05/29/2001

By MICHAEL PRECKER / The Dallas Morning News

The career path after college seems pretty clear for accounting majors, or newly minted engineers, or anyone going into teaching. Send your résumé everywhere, polish those interviewing skills, get in on the ground floor and put your nose to the grindstone.

But what about theater grads? To outsiders, they seem to be headed to a world of perpetual insecurity, of casting calls and shows that invariably close, of waiting tables and chasing dreams.

"They're starting off on a journey that will be exciting, heartbreaking sometimes, but rewarding," says Kevin Paul Hofeditz, chairman of the Division of Theater at Southern Methodist University's Meadows School of the Arts. "We believe we've given them the tools and a lot of preparation, but they won't really know what it's like until they're out there."

At ceremonies on May 19, SMU sent 29 theater graduates into the world. Mr. Hofeditz says many of them usually head for New York City or Los Angeles, which have the most possibilities for television and film work, while others gravitate to big cities with a lot of live theater.

"They know the challenges coming in," Mr. Hofeditz says. "It's not as practical as other professions. That's an understatement. But I believe it's an important part of anyone's life to follow your dream and give it a shot."

Here are three of those graduates, their dreams and their plans to take that shot.

Marika Mashburn: 'I like soup'

Ms. Mashburn, 21, is heading for Waterford, Conn., where she has a summer job at the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theater. What's the job?

"I think they're called lackeys," she says. "Actually, we're production assistants."

Then she's off to Milwaukee for a nine-month acting internship at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, where she can audition for parts, with just one guaranteed role.

"Every year, they do A Christmas Carol, and we're definitely cast in that," she says. "So I know I won't be coming home for Christmas."

In the meantime, Ms. Mashburn is hoping for good news regarding a play she wrote, I Unseen, which was performed at SMU. The play, about the oppression of women by the Muslim fundamentalist rulers in Afghanistan, is scheduled for a reading at a New York City theater this summer. Others are considering it as well.

Ms. Mashburn grew up in Norman, Okla., with parents "who raised me to be smart and believe in myself." At SMU, she says, she got to try acting, directing and writing, and found she loved all three.

"For a short time, I could do just one, but I'd be totally stifled if I can't do all three," she says. "Even if I'm acting, I will have to be in a place where I can direct and write or I will go crazy."

Don't talk to her about long odds.

"I'm not worried," she says. "What I learned here is that you have to be persistent. Things aren't going to come to you. If you're talented, you're driven and you work hard, someone's going to notice."

She knows the path might have been easier in a different field.

"My sister is getting her MBA," Ms. Mashburn says. "She's being courted by all these companies who tell her they want her but that she should be ready to stay and work till 2 in the morning for the next few years. No thanks."

Is there a fallback plan?

"I don't believe in that," she says. "I believe if you have a fallback plan you're going to fall back, but there's nothing else I can do.

"I'm not scared," Ms. Mashburn says. "I'm just so excited to get started. And it's not going to happen, but I am fully prepared to be poor. I like soup."

Matt Hawkins: 'We'll do a lot

of sword fights'

"I've figured out I want to act," says Mr. Hawkins, 22, who grew up in Killeen. "And I looked at TV and film and figured that wasn't for me."

He also figured out that a lot of theater is too conventional, too predictable and doesn't engage an audience that just sits there and watches.

Mr. Hawkins and some friends from this year's and last year's graduating classes think they can do better. So they're starting a theater company.

It's called The House, and it's going to be in Chicago. About 10 SMU grads have incorporated, formed a board and written a script for the first show, Death and Harry Houdini.

"We need about $50,000," Mr. Hawkins says. "We're looking for big donors, but if [each of us] can get 20 bucks from 250 people, we're set."

Ask him what will make The House different from all the other theater companies struggling to survive, and the themes come tumbling out: incorporating offbeat entertainment into conventional productions, breaking down the wall between actors and audience, interacting with the crowd while still telling a story.

"We'll use all the tools to engage people and entertain them," he says. "Puppets, dance, magic, you name it. And we've figured out they love to see stage combat. We'll do a lot of sword fights."

The troupe hopes to debut in the fall, but, yes, they're keeping their day jobs. Mr. Hawkins plans to start his career as a personal trainer at a health club.

"We think we have something good," he says. "We don't think we're going to fail. It's going to be hard, but I'm so excited I can't wait."

Heidi Shen: 'I will not wait tables'

Ms. Shen, 22, spent part of her college years working as a stage manager at Dallas' Kitchen Dog Theater, which she'll join full time after a graduation trip to China with her family.

"A lot of people go to New York or L.A. or Chicago, but I feel there's a lot of theater to do in Dallas," says Ms. Shen, who grew up in Houston. "I want to stay here a little longer."

As stage manager, her responsibilities range from organizing rehearsals to supervising the lights, sound and other logistics of every performance.

"I've acted some, and I want to do it again, but this is what I love to do," she says.

Ms. Shen also took enough courses at SMU to earn a business minor, which she figures will help her avoid the fate of many people starting out in theater.

"I will not wait tables," she declares. "If I were to have to get a temporary job, it would be in an office."

She also is thinking about graduate school as a possible path to New York City.

"Broadway is one of my goals, when I do get up the nerve," Ms. Shen says. "After a year or two in Dallas, I think I'll apply to Yale, which would get me connected to the New York area."

If none of that sounds too definite, she's not worried.

"All the business people I know look at us and say 'How are you going to make it?'" she says. "That's OK. I just couldn't see me in a suit all day.

"If you love theater, the goal is to stay in the field. Don't ask me how long I'll hang in till I give up, because I never give up."