2022 in Review: A Mixed Bag — Selma Dučanović

The bus that took me from Bosnia to the airport in Zagreb

Where to begin?

When I think back on 2022, I feel like the year is divided into two parts: January through June, when everything went wrong and then slowly got better; and July to December, where it seemed to be the inverse of that.

The year started off with a personal tragedy.

I had just successfully completed two virtual plays for Christmas 2021 and I felt confident going into the new year. That was, until my Grandma passed away in the first week of January. That devastated me and I was left in a grief-induced depression for a long time.

In order to distract myself, I turned to my creative work. I had told myself to focus on the numbers game of submitting for auditions on Backstage and Actors Access – meaning I would submit to anything and everything I felt like I was a fit for and eventually something would come to get me out of my funk.

Eventually, something did.

A photo I took during the rehearsal for the Zoom film of *Taming of the Shrew*

The first thing I got cast for this year was a Zoom film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, where I was cast as Bianca. Not only was I incredibly flattered that the director saw me as a good fit to play Bianca, but putting myself in motion with things to do, helped me process my grief a bit better. Instead of sitting around all day in a burrito of blankets, I was able to access the myriad of feelings I had locked inside and channel them into this new, daring take on Taming of the Shrew.

Unfortunately, due to unknown circumstances, the project had to be canceled. This was my first experience with a project being canceled while we were actively working on it, and it was incredibly disappointing, especially since I knew the format itself would give me challenges and I wanted to work through them and learn.

Thankfully, something came rather swiftly to distract me again.

Someone that I had worked with on the Christmas shows (Juliana Spinola) reached out to me and invited me to take part in her virtual play called Our Home. I had loved working with Juliana and the project was very intriguing. Her vision was to take women from all over the world and talk about women’s issues together, through a play with all the characters being based on us actors. I loved this, and I loved that Juliana incorporated my Bosnian identity into the character and story.

Our Home was such an amazing experience. I met many wonderful women from all over the world and we become close very quickly. I felt comfortable with them and, just like I wasn’t judging anyone, I knew no one would be judging me. It was such an uplifting experience.

As Our Home was coming to an end, I went to my first in-person audition since the pandemic started.

On location in NYC for the Balkan Bred shoot

I was so nervous! The audition was for a musical revue called Open Up the Curtain, and it would consist of a singing audition and a dance call. I hadn’t done a dance call in who-knows-how-long at that point and I fretted over what to wear, how to prepare, and what to expect, I was so out of practice! By the end of the night, though, I was proud of the audition I did and I was very excited to hear back from the director (Sharon Lowe) shortly thereafter letting me know that I was cast. Yay!

Also, within all of that craziness, sometime in April, I participated in a print ad for the Bosnian-owned clothing brand Balkan Bred. This was yet another step in experience for my career, as well as a great excuse to meet other people in New York who were also Balkan and spoke the same language as me. Literally the same weekend as this print ad, I attended the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival in NYC. Not only did I, once again, get to know so many wonderful Balkan people, but I also got to have my first real taste of the film industry of my home country (while I am Bosnian, I did grow up in the US and did not have access to Bosnian cinema throughout my developmental years). I’m so thankful that I had both of these opportunities to strengthen my connection to my cultural roots.

Going back to Open Up the Curtain: it was such a wonderful experience. Not only did I exercise some musical muscles that I hadn’t used in a while and got to be on stage again, but I made many life-long friends as a result. Open Up the Curtain finished its run in June and, after that, I had nothing lined up.

Because I had missed some shifts due to illness contracted as a result of being around so many people in-person for the rehearsals of Curtain, I had decided that July would be a month where I just kept my head down, didn’t call out of work, and reaffirmed to my boss at my day-job that she shouldn’t fire me. I was lucky enough to be a last-minute day player for an independent film called Pratfall directed by Alex Andre, but aside from that, I really just focused on keeping my job.

In August, however, I got contacted again by Juliana from Our Home, to work as a producer for her next project, Uprooted. This would be a staged play that we are still currently working on putting up in New York City in 2023. While I hadn’t produced anything before, I knew this would be an amazing challenge that would teach me a lot. I became so busy with grant writing and trying to find funding, that August turned to September, which turned into October. I had a brief trip back home to Seattle for my best friend’s wedding but, for the most part, I lived and breathed this project.

By the time November rolled around, I realized that I hadn’t done any acting since July.

I was incredibly disappointed. One of my biggest goals for 2022 was to do acting consistently and, not only did I fail that, but I also had a lot of personal health issues to take care of. So, in November and this month of December, I’ve really focused on dealing with my PCOS, my back issues, and getting myself into a healthy lifestyle.

Looking ahead to 2023, I do hope that I can achieve some of the things that I’ve dropped the ball on this past year. I also hope I can continue my healing journey, start facing my fears and feelings, and not shy away from success.

I’m not the type to say “New Year, new me,” but I definitely am re-committing to myself for 2023. Hopefully, this commitment to myself will lead to great success this year.

Happy New Year!

xx Selma