When I first heard about “Baruch Voices,” I became very excited. It was something I thought would be a lot of fun. To write a monologue, be chosen to do a storytelling workshop with professional improv theatre representatives, and then get to perform my own work on stage—how many times does a chance like that come around? So as soon as the monologue assignment was given in Freshmen Seminar, I began trying to figure out what I wanted to write about.
The theme in most of our classes this year has been identity, and our new journey of starting college. So I allowed that to become my inspiration. While brainstorming ideas, one of the topics that kept coming up was transformation, and as I felt as if I had gone through a pretty impactful one over the last year, I took on that topic as well. With this theme and topic in mind writing became very easy, though the one problem I had was I would write a sentence, then come up with multiple other ways to rephrase it. At first, it was going to sound like a motivational speech. Then the tone changed to more conversational. As I kept trying out different styles to see how each one sounded, I began to write in “fairytale terms” and, as Goldilocks would say, this style was just right.
I have always loved stories, especially fantasy and fairytales. However, though most of my favorites come out of the Disney vault, I’ve always felt as if the “happily ever after” was too much. While there is this excitement and fantastical element to it, the underlying subject of my monologue is self-discovery from transformative events. So I knew if I was going to go down this road, I would have to start after “the ever after” and just talk about the journey as a past event. Then I began, starting with one of the most iconic lines from a fairytale, “Mirror Mirror on the wall.” Writing the rest of my journey with these terms was surprisingly simple. As we have discussed in class, the old legends and tales all have similar plot structures and archetypal characters.
So when describing certain obstacles that I had to face, I already had symbols I could use (“dragons, wolves and poison apples that were everywhere”) and the same for talking about the transition from difficult times to happiness (“jumping on that magic carpet and soaring high, traveling to a place she has been dying to see”). Creatures like fairies and (some) genies are used as guides or helping hands in stories, so it felt fitting that I compare them to the people in my life who have helped me get to where I am today. Adding motifs like light and dark was useful to personify the struggles and the escape from them that the entire monologue was about. Creating this piece was probably the most fun I ever had writing, and using this style made speaking of my experiences much easier.
Then it was time to perform it in front of the Freshmen Seminar class. It was so great to listen to everyone else’s unique voice shine through what they had prepared, and towards the end I wasn’t too sure I was going to get chosen. For one of the things that I had realized after listening to all the monologues was that the way in which I had written it might not have been very accessible to my audience. However, I was lucky enough to get to go to the workshop. During those two hours we were given a short course on how to flesh out our stories and perform them. From there we prepared for the actual Baruch Voices performance, which I was so thankful to be a part of.
Being around other great storytellers and performers was an amazing experience and something I hope to continually get the chance to do in the future. There was such a wide variety of stories being told, which was one of the reasons why I loved being a part of it. Telling stories is a huge way to connect with people around you, as well as one of the greatest gifts you can give someone. We have all been given a voice for a reason and to not use it seems like a waste, for you never know what kind of knowledge, excitement or even comfort you could be passing on while telling a story.