Sharon Van Etten’s return to college takes a detour

Fred Armisen and Sharon Van Etten at the Vulture Festival in Manhattan on May 22, 2016. (Photo © 2016, Steven P. Marsh/willyoumissme.com)

If you thought Sharon Van Etten‘s return to college in February would take her out of the public eye for awhile, think again.

Sharon’s collegiate redux lasted about two weeks before she got an offer she couldn’t refuse, she revealed the other day: an audition for a role on a TV show.

Sharon Van Etten at the Vulture Festival in Manhattan on May 22, 2016. (Photo © 2016, Steven P. Marsh/willyoumissme.com)

She talked about  the detour in her plans for a post-music career in clinical psychology at the Vulture Festival in Manhattan Sunday, during a morning jam session with comedian-musician Fred Armisen.

“Somebody told me they thought I’d be perfect for this part, so I auditioned and got it,” she told the group in response to our question about what the college experience was like for her.

She said she couldn’t talk about the show, but it’s been widely reported that she’s one of a number of rock musicians — along with Eddie Vedder, Trent Reznor, Sky Ferreira — tapped to appear in the Showtime reboot of David Lynch’s cult series “Twin Peaks.”

Fred Armisen and Sharon Van Etten walk through the crowd, chatting, at the Vulture Festival in Manhattan on May 22, 2016. (Photo © 2016, Steven P. Marsh/willyoumissme.com)

She revealed in her self-effacing way that the experience taught her she’s a terrible actor — though I’ll wait for the onscreen evidence before going along with her assessment.

With her TV work finished , Sharon says she’s going to return to school in August.

Sharon Van Etten at the Vulture Festival in Manhattan on May 22, 2016. (Photo © 2016, Steven P. Marsh/willyoumissme.com)

“They’ve been very nice about it,” she said of the officials at the New York City college where she is enrolled. (After the jam session, she told me the name of the school, but I’m withholding that information out of respect for her privacy.)

The 35–year-old native of Clinton, New Jersey, tried the standard college routine right after high school, enrolling at Middle Tennessee State University to study music production. That didn’t work out.

“I didn’t like it,” she told the Vulture crowd.  So she dropped out, got a job at a music venue in Murfreesboro, and stayed in Tennessee for five years, working on her music.

Now, it seems, she’s ready to take another path and build a backup plan for her life after music. With any luck at all, the talented performer and songwriter will never need to use it.

Fred Armisen and Sharon Van Etten at the Vulture Festival in Manhattan on May 22, 2016. (Photo © 2016, Steven P. Marsh/willyoumissme.com)