Anyone who knows me, knows that I love theater. I've been in the drama club since elementary school.

Normally, people perceive me as very shy. I don't often speak in class, and it took some people years to know the sound of my own voice. On the one hand, while I can be pretty shy, most of the time it's just because I don't want to talk. Usually if I don't feel like I have anything worthwhile to say. Plus, as an introvert, talking when I'm in a huge crowd of people drains my energy faster, so I need to conserve it by not talking too much.

Therefore, a lot of people are confused when they find out I love to perform in plays and musicals. They simply can't imagine me performing in front of a crowd of people. I'm pretty sure I gave a few people heart attacks when I played Rapunzel in "Into the Woods" during the scene where I had to scream while being dragged onstage by the Witch.

I love bringing a story to life onstage, to feel a strong bond with a group of people I might not have hung out with otherwise as we create something magical. So yeah, doing theater is fun.

Unless you lose your voice.

We're all human, we all get sick. And often, getting a cold doesn't leave your voice in the best condition, and it's really inconvenient when you're in the middle of rehearsals for a show, particularly a musical. And, of course, it always seems to happen closer to tech week (aka hell week). But the worst thing that can happen, that every performer dreads, is when they actually lose their voice.

Right now, I'm in rehearsal for "Evita," we open on October 4. The first five weeks since the cast list came out, everything was going great. I showed up at rehearsals ready to go, character shoes on and singing strong. So, of course, week before we go into tech my voice decides to take a vacation.

I could barely talk, much less sing. "Evita" is completely sung through. Granted, I am in the ensemble, so it isn't a complete disaster that I couldn't sing at rehearsal this week, I could still dance and move around on the stage. I still felt really guilty that I couldn't sing. We're only a cast of forty, and we have to fill an entire auditorium with our voices, every singer counts. Even when I'm not onstage, if there's a point when a crowd is supposed to be singing, I have to stand at one of the microphones back stage and sing into it. When we all sing together, forty people need to sound like a hundred.

It also took some people a while to realize I couldn't talk. The director was aware, but the others just assumed I was trying to be quiet while rehearsal was going on because the room we rehearse in, sounds echoes very easily. Then during break, they realized I actually couldn't talk.

Losing your voice during a show is not cool. You can't talk a lot, you sound like a dying whale if you try to sing, and you drink a ton of water and tea and pray that your voice will come back by opening night.

Keeping my fingers crossed.