My love for theatre began in the fiction books I read as a kid. Alongside imagining different worlds and learning about new perspectives, I would spend hours envisioning myself as different characters in the dozens of books I read. I’d often flip from page to page reciting dialogue, switching back and forth between the characters acting out the stories I’d grown so fond of. It was then that I discovered I wanted to spend as much of my life transforming written words to performance and hopefully one day for entire audiences to see. Without first falling in love with English literature I would have never discovered my love for theatre, and after my first year as a full-time acting student the importance of this connection has only grown more apparent. Before I applied to college for Drama, I knew I’d pursue a second major by my sophomore year. But the choice to double major in English came only after I realized just how necessary my understanding of literature is to my theatre studies. Just like it did as a kid, my understanding of my character begins with understanding what the playwright has written. It begins with asking why the playwright has chosen to write the play and for what audiences? It begins with asking why they included my character and asking why they are vital to this particular story. It begins with asking why the playwright chose to write a specific monologue, or line, or word? These are questions that will become easier to answer as I will be asking them daily in my English courses in the fall. As I study English literature across authors, genres, and generations, I will build necessary analytical skills to excel at finding the roots of any play. And it is these questions that will be vital to my performance as an actor. I can create freely with the knowledge of the playwright’s intentions for my character. There will be no second guessing of the choices I make in the rehearsal process as they will be born out of what I have read. I will be confident as an actor because I can trust my work I’ve done off stage with the skills I’ve gained from an education in English literature. From the audience’s perspective, theater is all that which takes place on the stage. It is the moments from when the curtain rises to when it falls. From the first lines spoken to the final bows. It is the hour and a half long of live performance combined with the technical glory of lights, costumes, and set design. But to the theatre maker, it encompasses so much more. It is the research and understanding behind a play’s historical setting to craft appropriate costume and set designs. It is the knowledge of the play’s political references to discover how it can connect to contemporary audiences. It is the analysis needed to understand one’s character to begin to attempt to portray them on the stage. It takes weeks worth of interdisciplinary knowledge to take the stage in order to impact those seated in front of it, and a liberal arts major provides the necessary skills to do so.