Throughout my Oberlin theater career, I’ve watched friends and peers put on show after incredible show. Although I adore acting, at some point I started to dream about doing a show from the other side of the table. I wanted the chance to cultivate and foster the kind of theater space I’ve always dreamed of, and only just started to find at Oberlin. I wanted to do a show that would be politically relevant, but also conducive to a joyous community. Above all else, I wanted to provide an inclusive theater space, one where anyone who wanted to be involved would get to be in some capacity. During my second year, I started to consider that it might be possible.
I spent that summer in a sleepy, hibernating Oberlin, and had a lot of time to think. One day, I started a presentation to pitch a show through the Oberlin Musical Theater Association (OMTA). Throughout the rest of the summer, I kept returning to the pitch and building the vision, adding character thoughts, creative direction ideas, tons of writing on the why of this particular piece, and more. I started gathering a team, each of them chosen to create the most wonderfully innovative, kind, and amazing group of people I could ever dream to work with. By the end of summer, I was ready for spring proposals (which happen at the end of fall semester).
Fast forward, the proposals are tomorrow!!! Already, there was a bit of a hitch in the plan--I was so sick with strep throat, but on antibiotics and ready to present with whatever voice I had left in the morning. That’s when another problem arose: I got an email from OMTA that they had just found out another local theater was doing the show I had originally planned to pitch. The rights wouldn’t be available, and I had to pick a new show. The only thing I could think of was a musical with a very different vibe, but an equally special place in my heart. So in twelve hours, I holed up in my room and whipped up a new pitch, scrapping the one I’d been working on for close to six months by that point. Luckily, the team was still on board, and that day we all got our first lesson about rolling with the punches. While the timing caused a bit of chaos, I do think the show change was meant to be. Both had a similar message, but the new one ends on far more of an upper, and the more I thought about it, the better it seemed to fit with all I wanted to accomplish with it.
Come morning, I had the new pitch ready. Proposal meetings are usually at 11:00 on a weekend day, in King. You go in, do introductions, present for seven minutes, and answer questions for five. It’s over quickly and not as scary as it might seem! My proposal went well, but with the last-minute change I really wasn’t expecting anything. Later that night, after what I’ve since learned was a very lengthy and painful decision process which ended with many board members on the floor, the emails went out. Our show had been chosen. OMTA would be doing Legally Blonde: The Musical!
After a week of wearing nothing but pink in celebration, the real work began. The rest of fall and all of winter term was a haze of pink spreadsheets, emails, and planning--until finally, it was time for auditions.
This will be a series, because I know better than to try to fit this entire process into one blog post. Stay tuned!
PS. follow @legallyblonde.omta on instagram for more LB content!
