On Tuesday, I’m going to New York with my class, and while there, I’m going to be seeing six different shows. In honor of that, I’m going to talk about how exactly I got into theatre and what it’s done for my life.
Skip back to fifth grade. I wasn’t like other fifth graders. I didn’t really do things with my classmates. I had one girl I considered a friend, but aside from her, I was much more interested in books than socializing. I loved music. It was my favorite subject, and between choir outside of school and the required music classes that all elementary school kids are in, I was having a great time.
Because it would have been Dr. Seuss’s 100th birthday that year, the choir put on “Seussical”, a musical that blends quite a few of the famous children’s books together into one storyline. I didn’t think much of it, but it was fun. That was the first time I was in a show that wasn’t really simple and required for school.
At the end of the year, we did a talent show for all of the fifth grade. I paired up with the girl who I considered a friend at the time and we sang “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera. After we were done performing, we would sit down in the audience and watch everyone else. Two other girls from my class did “What is This Feeling?” from the musical “Wicked”. I knew nothing about the musical, but I loved that song. It was funny, and when I got my first iPod, that was the first song I looked up to download that I hadn’t already had.
In sixth grade, they did announcements for the whole school at the end of the day. One day, they mentioned that anyone who wanted to try out for the school play had to come to a meeting that day. Even though I had never been in a non-musical show before, something in my brain told me I absolutely had to audition. I got myself excused from part of my class to go to the office and call my mother for permission to stay late. (This was before I had a cell phone, so I couldn’t just text her to ask.) I ended up being a camera girl that followed the reporter around in a play called “Sunny Side Up”, about a rich guy trying to decide who deserves to be included in his will.
This is from "Willy Wonka" when I was in seventh grade. I'm the grandmother in blue. Wasn't I cute?
I took theatre classes all through middle school, and was involved in every show the entire time I was there. Middle school was a really hard time for me, when I started realizing that nobody really wanted anything to do with me. The theatre teacher there was and still is my favorite teacher that I have ever had. When most teachers simply ignored the bullying, or worse, refused to believe it was happening, he did everything he could to make me feel safe. I had an assigned chair right by his desk, so nobody could do anything to me without him seeing. He would warn me before using the fog horn, knowing that loud noises scared me. And best of all, he would assign me to groups, taking away the terror that came from trying to form one by myself. Theatre was the one place for those three years that I felt any semblance of safety.
In 7th grade, I started asking to be called Elphie, after the main character in Wicked. I had since learned more about the show, to a point where I had the entire thing memorized. I would act out the whole show in my basement every night, and I had already read the entire novel that it was based on. It was (and still is), my favorite show. It was the first story I had ever heard that had a character that I related to so strongly, and the first time I had a sense of hope that with time, things could get better.
Freshmen year of high school, I was in the chorus of Kiss Me, Kate. I thought I looked like a doll, and it was by far the most impressed I ever was with a dress that I didn't get to keep. (I'm in the middle, in pink, holding a basket.)
The last show I was in during my time in public school was the most fun I've ever had with a show. My character was this snotty lady who couldn't (or chose not to) correctly pronounce the word "divine", and got killed off about halfway through the show. I heard from quite a few people that I didn't know that I was their favorite up until my death, and that really made me happy. I was doing something right. Strangers liked me, and I won an unofficial award for my death scene.
(Me and my father, right after closing night of that show)
I stayed in theatre all through high school, and though Wicked is still my favorite show, (I’ve seen it a total of five times, and as of Wednesday it will be six) I appreciate all aspects of all shows. I’ve grown up seeing theatre as not just a form of entertainment, but a place where everyone can truly belong. If you’ve never seen a live show, give it a chance. It might just change your life.
