Juliana Schuyler Entertains at SLUT and Beyond

Fanny Fellevik, Featured Writer

Juliana Schuyler smiles nervously towards the crowd as she slowly enters the stage. The music has gone quiet, and the mumbling from the audience stopped. Silence. All eyes on her. Showtime.

Acting has been a passion ever since Schuyler can remember. When she was seven years old her mother dragged her to her first piano and singing lesson, and it was there it all started.

“I have always loved performing in front of people,” Schuyler said. “Singing and acting comes natural to me and I honestly don’t know what I would do without it.”

Schuyler is a freshman at Pace and she did her college acting debut when she took on the lead role as the sexual assault victim in SLUT: The Play.

Throughout high school Schuyler acted in the show Bye, Bye, Birdie and had the leading role in her senior show Crazy for You. Both shows involve a lot of humor and laughter; something that Schuyler’s close friend Chelsea Almedia thinks reflects Schuyler’s personality.

“Juliana knows how to make people laugh,” Almedia said. “It was awesome to work with her on the production of SLUT, because she knows when it is time to be silly and when it is time to focus and be serious.”

Schuyler grew up with a father who loves music, a mother that went to acting school, and an older brother that had his own music band as a freshman in high school. The artistic side is a huge part in Schuyler’s family and she believes that it definitely had an impact on her.

“My family introduced me to acting, and it would have been hard for me to take another route,” Schuyler said. “But that is not why I still love acting. The reason for that is the euphoric feeling that I get after a performance, and that is what keeps me coming back for more.”

The part that Schuyler loves the most about acting is that you are able to play a character and send out a message. She saw the participation in the play SLUT as an opportunity to combat sexism and sexual violence in our society.

It was Schuyler’s first time being a part of a play that confronts a social problem and the first time she had to put her humorous personality aside. According to her, this was the hardest role she has played in her career so far, but also the role she is most proud of.

The smile on Schuyler’s face is impossible to miss as she receives standing ovations from the audience. The show is over and the lights are out, but the euphoric feeling Schuyler described lives on.