I’m really happy to be back at school doing what I love with the people I love for my second year as a musical theatre major. Being a sophomore, I feel like I definitely have a better hold on navigating things around campus, but there’s also a lot of new additions to my school's performing arts program this year, which is keeping everything (as always) a learning experience!

ONCE UPON A ONE MORE TIME ends with the Little Girl in the show being told to 'tell me a story'. I think one of the most incredible gifts I've gotten from ONCE UPON A ONE MORE TIME is my story. A story of a summer that I never expected. A story of a summer that I will remember forever. 

Here’s my advice to you: maintain your integrity, both academically and in every aspect of your life, including theater.

Here it comes: the big, scary, college audition! I promise it's not as scary as it seems. Here are a few tips and tricks to make it easier and more fun.

Academic integrity is the choice to be honest and this is very important to your instructors. Therefore, it’s important to realize that maintaining your academic integrity prepares you to be a person who employers will consider trustworthy. So, how does a student maintain academic integrity? There are a few ways to do this. Here's how!

Musical theater is a challenging thing to “grade”. There aren’t many classes with essays that could be plagiarized or tests where you could choose to cheat. However, if your homework is to do the exercises your voice teacher assigned to you, it is easy to view the assignment as one that can be skipped over.

As noted in my previous blog, I am taking a semester off— living at home, working, and taking enough online classes to maintain the required credit count for a scholarship. The classes I am taking this semester are all within my current decided major– film production.

I have been challenging myself to expand my horizons and listen to new genres and styles of music. I have come to love styles of music I never thought I’d listen to. Listening to a wider variety of music has helped me come to appreciate music as an art form. “Good music” can come in all shapes and sizes.

Don't copy anyone else's intellectual property! It will end badly! Here are some tips on why you shouldn't do that and how to avoid it, because it's not cool.

I thought I knew exactly what it was but after a quick search, it turned out to be more than just maintaining your grades which was what I initially thought it was.

All in all, I would say I had a pretty eventful first week of school! I’m definitely eager to see what the rest of the school year has in store for me.

I’m a horrible theater kid. One year into college and I haven’t even taken a theater class yet.

So how are you feeling, Jordanna? Thank you for asking…. As of right now, I am doing good. I’m trying really hard to stay on top of my classes, and to not let other things take priority. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on that. I’ve implemented some strategies to help my brain not melt from overheating. 

This is when I had the best idea that I honestly should probably trademark. Welcome to what I call “Crusty Days.”