Staring in a class near you

“I was four years old. I remember it so vividly. We were driving in the car and my mom was like ‘Hey, there’s this camp called Showbiz Kids, do you want to do it?’ and the rest was history,” Emily Robins, senior, said. She plans to major in Theatre Teacher Education next year at Illinois State.

Robins has starred in over 30 theater productions such as Schoolhouse Rock, Alice In Wonderland, Bye Bye Birdie, and more recently Guys and Dolls. In the past, Robins has served as an actress, costume designer, and student director.      

“It’s really just something that’s always been a part of me,” Robins said. “It’s given me all my friends and my future career, and it’s just everything to me.”

But even though theater has been her passion for so long, Robins says she realizes she’s “not gonna be on Broadway,” and that’s when she began questioning what to do with her future. 

“There’s something that we call burnout where you have all your dreams to be on Broadway, to be a movie star, [and] I definitely consider myself a burnt-out theater kid [because] I had to realize that’s not a realistic pathway for me, so I was really tossing on a bunch of different ideas for my major,” Robins said.

Eventually, Robins chose the Theatre Teacher Education Program, a course unique to Illinois State that offers students basic knowledge of acting, directing, design, and dramatic literature, as well as how to teach said skills. 

Theatre, however, wasn’t Robins’ first choice. As well as being proficient in acting, Robins has been in choir since she was in fourth grade and is a member of Bare Voices as well as the president of Concert Choir.

“Originally I wanted to keep music in my life the most because music has been one of the biggest things that’s impacted my life. [But] in the beginning of the year I was really lazy applying to colleges and I didn’t want to do auditions, so I ended up visiting Illinois State and I loved the Theater Ed program.”

Regardless of what she chooses to do with her life, Robins’ friends and family were there every step of the way.

“My parents [have] always been the most supportive people in my life. I know a bunch of my friends’ parents are always like ‘it’s not realistic, get a job.’ It’s [all] like, ‘make money, be a doctor, be a teacher,’ all that stuff. [But] my parents were always like, ‘do whatever you want, go on stage, be on Broadway, be an actress, whatever makes you happy,” Robins said.