UC San Diego

Approaching the end of my graduate career, reflecting on purpose amidst this beast, this industry, this crazy craft. Why did I come to grad school? Why have I chosen to act? During three years of tremendous flux, has my mission stayed intact? So many questions, so few words to examine the answers.

The decision to pursue a career in acting was birthed in a fiery need to sensitize. Our media options leave one with little alternative for any semblance of a thing wholesome. Not that conservatism is at all the heart, or any part of my art - that's not the case at all. The truth of the matter is this: I still cover my eyes and ears at the onset of gratuitous violence - theatricalized and otherwise. My soul weeps and I feel battered at the sight of senseless humiliation passing itself off as entertainment: in music, movies, television programming, and the like. Degradation finds its way onto the lips of our youth under a guise invisible to those accustom: it's just a song. It's not real. It's funny - not a big deal. I beg, I scream and plead to differ.

In a world of desensitization, I found myself ill equipped. That is why I've come: to arm myself with tools essential to the highlighting of the humane. In a dark room of patrons the actor is granted opportunity to whisper a tendril of truth. This instrument is designed to move: laughter, grief, love, mayhem, shame. Three years later, I can answer: my mission remains the same.