There’s Theatre in Chicago?

Ohhhh man. You guys. I’m really excited to be here. I’ve been reading posts from Green Room Blog for almost two years now. I even started a blog of my own one year ago. And now I’m here! This is awesome.

I’m sure you all have lots of questions – and by you all, I mean my family, and one or two of my facebook friends who accidentally clicked the link on my page. Regardless, I’m sure you’re wondering:

-How I found Green Room Blog

-What my personally story is with acting.

-Why I’m an actor who isn’t living in New York or LA

These are all fantastic questions. Let’s start with the first. I started reading Green Room Blog after my dear friend/partner for life, the not so Newbie Actress, starting writing for the blog. She’s fantastic. If you live in New York, you should hang out with her everyday. Here’s a picture of the two of us graduating from college

So. What is my personal story with acting? Mine’s kind of silly. In middle school, I was…well, a middle schooler. I was awkward, not great at making friends, and very intimidated by girls. So when a couple of guys started getting excited that I looked like Harry Potter, I was THRILLED. I was even more thrilled when I found out they were turning the books into movies. I thought to myself, “HEY! I look like Harry Potter. I could totally get the part.” Spoiler alert: I didn’t get the part. I didn’t even audition. Hell, I didn’t know the first thing about acting! So I joined drama club the next year. Then I started doing shows with the Stoneham Theatre Young Company. Then I started auditioning for their mainstage shows. After getting cast in “A Christmas Carol” for the second year in a row, I realized acting was what I wanted to do. So I went to Salem State College. At the time, I was extremely disappointed that I wasn’t going to Emerson College. I never would have listened to anyone saying this to me at the time, but going to Salem State was the best thing that could have happened to me.

When I was a junior in college, I started to think about where I might want to pursue acting as a career. I always wanted to try living out-of-state. While Salem, Massachusetts is a beautiful city, it was too close to where I grew up. So where could I go? I knew I wanted to pursue theatre. So because of this, LA was never a place that I was considering. New York was an option, but I was a little intimidated of moving to New York. And I honestly can’t remember exactly why it was. But I knew I wasn’t happy thinking of moving to New York and wanted to try moving to a different city outside of Massachusetts. A professor recommended Chicago.

Chicago? There’s theatre in Chicago??

I spent spring break of my junior year of college staying with my aunt and uncle who lived on the west side of the city. Regardless, I quickly learned that not only was there theatre in Chicago, but it is a beautiful city! I knew right away I wanted to live here.

Ironically enough, I just celebrated my three-year anniversary with the windy city earlier this week. Admittedly, I’ve wondered several times throughout the past three years whether or not coming here was the right decision. While I can’t wait to share my Chicago experiences with you all, I’ll save many of those thoughts for a future post. For now, I’ll tell you this: I love this city. I love the architecture. I love the people. And I love the theatre scene. It saddens me when people tell say that you can’t do theatre here. At the same time, it’s also frustrating when Chicagoans say you can’t do theatre in other big cities. Neither is true. It all depends on what kind of life style you want, what your goals are, and whether or not those goals are reachable in your city of choice. I’m extremely fortunate that the city I chose at age 21 was the right place for me.

And with that, I’m going to end my first post before I fall asleep.

Goodnight, friends! Looking forward to getting to know you and hear all of your adventures.