An Introduction:
I swore I’d never write a blog, but alas here I am.
I write this a day after guest lecturing the Production Practicum course for the 4th time at Purchase College, a state school in Westchester, NY known for its arts programs that’s also my alma mater.
Production Practicum is a required course for students in Purchases BA Theatre and Performance degree program that requires students (who predominantly take the program to pursue acting, stage management, and directing without the restraints the schools BFA program has) to work on the technical side of productions. I go into this class to give a spiel on lighting, freelancing, the harsh reality that at some point they will likely have to touch a lightboard…
I walk away encouraging kids to send me resumes and to reach out to me and I have never had one student reach out, until this year's class. Someone shouted out “you should really teach” another replied “well that's kind of the purpose of her being here right now” by the end of the class I had a group of students surrounding me asking me questions “what the difference between Union and not union?” “how did you get your jobs?” and various other questions. I received an email from a student asking to look over her resume and “what is a 1099 job?”
In the days leading up to this I went over the powerpoint I used the last two years to instruct. I changed some things since last year the class was held via zoom, I looked over my words of wisdom which I’m sure I’ll include somewhere here and that’s when I got the idea to make a page on my website for these students to access all the resources I’ve hidden in my bookmarks bar for years. So I did just that, perfectly hyperlinking everything, writing out descriptions and membership fees. As I answered more and more questions I realized they were all questions I had at one point myself and maybe I’ll just compile them all together and the answers I found along the way. So that is the point of this blog.
Some Disclaimers:
I don’t formally write, my grammar is terrible and struggle to proof-read and write how I speak *insert a Long Island accent*
I’m young but I’ve worked in this industry since I was 15…I know a lil bit of what I’m talking about but welcome corrections (all which would be credited of course)
I didn’t study theatre, I studied anthropology and media studies. I got rejected from every film school I applied to, went to my last choice college…
I’m almost entirely self taught, I know what I know because of some great people along the way who showed me a thing or two…this is how I intend to pay it forward.
So take all this for what it’s worth, I’m open to suggestions, edits, opinions, input. Share your links, portfolios, TikToks, websites, everything…as much as this is for me to give insights, this could really become an awesome community forum and I hope it does…
