#3.22.2017

The exam is next Thursday.

I just have to make it the end of this month and then things will start to get better. 

I can do this. 

I loved my high school theater department. I loved every minute of it. From the classes I took, to the shows we did, to the few drama club meetings we were able to have, and even our constant loosing at One-Act Competition (but s/o to them this year for making it to State - I’m still super proud!). And I still do love it. I love theater. I love performing, I love working backstage. I love the rush you get right before the curtain opens and the lights go up. I love the sad achey heart you get after a show closes. I would have never been able to get through high school as happily as I did if I was not in the theater department. 

Of course, our department suffered from a lot of drama (ignore my pun) during the four years I was there. I had three or four different teachers. Almost a new one every year. At one point, our chorus teacher was teaching our drama classes while his class had a sub. It wasn’t perfect, but I think that’s what made it so fun. 

I always said that we didn’t have the most talented group of kids, but that we had a lot of heart. All of us really loved what we were doing, and yes, there’s a lot of talent in that school, but compared to Milton (who we continually lost to every year at one act competition) we were nothing. We weren’t heavily funded, and we were greatly overlooked. At least while I was there. I do hear good things about the department now. Big casts, sold-out shows, and lots of new people auditioning! 

I’m so happy and so grateful that I was introduced into such a wonderful department so early on in high school. I have friends who didn’t get involved until later in high school, and they regret not joining sooner. And I’m happy that I started in my freshman year. I’m happy that I was one of four freshman cast in the spring musical back when seniority had a bigger play in the casting process. I’m happy that I did everything I did. 

No eight hour rehearsal bothered me. Being at school from eight in the morning to, sometimes, nine o’clock at night was so worth it. I have so many memories of being in the auditorium, laughing and crying and screaming and joking and painting and dancing and sleeping. And I miss it every day. 

I miss how it felt, walking into the auditorium after a long day at school, and taking my shoes off and eating my snack and trying to do homework but getting distracted with the scene that was on stage. I miss complaining that I was on the call sheet even though I was only used for a few minutes during rehearsal. I miss making giant posters of all the props and set changes and stressing over how fast we had to turn Elle Woods’ bedroom back into the Harvard classroom... or if Luke had the blindfold in his pocket before he went on stage... or if all of the mics would work and if the impossible quick change would really work... or the fact that my toe was bleeding literally seconds before I had to go on stage during because I stubbed it backstage during the blacklight number in Seussical. 

I am so unbelievably happy with everything that happened in the drama department. I’m happy we had the teachers we had and I’m happy that I made the friends I did. I’m happy that the department is changing for what seems to be the better. I’m looking forward to going back this weekend to see the spring musical. A bunch of my friends are seniors this year, and this will be the last one, and it’s crazy because I feel like my last show at Etowah was just a couple of weeks ago when really, it’s been a full two years. 

With all of that being said, let’s get into the second half of that title. Why I’m not doing theater at Berry. Well, it’s really simple:

It just doesn’t give me that same fuzzy feeling.

That feeling I talked about at the beginning of this post? The nerves before the curtain opens, the anxiety about the set changes, the giddy feeling when you had a good first act? It just wasn’t there. I did a show, and while I love theater, it was too stressful. 

I don’t want to say that I’m burned out. I’m not. Or I don’t think I am, but I just didn’t have the same feeling when I did a show at Berry. And that makes me really sad. I didn’t instantly connect with the people in the department. I didn’t, honestly, feel very welcomed as a freshman. No one really talked to me unless they had to. And I have a few friends in the theater department here at Berry who love it. It’s not a bad program at all, from what I understand, but it just wasn’t right for me. 

And I think what hurts me the most is that I wish it was. I wish I felt like the theater department here was worth the stress I get about school and the sleep I lose. Of course, people grow up and move on, and not everyone stays in theater after high school. I know that. I only know a few people who have continued on with it post-high school, but it was such a big part of who I was. 

A big part of my identity was rooted in the fact that I was in the drama department in high school. I started taking drama classes waaaaay before that, though. I was in elementary school and I took classes and camps all the way through middle school and that’s when I started auditioning for shows and blah blah blah. You heard the rest all up above. 

Berry’s theater department is full of a bunch of rockstars. I’ve never been disappointed after I’ve seen a show. Everything from the actors to the sets to the costumes has been perfection. So don’t think I’m trying to hate on the department or the staff or the program in general. I just couldn’t connect, and that’s been the hardest part about adjusting to life at Berry. Such a big part of who I was for so long just kind of... disappeared.