The Role of a Lifetime

I originally wrote this article for an online creative writing class I took during my junior year of high school. I have edited it to make it more current and add more details to some of my favorite stories in the theater.

In 6th grade, an opportunity arose for me to try a new extracurricular activity: the middle/high school musical. There was no theater program at my elementary school, and although I had seen a production of Seussical of the middle/high school’s in second grade, I had never really thought about joining theater before. At the time, I wasn’t particularly interested. The high school musical that year was The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. The middle school musical, the musical I would have been in had I auditioned and got in, was Honk! Jr. Neither of those musicals interested me all that much. I also didn’t feel that I was ready to act on stage. I had already sung in front of people in the past (and loved doing it), but I wasn’t quite ready to act yet.

I didn’t audition for the musical the next year, either. In my 7th-grade year, we only did one show that combined middle and high schoolers into one show. That show was Cats, and I didn’t want such a difficult musical to be my first one. Someone who later became a friend of mine made fun of me for not auditioning at the time, but at that point, I wasn’t ready to act in a musical like that. I was not ready for its incredibly difficult choreography and intense makeup at my age. I didn’t even like the movie that much at the time. However, I did ultimately see the final show at my school and loved watching it. The tech, costumes, choreography, and performances made my jaw drop, and there were multiple moments in the show where I wondered how in the world they pulled that off. Even though I didn’t try out for the musical that year, I did decide to join the theater program through their fall play program. Here’s how their plays work: over a two-night span around the beginning of November every year, somewhere around six one-act plays (most of them directed by students but usually with one directed by our drama teacher) are performed at our school. The one-night-long auditions typically occur mid-August, and the casting is decided that night. I auditioned and got a part in a play called The Bully Pulpit. The show centers around a girl trying to start an anti-bullying campaign and trying to convince her friends to join as well. However, she manipulates them to join the campaign, demonstrating that she is a bully herself. I think I was the only one who actually enjoyed being in that play out of all my castmates. I played the boyfriend of the main character’s best friend, and I had a blast playing that character.

I decided to try for the one-acts again the next year, and I got the main role in the play directed by my drama teacher. The play was This is a Test written by Stephen Gregg. The show centers around a kid who worries he hasn’t studied enough for a test because all of his classmates seem to know more than he does-- either that or they are cheating their way towards a good grade. Just like the previous year, I had a blast playing my character and felt like I was the only one of the cast members who actually enjoyed being in the show in the long run. Yes, I was incredibly nervous the night we performed, but that nervousness only helped to get into character and with my performance, and I was really proud of the final product. Around this time, I started to consider trying out for the school musical. I felt bad about not at least auditioning for the musical the year before, and I had a feeling it was about time for me to finally try out and see what it was like.

Once again, there were two shows that year: the high schoolers were going to perform Songs for a New World, and the middle schoolers would perform Shrek, Jr. As soon as I heard that announcement, I reconsidered whether or not I wanted to try out. I adored Shrek as a kid and still love the movies and character to this day. However, when I first saw the trailer of the original Broadway production of the musical, I thought it was a dumb idea. The trailer didn’t impress me because it gave me the impression that the show didn’t seem to work as a Broadway musical. Hearing that the school was going to do it did not impress me, even though all of the other middle-school theater fanatics were super excited for the show and already thinking and talking to others about the characters they wanted to try out for. Ultimately, I decided I might as well try out for the show because I had nothing to lose. I also decided to audition for the character of Shrek just because I could. I felt it was time to finally give the musical a shot and see what happened.

At our school, only around 20 to 30 people audition for the school musicals and/or fall plays every year, so if you audition, there’s a pretty high chance you will at least get in, even if you don’t get a major role. Despite this, I was not expecting to be the only person who actually auditioned for Shrek. The musical auditions take place over three nights: the first night is acting, the second is singing, and the third is dancing. Most of the people in the auditorium wanted to audition for Donkey, which personally surprised me. During the acting audition, most of the people who read for Shrek hadn’t memorized lines to try out for the character and instead had to read them for someone else who wanted to try out for Donkey. I, however, actually auditioned for Shrek, Scottish accent and all. Nobody else memorized lines for that character -- just me. Everyone was saying how great I was in the audition, and I started to think I actually had a chance to get the part. When I looked at the cast list once it went up, there was my name, right next to the name Shrek. I had done it. I had gotten the role of Shrek, one of the biggest characters in DreamWorks history, in my first ever musical. I couldn’t be more excited. I knew this show was gonna be fun.

Our auditions had taken place a few weeks before winter break at the end of November, and we started rehearsal right after we got back from said break, at the beginning of January. We spent the next three-and-a-half months learning our lines, practicing our dances, improving our characters and performances, mastering our blocking, and getting mentally prepared for performing in front of an audience. Just like my previous shows, even though I was excited, I was also nervous, especially for the first entrance of my character. I was supposed to either jump up on a platform behind a special setpiece of Shrek’s house that was built for the show or walk behind it (I can't quite remember which one) as it was rolled out onto the stage by the techies. I would then make my entrance by bursting through the front door of the house and bursting into song. Thankfully, all of the performances (and entrances) went very well, and the show received rave reviews from our audiences. Overall, I was happy with what I had done with the character and how audiences were responding to my performance and the show in general. To this day I still get compliments from people who remember me from Shrek.

The experience of performing in Shrek Jr. changed my entire life for the better. Not only had I gotten a bigger role in that show than I ever had in any show previously, but it was also my first ever musical. Because of the lack of students who audition for the musical every year, and particularly the lack of guys, I am now obligated to audition for the rest of my high school career, especially since I have a pretty good chance of getting in. I am so glad I tried out for Shrek, because it taught me how much fun musicals were to be in and finally gave me the motivation to continue auditioning for the shows after that. After Shrek Jr., I couldn’t wait for the next year’s show.

In my freshman year, I played Mal Beineke in The Addams Family. In my sophomore year, I played the Wizard in Once Upon a Mattress. In my junior year, while the middle schoolers were performing Schoolhouse Rock Live!, the high schoolers got to perform Chicago, where I played a police chief, a judge, and an ensemble member. I have also continued to audition for fall plays. In 9th grade, I took a break from acting to try my hand at directing. I directed and cameoed in The Accident, which follows a show gone wrong after a truck full of the show’s props and costumes crashes. That show is by far my favorite production I have directed so far. In 10th grade, I decided to try acting and directing at the same time. I acted in Being Rose, which followed the journey of a woman named Rose through her entire life, and directed A Murdered Mystery, a show about a murder mystery play gone wrong.

My 11th-grade fall play year was by far my hardest year in the fall plays. I directed A Game, a show in which three people fight over sections of a room during an experiment, and acted in an abridged version of the play Circus Olympus that our director (who was also one of my castmates in A Game) dubbed Demeter vs. Hady-Poo, which was a comedic take on the tale of Hades and Persephone. Partway through the rehearsal period, one of the cast members of A Game had to drop out because of scheduling conflicts. Desperate to find a replacement and unable to get the person I wanted to play the part, the Demeter vs. Hadypoo director and I asked our theater teacher/main director what we should do and who we should get to play the role. The teacher pointed directly at me. From that point on, I also had to play one of the main parts in a show that I was directing. Thankfully, despite a rough rehearsal period and a universal fear that we wouldn’t be ready for the performance night, the actual performance went really well, which was a huge relief for all of us.

Despite all the fun I’ve had being able to participate in theater since 7th grade, there was a time where I started to consider not doing theater once I graduated high school. I was getting tired of the amount of dancing I had to do (my least favorite aspect of all musicals) compared to the amount of acting and singing in some of the later shows, and I’ll be honest, I think part of that may be because my ego got to me after getting Shrek on my first try. Recently, however, not only have I realized that I want to continue theater into college, but I’m also motivated to try and audition for the title role in the hit musical Dear Evan Hansen. My classmates have suggested that I could play the character well, and I absolutely adore the musical itself: the soundtrack, the script, and the characters, particularly Evan, are all amazing. I see so much of myself in Evan Hansen, and I want to be able to have the chance to play myself. Maybe it’s too much to ask, but if nothing else, I wanna try and see if I can somehow make that dream come true. I mean, hey, the audition form for the official show is online for everyone to access and audition for the show, so I might as well submit an audition and see what happens.

Not only have I decided to continue theater locally, I finally auditioned for a show outside of my school at the International Thespian Festival in Lincoln, Nebraska this year. I was already able to go to the festival because I got a “Superior” rating on a performance of a musical song and am able to perform that song at the festival. It was even better when I was cast as an ensemble member in the new show there, which was called A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Area 51, or Dreamland. It was written by Chris Miller and Nathan Tysen and included Sarah Charles Lewis in the cast, the writers and original star of the Broadway musical Tuck Everlasting. It was such a blast to be a part of. Since then, I've acted as an ensemble member in Chicago, had my production of Urinetown canceled (where I was due to play Caldwell B. Cladwell), joined an online theater company called Loud Voices Silent Streets, and participated in other miscellaneous theater festivals during college. I will never forget, though, that all of this --my love of theater, some truly great memories of rehearsal and performing, amazing connections with the directors and cast members of those shows, and songs from those shows that have gotten stuck in my head for the rest of my life -- started with the role of a lifetime.