Assignment #3 - Wes Davis - Still Talking About Grand Night

I've never been a person to have been blessed with the money to travel outside of Lexington. I've been to Cincinnati a few times, but that barely counts as anything life changing.

Despite this caveat, I can think of one extracurricular activity that impacted my own perspective about the ever-changing world around me.  I talk about this all the time, and I'm opting to talk about it again. I spent the summer singing and dancing my way through a production called "It's a Grand Night for Singing" with the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre. 

Those 6 weeks of rehearsals honestly changed my life. I can say that with 100% confidence because I can still see the impact the wonderful people I worked with still have on me to this day. I remember sitting in the seats of Singeltary, lights dimmed, show-tunes filling the room. The actors on stage were not only people I looked up to, but people I longed to be. The following summer, I booked an audition for the show and was cast. Showing up for that first rehearsal was such a full circle moment. All the people I admired on stage were around me, and now we were all equals in the rehearsal room. After learning and growing with a cast of working theatre professionals, I learned quickly how to conduct myself in professional theatre settings and the ins-and-outs of community and professional theatre. Believe it or not, the world of community/professional theatre has its own "culture," with traditions and rules I'd never really considered before. This production gave me a ton of respect to my older peers who were veterans in the theatrical world today. I also found myself maturing as a working actor and person overall. I grew so much and I left the show with what feels like years worth of experience and maturity. 

I was privileged enough to learn from broadway choreographers and performers. This still blows my mind and I gained so much from the interactions with those talented directors and performers. Our choreographer, Grady Bowman, was in Billy Elliot on Broadway, and has choreographed multiple top-tier shows and also was a choreographer for World's Got Talent in China. Our musical director, Everett McCorvey, has performed on the Met (the MET, seriously!). Being guided and taught by veteran theatre professionals directly changed my outlook on the working world and reminded me that I can attain my lofty goals and ambitions. 

During Grand Night, I found myself. The person I was and the person I'm becoming are separate people, and I feel that Grand Night joined those parts of me that were separate before. Grand Night gave me a family of talented performers and told me I belonged, that I was meant to be there, that I wasn't a mistake. The "culture shock" I felt from being in a space with people with so much more experience and knowledge than me subsided quickly as they taught me everything I know about professional theatre today. That feeling of family is something I treasure to this day, and something I can only hope to recreate amongst my own chosen family one day. Being consistently uplifted by people who you wanted to be is a feeling so incredible.  I also found myself as an artist and performer, which has greatly enriched my life onstage and in the rehearsal room.

I've found myself carrying a new level of professionalism into educational environments in both the realms of academia and the arts. I work tirelessly outside of school on my craft and also take my academics so much more seriously. If I want to be accepted into the schools and programs I want to attend, my grades have to match. I'm taking my schooling much more seriously than in years past to make sure I can still get to where I need to be.