Whenever I’m having a hard or boring day, I always look forward to after school. A lot of people are excited because they get to go home, but I’m excited because I get to stick around and do what I love most: acting. In this crazy world, I feel like it’s almost impossible to sit down with absolutely nothing to do and just relax, so from homework to chores, I feel like I’m always busy. However, whenever I get up onto the stage, I shed all of my problems away as I become a blank canvas to create my character upon. No matter what has happened earlier on in that day, I can forget all of my problems as I mold myself into another person in a different situation. For those few hours when I’m rehearsing or performing, I am at total peace and serenity with my surroundings, and I haven’t a care in the world. Therefore, I can conclude that I believe in theatre as a means of de-stressing and forgetting the petty troubles of a day-to-day routine.
I remember this one week my freshman year where I really developed this belief. It was the last week before winter break and for some reason, teachers always to assign a huge amount of work before you go on a vacation. On top of tons of homework, I had a really big speech that I had to present in English. The group that I had to present with was quite possibly the most uncooperative one in the history of presentations. It also worked out that we were the first group to present and had about a week less then everyone else to prepare. It was also the tech week of a production of “Peter Pan” that I was in, and that meant frequent rehearsals. I was really frazzled trying to carry the group by myself, but whenever I got into costume and under those lights, I forgot all of my problems and had a chance to collect my thoughts.
Due to being able to think clearly throughout that time of chaos, I was able to pull off the speech and get a grade I wanted as well as staying on top of the rest of my work. I really credit theatre to helping me get through sticky spots like that, because I know that if I didn’t just have some time to really let go, I would have never gotten through it.