"He has suffered and now it's your turn. You are here not to laugh, but to learn."

I am one musical theater presentation, one jazz final, one voice jury, one ballet final, and one presentation of "Cool" from West Side Story away from completely my junior year at the University of the Arts. This semester has by far been the most demanding semester for so many reasons.

One of the big things that made my semester so incredibly exhausting was rehearsing and performing for a production of Bat Boy: The Musical at UArts. We closed this past Saturday after 8 wonderful performances and audiences, but here is a lovely trailer with samples of the production.



It was a long and frustrating process to get to the lovely final product that the show turned out to be. One of the many things that made this piece so challenging was that so many styles of musical theater were being represented in this piece. The opening number is very Brechtian, yet there's another number that is more a cliche musical theater number with hats and kick lines. Another song is a gospel church song and there's another song where we were all animals participating in a multi-specie orgy. Bat Boy is a crazy show! Fortunately, my musical theater performance class this entire year has been focusing on different styles of musical theater, so I had a sense of how to approach these different styles, but it was still quite a challenge.

The other challenge of this piece was to be funny, but not at the expense of getting the point of the show across. There are a lot of extremely funny lines and bits in Bat Boy, but the show has a purpose beyond being entertaining. At our first rehearsal, our director told us why he picked this show. He quoted a line in the opening number that the cast sings to the audience. "He has suffered and now it's your turn. You are here not to laugh, but to learn."

As I finish my third year, I am reflecting on how I have changed as a person and an artist throughout my time in college. The biggest artistic change that has happened to me is the realization that I don't have to limit myself. I used to think that I could only do fun musical theater shows that were silly and were simply around to entertain. While I have no objection to doing light and fun musical theater (and believe me, I'll do anything that pays the bills), I have realized that is not only or exactly what I want to do anymore. When I think about big dreams, one of my big dreams is to create innovative art that makes people think and that does some good to the world. Now, I realize that musical theater does not usually change the world, but I still want to be original and insightful. It isn't enough for me to just sing and be cute and have a smile on my face. I want to do something. I want to have a purpose. If I entertain and make people laugh, I want there to be something else behind it.

Before we started Bat Boy rehearsals, I thought it just seemed like a cute show that was supposed to be kind of funny, but I didn't quite get it. Once we started rehearsals, I saw that the show was incredibly entertaining, but still managed to have a lot of poignant moments despite all the comedy. Maybe that's the kind of art I want to create. I'm glad that Bat Boy makes people think, even if doesn't change the world. But that's not to say that shows that just make people laugh are bad. Sometimes people don't want to think and need to be entertained, and that's okay too. And that's why I don't want to limit myself because there are so many possibilities of types of theater.

This semester has been emotionally challenging because I have felt such an impulse and desire to create original art, but I haven't had the time or the ideas. I'm hoping this summer, as I am away from the chaotic lifestyle of UArts, I will have both.