{"id":312386,"date":"2026-05-12T19:23:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T19:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/312386\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T19:23:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T19:23:06","slug":"being-on-stage-terrified-her-so-she-majored-in-theater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/312386\/","title":{"rendered":"Being on stage terrified her. So she majored in theater."},"content":{"rendered":"

This first-person narrative was written from an interview with Kelly Mou, who\u2019s graduating with a degree in theater and performance studies this May.\u00a0Have someone you think we should write about? Contact\u00a0[email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was this Chinese film series I watched when I was younger. It was called Tiny Times. I was captivated by the drama and the boldness of the characters, who were always taking risks and having adventures. I must have been in third grade \u2014 I didn\u2019t speak English then.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AKelly moved between Shanghai and California a lot as a young kid, and it was hard for her to maintain friendships. To keep her company, she\u2019d watch Chinese dramas about adventure and friendship.<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Kelly Mou<\/p>\n

My family moved around a lot between Shanghai and California for my parents\u2019 work, and it was hard for me to maintain friendships. I was a lonely child. Whenever I watched Tiny Times, though, I felt so vibrant. The characters were such good companions; just seeing them interact on the screen felt like I was interacting with them. I thought, \u2018That would be a great feeling to give to other people.\u2019<\/p>\n

I officially moved to the U.S. \u2014 first to Los Angeles, then to Palo Alto \u2014 with my dad and stepmom in 2015. I was in sixth grade. In China, I\u2019d been with the same cohort of students every day, but in the states it was different: Every class had a whole new group of people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I felt anxious about being Chinese and studying in the U.S. Classmates would always tell me, \u2018Kelly, you have an accent when you speak.\u2019 Most school subjects came easily to me, but communication was really hard. I had a lot of anxiety around speaking English in front of people. Then I developed a speech impediment.<\/p>\n

When I feel a lot of fear towards something, I always gravitate towards it. I want to do things that really challenge me. So I decided to take an intro to drama class.<\/p>\n

Nothing in the world challenges me like acting does.<\/p>\n

In the class, we did monologues and a final showcase. I was even cast as Juliet in The Seussification of Romeo and Juliet, a satirical parody that reimagines Shakespeare\u2019s classic tragedy by replacing the heavy drama with absurd, over-the-top character tropes. It was really fun, but I was still terrified. After that, my anxiety got so bad I had to take a break from acting.<\/p>\n

When I feel a lot of fear towards something, I always gravitate towards it.<\/p>\n

When I got to UC Berkeley, I was planning on majoring in English and was like, \u2018Oh, I\u2019ll just take an acting class and see what happens.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

During my first semester, I helped out a friend on a short film and my anxiety got so bad that my speech became really rapid, I just could not control it, and I was so embarrassed. I went to my acting instructor, Patrick Russell, crying because I was so upset and he said, \u2018We can help you. Take this class on voice and speech with Jessica Berman Hirigoyen.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

That class helped me feel more comfortable with performing. I learned a lot about breath work, and how to use techniques to release my natural voice and stay connected to my body.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the summer after my first year, I co-founded Untitled Theater Company<\/a> with a classmate. It\u2019s a student-run acting group where we use minimal design and focus on really good acting.<\/p>\n

\"AAlthough Kelly is still unsure how she feels about acting most days, nothing challenges her the way it does. And she\u2019s always up for a good challenge. <\/p>\n

Jay Yamada<\/p>\n

Untitled performed its first show \u2014 excerpts from some of our favorite Shakespeare plays, including Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing \u2014 in 2023 on the lawn in front of the Valley Life Sciences Building on campus. Over the next few years, we put on a new show every semester in the Ciel Creative Space in Berkeley, wrapping this semester with a contemporary adaptation of Anton Chekhov\u2019s 1896 play The Seagull. We\u2019re going to pass the company to other Berkeley students to run, so hopefully it will keep going after we\u2019ve graduated this May.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Every day I wake up and I can\u2019t tell if I like acting or not. I still get really nervous sometimes, but I also love bringing characters to life and making them feel like real people. And I know it\u2019ll always challenge me no matter how hard I work at it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When people ask me what my plans are after graduation, I don\u2019t have an answer. I don\u2019t really plan my life like that. I never buy a plane ticket more than a day in advance. I\u2019m a huge risk taker \u2014 I think it\u2019s a pretty good way of living, for me anyway. I\u2019m just excited to see what will happen next.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This first-person narrative was written from an interview with Kelly Mou, who\u2019s graduating with a degree in theater…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[123280,143,145,144,2239,3183],"class_list":["post-312386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-commencement-2026","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-performing-arts","tag-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}