Queens Boulevard
(and making it through the end of the semester)
Queens Boulevard has got to be one of my biggest breakthroughs this semester (although a teacher has told me that I have already broken through in Top Girls early this school year, and before Top Girls that was that Twelfth Night scene during Shakespeare Scene Study class but I digress).
QUEENS BOULEVARD Characters!
I was asked to write an "end of the semester" post for the Juilliard Admissions blog, and I copy pasted some of that entry into my personal blog:
I can sense that I am no longer operating as a “graduate student” learning how to “do” my Alexander work, voice work and scene work in a rehearsal. I have cranked up enough hours in my first two years of training to get into a place where the work and the process is already embedded deep enough in my body and nature that I now have the boots to take the fall when I leap. I am leaping, and I sense that I am ready to fly. That is neither a good thing nor a bad thing – it is just what it is. I am ready to fly. I have built enough roots. “You’ve built such a strong foundation,” my therapist told me sometime during the latter part of this year.
I have nothing much to say except, “thank you” to myself. Thank you for working your ass off. Thank you for staying true to your path, even when it got too lonely sometimes. Thank you for getting through bed bugs, for finding that apartment, for learning how to cook, clean, deal with roommates, a greedy landlord, an irresponsible super, for educating yourself about race, for going to therapy once a week, for doing all those Alexander self-lessons, for drilling your speech exercises, because now it’s all coming together and it’s exploding in your work, and you’re a damn good beast of an actress.
There is nothing more to think too hard about anymore. You’ve mulled over enough. You don’t have to think too hard or too much anymore. You can have a thought and go. Something tells me inside that the “hard part is over.” I don’t know what that means myself but something tells me that it is the truth. You are ready to fly. Your monk-like existence is coming to an end soon. You’ve learned how to be alone. A part of you is mourning the end of this era, but all things come to pass. As one who herself believes in change as a crucial part of growth and progress, it would behoove you to embrace this emerging new phase of your life. That means, no more lonely nights in fear of the unknown alone. No more waking up in the morning and having to pull yourself together by the bootstraps. Something tells me that that part of your life is over. New people will come as your larger Self and heart have begun to expand because of all the good hard honest work and foundation you’ve built for yourself.
So, welcome 2018 you redwood tree with wings. You are a rare miracle.