Insight: spending student life on the stage

The ‘stage’ is more than just a space. What looks like a few square feet means so much more when you’re giving your all to the performance you’ve worked on for months. It allows you to escape and lets your imagination run wild. Performing means you can be someone else for a couple of hours and forget your own life.

When I was two, I’d dance on the kitchen table to Wannabe by the Spice Girls. When I was four, I got my first taste of live performances by seeing Britney Spears live. I’d well and truly caught a bug for performing. I had to get out there and give it a go myself.

Musical theatre is so much more than just ‘doing’. It becomes a way of life that takes over every part of you

I wish I could remember my first ever rehearsa and why I started performing. What I do remember is the first time I truly performed. I was eight years old and I’d got my first ever solo, a song called ‘Born to Entertain’. I was doing a summer school with children older than me, but my parents filmed my solo and insisted I’d stolen the show. The song’s become family folklore now. Every performance has to live up to that moment when I, a beaming child in a centre spot, did a 90 second solo and made my parents cry with amazement.

Musical theatre is so much more than just ‘doing’. It becomes a way of life that takes over every part of you. Being ferried to rehearsals, learning lines inside and out, mastering that tricky step that you’ve been beating yourself up about for weeks. It becomes you and you become a part of musical theatre.

One of my singing teachers would always say “hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard” and it’s a motto by which I’ve lived my academic life

It’s taught me so much about self-improvement. One of my singing teachers would always say “hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard” and it’s a motto by which I’ve lived my academic life. Granted, I don’t achieve the highest marks at university. Nor do I have the widest vocal range. But being part of musical theatre groups has instilled a sense of drive that I couldn’t have imagined without performing. Musical theatre has helped me become a determined person. So if I work hard, and continue to do so, then I know I will improve.

Some of my fondest memories performing come from moments where my improvements have been recognised. Take the time where I won ‘Student of the Year’ for the second year running, an unprecedented feat. I got into West End Kids and found myself from the back row to the front row, a testament to a strong work ethic and the rewards that come from a willingness to learn and better myself.

I’m able to take myself out of the typical university grind and whisk myself away to a world that’s glitzy and with limitless opportunities

Being so actively involved in musical theatre at university has meant that I never have to give up what I truly love. I’m able to take myself out of the typical university grind and whisk myself away to a world that’s glitzy and with limitless opportunities. I have met like-minded people who have inspired me to work hard in my degree and my performing craft. Whether you’re looking to be the next Lin-Manuel Miranda, or just to make one person smile, musical theatre does it all.

It teaches you how to be the best person you can be and that never goes out of style. No wonder, then, that I live my life in the intention of being like Elle Woods.