Blog Beginnings and a Little Background

It takes a very dedicated person to maintain a blog and an interesting and eventful person to have a good blog.  It is my goal to be both of these things.  I’ve had several other blogs in the past but none succeeded more than a few months because, well, I was in high school and not really doing much.  Now that I’m just finishing up my second year as a theatre major in a very large public university and working several odds and ends theatre gigs, I figure I might have a little more to talk about.             

So a little background on me…let’s see, we’ve covered the fact that I’m a theatre major at a very large university.  To be more specific I go the largest university in the country, The Ohio State University, with over 50,000 students.  While I do have an econ lecture with 500 other students, most of my classes tend to have less than 30 students.  My theatre classes are even smaller; there were only 6 students in my Metals as a Scenic Element class.  All the theatre majors practically live at the Drake Performance and Event Center, or “The Drake” as we call it. The Drake encompasses 3 theatres in ascending size (the Thurber, the Roy Bowen, and the New Works Lab), a plethora of classrooms, a greasy pizza place called “The PAD”, The Viewpoint”- a fancy restaurant run by hospitality management majors, a large lobby area that spans half the building and overlooks the Olentangy River, and the OSU rowing team headquarters and docks in the basement.  After awhile you get to know most of the theatre majors and OSU stops feeling so massive, unless of course you have make the mile trek to get from The Drake to High street. 

I’ve been involved in theatre since I was a wee lass; taking summer classes at the Davis Discovery Center in Franklin Park.  In middle school I volunteered at COSI – the Center of Science and Industry – in the Adventure exhibit.  Adventure was a spectacularly constructed fantasy archaeological exploration site on a remote pacific island in 1939.  Guests would have to collect clues to awaken 3 mystical island gods that sang songs about Reason, Perseverance, and Inspiration. Then these gods would give symbols to open the secret observatory.  As a volunteer in this exhibit I helped the guests find clues as an explorer character on the island. This included dressing in period costumes and often speaking in either a British or Australian accent.  Also during this time I got involved acting in children’s plays at Davis, my first role was Rheba the maid in You Can’t Take it With You.  I continued to be involved at Davis into high school, eventually adopting different roles as a member of the crew and during my sophomore year, an intern.  

Which leads me to explain a little bit about my high school; I went to The Graham School, a very small public charter school in Clintonville, OH.  How small? My graduating class totaled 29 people.  My school didn’t have sports, or theatre, or even a cafeteria.  What it did have was couches in the hallways, big squishy swivel chairs in the classrooms, really dedicated and fun teachers (with whom we were on a first name basis with), and an impressive internship program.  The internship program was at the very core of my high school’s mission; to include real world experience and learning as a part of a rounded curriculum.  I worked in a bakery, a day care, a costume and mascot building company, at my childhood theatre Davis, and as an assistant theatre teacher at my school.  The summer between my junior and senior years I decided to produce, direct, and costume Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. I helped teach classes at Davis during that summer in exchange for credit toward renting their smaller theatre for 3 performances. I found fantastic student actors from all around the city, and they were truly the ones that made the show (heaven knows my directing skills weren’t so great at that point).   All this stuff so far occurred only during my first 3 years.  During senior year at my school if you had all your credits in line you participated in two separate “Walkabouts” - which are full-time internships anywhere in the world.  For one Walkabout, I went to Hawaii for a month to work in a gourmet restaurant and learn how to cook some fantastic stuff.  And for the other I lived in Baltimore, MD for 2 months and worked as an assistant stage manager for a professional theatre company based in D.C.  So my high school may have been tiny and a bit backwards, but it provided me with some fantastic experiences that really put me ahead of the game in preparing for life.

When it came to picking a college, in all honesty Ohio State was just my backup school.  Growing up in Columbus, I always took Ohio State for granted and even looked a little bit down on since both my parents went there and hated it.  But after being unimpressed by Ohio Wesleyan, Ohio University, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Otterbein’s prices, and everything about Antioch; I got a letter in the mail saying that I got into the honors program at OSU and they were going to give me a pretty good scholarship.  So I went to Ohio State without ever having set a foot on campus or taking a tour, and I never once regretted my decision.  Ohio State turned out to be a wonderful place to get my education.  Because of its massive size I have all sorts of really neat general curriculum classes to choose from and classes at all sorts of times.  Plus, I practically get first pick of classes because of being in the honors program.  The theatre department is very large so there are always opportunities to get involved, and if nothing suits you then you’re encouraged to start your own projects.

So yah, I think I’ve rambled on about me enough for tonight.  Tune in for future blogs about my current jobs and more contemplation!

Adios!

Jessi