MVHS alum ‘23 and UCLA freshmen Jiya Singh dresses up as a 50 year old man. She steps onto the stage in the auditorium to perform in MVHS’ fall play “Peter and the Starcatcher.” Singh said that she was originally uncomfortable in this new role, but that she became more comfortable as the show went on. Soon, Singh said that the mostly elementary and middle school audience began to laugh at her performance, in a good way.
Singh said that her love for acting began when her fourth grade music teacher invited her to participate in their school production. Singh recalls enjoying the attention that she received from the audience.
“Ever since then, I absolutely loved being on stage, and I loved the attention and people clapping.” Singh said. “I realized it was something that I felt really passionate about.”
Singh would continue acting in middle school when she joined Fame, the acting program at Kennedy Middle School. It was there that she met her friend MVHS alum ‘22 and San Diego State University sophomore Shruti Sharma who also shared her passion for acting.
“My senior year, her junior year, we definitely bonded a lot because we were in the same acting class and we had a lot of things in common with each other.” Sharma said. “Now I think we would consider each other closer friends.”
Singh continued to act in high school where she was a student of English and theater teacher Hannah Gould. Gould said that Singh was always eager to help the drama department out – direct and produce plays, work in marketing and audition for musicals such as “Mamma Mia.” Sharma attributes Singh’s success in high school to her hard work and talent.
“Jiya is definitely one of the most talented people I know.” Sharma said. “She’s always been the star of any scene or production that she’s been in because she has a very good energy about her and she’s just so talented that you can’t help but love any role that she plays and I think that just comes from her being really dedicated.”
Singh also believes that acting has influenced her personal life, saying that it benefitted the way that she was perceived at school and helped her become a better person.
“I just feel more connected to other people because when you play different characters you are in the mindsets of other people.” Singh said. “So I feel like it’s helped me a lot [in] becoming a better person”
Singh also believes that acting can have an impact on the world, even for people who don’t act themselves, saying that shows and performances have the ability to bring people together.
“We talk about [actor’s] performances because we can relate to the ways that people perform.” Singh said. “And so I think that acting has a way of bonding people together from different backgrounds and different ethnicities and different diversities. It just has a really big power because when you act you’re performing as real people that exist.”
In 2022, Gould encouraged Singh to audition for the Andrew Segal memorial scholarship, an award that is intended for seniors who are planning to pursue acting in college. Singh ended up winning the award and is currently majoring in acting at UCLA. Gould said that she was glad Singh had the courage to pursue a major that didn’t have a linear path to success.
“I think that it really takes a lot of courage and strength and sense of self to pursue a career that’s not just CS or engineering,” Gould said, “because that’s what everybody here does, and people are afraid to try different things. The fact that Jiya knows so clearly what she wants, what she’s really good at and what she’s able to have a happy life doing just really speaks immensely to her character.”
Sharma has also expressed her excitement about Singh pursuing acting in college, saying that when Singh was deciding on what to major in, they would call each other and Sharma helped convince Singh to major in acting.
“I feel like with acting, there’s a lot that you can do [and there’s] a lot of different roles that you can play,” Sharma said. “But my biggest hope for her is that she goes on in the future and is happy with all the decisions she’s made and [is] having a good time in her life. I just hope that she keeps her passion for acting and her craft because she’s so good at it and if she stopped doing it, I feel like it would definitely be a loss.”
Currently, Singh doesn’t have an exact plan for what she wants to do in the future. However, she does plan on pursuing acting in some way.
“I’m hoping to obviously continue acting as much as possible and auditioning for things and hopefully something will stick.” Singh said. “In addition to acting, I also really like writing and directing, so I might lean more into that in the future and maybe work on stuff that I write myself. It’s kind of open ended but I definitely want to keep pursuing it.“
Although Singh will be pursuing acting in the future, she has emphasized just enjoying performances and not worrying about the size of her role, especially for beginning actors.
“I think it’s really important for you to realize that everyone starts somewhere.” Singh said. “And, you’re not going to start with variables when you’re doing math, you’re going to start somewhere super tiny. So I would tell them to keep going at it because it’s such a powerful thing and acting also gives you such a big community. All the people I’ve met in my drama department [are] my family at this point. So I would recommend them to continue going at it and find the magic that exists within it because there’s a lot of it.”
