I was never the class clown cause I was too scared of my teachers to act out of line. Being wary of authority & a chronic people pleaser resulted in me being a scared young girl in school. The teacher’s, unforgiving authority terrified me so the kids around me who were “rebellious” Which let me be clear, a rebellious classmate was simply one who spoke to their friends in class, so if a classmate was bold enough to be a class clown I was utterly mortified & flinched at the collective punishment which often followed individual acts of expression, like making the class laugh.
Now, I am an actor, comedian, director and writer who indulges in being a boisterous, outrageous, confident class clown of adulthood.
At home, I reveled in being the center of attention, always performing a dramatic ballet/contemporary dance fusion style solo to a 1990s Sarah Brightman pop-opera CD or retelling my school day through exaggerated reenactments or singing whatever musical theater show was my current obsession. Or I was outside, growing up in Louisiana meant I was surrounded by beautiful, dangerous wildlife, thick woods, and swamp which hemmed the border of my family’s property. Home as a young girl is where my love of performance & play was born. Running back to my parents & siblings from my woodland adventure, sometimes covered in mud & invariably riddled with mosquito bites, ready to perform my next series of creatures & characters. My mind was free, responsive, & curious.
Until 6:00pm
Down the road from my home lived the community theater HQ where the directors had faith in my talent, casting me in leading roles, but under the iron grip of discipline & authority left no room for air, no room for noise or questions or error. If you were talked out of line or asked for clarification the entire group of cast members, roughly ages 9 to16, were ridiculed, shamed, and blamed for bringing deterioration of the production. The fear of being responsible for causing harm to the show left me in a constant state of anxiety & paranoia. The freedom in play, imagination, and silliness which flowed through me at home or amongst the swamp was wrung dry as soon as the directors entered the rehearsal room. From 9 to 12 years old I was cast in their shows and felt the cast of my soul grow, conveniently alongside my prepubescent hormones. While I resented the directors for creating a hostile environment I simultaneously engraved a fabricated truth in my mind’s eye -
Rehearsal rooms are a place of order, structure, and clear power dynamics. The directors are the overlord to their pathetic, dense subjects: the actors.
A mindset which not only conquered the rehearsal room but every adult who held authority over me.
Fast forward to 2017, I am 19 years old working as a waitress in a casual pizza restaurant saving money & preparing for drama school auditions in my gap year. I am accepted into the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and 9 months later I move to Liverpool, England. The giddy thrill of moving across the world to train in an intensive, highly selective, esteemed acting training course with peers who are just as driven, passionate, and focused as me?! Pinch me - I must be dreaming!
To my horror, my peers were casual with our tutors, treating them like normal people who happen to have knowledge to bestow and nothing more. Outrageously, my classmates would have their own thoughts about the lessons, they’d ask questions seemingly unworried about reprimand, they’d speak up when they were confused. They’d even challenge our tutors about the relevance of the lessons instead of blindly following. Could they not see that our tutor’s were our overlords who needn’t be riddled with our moral thoughts? Not only would they act as independent, sentient humans they’d order themselves in class casually, not immediately resuming a militant posture of silence when our tutors entered the rehearsal room. I would glare at the slightest sign of individuality like I’d glare at the class clowns.
I was deeply mortified and unpopular.
Thanks to my strict rules which I imposed on myself and classmates, the inner young girl with freedom of play & curiosity was hidden, dormant even. Despite the retrospective gaze on my rehearsal etiquette, I hold an intimate respect for this phase of my life. I was experiencing change and artistic challenge while decoding a new culture, not realizing just how foreign I would feel as an American in England.
I felt safe in my rules & it was easy for me to delude myself into thinking everyone else were the foolish ones. I could live in false security & superiority. And that worked for me until my mythological waxed wings got too close to the sun, or more fitting to Liverpool, my tissue paper wings disintegrated in the Mersey’s misty wind. By 2nd year, these rules I so doggedly abided by drove me into a poor mental state which coupled with personal drama found me in a thick unwavering depression. In order for my inner joyful self to resurface, drastic measures were needed.
Cue self-discovery montage!
I called my American friends & family enabling me to rekindle my true, good attributes. I went on solo adventures around Liverpool and the UK exhaling in relief as my world grew from solely home & LIPA to an entire new country. Through meeting people outside of my classmates, engaging with the world, and allowing room for my mind to engage with the world with the same curiosity and joy as it once did all that time ago. I was reunited with the artist, the engaged actor & for the first time in my life I didn’t want to be the rule follower anymore. Not for my rules or the wider world’s pressures. I won’t pretend the habits changed over night but the ice which held my creative spirit captive began to melt. I ended my 2nd year feeling like I knew who I was acting from my instincts instead of rules, I respected my classmates, I felt as a creative equal to my directors now knowing not to trust the ones who indulged in the disproportionate power dynamic I once bent to.
Since graduating, new cold realities threaten to distract me from my free creative spirit. The boring yet real stuff like bills, rent, visa expiry dates, financial requirements to stay in the UK with my wife, and other trivial human adult worries. But, I must prioritize creative expression, playtime for my imagination, and staying in touch with my whimsical present engaged mind or I’ll lose myself to a looming sadness.
Recently, I was asked to articulate beyond the surface as to why I am an actor/writer/performer/director and what drives me to this work. To which I answered, if you can find humor, laughter, curiosity, and vulnerability in the darkest of places, you will always see the good. I do this work to explore the light amongst the dark. Plus, I need to break some rules.
Alice is a member of our 2024 Wicked Women Course- follow them on X @thealiceway & instagram @dragonfly_performance @aliceistheway
