“My artistic medium is probably best defined as a general theatre artist. I’ve worn a lot of different hats doing theatre, but it’s definitely the art form I’m the most involved with.
One of my favorite things is community theatre, and it’s because of the community aspect. I know a lot of people are involved with theatre because they love performing or they love some certain aspect like design. But I love getting groups of people together from a community and putting on an art. Theatre is unique in the way that you can’t really do it without collaboration. Even a one-person show has somebody behind the scenes.
I didn’t get involved with theatre until I was in the 10th grade. I auditioned because my best friend was going to audition for the musical, and I was like, ‘Well, I’ll audition, too.’ And then I fell in love with performing in that way. Through doing that, I discovered an aptitude for choreography.
The year after I graduated high school, during my freshman year of college at IUSB, I was supposed to come back and choreograph a song or two. But then the director decided in the midst of that that she could not direct and choreograph it both herself, so I ended up choreographing the entire musical mysef. It was my first time getting to choreograph an entire musical. I was 19 years old, and at the time that was such a big deal to me. The choir director was so impressed with what I had done with the musical that she had asked me to choreograph their spring concert. I did, and I’ve actually choreographed that concert every year since then.
I love Goshen, and one of the things I really love about Goshen is how many community-oriented people there are here. I think that’s what makes the arts here so successful: There are so many people who are in this one spot who are all committed to either providing spaces for people to perform or committed to supporting those spaces or supporting artists. There’s just a bunch of people here who want to live in a vibrant community, and I think all of those people working together is what makes Goshen so special for artists here.”
