“Acting is magical. Change your look and your attitude, and you can be anyone.”- Alicia Witt

Thanks to church Christmas programs, I don’t remember a year, until college, that I was not in at least one theatrical performance a year. Now, to be fair, my small hometown parish Christmas program is cute and sweet and innocent and a wonderful reminder of the meaning of Christmas, but it is no major theatrical production. However, being on stage at an early age diminished any notion of stage fright in my Shirley Temple resembling self. I was hooked.

I have always been a shy person. As a little girl, I would hide behind my Mom’s legs when we talked to people that I didn’t know. But I literally jumped at any chance to be on a stage. In real life, I was shy. But on stage, I could be anyone that I wanted to be. For seven years, my parents put on forty miles a day for one week driving me to and from practice from my country school to town for Missoula Children’s Theatre, which is an organization that sends two young adult performers out on a tour where, in six days, they cast, direct, and perform a full on musical with K-12 students. From a Venus fly trap with two group lines to earning leading roles, I was hooked on the magic of theatre.

In high school, it was natural that I join the one act team. My years performing and assisting with backstage management showed me how much theatre impacted my life. I mentioned never having stage fright, and that’s true. While, musically, that is a different story, I have never been afraid of a stage. I thrive in the spotlight.

It is often said that the arts allow non-athletic students to excel somewhere. Not to say that athletes cannot excel at arts, because I have seen otherwise, but this is true. I don’t fit in any one stereotypical high school group, because I have many interests. While I never identified myself as an artsy person, I’ve always owned up to being a speech geek and a theatre nerd. Because of theatre, I earned my first extracurricular letter and academic all-state award. But more importantly, I learned that it is okay to be a little weird.

I love the quote at the beginning of this article, but it’s ironic that I say so, because I am a firm believer in living authentically. Here’s my thought: in theatre, actors are cast into a role where they must become the character. When in character, the actor isn’t judged for anything quirky that they do, because they are portraying the character, and the character isn’t ashamed of who they are.

If I had never begun acting, I would not be confident in myself today.

Not only did theatre force me into public speaking at a young age, but it made me realize that I could accept my quirks just like the characters that I loved to play. I don’t have to hide the fact that my singing voice is average but I love to sing, or that I dance whenever I feel like it, or that my train of thought follows a track with roundabouts. I don’t hide that I am sensitive to the people around me or that I love fancy coffee and western clothing. Have I been called weird? You bet! But I have rarely, truly desired to fit in with a crowd. In theatre, a character is created for the actors.

In life, God creates us to be uniquely wonderful, but we must decide how we will play our parts.