Getting Ready for the Fall Play

I started doing theater in my senior year of high school and it was a life changing experience for me. It was always something that I wanted to do, but the time was never right or I was too shy to audition, and it took me three years to get to do it. In the end, I promised myself to audition on my first term in college, so the same thing wouldn’t happen again. And I did!

At first, I was very nervous about how the auditions would go. I didn’t know how the department conducted the auditions, what was expected of me, or anyone I could ask advice for. In the end, I went there on the first Tuesday of classes and read a scene from the play that the director had chosen. There were only two people in the room, Jeanne, our director, and Christian, our dramaturg. They are both very nice and I felt extremely comfortable on the stage in front of them. I left The Weitz thinking that it would be fine even if I didn’t get in, because I was happy with my performance either way.

I might have been happy if I didn’t get in, but I suppose we will never know, because I did get in! I was absolutely jovial when I got a callback and met the other theater people. It was overall a very relaxed and supportive auditioning system, and everyone I met was extremely nice and helpful. We tried different scenes with different pairings, and the cast list was announced later that night. I was to play Sasha!

It wasn’t until I received the rehearsal schedule that I realized the commitment I had made. I currently have rehearsals six days of the week, ranging from 2.5 hours to 4 hours. It might sound daunting, but I love doing theater and it is all in good fun to me. However, I am also human and there are twenty four hours in the day. Which means that I get really tired in the day and my course work gets done at wee hours of the night.

Eye bags and long walks to The Weitz aside, I am very excited to be doing such a fun play with such nice people. Considering that the show dates are 19-22 October, this is going to be over before I realize it. And even though my schedule is packed, I am really grateful for this opportunity and very excited to learn from the cast and our director.

After reading this, you should definitely be excited as much as I am. You must be dying to see it. Can’t wait for it, really. I bet you are! So, I suppose you’ll see me on stage in October. Be there or be square. Nobody wants to be a square.

Defne (she/her/hers), is a first year international student from Istanbul, Turkey. Her natural habitat is the library and her diet consists of tea, coffee and LDC pizza. An artistic specimen, she dabbles in all art forms from printmaking to theater. She can be observed reading comics in the bookstore in downtown Northfield.