Hello again. I was just in a magical play called Zap!. It took place at Carbondale Community High School and was held on the 1st 2nd and 3rd of November. Zap was a comedic farce of several theatrical genres, some set in New York, Russia and Britain, the one I was in. Being in the play was something that I was initially nervous about because not only did my Teacher asked me out of nowhere, but I had never been in a play before. I had no idea of line memorization; I was nervous about costumes and the way that they were going to direct it. and the fact that the script seemed large when I first looked at it.

After I did the play, I felt excited. I felt excited at the fact that it was great but also because I got to meet new people and have new experiences. But out of all my experiences, the people that I met were my favorite part of the play. They always treated me right and not once did they yell at me. When I got on stage with the other actors, I tried my best to contain my laughter at some of the characters, but the one that broke me was Michael as Inspector Swift, a character in the British play. I break when he says his first line “The same toast apparently drunk by the witnesses on my last murder case!”. He was this detective character who had a very loud, positive attitude to him. Almost every time that he said that I couldn’t stifle the urge to smile or laugh, and my parents pointed that out when I exited. The other experience I had was that someone threw a prop and shattered a glass backstage during a black-out on Sunday. We were shocked because someone broke a glass on Saturday except Saturday, it happened onstage and someone apparently misplaced the glass.

My other big experience was with costume. I loved this experience but I also hated it. It took me a while to get the costume on because there was a vest and a shirt and pants, and that wasn’t even the hardest part. The hardest part was that every time I had to then brush my hair back, then get it sprayed AND gelled. That might not sound annoying but deep down, it was. It had a tight feeling on me as well, so that wasn’t fun. But if it makes me look nice… then it is a win-win.

The easiest part for me other than the people was the actual play. When you study for the lines and practice them as often as we at Zap! did, you lose a bit of nervousness. When the curtains opened and I was standing in the background, I was still a little nervous, especially when it was my turn. Then on Saturday and Sunday, I killed it. I practically didn’t shake, I knew my cues and best of all… I got the accent. I took selfies with friends and shook hands with the adults. It was sweet.

There were many things that I learned while doing the school play. I learned to work with others on things like lines, pay attention to things like character queues and when to enter a scene. But the one thing I learned was how to act.