Arts and Culture Shine High

Transcript

Now let’s raise the curtain on Joe, a senior in the BFA acting program, with a minor in criminal justice, from Ridgefield Park, New Jersey. Montclair’s art community has a great story to share. The university is a state designated center of excellence in the arts with national accreditation in all arts disciplines, Joe, please take your place.

– Hi Alex, here at the Montclair BFA acting program, we house our classes at the college of the arts. We work in rooms next to our dancers, musical theater majors, and production design team. As an actor, I’m a storyteller. Here’s my story. Once upon a time, I arrived here in 2018, really excited to be able to be in a major that I love. To be working with teachers that are both professionals in their fields and mentors students is a really intuitive thing for me. And I realized there were many ways to express myself as an artist. Here, I was able with the perform as a sophomore at the Alexander Kasser theater. At the Kasser, we also have our peak performances where we invite students and outside artists for music, dance and theater. I start my day off exercising at the rec center. And then I follow up a mixture of my gen ed and core classes. At Montclair we also have the opportunity create and direct our own shows. Through the Friday afternoon student theater program, or the fast program where we have the opportunity to produce direct and act in our own shows, or already written work to a live audience. We also have the opportunity to work with the school of communications and media, where we can work on our film acting, where we have full sets, ready to work in. At Montclair by unlocking my body and studying many works of texts, I have become a much more competent and conscious artist. I realize now the reason why I do what I do, and what purpose I serve as a storyteller. And in the audience, if I can inspire someone out there to live their passion then I have done my job. I have Montclair to thank for that, right, Alex.

– Thank you, Joe. It’s wonderful to see so many ways to connect to the arts peak performances, the film institute, gallery, student performances, guest artists, and classes with professors who are professionals in their field. I look forward to giving you a standing O on Broadway, cheers Joe.