Gold Fabric & Greek Gods: The School Play That Quietly Changed My Life

There’s something about June 2000 that still lives in my chest.

Today’s 2000s nostalgia entry takes me back to middle school in Italy — and before you picture pep rallies, drama clubs, and after-school activities like in American shows… pause. We didn’t have that.

In Italy, school meant 8:00 a.m. to maybe 1:00 p.m., sometimes 2:00. Monday through Saturday. And then you went home. No clubs. No theater department. No sports teams after school. No built-in creative outlets.

So when art found you, it felt rare. Sacred.

And for me, it came in the form of a theater workshop.

For one or two years (time feels blurry now), we had this incredible opportunity to build a play from scratch. We learned what theater actually was — how to project, how to stand, how to breathe, how to own a stage. We wrote the script ourselves. We designed the costumes ourselves. We built everything from nothing.

The play we staged that year was The Golden Apple of Discord — straight out of Greek mythology. If you know the myth, you know: Eris crashes a wedding, throws the apple, the goddesses fight, Paris chooses Aphrodite, and boom — Trojan War unlocked.

I’ve loved mythology since I was a child, so this wasn’t just a school project. It was magic.

And somehow — unbelievably — I was cast as one of the three main goddesses. I wore gold. I played Hera, wife of Zeus. My favorite goddess at the time. (Before I grew up and realized… okay, she had issues.)

I was painfully shy back then. Socially reserved. The kind of girl who preferred staying in the background. But on that stage? Something shifted.

We performed not just once for parents — but for an entire week. Replicas for every class. It was a success. People loved it. We had to pause regular lessons for weeks just to build it all.

And standing there in gold fabric, under warm stage lights, alongside my best friends — I felt something I had never felt before.

Pride. Presence. Power.

For once, I wasn’t in the background.

I was central.

And here’s the thing: that moment didn’t just end with applause.

It quietly rerouted my life.

At first, I wanted to become an actress. Later, I drifted behind the scenes — directing small amateur shorts, writing scripts, entering local festivals. Eventually, I found my way into communication studies.

And now? I sit here analyzing television, storytelling, character arcs. Breaking down narratives the way some people break down equations.

That seed was planted in June 2000.

Theater cracked something open in me.

It taught me that performance isn’t just about being seen — it’s about expression. It’s about communication. It’s about translating emotion into something other people can feel.

And maybe that’s why I still care so deeply about storytelling today.

What makes this memory even softer is who was there with me.

My best friends played Aphrodite and Athena. Another dear friend — the one who had always been “the lead” in everything — had a smaller role that year. And yet she celebrated us. Cheered for us. Was genuinely happy.

We were just teenage girls in handmade costumes, acting out a myth that would outlive us all.

But in that small Italian school auditorium, for one week in June 2000, we felt immortal.

And when I look at those photos now, I don’t just see kids in costumes.

I see the moment my voice started forming.

I see the first time I stepped into myself.