Senior spotlight: Carmen Wells
Sadie Beaumont, Staff Writer
Senior musical theatre major Carmen Wells is currently thriving in her final year here at North Greenville University. She transferred to NGU halfway through her sophomore year and since then found her home in the theatre department.
Wells began her college career as a music and worship major at another university. But after her first semester, she longed to return to her theatre roots and missed that community. She changed her major to theatre with a music minor. It wasn’t until her family came back from the Middle East that she found NGU.
“My family returned from overseas, the Middle East, and we decided to all move to South Carolina to be close to family. I did a semester of online school and stayed at home, and I was dying to get back into a college community again,” Wells said.
She heard about North Greenville through her church. When all her family friends spoke highly of it, she toured it for the first time. It happened to be the week of their production “Leaving Iowa.”
“I completely fell in love with the box theater and the actors and actresses performing, and the community felt so amazing after being at home for so long. I applied the next day, and I came to NGU for my spring semester,” she said.
She got more involved with the theatre department through classes like freshman practicum. Working backstage allowed her to get to know the people and theater much better.
Her first time performing at NGU was in “Elf: The Musical.” She then went on to play Hermia in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
One of her favorite memories from her time at NGU was in rehearsal for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The director, Amy Dunlap, was trying to figure out a maneuver in which Wells had to be thrown up into the air.
“Amy just stares into space for a while, and then she turns to us and says ‘sorry, I’m just thinking about how to make Carmen fly,’” Wells said. “Eventually it became the move where the two guys are on either side of me and they’re throwing me up in the air, so I have to twist and trust fall into their arms back and forth between them.”
She said it took lots of practice but was a really fun memory. It is a great way to learn to trust your castmates.
Wells’ next big endeavor is her role in NGU’s upcoming production “Jane Eyre: The Musical.” It is her senior project, and she will be playing the lead, Jane Eyre herself.
She is currently considering traveling with her family after graduation and then going to graduate school.
Wells said, “I’m thinking about getting a master’s in education so that I can teach theatre in Department of Defense schools, so I’ll be able to work with the military families all over the world.”
