Charissa Profile

Zach Slaughter

Prof. Cryer

English 122

11/17/18

Behind the Scenes

It’s a dark stage, everyone in the audience is sitting on the edge of their seats. They are waiting patiently for the show to start. Sarah and her co-stars are eagerly waiting behind the closed curtain. They are making small talk and getting the pre-show jitters under control. Suddenly, they become silent… the show is starting. The curtain opens up and the light shines on their faces. The show has begun for Sarah and her co-stars. It was time for them to put on a show of a lifetime.

Sarah was first introduced to theater in middle school. She would go to many shows that her fellow students would put on. It was in high school at Olathe East, when Sarah took a step into the community of Theater. She knew once she was in that environment that she made the right decision to join the community. Theater Community according to Merriam-Webster, is the “activity of acting in, or producing a play in a theater for enjoyment and not as a job”. She enjoys being a part of this community for many reasons: being with friends, the aspects of the community, and most importantly the skills that she has learned from this community.

Sarah describes this community as a tight nitch group of people that encourage and push each other to do the very best that they can possibly do. Sarah also said once of the big reasons for joining this community is to be with friends and to use this as an opportunity to meet new people. “Theater was a great way to meet new people” ,says Sarah. She fit right into the community. So much so that she did both aspects of the community: acting and technical. Sarah told me that the aspect of the community that she liked the best however was the Technical aspect, because she made more friends doing behind the scene stuff. This would include: costume changes, moving props, and getting the actors ready to go on stage. “The friends that I have made on the technical side are some of my closest friends to this day”, is what Sarah said when I asked about the people in this community. Sarah then described what her and all her friends would do after the stress of the performance was over. “We would go to like IHop or Steak n’ Shake and eat after every show. The employees would hate us because we were very loud and there really late.”, Said Sarah when we talked what went on after each performance was done.

Sarah talked a lot about the performances that she was a part of during her time within this community. Each performance that Sarah and the other members of the community were apart of they were determined to be successful in. One of her favorite performance that she was a part of was a play under the name of “Penny for Your Thoughts”. Sarah began to tell me about a time during the show where she had to do what is called a “Quick Change”. Essentially what a quick change is, is when an actor comes back stage and has to have a really speedy costume change. Sarah described this to be a very difficult task, because of the circumstances that took place behind the scenes. Sarah described to me an example of this during the show going on. She told me that a girl was coming back behind the curtain for a quick change and while the girl got behind curtain, a swarm of people surrounded the girl. “It was dark, we didn’t have a lot of time, and like there was too many hands in the area”, is how Sarah described the quick change. Sarah really enjoyed this aspect of the community because of situations like this. She had to be ready at all times and always be on the lookout for a new situation to come up. Now even though Sarah enjoyed the technical side, she also enjoyed the artistic side. She loved to bring characters to life and wearing all the costumes that were available to her in the wardrobe. She talked about how everyone that was a part of the show would be so excited for the final product to be unveiled to the audience.

Sarah has learned many skills in this community. She says the one that is the biggest she has learned is commitment. “Commitment is huge, you have to be there when you need to be there”, says Sarah. This community realize on people being there and ready to do the job that is asked of them. That’s one thing that I found very interesting about this community. They are so supportive and are always there for each other. They are committed to each other and this community.

Commitment is not the only thing Sarah learned from this community. Responsibility is another big skill that she learned from the theater environment. This skill runs parallel with commitment. You have to have a sense of responsibility to be a part of this community. Within this community certain things have to be done correctly. “Set pieces, where to move it and when to move it”, is an example that Sarah talked about when going on about responsibility. These skills are just two of the many skills that Sarah learned from being involved in this community.

This shows you that being involved in a community has positive effects on the person who is a part of it. In my opinion Sarah is a prime example of a person stepping into a community and absorbing all of the positive aspects of it. She used this community to be a piece of something that she has enjoyed for many years. She used this community to spend more time with her friends and she used it as a platform to meet even more people with similar interest. Most importantly she used this community to pick up new skills that she can use in the real world such as commitment and responsibility. This is why communities are important in my opinion. It gives people an opportunity to grow and be a part of something that is bigger than just them.