The place where I feel happiest…
Theatre is my escape; the place where I feel happiest. Through years of struggles, triumphs and failures I came to realize how powerful music and dance can affect the way I am as a human being, as well as an artist in the 21st century. An artists’ job in society is to embrace the different, evoke change in our world and shed light onto the issues people generally shy away from. Through this, strong communities develop and the most unlikely collaborations can occur. Art can manifest anything and anything can manifest art; that is the most powerful quality of this field. This led me to pursuing a BFA in Musical Theatre at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. I have found my happy place and I am determined to never give up.
My mother, Jennifer Jepson, always reminds me of my first memory of letting out something known as “singing”. At this point, I could barely say my name or the word turquoise, but my body was born with a natural rhythm inside. Music was so important to my mom and I, that it was inevitable I pursue a career in music.
Picture a little toddler in dark blue, denim overalls, “assisting” his mom in a local grocery store. This boy is screaming at the top of his lungs for lollypops, sugar cereal, apples and cake, although he never knew how to say any of the items’ names. This was a good scream, a childish scream, almost to the point of distraction, but still adorable in every way. A popular artist at the time, around 2002, was a latino singer named Enrique Iglesias.
Many of his songs were influenced by the latino culture, which my biological dad is part of, and some very mature content. The little toddler belted out many of the lyrics to “Hero”, which received some dirty looks, but it did not matter to my child self as I loved music and wanted everyone to know. From that moment on, I knew I needed to pursue music.
The feeling one gets when producing sound is pure magic.
On May 19th, 2005, I was visiting my 85 year old great grandmother in Harlowton, Montana, about an hour away from the city of Billings. My mom was 26 weeks pregnant with my brother, Skyler, who was due to come out on August 19th of that same year. I was only 4 years old at the time, running around in princess dresses while humming the Power Rangers theme song and copying their fight choreography. I was that kid.
The morning of the 19th my mom complained about having some pains in her stomach and my grandma decided we should drive to the nearest hospital which wasn’t in Harlow. All 3 of us climbed into my grandma’s brand new electric blue PT cruiser and I insisted we listen to Hilary Duff on full blast. As a kid, you remember these types of things because we are not aware of reality just quite yet. About 30 minutes went by of me demanding the different tracks of Hilary Duff and Cats the musical, until my mom felt she needed to go to the washroom.
This is where everything changed for my family. 4 year old me was sitting in the backseat of my car and a lifeless boy was coming out of my mom. He was purple and not breathing from what I remember and that day slowly went blurry for all of us. My grandma sped so quickly, while I was screaming with a pillow on my face thinking my mom was going to die and she heroically putting her finger in his mouth to keep him breathing. Skyler was in the hospital for 3 months after that day and all of our lives were put on hold.
My father, Eric Jepson, rushed from his job in Canada and we had as many family members as we could to support us with living expenses and extensive surgery costs so we could save his short life. My brother was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy, (a bilateral, symmetrical, non-progressive paralysis resulting from developmental defects in the brain or from trauma at birth) which removed his ability to release his leg muscle contractions, resulting in him not being able to walk without assistance. This story is something I do not talk a lot about as I believe that these events happen for a reason and I never ask for pity from anyone who hears this. I have matured a lot faster than most people who are my age, as independence was something I had to become friendly with when my brother was born and taking things for granted was not an option in my family, as having my brother on this earth was the biggest miracle anyone could ask for.
I found my love of theatre through this journey my family went through and I could not have asked for a better way of getting there. My brother taught me perseverance and that is something I abide by to this day. I searched for musical theatre classes and auditions on the daily and when someone said “no” to me I looked even harder. We’ve always been so financially tight with my mom staying at home to assist with Skyler and my dad working countless hours at his job, so when I booked my first acting job that paid we were all ecstatic that I found my love and potential career. Life throws curveballs at us constantly here on earth, but the knowledge you receive from all the wonderful people around you when you are young will help to figure out how to fight back with those curveballs.
It was not easy making the decision to attend college so far away from home, although I ultimately knew there was no other option. Before I was offered a scholarship to attend Boston Conservatory, I was headed to University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music for Musical Theatre and I am so humbled that I was able to choose between the two. The community of BoCo/Berklee is unlike any others and speaks to how powerful art can be, bringing people from all over the world to study music, theatre and dance.
Theatre is my escape; the place where I feel happiest.