A liberal arts education is an opportunity for self-discovery of classes that you have no idea that you might enjoy. Most 18-year-old students have no idea what they want to study prior to arriving on campus. As a non-traditional student, I knew exactly what I wanted to study coming to Wesleyan: psychology. , But after taking the August Wilson class sparked an interest in taking more theatre classes.
So many classes in the theatre department are just fun and exciting which I remember from taking Intro to Theatre in community college. My second semester in my freshman year at Wesleyan, I was enrolled in 2 out of the 3 sections for the production lab. I thought they covered the same material, just on different days and times. Then I learned that Section 1 covers scenery and props, while Section 3 covers costumes. Quickly, I found out that I don’t now have a steady hand for sewing costumes. So, it was easy for me to just be enrolled with scenery and props. Part of the requirements for these courses is to work 30 to 40 hours outside of class in a theater production or in the shop for more technical practice. Never having any experience on a production, I decided to take that route working behind the scenes. Being around other theatre majors and talking with the professor and the theatre reps sparked a strong interest in pursuing theatre as a major.
During that semester, I chose to work on the production of “Everybody.” as an A2 sound tech. As soon as I heard the description of what A2 sound does, I felt completely equipped to perform the job. The A2 sound person oversaw all the microphones during each show. I had prior experience with microphones doing volunteer work.
