An Actor's Advice for Incoming Students

Wednesday, Aug 14, 2019
By Hannah Rose Caton
Juilliard Journal
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Actor Hannah Rose Caton in the fourth-year production of 'Detroit '67'
Hannah Rose Caton (Group 48), shown in the fourth-year production of 'Detroit '67'

Keep Dreaming

As the new school year was about to begin, a few seasoned Juilliard artists pulled together some advice for incoming students.

  1. Dive into everything. Be curious. Be childlike. Be kind.
  2. When times got hard for me at Juilliard, I looked to this quote by Maya Angelou: “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” I hope that this quote will inspire you to remember that the challenges that test us also help us to discover our inner strengths and how we can learn and thrive from them.
  3. Keep dreaming and never lose sight of your goals. Our imagination is an incredibly powerful muscle. When I was 16, I never could have foreseen all of the beautiful things that have happened in my life thus far, but one thing that helped me was imagining all that could be possible. Stay ambitious, stay hungry—and who knows? Lightning could strike!

After graduating in May, Hannah Rose Caton (Group 48) performed in the Dorset (Vermont) Theatre Festival's production of Mrs Christie, which was directed by Giovanna Sardelli; Hannah had worked her last summer on the Chautauqua Theater Company's production of An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Playwrights '14)