I graduate May 14, 2010.
Fall break is in 2 weeks.
Thanksgiving Break is in 1.5 months. Then, I basically have 1 week of school until winter break. for 1.5 months.
When I come back, I essentially have 3.5 months until I'm done.
And then I'm done. I'm not planning for the next semester. I'm not buying five-star notebooks. I'm not planning what tedious classes that have no relevance to my career/life but are necessary to graduate from university I need to take. I can do musical theater freely. I can travel. I can keep the thousand odd-jobs I have now but make them my life--expand on them and add on more.
I am terrified of being financially independent. I'm terrified of beginning a career. But, I'm also ecstatic to be free to try the things I've been wanting to do for about 6 years now. (My high school advisor/second mother Beth Wortley joked that I was ready to graduate from college when I was a junior in high school.)
I can't wait.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
I am not Happy
I need to seriously consider scheduling some time for me to have a life/take time to do things that make me happy. I'm driving myself crazy (and sick) and I'm too young for these shenanigans.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Why Can't We Be Friends?
Our Town rehearsal last night: tucked away in my dark, tiny soundboard nook impatiently waiting my 5 total sound cues (which all occur within a span of approximately 7 minutes.) We're on break; I check facebook. I chat with a classmate whom I love and respect. We do a little catchup (since there's not much time for socializing during the class day) and he asks me about the shows I'm in. I answer. I ask him if he's ready for his audition at a local professional theater (which he'd mentioned he was going to a few weeks ago.) He says, "Nah. I think I'm going on vacation with my dad instead. Besides, (insert professional theater here) sucks. Until I see something that changes my mind, I maintain my opinion about Dallas theater." (Subtext: Dallas theater sucks.)
Now, there is a lot of bad theater in town. But there's also a lot of good theater. I've done 22 shows here in the past two years. The Dallas theater community is wonderful, supportive, and an excellent place to learn professionalism/basic aspects of theater. In fact, I find a lot of Dallas theater to be really exceptional. For instance, last week I performed My Fair Lady at Lyric Stage with a 38 piece orchestra (larger than the original Broadway orchestra) playing the original orchestrations. It seems Uptown Players is constantly premiering some play or musical and one-upping themselves in terms of quality. There are oodles of smaller theater groups (Broken Gears, Amphibian, Nouveau 47, Echo (and all the groups at the Bath House) putting out great new work. --this theater student had never been to any of these spaces. There is a mentality at school that the only real theaters are the Theater Center and Kitchen Dog Theater. Oh, and Undermain. These theaters also do great work, but they aren't the only theaters in Dallas.
I'm constantly struggling with the balance between creating "art" and commercialism. Theater here singularly advocates "art." This excludes most Dallas theater and generally all musicals. Strangely, though musicals are a more commercially viable subset of theater, I find musical theater to be more artistically successful than most plays I've seen. I have seen a very minimal number of plays that moved me in any way. Whereas oftentimes musical theater gets flack for being egotistical/perform-y, I find it's straight theatre that often gets too big for its britches in terms of lofty didactic attempts at life-altering work. I think my problem is that most of the time, I just want to be entertained. Incidentally, most of America just wants to be entertained. Subsequently, I think I may have an easier time making a career out of being someone who does musical theater than my peers who are only interested in "art"/straight theatre.
That said, I understand that I am in a program where we study plays. Only. I came here for a reason. Acting is my weakest suit, and I knew I could gain a larger quantity of knowledge of technical theatre/design than I could in any musical theatre program. As someone who aspires to direct, this is imperative. Do I anticipate directing many plays? No. I want to direct musicals. But there aren't any undergrad musical theatre directing programs. Plus, our new head of the department is a bloody genius and brilliant director, so I turn worshippy disciple of the almighty Stan every Tuesday and Thursday in Directing class.
All this goes to say that I think we'd all be happier if we got along, supported each other, and allowed some room for less lofty/more entertaining "art." In the lyrics of the band War, "Why can't we be friends?"
Now, there is a lot of bad theater in town. But there's also a lot of good theater. I've done 22 shows here in the past two years. The Dallas theater community is wonderful, supportive, and an excellent place to learn professionalism/basic aspects of theater. In fact, I find a lot of Dallas theater to be really exceptional. For instance, last week I performed My Fair Lady at Lyric Stage with a 38 piece orchestra (larger than the original Broadway orchestra) playing the original orchestrations. It seems Uptown Players is constantly premiering some play or musical and one-upping themselves in terms of quality. There are oodles of smaller theater groups (Broken Gears, Amphibian, Nouveau 47, Echo (and all the groups at the Bath House) putting out great new work. --this theater student had never been to any of these spaces. There is a mentality at school that the only real theaters are the Theater Center and Kitchen Dog Theater. Oh, and Undermain. These theaters also do great work, but they aren't the only theaters in Dallas.
I'm constantly struggling with the balance between creating "art" and commercialism. Theater here singularly advocates "art." This excludes most Dallas theater and generally all musicals. Strangely, though musicals are a more commercially viable subset of theater, I find musical theater to be more artistically successful than most plays I've seen. I have seen a very minimal number of plays that moved me in any way. Whereas oftentimes musical theater gets flack for being egotistical/perform-y, I find it's straight theatre that often gets too big for its britches in terms of lofty didactic attempts at life-altering work. I think my problem is that most of the time, I just want to be entertained. Incidentally, most of America just wants to be entertained. Subsequently, I think I may have an easier time making a career out of being someone who does musical theater than my peers who are only interested in "art"/straight theatre.
That said, I understand that I am in a program where we study plays. Only. I came here for a reason. Acting is my weakest suit, and I knew I could gain a larger quantity of knowledge of technical theatre/design than I could in any musical theatre program. As someone who aspires to direct, this is imperative. Do I anticipate directing many plays? No. I want to direct musicals. But there aren't any undergrad musical theatre directing programs. Plus, our new head of the department is a bloody genius and brilliant director, so I turn worshippy disciple of the almighty Stan every Tuesday and Thursday in Directing class.
All this goes to say that I think we'd all be happier if we got along, supported each other, and allowed some room for less lofty/more entertaining "art." In the lyrics of the band War, "Why can't we be friends?"
Monday, September 27, 2010
So, this happened. And I am beyond flattered.
From the Dallas Observer's Best of Dallas 2010
Katharine Gentsch--Best Chorus Girl
If you attended any musical theater productions in or around Dallas over the past 12 months, you probably saw 21-year-old SMU theater major Katharine Gentsch singing and dancing somewhere just behind the lead actors. Since September 2009, she has appeared in a remarkable string of shows: as a "Hot Box Girl" in Guys and Dolls at WaterTower Theatre, in the chorus of Breathe at Uptown Players, playing the little sister in Sanders Family Christmas at the Bath House Cultural Center (a role she'll reprise this fall), singing and dancing in Lyric Stage's Showboat, inBye Bye Birdie at Richland College and in a different, professional production of the same show at Lyric, hoofing it in Uptown's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and in Garland Summer Musicals' 42nd Street, and most recently in Lyric's big-budget My Fair Lady. When she's not onstage, Gentsch is tweeting about how much she loves musicals. One day soon she'll get that starring role, but until then save a little applause for the pretty redhead just out of the spotlight.
Katharine Gentsch--Best Chorus Girl
If you attended any musical theater productions in or around Dallas over the past 12 months, you probably saw 21-year-old SMU theater major Katharine Gentsch singing and dancing somewhere just behind the lead actors. Since September 2009, she has appeared in a remarkable string of shows: as a "Hot Box Girl" in Guys and Dolls at WaterTower Theatre, in the chorus of Breathe at Uptown Players, playing the little sister in Sanders Family Christmas at the Bath House Cultural Center (a role she'll reprise this fall), singing and dancing in Lyric Stage's Showboat, inBye Bye Birdie at Richland College and in a different, professional production of the same show at Lyric, hoofing it in Uptown's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and in Garland Summer Musicals' 42nd Street, and most recently in Lyric's big-budget My Fair Lady. When she's not onstage, Gentsch is tweeting about how much she loves musicals. One day soon she'll get that starring role, but until then save a little applause for the pretty redhead just out of the spotlight.
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