Next Generation: Paris Whalen

To take on the role of someone else entirely demands mental and emotional faculties into which you might not otherwise tap — for University of Sioux Falls (USF) theatre and psychology major Paris Whalen, that interplay between what her professor Joe Obermueller referred to as “theatre as an act of therapy” has rung true in her collegiate arts experience.

Paris Whalen

“Being able to connect with yourself and create an awareness within yourself both physically and emotionally to be able to portray someone else — it takes a level of empathy and complexity to go into a different head space like that,” Whalen said of theatrical performance. “To find the ties and the similarities and differences between you and a character is really interesting. It creates a unique connection between yourself and an audience member that you can't really find in any other art form in that way… at least in a physical medium.”

The Eagan, Minn., native grew up surrounded by the arts, both of her parents being musicians. Her mother, a voice and piano teacher and occasional musical director, had a major influence on her early interest in choral music.

“I grew up homeschooled, and my first theatre exposure was an all-girls homeschool choir,” Whalen said. “At the end of middle school we started putting on musicals for the kids who couldn’t necessarily participate in the public-school or community-theatre shows.”

This early love of the artform of theatre drove the USF senior to tack a theatre major onto her psychology pursuits. “I knew that I could add another major, and I really wanted to do something that just followed a passion rather than something that I knew would make money. I just really fell in love with the community and the fostering of original artwork here at USF.”

Her expression of original work culminated in the creation of her recent senior project, The Other Side, which included USF student performers in the campus’s black-box theater space.

“(The music came from) an album that a family friend created 10-12 years ago,” Whalen said of the inspiration behind the project. “And way back then when I first heard it, I just fell in love with the artist’s lyricism and the pictures that she created. The whole idea of her album was that it was based on this small town and you go through a journey of stories of all these random little characters.

“She had always had the dream of making it a full musical and making a natural production of it. And then I was like, ‘Hey, I have the ability and resources. I care so much about this music and the message that it brings. That's something that I want to share with others, because this show as a whole sheds light on an interesting aspect of humanity and both the joys but also the plights of being a human.’”

The production side of the event proved the most informative for Whalen, from writing a script to the nitty-gritty of producing a show. “There's only so much that you can learn from a textbook — it's really just going through the practical and realizing, ‘Oh, I need to make programs… and how many do I need to print off?’ All those things that you never think about when you're an actor in the show.

“So I just gained so much more appreciation for all of the aspects of theatre and each little piece that goes into an entire show. It was an all-consuming yet extremely gratifying experience to do, I would say.”

With her USF academic experience winding down, Whalen is grateful for many of these sorts of eye-opening moments that have shaped her as a theatre artist, from getting the opportunity to play Wednesday Addams in the university’s production of The Addams Family: The Musical to exposing her love of stage-management and technical theatre.

“I love the organizational aspects,” she said. “It's a nice in-between of the two worlds of acting and directing. And I really enjoy stagehanding — the small, minute things. It's nice to take a step back once in a while and to still be in the world of theatre, but not always taking on the stress or the energy of being on stage.”

This outlet has given Whalen the ultimate form of expression for herself, an individual with a great love of music and the arts in general thanks to her upbringing and the foundation set by her parents.

“My dad definitely has inspired the music and the genres I appreciate most,” she said. “He has such a strong knowledge of musicianship in terms of picking out all the different components that build toward creating a compelling or interesting piece of music. So in either the art and music that I lean toward, there's always just that underlying analysis that he taught me, which I really appreciate.

“I think no matter how big or small the project is or what my role in it is, whenever I'm involved in a theatre project, I am there. It just consumes me as a whole — just a nice, warm blanket. And I know that whenever I need to enter that space, I can leave everything at the door. And I think that comfort provides so much more balance.”

These life skills she hopes serve her well as she graduates and pursues psychology as a career — all the while keeping theatre a part of her life in any way she can. 

“It’s taught me to find and prioritize the outlets of joy that I have,” Whalen said. “It’s also taught me to always ask questions. You never know what is out there for you unless you ask. And a majority of the time, if you want to do something, you can do it. You just have to ask for the space and take it up.”