{"id":387,"date":"2019-09-05T22:00:12","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T22:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/?p=387"},"modified":"2019-09-05T22:00:12","modified_gmt":"2019-09-05T22:00:12","slug":"if-music-be-the-food-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/2019\/09\/05\/if-music-be-the-food-of-love\/","title":{"rendered":"If Music Be the Food of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben Donohoe, ’22<\/b>, Arts and Sciences<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a Sunday afternoon. I swing open the door and enter a chilly, almost eerily quiet space with black walls<\/p>\n

\"I
I had never expected to be involved in theatre at Vanderbilt (I still yell at my friends not to call me a theatre kid).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

and rows of empty chairs, striding up onto the stage until I stand in front of two reassuringly smiling faces. I introduce myself and take a deep breath.\u201cIf music be the food of love, play on!\u201d begins my first audition.<\/p>\n

On the previous Friday evening, I noticed on Facebook that Vanderbilt University Theatre was holding open auditions this December weekend for its spring shows.<\/p>\n

My initial thought was something along the lines of\u00a0 \u201cWhat the hell, this could be kind of fun, right?\u201d Plus, I probably won\u2019t end up getting it, so no harm done.\u201d So I speed memorized a monologue in a day and showed up during the last hour of auditions on Sunday to receive a call back for Sunday evening. That Thursday, I found that I had landed a role as Sebastian in VUT\u2019s production of Twelfth Night. I was an actor!<\/p>\n

So began a whirlwind process of learning my lines and my blocking and how to do some basic stage combat and how to do a very, very basic dance sequence without hurting myself or my fellow cast members and how to put on stage makeup (and how much crap my friends would give me for having to wear makeup) and what a \u201ctech week\u201d is (it can\u2019t be described in words but exists somewhere between \u201cincredibly awesome\u201d and \u201cI didn\u2019t know it was physically possible to be this tired\u201d).<\/p>\n

And then it was opening night. I paced backstage. I reviewed my opening lines in my head over and over again. One of my more experienced co-stars smiled, told me that I had grown a lot and that she was proud of me, and said that I\u2019d do great. I was ready. The lights went up, and we started the show.<\/p>\n

I had never expected to be involved in theatre at Vanderbilt (I still yell at my friends not to call me a theatre kid). Yet, I absolutely loved the joy of discovering a character, going deep into and beyond a text to bring out emotions and motivations and an entire worldview, turning inward to see how I can relate to and emulate my character, and working with and learning from my friendly fellow actors, and performing all this on a stage.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m now in both a musical and another play this semester as well as a crew member on another short play. I\u2019ve absolutely loved the community I\u2019ve found at VUT, and I\u2019m so glad I was brave enough to walk into that unfamiliar theatre and audition. And even though I didn\u2019t know it at the time, acting has helped me grow as a person and find my own voice here at Vanderbilt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ben Donohoe, ’22, Arts and Sciences It\u2019s a Sunday afternoon. I swing open the door and enter a chilly, almost eerily quiet space with black walls and rows of empty chairs, striding up onto the stage until I stand in front of two reassuringly smiling faces. I introduce myself and take a deep breath.\u201cIf music…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8009,"featured_media":389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-self-discovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8009"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":390,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions\/390"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}