This week, an old friend came and visited campus.
This friend was someone that I respected in high school because of their immense talent and ability to make friends with everyone on their way to stardom. Are they a star now? No. Do they still have the potential to be? Yes. I want them to live up to that so immensely bad. I gave them the opportunity to come and be the center of a project at my own school that they politely dismissed. Seeing this person made me want to share a story about this person.
Her name: Claire. Top three words to describe her: consciously starving comedian. (Not literally starving. Don't worry about her.) We were in several shows together throughout high school, but not enough of them. Claire had one problem, she would always end up stealing the scene by making some perfectly timed comedic gesture; whether this gesture was subconscious or out of insecurity, I do not know. But I, on the other hand, didn't always steal the scene; I just knew how to do so. Therefore the audience was in for a constant battle for the laugh between two castmates very much intrigued by one another's talents.
When we were seniors, we played opposite one another in a very raunchy and clever musical named: Urinetown. This girl and I would spend all of rehearsals throwing ideas back and forth for bits and character choices. When it came to the actual performances, it was easy, except for one.
The second night of the show, judges from a competition came to watch our show. Claire started going crazy due to the pressure and let it get to her. In our first scene, she forgot a line that enabled our conversation to flow; so I started singing the song that was coming up and counting very discreetly on my hand what measure we were at so that the conductor knew where to pick up in the musical. We got off stage and she naturally got so in her head that she cried.
To me, this was proof that all performers make mistakes. It didn't end the show. There were more mistakes. We actually both messed up a few more times that night. Missing lines we never missed, making new choices for the sake of it, embracing our improvisational comedic skills.
Claire went on to be nominated for Best Actress in a Musical. She is one of the more talented people that I have met, and is a perfect example of a person that isn't perfect, but is successful. She is not successful because of where she is, or that she knows what she's doing, but because she was born to be successful and refuses not to be.
