Megan Branch, a senior in the College of Fine Arts, is graduating in May. After high school at Santa Fe Prep, Branch went to the University of Oregon, but said she didn’t fit in. She has been to Spain and back, only to discover that what she really wanted in a theater program was here in Albuquerque, along with the sun.
Daily Lobo: Tell me your story. How did you get into acting? Where are you from and all that?
Megan Branch: I’m from Santa Fe and I started theater when I was eight at the children’s theater there. I did that for a long time and did musicals. And then I just really loved it, and it was the only thing I loved to do. I didn’t really play sports or anything, and in high school I did theater there. I went to summer camps and stuff like that and then I actually applied to conservatories my senior year and I didn’t get in anywhere. I applied for musical theater originally because I thought that was what I wanted to do. So I went to the University of Oregon and I did a lot of theater there and I realized that applying for musical theater was stupid because it’s so competitive. And straight theater was more what I loved to do anyways. I was probably the only brown person in the theater department so it was kind of skewed in the way they cast people and I didn’t know where I fit in. Then I studied abroad in Barcelona for a semester and I realized that I didn’t really want to go back to Oregon. So I wanted to come back here and I wanted the sun. I came back home and I really like the theater department here. I’ve gotten really involved and it’s so much more diverse. I’ve only been here a year and a half now.
DL: You were talking about how you felt like you couldn’t find your place in Oregon. What was that like?
MB: I couldn’t have a lot of main roles because a lot of them were kind of ingénue that were white, blonde (and)
blue-eyed girls, so they stuck me in the background or in the ensemble. But there were things that weren’t like that. That was a really cool experience but it just felt like they didn’t really know where to put me.
DL: How is that different from here?
MB: I think there is more of an interest in Chicano theater, and because of that it’s already just there. Even if it’s not a piece like that, it is more diverse here in general so people are already used to that in their mentality.
DL: Is there anything really significant that you learned from going abroad?
MB: Probably that there is a huge world out there. It sounds kind of cheesy, but there is so much more than just that microcosm that people think they’re a part of, and there is a lot of stuff going on outside of that. It gave me a lot of perspective, and it made me realize that I wasn’t happy in Oregon. And that I wanted to come home. I kind of just fell in love with the city and the people and with speaking Spanish all the time. I think it was the most independent I’ve ever had to be so that was really good for me. I had to come back and find a new sense of myself that was apart from high school, and apart from Oregon. It was just me for the first time.
DL: How did that help your acting?
MB: It helped a lot because I came back, and I didn’t really care so much about what other people thought. I just kind of did it and went for it. And now I’m not so self-conscious and I’m not so insecure when I’m on stage. I used to be really in my head about things when I was acting and every movement was critically thought out.
DL: What is the most rewarding role you’ve ever played?
MB: It just happened, actually. It was this Master’s thesis project, directed by Laurel Butler and it was called “The Great Negocio.” This was a devised piece so we all wrote it as a cast but she kind of gave us some base work. It was about this clown that gets lost in this Wizard-of-Oz-type world. And he gets dropped in it and he is trying to make sense of it and find his way out. But the world is corporate America, and crazy absurd people that exist within it. We were all these stereotypical corporate people, but just over the top. So, I played a motivational speaker. And my dad wanted me to go to one of these motivational seminars because I’m graduating. So he sent me there for a weekend and it was the weirdest experience of my life, and probably one of the scariest. I was inspired by that, and my character did things like made people walk over hot coals or have five-second dance parties. It was just so much fun. Most of my college life I’ve done a lot of serious stuff that’s depressing or heartfelt, so it was so nice to just let loose and completely be over the top and make fun of myself. It was a really good pinnacle of my college life.
DL: So do you feel
motivated now?
MB: I definitely learned something, but more than anything I saw it as a complete inspiration. And it’s really cool because I didn’t know how I was going to use it, and I was just glad it was over. I was able to turn it around and make it art which was really cool.
