Opinion | A love letter to being onstage

Olivia Harden
Opinions Editor

By the time I graduated high school, I had played a part in 37 school productions. Most of those productions happened before the age of 10.

When I was in kindergarten, I played a poppy in my performing arts school’s production of “The Wizard of Oz.” I fell in love with the concept of being able to transform myself into something else. I liked making people react. I loved the costumes and the makeup. I loved all of it.

To this day, every single time I step into the wings before going onstage, I get nervous. It doesn’t mattered how big or small the role is. Looking back now, the experience has taught me to face fear head-on and take risks.

The last time I stepped onstage was October. While I miss the stage dearly, I’m grateful for the tools it provided me. Over the last decade, there have been talks about defunding art programs across the country. While I may not have chosen to pursue a career in an artistic field, being a part of art-based programs defined my experiences growing up and shaped me into the adult I am now.

Some people tend not to take the work of performers seriously. I spent countless hours in rehearsal. I learned thousands of lines, some of them Shakespeare and some of them written by students. I took dance lessons several days a week, stretching out my body and staying fit. This taught me discipline. It gave me confidence. It gave me an outlet to be creative.
High school wasn’t exactly a place where I was encouraged to find myself. I’m grateful for all of the afternoons spent after school in rehearsal, improvisation classes and all of the time I spent learning a craft.

Becoming a character that is complex and well-rounded takes extreme levels of empathy. I had to be willing to explore personalities unlike my own. I didn’t like every character I was assigned to play, but ultimately, a good script gives you all the clues you need to understand the fruition of a character’s personality.

I have so much respect for anyone who decides to pursue a career in the arts. I may not spend much time learning lines anymore, but every week I have to be confident enough to say something to a community of people reading The Panther. Every week, I am nervous about the work I’m doing and wondering if it’s good enough, but ultimately, I am proud of the voice I’ve found for myself.

These are all tools, and they not only made me a better student and a better writer, but a better person. Students can greatly benefit from being exposed to mediums of art, because it exposes us to a different way of learning and thinking, and ultimately it can change how we view the world.