Born and raised on the Charleston peninsula, Horry Kerrison chose the College because of of its bustling theatre scene – both on campus and around town. "It's the perfect place to focus on theatre," he says. "The professors are great, and it's a small department so everyone knows each other. Plus, there's lots of opportunity to get acting experience, even for a first-year student."
Kerrison was required to take theatre classes in grade school and he remembers really enjoying the small class sizes and the self-expression he learned while acting. But all of that stopped when he got into competetive sports in high school. Coming to the College gave him the opportunity to get back into theatre. "I realized that I really missed acting, so I signed up for a class in my freshman year. When I discovered how happy it made me, I couldn't think of any reason not to pursue it as my major."
Kerrison dove right in. His courses ranged from Movement to Theatre History, but the highlight was Acting 2. "Professor MNerney took my ideas on acting and turned them upside down," he recalls. "He taught me the art of meditation and journaling, which really helped me build my characters and make them my own."
In addition to his required theatre courses, Kerrison also took Introduction to Asian Art. Not only did he earn humanities credits for that, but it prompted him to draw some direct parallels between his meditation training in acting and some ancient Buddhist traditions.
"That's definitely the appeal of the liberal arts," he explains. "Even if you know exactly what you want to study, at the College, you're required to other courses and those definitely expand your horizons."
Kerrison found an abundance of theatrical opportunities outside of the classroom, from campus-run productions to community theatre and Piccolo Spoleto gigs. Now, he says, "Charleston isn't just a great place to get into acting, it's also one of the best places to grow as an actor– and a person."