AN AFRICAN QUEEN!
From September to November, I work on a show called "A Raisin in the Sun," with No Refund Theater (NRT) and let me tell you... it was the hardest two months of my life.
I remember the auditions like it was yesterday. It was the second week of school and I was this timid freshman coming with only a small hope of being cast in the play. Just days before, I had forgotten the words to both my song and monologue for a different audition. I wasn't in the best of spirits. Lucky for me, this audition wasn't supposed to be memorize, but lucky for me, I spent a week looking over the monologue.
I was eyeing the role of Beneatha (Bennie). She was the smart girl of her family who wasn't afraid to speak her mind, even if it upset her conservative mother. Many girls wanted this role and many were called back for it, me among them. The thing is, I wasn't even expecting a callback, or even a big role, just a small glimmer of hope that I wasn't a lost cause.
Callbacks came and went and I hoped for the best. My best friend from high school who is an Acting B.A. texted me the next morning in all caps, letting me know I won the role. I screamed. Well, more like squealed (I live in a supplemental). I immediately called my mom to tell her the news, and she was happy too since she had listened to me cry on the phone just days before.
The director of the show, Ben Sereda, is probably the most interesting person I've ever met. He's a man-child. I'll explain. He has this mustache that makes him look very old, yet when he shaves it, he looks like a nine year old. It's quite funny. Anyway, Ben helped me develop more confidence in myself over the next few months, and when I cried and thought I wasn't good enough, he told me that he casted me at auditions because I made an impression. I was shocked of course because I had the lowest self-esteem.
The show got underway with the longest of rehearsal hours. It was draining. There were a lot of lines to memorize, and its one of the shows you cannot simply make up bullshit and get away with it. We spent a good month memorizing the entire thing. It paid off.
By showtime, we had morphed into our characters, prepared to give NRT the best show its ever seen. The audiences loved it! We were out of breath by the end of the near 3 hour show. We gave it all we had.
Since the show, many people have come up to me to personally congratulate me. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world. All that hard work went towards something.
At the NRT Winter Formal Awards, we won Best Show and a Penn State alumni saw the show and was so impressed that he wrote this piece in the Collegian:
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