Hello Readers!
My name is Julia Bailey and I'm a Senior Theatre major here at URI only a few months away from graduating with my BFA in Acting. It's hard to fully understand what the life of a theatre major is from the outside, so we've created this blog to give you an inside look on the day-to-day work that goes in to earning this degree. I'll start with a little background on me before we start talking THEATRE (because, as always, there's a ton going on in this department!).
I'm 21 years old and I'm from New Hampshire. This is my fourth and final year at the University of Rhode Island. Acting is my first passion, but I love writing and reading, going to the beach, live music, and I'm also trying to improve my drawing skills at the moment. I came to URI primarily because it is one of the few state universities where you can get a Bachelor in Fine Arts in Theatre as well as a full liberal arts education. This is important not only for practical job-hunting reasons, but also because I didn't want a BFA to pigeonhole me and as actors and theatre artists we need to be conscious of the world around us and life-long learners. It also doesn't hurt that I live a mile from a beautiful beach and get to walk around a gorgeous Quad in springtime!
The BFA program here begins with a broad theatre education; every student, no matter their concentrate, takes the same Core theatre classes. These include, but are not limited to: Stagecraft, Introduction to Acting, Costume Technology, Stage Management, and Introduction to Theatre Design. From there, we branch off into our Concentrations. Because mine is acting, the core class for me every semester is an acting studio. We begin in sophomore year focusing on Contemporary Realism with Claudia Traub, junior year we study Shakespeare and Moliere with Tony Estrella, and Senior year we make the leap to Chekhov, Ibsen, Wilde and others with Bryna Wortman. (These were my acting teachers, and they generally stay the same, but because these Professors are all working theatre professionals, they sometimes take time off to focus on outside projects and Guest Artists are brought in to teach a course.) Along with acting technique training, we also have a Voice and Movement workshop every semester from Sophomore year through graduation. We study different voice and body methods including Rodenburg, Linklater, and Labonne. These change depending on the material we are focusing on in our acting class.
Phew! And that doesn't even begin to encompass all of our theatre courses, forget about the General Education requirements of the University! It's not an easy degree like you may assume, it's time-consuming and stressful - but SO rewarding. The greatest part of our education here is that we are members of a functioning Theatre that is run under Equity-style rules. Because there is no graduate program, undergraduates are cast in all Mainstage productions - we have 4 every year. Along with our Mainstages, we have student-directed productions each semester. Right now we are in the throes of the first show of the semester: Moliere's "TARTUFFE."
I am lucky enough to be involved in this production. Last year was my first introduction to Moliere, and though I was apprehensive to tackle such a huge playwright and style it was the most beneficial experience of my education. It is truly a blessing to be able to use the skills I was taught by Tony Estrella in this production. I won't summarize the play here, but I'm playing Elmire, the lady-of-the-house. It is a huge task but the past 4 years of training have made me confident in my ability to tackle this piece.
The first two weeks of this blog are going to cover the end of the rehearsal process of Tartuffe: from cue-to-cue to our final show. Expect a play-by-play of our cue-to-cue tomorrow.
Til' then,
Julia
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