Phoebe Martin ‘24, a Theatre and Data Analytics major, tells us about her favorite theatre class, how she balances her majors and what she is learning through her Denison experience. She is involved in a variety of music ensembles, sports, theatre, and other organizations on campus.
Read our interview with Phoebe:
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
My name is Phoebe Martin! I’m a sophomore majoring in Theatre and Data Analytics (DA). I’m also involved in the Burpees, the Gaming Guild, and club volleyball, as well as a number of musical ensembles. I work as a First Aid responder for Intramural sports events and also in the costume shop. I’ve been involved in a few theatre productions at Denison as an actor and rehearsal assistant.
Have you taken any theatre classes at Denison? If so, what was your favorite class, who was it with, what was the subject matter?
I have taken several Theatre classes here at Denison. My favorite has been THTR 240, Elements of Playwriting with Associate Professor Peter Pauze. As you could probably guess, in that class we practiced writing short scenes based on prompts and skills. In addition to that, we also wrote papers analyzing existing plays. My favorite part of the course, however, was when we would share our work with the class and get feedback both from our classmates and from the professor. I learned a lot about playwriting and also discipline and time management since there were a lot of assignments all the time.
Can you tell me about the balance between your majors and how has this influenced your experience on campus?
My time on campus has definitely been spent more in theatre spaces than in DA spaces. However, both majors certainly take up a lot of time, so I have pretty much no time to pursue any other academic pursuits. The groups of people in both majors have very little overlap, so I’ve found that a lot more of the people I spend time with are more involved with theatre things as opposed to math/science/DA things. Overall, my experience has been pretty positive, but quite disjointed.
What are you learning about yourself through this experience?
The main thing I’ve learned about myself both through being a double major in two pretty time-intensive majors and also just generally wanting to be involved in lots of different clubs and social things, is that I have a terrible habit of overextending myself and am not super great with thinking things through. It’s very important to me not to break promises I make to other people and to myself, so I try very, very hard to make sure I’m following through on everything, but it also means that I have very little free time. I’m doing things I enjoy, but having to stop myself before committing to more than I can handle has been a tough lesson to learn.
