Go where the journey takes you
I spent many years volunteering at a high school as a choreographer for their school musicals. The purpose of our shows, besides to put on performances for members of the community and improve the students dance, vocal and instrumental skills, was to teach self confidence and prove the importance of teamwork. We also helped teenagers who were struggling to fit in to find a place to belong, a place with people they could count on. What we did not make as our goal is to have a Tony award winning show. Did we aim to do the best show possible? Absolutely. But this was not the main point. The end product was great, but it was the journey that mattered.
A few of the students in our shows would decide to go forward and train to be professional performers. They would audition for the best university programs in their field, be it acting, musical theatre, dance or instrumental studies. Most of them did not get into these top programs.
Is it because they are not talented? No. Really, they are…some of them are very talented. There are just many, many people vying for spots at these top schools. And if you look at the people who get in, especially in acting programs, you will see there is a specific makeup of each class. There are one or two redheads, blondes, and brunettes. There are a certain number of males and a certain number of females. There are students who look younger and students who look older than their years. There are thin students and there are heavy-set students. Basically, the professors create an ensemble of varying “types” so that they can easily cast their shows. And these programs tend to take around 15 students, some a little less, some a little more. But it is not a large group when you consider that there are hundreds, if not thousands of students applying to these programs. So if you are a redhead and they are going to take one or two redheads and out of the number that apply one hundred redheads audition…well, you see your odds.
Students are always crushed that they didn’t get in. Not just that they aren’t getting to go to this top program but that this somehow indicates their potential for success in the professional world. They lose that confidence that was built up over the years and they think they have failed before they have begun.
I know someone who teaches at an elite performance program and she has always said, “Many of my students will become doctors and lawyers. Many will not stay in the arts as a career.”
School is great. Gaining knowledge is always good. And many of the top programs are worth the money in terms of the extras the school has, the professional people who come in to offer “special seminars”, etc. So I’m not knocking them. I’m just saying there is no guarantee of anything beyond that. Don’t put your eggs in one basket and think “this is the only way.” That’s too much pressure on you and frankly, the faculty. No professors can guarantee anything beyond getting you to learn what the program is designed to teach.
And you never know where it will lead you.
I was going to be a dancer when I was 12 and by the time I was 17, I changed my mind. I had studied dance since I was three years-old. Fourteen years into the journey, I decided I would do it for fun but not for a career. That’s fourteen years of lessons. I even studied at a top school based at Carnegie Hall. And then, oops…not doing that…
I studied acting in high school with one of the top people in NYC at the time but from the moment I began, I was always the person interpreting the teacher’s directions for the students. I was always coming up with ways to make other people’s scenes better. I continued doing this in college. I found myself casting shows in my head while I was supposed to be learning the craft of acting while watching other actors. Oops, again. I thought I’d be a theatre director…
I was also choreographing musicals as a teenager at High School of the Arts (yes, the “Fame” school) which is the school I attended as a VOCAL major.
I had a wild and varying journey, trying many things out. Nothing was set in stone. If that were the case, I’d be in the NYC ballet or ABT hopping around a stage at Lincoln Center or directing bizarre versions of Chekhov plays in a small, broken down theatre on the lower east side which is incredibly romantic sounding to me, even now.
I am a filmmaker who did not study filmmaking in college. When I decided to make films, I looked into all the top programs. I had great grades in undergrad, won the theatre department award, and I had some credentials and good references. I thought, “I guess that’s what I am supposed to do.”. But it made my stomach turn over. I wanted to go out and make films. I didn’t want to be back in school. So I didn’t apply. I filled out all the online forms, saved them but did not click the submit button. (Somewhere in the void of the internet, my applications still hover in the ether.) I went out and bought a camera and started making films. I learned from others. Occasionally took a class, sometimes with a professor from those elite programs. (And by the way, some of the best professors at these elite programs did not go to college themselves.) I figured it out along the way. “Where am I stuck?” “What do I need to get unstuck and move ahead?” I have made a number of feature films at this point. Some people I know who went to film school have done the same, some have made one, and some none.
There is no path set out for you. There is not just one fork in the road; there are many. One moment in time, one moment of rejection from what you thought was the be all, end all, is just a bump in that road that sends you curving to a path you never knew existed.
Go on your own journey. Find your own way. And, above all, keep believing in yourself.