00:00My name is Natasha Rothwell and I am a writer and a performer and I would
00:05describe myself as ambitious, brave, and woke. So in my freshman year of college I
00:15majored in journalism and it was large in part because I thought my parents
00:20wanted me to do something more traditional and after my first semester
00:27at college I was miserable and I went and saw this play and in the program they
00:35had the Langston Hughes poem A Dream Deferred and so I was in the audience
00:39having my own sort of like emotional moment and so when I was home over
00:44winter break I told my parents I was like I want to switch to theater I want to
00:48like we thought you were gonna do that so if it's not news to them they were just
00:54more happy that I just like gave in to what I wanted to do and wanted me to be
01:00happy so but 2009 I found myself in New York City teaching theater at a high
01:06school in the Bronx and it was difficult because I was a teacher during the day
01:10and then at night I was working on my art but I did that for four years and then
01:14was able to transition into my art full-time after that which I felt really
01:21lucky to be able to have done that so I was working in New York and I got an
01:27opportunity to audition for a very famous show and I didn't get it and it was
01:33pretty devastating in that it was a show that I didn't necessarily aspire to be on
01:40because I didn't see myself on that show as far as people who look like me and so
01:46if you really want to do this you can't take rejection and let it cripple you you
01:51have to let it fuel you and so I used that to propel me into creating more
01:56characters to writing more into auditioning more and and I got a call
02:00about six months later saying that the head writers of this show wanted to meet
02:07with me to see if I would be interested in writing for the show so it's just like
02:12didn't believe her because I didn't think it was still an option or a
02:16possibility but they had told her that my audition piece was one of the best
02:21written pieces that they heard during the process it was helpful to me to be
02:26able to see myself the way I was being seen so working on the show I had a lot
02:33of material that I created that allowed me to have my own character special on a
02:39streaming service that you might know I was able to take all of that that I
02:47learned and create a half-hour special so after my half-hour special it was in
02:54post-production for it when my agents wanted me to have a meeting for a show
03:00about someone from LA but I was from the East Coast and I was a little bit nervous
03:05that there may not be some crossover but the show was about a woman who is
03:12awkward and weird and unsure I was like oh that's why I'm perfect for this show
03:18but it's a lot of work but that's the benefit of doing what you love for a
03:24living so my work it doesn't feel like work it feels like I know an opportunity
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