The Tartan

By Courtney VanAuken

I frequently have moments of realization that I am studying theatre at my dream university. (It still feels unreal at times and sometimes the degree to which I enjoy Carnegie Mellon makes me feel so incredibly dorky and lame.) Everytime I sit behind a table in a rehearsal room, deliver a presentation, or pick up a new script in class, I feel so secure in the fact that I am exactly where I need to be while reaping so many experiences from my education here. 

I am often reminded, however, that the other part of my college education is self-directed. College is the time to have new experiences, to make bad art, find your people, and to take chances — at least that is what the popular advice always dictates. It can often feel intimidating to figure all of this out in the four years I have here. Time never feels like it goes by as fast as it does when you realize you should be making things and you aren’t.

I’ll have these ideas, these inklings of projects, but I’m never entirely confident of where I need to take them or what I should do with them. In that sense, I guess you could say that I am more of a creative than a creator.  A half-baked idea is my all-time guilty pleasure. It’s so easy to place so much pressure on finding new ways to commodify and market your creativity. This leaves you feeling distant from the very art that you seek out so desperately to involve yourself in. This is why supporting the artistic ventures of recent School of Drama graduates was the best way I could think of to spend the last Friday of my summer break. 

On Aug. 23, I went to watch a double-header play directed by two recent Carnegie Mellon graduates. Naturally, I am ready to make it all about myself. I wasn’t all that familiar with either of the alum, or any of the people involved in the creation of “My First Play,” or the New Product Company, but to a certain extent, I like to consider every theatrical artist as a not-so-distant-peer. The prospect of watching people who aren’t that much older than I am establish a theatre company and produce new theatrical works is thrilling, and I could not wait to watch it all come together on opening night. 

Being a part of an audience is one of the most underrated things, but eavesdropping on pre-show conversations is my favorite ritual. There was a clear and evident community present in the theatergoers at that Friday night’s performance and I was eternally grateful to be a part of it. It’s always wonderful to be reminded of theater’s inherent humanity. Writing theatrical reviews is not my forte at the moment, so that is not what this article will be. Instead, it felt necessary to give kudos to creation.

I highly doubt that New Product Company theater founders and “My First Play” directors Pria Dahiya and Spencer Byham-Carson’s conversation about their productions artistic intent said: “we want to set out to create a show that reminds Courtney VanAuken specifically of how desperately she wants to engage with artistic creation,” but that was indeed a byproduct of my viewing experience. (Or maybe that was how it went.)  Nevertheless, the entire endeavor was an inspiring reminder that creating is something that happens only when you manage to put aside all of the compulsions to compare and contextualize your ambition in the eyes of other people, and instead work up the courage to put your work out there into the artistic conversation. 

It is so difficult not to slip into toxic mindsets of career comparison and wanting to race your classmates to achieve the most in the shortest amount of time. That rhetoric dominates this university regardless of what it is you are studying. 

That being said, I’ve never been all that comfortable with competition. It’s not the way I operate, and it shuts me down more than it motivates me. But here’s the thing about theatre that the New Product Company team were able to remind me of through their act of creation: theatre is not finite. There is no finite nature to art. If there is theatre or art that you want to see or participate in? All you have to do is create it. 

After two semesters studying theatre, I have learned that the definition of theatre can drastically vary depending on who is asking the question. What defines theater? Is it spelled theatre or theater? Is a chair performance? How do we define a chair? Can insects be theatre artists? Are bees actually musicians? Don’t get me started. I love it, really, absurdity and all, but don’t get me started.

Success in the walls of Purnell can be so many things, joining the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), becoming a published playwright, getting cast in “The Summer I Turned Pretty” or “The Holdovers,” or booking-out of the program entirely. If success can look like so many different things and there is no finite limit on how much art can and will exist in the world, then I can’t wait to be a part of that theatrical conversation in my own unique way (you know, whenever I get around to making things that I want to be making). In the meantime, it’s nice to be reminded that there is no need to worry about comparing myself to anyone else’s successes. After all, what’s the point in racing people in a competition that doesn’t even exist? If the bees are making art, I can too.