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- Hi, name is Lianna Holston.
I'm a senior here at Stanford University,
majoring in Theater and Performance Studies,
and minoring in History of Medicine.
A bit about me, I'm a tour guide here on campus.
I'm also on the improv troupe,
the Stanford Improvisors or SIMPs, for short.
And I do a few shows every year, as well.
I'm currently writing my capstone project,
which is an hour of storytelling
called Things I Learned at Stanford.
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Typical day for me, wake up around 7:30 in the morning,
have breakfast, do some homework,
go for a run if it's not raining.
Have a meeting usually or do work
on a project with friends, have lunch at my house,
go to class in the afternoon,
have dinner at my house
and then improv practice usually at night,
followed by hanging out with friends
and doing more homework, and then bedtime.
- [Interviewer] Okay, so where are we now?
- We are in front of Memorial Auditorium,
which is our largest performance space on campus.
There's actually three theaters inside.
So the main one seats 1,700 people,
which is where they do a lot
of new student orientation stuff,
as well as big notable speakers come,
like Barack Obama was here a couple years ago for
a cybersecurity conference. - Nice.
- Yeah.
And then there's two other theaters in there, as well.
One is called Pigott, which is a little
side theater next to MemAud,
and then there's an upstairs one,
which is where I auditioned for Stanford, actually,
as a senior in high school, which was very cool.
And this used to be the home of the TAPS Department,
although it's been moved mostly across campus.
They have this new building called the Roble Arts Gym,
or Roble Theater, which is, it just underwent
a $28 million renovation for theater spaces
and dance rehearsal studios, which we're very stoked about.
- [Interviewer] And it's a nice building now.
- It's so nice, oh my gosh, it's really nice.
It's, like, stupidly nice.
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- [Interviewer] So right now we are on the main stage
of the MemAud, right?
- MemAud, yeah.
- Okay, great, I said that wrong. (chuckles)
- Yeah. (laughs)
- So, what goes on here?
- This is where our big productions go up.
So there's a student group called Ram's Head Theatricals,
which does the big musical every year.
So they're currently doing Chicago right now,
and that's what they're building the set for.
I was in Evita the musical my freshman year,
which was on the main stage.
And then this is, again,
Barack Obama stood kind of, like, right there
when we was here, which is cool.
And, like, Martin Luther King, Jr. came
and spoke on this stage in the 60s,
which is pretty awesome.
So, like, if ever they have really big name people,
that's the most seats on campus
so that's why they bring them here.
- I see, so, you've been involved
in a lot of theater extracurricularly,
but that is separate from your major.
- So the major itself is more academically-focused
and it's a bit more of a theoretical emphasis
on theater, rather than practical.
And so it comes with history of theater classes,
as well as more in-depth dramaturgical analysis of plays,
rather than performances of them,
although the TAPS Department does put on
a few shows every year.
And then there are about, I wanna say,
15 or so student theater groups,
which are doing productions all the time.
There's, like, four going on this weekend,
which is bananas.
But they're all over the place.
And those will usually be in smaller spaces
around campus, some of them are in the theater next door
or upstairs, or in just kind of random areas.
I just saw a play in a bathroom two nights ago.
- [Interviewer] Wow. - Which was insane.
- Was it a good bathroom?
- It, yes, that's an interesting question.
And, yeah, it was a good bathroom, I would say.
It was the men's restroom, outside in the main quad,
and they were doing Marat/Sade, do you know the play?
- No, tell me about it.
- Okay, so its full name is, okay here we go.
The Persecution and Assassination of
Jean-Paul Marat
as Performed by the
Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton
Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade.
It is a play within a play
and the premise is that these inmates
of the asylum are putting on this performance
that the Marquis de Sade has directed,
and so they used a bathroom for it,
because their idea was, the only space
within the asylum available for a performance
is a bathroom.
And it's really, it's just cool that the university
gives students the opportunity
to kind of get really creative
with what spaces they use.
- Oh, cool.
To get a degree in TAPS, what do you actually have to do?
- There are a few core classes that you have to take.
No, that's not even true.
There's one core class you have to take.
It's called TAPS 1,
and it's Introduction to Theater and Performance Studies.
And that is the biggest, like,
history of theater class.
So they talk about a lot of Brecht
and a lot of other, you know, theater artists
throughout the years, like Greek theater,
Roman theater, up through now.
And then, when I declared a major, it was different,
so they changed the major over the course
of my time here, and the requirements are now different.
And you can select specific tracks,
so you can select either an acting track,
a directing track, or I think a theater making,
which is either devising or playwriting,
and I believe they're also thinking
about adding on a technical side of the major, track.
But, for me, there are a few different fields.
I think it's like, performance studies is one of them,
and maybe, like, theater practice, and then electives.
So I really nailed it on the elective
my freshman year, and then since then,
a lot of those other classes are more theoretical ones,
which are, like, I took a class called
Rethinking the Ballerina, which was looking
at ballet and the history of it,
because the TAPS Department
is where the Dance Department is also housed,
so a lot of people who have a Dance minor
are technically TAPS minors,
and that's where those classes are offered, too.
- [Interviewer] Very cool.
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So, what is the academic culture at Stanford like?
- Hm, it depends, it varies a lot
from major to major,
especially because each major has a different number
of units required to finish that major.
So, in order to graduate,
you need 180 units in total.
My Theater major is 60 units, which means
I have 120 other units that I get to take
in my time at Stanford.
- Okay, so, what can you fill those other units with?
- A lot of Gen Ed requirements,
which are called the Ways,
which stands for Ways of Thinking/Ways of Doing, I think.
- Okay.
- And they cover creative expression,
social inquiry, scientific method and analysis,
applied quantitative reasoning,
sort of the broad, like, history, math.
- So no matter what you're studying at Stanford,
you have to take some math classes,
some science classes.
- Yeah, the cool thing, though,
is that they are so broad that there's a ton
of different courses offered in each category,
so each student can kind of find one
that satisfies their interests,
while also fulfilling that requirement.
- Right, and now, you also have a minor
in the History of Medicine.
- Yeah.
- So how'd you get into that?
- That was actually my sophomore year of high school.
Every student at a public school in Denver
had to participate in something called National History Day,
and I ended up doing a project
about the history of plastic surgery,
particularly during World War I,
and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
And so, when I came to Stanford, I took a couple classes
and then I went to Oxford, I went abroad to Oxford
my sophomore year, and did my tutorial
in History of Medicine, specifically
its advancements during wartime.
And that's how I really solidified my interest.
- So, in that case, you're actually
in a really good place to make this comparison.
How would you say the experiences you had
at Oxford and Stanford are different?
- Oxford, for me, was way more academically intense,
just in that you met one-on-one
with a tutor once a week,
and you defend your research paper to her or him,
which is terrifying.
And my tutor made me read my papers out loud to him,
which was truly the stuff of nightmares.
But, also a great learning experience.
And so that was the main focus for the quarter,
which I knew going into it,
whereas at Stanford my focuses are mainly, like,
productions that I'm working on and seeing friends,
and then academics definitely factor in,
but it's more of a balance of the three.
Whereas the academics sort of took more priority in Oxford.
- And would you say that, at Stanford,
it's, like, a competitive environment,
you feel like, or no?
- No, the word that gets used here the most is chill,
and it is very accurate, I mean people are-
- Really? - Yeah.
It's a remarkably relaxed group of people,
which I love a lot, 'cause I went
to a high school that was pretty competitive academically
and we would compare test scores and kind of talk a lot
about our grades and the metrics of them,
but here it's very much a supportive environment.
And the example that I use for that a lot is,
the reason I got this internship in New York
was because a Stanford alum had had it before I did,
and she called me the night before my interview
to do an hour of prep for it,
and that is what got me the job, basically,
besides my own merit and qualifications. (laughs)
Yeah.
- But yeah, but it's nice to see that, like,
Stanford students are really helping each other out.
- Yeah. - Wherever they can.
- It's a really nice environment to be,
I mean, literally a great environment,
but also just the academic environment,
is not a stressful one to be a part of.
- [Interviewer] How refreshing, yeah.
What would you say has been the most surprising thing
about your Stanford experience?
- I think the thing that surprised me the most
was the opportunities that they provide
for students who are working in the arts
to find work in the arts over the summer.
So, my sophomore year, I interned for a place
called The Public Theater in Manhattan,
through something called the Stanford Arts Institute.
And they give you the internship
and provide funding for the summer,
which covered my housing in New York City,
which as super dope. - Very cool.
- So that was the most pleasant surprise in my time here.
- And then what advice would you give
for students who are thinking about applying
to Stanford, aren't sure it's the right fit for them?
And maybe they can't even come visit.
- I would say, the most important thing is,
take care of yourself during your senior year,
like, senior fall is a very stressful time,
applications wise, and it's important
to remember that Stanford and colleges, like it or not,
this is totally the be-all, end-all of education.
But if you are looking here,
it's beautiful, obviously,
and it's important to know sort of
what environment you wanna be in,
in your time in college.
Like, if you want an urban environment,
Stanford is not that close to San Francisco.
I mean, it's close, but it's not in the city.
So that's why I love it here,
because you do get the nature experience.
And I would say also, just pay attention
to what you're thinking of studying
and what department you're looking into,
and really do your research
about the courses they offer and the requirements.
And then see if there are also student groups
that match your interests, as well.
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