Theatre

I've always been one to live more of a slightly fantasized, dramatic life. I've never wanted life any other way. I did my first "play" in kindergarten. Sort of. I say sort of because I was the "director" and an "actor:" in the "play". I remember asking my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Marsha, if she'd let us do a play for her. She said yes. It wasn't much of a play. Princesses and babies and jewelry made of baby wipes. Odd combination, I know, but I look back on that and realize that that was my first really real performance with an audience. I mean, yeah, sure we had the end of the year programs and Christmas and Easter programs in preschool and stuff, but this was the first one that I had ever done any real "acting". I wonder now what that teacher thought of me. The silly little girl with a bright personality and the most get-out-of-town-awful country accent ever. I wonder if I knew then that I'd be so in love with theatre now.

Fast forward to today. Today I was walking down the hall of an all too familiar hall way on campus. I've walked that hall way probably more than I care to think about. Today it was different, though. It was sad. There were signs posted on a neatly organized bulletin board. That bulletin board has seen some interesting days. I signed my name on a list on that board more than once. One time in particular stands out in my mind. My first time signing a list. Not just any list, a cast list. I remember the night before I had gotten a phone call saying that I had been cast in the play MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING By: William Shakespeare. I was shocked. Never in a million years had I ever expected to be cast in anything. I remember asking the stage manager, Lydia, if everyone had been cast. She laughed and said that 65 people had auditioned, but that only 24 made it. Wow. The next day I walked down that hallway for the first time to accept my role as the First Watch. I had my friend CJ take a picture of me fake signing the list later that day.

That was nearly two years ago.

And, again, I say fast forward to today. I was walking down the hall that over the past two years I had come to know, love and practically claim for the theatre department. Then I realize that there are other people there. People I don't know. I say people, but I saw one person. It sent me to an awkward place emotionally. I hadn't realized how much exactly theatre had been so essential to me. Not just the act of theatre, the actual theatre. The building. The proscenium. The audience. The actors--my friends, and in some few rare cases, people who didn't care much for me or I for them. The directors. The scenery. The lights. All of it. The memories. So many memories, in the same place I had been many times before that was all changed and different with time. A short amount of time, but still, time changes things. So many new people walk that hallway now. I can't help but be happy that the theatre has new participants, but sad because I don't have things in common with these new participants. They like the night clubs, I prefer the pubs with my older friends. They look down upon Shakespeare and Greek theatre, I love them both with my heart, because they are a part of my history as an actor.

So, I leave you with this. Would all of this eventually get to me if I didn't have to take a year off from theatre? Would it set in after I graduated? Would it happen anyway even with me staying the way I was in theatre while the people around me changed? Why does it all mean so much? When I get to go back, will I be resented because I have memroies with this place and these few people who are still here from when I started that these other people do not? Will I resent them for their new memories that I am not a part?

Mucho heart and lots of love,
KT