Student Blog: Much to Do, Much More to Learn

In 3rd year, as a musical theatre student, everything has come crashing down on us so fast. The realization that we have less than a year left of class, about 8 months to be exact, has stirred the panic of adulthood and the events that go beyond university waiting for us after graduation. We have also just hit half-term which is very jarring how fast the time passes us by and soon enough, our final year show will be revealed to us sometime this month. Or so I’ve heard.

Today’s blog is to prepare you for all I have been learning and preparing for through my modules throughout this year. While I am unsure of how other institutions approach their final year, the University of Winchester prepares us with the arsenal we need for when we graduate. If you have been with me since the beginning, you would know that my university does not focus solely on harnessing our skills as a musical theatre performer but equips us with experience across different areas in theatre such as devising, understanding the historical context of theatre, and swing.

This year focuses itself on the material we bring to an agent. We get to build our portfolios, film self-tapes across singing, dancing, acting and voice-acting, CVs, and experience across multiple fields of theatre such as setting up a theatre company and submitting a grant proposal. How insane is that! So far, four weeks into all these, lesser modules really did not mean any less work as we have a lot to prepare for. We have already been given a checklist of the material we need for our tapes, most of which we have been working on with our lecturers in classes which is also helping us build our repertoire.

We’ve been preparing our repertoires since first year, making sure we’re armed and ready for auditions for every genre known to humankind. It’s a base that I feel rather comfortable in, having a rep folder to browse through and pick a song or monologue I can deliver with ease. It’s really all about having these things on hand now, as it has been very heavily emphasized on by our lecturers.

Alongside in-class preparations, we had a talk with our assigned buddy lecturer about our future, which deviates us completely from performer’s preparation. He puts into perspective the many other things we must start considering. Do we want to pursue our masters after this or get an agent? Are we considering a gap year? How are we going to fill our gap year? Are we settling down and building a start for ourselves fresh out of university before pursuing the greater ambition? This was put to us as a grave warning, with a very joking air.

Just this week, we had a talk with a representative from the platform, Spotlight, a place for creative profiles for performers and casting directors alike. We were adviced to get an agent as we would then be able to see 100% of the job scope and have them represent us with the aid of these profiles. It is quite an investment, for those of you that do not know, as there is a subscription cost to get your profiles up. However, the platform does its best to aid fresh graduates. This just adds on to the many things I have to keep in mind.

All that I have mentioned is absolutely something we should all be taking into consideration now with time passing us by so fast. We’ve just hit midterm and everything has come crashing down onto me, just the realization that I have to be so much more prepared than I am now.

The layers that add to those questions as an international student is tenfold the work you have to deal with. Will you be staying or will you travel someplace else or return home? How will you deal with a work Visa? How does it work? Housing?!

It is so necessary to take some time out of the day, sacrifice a bit of enjoyment, to do all of this. From my experience, it already has become overwhelming so I’m grateful for the free week I have right now to settle with all of this, or at least lighten some of the load.

I do love the work that comes with performing, even logistically, while it can be time-consuming, it always is worth it in the end when something comes of it or when you learn something from it. But this week is certainly a lot and we’re powering through it as the second part of semester 1 comes at me like a truck.