Silence used to be my biggest fear, trumped only by fear surrounding death and dying. In my early school years, distractions were my best friend, accompanied by class disruptions and petty office referrals, not because I was an inherently “bad” kid, but because I subconsciously felt the need to shift all of my focus to the external rather than the internal. I never had the words to describe that I dreaded being alone with my thoughts.

I constantly drew attention to myself to escape from my own head– I was the king of compartmentalization, of canning up my emotions and forcing them so deep into my soul that not even I could access them. I used to pride myself on the fact that I never cried– the result of some sort of machismo ideal implanted in my brain that to be vulnerable is to be weak. I would pride myself on being a pillar to lean on for other people without ever reciprocating that onto myself.

That all changed on Oct. 27 2022 when I stepped onstage in the studio theater for the first time in a production of “Small Mouth Sounds” by Bess Wohl. In a play about a group of six strangers attending a silent spiritual retreat, I was portraying Rodney, a thirty-year-old adulterous yoga instructor with a debilitating fear of growing old and dying– ironic right? My very first core role in a high school show, and I have to confront my two biggest fears– silence and death.

When rehearsals began in early September, I was horrified. I originally thought I was just nervous about being in a play for the first time, but I now realize that what was scaring me most was the thought of having complete strangers bear witness to my emotions on a thrust stage a mere three feet away.

Throughout the rehearsal process, I carefully tiptoed the path of emotional vulnerability, never daring to take a step if it wasn’t carefully calculated. I continued like this for a while, and as the date of the show grew nearer, I grew more apprehensive; my emotional pace on this metaphorical path ebbing and flowing between a crawl at worst and a slow shuffle at best.

The climax for my character came in the form of an emotional breakdown where he collapses in another character’s arms, the stage directions adding in the detail that he should be crying while doing so. Something I hadn’t done in years. In the final days of rehearsals, I still had yet to form a solid understanding of and connection with my character. To put it bluntly, it felt like I was screwed.

But when opening night came, something was different. It felt less like I was trying to keep up with my castmates and more like I was running full pace on the path. It was as if something in my brain had clicked that wasn’t there before. I stepped onstage after intermission for the scene I had been dreading for weeks, and it happened: I cried.

Something changed in me that day. I felt more open, more inclined to share my emotions with the world. The opportunity to create a story that makes an audience feel something– makes myself feel something– is completely indescribable and intrinsic to who I am as a person. That show, that experience, flipped a switch in me and made me realize theatre is about so much more than just acting on a stage.

It is embarking on an emotional journey and bringing an eager audience along with you on that ride. It is challenging yourself emotionally, intellectually, and morally. It is pushing yourself to the limit of what you think you are capable of and then some. It is feeling, thinking, experiencing, learning.

It is my therapy– and I never want to stop.