Freshman Year Experience: Boston Conservatory
CampusTap Blog
As my first semester at the Broadway School comes to a close, I’ve realized that there has been many a stereotypical experience in my world of kicking my face and belting high notes. There have been countless times where I have sat in my writing class listening, or cringing, to the ultimate screech of rehearsing sopranos thinking, “Yes, I go to that arts school.” But beyond the stereotype, I’ve come to understand the countless blessings I’ve encountered by simply going to school in Boston.
BOSTON IS AMAZING
A ten-minute walk from the Prudential Building and a five-minute adventure from Fenway Park, the world is at my fingertips. There are so many reasons and ways to grow that I never had access to at home in the suburbs of the Boston area, although I never took the short trip into Boston even half as much as I should have. Now that I am a full-time student at the Boston Conservatory I am also a full-time resident of Boston itself, and I couldn’t be happier.
NOT YOUR TYPICAL FIRST SEMESTER
My experience as a music theater major at the Boston Conservatory is far from the normal college experience. I start my days around 9am and have classes until 7pm. From then I may or may not have a chance to eat dinner, since rehearsals tend to start at 7:30pm and go until 11pm.
Not to worry though, we have our dorms, which are authentic Boston brownstone buildings, and typical college gatherings. The last party I went to involved a lot of costumes and drag. As much as that crazy schedule sounds like an exaggeration, I can promise you that it is not. Many of us joke that we are getting a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sleep Deprivation and how-to-kick-really-high, but oh how fun it is.
DANCE, PLAY AND MAKE MUSIC ALL DAY
All jokes aside, my peers, fellow students and faculty members all take artistry very seriously. What I get to do is very different from many other careers. It is viewed as a very difficult field, but I’ve realized how lucky I am despite the challenges. I dance, play, and make music all day, all the while learning and understanding how we work and connect as human beings. I study text. I study stories, and I study body movement. I study the connection of sound and music. I study history and I study impact. I’ve been able to find myself as an individual and where my art stands. There is a focus on the artist rather than the cookie-cutter performer and that is the push that I need.
I wasn’t kidding when I said I get to play all day either. My acting class consists of us running around, throwing dialogue at each other while trying to get the most authentic version across. One of our biggest units this past semester in my acting class was a scene from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We had been rehearsing and practicing these scenes in various ways. Many times we have reenacted a Jerry Springer type scene (all clothing kept on, thank goodness!) with the two scene partners “battling” against each other and the audience choosing sides, participating often by provoking the weaker of the two with profanities or slurs. Fun stuff. Just one of the many ways we get to play in college.
