Everyone in Cambridge theatre is striking a balance between working hard (on their degree) and working hard (on lots of shows) … until show week throws that balance out the window, of course. Throughout the first two years of my degree, I found myself in a constant battle of wills between my creative aspirations, the need to take every opportunity I get, the voice of my DoS that has taken residence in the back of my head, and the desire to just go and have a nap. “I just have to pass first year,” I told myself, “and what’s first year for if not trying stuff out, seeing what university life is all about, making friends?” I’m doing a degree weighted 100% to the final year, so much the same logic applied in second year as well.

The scales sadly began to shift as my final year approached. Perhaps I’m being weak-willed in ceding to Cambridge’s overbearing academic pressures, but I would quite like to get a first. My approach up to this point of fitting studies in around shows and other commitments, rather than the reverse, evidently wasn’t the wisest way to achieve that (the DoS gremlin in my mind is taking over, it seems). And so, over the summer, I decided to be boring and trade in Camdram for iDiscover.

“Over the summer, I decided to be boring and trade in Camdram for iDiscover”

This decision wasn’t fully motivated by my academics. I have managed to tick off all the bucket list items I had heading into Cambridge theatre: I did stand-up in a Footlights smoker, directed a big Shakespeare production, acted in a Queens’ May Week show, and ran the collegiate theatre society which influenced my choice of that college in the first place. Maybe this exposes me as lacking the true thespian spirit of unquenchable creative inspiration for show after show. But having done everything I wanted to, I know I’d have more regrets compromising my degree by continuing to do shows out of sheer force of habit, than I do seeing all the theatre opportunities come and go.

This isn’t to say I don’t miss it. The excitement (and stress) of final rehearsals, backstage anticipation, opening nights, and raucous afters can be intoxicatingly joyous. Memories from my theatre projects will be some of my fondest from my time here in years to come. Its absence has also made me aware of the sense of structure that shows gave to my term. I kept myself to a limit of one or two shows a term, usually at the middle or end. This meant each term had a broader trajectory of growing intensity towards the culmination of show week, and then the cathartic release of it all being over with the final curtain call. Each part of the process had a different energy, which created a real sense of progression from auditions, table reads, rehearsals, runs and techs in the space, to the production itself (and desperately catching up on work afterwards!).

“I know I’d have more regrets compromising my degree by continuing to do shows out of sheer force of habit”

My existence now plods along week by week – a regular rhythm of supervisions, lectures, concerts, socials. The consistency is almost certainly good for my wellbeing, but it saddens me that weeks five and six just came and went without ceremony. This time two years ago was my first appearance on the Cambridge stage, a show I will never forget, and one year ago was my directorial debut. When Michaelmas comes to a close in a few weeks’ time I suspect I’ll find myself thinking – oh, well, that was that I guess.

The other thing I’ve noticed since hanging up my theatrical boots is how different my relationship with the scene is as it carries on quite happily without me. I no longer scour the Facebook page for interesting opportunities; pitching deadlines come and go without the pang of regret I used to feel when I missed them. A whole new cohort of freshers has arrived and started getting involved, none of whom I will ever work with. I now have the rather novel experience of browsing Camdram not to see who’s up to what, or check that auditionees have any idea what they’re doing, but just to see what’s on. I go to see shows simply because they look interesting, and I have a free evening.

After two years of finding myself regularly at the theatre for shows I was involved in, that were being put on by my theatre society, or to support friends, it is slightly strange to just spectate. It reminds me, in a very different way to when I was actively making theatre, why I love the art form. Even more joyously, I just get to rock up and enjoy the end result, rather than taking part in or running the countless hours of castings and meetings and rehearsals that led up to it. Time gainfully re-employed, I hope, on the rather different progression towards graduation day.