Speaker: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast by the hosts and guests may or may not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Miami University.

Speaker: Freshman year I came in undecided.

Speaker: I'm finance, entrepreneurship, anthropology.

Speaker: I'm a senior architecture student.

Speaker: I'm involved in the blockchain club here.

Speaker: I'm very passionate about studying abroad.

Speaker: Classes are going great.

Speaker: And then obviously very involved with my sorority.

Speaker: I'm thriving.

Meredith Aliff 

Hi, I'm Meredith Aliff. And this is major insight. This is the podcast where we talk college life with amazing students about how to find your place and purpose on campus.

Acting is life for Jonathan Erwin, who has been inspired to move an audience to laughter, tears and applause ever since he began performing at a very young age, and as a double theatre and Arts Management and Entrepreneurship major. Jonathan is also very active in the theatre community here on campus. We'll also talk about learning how to break the mold, to expect the unexpected, to embrace the freedom you'll find in college, and to be willing to try new things and to just go with the flow. And my first question that I have for you is who are you?

Jonathan Erwin 

Oh, hi, my name is Jonathan Erwin. I'm a senior studying theater and arts management at Miami University. I love everything -- Spider Man, video game, Super Smash Bros, LEGO, Star Wars. I'm into everything. I'm into life.

Meredith Aliff 

I love it. So let's take you back to before you came to college, what was your kind of thought process with applications to college? All that good stuff.

In high school I went to St. Xavier in Louisville, Kentucky. It was an all boys Catholic College Preparatory School and I was looking for someone to challenge me, but I was also ... I didn't feel stuck at St. x. I felt very free, but I like knew there was so much more to explore, and applied to a lot of colleges and I knew I could have gone to Kentucky for a little bit of money, and or free like UK for this Governor's School for the Arts I got into when I was in high school.

Meredith Aliff 

I went to GSA as well.

Jonathan Erwin 

You did not. What did you go for?

Meredith Aliff 

I did vocal performance.

Jonathan Erwin 

I went for acting! that's so cool!

Meredith Aliff 

Anyways ...

Jonathan Erwin 

Anyway. And so I applied to a lot of colleges, went to go see a lot of colleges. Colleges in Chicago and also in Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, and Miami was kind of the last ... not last pick, just the last stop, and went here. Auditioned for the theater department, liking theater and it was my passion. I wanted to do it. I loved film. But it was my option... was my only option, was only thing I was really kind of interested in. So I went and I auditioned with Julius Rashard, who was the chair at the time in the Theatre Department. And the audition was a monologue, like normal. And also one other creative thing you've ever done. And could be anything, could be a poem you wrote in second grade, could be anything creative, anything, a song you wrote. And I brought in a Spider Man costume I had made for Spider Man Homecoming in 2017. And I made like his homemade suit. And my mom helped me like sew the mask and I spray painted it and made gloves and cardboard web shooters and cut it all up. And so, I was really proud of that. And so I brought that in, and Julia loved it. And she took me on, she made a student come take me on a tour, just a little... just the theater department, just that building. And going downstairs, I remember vividly everyone saying hi, and everyone being just supportive. They didn't even know who I was. They didn't know what I was doing there. But it was just eye opening. And it just made me feel so warm and welcomed. And not just in the theater. It was Miami's campus to -- walk ability and the buildings and it all just seemed like this culture that I was so in love with.

Meredith Aliff 

Yeah. I mean, I think exactly the same thing. Like when I came to Miami for the first time, immediately, just like the friendliness was what took me in I was like, There's no way that everybody's this nice, like, be serious. So as somebody that has never had an education in theater, or arts management, can you kind of walk me through what your classes look like? Is it lectures? Is it hands on? Like, what kind of things are you doing during your week?

Jonathan Erwin 

Totally hands on, it is such a stark difference when I go into like Farmer and take like a lecture class. Because everyone, the cohort, a theater cohort, I have been in the same class with the same 10 People for the last three years. And so it's ... we ... I see these people every single day, whether it be in school or in like plays and films and the other things we're doing, and so it's totally hands on studio classes. Some of them are more lecture based, like theater history class that we have to take. But at the end of the day, we are up and moving with.... We sat down in class of the day and we were like, God it's nice outside. And Dr. Armstrong runs classes, sh's like "let's have class outside." So we can go walk outside and just sit in the grass and have a conversation about the play we were just reading. It's just so low formality, the way you talk to teachers, the way you talk to students. It's just very we're all .... and I see the teachers as mentors, but they just want to be seen as people who can help.

Meredith Aliff 

Yeah. Would you say that that's kind of parallel to the industry itself as well, like super hands on? I feel like it's ...

Jonathan Erwin 

Totally. And I've been in kind of three big productions so far. And it's really kind of a... it's a stark difference from like theater, which I've been doing for the last 16 years where it's very ... you have rehearsal, and then you're the performance but in film, which is what I want to go into, it's... you show up and you're ready, like, there's no rehearsal for it. Like, it's up to you to be ready to go. And as an actor, instead of being kind of like the main spotlight of like theatrical productions, you're now just kind of this entity. So when you get to film sets, there are 1000 people doing 1000 different jobs. And they all love it with such tremendous joy, that the actors are just like, "Okay, we're ready for you now, you can come on." And I love that. I love being part of this giant machine cog. And so I think in film, it's, uh, it feels a little more structured. And you can't ... I feel like in theater it's a lot more fluid, but I think films very set in stone, which is interesting.

Meredith Aliff 

Very interesting. So are there any teachers or classes that you kind of want to give a shout out today? Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's really interesting, because I've heard that from every single person I've talked to. They have somebody. And I think it's really important to find a professor and adviser, somebody like that in college, who you feel like really knows you, and wants to know you, and wants to help you. So that's amazing. Great. So outside of class, you are quite busy. Shall we dive into all of the things you do outside of class.

Jonathan Erwin 

In arts management, Todd Stewart, who runs the major is probably one of the greatest professors and we tell him all the time, he knows every single major, every single minor, every single person who's a co major, he knows what you're interested in, what you're doing on the weekends, and he helps you. The other day, like, I'm looking to go... I want to do acting stuff. But I saw the Disney Cruise and being Spider Man on Disney Cruise, and I said, "Todd, I might want to do that." Like, I'd love to be on a cruise for a year and play spider man in a costume with kids. And 10 seconds later, he emailed me a contact, like, for it. And he was in the class, and he said, "Yeah, I just sent you a contact with her ... name's Abby, she works on the cruise lines. Yeah, just give her an email." So he is just so into it. And he's committed to helping people. It's so apparent in the way he teaches, which is very, very hands on. And, "let's have a conversation in this class for two hours," instead of putting up a PowerPoint on the board. So I love that. On the theater side, Oluchi Nwokocha, who is also an actor, looking for agencies, being in films just like we are ... like I am. And so she has helped me tremendously with getting opportunities and contacts in Cincinnati and talking to agencies. And it's fun to just have a teacher who's doing the same exact thing you are and dealing with the same exact "Oh, I didn't get booked for that." Like, I remember I filmed an audition for her like in her office. Like, I brought my ring camera set up. And I think just having kind of that one on one. connection is just something special.  Sure! I like to be busy. I think it's just kind of whether I'm hanging out with friends or doing film stuff where we go to Hamilton for 13 hours and film something or I'm in plays, I have rehearsal. I'm incMiami's play right now With Two Wings. And we have rehearsal three hours a night, five days a week. And it's a lot. So you have class all day, you got like four studio classes, which are like two hours each. And I come home. I have to make like a chicken burrito and then go to play practice for three hours. And it's just ... I love being busy. And it's ...whether that be mentally reading books, watching movies, or participating in art, doing art. So film... acting takes up a lot of my time. But I also do other little things. I love hanging out with friends, love taking walks, going up town to Skippers, or just just walking around makes me so happy.

Meredith Aliff 

Yeah, I mean, it's a gorgeous campus. How can you not like soak it all in as much as you can. And you get to walk around campus all the time. You're a tour guide, right?

Jonathan Erwin 

I WAS a tour guide. I did it last semester. And once I got back from Luxembourg... I'd always wanted to be one. It's just timing-wise theater class are in the morning. So it's just kind of... I never had enough time. But last semester I did, and I think... I love this school. I love people. I love talking. And I loved it. I was good at it. I like telling stories and I thought it was very ... And what I like about Miami's tour guide system is that they don't give you a script, like, they give you like a route that you go on. Like you have to hit these points. But tell your own stories, like, and that's what I loved about it. Because I thought I was gonna have to memorize a script. And I didn't and I loved that. I loved it. But this semester I just am so ... I wish I could keep doing that, but I'm just so Busy.

Meredith Aliff 

So you said you studied abroad?

Jonathan Erwin 

Oh my gosh.

Meredith Aliff 

Can you tell me about that?

Jonathan Erwin 

Best six months of my life. The one thing I want to do when I went to college, the one thing I always asked on every college tour I was at was, "What's your study abroad program like." It was the one thing I wanted to do. And I knew it was four years out. I knew I wouldn't go until junior year, but I wanted to so badly. And I think I was just in love with the culture of Europe and backpacking and trains, and decided ... and when I heard Miami's program, which has a campus in Luxembourg, it's right there ready for you with Miami students with Miami teachers, with my Miami friends. And so I did it. It was so ... I had like my three good friends. We all signed up for it, all got in for fall semester junior year. I lived with a host family who I still talk to, Sheila, and her mom. Sheila's son Lou, who was 15. I built Legos with him in his room and we watched Family Guy in French together. So I had the greatest time, like, it taking the train every day to the chateau, which was a 30 minute ride and was packed with full of people and students, like, high schools that were around the area. I went to 13 Different countries. Each weekend, we went somewhere new, finding a $2 plane ticket to Venice, and getting the airport ... and they said that I didn't have a seat and like and ... or trying to find train tickets to get to Rome or Pompeii. It everything is so perfect. And so me. And driving my own boat on Lake Como, Santorini, Greece, Swiss Alps, everything was perfect. Even the academics of it all was so cool. Getting there and starting class on Monday and our professor, Dr. Gordon, would be like "Where you guys going this weekend?" Someone would say, Dublin. And he'd go, "we'll learn about Dublin this week." And so we learn about like Dublin and how like the Roman Empire ... that's funny. I went to Roman secret aqueducts that Dr. G knew about that are like in the middle of nowhere. We'd take these buses and they drop us off on this, like dirt road and we're like, "where are we?" and we'd walk for like five minutes and come across this just gorgeous ... No one else's. They're gorgeous, like, over the fields, like French countryside. And there's this ruin. We're standing on ancient ruined Roman aquaducts, but it was the greatest six months of my life.

Meredith Aliff 

Yeah, absolutely. So I went this past summer for six weeks. So I was in Gordon's class as well. And were his last Lux people. He came home with us. When you were talking about the $2 plane ticket and like you didn't have a seat, and all this stuff. Like, that was kind of my experience as well. There's something so exciting about it. That's just so different from what we do here. I think we very much established ourselves in our lives back home, that then you go there and you're completely in a new world. You have to figure everything out. Yeah, it was frantic. But just so exciting and fun. And, gosh, those six weeks I don't think I slept at all because ...

Jonathan Erwin 

You guys had such a quick time to do everything.

Meredith Aliff 

Right, well, that's the thing. We couldn't justify sleeping. I'm like "No naps. Zero." like we can get our six hours at night. And then we're trucking through the day. That's it. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, taking all of this stuff that you've done in college so far. We're finishing up, senior year. What is your plan? Do you have one?

Jonathan Erwin 

I do. Now here's the thing, I think, about me is that I am set on acting, and I love film acting and that's what I want to do for the rest of my life. So my plan is, if it goes well, is I'd love to go to LA and just start, and just ... and I've made the connections -- the professor's here. The agencies I know in Cincinnati, the people I know in LA. I think I could get the ball rolling there, even if it hurts and I get 1000 no's before I get a yes, I'm ready for it. And I say that knowing that that might change, and I know that thinking that my life might drag into a cruise ship to be Spider Man for a year. It might drag me to Chicago, might drive me somewhere that's not acting. And that's kind of what I love about living is that it changes, and I am ... I'm even more excited for the change than I am to act, even though it's my passion. I tell you, it's my passion. I've got websites for it and headshots and a resume. I'm excited for my life to change and I'll go with the flow. If that takes me one way, if I start doing woodworking or something, I'm down for that, if that's what I want to do, do it future Jonathan, like, I'm begging you to do something. Yeah.

Meredith Aliff 

For sure! I think that's a really great mindset to have, even as seniors in high school coming into college is: it's okay to have a plan. Perfectly fine to be like, "This is my ideal situation. This is what I would like to do right now." But I worry for the people that I graduated high school with that were so, like, "This has to happen this semester, and this has to happen this semester, and then I'm going to grad school." And, like, the odds that it goes exactly to plan is so low. So it's better to have the mindset of like, "sure you can plan ahead and be ready, but expect change and expect things to be different." So do you think that's something that you've picked up in college? Or have you kind of always been go with the flow?

Jonathan Erwin 

I think I definitely picked it up in college. I think just ... in high school, I was very ... St. X was very structured, rigid, uniforms, masks, everything was so uniform and tradition. And so, I think I got my sturdiness from that, and my love for rules and following the rules, being loyal, that honor, that love for someone, something, an idea. But I think Miami, this freedom that you get when you get to college, made me realize, the friends that I make, like, a lot of my friends are ... now I'm friends with everyone in theater apartment, but the people I hang out with aren't theater majors. They're doing completely different fields, but we have the same passions for the same loving life and loving people. And I think those people have definitely opened me up to seeing the world in a different way.

Meredith Aliff 

Absoutely. Well, I would have to agree. You're just surrounded by so many amazing people, if you look for them, like, you can't just sit around on your butt and hope to find all these amazing connections with all these amazing different people. But I'm in an a capella group. I've met fantastic people through that.

Jonathan Erwin 

Which one are you in?

Meredith Aliff 

Miami misfits. I'm the music director.

Jonathan Erwin 

That's so cool.

Meredith Aliff 

Yeah. Yeah, it's been absolutely the best organization I could have ever joined. And I've met so many fantastic people, but you kind of have to put yourself out there a little bit, and find things that you like about the people around you, and maybe things that you don't really like about the people around you. And it sounds like you found a really good network of people that want to live the way that you do and just experience life as it comes. So, super exciting. Super exciting. Well, what are some of the biggest challenges that you would say you've had to overcome as a college student?

Jonathan Erwin 

I think time management is something that I think a lot of us struggle with, like, in a field that ... everyone's different. In a field that requires you to do four hour rehearsals every night and filming, that takes 20 hours a day. That was an exaggeration. It gets hard when you want to do the things you want to do and you don't have the time for them. I said "yes" to a lot of things I probably shouldn't have said "yes" to. And that didn't take away. It almost enhanced the experience. But it made me really tired. It made me really tired, and exhausted, and it took away from schoolwork from friends. And I love my friends and I love taking care of myself and being with friends and living more than anything. So I think that's a big conflict I have is doing that balance between work ... I mean, academics and life.

Meredith Aliff 

Yeah, time management is tough. It's definitely tough. And as somebody who is Go, go, go, go, go go go all the time. I can't sit still at all, like, taking an hour nap. I feel guilty. I'm, like, I should have been doing something, like, I should have... But you have to, sometimes, just take a break, take a breather, it's all going to be just fine. Okay, so this is usually a hard question. If you could go back and talk to yourself as a freshman in college, maybe let's say your night before your first day of school as a college student. What would you say to yourself now?

Jonathan Erwin 

I would tell Jonathan freshman year to wear his heart on his sleeve, in everything he does, in the friends that he makes, in his classes, in his extracurriculars, in his family and going home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and letting people know how he feels, I think, can take him a long way.

Meredith Aliff 

Yeah, I love that. Wear your heart on your sleeve. That's awesome. Well do you have anything else before we close out today? Anything else you want to make sure to say? This is it. This is all you got.

Jonathan Erwin 

Let's see ...

Meredith Aliff 

And then we're kicking you right to the curb?

Jonathan Erwin 

I don't think so.

Meredith Aliff 

Okay, well, it has been such a pleasure talking with you. I've loved hearing more about you. And I'm excited to see where you go. I'll see you in the movie's some day.

Jonathan Erwin 

Oh yeah. Yeah, Thank you so much.

Meredith Aliff 

Jonathan Erwin is a double major in theater and arts management and entrepreneurship. After graduation, he plans to move to LA to pursue his goal of becoming a film actor and his dream of one day winning an Oscar. If you've enjoyed this episode of major insight, please share it with your friends, family members or anyone interested in college life. Many more episodes are now available wherever podcasts are found.