The theatre environment is one that every person should have experienced at least once in their life. It is a club where people can make close friends or sometimes, enemies. Theatre is never short of drama with the actors, but this may be the only time I was glad I had to experience drama. Here are three things I learned through high school drama.

1. Making Friends

Honestly, at first, I never wanted to join the drama club because I thought it was "just for girls" (my 15 year old, male chauvinistic ways) but I was incredibly wrong to think that off the bat. For one thing, my best friend wanted to do drama with me then once I did join, I made another close male friend. In the first month alone, I made one close friend and still had my best friend by my side as well. Then, once parts were announced, I suddenly felt like I belonged here. My social life opened up and I now had a "squad" of five to seven people. For someone who struggles a lot with being social, the drama club forced you to interact with people which made me develop social skills...awkward social skills, I suppose, but better than staying quiet in my book.

2. Having Drama is okay.

Probably the most accurate statement is that there will be drama in the drama club. It's filled with high egos competing for one or two parts, and of course, being in high school, there will be always people who talk about others. I was involved in personal, dirty and immature drama for a few months while being in the drama club. I will admit that during that time, it really was not fun and it kind of hurt losing a lot of my friends but it was also necessary. I removed a cancer in my life and it also provided me the opportunity to self reflect. I learned a lot about myself, who my real friends were, and that sometimes...people just...suck. It's impossible to change a person who does not want to be changed and sometimes its best to just remove them from your life.

3. Confidence is everything.

Confidence, I thought, was something that either you had or you didn't. Thankfully, I was wrong (like I was about most things during that time). Having confidence is a beautiful thing even though people try to put you down for it every once in a while, and then you drop them. In theatre, you needed confidence pretty much every minute of the day. Talking to new, random people, the director, and auditioning alone require it. However, once I understood what drama will require of me and everyone, then I wasn't nervous anymore. For the first time in my life, I could talk to someone and not have my neurotic self-consciousness get in the way. I was happy with myself for the first time and honestly, I have to give credit to the drama club. They provided me the opportunities to be the person I wanted to be, but of course, I had to take it as well.