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I’d like to think I have, and have always had, an analytical brain. I never did dance or sports or the arts as a kid, and I spent my elementary years playing video games. In every sense of the word, I was a consumer, not a creator.

I was introduced to theater in middle school, but it was more an after-school activity to kill time while waiting for my mom to pick me up. But, I enjoyed it enough that I continued doing it into high school, and cue defining moment #1. During my junior year, I was involved in “Trojan Women” as a chorus member and I probably hated about 95% of my time spent doing it. Favoritism from the director and choreographer killed what little passion myself and others had, and other classmates weren’t much better. I didn’t really love what I was doing until I had a dream that was the crisis my character went through happening to me, and I felt something towards a role that I’d never felt before. Not only did I start performing because I felt akin to that woman, but I stopped performing for the approval of others instead of myself (and ironically, that same director gave me a lot of praise after that). After that, I was pretty much high on theater from then on and I practically begged for opportunities at every corner, and I gave up a lot more opportunities in other places.

I started to become more invested in performance as an art when I entered college. Whereas throughout my life I never really understood why a movie I thought was God’s gift to the Earth was called “bad” by critics, I was exposed to the world of writing. Fun fact: despite my emphasis being partially in playwriting, I’d never (and still haven’t) written a play. I have no experience in creating a world, characters, and a story. But after watching a TV show that I didn’t understand at first and considered “bad”, but read reviews that claimed it was that God’s gift, I did some reading and began actually analytically watching it instead of for pure entertainment value. As an artist, this connected that “no sports no arts” analytical side of my brain with my emotional connection to art, and it was like a latch unlocked an entire new portion of my brain. When I read or watch things now, I analyze (which I am realizing is a blessing and a curse now) and look deeper, and the things I understand on such a deeper level make my entertainment experience richer. And, I want to create that experience for others.

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At the beginning of this semester, I was about the furthest thing from willing to be a collaborator. I was not naive enough to ignore that collaboration worked for many, and I even admired how a collaborative project brought out the best parts of the collaborators and meshed them all together into something greater. In fact, I stated that one of my favorite theatrical moments was an improved costume save by an ensemble member (even though it was just a rehearsal!), and while it wasn’t quite the same as the collaborative experiences we created in class, it still embodied that sense of trust that is unique to collaborators. But I was so stuck on the fact that my ideas were grandiose and that only I could make them (which in a way is true) that I failed to participate in any collaboration outside the cells of my brain.

Needless to say my thoughts have changed, and I believe it was because I secretly hoped to be a part of these collaborative moments I admired but just didn’t know it. Statements about being a sole collaborator have an entirely different meaning in that instead of keeping my ideas bottled up; it now feels like an encouragement to start bringing more of my ideas and thoughts to the collaborators’ table and keep presenting ideas I like to other people to see how it develops with new insight and perspectives of those I’m working with so that it can blossom in an entirely new way. I’ve learned people (including myself) come up with some really innovative ideas that have you asking yourself, “how did I -- or they -- come up with this?” But we love it and expand upon it regardless! I’ve developed such an admiration for the unpredictability and creativity that others bring to the table that I really can’t imagine doing many other works without at least one person helping me or us bouncing ideas off of each other.

However, I don’t know if anything ever made me feel like one part of a wonderfully theatrical whole than silently collaborating through movement with my entire cohort. I even said in my first padlet that I wanted to achieve something similar to actors being, “so comfortable in a collaborative space that they barely even need words to communicate with one another”. We did just that. I didn’t have to add personal stressors of whether or not I was being controlling or talking too much because it didn’t require speech. I was allowed to do my own thing while being conscious of the group and when to pause or unpause. I think it was that sense of independence that I expressed at the beginning of the class I wanted that I believe I actually sought in the realm of a collaboration rather than a fully independent project. It brought a sense of relief and really made me appreciate being a part of something so trusting and collaborative rather than admiring it from a distance.

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This is one instance where I had to make a collage based off of my partner's story and appearance, and then later add things to it on my own based off of my memory. It's a type of collaboration that I hadn't really done before or talked about here, where I was the one building upon the idea rather than creating it and seeking someone else to build upon my idea. I remember telling myself: "Look at what THEY have given you rather than YOUR ideas about who they are." Obviously by the end of the project I was using both of those things, but I need to stop the idea only coming from the stream of me instead of the stream of us as collaborators. The result is a piece that is both uniquely myself and Reese, where I've embraced the ideas he's presented to me and used methods that I know best to present them visually.

I made every piece meaningful to what he said to me (stocks, separate homes, driving, eating during class) through my own methods. In a sense, it's uniquely us, as I'm telling his story.

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My inspirations have always come from unorthodox places because they aren’t the first thing you think of when you hear the words “artistic inspirations”. I have always greatly admired media like “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Black Mirror” because they really define storytelling, characterization, and well-written works in the modern era while also being enjoyed by the average person. These are inspirations in the sense that I’d like my work to be on the same scale technically as these forms of media, and also because they thread the fine needle of being a work that is both incredibly dense in meaning but also entertaining. On the complete opposite of the spectrum is my inspiration from widely popular works like “The Office” or “High School Musical” due to something that takes place outside of the performance work itself: audience. Something about the way audience members talk about these, and many other, shows long after their airing because they love it so much lights a fire in me; it means the work had a large impact on them in some way. I have a desire to recreate this for my future audiences, whether that be for them to take a message and learn something from my work or to just admire and enjoy the characters and/or plot within it (or both!).

When trying to create works based on my inspirations in class, I felt myself always repeating one word over and over in my head: memorable. Essentially, I wanted my classmates to like and remember what my group made! In a way, my inspirations about audience engagement pushed me to keep going and make something, but my inhibitions about whether it would be memorable found myself stuck with no ideas or motivation sometimes. I still find myself thinking and doing this even now, and I think it's because I like to please people and be a part of something that pleases people. My philosophy with theatre has always been that if I don't get something from it or the people watching it don't get something from the work I show, then what's the point in doing it? I love when the art I create serves people in some way, no matter how miniscule. But I think from seeing my classmates’ work and attempting to create it instead of just admiring it and other works from afar (in a sense, collaborating in two different ways), I found the ways to create something that maybe just inspires me. Maybe only I got something from my work, but it was memorable to me. I see it in their work too, as maybe I don’t get the same thing from a work as the creators because the premise isn’t told directly to the audience. And I think I like that too, which is why I started to embrace it especially for the FOPP project. I let my character have depth and let her be meaningful to me, and that inspired me too!

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A key part of being inspired for me is letting other works inspire me. The work I see in a performance and the analysis that I do of it afterward combine to create this sense of inspiration that I've talked about. So, it was prime time for me to get inspired, in my definition, when we presented our final FOPP projects to the class and got to write about each one afterwards. It let me look further into the work than just "liked" vs. "not liked" or good vs. bad (but trust me, they were all good!). Not only does it sharpen my analytical skills, but it also increases my appreciation both as an audience member and a creator.

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One of my biggest practices that I don’t think I’ll ever let go is “marinating”. I love when ideas sit in my head for days, weeks, months, and sometimes years because it not only allows me to develop an idea to its fullest extent, but it also allows me to draw from other forms of media and art around me while the idea is developing. That way, I’m always coming up with new ideas and ways to convey the idea I’m working on. Doing anything too rushed doesn’t give me that same sense of hard work and completion, but I’ve learned in PCP that “rushed” can have many definitions.

When I’m put into a group and given 15 minutes to devise a piece with some guidelines, my heart rate skyrockets just a little bit. I’ve never been one to tell others what to do in a collaborative space or even just in school projects, because I’ve always thought if we’re going to work on something together we all need to think about what it is we’re doing and express our individuality in how we reach a conclusion. But if I said that there weren’t times where I just wanted to take control of something because I didn’t feel like we were going to get it done within the time limit, I would be lying. However, I think the word “control” has dissipated each consecutive time I worked with a group this semester. Though I’ve had some trouble sometimes in groups voicing my ideas or opinions, I’ve still always been one to never strictly tell someone what to do. It’s so much easier and more fun to just share ideas and reach a natural, collaborative agreement in a more equal relationship, and it makes ideas form more naturally and opens up the conversation for improvements and modifications that might not come through in a closed conversation.

Though 15 minutes wouldn’t meet my original definition of “marinating”, I think I’ve both intensified and strayed from sticking to this practice over the semester. I still engage in letting ideas sit in my head after learning new techniques and seeing different styles of performance in class, but I also have learned to just kind of go with the flow and trust that not everything has to be thoroughly thought through for years for it to be something good to perform. Obviously I still don't want to put something half-baked on stage, but I've also learned to just perform something in a short amount of time with a group of people without having to worry about whether it's "artistic" enough.

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I don't think anything embodies marinating more than recording videos for a project and having more bloopers in my camera roll than actual footage. Each process is a trial and error, and I had a lot of errors. But, I believe those errors made the experience both more fun and also one of learning. I had already written down ideas for each scene, but during the filming I took the time to abandon and expand upon some of those ideas as I had let it sit in my brain for many days. I also had the help of an involuntary collaborator, my friend who was on FaceTime with me because he had nothing else to do! (Also, apologies for the cursing!)