When I was a sophomore in high school, I decided to sign up to help backstage for a spring musical. I helped move set pieces and back drops and helped with quick changes when I needed to, but for the most part, I stood behind the red curtain and watched with wonder. I promised myself that I would try with all my might to be up there the next chance I could. Next thing I knew I was playing Little Red Riding Hood in Into The Woods.

I can remember opening night like it was yesterday. The nerves vibrated through my entire body, but when I skipped onstage with my pigtails and my basket, and the spotlight hit me, I was sold. I fell in love with the person I became when I was onstage. It didn’t matter what I was going through offstage; when I was on stage, with that audience looking up at me, I could be anything.

When it came time to pick my major in college, I thought it was simple. I fell in love with theatre quickly and I had no intention of stopping it. I picked a school with a good theatre program, packed up my bags, and I was off. I auditioned for Elon’s BFA acting program my freshman year. I was late auditioning, but I thought that I still had a chance. I got rejected. I was upset at first, but soon learned that there was a non-audition theatre major at Elon. It was called the BA Theatre Studies program. (For those of you who don’t know, BFA stands for Bachelor of Fine Arts, and BA stands for Bachelor of Arts. Elon has two BFA programs- acting and music theatre. The BA program is for theatre studies.). Not having that “F” on my degree changed everything.

I know what you’re thinking. How can one simple letter be a big deal? So what if you’re an acting major, a theatre major, or a music theatre major? So what if you had to audition or not? And you’re right. A part of me still says, “What’s the big deal?” But that one single letter determined my entire college career and potentially my professional career ahead of me.

While being a theatre studies major instead of an acting or music theatre major, I have watched the way people treated me. I have witnessed the disrespect from not only students, but faculty, too.

I watched BFA majors ignore me and put me down, I watched time and time again my name to never appear on the cast list simply because I didn’t have an “F”.

I understand wanting to feel powerful and feeling superiority over some people. We’re humans; it’s normal to want to feel superior to other people sometimes.

I’ve always known theatre was a tough business. And maybe it was hard coming from being a lead in almost all of the plays in high school to never getting cast. I’ll admit, it was a hard adjustment. But I was never asking for leads in the plays here. I was just asking for a chance. A chance to become a better actress, a better singer, a better person. You can’t always take the best and put them in all of the plays. Sure, the plays are always incredible, but I could be incredible too if they gave me the time of day and didn’t judge me based on my major.

I never got the opportunity to get better because of that damn letter. I have never once been cast in a mainstage show. I’ve been apart of a few student-run shows, and they were incredible experiences, but once that show ended, everyone went back to not talking to me. I once was in line for a mainstage show audition, and a BFA acting major turned around and said, “wow you’re auditioning with the big dogs now? I bet you feel really cool.” It took everything in me not to punch him in the face.

I became very close with the other BA theatre majors. Most of them, unfortunately, weren’t really doing this for their career, they just wanted to do it for fun. Which is fine. But it didn’t really help when I felt this way and there weren’t many others that cared enough to do something about it. Fortunately, I had a few other BA theatre majors that felt this way. We became motivated, encouraged, we wanted to change the theatre culture here, but getting shut down time and time again really takes it out of you. It makes you want to throw your hands up and say, “I give up.”

Once again, maybe I’m being naïve, and maybe I’m too “sensitive” for the business, but I don’t want to be apart of a community that doesn’t support each other and respect each other, and who decides who they are going to be and how they are going to treat each other based on their major. If this is how I’m going to be treated, and if this is the way theatre is going to make me feel, then I don’t want anything to do with it.

I don’t regret being a theatre major. It made me realize how much I love being apart of shows, the long nights that never end, the all-day rehearsals, the countless hours I’ve spent reading plays. But what I realized more than anything was the respect that I deserve from people no matter who I am or what my major is. I love theatre, but I’m not in it for the drama. I don’t want to go into a field that is catty, that cuts each other down, that is based on looks and waist size and judgmental looks.

I fell in love with a lot of other things in college. I started writing, I got a job at Campus Recreation, I began to travel more. I have other plans after college. I don’t feel stuck. I know I have a lot of options because I’m interested in a lot of things. But somehow majoring in theatre made me fall out of love with theatre; it made me not want to continue it as my professional career if this is the way I was going to be treated.

It’s extremely disappointing because it’s something I always thought I would be apart of. But I’m not giving up on it; I can see myself being apart of community theatre and helping out with directing and being onstage later on in my life. But for the time being, my theatre experience has seemed to salt my wounds and has forced me to rethink my entire professional career.