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Commencement Speaker Sutton Foster Had Three 'Astonishing' Pieces Of Advice For The Berklee Class of 2019
16 May 2019
(YouTube / Berklee College of Music)
On May 11, 2019, Sutton Foster addressed the class of 2019 at Boston Conservatory at Berklee’s commencement ceremony. It was a striking moment, as the Broadway star, who will return to the stage in 2020 opposite Hugh Jackman in The Music Man, never graduated college.
<p>Foster has been a Broadway staple since she made her debut in the 1995 revival of <em>Grease</em> as a Sandy Dumbrowski replacement. However, before that, she dropped out of school not once, but twice.</p><p><div id="insticator-container" class="embedid-ee1b1245-7f34-4d5c-8a70-c8be74fe7696"><div id="div-insticator-ad-1"></div><div id="insticator-embed"></div><div id="div-insticator-ad-2"></div><script data-cfasync="false" type="text/javascript">Insticator.ad.loadAd("div-insticator-ad-1");Insticator.ad.loadAd("div-insticator-ad-2");Insticator.load("em",{id : "ee1b1245-7f34-4d5c-8a70-c8be74fe7696"})</script></div></p><p>The first time she dropped out of school was high school so she could join the national tour of <em>The Will Rogers Follies</em> directed by Tommy Tune. (She later received her GED via correspondence courses.) The second time was Carnegie Mellon University after one year. <a href="https://www.broadway.com/buzz/11137/sutton-foster/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">She told Broadway.com</a>, "Carnegie Mellon was very challenging, I had just come off a national tour, and I wasn't ready to learn anything new. And I couldn't see paying $25,000 a year if I wasn't sure this was what I was meant to do."</p><p><div data-conversation-spotlight=""></div></p><p>But at Boston Conservatory, Foster knew exactly what she was meant to do: present truth to a graduating class of artists. </p><p>In her speech above, she presents three pieces of advice to the class of 2019. They are:</p><p>1. Say "yes."</p><p>To emphasize this, she quoted the song <em>Yes!</em> by Kander and Ebb. The lyrics she chose were:</p><p></p><p>Say yes</p><p>Life keeps happenin' every day</p><p>Say yes</p><p>When opportunity comes your way</p><p>You can't start wonderin' what to say</p><p>You'll never win if you never play</p><p>Say yes</p><p>2. "Trust your gut, even if others don't agree. Because in the end... it will have been your choice. So own your choice."</p><p>And lastly:</p><p>3. Get a hobby that doesn’t involve waiting for the phone to ring or waiting for someone else to give you permission. </p><p>Interspersed throughout her speech were throwbacks to show tunes, including <em>Les Misérables’</em> “On My Own,” and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it “Rose’s Turn.”</p><p>You can watch the whole video above. Let us know what you think of Sutton's advice below.</p>
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