Personal Narrative: How Theatre Changed My Life

At a very young age I learned I was only good at a very select number of things. I failed miserably at soccer, and my experience on the kindergarten basketball team was nothing short of catastrophic. I was far from the avid reader I am today and have needed a tutor in math since I learned how to multiply. It wasn’t that I was particularly bad at all of these things, but I used to be so remarkably unambitious that I couldn’t bring myself to commit to anything long enough to become good at it. That was, until I was first exposed to the stage. Yes, I do realize how cliché this must sound: girl tries theatre, it changes her life, and she wants to pursue it in college, blah blah blah... But when my relationship with the stage began, I was in the third grade, didn’t have any friends, and was so emotionally lost I didn’t even realize I was going in the wrong direction. I’m not going to lie to you and say, “I’ve always known that theatre is my passion,” because that’s just not true. I was only eight; I probably didn’t even know what passion felt like. However, for the first time in my life, I had I finally found something I genuinely enjoyed-- it was a strange new feeling, being included. I’m also not going to pretend I was initially
good at performing. Here are a few facts to put my theatrical journey in perspective: I started performing when I was 8 years old. I began training for musical theatre in SLT’s Youth Performance Troupes when I was 10. I was cast in my first mainstage production when I was 12, and received my first speaking role at 15. After 9 years dedicated to refining my talent, I finally played my first principal character at the age of 17: Sandra Bloom in Big Fish. It’s safe to say that the process was long and difficult, but I would do it again in a heartbeat. There were times when I was frustrated with the parts I was casted in, overwhelmed by the lack of sleep, or even just feeling defeated after the countless times my name didn’t appear on a cast list. Despite all of these hardships, I kept auditioning, and I kept training, and I kept trying, because that’s what actors do. I don’t perform so other people can say, “Oh, what a pretty voice you have,” or, “Wow! I didn’t know you were a dancer!” I don’t perform to beef up my résumé. I don’t perform to give myself an after school activity, or to fulfill my required fine arts credit. To put it simply, I don’t perform just to perform. I perform to tell a story. I wholeheartedly believe that theatre is one of the most intricate, interesting forms of storytelling in the history of art.
Actors are opening themselves up to be completely and utterly vulnerable for a crowd of people to watch. They are letting strangers by the hundreds view them at their weakest moments, and then forcing themselves to wipe away the tears and take a bow. They are connecting to a story with emotions that are so overwhelming, they have to sing about it, and when those emotions intensify even further, they have to dance about it, too. Everything about the theatre is just so stunningly relatable for those onstage and off, I have a hard time imagining how different my life would have been if I had never been a part of
it. Why theatre? Because theatre has been in my life for as long as I can remember, and has transformed me as a person in more ways than I can count. A lot of people have asked me when I decided to pursue theatre in college, and the answer was easy-- it was whenever I tried to imagine my life without performance, and I couldn’t do it. Theatre is a part of who I am, and I’m not about to leave it behind. Why theatre? Because I believe in art. I believe in storytelling in every way, shape, and form. There are so many tales out there that are just waiting to be explored. Why theatre? Because in the world, there are probably hundreds of little kids who are just like I used to be. If I can, I want to show them that you don’t need to have natural talent to be good at what you love, and become who you were meant to be.