The Play

Trouble. Trouble is the only word that could describe little old me, especially in the face of laughter and encouragement from my friends. I was a rambunctious little kid.. even if I liked to pretend I was “mysterious“ and “edgy”, I always demeaned attention for the latest installment of whatever pretend game I dragged my buds into. Anything and everything I did was for the approval of others, at one point or another I was bound to come off of the attention high. As much as I hated being such an attention hog, I also couldn’t survive without “all eyes on me”, despite aspiring to be an actor. I think around 5th grade I realized that something had to humble me, and I started to withdraw from such a hyper-active attention-focused personality. 

During 4th grade, I was questioning a lot about myself. I wondered all these things about the other girls, and I even began to wonder if I even WAS a girl! I had this mentality that “I don’t do this and this and this, and the other girls do, must mean I’m not a girl.” And, to be fair, I wasn’t. I’ve always been described by my parents as an outgoing and social kid, so when I was “outed” later in my fourth grade year it didn’t really harm me. People had questions, so I answered them. No one really started caring until the beginning of 6th grade, when we all grew up a little and started to form more opinions about things like gender roles and expression. When the sixth grade play finally rolled around, I was so tired and so ready for elementary to be done with. I've always loved acting, but I hated people watching me. I resented the “all eyes on me,” despite, y’know, that being an entry-level requirement to stage acting. I didn’t want all the kids that looked up to me, the ones that looked down on me to see me awkwardly fidget around on stage. As the practices came and went, slowly my fear slowly subsided, and after months of work; James and the Giant Peach was performed. However, I can’t necessarily say it was flawless. I had been cast as earthworm, the comic relief character, with an equal comic solo, a musical number by the name of “Plump and Juicy.” It was totally funny to everyone else, but I was shaking in my boots from the very day I learned the name of my to-be song. Despite the initial dread that washed over me like salty waves, the show must go on, and it did. 

During the second performance, my song started like it had so perfectly the night before. I stood up straighter, looked directly into the stage light (which was a bad idea, i might add) and started the second to last verse, the first word flying from my vocal cords into the waiting audience! Only..it was the wrong word. Instead of singing “pick,” I said “peck,” and I watched all of the confidence that I started with that night shatter and crash all over the Elementary stage. It was a deafening millisecond of pure embarrassment and regret. I cringed back, looking back up to the spotlight, blinding myself again while I made the worst mistake any actor could make. Instead of nonchalantly playing off the mishap, I stood straight up and said loudly into the microphone: “Whoops! Sorry guys.” And then stepped back to make eye contact with one of my co-stars, the color drained from her face as she stared back at me in some sort of confused shock. The last verse came and went, and after the curtains fell for a set change, I bolted into the back hallway and collapsed onto the portable couch that smelled of mold. I couldn’t stop quivering like a window shutter on a windy day. Just as fast as I could get away, though, my colleagues joined me in the back hallway, not saying a word. I blinked back the waves of tears that threatened me in the back of my throat if I dared to utter a word. Suddenly, a couple of them began talking, quietly yelling at me, their words falling over each other and tumbling down to the floor like garbled papers, cutting deeply. I placed my head between my knees and just let them belittle my mistake. I looked up for a second, just in time to see my best friend squat down and look me in the eyes, his words came quick and harsh. “How could you mess that up so badly?” 

The following events were a blur of motion and dread. We made one last appearance for the final act, I remember Mrs. Mott poked her head through the far door for curtain call, when we finally were able to give our bows and lower the final curtain on the stage. After it had fallen, painting the stage a dim gray, I found my family and began our walk out of the building. I trudged out of the doorway, being stopped by another one of my costars. She gave me a quick hug, noticing the hurt in my eyes, still lingering from earlier. She was the only one who wasn’t giving me any trouble over the mess-up. She said: “you did so well. I’m sorry about everyone back there, they didn’t know what they were going on about. I hope you know how amazing you are.” She finished with a smile. Something inside me clicked. I suddenly didn’t care about what hostilities had been directed at me, I thought to myself; “What am I doing out here caring what my mistakes are?”  And I sorta, kinda, owned it! It took a couple days after the initial shock to fully realize that it didn’t really matter. It was only ONE second of ONE performance in my entire life, and it wouldn’t matter in a year. After I had this revelation, some of the other things I had been struggling with became easier to manage as well, I became more confident in my gender and sexuality, as well as my place in this quaint community. Maybe, mistakes aren’t that bad. I finally learned to write off my mistakes, and to accept they happened and move on. Does that mean I completely forgot about them? Not at all. It does mean, however, that I can have a better learning experience and be more prepared for things like this in the future. Now I know that I can move on from things that stress me out, and that i am an amazing actor.