Josh Winderman ’24, theater, took the opportunity to refine his acting skills, but learned so much more along the way. The theater department at URI opened pathways for Josh to better understand how a production comes together through a variety of outlets like directing, design, stage management, and more. In turn, becoming a better actor. After graduation, Josh is eager to put his new skills to the test, and get out into the world to audition.
What is your preferred name, pronouns, and majors?
My name is Josh Winderman. I use he, him, his pronouns. And I’m a theater major with an acting concentration.
Why did you choose URI and what did you enjoy about the theater program?
I chose URI because of the theater program. What makes this school special as
compared to sort of other theater programs that I’ve looked at is that it gives you the
opportunity to try different things within theater. Because we have both in acting, design, directing, and stage management programs. And because of that, the way that the classes are also structured, it lets you sort of try different things and sort of figure out for yourself what you want to try. As well as working on productions, you get the experience of trying new things or if something necessarily piques your interest, you can give it a try. I know there’s, at least for me, there were classes and concentrations I didn’t think I’d want to get into necessarily, but over time, I’ve enjoyed and gotten into. It’s very fun.
What is something special about the URI theater program here at URI?
Everyone gets to try different things and even if you only have one concentration,
that’s okay. There’s a lot of great experiences getting to work on
productions. We have some really great faculty who have real world experience working on things, teaching us. And sometimes we also have guest artists come in which is very nice. The people within our department are just very nice. Everyone’s very open to working with each other and it’s a very warm, friendly working environment.
What are your post-grad plans?
I’m trying to figure them out right now. My plan is to just go out and audition.
What is your favorite memory from URI?
I’ve had a lot of very good memories and maybe it’s just because we ended this last
night, so at the moment this is my current favorite, but working on Little Shop of Horrors has been one of my favorite memories. It’s very fun show because I was working with a lot of my friends, some of who also are seniors, so it was a very fitting way to to end our year.
What is something that you would tell your freshman year self?
I would say to myself and just in general to incoming freshmen, don’t be afraid to try new things and to be open to experiences like working on productions. My
sophomore year, I worked on a production of Glue. And by doing that, I got to really know the people in the department, sort of see how everything works, and just try new things. Just keep yourself open to other opportunities and continue to work hard to achieve what you want to achieve.