My first performance took place in the living room, my audience of two. My lights the TV screen, my sound a cappella. Wobbling under a tower of plastic tiaras, a 4-year-old me took the spotlight for the very first time, even if it was just for my stuffed animals.
Theatre called to me before I even heard the ring. For 7 years, I had done dance, piano and choir. But it wasn’t until my freshman year of high school that I walked into my first audition. From understudy to lead in a matter of months, I knew I had found my place.
I am someone who often puts in extra work just to learn something. To study for a math test, to practice for a piano recital, but I found that acting comes naturally to me. Over my last 15 productions, I was able to become my character, to feel their feelings. To cry when they were sad and smile when they were happy. It became a game, a puzzle. In order to relay the message, I needed to understand their thoughts. Acting is more than reading the lines; it is imagination, to feel and to think.
Memorizing my lines was absorption instead. I can recall parts of each monologue I’ve had in the last four years because I remember how they felt. I was rarely nervous because I knew that I loved it. The sheer joy and pride I felt performing my work, and the genuine emotion I attempted to convey as my character, were enough to fill my senses. And if I ever had a moment of doubt, I had my castmates, my best friends, to remind me: “You’re not nervous, you’re excited to do well. It’s the same feeling.”
But on April 26, 2025, I stepped onto the stage for the very last time. And that is one performance I wasn’t prepared for. And not because I wasn’t ready to perform, but because I wasn’t ready to stop. Something that isn’t talked about, in the face of senior year, is parting with the things you’ve spent so long working towards. Those not attending school for their extracurricular passion are forced to leave it behind. Something I’ve lived doing each day, for hours at a time, will never be repeated. The performances I’ve spent tears on will lose meaning. It will grow distant, a thing I’ve done in the past. But at least I will remember how it felt.
