Dispatches from the field: Act I, scene 2

I have been out of college for 9 months. Those 9 months have been an interesting bumper-cars ride of feeling liberated — fully at the helm of my life and personal sense of purpose — and utterly confused and footingless. It was exceptionally calming to fully realize that, upon graduating, no one expected me to be entirely informed on what to do with my life on a day to day basis. It was grounding and humbling to process that we never stop learning. As a young actor, my #1 job right now is to be training.

But where to put my money? I took a second, recalled that chaotic feeling of bumper-cars which I mentioned before, and realized that I wanted to embark on training that challenged me to crystalize my sense of purpose as an artist. So, I signed up for a course that is targeted towards helping me, the actor, become the clearest version of myself that I can be.

Fantastic! But what the hell does that mean in application? How does that shake out?

The first thing that I had to do was fill out a whole diagnostic packet before setting one foot into the studio. Who am I? What do I sing for auditions? What are the qualities I have as a vocalist? As an actor? As a person? What are my dream roles? Where do I see myself in the industry as it stands?

On my first day of class, I sang. I was given tons of fantastic feedback about how I show up in the room (yay!). And then my mentor said, “We’ve established that everything we have pointed out about you so far is great. Great? Great. Now, that said: your diagnostic is all over the place, and from what you have written, I would have no idea who you are.”

And he was right — my dream roles spanned every archetype, age, demographic, and vocal range, and the adjectives that I used to describe myself were riddled with contradiction. I explained that I am versatile, and do many things well, so picking one place to land feels simultaneously limiting and daunting. My mentor said to me, “I think you know exactly who you are and what you want to do. You just have to be clear with yourself and own it.”

My homework for this week was to find the songs, the roles, the North Stars, that fuel me and fulfill my sense of self as an artist. And that is terrifying. Largely because I live in fear that speaking one journey into existence means picking the “wrong” one. If that answer wasn’t correct, I failed. I can, in theory, do everything, so I feel an inherent sense of pressure to be everything — if I circle every answer on the multiple choice quiz, then I have a 100% chance of circling the right answer. But the thing with scantrons is if you bubble in more than one choice, you’re wrong.

Here is the truth: if I was equally passionate about everything, I would be passionate about nothing. A lack of personal clarity of identity, a lack of opinion, will make it virtually impossible to be fully myself and present in an audition room.

I now have the thrilling opportunity to look internally and make decisions about who I am, why I do what I do, and how I want to show up in the world.

Upon reflection, I have distilled that I perform in an effort to seek connection by collaborating and excavating the human experience. This is my purpose, and I know this to be true because of how I always show up. When I interact in that room, I make sure to greet everyone on the creative team upon arrival and thank them upon departure. When given my choice over repertoire selection, I sing songs that allow me to tell a story and anchor into deep and meaningful emotional journeys.

This is how I showed up for that first class. And that’s how my mentor knew that I inherently knew myself and my offer to the world, I just hadn’t processed it consciously yet.

It can be tempting to try to avoid pigeonholing myself by trying to make myself into whatever I think my consumer — in my case, the casting directors and creative team — wants me to be. However, it is an intimidating task because it is an impossible one — I can’t read minds. Coming into possession of my sense of self — my personality, my look, and my offer — is the only way I stand a fighting chance.

So, whenever I am in my head about my next career or life move, I mentally retake my own diagnostic. I ask myself: Who am I? What work lights a fire in my soul? How do I interact with my colleagues? How do I show up when I pitch myself? What am I pitching, what is my grand offer? The closer I can get to specific adjectives that evoke my ethos, the more self-aware I am, the better.

Yes, of course, I will not book every role I go out for. Sometimes, the director just has a different vision. Sometimes, it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with a circumstance outside of my contribution to that room. But when I have trusted and refined what it means to be wholly myself, what I bring to the table will eventually resonate with one person behind it. Not just a person — the person. The right person who sees my magic and wants me on their team. If I’ve learned anything from my compulsive puzzling phase of quarantine, it’s that I won’t ever create the beautiful full picture if I am focused on jamming the wrong pieces together. I am learning to trust that I will find the person or project that fits. Once I let go of trying to be anything but myself, and I lead with my magic, that callback, connection, or offer will follow, and off to the races I’ll go.