Matthew Tackles Social Media Strategy and Campaigns

Who would have thought we’d be here? Not me... Not me...  For real though, I absolutely could not have predicated we would be here right now. Before coming to campus, I was looking at the COVID-19 numbers per county in Ohio and I assumed we would be leaving for online classes a week after we got here. I had no faith we would survive more than a couple weeks. To my surprise, we finished an entire semester!  I am really grateful we finished an entire semester in person. I was able to regain confidence as a singer, actor and dancer through my training as a musical theater major. I didn’t think I would be able to learn anything in my Shakespeare class with a mask on with everyone six feet apart, but I ended up learning so much! The same applies to every class I’ve had this semester. I learned a lot in my dance classes this semester! At the end of the semester one of my teachers told our class how proud she was for how quickly we were able to pick up on combinations by the end of t...

I simply do not want to be typing this blog post. I'm doing it because I am almost at a 90% in this class and I don't want to lose an easy ten points by simply neglecting an assignment. Instead of ignoring my blogging responsibility for the week, I decided to use this time to write about not wanting to do it in the first place, as this is all I can think about right now. How meta of me to write this blog post about not wanting to write one at all! I am currently on a break during my last rehearsal for "Blocked!" The show opens tomorrow, and both casts are rehearsing tonight and running the show one last time. The show is double cast because there are only four characters in the show and the department wanted more than four people to get an opportunity to perform.  Tech week is the week where all the technical aspects are introduced to a show. Usually these aspects include lights, sound, the orchestra, costumes, hair, makeup, etc. However, for our online show, the acto...

It's only our tenth week of classes? I don't know about anyone else, but it feels like our semester should be over by now. My body and mind feel the same level of exhaustion and depletion they do when a semester ends, but we have five more weeks left. It is not FAIR! We are 10 weeks in now, so it's the point of the semester when everything gets chaotic and busy. We have a ton of assignments/projects do. I have to memorize a scene for my Shakespeare class. I need to memorize my songs for voice lessons. I need to practice my dances for dance evaluations and getting them to the level I want them to be at before I record them for a dance reel. I am assistant directing the musical Ohio Northern University is putting on this semester which takes a lot of my evening time. I am also dancing in a pop-up performance put on by the dance department, called "Windowed Pain," which we've been rehearsing the last couple of weeks and premieres this weekend. It feels like I wor...

This week I had to start working on a website for my business of theatre class. It is supposed to serve as a portfolio of my work as a singer, actor and dancer. I started building my website on Squarespace and ended up having a lot of fun.  Building this website reminded me of what we are doing for our clients in class. I am able to take some of the principles we are learning to sell myself as a performer and what I have to offer in a professional and creative way.  I had to recognize that my key audience is casting directors and provide them a portfolio of my work which is chic, clean and not overwhelming to navigate. Furthermore, I determined my social media voice should be mostly professional on the website, but I would allow myself to show a little more of my individuality in my about section. It took me a lot of time to put together because I had to sift through so many production photos to find high quality ones to show me off in a good light. I also have blanks on my we...

This past Saturday, I was on a run with my boyfriend after we went to the gym. Both of us did not workout throughout the spring or summer, because of coronavirus fears. However, coming back to school we felt comfortable enough with the new rules put in place to keep us safe, like a limited amount of people allowed in the gym and temperature checks at the door, to begin working out again. We have been working out almost everyday since getting back on campus. We usually work on biceps, chest, triceps, shoulders, and abs, but we recently started adding more cardio into our routine.  At first we thought the dance classes we were taking would be cardio enough for us, but with no rehearsals in the evenings, we decided to up our cardio by picking up running again to lose that little bit of weight still left over from five months of sitting at home. Anyways, as I was saying, we were running on Saturday around campus and we ended up by the track and I was suddenly taken back to my cross cou...

For this week's blog post I wanted to share some of the pictures I have been taking these last couple of weeks. I've been thinking a lot about how this is my last year at Ohio Northern University, ever since getting back on campus five weeks ago. I realized I will soon be shoved out into the real world, much like a mama bird pushing her baby out of the nest, and be forced to support myself financially and take on all sorts of adult responsibilities. I also kept in mind how quickly everything could be taken away like last spring if we happened to get another outbreak of the new coronavirus. With this in mind, I told myself I was going to soak in every last moment I had on campus, and try to appreciate the beauty this campus has to offer. I want to be able to remember the four years I spent here because I met some amazing people and learned so much, so I started whipping out my phone and snapping a picture of anything I found beautiful. I frequently do this when I see a great vie...

Just about everyone else in the class had their mental breakdown blog post last week, so I decided now would be a great time to have mine! I was still feeling pretty energized and positive last week, but this week seems to be extremely long. It is only Wednesday! It feels like it has already been a week and a half, but it has only been three days since this week started! I woke up on Tuesday for my musical theater dance styles class, and didn't want to get out of bed. However, I thought to myself "At least it is Thursday! I only have to survive two more days!" It wasn't until parking before going into Taft that I realized I only had survived one day of the week and that I had not two, but FOUR more days to survive.  I think we are at the point of the semester where we start getting busy in our classes and it can feel easy to begin to feel overwhelmed and extra stressed out. I've started getting more homework in my classes at this point. I've been very good abo...

I am taking a number of dance classes this semester. One of my favorites is Jazz 3. This dance class focuses on the jazz style of dance, which is the basis of dance forms such as hip-hop and the dances you see going viral on TikTok. Since Jazz 3 is still technically an academic course, there still needs to be some aspect of writing in the course. In the past, we'd have to write a research paper on a historical figure or movement in the dance style, but this year we are trying out weekly journals instead. They are rather informal and give us freedom to talk about our experience with the course content in and out of class. For one of our first journal entries, we were prompted to write about our goals for the semester, what we want to get from the class and what stands in our way of achieving those goals. I wanted to share some of my goals for the semester with you all on my blog! One of my main goals for this semester is to gain flexibility in all areas of my body, but specifically ...

For this week's blog I wanted to reflect on and share what I learned from some reading I did in a book called "The Actor's Business Plan: A Career Guide for the Acting Life," by Jane Drake Brody. It is a book I have to read for a class I am taking as a musical theater major where we learn about how to sustain ourselves as performers in the real world. While everything I'm writing about is specifically about my experience as an actor, there is wisdom everyone can use about navigating the real world or entering a career.  Brody tells actors they need to put in as much work in their real lives as they do for the shows they perform in or the acting classes they participate in. This involves research and determining what you want and need out of your life and career. For many actors it is hard to balance the two and they want to prioritize their work above relationships with families, friends, and romantic partners. I have definitely been guilty of letting my drive f...

Hello! My name is Matthew Brightbill, and I just started my senior year as a musical theater major at Ohio Northern University. Welcome to my blog dedicated to passing one of the last classes I need to get my public relations minor. It feels surreal to be back in a place that I had to evacuate due to the outbreak of COVID-19 five long months ago. It feels surreal to be back with my friends and peers again after spending all of March through July strictly seeing my immediate family every day, with visits to see my boyfriend on the weekends. It is tough starting this year knowing my friends are again so close to me, but also knowing it is unwise to get too close to them or spend time with them as we would in previous years because they just came back from all over the country and they could transmit COVID-19 to me without even knowing they were carrying it. With all this being said, it still feels good to regain some semblance of normalcy in my life. It feels good starting a new normal a...