I remember it vividly, four years ago I was closing out my freshman year of high school and I felt this general sense of belonging because I had found my family. I found my family in the bizarre world of the first floor back corner of C. Milton Wright. In this hallowed hall resided the beloved drama room (aka the best place in the school besides the auditorium) and to me that is where family was.
Going into high school I wasn't really sure what I wanted. I mean I had a vague idea but I was still very young and to ask me what I wanted to do for the rest of my life was a lot to ask for. I do not know what had really possessed me to take Drama I. Maybe it was fate or destiny that I was to take drama, and maybe it was nothing but curiosity and a random decision. It does not matter why though because I would never go back and change it.
I found my best friends, my mentors, my muses and my first sense of belonging in school when I joined the Stage Wright Theater Department in September of 2012. That autumn I was in my first musical production: Irving Berlin's "Annie Get Your Gun." Since then I have been almost every theater production our school put on, in total I was in seven out of nine shows that we put on (I had to missed two because I was recovering from surgeries when both show's tech weeks were occurring).
In those seven shows I got to become friends who belonged to all types of cliques: athletes, choir kids, techies, the kids who took crazy amounts of AP classes, etc. The thing was though when we all came together we were all just theater kids, no, we were family. We were one big... very crazy family.. And like every family there are some shenanigans that become fond memories, and moments of absolute joy that light a fire in your heart and never leave you.
There is always a place for anyone in the drama department you need only to look and just try. Very seldom are people turned away, you have to screw up really badly and get three strikes to be rejected (which is near close to impossible). I wholeheartedly believe that everyone should give doing high school theater a shot. You don't have to be on stage, you can work behind it, or be in the musical pit, you could even be the guy or girl whose only job is to work the big spotlight in Act I Scene 4. Just getting a chance to be part of that family is an extraordinary experience that very rarely do you get to feel.
In that corner of C. Milton Wright, where the proud hand prints of the theater department once remained on the wall is my old home away from home. And, though they have painted over all of those hands the feelings of love and acceptance still linger in that hallowed hall.
