Hello, my name is Matthew Weitzel, and I need help paying my college tuition! I am an aspiring actor and am studying at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Due to a change in my parents’ situation, they no longer have the means to pay for the continuation of my education. So I am asking for help from anyone who is willing to support my goals and dreams. I just discovered that I must be able to pay $6,900 by today, Wednesday, August 13, 2025! My support goal is $150,000 in total. I am passionate about the work I put into college and the work I put in outside of school that is inspired by it. I do not want to see it end early. Please help if you are able.

I grew up in Santa Barbara singing and acting with Opera Santa Barbara since seven years old, studying piano, performing plays and musical theater with Lights Up! Theater Company, Goleta Valley J.H. Theater, Dos Pueblos H.S. Theater, Santa Barbara Revels, the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, and Interlochen Center for the Arts before receiving a $20,000 a year annual scholarship at the college of my dreams! Cal Arts, beyond being just a college, is a collective of artists. The CalArts “experiment” is made up entirely of artists all under one roof, and the school is terrific at teaching around this principle. One such experiment resulted in the creation of Pixar. In my acting program each semester, we produce a monologue and 4-5 scenes with our classmates to incorporate the work we are doing in our voice, movement, and speech classes. I have had the pleasure of working with some of the most talented actors I have ever encountered, every scene is a lesson in collaboration. This year, I was not only able to act, but also to delve into set design, learning to tell a story through this aspect of theater in a scene from the play “True West” by Sam Shephard, and much of the work that myself and my colleagues put into that scene centered around defining the difficult relationships between the characters. One of the most personally meaningful projects was an exploration of the challenges of my teen years transitioning into adulthood. We were granted complete creative control, designing the set, sound, blocking, and story. It was extremely meaningful for me to be able to tell my story, allowing myself to truly connect with the artform.

Last year outside of the classroom I was inside of recording studios, onstage, out hiking in the beautiful nature surrounding Santa Clarita, backstage, out connecting with my community. This year I have plans to audition for the main stage productions and to assistant direct a production of Spring Awakening. The work I’ve done is not limited to CalArts, but is supported by it. Last summer I acted in a movie, “The Golden Hours,” which will soon be available on Amazon Prime Video. I also created the Monarch Theater Company with some of my closest friends and collaborators. Last weekend, we finished our second summer with a production of Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labour's Lost.” We are planning on becoming a non-profit organization next summer (monarchtheatercompany.com). All of this work is created in complete tandem with the education that I am receiving at CalArts. This summer, I have been working at the Laguna Blanca summer camp during the day and with Monarch Theater nights and weekends. And my mother, brother and I rented out room and board, hosting students at a local international language school to pay for expenses, which allowed me to share one of my favorite hobbies: cooking.

I sincerely hope that you will consider donating. I am desperate to keep learning and working towards my goals with a fierce passion. I am truly in need of donations, and I am in a panic thinking about what will happen if I am unable to reach them. Thank you for reading.

Love,

Matthew