It’s 6:00 a.m.  I wake up and start to get ready for school. Before I get dressed, I watch a video of the show that I did last semester with my fellow theater Thespians, One Stoplight Town. Looking back at it makes me feel that we accomplished a lot even working throughout a pandemic. I remember doing cast and crew at once was pretty challenging, but all in all worth it. 

Ten minutes later, I put on my outfit for the day, create my daily pass, let my grandmother know I’m leaving for school, and walk anticipating what’s to come for the theater.

I walk into school around 7:40 and hang out with my friend until 8:30 until my first period starts. I realize that my theater club is right next to my first class, and makes me want to be there instead. Next we have English and we do a lot of highlighting and annotating.  It reminds me of reading script in my theater club.

I go to advisory and wish that my homeroom teacher was Ms. Whitney. She teaches all of the theater classes here in Bell High and she’s done so much for me like introducing me to Theater during a Zoom class my junior year and officially making me a Theater Thespian.  

Next I’m off to break.  I go to Ms. Whitney and ask her what the schedule is going to be for the day. Since today is Wednesday, the rest of the Theater Thespians and I will meet after school in room 118 from 3:32 to 5 p.m. 

The bell rings, and I’m off to Journalism. I go into my Feature staff where I’m currently working on my story about my life as a thespian. Then it’s off to Physiology. I finish my work right away and anticipate my trip to Hamilton next week with my fellow thespians. Later, in my AP Government class I see Kianna Astorga who is  student director, Kianna Astorga in theater.  Kianna’s helped me a lot, not only with theater work – like telling me what I have to do with my job for the day – but with anything in general. Like when I need a person to interview for journalism,  she’s the person that I go to. I don’t know what I’d do without her.  She’s the GOAT.

I’ve always wondered what got her into doing theater in the first place. “I’ve always liked musical theater and when I found out they had a theater club in high school, I joined and auditioned and got the lead role as a freshman,” she said.

I’ve also asked her about how she overcomes different struggles in theater, like people not showing up for rehearsal, not having the props and costumes ready yet, and having to delay the show. “I just deal with it head on and I have fun doing it. I just want everyone to have a good time whatever show we do.”

Now I’m in thespian mode!

After school, I go to my theater club and start to work on the show as a stage manager. We’re doing a show which is set to be a musical called Broadway at Bell.

I discuss with other crew members about how the stage is going to look in certain scenes.  I also need to  make sure everybody’s here and doing their task as they should.

We surprisingly got a lot of performers this year, and we have a lot of crew knowing what they want to do, which makes things way easier and consistent.

In the room, we see our performers rehearsing their lines. It’s so fun and cool. Seeing these actors’ personalities come together is so great and makes me more excited for how the final product is going to turn out. We also have our crew members drawing out ideas about how the sets should look, while we have the performers rehearsing. It does take work, but I feel that if you have fun with it, we’ll get it done in no time.

Once we’re done with our meetings, I walk back home, and get ready for a new day. And whatever happens after is just history!