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Ken Yotsukura Photography

I spent my summer in New York City, where I lived a block away from the Broadway theater where “Chicago” runs. On the weekdays, I’d walk 25 minutes south to my nine-to-five internship at a Fortune 100 company in Hudson Yards, the “Little Dubai” of NYC. As someone with so many interests, simply going to my internship every day wasn’t enough for me to figure out if it’s what I’d want to do after WashU, though it would definitely help. At work and during my free time, I was learning how to answer the question we’ve all been avoiding: “What am I going to do after college?”

This summer was going to help me answer that; it was my first time having a corporate internship. In other words, it was the summer I (naively) thought I was supposed to decide whether I wanted to tough it out in a non-traditional career path –– ahem, anything in the arts world –– or if I wanted to funnel into the corporate world post-grad. Frankly, the latter is also a great option, but you can’t blame a girl for being stuck in the in-between.

And honestly, I can’t say I’ve really figured it out yet. But what I did learn, unexpectedly, in my search, was how to put on an off-Broadway play.

Several hours after I met Tommy Vines, she was lying on the parking lot floor behind a tattoo parlor on Cherokee Street, her head on the ground and a pool of blood by her forehead. As I was observing the scene unfold, a man approached me. He thought she was dead, of course. Should I call 911? No. (Confusion.) It’s for a student film. And he walked away, past the three cameras on tripods he had failed to notice, like nothing had happened.

The next time I met Tommy, a 23-year-old actor/writer/producer/overall creative, was in Brooklyn, at a cafe near her apartment. When I caught up with her on a Sunday afternoon over a year later, she was starting rehearsals for her upcoming off-off-Broadway play, “How to Put Down the Weight of Your Past” (WOYP).

“WOYP” is an experimental theatrical self-help class that relies on audience participation, so you better hope that the 30 or so strangers in the room with you are up for the ride. The show had a limited run of three weekends from late July to early August this summer.

After I attended the project’s designer rehearsal –– when all of the designers figure out how to finalize sound, set, and costumes for the show –– I finally got to see everything come together on opening night.

So how do you “put down the weight of your past?” And the question at the back of my mind all summer as I transition into my years as an upperclassman: How do I choose what I want to do post-grad?

Step 1: Set the ground rules

Figure out the meaning of the show and why you are creating it. As Tommy told me, “There’s no aspect of the play that’s just random for randomness’ sake.” My career exploration has to come from a foundational understanding of why I liked the industries and careers I liked. In a time when I was trying to figure out my why, this central rule inevitably stood out to me.

Step 2: Learn by doing (and finding a mentor while you’re at it)

There are so many variables that a Bachelor of Arts in theater production might not acquaint you with when it comes to actually producing your own show, according to Tommy. In a similar light, you can prepare to work in corporate America (or at a record label, law firm, newspaper, production company, etc.), but you won’t really understand what it’s like or if it’s even for you until you’ve lived it or until you find a mentor willing to teach you what you need to know.

Step 3: Be an incredible multi-tasker

At the same time Tommy was performing in “WOYP,” she was also acting in a feature film on the play’s off days, preparing for another feature film, supervising post-production on a scripted series, and producing a short film. Something I wish I could shout from the rooftop of Olin Library is that academics aren’t the only thing that matters in college. I’m heading into this new semester ready to balance my course load, a new internship, extracurriculars, coffee chats, and my social life (with an emphasis on leaving the WashU bubble) to keep figuring out what my post-college life might look like.

Step 4: You make your own legitimacy

Even if a play has a sold-out audience every night, its legitimacy might be hindered if the project lacks a professional social media presence, a website, or a publicist who will make sure the show receives press coverage. “Nobody knows what’s going on inside of the production, so any outward appearance looks basically legit,” Tommy said. Take yourself seriously enough so that people respect you as the real deal when you take on new roles and responsibilities in the post-grad search for what you want to do (and maybe overcome imposter syndrome while you’re at it). 

Step 5: Clowning

I’ll be honest, I had never heard of professional “clowning” before Tommy told me about it, much less that there were multiple kinds (American, traditional European, UK with pantomime…). According to her, “It’s a very expressive form of theater, very funny but also very true.” As a non-clown myself, I can only imagine how physically present and rooted in a performance the actor must be in order to pull it off well. I think the same principle applies to making the most out of your college years, when thinking about the future might take you away from the present moment.

As I entered the American Mime Theatre to take my seat, I was asked to write down on a slip of paper something that “weighed me down.” While I won’t share what I wrote with you, dear reader, I will tell you (with some relief to my first-year self) that I did not write “the future.”