Just like a basketball team, a volleyball team, a soccer team, a lacrosse team, a dance team, a cheerleading squad, or any other group of people that serve a purpose when they’re with each other the theatre kid family is real. If you are a theatre kid you definitely know what it means, but for those of you who don’t know what a theatre kid is, it’s usually a person that associates themselves with musical and theatrical art, keeps up with trends, is completely obsessed with certain or all Broadway shows, and is dedicated to contributing to the world of theater, music and art in any way he or she can.
Theatre kids have a lot in common, but we are also all very unique and that’s how we can all love and tolerate each other (most of the time), without the world falling apart and everyone ripping each other's hair out. Theatre kids are probably the most diverse group of kids in your high school or college. The theatre kid fam thrives off of diversity; we want people from all races, ethnicities, genders (although especially in high school there was a lack of guys who could sing), nationalities, languages, sexual orientations, religions, political views (although, lets face it most of us are liberals), financial backgrounds and social statuses, and the weirder, corkier you are the more we embrace and love you. Unlike sports though, theatre is very unique because there is no “peak” age, theatre is for babies, toddlers, kids, teenagers, adults, seniors, grandmas and grandpas and everyone in between, anyone can participate and anyone can be good at it. But most theatre kids realize they’re theatre kids around middle school when they attend their town’s high school productions and dream of one day being on that stage. The theatre kid affect really becomes evident in high school, because you spend three hours after school together almost every day. In high school it shapes your social life, because you spend most of your time at school, at rehearsal, studying, or sleeping, your academic life, because you sacrifice study time for rehearsal time, and your family life, because at one point your so stressed that your parents pick up on it. But, if it wasn’t for high school theatre you wouldn’t be who you are today.
Theatre is an incredible thing. It takes stories, history, characters, dialogue, details, fashion, culture, dance, movement, music, emotion, passion, and love and blends it all together on a stage for a couple of hours. Every show is different, and every production of a show is unique. You don’t know what it takes to produce a show until you are in one: auditions, casting, months and months of rehearsal, memorizing scripts, singing the same songs over and over again, props, costumes, make-up, tech week (more like hell week), raising money (shows are expensive), making programs for the audience, advertising the show so people actually come, the whole process is exhausting, but in the end there are absolutely no regrets because you have an experience of a lifetime, you get to impact the life of the audiences, and you get to go through it with the best people, your second family, the theatre kids.
Theatre is a four season sport. At least back in my high school we had the fall play, winter madrigal singer show, spring musical and end of the year ‘One Acts’ show. It was really a commitment that us theatre kids were proud to be a part of. Every season meant something new and exciting, at the end of each year our director would hold a meeting revealing what shows we will be producing the following year, everyone would get hyped up and freak out because of excitement. Then the summer ends and the next year rolls up and, boom, second week of school there are auditions for the fall play. Then you blink an eye and closing night is over. And the real race begins, the race to the spring musical. Whether it’s “West Side Story”, “The Sound of Music”, “Guys and Dolls”, or “Into the Woods”, you listen to the music and know the lyrics like the back of your hand, you watch the movie and watch YouTube videos of the Broadway show, you study the audition packet till audition day, then the callback list goes up and then casting decisions are made. When you get home from callbacks you text your friends with predictions, you begin to think nervous thoughts and can’t sleep, and even though you probably have work to do, there’s no way you can focus on it with those butterflies in your stomach. You get to school on edge, the cast list is posted and you either cry, scream, and get angry or you you smile, laugh, and jump around. Either way, once the read through comes along you accept the part you were assigned and move on with your life.
The rehearsals are long and tedious, yet, calming and fun. And before you know it, it’s hell week and you’re just a couple of days away from a real, actual audience. These are the weeks in high school that you will never forget, late night rehearsals, crazy warm-up exercises, drinking honey straight out of the bottle, running around the green room naked, and repeating that for a week almost every day. But when opening night comes around you feel this magical, special energy running through your body, your mind is sharp and ready to take on the world, there is this surreal natural high combined with a lot of nerves that makes for the perfect performance recipe. The shows fly by in a whirlwind of song and emotion, you blink an eye and your taking a bow for the last time. You cry and hug every person you see, you clean up as fast as you can, so that the fact that it has ended doesn’t consume you and then you party. For the weeks after you go through ‘post musical depression’ which to us theatre kids is probably a diagnosable mental phenomena, almost like withdrawing from a drug you’ve been highly addicted to for three months. Basically, PMD, is a mild type of depression as a result of not being able to see your second family as often as you want, and it never really goes away. In high school you go through approximately four years (depends on when you start) of this and then all of a sudden it ends, but theatre never ever dies. It lives in our souls, in our memories, in our experiences and in our hearts.
Theatre is always a bonding experience that unites people of all backgrounds and all aspects of life. It doesn’t matter if you’re a professional Broadway actress playing Evita or a 13-year-old kid playing boy #2 in your middle school production of Hairspray, theatre is always a special way of expressing yourself and feeling like you’re part of something bigger. The theatre kid family sees each other at our worst and at our best, we accept each other for who we are, and most importantly we all want to help each other and make a difference in our communities. There is nothing like being a part of such a dedicated, caring, special group of people, and I only hope that it continues to be this way for everyone, so we can keep inspiring people, evoking emotion and spreading the love. May the theatre fam always be with you.
