The Girl That Does Everything
When I was in college, my teacher begged me to focus on doing one thing. She constantly told me that the only way to be an amazing performer was to be able to do one thing properly. She went as far as belittling my writing when I had a produced play Off-Broadway. She told me that I should quit acting because it wouldn’t serve me as a singer. She even told me that I should stop doing hip-hop because it would make me “too ghetto” to the opera community. In true good-student fashion, I followed her rules. For six years, I focused on just one thing.
The result is not a surprise. I found that I lost a sense passion. I lost my joy. I felt like I lost my sense of identity.
Now that I have graduated, I have returned to doing all the things that made me happy growing up: weekly dance classes, acting classes, writing, and music. By doing this, I learned that I have never been happier.
I started being more creative with my sound.
I saw light.
I saw colors that I haven’t seen in a long time.
I started exploring.
I started educating myself.
I greeted my inner-child again and she welcomed me, even though I put her in a box for so many years.
I am a strong believer that in order to be a good performer, you have to know all avenues of performing. A question that I’ve been meditating on recently is: What makes Musical Theatre majors different from Opera majors at Manhattan School of Music? Musical Theatre majors focus on all parts of performance every day! They don’t just focus on acting for one year and then move on to dance the next year because if they did then they wouldn’t be fully rounded performers. They wouldn’t be able to hone their tools to have a successful career. So, why are we pigeon-holing the new generation of classical singers?
I don’t believe my teacher wanted me to fail. I do believe that she hindered some of my growth by filling me with a more toxic mindset. When we focus on one-thing, we begin to believe that we aren’t capable of doing other things. My parents frequently tell me that at the beginning of my college career, I started looking more depressed and less interested in life. I began telling my mother things like, “I’m not good at anything. I can’t do anything”. It was outwardly apparent that I had grown a toxic mindset and negative self-talk. In fact, I would show high levels of anxiety in my voice lessons: pacing around, twirling my hair, and frequently practicing high notes until 3am because nothing seemed “good enough”. At the time, I didn’t even look for jobs because I didn’t think my resume was “enough” to get one. I grew scared to put myself out there. It went so deep that I started dating men that emotionally abused me because I didn’t think I was worthy of anything good. Being told that I shouldn’t do other things made me feel worthless. How could you tell a student to stop doing things that made them happy?
Needless to stay, it didn’t make me a better performer. It didn’t make me a better singer. In fact, it made me an awful friend because I was always practicing. It made me a tired singer because I never took a break. Yet, I was an incredible student. I praised the ground that my directors walked on and I still do, they’re brilliant. I tried so hard every day to be the best instead of trying to create. I had a one-track mind and worked so hard on this singular aspect of art. Where did it get me? Into constant screaming match with my voice teacher over the fact that I had grown “neurotic” and she began begged me to stop auditioning for anything until I stopped being “obsessed” with the craft. She made me feel bad because I wanted to perform “too much”. I grew even more helpless because how can you tell me to focus on one thing and then when I show that I’m actively trying hard to get better, you tell me to quit?
So, what changed?
I’ll be honest, one day I woke up and said I can’t live like this any longer.
I needed to truly delve into myself and realize that if I wanted to pursue a career in the arts, I needed to allow myself to enjoy the arts again. That being said, at NO point did I ever want to quit music. In fact, I did this because I wanted to be full of life again. I didn’t want to be another MSM robot. I wanted to be original. Now, not only am I my most authentic self but I have had more fun in the past two months of Quarantine than I have had in all six-years of academia.
If you have caught yourself in this toxic mindset, I want to tell you that you’re not alone but, you need to dig deep to get out of the box that you’ve been put in. No one should ever lose their passion because they’ve been forced into a corner by the people around them. If you want to be an actress and a classical singer, do it. If you want to direct, then you need to know everything about making a film. If you want to dance and be a sculptor on the side then you are allowed to do what sparks joy. We need to begin to hold ourselves to our own standards as opposed to the standards of others. We need to begin to realize that if someone is telling us that we are only capable of focusing on one thing then they might not be good for you. You might need to re-evaluate that relationship.
One thing that helped me get to the place I am now is watching YouTuber, Michelle Khare. I have a whole blog post in mind about how she changed my life but that is for a later date. Michelle Khare was a YouTuber that worked at BuzzFeed. After doing years of amazing content, she realized that she wanted to produce more original work. Her series “Challenge Accepted” is a collection of masterpieces that shows that one person can do everything if they really put their mind to it. She really hones in on the “mind/matter theory”. She has trained like a ballerina, a firefighter, a musical theater actress, an ice skater, the list goes on and on and in every video, she excels at each challenge that she’s been given. If Michelle Khare had told herself that she could only do one thing then she would not be this amazing content creator that she is.
I will state though, that it’s not a bad thing to focus on one thing and be able to do it well but it is a bad thing if it’s hindering your growth as a person. I’m not a person that can only do one thing, if I was then I wouldn’t have gone into music. I didn’t fall in love with music because Leontyne Price sang well. I went into music because her voice, her acting, and her movement took me a whole other realm of creation. I went into music because you’re allowed to make mistakes, be messy, and have your voice heard. I perform because not only is it the love of my life but, because it sets my soul on fire and if someone is telling me that I can only be one thing then I need to remind them that you are more than just that one stereotype.
I’m an artist. My art includes acting. My art includes writing plays. My art includes dancing. My art includes singing.
If I’m not making the art that I want to make, an art that encompasses more than just one aspect of myself, then I am doing myself a disservice and I will not allow myself to give people sub-par art any longer.
Since this piece spoke mostly about musical theater, here are some BIPOC musical theater actors that have shown you can do more than just one thing:
Billy Porter
Audra McDonald
Leslie Odom Jr.
Norm Lewis
Lena Horne
Bert Williams
Shereen Pimentel
Jenny Mollet
Nox Chea
James Monroe Iglehart
