Meet our Campus Celebrity, Leila Teitelman! When she isn’t doing amazing things with the Theater and Arts department at Conn, she is watching her favorite guilty pleasure TV show. Read more to learn about Leila’s awesome on and off campus experiences throughout her college career, and her plans for next year as an alum!
Class Year: 2015
Hometown: Keene, NH
Major: Theater
Minor: Music Performance
Extracurricular activities: I participate in The Williams St Mix, The Main Stage Theater Department Productions, Wig and Candle, Theater Student Advisory Board; Working for Onstage, The Costume Shop, and as a student musician in the Dance dept. I’m also currently working on an Honors Thesis for the Theater Dept.
Tell us about your internship! This past summer I worked as an intern at New Dramatists, which is a collective of professional support for new and emerging playwrights. It was amazing to be involved in the creation and fostering of so many new and profound pieces of theater. It really encouraged me to keep pursuing theatrical writing as a form of expression and introduced me to so many incredible artists.
How was your study abroad experience? I studied “away” at The National Theater Institute at The Eugene O’Neill Theater center last spring. It’s only 15 minutes down the road, but you feel a world away. There were 19 students from across America in our ensemble and we went to classes for 15 hours a day 7 days a week working on various aspects of theater. For a culmination we created our own theater piece on Eugene O’Neill and his connection to New London. It was a pretty crazy, intense but life-changing experience.
How did you get so involved in theater/dance/music? I’ve always been interested in the arts. I came to Conn intent on being a theater and/or music major. My involvement in the Dance Department surprised me, but I love the whole arts community here. Everyone is very supportive and creative minded and all the professors make it very possible to study and produce things of interest to individual students.
Guilty Pleasure? I think I’ve watched all the American Horror Story there is to watch.
How did you spend Fall Weekend? I was stage managing an awesome production of Detroit in Tansil theater. I spent Fall Weekend in a dark booth calling cues over a headset, but it was fun.
What are your post graduation plans? I have a mini-heart-attack when people ask that question. I’m hoping to get an apprenticeship at a theater (hopefully on the West Coast) in some capacity, and spend a year as an acting or costume apprentice. If not, I plan to be the new star of Orange Is the New Black, because that seems totally doable.
Do you have a favorite professor or class taken at Conn? One of my favorite classes was my freshman seminar, which I was accidentally placed in. It was a collaboration between the dance and religion departments and it really taught me to synthesize all of my learning here in a very liberal arts-y way. I also worship David Jaffe. He’s the chair of my department and I adore all of his support and advice. I have weekly meetings with him and I’m sure he’s sick of me after four years of chats.
How do you feel about being Campus Celebrity? It’s a very nice gesture. I’m happy to contribute to this campus in any way, and if people want to draw attention to involved, hard-working students, that’s very kind of them. Thanks everyone!