All the world's a stage, and EXPLO instructor Marcelo is ready to change it. A poli-sci and foreign policy major at Princeton University, he has followed a passion for acting to explore the political theater in an effort to make the world a better place.
Theater has very much been a part of my life. I went to acting school for half of high school, then decided to change the world instead. Now my dream is to work in the nonprofit sector, or for a governmental organization such as the United Nations or the World Health Organization.
I’m a political science and foreign policy major at Princeton University. My mother is from an Italian family and my father is from Colombia, so my entire life was managing two political realities of parents who were from very different countries, very different experiences, and who work in areas of injustices. So, political conversations and arguments were always the first dinner discussions. It's definitely upsetting when you're 8 or 9 years old and you realize that, despite growing up very comfortably, not everyone is — and there are parts of the world that your country is actively exploiting.
Last summer I represented the U.S. at the European Youth Parliament in Vienna, and I met a lot of students from all across Europe and Central Asia. After that, I studied French politics and French bureaucracy and theater at the Conservatory for Dramatic Arts in Paris. We learned how the French combine the political sphere with the theatrical, and how to make theater inherently political without differentiating it from normal theater. I still act and was in two semi-professional shows this past year. But I don’t expect that I will do theater after school. That being said, after high school I said the same thing, and at Princeton I am still acting. So, we’ll see.
Casey Kim