The Room Where It Happens
My LA Experience told through the soundtrack of Hamilton
“There’s a million things I haven’t done, but just you wait…”
Like many people my age, the current soundtrack of my life has been dominated by Lin-Manuel Miranda’s masterpiece Hamilton. It’s no surprise, really. The show brings together many elements that I love — theater, music, and history. Perhaps the reason Hamilton resonates with me so much is because for the entire first act, Alexander Hamilton is a young man looking to prove himself and find his place in the world. Wow, have we met? Hi, I’m Isaac, and I’m about to graduate from college.
Since Hamilton was stuck in my head while I was in Los Angeles (I was singing it all over LA), and is still stuck in my head now, it seems only fitting that I write about my experiences through that lens.
“I wanna be in the room where it happens, the room where it happens…”
Graduation is 100 days away. Soon I will venture forth and conquer all my hopes and dreams, and maybe even the world…or something like that. People ask me what I am doing after graduation, and I give the mandatory standard graduating-senior answer of “I don’t know.” But although I’m not able to provide specifics, there is one thing I do know that I want: I want to be in the room where it happens.
Los Angeles is where it’s happening. Everything I could want to work on is there: writing, producing, production, editing, waiting tables (that last one was a joke). We got to see those places on the LA Experience trip, and meet some awesome Marquette Alumni who are making it all happen.
The entire experience was amazing, and I really would like to thank every person who made it possible and who met with us in LA. But, like everyone, I have my own specific favorite moments. Here they are:
- Meeting younger alumni, some of who graduated last year and some who graduated up to five or so years ago. It was awesome to meet and build a relationship with people who are close to my age and doing what I want to be doing. Here’s what really made them so cool, they were all excited to meet us. Weird, right? Every single person was welcoming, and ready to meet another member of the Marquette family. That was amazing, and I hope it’s a relationship that I can continue to build with all of them. Honestly, I feel like I could hang out with most of the young alums I met there. Who wants a board game night? Anyone? A few even treated us to drinks our last night there. Ahhh, the way to a college kid’s heart, through his liver. Thanks, pals! “Raise a glass to the four of us! Tomorrow there’ll be more of us, telling the story of tonight!”
2. Touring Sony Pictures Studios and Twentieth Century Fox Television.
Isaac: Wow. How do I put this experience into words?
Hamilton: THESE ARE THE ROOMS WHERE IT HAPPENS.
Isaac: Oh, thanks Hamilton!
Let’s start with our visit to Sony. The Sony Pictures Studios Lot is formally the Columbia Pictures lot, which is formally the Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer (MGM) lot. So like, all your favorite Hollywood classics? Yeah, they were made here. It was an amazing experience. We saw sound stages, and recording studios and even the outside of Happy Madison productions, Adam Sandler’s production company (complete with Sandler’s custom-made Cadillac Escalade golf-cart). This was the first moment during the trip where I thought to myself “Yeah, I could move here.”
Twentieth Century Fox Television was one of the coolest experiences of my life. We sat in on a table read of Modern Family. A TABLE READ! Allow me elaborate: A small room, with the writers, directors, and entire cast of Modern Family reading a script that would be filmed the next week, and will air on ABC this coming March. Then we went onto the Modern Family set, while they were filming, and we (being millennials) took selfies and pictures with everything.
There I was, in the room where it was happening. “This is a once in a lifetime experience” I thought. But then another thought (I just love internal dialogue). “This is only a once in a lifetime experience if you want it to be. If you really wanted, Isaac, you could be back here and do this all the time.”
“I’m just like my country; I’m young, scrappy and hungry and I’m not throwing away my shot!”
The LA Experience Trip gave me a lot to think about. As I move closer towards my post-grad life, it keeps getting clearer that Los Angeles could be a place that I thrive in. Like Alexander Hamilton, I am about to embark on a journey in which I do not know my end destination.
However, through this trip I have learned one important thing: success in Los Angeles is within our reach, and I am not throwing away my shot.
