Garrett Hannigan is an actor hailing from California, but like the cool northern part. He began his career in performing arts at age 11, after his older sister begged him to join her non-profit youth theatre. This organization, called the Peter Pan Foundation, was fundamental to developing Garrett’s love for acting. Throughout his time in the PPF, Garrett was a core contributor both on and off the stage. He played titular roles in the staged productions, and was often the mascot of the foundation at events and fundraisers, playing Peter Pan at Children’s Hospital of Oakland and helping Make-A-Wish make miracles happen. He was also part of the teen leadership council for many years, was the head of the technical elements for anything not onstage, and performed at Disneyland multiple times.
After graduating from his high school, De La Salle, he would start college at Colorado State University, Ft. Collins. There, he majored in Design and Technology in Theatre for two and a half years and starred in a couple of the shows produced at the university before eventually deciding that if he truly wanted to pursue acting instead, he needed to be in California or New York. He left CSU and moved back home with his parents where he attended acting classes at Diablo Valley Community College. After a semester stint at DVC, he auditioned for Atlantic Acting School’s summer intensive and was accepted, and after finishing the intensive, was offered a position in the full time conservatory program.
He accepted immediately as he had come to love the techniques and lessons being taught through the lens of practical aesthetics, and he has been living in New York pursuing an illustrious acting career ever since. Below is a mission statement he wrote for himself that explains more about who he is emotionally and what acting means to him.
Who does this guy think he is?
I began acting because my older sister begged me to when I was in the 6th grade. She was part of a non profit theatre company and I can specifically remember her getting down on her knees in front of our refrigerator and asking me in the most pleading tone to be a part of their next production. I don't know why she asked. I also do not know why I said yes, genuinely. I don't even think I said yes, I'm pretty sure I said "fine" while rolling my eyes. I was a sports kid who believed that I was going to play basketball at least into college, and I had never even considered theatre as something I'd ever be involved in, and on top of that, I had a crippling fear of public speaking of any form. To this day, I have no idea what made me say yes to her. The best I can come up with is I had some deep, subconscious curiosity of what it was like to fully bare your soul in front of people without visibly shaking and panicking the entire time. But because I said yes in that moment, so many things happened after, that if I could tell my little 6th grade self they would come to transpire, that kid probably would've taken it back immediately.
I've performed a lot, on some very big stages and some very small ones. The thing that nobody tells people who are afraid of being onstage, is once you get out there, you can't actually see the audience. Not because you're so in the zone or anything, but literally because the lights are too bright and the audience is too dark. There were times as I got older where I wish I could've seen the audience, and I couldn't. But you do that first performance where you can't see anyone, and suddenly, it doesn't matter if you can see the audience. Why should it? You're telling a story, and every story is unaware of its audience. Frodo didn't know the tales of his quest would be told for centuries, he just did what needed to be done. Billy Beane didn't know that his personal view on baseball and getting wins as the poorest team in history would be turned into a beautiful story of how someone can win even when they lost without knowing it, he just did it because he felt he needed to. Alex Honnold didn't know that his pursuit of climbing El Capitan with no protective gear would inspire so many people to face their fears, he just did it because he wanted to. Fiction, nonfiction, documentary, all of them would've done it whether or not they knew they were being and/or would be watched. But for them, the lights were too bright, and the audience was too dark, so they just followed their subconscious gut feeling and did what they felt they had to do (I understand that the Lord of the Rings is fiction and obviously shouldn't really be used in this as an example because Tolkien wrote them for the sole purpose of being published to a broader audience but you get the gist).
I'm really not sure where I'm going with this. But what I want to say is this. There doesn't need to be a great initiator behind all art, and that great initiator certainly doesn't have to be garnering an audience. You can do art because you know it will succeed, you can do art because you have to hope it will succeed for your own livelihood, you can do art because you must perform no matter what, even if it's just for yourself, or you can do art for literally any other reason. If it happens to benefit a greater good, awesome, that's incredible, please change the world if that's what you want to do. But if you're performing just because you want to, you still have the absolute utmost respect from me. Not all art will change the world, but all art can reach the heart of someone, even if it's just yourself. That's what I care about. I want the little kid onstage in the bunny onesie who had absolutely no lines and is just doing a stupid little dance to Be A Man from Mulan to do it for themself, not because they see some grand design. That's my mission statement. Do it for yourself, selfishly, totally, and truly, not for anyone else. Whatever that means to you.
