Straight-Faced

my high school experience

I went to public high school for the first semester of tenth grade. Since I had just finished shooting the finale of Ladders, I decided to take a couple months off from acting to try being a normal teenager. So, I picked up a backpack and a bunch of useless school supplies, and my parents enrolled me into Aerbruscht High.

My experience there was nothing like Norman's middle school story. I was instantly popular, and people already knew who I was before I walked through the doors on my first day. There was no need to climb up the social ladder when I was already at the top. I found myself a group of friends, and I settled in pretty well.

The homework load was pretty intense, but it wasn't nearly as heavy as having to learn lines for a full-time acting job. I actually missed the acting, so I joined the drama club. The school was putting on a one-act play to take to a festival, and I thought it wouldn't hurt to audition.

Performing a dramatic and a comedic monologue in front of the student director brought me back to the old days of auditioning. The thrill was just as great as I had remembered it.

I got a lead role for that play, and nobody was really surprised. My schedule became all filled up again with after-school and weekend rehearsals.

I learned that stage acting is very different from film acting. I had the entire stage to work with, and all movements have to be so much more exaggerated. Us actors communicated with the tech people a lot more. We practiced a lot more before the actual performance, and when the time came, we only got one chance to get it right. The cameras translated to actual people, and I could get instant feedback. Stage theater was a lot of fun, so I could see why Logan loved it.

At the festival, Aerbruscht High won for best overall play. Our city's newspaper wrote an entire article about our theater program's success, and for me, it was like getting discovered all over again. Offers for various roles started flooding in again. I was going to turn them all down, but that felt like more of a mistake than taking them all on. After thinking about it for a total of ten seconds, I decided to drop out of public high school, ending my time there after one semester.