Hey guys could you please read my rough draft of my common app essay? I haven't gone through it and made corrections so please expect grammar errors. I have a tendency to run off in a tangent also, so please tell me if I do. I am also having trouble closing it as well!
Thanks again!
Prompt:
Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you?
" I am the chicken, I am the chicken." I am around 8 or 9 years old, and I was just casted as the main character for a small school production of Chicken Little. " I am the chicken, I am the chicken." I keep repeating to myself before the opening of the play begins.
2 years later, and my parents have renovated the basement to a play room. But none of my toys are in sight and I am with my sister. " I'm Buzz Lightyear, Space Ranger, Universe Protection Unit. My ship has crash landed here by mistake." I said, " I need to repair my turbo booster." My sister glances upward with confusion.
Now I am 16, I anxiously type out Adrienne's last line for a play I have been writing for the past couple of weeks. My mother walks in. I try to hide the shame that's 2AM on a school night. " I haven't finished my homework," I said. I can't help but look down while I await my mother's scorn but she just closes the door and leaves me to my insanity.
When I'm in character the world around me stops. For a brief moment, I'm not another fly on the wall. I'm James Bond preparing for my next assignment. I am batman chasing down the joker or Robin Hood breaking into a house. Nothing can match the countless hours of memorizing my lines, or the nights I stay up editing a script. The feeling I get when I can successfully bring these words to life heavily out weights the time spent preparing for it. Its when I walk on stage as anything but myself that I feel I am at my best. The minute I kill myself in Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, when I am unmasked by Christine in the phantom of the opera, or when I meet Collins in that alley from the musical Rent - they are my happy places.
Call me whatever you would like. A nerd or geek for being overly obsessed with theatre. Crazy for sacrificing sleep to prepare for a play the next day. Or even a little insane for choosing to be part of my communities theatre productions. This is the place I run to when I need to getaway from my problems. Ever since I can remember, perfecting a character has given me great satisfaction and joy. And for this I carried it to my teenage years. Along with being my escape; theatre has always been a way of expressing myself. Since English was my second language, growing up it was difficult for me communicate with others. Theatre was for a short time a period made me feel normal. The words were written down for me, all I had to do was memorize it. In my teenage years, it became more of a diary. I would conjure up monologues and scripts that would express the bottled up emotions I had and would perform them to myself.
With every great production comes with an inevitable end. Tv series get canceled, The curtains close the play, and the credits close the movie. However, when I walk off the stage, the character I performed never leaves me. The feeling I get when I'm in character is unforgettable.
Jay, I agree with Reza, your essay is all over the place. I believe that you are trying to tell us that you are most content in the world of theater production. That is an environment that will well fit the parameters of the essay. However, instead of discussing the things you do outside of the theater in relation to this world / environment, you should stick to discussing how this environment offers you a sense of contentment when you are immersed in it. Meaning, you are in the theater / auditorium / studio, working with everyone else to bring together the show. That should tighten the essay and allow you to present a less chaotic idea of the environment and how you feel content while working there.
