An Old Love Rekindled

So if you haven’t heard, I got accepted to a UCLA Asian American theatre company called Lapu, The Coyote that Cares, or LCC. It took me 3 tries over 4 years, but I finally got in. The funny thing is that the good news of my acceptance almost completely passed me by.

I had auditioned Week 9 of Fall Quarter and the staff had emailed the results the next week. I found out some friends who auditioned got some rejection emails, so having received two such emails before, I checked my mailbox regularly that week, waiting for the bad news to come in. But strangely enough, the rejection email never came. In fact, nothing came. Hmmmm… OK, well I guess it’s safe to assume the worst. So I decided to continue to work on my projects on my own, hoping to find another venue to showcase my work.

Winter Break came and I jetted to New York with my posse. Jeff, who got in to LCC a few years ago, checked his email one day and he turned to me:

“Hey, congrats on getting into LCC!”

“What?”

“Yeah, you’re in!”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, you’re name’s right here.”

“Arg?”

Apparently, my email was misread, and the acceptance email got sent to the wrong address (the person at rundnob@gmail.com must be really confused right now). So that’s how I found out I got in.

When I got the news, I had this really weird, anti-climactic feeling. I mean, I was glad I got in, but emotionally, I had already accepted my rejection. Having been rejected often during my first and second years, I had learned to just move on. If X didn’t want me, I’d just take my talents elsewhere, and show X what they were missing. But now that it’s official that my talents have landed in LCC, a new question came up: do I have the stuff to belong there?

Over the past two weeks of meetings I’ve had nothing but support from everyone, especially my entering class, Generation 10 (G10!). But while the acting thing still has a certain familiarity, the stuff we do in LCC is in many ways completely new to me. The LCC staple is the 10-15 minute short scene. That means that all the introduction, conflict, resolution, and character development all happen within that short timeframe. Your character has to immediately capture the audience and take them on a journey from A to B. Being used to full, two-hour shows, I feel like a marathoner getting thrown into a sprint.

The other tough thing about LCC is improv. Improv is like performance survival, with only your wits and your fellow actors to save you. Good improv requires spontaneity, quick wit, and fearlessness, which are three things I am incredibly lacking.

For better or worse, I’m a very calculating person. When I walk to class, I think about the fastest and most efficient way to get there. When I buy video games, I don’t aim to be the first person to get the hottest release; I wait for the reviews and six months for the price to drop. When I perform, I know exactly who I am, what I need to do, my phrasing, my inflection, my quirks, and everything else I need to push the story and my character. (It’s probably the reason why I am so attracted to villains and evil-doers; they’re so deliciously calculating!) Improv doesn’t afford you such thoughtful luxury. Improv induces the fear in me, and when you perform in fear, it feels like you just wet your pants in front of the whole class.

But being forced outside my bubble of comfort has already furthered my appreciation for the theatre. In just these two short weeks with LCC, I’ve come to realize that performance is an act of love, and that the ideal performance is an act of unconditional love. It requires a love of the material, and that within its pages is something that the world should hear. It requires a love for your fellow performers and an unwavering faith in their abilities to be great. It requires a love for your character, and all of the quirks, faults, and vices that you must embody. And it requires a love for yourself, and a belief that you are worthy to be heard and seen by the entire world.

(And just to note, it has taken me two hours of thinking, typing, meandering, and editing to make me believe that this stuff is worthy to be read by the entire world.)

So with all the life lessons learned (so far), here’s to an old love rekindled. Let the fire burn.