I didn’t realize how someone asking me to write a blog would send me into a tailspin of identity crisis and panic about not having my own opinion about anything, let alone art.
I blame this on being a fresh mom of two, where I basically live in an echo chamber of “Mom, mom, mom, mom…” But the most important thing to do in these moments is simply to show up as whatever version of yourself there is.
And that is the topic of my piece. Showing up.
Maybe you’re currently lying in bed reading this, running late for class, thinking you shouldn’t go because you’re already late, and it’s raining out, but you never know what your presence will bring when you show up. A class doesn’t fully function without all its classmates; a show doesn’t happen without all its players; a story doesn’t get told if no audience shows up to hear it. The energy we bring to a space just by showing up is powerful, and there’s no telling what it can achieve.
This is what always resonated with me about The Barrow Group’s approach to storytelling. It (the approach) is not asking you to contort yourself into a silly-face-making performer. It’s asking you to just show up, and storytelling consumers need you to show up. As you. As you would tell this story. Not the idea of how you think this character would tell the story.
That is what has always been intoxicating to watch in the classroom as a student, and what I love to facilitate as a teacher. Showing up in that way is what captures an audience, and makes the audience feel seen because suddenly they’re watching real life, and they recognize it, and they can relate to it. And when they can relate to it, then they feel seen and therefore known. And isn’t that all we want on this vast and lonely planet? To be known?
So show up, or no one will ever know you or themselves.
There, I did it. I showed up to this blog.
– Quinn
Upcoming classes with Quinn include Directing Workshop I starting 2/5 and Intermediate Scene Study I: Introduction to an Approach starting 2/13.
Check out TBG’s full schedule of classes.
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Quinn Vogt-Welch has directed and performed in NYC, at regional theaters throughout the US, and Internationally. She was recently nominated by Broadway World for Best Actress in a Musical in the DC Metro Area for her role of Maria in West Side Story. Other favorite roles include, most recently, Guenevere in Camelot, Eliza in My Fair Lady, Christine in Phantom, Madeleine True in The Wild Party, Carla in Nine, and Wanda in The Barrow Group production of The Baby Dance. Quinn is co-artistic director and one of the founding members of Core Artists Ensemble, a NYC theatre company that sprouted out of a TBG master class in 2012. Quinn is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University where she studied Classical Voice and International Studies.