For all four years of high school, I was a theater kid. I spent a majority of my time in the theater, in the basement of the theater, getting food with theater kids, seeing shows at other theaters, memorizing lines for theater or attending/running theater sponsored events. However, after much debate and consideration, I decided not to pursue my love for theater after high school. It is now my second semester of college, I haven't been on stage in 10 months, and I am having large and dramatic withdrawals. It was very difficult for me to leave the theater, but what I have come to understand is that the theater will never leave me. No matter how far I go or how many months I spend without performing, so much of me is based on the things I learned by being a part of theater, and that will never change. Here are some of my daily reminders that prove that once you're a theater kid, you're always a theater kid.
1. When your friends complain about not having enough time to get ready, you incessantly remind them that you once had to do yours and 10 other people's hair and makeup in under 15 minutes.
2. Those around you are taken aback by your confidence and gusto while belting out a song sung traditionally by the opposite gender (courtesy of years of being gender-bent in your company).
3. You can turn mundane and everyday occurrences (such as sitting in an empty dining hall) into a musical number in a heartbeat.
4. You feel personally attacked when someone claims they know a lot about Shakespeare.
5. In class, you find yourself viciously shooting your arm into the air at just the slightest hint of the professor wanting a student to read a passage aloud.
6. When the professor doesn't call on you to read aloud, you silently critique the vocal inflection and projection of the person that did get chosen.
7. Your friends keep using your show photos as reaction photos.
8. You can't live down being the "loud one." Projecting is an important factor in public speaking, but in everyday conversation your volume tends to rise by decibels per minute.
9. You can no longer use honey due to years of consuming copious amounts of this liquid-life-saver during tech week.
10. On a beautiful day, it is almost impossible to not have a pep in your step (and by a pep in your step, I mean a whole musical unfolding as you walk down the sidewalk).
11. Shamefully, you continually mistake "halftime" for "intermission" (and your sporty friends hate you for it).
12. You base your high expectations for relationships on famous love stories in plays and musicals.
13. Whenever you watch a new TV show, on-stage performance, or movie, you immediately type cast your friends into the roles.
14. No matter where you go, you always make an entrance.
15. You will always spell your craft "theatRE" instead of "theatER" and correct anyone who tells you otherwise.
16. No matter how long it has been since you've left the theater, your theater friends will always be there for you. They've seen you during embarrassing outfit malfunctions, they saved your butt by picking up your dropped lines and they endured the blood, sweat, and tears put into dance rehearsals. Theater wasn't just a hobby, club, or activity. It was a family.
All jokes aside, these daily occurrences are only a few of the many reminders of how much actors and actresses are impacted after dedicating themselves to theater. These daily reminders bring back fond memories of cast parties, curtain calls and before-show traditions. J.K. Rowling says through Sirius Black in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," "The ones who love us never really leave us," and I believe that the same goes for what we love. Whatever we find joy, passion, and delight in never truly leaves us. We carry it with us everyday. I, for one, am so glad that I carry theatre with me wherever I go, and I hope that you're carrying something that you love too.
