When senior Ella Wang walked up to associate producing artistic director JC Schuster in the tech room at WaterTower Theatre, he immediately thought something was wrong. Instead, Wang told him “everything is amazing” and then announced that she got accepted to the Tisch program at NYU. Everyone around them started cheering and Schuster, who suddenly remembered what it felt being in her shoes, couldn’t help but feel excited for her.
“I felt as if I was watching the beginning of her journey,” Schuster said.
Wang pursues theater both inside and outside of school, participating in the theater magnet and interning at WaterTower Theatre. She will continue her passion by attending New York University to study theater next fall.
Wang first got introduced to the industry in the summer of sixth grade when she was taking voice lessons at a theater. Her mom encouraged her to take lessons after she noticed her growing interest in singing. At one of her voice lessons, a director came up to her and offered her a role in their original show “Love for Three Oranges.”
“I didn’t even actually have to audition,” Wang said. “She just cast me.”
Performing in the show made Wang realize how much she loved being on stage. She felt like it was meant for her, to pretend to be in a new world and perform. She ended up doing two more original shows with the same company. There she learned the theater basics like where is stage left and right. While she didn’t know anything advanced yet, performing for those shows is what ignited her passion.
Throughout middle school, Wang wasn’t able to perform in shows because of COVID, so she focused on singing, music and playing the viola. She tried taking theater in eighth grade at Westwood, but because few people signed up for the class, it ended up getting cancelled. At that time, Wang decided to dedicate herself to music production.
When it was time for Wang to choose her classes for her freshmen year, she decided to enroll in the theater magnet. While Wang still had a strong interest for theater, her mom wasn’t sure if she would continue liking it. So when she asked her mom to audition for the theater magnet, her mom told her to also apply to the science magnet just in case she ended up dropping out.
“Theater is a hard field to go into, so it’s understandable why she’d be nervous about that,” Wang said.
Theater director Emily Whitman said from the moment she met Wang in her freshmen magnet class, she could tell she was really eager to make a name for herself. Anytime they were doing anything in class, she would jump in with both feet and say “let’s do it”.
In her freshman year, Wang composed and played music for the show “The Love for Three Oranges” for the UIL One Act Play competition. Whitman said because of her work, they were able to advance in the competition as far as they did because the judges were so impressed.
Wang said performing shows for the theater magnet is what really built the momentum for her passion.
Wang said she realized how much she loved being an actor and telling other people’s stories on stage after performing in the show “The Trail of the Big Bad Wolf” during her sophomore year. Wang played one of the three little pigs for an audience mostly made up of children. The kids laughed whenever the wolf chased Wang across the stage and whenever she said her lines. She could tell whenever the children was enjoying her performance based on their reactions.
“Being able to make other people laugh is also a huge factor into why I wanted to continue to do theater,” Wang said.
In the same year, Wang participated in the Texas Thespian Festival, a convention where theater students go to take workshops, compete, learn new skills and watch other high schools put on productions. She ended up winning superior in all of her individual events and advanced to the International Thespian Festival. She was really excited because some upperclassmen told her it was really hard to advance. When she told her parents, her dad freaked out because it meant something to her. He has always been unwaveringly supportive.
Whitman said throughout Wang’s acting career, she’s seen her get more humble. Wang’s constantly looking for feedback on her work and wants to know how she can improve.
“I think that has helped her be more confident in her auditions and more confident in her performances overall,” Whitman said.
Whitman said Wang is one of her students who consistently puts in effort to deliver good work and improve. With the show “SIX,” Wang knew her character Anne Boleyn backwards and forwards. Yet she would still come to Whitman with questions like, “If I did this, would that be ok?,” “Does this align with the character and the vision?,” and “Was this run okay?”
“Every time she’s given a role, given a task, she dedicates herself completely to it and legitimately works toward being the very best she can be,” Whitman said.
For Wang’s senior project, she directed a play called “Rogue’s Gallery.” Since the show had a very large cast, she had to make sure the rehearsal schedule was doable for everybody, everyone had enough time to learn their part and the production value was good. Whitman said this project showed her consistent dedication to theater.
Wang applied for an internship at WaterTower Theatre for the Professional Internship Program during the spring semester of her senior year. In Feburary, Schuster met with Wang at a cafe for an interview. Schuster said he was intrigued by her willingness to listen, understand and learn. He could tell this wasn’t just an internship for her but an opportunity to gather information about the theater industry.
“What’s funny is when I sat down with her to speak with her and and talk about all these things, she probably asked me just as many questions as I asked her,” Schuster said. “And that showed me that she was eager to learn and she wanted to be a part of this internship.”
At her internship, she got to experience the “full workings of a professional theater” such as administrative work and working with the directors on making production decisions. She also experienced the artistic decisions a theater makes such as choosing costume and wig try-ons.
“Not only was she an employee of Water Tower Theater, but I truly believe that she was getting a full hands on experience of what really, really happens,” Schuster said.
Wang said everyday at WaterTower is different. Her first couple of times there, she helped the theater with auditions for the “School of Rock” show. She was in and out of the audition room, bringing people in and watching them tryout.
She said RHS runs like a professional theater so interning at WaterTower is very similar to what she’s used to. While she wasn’t able to make any decision on the cast, she got to meet new people and provide some input.
“It definitely allowed me to know what is going on behind the table and casting,” Wang said. “So then that can kind of help me when I’m auditioning for shows in the future.”
Schuster said during her last couple of days at the theater, they were packing up boxes, going through headshots and filing things. The whole time Wang was asking him questions for her future journey in the business. She asked question after question about New York City, the audition process and how to get in the industry.
“I remember walking away from that and going home and having dinner with my wife and explaining and that’s what we need in today’s time is people who are willing to listen, they’re willing to learn and they’re willing to go beyond just the job,” Schuster said. “And that was one thing for me that really set her apart.”
When Wang auditioned for NYU, she had to do it virtually because she was performing for multiple shows at that time. In her audition, she did one comedic, one dramatic monologue and 16 to 32 measure bars of music. She also did a dance audition but since she couldn’t be in the dance room to learn the choreography, she was sent a video and had to teach it to herself.
Wang was at her internship when she found out she got accepted into NYU. She was folding a bunch of playbills, a book with the cast’s names, when she decided to check the status page. She knew results were coming out so throughout the day, she was stressed out and constantly checking her phone for any updates. She even tried taking her mind off it by going on a hike for her AP Environmental Science class.
At 3 p.m., Wang opened the status page and freaked out when she read she got accepted. She felt shocked because she thought she wasn’t going to make it. She immediately called her family to tell them the good news. When she told her dad, he said, “Well, that’s a huge hit to our wallet.” Her dad was all for it though. He said he was 200 percent willing to let her go because he knew it’s the school she wanted to get into.
“NYU was my top school,” Wang said. “I get to go to my dream school now so that’s really exciting.”
Whitman said Wang was so nervous the weeks leading up to decision day. She kept saying, “I didn’t get in. It’s fine. I know I didn’t.” And then when the acceptance came, Whitman just said, “See? I told you.”
“As their teacher, I see more in them than they’re sometimes willing to see themselves,” Whitman said. “And so to have somebody else validate them in that way was really satisfying.”
Whitman said as Wang leaves high school to start her career, she knows Wang can accomplish anything she sets her mind onto because she’s talented, works so hard and is hungry for growth.
“I think that New York is the best place for her to be able to do that,” Whitman said. “And I’m really looking forward to the day when she calls me up and says, ‘Hey, Mrs. Whitman, I’m making my Broadway premiere, and I’m going to put your name on the list so you can come backstage and talk to me.'”
Wang said since New York is home to Broadway, one of her biggest goals is to make it there one day. However, at NYU, she won’t be able to perform in main stage shows until her junior year, so she plans to use the first two years to get her basic training done and hopefully perform in local productions.
“I guess right now, my main goal is surviving New York City,” Wang said.
