Our daughter always loved musical theater, getting her start at around age 10 in local shows. She also performed with our city's opera company during her high school years and enjoyed other projects with them as well. She especially appreciated their excellent vocal training.
Ultimately, for her college path, she chose classical vocal performance over MT. People were surprised, because she had been quite successful in high school MT and was known for her energy and comedy, but she would say "I have a better chance of being struck by lightening, than of being successful on Broadway," believing herself to be too weak in dance.
Her senior year of HS, she opted for a university that had close ties to our city's opera company. She had attended master classes with some of the faculty who sang in our opera, as well as worked with some of the music students on opera projects. It seemed like a great fit...
**Commence ominous minor key music**
After her freshman year, she began to have doubts. She wasn't inspired by the classical music, theory was very difficult for her, and she missed MT. She realized she would probably need a master's degree to be successful, and she felt worried watching her talented grad school friends toiling away working at Starbucks and teaching piano lessons to get by. Her voice professor, chosen for her in part because of their shared interest in MT and R&B, temporarily left the university to take a role.
One day she came home and said, "I don't know what I want to do, but I am pretty sure it isn't classical vocal performance."
**Curtain crashes down**
Act 2, Scene 1: 2 years later, our heroine is supporting herself, working full time by day and happily hoofing it in local theater by night. We, her parents, are willing to fund her education, but she doesn't want to waste our money while she "finds herself." One day at work, her phone rings with the news that an old friend has just landed a major role on Broadway. She hangs up and says, "What am I doing?!?"
Scene 2: Great consternation ensues when our daughter realizes that her high school friends are now about to graduate from college. Though undecided about a career, she starts to attend a community college after work, with plans to transfer to a 4-year college. But what college? What degree? She is emphatic that she wants to be able to support herself after college. (She does not want to teach.) Mom and Dad are reluctant to see her give up performing which she enjoys so much.
Scene 3: Deja vu all over again! The living room is littered with index cards containing information about college programs in MT, recording arts, and commercial music. Only now, it's a sadder but wiser mother and daughter (who at age 22 has seen several talented friends go off to LA and NY and fail to make it.)
Act 3 is still unwritten. Stay tuned, because I think we might need your help.
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