2012. A Year of Firsts!

Hello. As many of you know, I am now in Los Angeles. Well not really, but I am just north of there living in North Hills and working in Glendale. I’ve been thinking back on the year and have realized it has been a year of firsts. It started mid last year with my first time being out of the country for an extended time with my study abroad trip to Australia.  This of course included my first time seeing the Great Barrier Reef, first time Skydiving, first time planning a vacation (Spring Break!!), etc... (For more on Australia, check My Australia blog out.

Anyways I came back home for my final semester of college! This was a semester full of accomplishments and I feel it truly wrapped up all my theatre knowledge I had gained at school. Here’s why: it was my first time directing a full play (Beyond Therapy and it turned out fantastic. I could not have been happier with it!), and I also designed lights for the new adaptation of Cinderella. This came with some creative challenges, but I was totally able to work around them and it ended up fantastic. Feel free to take a look at my first website that I created this year: danielwjanes.wix.com/portfolio. In between these two shows I went to a technical theatre conference in Long Beach, California. There I met my first contact in LA and first friends from the area. I saw my first show in the area at USC. Coming home from that conference was sadly not my first time being stuck in LAX, as we were stuck there for several hours after our choir trip my junior (?) year of high school.

So yeah, busy semester from which I finally earned my first degree: A Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Dance with a design/technical concentration. Over the summer I worked jobs that I had worked before. I worked at the circus which I had worked at after my Sophomore year, at the Wildey which I had been working at since the end of my Junior year, and finally I went back to Michigan to work at Tibbits Opera House where I worked after my Freshman year. Again, a culmination of the summers of my college career.

At Tibbits I had my first professional directing job. We did a great show of Charlotte’s Web! It was super fun and an excellent experience. I went to Detroit for the first time to have nice, chill weekend with some peeps from Tibbits. After Tibbits, I packed up the van again and drove out west. It was the first time I’d picked up and move by myself. I drove up to Minnesota, across South Dakota, through a bit of Wyoming into Colorado, down to Flagstaff, Az. and onward to Los Angeles.

I had a couple interviews and got a job freelancing with the company from my first interview. It’s not my dream job, but it pays. I found my first room to rent on my own. 

Basically, I'm doing okay. Pretty happy with the place I'm staying at. Glad I made the big step out here and looking forward to changes in my life in the near future! 

Thanks for reading and check back in the next couple weeks for a bit deeper insight into my trip out here!