Recently, I asked some friends to describe me when we first met. They used words like talkative, outgoing, and confident. When I look around I also get called sassy, friendly, and all sorts of words that describe a personable and outgoing person. As I think to myself, I wonder when this happened because, to me, I've never felt that way until recently.
For the longest time I was quiet, kept to myself, and was shy. I can recall countless times I hid behind my parent's legs when I met someone new. Or I went unheard in a tricky situation. Now I could blame the old version of myself, my fourth-grade bully, or all the kids who called me differently. I could attribute it to my weight, voice, family, or so many other things. But why would I want to focus on the negatives? I mean, I could write a list of my insecurities and why I was quiet, but I choose to look on what change me for the better: theater.
I've been in theaters since sixth-grade, but it was really in high school where I noticed a change. In my junior year of high school, I was Horton in "Seussical the Musical," which is now a joke at college, but it was in all seriousness the role that changed me for the better. In that show, it was the first time that someone had to rely on me to do a good job other than my parents. As all theater people know, one weak link can bring down the whole show. From that pressure, I had to break out of my cocoon and become a new person. Someone who was comfortable singing and acting in front of hundreds of people at a time.
I felt connected to Horton because he was independent and no one really listened to him. He went each day looking for a friend and finally found it in the form of a dust speck: The Whos. He didn't feel like he belonged until Gertrude flew to go see him at a circus as he sat on an egg. From that moment on he gained confidence so he could save his clover and his egg.
In my two months of rehearsal, like Horton, I gained confidence in myself so that I was capable of learning the part. The girl who played Gertrude believed in me as a person and as an actor, and it helped me grow socially so that I was not the odd kid out.
With the responsibility to sing, act, and dance I grew from my shell and became an entirely new person. During classes I became social and talked more. I joined more clubs and made new friends. Theater changed my life for the better and it was all because my director and cast who believed in me.
From then on, from playing that over-wound clock in Beauty and The Beast to the horrible doctor in Harvey I've gained so much insight on who I am and what I want to be. It is true when I say theater shaped me to be who I am today.
