Ever since I've been at PASC I haven't been my normal self. Normally, I find humor in everyday situations. I laughed for no reason. I was easily entertained and could be optimistic about nearly anything.

I always knew I had a darker side (for lack of a better term, sorry to sound so "Jekyll and Hyde"-y), but it was always repressed. Hardly ever did I even acknowledge when I felt sad or depressed or upset. Believe it or not, I am not always as openly opinionated as I am here.

A lot has changed since I've been gone.

At PASC, they immediatly let you know that you are at a professional school of theatre and you had better always perform 110% no matter what you feel like, because they couldn't give a rat's ass about you as a human being. I was there to study an art form and I knew it was to be taken seriously. But I had no idea how seriously they would take it.

They decide whether or not you have talent, and they will tell you whatever they think to your face, no matter what it is. You no longer own yourself. They own your body, they own your talent. After my first week there, it felt I had sold my soul to the devil or something.

They told me that I had incredible talent, so therefore I was to be trained differently from the other students. I had different responsibilities. They told me I had a "striking look," because according to them, I appeared like a porcelain doll or an Elizabethan princess. They preferred the term "porcelain doll" more than anything else. I was always working. I was so dedicated to what I was doing. I would sit alone in theatres by myself for hours studying a script. I was their model actress, and I must credit them, they found me work. They still are.

They tell me I'm not allowed to have a boyfriend or ever get married in the near future, because it would mean I cuoldn't concentrate fully on my art. Basically, they said I couldn't fall in love. I went to photo shots where they dressed me and did my hair like their little "porelain doll" and never said a word. If this is what real theatre is, I am willing to do it, I suppose. I had extra work. I was given parts that other students weren't offered. And don't get me wrong, I was extremely flattered. Never in my dreams did I think I would be so doted over.

But it was more than doting. They don't care about me. They care about my career and their role in my success. They want me to act and do theatre at any cost. I got sick my second week and fainted during class. They told me to just get back onstage and act. I couldn't ever get an escape. I lived on their campus in my own room, so even there I had work to do after hours.

I can't cut my hair either. That's part of my dollish look. They want to keep it long. Long and red.

I can't get any sleep. I'm always working. I can't eat, because I'm busy. They are always wanting more. More and more and more and more. And I don't say a word. I learn my lines, and I perform.

They say I have to come back to study with them in the fall instead of going to a regular high school, which is perfectly fine with me, since I'd be tutored in all my major regular subjects. They also know a school in Paris that they inreoduced me to, and they say it would be the perfect place for me to go to study and perform. They've already given me the details. My rent would be dirt cheap, it would just be the trans-Atlantic flight that would be expensive. They're really pushing it. They really want me to go when I'm 17, which is in two years, after I "graduate" from their school.

Right now, we're performing Romeo and Juliet. I've worked day and night and been completely committed to this show. I think you know what role I have. This show is their oppourtunity to showcase me, they say. It's their way of introducing me as the new, palest face of theatre.

This is what I've always wanted. But I can't be happy about it. And I can't get out of it, because remember, they own me now. It's sucked all the lfie out of me, it seems. I take on teh personality of whatever character I'm portraying. I can't live this way, but now I have to. I've chosen a life. And I'll be in Paris two years from now.

Ah, yes. There has been one bright moment. My mother came to see me when I got sick the first time and said that some long-lost relative of ours had died in Austria and had given us weird things like a crown jewel of Spain: a sapphire the size of my fist. Since this long-lost relative of mine died, I'm apparently, in some weird way, royalty of Austria. I don't know what kind of title I have, or whether if I go there I would even be acknowledged, or what. But I thought it was a neat fact I didn't know before. Apparently my family came here from Europe during WWII, but some stayed. I don't really know, to tell you the truth.

Anyway.

I don't know if I'll be back here. If I do, it might be even mroe different. At this point, I don't know how things will turn out. Well, I do actually. I just don't want to think about it more than I have to.

Au revoir.

© alexa

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