Comfort on Camera

Performing came naturally to Mia Torres (’24), something she attributes to being a middle child who craved attention, and perhaps to being a Leo on the astrological chart.

“I was never a quiet kid,” Torres says. “I always loved talking to people and performing. I was always singing.”

When she started at Gonzaga – albeit from a COVID-influenced distance, Zooming in from her Spokane childhood home – she intended on double majoring in psychology and sociology. But as she took more and more theater and English classes, first online and then in person as the pandemic’s restrictions lifted, Torres found herself drawn to the stage.

“I did theater in high school and I loved it,” Torres says. “And they put me in English and theater classes my first semester at Gonzaga, and I loved them, so I just kept taking them. Eventually I was like, ‘This is what my major is supposed to be.’”

Torres graduated with two degrees, one in Theatre Arts with a concentration in performance, the other in English with a concentration in literature. She was part of the Honors Program as well.

Gonzaga’s sense of community captured in the video is a big reason Torres decided to stay in her hometown for college. Although, starting college at the height of a pandemic challenged that idea during her first year.

“I did my entire freshman year online,” Torres says. “I’ll never forget our Honors first-year seminar was a three-hour Zoom class on Monday nights. I don’t think anyone in that class had a good time, but it actually was a really good bonding experience for us all.”

Torres’ love of performing extended to Zoom classes, where she often found herself the only student talking, camera on, while classmates lurked in dark silence. Thankfully, a sense of normalcy returned to campus in time for her to move onto campus and then study abroad her sophomore year.

Once back in Spokane, her academic life blossomed thanks to her active theatrical life in Gonzaga productions and embracing Professor Matthew Bolton’s classes that intersected film studies and English.

Torres thought her path would lead to becoming an English teacher, but she credits her professors with showing her she could forge a career in live theater – and that’s exactly what she’s doing.

As Torres searched where she might apply for jobs in large cities across the country, she came across the Milagro Theatre in Portland, Oregon, “one of the premier Latin American theaters in the region,” she says. Torres’ title is “Artistic Associate,” and as such she gets to do everything from helping plan productions to grant writing, archiving to directing shows.

“I have friends from Portland who grew up going there, and they just love it,” Torres says. “I’m very excited.”

Reflecting on her time at Gonzaga, Torres keeps returning to that sense of community she felt, even during the trying times.

“There’s a niche for everyone,” Torres says. “If you like D&D (Dungeons & Dragons), there’s a club for that. Sports consulting — that's something you can find. There’s a really wide array of interests among students, something for everybody. I really like that there are all the clubs that support students’ hobbies, and that building of community around activities. That’s something we really need.”

She remembers first feeling she was part of something special when, at the start of each semester, she realized she knew most of the people in her classes. And that community then extended outside course work, going to events for student literary journals, and attending every theater and dance production she could.

“That all got me starting to feel like, ‘Oh, this is a community, I know all these people,’” Torres says.