When one Door Closes

Madison Rice 1

Composition

Suarez 3

10/02/13

When One Door Closes

As I am upon my senior year, I am compelled to reflect upon my career and higher education plans, and the situations that led me to those decisions. The cliché "when one door closes, another door opens" comes to mind as I reminisce on the conflicts that led me to choose the path I am taking. While at the time the trials I faced in my prior high school years seemed like wrenches in my plans, hindsight allows me to interpret them as cross roads in which I discovered the person I truly wanted to be. The most central of these conflicts climaxed during my sophomore year, and led to my decision to pursue a career in Opera.

Prior to my freshman year, I would have told anyone inquiring about my hobbies and passions that my life goals exclusively focused on my success in musical theatre. Entering high school, I was filled with enthusiasm for mastering the combination of acting, singing, and dancing essential to success in this field. However, upon completing two productions, I came to be very disappointed with the theatre program at my new school. In contrast, I discovered the positivity and spirit of comradry in the choir program, and was totally delighted with my director, the new things I was learning, and the progress my voice was making. At the end of that year, I was honored to be selected for the Varsity Mixed Choir, and the elite Show Choir. The next year, as my commitment to choir doubled I began to see theatre as an even bigger waste of my time. I left each rehearsal feeling belittled and cast down by the leader ship and I longed for

2

the friendship and positivity I felt during choir practices. After my second show spent far from the stage as a technician for the theatre company, it occurred to me that I was learning much more about performance during my choir rehearsals and private voice lessons than I was in the light booth at the back of the auditorium.

Having set my sights on the stages of Broadway, I was hugely conflicted by my urge to abandon the theatre company. I saw myself as a "theatre kid"