Tonight, The Y: Quest for Stardom in NYC - Day 1

I am on a train right now headed to New York City. All I know is that I need to get to the City and then, bam, I will be in the cradle of my dreams. I’ll be so close to having my name up in lights that all I’ll have to do is reach my arm out and…

This is my pre-college attempt at making it in the biz. Every person who has seriously considered show business as a career has also considered packing up everything and heading to New York or LA to see their dream realized. I’ve been told that there are two ways to make it. Option A: Go to college and get a B.F.A. in your area of study, check out Grad School and then use the connections you’ve made over that period of time to get a job. Option B: Go to New York, start working as a waitress by day and apply to every theater in the city by night.

I chose option A because God knows that in this economy even getting a job at a diner isn’t the easiest thing in the world. But this mini adventure to New York, this is my one shot to see if I can make connections in the city that makes stars before I go off to Cincinnati.

Maybe I’ll discover that this is the way to go, leaving everything and everyone behind to pursue my dreams with a little less than $300 to my name. Because there is this nagging feeling inside me saying that once I graduate my BFA will do nothing more than be a wall ornament in my first apartment.

Going to a conservatory gets you jobs. Everyone who is anyone in the business looks to conservatories for the newest rising talent because that is where the best go to train. So who is to say that those connections aren’t all you going to get out of 4 years of college tuition.

When I interviewed at Cincinnati, my interviewer casually admitted that she would look at my transcript once she dug through the mail pile. I wasn’t too astounded that my admission to CCM had nothing to do with how well I did in math freshman year but it did slightly suck to know that I had a very good GPA that no one really cared about.

And I am all too certain that the same thing rings true for getting jobs in show business. Theaters just want to know that, yes, you do have an education in the field. Then it comes down to who they think can handle the job or looks right for the part. Your BFA is sitting in the pile of resumes and headshots that some producer will eventually dig through.