SOP Sample for Theatre Acting | US Conservatory Applicants

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

I am [NAME] (Stage Name – [STAGE_NAME]), B.Tech Graduate by societal norm, and a proud Diploma-holder in Acting by absolute and relentless passion of my heart. For you, honourable reader, I am an aspirant to the prestigious two-year conservatory program at the immensely covetable [INSTITUTION_NAME], New York.

Now, the reason I became an actor is to realise my true self. In an Indian middle-class family, a child is born even to the most kind and supportive of parents, with a template of what he should be like. As women, we are expected to be the epitome of sacrifice and as men we are expected to be the epitome of martyrdom—pain is a common unifier and mirth is dispensed with. Strangely, in the same nation, the gap in between the rich and the poor is so unfathomably gaping, that God is yet to invest a tenacious enough thread to be able to sew the ends together. So, in my precious subcontinent, mirth being dispensed is practiced in secrecy, and pain being embraced is doled out freely. But I was my own person, and unwilling to pick a side or to be picked for. I was not rebellious. But I was also not demure. I walked as a person of the society, giving into my parents' wishes, getting my B.Tech degree, while firmly holding on to my own dreams to my heart.

I am a silent observer of all possibilities. In this life, no man can experience it all; be everything he wants to be. Acting became my way of exploration; my own path to understand who I was by experiencing all that I could be. When I got into a character, I did not feel scared as to what the society would think of me, what would my parents think of me, where am I going, what will happen to me. For some time, on that stage, my life shed all its inhibitions, and I was free to be whoever my character wanted to be—another version of myself and yet, another version of beautiful, mellifluous life. Emancipation is almost as sweet as expression or perhaps they add fuel and life to each other. I devour the script as if it's air from the mountains and fill my soul with the essence of the new life I was about to materialise on stage—for some time I will play creator or one of the creators. Maybe that's how I got into acting. Seeking to nurture myself, I earned the ability to nurture stories, people from all walks of life that I have portrayed or seen (in amazement) being portrayed. I feel renewed and rejuvenated every time I take hermitage to the stage—finally making it my home.

I began exploring my domain while I was in college. I participated in and won numerous stage-plays and mono-acting competitions held intra-college and inter-college. I was the director and the lead actor in a stage-play called '[PLAY_NAME]', which won an award for the best stage-play from the immensely prestigious institute of '[INSTITUTION_NAME]'. Personally, I received the first prize for mono-acting in the same competition. Meanwhile to boost my confidence and expression, I started working the open-mic circuit as a stand-up comedian, of social commentary and observations. I won first runner-up with the [UNIVERSITY_NAME] in [CITY_NAME], amongst other seasoned comedians and realised that this was yet another hilariously merciless way of venting out one's personal agonies to untether oneself of all that hold them back. Being able to laugh at one's own tribulations adds perspective and maturity indispensably required for a good actor and story-teller. In a different chapter, convened by '[INSTITUTION_NAME]', I won first prize for improv performance. I understood that I was growing, emerging out of still waters, ever so stealthily, and opening my eyes to the bright light of my true passion and perseverance.

In 2019, my auxiliary technical career made me a technical analyst in [COMPANY_NAME]. Acting, by then, had taken the front seat. But this job paid for my passion and my resources, without having to depend on anybody. So, I did both seriously and earnestly, trying to be as good as I could in everything I did. My job sustained me when, in 2019, I joined [INSTITUTION_NAME] for a formal training in acting and allied competencies. I pursued film-making and completed the course with a coveted major in acting or performance arts. Even after the course was over, I continued voice-training, movement exercises, writing and memorizing monologues and of course researching and watching work that was going on all over the world. To add skills to my repertoire I trained in freestyle dance and horse-back riding, which builds a very unique strength and resilience. I was working as a full-time employee in the [COMPANY_NAME] Healthcare Department, and the stable income kept my passion safe, alive and independently thriving through continuous practise and promise of a future that was uniquely mine.

In 2021, I completed a year-long Acting Diploma from the [INSTITUTION_NAME], which I hold in immensely high esteem as one of the most resplendent experiences of my humble and often dazed life. This is something I was certain about, and I felt strongly situated within myself, as I did it. I laughed better, thought clearer, slept in peace, and awoke the next day, wanting to act, create and make the stage my own. Through my acting diploma, I had attained a deeper cognizance of theatre and films, both in the process of acting in them and creating/directing them. It helped me work especially on three competencies which were indispensable to my field—my memorization skills, improvisation skills and ever elusive method acting skills. My contemplation, centring the development of characters, got sharper and more organized, along with my inter-personal skills of coordinating with and supporting fellow actors on stage. During this time, I also had the humbling opportunity to act in three off-Broadway shows, that pulled my inertial self in all directions, ending up wrecking any shackle I might ever have possessed. I played a female misogynist who moulded her mind-set to fit the society's opinion of women; I acted as a proud starving artist, lost in a neverland which cosseted her the way reality does not, promising to emancipate her by engulfing her within. I played the bereft lover adapting [CHARACTER_NAME] from the timeless epic of [EPIC_NAME] and the most challenging of them all, I played a distraught, convoluted sex-worker in a one-woman play. In the short film, titled '[FILM_NAME]', I played the lead role, whose relationship with her job became akin to the relationship in a marriage—excitable and exhilarating at first turned mundane and obligatory later.

Within the span of four years of my college, I joined Dramatics Club, the Hindi Literary Association and the [UNIVERSITY_NAME] Film Society, as these were the most charged centres of exploring theatre, literature and cinema. Under their folds, I wrote, directed and acted in 3 street-plays, 2 plays entered in competitions and 1 short film ('[FILM_NAME]'). These performance-pieces were enacted or telecasted in my college through the Hindi Literary Association. My hard work and the subsequent recognition earned me the position of being the creative lead of the said institute (Hindi Literary Association), one of the most prestigious cultural bodies amongst the tech schools in India. These projects are especially dear to me, because when I was working on them, I was new in the field of creativity, and these projects were very ambitious to my naïve mind. They were not only projects to me, but they were my fervent and desperate attempts to give life to who I truly was, instead of dwindling into the abyss of social expectations, that stifle divergent women until they relent into a template. That my projects were successful, that they were duly lauded and recognized, was the moment I shed the shroud of idealistic pretence and emerge earnestly as the person I always was, and never stopped being.

So far, I have spoken to you of a journey that a middle-class girl from a developing nation dared to venture upon—against the preconceived notions that came with her roots, against the institutional pride, that seemed to her to be little more than abject mediocrity. I have never stopped being true to myself, often being critical of myself, until the theatre and its omnipotence made me kind, loving, and emollient to the world and to myself. I am a befitting individual for your esteemed organization, because these are also the values that you propagate in the enlightened realms of your arching edifice. Performance is the enactment of life. To borrow the soul of another and embody the same with respect and humility is a privilege, with which I have been bestowed. This is the attitude which is supported and encouraged by the illustrious professors, who are stalwarts of the craft and the distinguished alumni, who have passed out of your university. When I close my eyes, and envision myself on your ethereal campus, I feel that a part of my life has been realised, and now, where I stand, it is my biggest dream to realise. I beseech your benign wisdom to reflect on the nascent thespian embedded in my curious mind and unbound enthusiasm. If I were to stand on the stage, with your badge against my armour of my craft, I would know—I have finally reached home; I finally belong; I can be anything I want!