Personal Narrative

I clapped and cheered for my fellow peers, until it was my time to shine. I grasped the hand of my dear friend as we walked up to the front of the stage and took our final bow. The audience stood, clapping and cheering so loud that my breathe was taken for a moment. Everything was almost muffled as I peered beyond the crowd and the rest of my friends walked up beside me as we all joined hands and bowed together. That was when I knew, “This is where I belong.”  

            My sophomore year of high school, two of my closest friends, Lauren and Matt, came up to me and said that they got cast as the eels, Flotsam and Jetsam, in our high schools showing of The Little Mermaid. I was very excited to watch since I hadn’t thought much about theatre. The night of the play, I went in with my boyfriend at the time and his family, all dressed up and we sat near the front of the stage. That’s when the light dimmed, the curtains were pulled back, and there she was, Ariel, sitting upon a rock. The lights glistened upon her fair skin, gazing blue eyes, brilliant red hair, and her mesmerizing emerald green tail. I couldn’t help but sit there in complete awe, with my jaw dropped to the floor. Ariel was played by my friend Gabriella, and just her presence alone was so regal like. Lauren and Matt moved so stealthily around the stage once their time to shine came around. Jack, who played Prince Eric, stood upon the stage with great nobility. I watched my friends shine on stage, longing to be up there with them. So, my junior year of high school, I auditioned for Cinderella and I got cast as part of the lead ensemble. One day after school, Matt, Lauren and I walked into our first rehearsal. Then the three of us put our stuff down as the director called for us to get ready for a dance number. It was the ballroom scene and Matt and I had been put together as dance partners. Being as good of friends as we were, we had no issue getting the dances down because we worked together so well. However, we had to do one move where he picks me up and holds me sideways while I posed like those mermaids on the end of a ship, and then spin me around. But I’d mess up, and then laugh about it. And then Matt laughed too, and then we weren’t able to stop laughing so we butchered the upcoming moves so badly that everyone else laughed at us too and started messing up. We were literally stumbling all over the floor. We caused such a commotion that the dance director stopped the track, giggled and asked “What the hell is going on with you two?” We fit in pretty well.

            Then when I started my senior year, I auditioned for our fall play, Aladdin. The day the cast list was put out, me and all my friends went to go look together. I was cast as Jasmine, Jack was cast as the Genie, Mark was Aladdin, and most of the main cast consisted of my friends. Rehearsals were great, but I was way busier since I was a lead. Whenever it was time for me to sing, all my friends sat down and watched and give me the biggest amounts of support I could have ever asked for. Like when Mark and I had to perform “A Whole New World” everyone gathered around the stage like a we were telling stories at a campfire. We sat down on our “magic carpet” holding hands and singing to each other as everyone else silently cheered us on. All my friends and I were putting our all into it, and we made it one of our most memorable shows. In the spring, we were doing The Three Musketeers and I had been cast as Treville, the captain of the musketeer army. Now in rehearsals, all of the underclassmen were treating me and the rest of the seniors like gods, it was actually kind of entertaining. The day of the show. We showed up early eat lunch. Because the ensemble was always intimidated by us, they would sit on the opposite side of the room. My friend Sydney, who was a freshman at the time had just gotten to know me and asked if she could sit with us. We said of course and she brought some of her friends over too. I talked to her more, including her friends, and a lot of the underclassmen ended up approaching us too. We all talked more and got to know each other way better.

            When we were all taking our final bows on the night of the last show, the Three Musketeers were at the front of the stage, everyone wearing a hat took it off, and we all held them high as the entire cast shouted the musketeer’s famous saying, “All for one, and one for all!” We waved our last goodbyes at the audience as the curtains were lowered. As soon as they hit the stage floor, I immediately broke down because I was realizing that this is the last show I’ll get to do with my dearest friends. And as I turned around and hugged my friend Will, he was also crying. And then I turned around to see literally everybody else crying as well. Everyone was hugging everyone and it was definitely the most emotional situation I, and mostly everyone else, had ever experienced.

            And ever since then, I’ve stayed in touch with everyone I met there and those experiences have bonded us all together for life. Theatre is definitely a part of my life that has built me into the kind of person I am today, and I will always carry those memories with me.