It can say a lot about you when you tell people you were a theater kid in high school. But sometimes that doesn't tell the full story. Here are some things you only know if you avoided the spotlight like the plague and stuck to the light booth and backstage area.

1. Auditions were hilarious because you were one of the only people with a guaranteed role while everyone else freaked out over the perfect song/joke/monologue.

ProTip: If you were excessively savage, you would try to psych people out right before their audition. “Yeah, I heard they’re only casting three girls…”

2. It was particularly fun to torture everyone on the night the cast list was supposed to come out, inevitably sending “List is up!” in the group chat or Facebook group when the list was not, in fact, up.

You still refreshed the page excessively though, waiting to see which of your friends got which roles.

3. "So for next show, have you thought about trying out?” was a common anthem from your non-theater friends or family who clearly didn’t get how this worked.

Blame this one on all the kids who, when cut from auditions, served on the stage crew or production staff for a show before inevitably auditioning the following year. The look on your face was usually enough to deter them and ensure that they never asked again.

4. Tech week was hell week for everyone else, but it was the first time you fully understood what the show was supposed to look like.

5. "Save your voices for tomorrow's show” never applied to you.

This was particularly fun when all the actors had to save their voices after a post-show cheer but you could yell as loud as you wanted.

6. Driving anywhere with cast members could be super annoying because everyone was trying to harmonize and you just wanted to jam out in your typical tone-deaf way.

7. "So like…during the show…what do you guys do?” was another thing that you got asked after shows all the time.

It sometimes took a while to explain that there are things happening backstage that the audience is shockingly not privy to.

8. It was actually sort of a compliment when someone who came to see the show to support you wasn’t able to actually spot you during the course of the two-and-a-half hour show because the set changes were that quick.

9. Between the tasks of building an entire multi-storied set, buying eight old-time phones from eBay totaling two hundred dollars, and speaking a few lines in an already-written scene for approximately four minutes, the latter definitely gave you the most anxiety.

10. You are literally every bit as dramatic offstage as your singing, dancing onstage counterparts.

11. It really never occurred to you that you weren’t as important as the people who you shone lights on, handed props to, and stood on the sets you built. Because, duh, of course you were.