About Me
Hello and welcome! Aside from being a Full Sail Student I'm also an Orlando-based performer. I've worked with local theaters such as Orlando Family Stage & Winter Park Playhouse, traveled and performed with Disney Cruise Line, and I currently work in Entertainment at Universal Orlando.
I'm deeply passionate about constantly improving my craft— I believe there’s always more to learn. This mindset helps me grow so I can become not only a better performer, but also a better version of myself. Through all the time I have spent immersed in the world of theatre and enterainment, I have developed a true love of storytelling. I approach every creative project as an opportunity to move, encourage, and inspire. For more on me, check out my website here!
Intention Statement
Throughout my next 12 months at Full Sail University, I intend to have a better idea of what my options in entertainment are outside of performance alone. I will use this journal as a means to keep track of the different facets of this business that interest me through assignments in areas of focus such as marketing, project management, publishing and distribution and executive leadership. As my long term goal involves rising in creative in companies such as Universal Destinations & Experiences, Disney Parks Creative & Disney Cruise Line Creative, I will use this Mastery Journal as a way to track my progress in becoming equipped to join the aforementioned teams.
I hope to learn skills that will allow me to become a necessary part of bringing iconic stories to life and in doing so. I want the tools needed to take my experience in bringing stories to life from the onstage perspective to a behind the scenes approach, creating the framework of the experiences, fine tuning both vision and show, with a hand in the financial aspect, the marketing aspect, the branding aspect etc. I want to better understand the financial and legal limitations of entertainment so I do not feel blindsided by such things when I am in the act of creating. I want to understand the business aspect of this business so well that I can seamlessly merge creativity and reasonability. Finally, I'd like to create a business plan with roots in my direct interests without shying away from the aspects of entertainment that really strike a chord in my soul. And while I'm not quite sure what kind of business/plan that would look like, let this also be one of my aspiring achievements; to better understand how to apply my passion to a fruitful and meaningful career.
Inspiration lies in the possibility.
Can I make the world kinder? Can I love better? Is it ridiculous I believe such things can be done through stories? Perhaps. But I refuse to see the world as it is, instead choosing to see what it could be. If stories like Cinderella inspire me to hold on to hope to persevere despite it all, what kinds of stories could I help bring to life that would do the same for others. If I'm not yet where I want to be, I can see the possibility of it and that alone gives me hope.
LinkedIn Profile
Do it for the younger version of you, who needed to see it happen.
As I listened to Laufey's Letter To My 13 Year Old Self on a late drive home, I found deep resonance with the lyrics. In adolescence, I was often told to pursue other dreams, not the ones that led back to what some considered, juvenile entertainment. In a world of theater, theme park and IP entertainment is not always seen as a respected sect of the arts. And in layman terms, some might call it silly. But if the thirteen year old girl who went to Disney World and Universal on weekends with wonder and amazement could know where she would be a decade later, she would be so proud. And I hope to continue to make her proud as I further my career. I will continue to pursue the silly dream, because it is the one I care about most.
MY MASTERY JOURNAL TIMELINE
The Type of Leader I Want to Be
As a leader, I want to be more aligned with Maxwell’s style. Maxwell’s leadership style comes from a place of servitude, a mindset of helping others and lifting them up, which I want to do in both my personal and professional life. In summary, Maxwell’s style of leadership is about the people you’re leading. The focus is not on how leadership can benefit you, but how your leadership can support and motivate others. I think this style of leadership is necessary in my industry because theme park work requires an immense amount of teamwork to fulfill both daily and long-term operation. In creating projects that will be seen by thousands of people per day, there is too much responsibility to be on one person. Even those in the highest position must have a reliance on their team to see things come to fruition on such a large scale. It requires trust and teamwork, which are two elements that Maxwell’s style of leadership directly fosters. My faith is the driving force in my life. I believe personally, professionally, emotionally and spiritually that I am meant to love others. Maxwell’s belief is that we can make the world a better place by being “the person who does something selfless for others and helps them along their way” and that “if we do it for the people. We lead and help them become successful with no ulterior motive, we can develop a relationship of trust” (Maxwell, 2019, p. 56). A leader that goes out of their way to help those that they lead, without an ulterior motive for their own success but for the betterment of that individual and of the entire team in general will not only directly align with the type of leadership required for my industry but with my own personal beliefs.
Works Cited: Maxwell, J. C. (2019). The Foundation of Leadership: Character Developing the leader within you 2.0. (p. 49-70). HarperCollins Leadership.
Entertainment Business Finance
For a large majority of my life, anything mathematical felt unapproachable. I excelled in English and Social Studies but found myself struggling with certain math classes. My personal objective for this course was to get out of my own way and allow any insecurities in the subject to dissipate in the face of practical application. My learning objective was to understand the concepts of business finance to ensure that financial statements, financial ratios, and other economic practices of business were known and understood enough for me to engage with them not only on my own but in professional settings. While not necessary for me to be a financial advisor or anything of the sort, in the entertainment industry so often free-form creativity can be stifled by monetary restrictions. It's in everyone's best interest for creatives to have awareness of every aspect of a business, as at the end of the day entertainment businesses are still businesses.
I've learned about investments and opportunity costs and how sometimes when considering financial decisions, we don't always just look at the finances. But also in looking at the financial repercussions of financial decisions such as purchases or investments there are ways to determine if those investments will pay off. Professionally, I intend to keep the Break Even concepts readily available to determine if certain creative endeavors will be monetarily successful and if not, finding ways to readjust the costs and expenses without sacrificing story and quality of said project. Personally, I intend to continue forward with a mindset of preparing and analyzing all possible costs of any ventures I take on. Even something as simple as road-trips or vacations will come with certain costs I might not think to budget, like snacks and drinks for example. Before this class, I may have only considered gas and tolls in budgeting but now I have full understanding to be detail-oriented in every facet of life, not only creatively.
Digital Marketing: Storytelling In Every Capacity
Being a performer in the entertainment industry means that, for most of my career, my marketing has been done for me. I have not the one convincing families to spend thousands of dollars to sail on a cruise ship or fly to Florida to spend a week at a theme park. I am, however, a very active part in making the experience worth it and helping the marketing live up to any and all expectations set. It was with this mindset that I began Digital Marketing; knowing there was so much I did not know but should know, to not only better improve the quality of my work, but to understand how to best share the products, services, and experiences that I love with others who have the same capacity to love it just as much as I do.
I became a performer because of a deep-rooted love of storytelling. Truthfully, my preconceptions of marketing that it was a necessary – sometimes stifling – step on the way to storytelling. This course helped re-shape my opinion to understand that the best and most effective forms of marketing are stories themselves. What I came to discover, was that through research, creativity and imagination a marketing campaign can be both effective and unique. There is a balance of the analytical and the personable. I can play towards my demographic with consideration to search engine optimization, analytics, budgeting, and competition while also simply playing.
As I continue my career, specifically as I market myself and my artistic works, I can allow my personality to shine through in my brand identity and tell the kinds of stories I want to tell more effectively, with the understanding of how to best reach and engage with audiences. Like the marketing photos for my cabaret, It’s My Party and I’ll Sing if I Want to; I can keep my brightly colored clown-esque pants, my heart-shaped party sunglasses (purely for the aesthetic as they are fully unnecessary indoors), and further say, with one picture, that this show is a party and everyone who attends get to be my guest. Dare I say, in a thinly veiled metaphor, that Digital Marketing not only helped me learn that I can have my cake and eat it to, but now I know how to find those who also want cake.
The value of a product is best celebrated through marketing. And with the newly added tools in my toolbox, I now have both the internal and external resources to confidently conjure campaign ideas, knowing the story does not start and end with the product; but the story surrounds the product through every search result, every ad, every web page, and social media post associated with it.