About Me

I don’t even know if I can remember a time when theatre didn’t exist in my life… I was the kid with the weird, artsy mom who had the soundtrack to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and the Best of ABBA blaring in the car (way before Mama Mia! existed), and Oklahoma! and Singing in the Rain playing on our TV – no soccer van for this mom!  My parents got divorced and my mom upped and moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and I only got my fix of “Go, go Joseph!” on the weekends and in the summertime. It was the summer after first grade when Mom signed me up for theatre camp. First Stage Theatre Academy in the heart of Milwaukee, where their motto is “Transforming Lives through Theatre.” My life was transformed, for sure! It was here my appreciation for the theatre blossomed. I learned about everything from musical ensemble numbers, to costume and set design, to playwriting, to acting in contemporary theatre, to the poetry of Shakespeare (yes, I was only 7-years-old when I first recited the Bard), to stage combat, to body language and voice inflection, to memorization, to improvisation. This place became my home away from home, and I returned to camp every summer until high school. Through First Stage, I knew I wanted to do theatre for my entire life.

                I acted with a children’s theatre in my hometown throughout elementary and middle school, but it was in my sophomore year of high school when I got bitten by the Techie bug. The first show I crewed for was Chekov’s A Cherry Orchard. The school’s technical director brought the set model in to my acting class one day – a beautiful abstract rendition of the manor with thick, frosty white, life-like trees dominating the stage – and I thought, “I have to help build this set!” So I did, and so I was introduced to the backstage world. For the next year and half, I explored everything from build crew to lighting to props management. The fall of my senior year, I walked into the first stage crew meeting expecting to work on props again – the show was Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Our technical director, however, had other plans. She approached me and said that they still needed a stage manager and they wanted me to do it.

WHAT???? I don’t know the first thing about stage management!!!

But I took the risk. I learned my way around. It was difficult at first – a job far more complex than simply rummaging around a storage room pulling props, like I thought I would be doing. Now I had lists, reports, run sheets, and even people to keep organized. I definitely needed to take the time to get the hang of it. When I did, I fell absolutely head over heels in love with it. I couldn’t believe what I had accomplished. What a whirlwind! It was amazing! I had to do it again! I ended up managing three more shows that year, which was unheard of in my theatre department. I had found my favorite thing to do – and I was good at it! At the end of the year, I received special recognition by the department for my work as a stage manager.

So here I am, a sophomore at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, a major in Theatre and a minor in Writing, and soaking up all the knowledge I possibly can about stage management so I can prepare myself for the real deal – Broadway! Yes, I’m one of those people. I want to make it big on Broadway. People may say I’m ambitious or impractical, but I’m honestly doing what I love. But before Broadway can be anywhere within my reach, there is much more to see and much more to learn. Writing a blog makes sense as my next step. I want to share my hopes, my dreams, the things I see, the things I read – all my experiences within the theatre world – and learn what other people in the theatre world can teach me. I’m inviting you on every part of my journey (the big, the small, and everything in between) to that moment when I can walk – as stage manager extraordinaire – through the stage door.