Today, I’m someone who can’t live without the latest Broadway cast album. Today, I live for tweets from Broadway’s biggest stars. Weekly, I’d look forward to the Broadway.com vlogs from people like Jessie Mueller (Natural Woman: Backstage at Beautiful: A Carole King Musical days), Lesli Margherita (Looks Not Books: Backstage at Matilda), James Snyder (Hey Kid: Backstage at If/Then) and Lindsay Mendez (Fly Girl: Backstage at Wicked) to name a few.

You can find a few dozen playbills hidden away in my room a white shoebox on the third level of my bookshelf and if you look closely, you can find two full bundles of If/Then playbills that I grabbed from the Richard Rodgers on closing night. I don’t hide my love for musical theatre by any means. Also on my bookshelf, two program books: Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, If/Then, Fun Home, the real book, by Alison Bechdel, Wicked, not The Grimmerie but the special edition book by Gregory McGuire and a Rent script (printed in paperback). And of course, adorning my walls, three framed photos: one Wicked, one Finding Neverland and one If/Then. I’m not shy my love for Broadway just ask anyone who knows me personally, I’m the biggest nerd who can flawlessly rap the entire Hamilton soundtrack until that one part in Guns & Ships where Daveed Diggs is literally losing his mind.

I often talk about Broadway to my friends and family and almost always, it never fails, I get a question from them, “Why didn’t you do theatre in high school?” And I never really went into it with them, afraid of what would come of it. Sometimes I’d just change the subject, sometimes I would answer it, but vaguely and say something like, “Oh… I don’t know.” with a smile. I never thought too much on it really, usually I just think of it as a “the past is in the past” kind of thing.

When I was in the seventh grade, I was bullied out of my school talent show. Where, you guessed it, my talent was singing. A girl who had given me issues in the past was watching the auditions tormented me for days after them coming up to me in the hallway and saying things like, “Are you sure you’re going to go through with it?” or, “You know, you’ll be singing in front of the whole school right?” and my all time favorite, “Are you actually thinking about singing in front of all those people like that?” I didn’t know where to turn after that, I endured it for a few days and decided to write a letter to my English teacher who I felt would be in my corner if I’d told her about this.

I put it on her desk at the beginning of class, I went through and worked on my readings for the day and didn’t think about the letter until the end of class when she went to the head of the room and seemed to stare. My leg started to do that annoying shaky thing that makes the chair squeak and annoys everyone. I didn’t expect for her to pull me out of class to talk to me. She wanted to know why I’d come to the decision that it would be best that I just drop the talent show altogether. She wanted to know who said something and why I would listen to them.I did my best and tried to be honest with her, that I was being teased and I didn’t like confrontation so I didn’t want to cause any trouble. I just told her how I really felt. How I felt like if she hated the way I sounded then others would too and she would make me the laughingstock of the whole school. I could tell she felt terrible that I was even in this situation and she wanted so badly for me to stick it out and show her that I wasn’t afraid,but I was.

This was all because I was one of those people who took absolutely everything to heart. I know I shouldn’t, and I know I should push through those things but, people are mean. People are ruthless. Some people will stop at nothing until they take you down. And that’s exactly what happened to me. I knew this girl wouldn’t have stopped bothering me if I’d taken that stage. I was quiet in school, I didn’t say much at all, for someone who tried to stay involved in every club they could I didn’t have that many friends. This crippling stage fright still plagues me to this day and is exactly why I didn’t do theatre in high school, it’s also why I didn’t try out for many solos in choir.

To someone who doesn't know what it's like, let me give a brief synopsis:
Picture yourself in eighth grade, finally thinking you have built up enough confidence over the summer and over the last ten months of the school year to get up and sing like you think you should've done months ago. Picture yourself standing backstage shaking and a mess because you don't know how this is going to play out because you're starting to forget the lyrics to the song you've picked and practiced for months. Now imagine being blinded by the spotlight only to come into focus to see people staring at you, whispering about you. Except for the four people in the front row who were probably cheering for you because they felt bad for you.

Then, the music starts and suddenly you've leaped out of your body and you see yourself standing there, you're having one of those ghost whisperer moments, or whatever. You start singing and then all of a sudden there's this cracking noise, you think everything is going well so you keep singing, but then it happens again and unexpectedly the cracking noise begins to segway into a dull whine. Then, before you know it, you're singing but there's nothing amplifying out into the audience. You don't just want to stand there, but you do. You're frozen on stage staring at the A.V guy unsure of what to do with your dead mic. You don't want to quit but your body's already ahead of you. You're already mentally slumped in the back row of the auditorium trying to remember how to breathe and not cry. Eventually, when I realized I probably looked so stupid staring down into the pit with a terrified look in my eye, I gave my mic back and was ushered off stage with the worst pity applause.

Although the following Monday at school I was told my a few teachers and even the principal that I was very good, I didn't believe them and I still don't. People say I just have to “get over it” but it’s just not that simple. I can’t just wake up one morning and decide that today I’m going to go out on a stage in front of 200+ people and sing my heart out. I can barely sing in front of my family. This is why when/if I do ever sing in front of people I don't believe them when they tell me I sounded good or anything like that.

I’ll have my day, I’ll have my moment. Until then, I’ll keep to singing songs from Les Miz and variations on Legally Blonde by myself in my house to only my dog, the best audience a girl could ask for. Thanks. Bye.