We recently connected with Bethany Fitch and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Bethany thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

For almost my entire life I have been involved in theater in some way. Even though it was such a huge part of my life I never considered pursuing it as a career. Even in college, I was a Theatre and Environmental Studies double major. I was pursuing Theatre because I loved it and I wanted to carry those skills with me, but my career would be something more traditional. I was doing research. I loved school. Academics were my thing. This was always clear to me.

The summer of my junior year of college I was an intern at a summer stock theater in Upstate New York. I took this job partly because my family spends a lot of time in the area where the theater is located and I wanted an excuse to live and work there for a whole summer. Of course, I had the best time.

The moment I truly realized I wanted to pursue theater professionally was on Opening Night of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. In true summer stock fashion I was on the porch for our Opening Night Toast, sweating buckets, getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, holding a plastic glass of concessions wine, surrounded by people that I felt I had formed such close connections with in such a short time and I was like “What am I doing?? This is what I want to do.” I realized I felt happiest and most fulfilled doing theater. In any capacity. And I always had. Even when it was hard. It’s been one of my most consistent companions through every phase of growing up. I felt that through the good and the bad I would always be inspired by these spaces and these communities. I decided I wanted to dedicate my life to it.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Bethany Fitch, I am originally from Maryland, northwest of Baltimore. I am an actor, administrator, and environmental historian. Theatre has always been a huge part of my life. I started performing when I was 7 years old and continued through high school and college.

In college I was able to combine my passion for theatre and climate action through a 4-year research project in which I researched the impact of Tropical Storm Agnes 1972 on river towns in the Susquehanna River Valley of Central Pennsylvania. By collecting stories of flood survivors, I co-wrote and co-produced a play to memorialize these stories and foster discussions about future climate change resilience. This past fall I published my research along with my advisor Andrew Stuhl, Professor of Environmental Studies and Sciences at Bucknell University, in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences. I hope to continue with this kind of work of combining art and activism in the future. Theatre can be a very effective vehicle for change, fostering community, and learning from our history.

I discovered my passion for all things theatre administration through working summers at Pendragon Theatre in Upstate New York. I have a knack for organizing people toward achieving a common goal and using my interpersonal and organizational skills to keep everyone happy, healthy, and able to make art happen. So, naturally, I found that I had a talent for Company Management.

I have been working as a Company Manager for the last couple of years and I find so much fulfillment in the positive influence I have on people’s lives in small ways everyday. In the near future I’m hoping to infuse more artistic creativity back into my life and pursue acting in tandem with administrative work. I would also love to use my background in academic research to explore the world of Dramaturgy.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I’ve always been a perfectionist. To the point where if I knew I couldn’t do something perfectly I found it hard to find merit in doing it at all. I will make myself sick trying to make something perfect. This is a very unexciting way to live! Especially as an artist. People are imperfect. Art is imperfect. Theater at its very core is imperfect. It’s riddled with all of the lovely curveballs that life throws at us. That’s what makes it exciting and worth doing. We live in a world where you can always be more and do more. Learning how not to subscribe to the “hustle” mentality is how I engage in my own little act of rebellion everyday. It’s radical to chose yourself and do things in your own timing in a culture where it is so tempting to do anything but.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

It’s no secret that the world doesn’t always feel like a very safe and inclusive place. It can be exhausting to work against systems that feel so counterintuitive to everything I care about, but every time I’m having a bad day, or the world is having a bad day, when I sit in the back of a dark theater and feel the energy of collaboration around me, of people making art, making art in a way that is so ancient and fundamental to who we are as a species: people that tell stories, feel empathy towards each other, and learn from each other, it’s like a sigh of relief. I feel more connected to the people I am in community with and everyone that came before us. Theatre spaces are magical because they hold the energy of thousands of years of human experiences. It is rewarding to just be there and to bring other people towards that magic through what I help create whether I’m onstage or working behind the scenes.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @bethanyfitch
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethany-fitch
• Other: You can find my research published in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences here! https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13412-024-00976-4

Image Credits

1. Shannon Rakow
2. Henry Qiu
3. Gordon Wenzel
4. Isabel Steinberg
5. Matthew Cubillos