Student Blog: The Wisdom of a 6th Grade Theatre Kid

I’ve been involved in theater in my community since second grade, when I performed in our riveting elementary school production of Alice in Wonderland.   I played the starring role of the Door Mouse. Back then, playing with face paint, making our costumes from things we had at home, and creating silly dance moves to incorporate into the show made theatre a fun and carefree way to spend the day.  

Later in middle school, I learned that while theatre was still a fun after-school activity, it can also be devastating for pre-pubescent 12-year-olds when they don’t get the part they want. We started to take this extracurricular a little more seriously, but we still found time to make silly TikToks, laugh with our friends, and put Snapchat filters on our directors and choreographers.  The carefree aspect of theatre was still there.

When I got to high school, I started to think of performing as a future career, and for a moment, theatre wasn’t a fun after-school activity, but something I had to work towards to chase my dreams. Auditioning, both for school and regional productions, was suddenly taken very seriously.  For the first time, not everybody got into every production - you couldn’t just automatically get into a show because you signed up for it.  My peers were now my competitors and auditions were now competitions.  Definitely not joyful and certainly not silly.

When I was a freshman, I started volunteering at the theatre programs at both the elementary and middle schools.  When I am with those kids every week, they remind me how to take the weight off of everything and let theatre be fun.  The middle schoolers like to dance in the wings during songs they aren’t in.  The elementary kids make it a priority to tell me all the funny things that happened to them that day and what they had for lunch. Getting their hair and makeup done is a special thrill to them and not just part of a daily process.  Friendship bracelets and colorful hair tinsel really mean something.

They remind me that THEATRE IS FUN!  And even though the stakes are now a little bit higher in high school and definitely auditioning for college, I try to remember to make sure that me and my friends still find time to do silly TikToks, Instagram takeovers, and MisCast performances.  One of my favorite memories of high school theatre will always be when one of our friend's pants fell down during his performance as the Prince in Cinderella.  In that moment, we all laughed until we cried, him included, instead of feeling embarrassment and disappointment for the hiccup in the show. During our very serious production of The Diary of Anne Frank, we still found times during rehearsals to crack up when a line was misread or a funny moment didn’t land.

I’ve been lucky enough to be constantly reminded of why I love this craft in the first place. Yes, the complicated dances and audition tension are thrilling, but I’ve found it’s key to find a happy medium between taking it all seriously and the post-rehearsal fro-yo and improv dance crash-outs.