I can confidently say that the biggest lesson I’ve learned in Grad school has been finding my voice, figuratively and literally; figuring out what I want to say as an Artist, a Woman and a Latina, and most importantly developing the technique to properly harness that power.

Working on Beatrice in “The Venetian Twins” allowed me to put it all into play: The movement work. In heels and a tight dress, I managed to make big physical choices, movements that seemed wild but where specific to forwarding the

story; running, jumping, climbing, fighting… and I kept it safe and fearless. The voice work. It was my first time working at the Weiss, to fill a 500 Seat Theater was a challenge, finding the right pitch and power for my voice to cut through was imperative. I’ve learned that the need to be heard is most important, it’s about going after what you want so intensely that you have to have clarity of utterance. This woman is desperately fighting to get what she wants: her man, her freedom, and her power. I learned to be truthful in extreme physicality.

Throughout my time here I have learned that there is not one way to approach a character, each role is specific and therefore requires different kinds of research and preparation. But one of the biggest things I take with me is the confidence I now have in my work, I feel prepared to lead a life-long career as an Actor.

Before coming to UCSD I had this job where I traveled nearly every week. I got very good at traveling. I knew exactly where to leave my car, where to eat in every airport and exactly what to pack for any trip without thinking about it. But, I HATED to unpack. My wife would get upset at me as my packed bag would sometimes sit there until it was time to leave again. At which point, I’d dump out the old things, toss in the new, and away I went.

When I played Berenger in Rhinoceros, I learned that unpacking can be as fun as the trip itself. It was the first show I have ever done where the processing of unpacking the show was more fun than actually performing it. I really enjoyed rehearsing. The show was a mystery that simply couldn’t be solved. So every day I had to come in like a detective and search for more and more clues. This exploration was truly enlightening. It taught me the ways I normally look for clues and their shortcomings. And, in turn, it taught me that the art of being a good detective (and hence a good actor) is to always find new ways to search. And in this way I realized that often, the process, gives more lessons than the performance ever can. Lessons of acting, lessons of life, lessons of empathy and mostly the lesson that, life isn’t about the destination, it’s about what you have in your bag when you get there.

In August 2014 I lie for hours, motionless and bloodied on the ground in Center City Philadelphia before Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE statue, in silent protest of police brutality. It went viral. Overnight I became ‘the guy who always talks about race.’ Soon people wanted my opinion on every aspect of critical race theory imaginable. I had to educate myself, and quick, because what they didn’t understand is that my burning desire to react to this pressing issue didn’t come from readings in books. It came from a deep fear and disappointment in my lived experience as a Black person in this country, and I

could no longer be silent. It was a long time before I found the beauty and value in my lived, Black experience. In October 2015 I was able to combine that experience with my artistic skill as an actor; writing and performing, THE BITTER GAME.

This piece of theater effectively combined all that petrifies me as an actor and human; devised theater, solo performance, semi-autobiographical storytelling and yes… basketball. The sleepless nights and mounting anxiety I daily felt while sitting to put pen to paper, attempting in my own way to address such a polarizing topic as excessive police force, was paralyzing. My heart break daily for the families of the victims whom I used as source material.

However, through it all, I was reminded of these two truths: for the artist, heartbreak is a rite of passage and that the thin line between art and activism must be traversed with courage.

Usually when I'm given a role, I've already imagined myself playing the part. I can see myself in the costume, floating across the stage, saying the lines. I think about what it all could look like and follow through with what my imagination serves up for me. But for Eddie Fuseli, I could not picture it. I couldn't picture my woman's body, my woman's voice and my woman's demeanor repackaged into a dead-faced, chain-smoking, catlike Italian gangster. The prospect of morphing into Eddie seemed impossible. I was terrified. I dreaded starting rehearsal - everyone would see how pathetic, how clueless, how ridiculous I was in attempting to play this part.

Rehearsals did start and indeed, they were painful. Eddie's lines would come out of my mouth and instantly I'd feel ashamed. Everything felt wrong. I didn't sound like a man. I didn't look like a man. Completely lost, I pressed delete on everything I was working on and returned to the basics. To the breaking down of the body that we learned in Charlie's class. How does this man walk? To the archetypes. How high status is he? To the essential movements. How does he put his hand in his pocket? Slowly, I began to build Eddie using different parts of my body. As my corporal decisions became clearer, the manliness that I thought I'd never have began to emerge. And after that came the authority. The confidence. The nasal Italian drawl. Even some other surprising qualities began to surface: my Eddie was quick. Slick. Sharp. Though at the beginning I wasn't able to picture the final product, he managed to materialize through the structure I created with my own body, the same one I was convinced would fail me. It's empowering knowing that my body is always here for me in this art, and that it can change shape in ways I cannot even imagine.

"I don't know if I could do that eight times a week." That's what I was thinking while watching a play on Broadway, just before coming to UCSD. The emotional availability, and vocal demands, seemed daunting. I was a working actor in New York, but I what I was doing, wasn't really working for me. So I came here in pursuit of a very specific skill set...musical theater.

Getting to work on Mr. Burns was a thrilling, frustrating, and surprisingly perfect way to end my time here. I had never been in a "musical" before, nor had the desire, but was excited to tackle a new challenge. Very excited. Cut to, our first two days. Music rehearsal. Dance rehearsal. The room was filled with gorgeous singing voices and fluid dancing... shit... this is not in my wheelhouse. What the hell did I get myself into?

Luckily, I already had so much technique from the training here to draw from. Movement and mask work with Charlie. Being gently reminded in Kyle's class, that it's not about you, it's about the other person. Picking out operative words, and chewing on consonants, with Eva. Dancing with Maria. Hearing Greg's voice in my head, "How do you want the other person to feel?" Years of tutorials with Linda, that not only gave me the confidence to call myself a singer, but actually sing on pitch. And most importantly, the countless hours of vocal work with Ursula. I had to be heard in the challenging space that is The Forum. (Still don't know how I ended up in there six times.) I had a vocal warm-up that not only gave strength to release my voice, openly and freely, but allowed me to keep my voice. And the confidence that I could do it again and again, eight times a week.

It was in my first year here, as I spent a dinner break concerned about how I could be “good” in my evening rehearsal, that I made a commitment to stand in the face of what scares me and walk straight towards the beast. It was a challenge I could never live up to before UCSD, where the pressure to survive had created a human and actor that lived safely. But on this evening, I looked at Galbraith and saw an opportunity to take the leaps I have always craved. My hope was that by being bold and brave in these halls, I could transform into the human I wished to be outside the building.

The more I challenged myself to make choices that scared me, the more joy I found in the leap. Yes, I was often missing the mark but I was also reaching new glorious heights.

If existing in the uncomfortable was the barometer for this new way of life, then there was no greater test then that of MOVERS AND SHAKERS. I felt sick to my stomach every day in rehearsal. However, three years in, I knew I had solid training as my foundation and two years of practice in being brave.

I could not have acted in MOVERS AND SHAKERS three years ago. The training that I have received, as well as the type of actor I have tricked myself into becoming, has created the type of artist and human I always hoped to be.

Going into grad school I was sure that I would develop the confidence to face any artistic or creative challenge. Inspiration would no longer be something that I would have to seek out, nurture, or patiently await; it would simply be there. I’ve been forced to face many things during my time here at UCSD, the reality of these two falsehoods however, are by far the most valuable. After one day confessing to Gregory Wallace my interest in developing greater confidence as an actor he responded in so many words with “confidence is a fair-weather friend in this business. Get used to it.” In a similar vein, the bottomless bounty of inspiration that I thought I would have at my beck and call has also proven unpredictable. What three years at UCSD have taught me however is that the solution--or rather remedy--to both of these truths is work: hard, uncompromising, rigorous work. Don’t know your lines, uncertain about your character arc, not sure if you’re good enough? Put in work. The result is unequivocally in tall or short order, greater confidence. The same applies to inspiration. Have I developed a greater number of avenues to pursue inspiration than I had never dreamed? Certainly. Does inspiration continue to elude me at times? Of course. As before, putting in the time, digging deep, remembering my love for language, the stage, and collaboration…and then putting in the work.

According to Malcom Gladwell's Outliers, it takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in any field. Two-thirds of my 10,000 hours have been spent deep within the fluorescent corridors here at UCSD, but I don't need to count hours to know I feel like a master. The obstacle course I have navigated these past three years has forged me in the process. The demands of the work dared me to fathom, face, and explore the facets of my own being. Along the way, my mentors have molded me, preparing me to meet any and all obstacles.

It started in Louisiana, I tore my guts out in Italy, I sold myself in Florida, lost my family out west, caused some bloody mischief, ended lonely in Chicago, survived the Gringo Exodus, and rang a really big bell. Through encouragement, advice, and corrections, the faculty here gave me the tools that made success possible in all these places.

My last show here, Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, presented so many challenges, in table-work, rehearsal, tech and performance, but because of my training, I always knew we could overcome them. The tools I've been given have imbued me with such a confidence in my craft that no challenge is insurmountable. My voice, my awareness, my process, is stronger.

The metaphor of my skillsets being tools is inaccurate. They are better described as organs, in me always, regulated without effort by my unconscious. Because they are with me, I am prepared for the unknown.

ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

“I Want to Get Closer.”

by

Zakiya Iman Markland

Master of Fine Arts in Theatre and Dance (Acting)

University of California, San Diego, 2016

Professor Gregory Wallace, Chair

I became into a body that attracted more attention than my mind. I developed inseparably from a physique that betrayed who I was inside. Inside a battered ego sprawled its limbs out for eternal embrace: validate me. If at birth my mother named me Intelligent, how then did I view my knowing as primitive, stupid? Nancy Drew-ing this alone failed to free me, so creating inner confidence as artist became my purpose. Out I journeyed into the pockets of Galbraith Hall where I worked so hard that all you could see in my work was work-ing, effort-ing. But confidence is not work alone -not a mere creation. It’s self-possession,

something you already are. How ironic was it then that my final role at UCSD, Princess Conti, demanded from me just that? I mean, you can’t rule a nation that speaks in rhyming couplets whilst strutting -no, gliding- across a room in 6’’ crystal-encrusted heels without knowing first-hand that everything you are, do and know is The Shit. Princess Conti was the definition of self-possession for me.

In and out I was sensei, was senseid as I said “how do I be her without forcing her?” Use the text as power, breath and thought as inspiration; listen to play and play to receive, but, most importantly, believe. I believed. Still, in and out I was senseid; schooled by an art that requires years more of mastery.

How far I’ve come. How much farther I have to go.