I spent all four years of my high school career participating in musical theatre, and I came out a different person because of it. I think that I came out a better person because of it. I wanted to continue the acting dream, but other plans prevailed. However, I still carry with me the things I learned from my experiences. Here are the two major things I learned, although the list could go on and on.

Musical theatre taught me self-confidence and how to be comfortable in my own skin.

My director approached me after my very first show, and she told me words that I will never forget. She told me she thought I had big potential, but I needed to stop worrying about what others thought and start believing in my self. I didn’t flip a switch and suddenly start believing in myself and my abilities, but after that, I began the process of growing in that area. Every time I stepped on stage, my self-confidence rose a bit.It taught me to push myself and to never settle.

My director always pushed me. Right after my first show, she gave me a major part with around 15 paragraph length soliloquies. She continued to cast me in parts that I would have never picked for myself. She challenged me so that I would learn to push myself, overcome obstacles, and grow as an actress. She continued to push me up until my last show, in which I had to learn to sing “Think of Me” from the Phantom of the Opera in a week. I was rather afraid to perform it, as it is a very iconic song, but I did it, I succeeded, and I came out better for it. This challenge has translated to my life outside of the theatre. I started learning as many vocal parts as I could, stretching my range, and singing songs until I thought I had perfected them and then some. From there, I applied the same time of perseverance to learning how to paint, finishing a draft of a novel, getting into an esteemed education program, and more. I will now always carry the quality of perseverance and the thought that I should never settle for mediocrity when I am capable of more.

I will always be grateful for the things that I have learned from musical theatre, and I hope to share these qualities with others in the future. Thanks to my director and the influence she had in my life, I want to be that same type of influence in other young adolescents lives. It’s time to create a cycle of encouragement and mentorship, and musical theatre is just one way that I can be apart of that.