we pull it off?” It was the most unique, exhilarating, emotionally taxing, and scary experience of my life. My days were split in half between learning High School Musical and writing music. Which was crazy when Pandora was still a secret because I basically had to sneak away before people had the opportunity to ask what I was doing. At this point in time, I had absolutely no clue what Pandora was, only that I was writing an African style song one day and a 7-minute rap song the next. When our rehearsals started this still was pretty much the case, but once the story started to come to life, it didn’t take me long to absolutely fall in love.

     I was a bit nervous about the last minute nature of the rehearsal process. My character had one scene with lines and I didn’t get to learn them until tech week. Also, in the blink of an eye, it was tech week. I had many moments were I let the stress of it all get the better of me. Nevertheless, I had extreme faith in the people I was with so the worry subsided and I was able to focus on finishing what I had to finish and doing my best to get into the story.

     It was difficult to go back and forth between composer and performer. Neither one ever truly set in at the end of it all. Nevertheless, going through Pandora knowing every instrument of every song so well propelled me through the story differently as a performer. Likewise, diving headfirst into the story for the purpose of performing it on stage, gave new life to the connection I had with the music. This was a back and forth that never ended as the final song was finished hours before we took our first step on stage. Pandora proved the more I got into it to be exactly what I needed. Every single day that I understood something new I felt a new call to action the story was giving me. The entire show is the battle cry I needed to learn to make my own. I was given battles to fight throughout this entire process, it took seeing the roots of those battles on stage to realize I needed them. It took seeing my heartbreak in the form of a final battle to realize why the box was never closed. It took listening to the culmination of weeks of this experiment that we all just threw ourselves into, to realize I will always be battling, but that is my place, it’s who I am and why I’m here. Pandora is a depiction of why we never stop fighting. Understanding the story of good and evil, pride and humility, despair, and hope, is the key to being the light on a pitch-black night. 

  to feel united with the group for a while, I had injured my back early on and so there were a lot of things I had to sit out for(AND SHE WS WRITING ANOTHER MUSICAL THAT WAS GONNA BE PERFORMED IN 2 WEEKS). However, I made a true effort to make sure I remembered the goal and stayed fired up for it, even when I had to sit out.

     The best part of the entire process for me was being able to see so many new people in the room discovering their own reasons to stay fired up every day. By the end of it all in this together!  During High School Musical, I started to truly understand what it means to find the truth in a story. Partly because of my inability to find anything redeeming about it when we started. It was just another annoying Disney movie. I didn’t grow up with it as everyone else did. There are many ways that HSM presents very surface and ways that it actually is but at the end of the day it gave me something that I didn’t know I was missing. I had an opportunity to see teamwork in its original form, I got to be a wildcat. Seeing how realities of life are built into sports helped me connect to the fact that this life is a race and we all have an important role in getting each other to the end.

     During the short weeks of camp, I was forced to come face to face with my greatest weaknesses and insecurities. But in that, I was also able to realize the people I was exposing myself to only wanted greatness from me and that propelled me forward. Being responsible for the success of those around you in how you carry yourself and what you’re willing to give is scary, and it’s difficult. But it’s necessary and beautiful. High School Musical marked my fifth year with SFA. five years ago I changed my life by making a decision outside everything I knew and sticking it out to see what could come of it. I’m grateful that the path I was going on in my life was disrupted because disruption was the only thing that could bring me where I needed to go. Doing High school musical showed me that I can, should, and need to be that disruption for someone else. High School Musical taught me that we’re all responsible for striving for greatness for ourselves and for all those who need to know what’s possible. And that’s all I want because I was blessed to have it given to me. Now, I truly know what it means to say “We’re all in this together”

to track our progress for skills and to take notes of what we would talk about. There’s always an element to an SFA show about connecting to the stories but I felt like this time the effort was conscious and the responsibility was put more on us to make the story matter. This show, to be quite frank, hit me in the face. I fell in love with it quickly but if there’s ever a show that reminds you that love is not just a feeling but an action, it’s Joseph. The dances were high energy and fun, the songs were loud and exciting, the story was vibrant and had more depth than you could understand the first time you witness it. 

We had many conversations about the meaning of this show, taking lyrics and analyzing them. Using them to shape our understanding of our own lives and using that understanding to then fuel our determination to make this the best Joseph ever performed. The process of Joseph challenged its cast physically, as they all do, but Joseph was a spiritual and intellectual challenge I had never gone through. We were taught about combating numbness, reaching our greatest good, and I learned how to dissect purpose and translate it. A shift happened in the summer 2019. Powerful, purposeful, indisputable. Because of Joseph, I can consciously change the world one decision at a time and feel every bit of pain that makes me human. This show achieved something most people can only dream of achieving. Now, that dream is alive. I will keep fighting to bring hope to the people around me. 

 Joseph was the eye-opening moment that taught me that I could be an eye-opening moment for someone else. When it comes to being the change you wish to see, any dream will do.  

  However, along with those nerves was a curiosity because I knew this show as the show my best friend had previously begged me to listen to. That was also funny because we were now doing it together, playing mother and grandmother. 

     For those of us doing both Joseph and Tuck Everlasting, it was quite the switch in gears. From the dynamic, fun, neverending cardio trip of Joseph to a show that was just as fun, but presented its lessons in an entirely different way. The cast bonded really well and we all got to figure out ways to help each other put on the best show possible. I have to say, it worked pretty well.

     Tuck Everlasting, though on the surface it seems like a show teaching you how to let go, Winnie deciding not to drink the water and choosing not to live forever, it actually taught me how to hold on to something you love. Life was designed to take us on a journey, and though to the wide-eyed and adventurous, it may seem like living forever will allow you to extend that journey and go on even more adventures, a part of that journey is time. A part of the adventure is time. Something about that show taught me that lesson on stage and off. Every day a part of me still wishes I was still doing Tuck Everlasting. However, experience is like a drop of water. Yes, Living forever or refusing to move on could produce a beautiful still lake, but so much of life is determined by the rushing river that can only occur when you decided to keep moving forward. Loving something is doing what will ultimately allow it to flourish. The hardest part of life is realizing it was not designed to continue on this earth. Nevertheless, it is also the richest part once you admire the things that can’t stop rowing, growing, changing and moving on. 

     Tuck Everlasting was the most painful show I have ever been a part of and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. We may not have decided to drink the water, but I know that what was created on that stage is everlasting. 

 

 

This was our first time doing a show in Jim Thorpe, PA, a city which was about a 45 minute away from us. When we began we had what seemed like two seperate casts at the time. A cast from our neck of the woods in the lehigh valley and a cast from Jim Thorpe. Naturally, our first goal was to blend our two groups together. But we were working together as a team in no time.

 

I had to step outside of a box to play a pirate; I’d never played a character like it before. However, all I could do throughout the process, from the tango to the tarantella, was try to be the best pirate I could be. I learned to let go and everything else I had learned as an actress with Sing for America helped me along the way. On the other end, I was also a Mermaid and the mermaids had a little dance in act two. This was one of the most challenging dances I’d ever done at that point because it was so ballet focused and I definitely wouldn’t consider myself a ballet dancer. It became increasingly easy for me to focus on myself and my fears. But I had to just stop myself and realize it’s ok to struggle, there are people there ready to help and cheer you on. Moreover, as a part of a team, I had to understand my place in the puzzle that was “Peter Pan” and as much as the people around me were ready to pick me up when I fell, I learned to pick myself up as well.

 

What made Peter pan different in almost every single way is that the cast came together through unusual circumstances. We grew and bonded through the rehearsal process but we also bonded in showing up through a snowstorm that almost cancelled a show, we bonded when it was time to stick up for each other, and we bonded through every bow, at the end of every show, knowing nothing could take away what we had, because it was discovered as much as it was created. Who would have thought lost boys, Indians, mermaids, pirates, and Peter pan himself would ever live happily ever after?

I was extremely taken back the more I learned about the intense lessons hidden in this story. And the more I learned about it, the more I tried to prepare to do it justice. 

There were so many things that made that show one of the best I’ve ever been a part of. The story, while vibrant and fun, full of comedy, and joyful, was full of hard truths and challenges. Our unique cast had to learn how to tell the story of a man who already knew how his story would end.

The quote that we sort of rallied around during Big Fish was “be the hero of your story.” Which was a great one. It gave the show a theme that we could all focus on bringing to life together. However, that wasn’t the line that I personally connected to. The song in which Edward Bloom says goodbye to all the people of his story, he says, “but when you tell my story, and I hope somebody does, remember me as something bigger than I was.” I think in essence, they both speak to the same desire to discover and be discovered. The insignificance of our humanity can only be balanced by the weight of our purpose. Even though in the beginning Edward Bloom said “be the hero of your story” in a way to mean “don’t get left behind” or “be the master of your appearance” we learn being the hero of your story is not necessarily going on extravagant adventures, it’s falling into a puddle and finding the beauty in the ripples. It’s getting your heart broken and accepting the song it sings. It’s realizing there is no art of letting go. It’s remembering someone as something bigger than they were, because nobody can be reduced only to what they are.

Big fish taught me about life and the stories we remember to make it something worth living and ultimately dying for. When I look back on the whole experience, the laughs, the excitement, the tears, I realize there’s always a way to be the hero of your story.