Grown-Up Theater Kid

Series header that reads “30 in 30” with the numbers 30 depicted as balloons. The background is light green.

Editor’s Note: Bryce turns 30 in 30 weeks. This new series features essays as Bryce reflects on his milestone birthday.

I wrote a skit for my friends to perform in the annual talent show back in elementary school. It was a few weeks before the show when I found out they had rehearsed without me. I was told, later, sweetly by a friend, that I got too intense during rehearsals and no one wanted to be around me. They figured rehearsing without me would be better for everyone and better for the friend group.

This would become a pattern throughout all my years of school theater, discovering that something about me in creative mode was too much for most people to handle. I remember another time in middle school, working on a skit for the national junior honor society, where I was literally abandoned by my entire cast (okay, it was two people, but still) in the middle of a rehearsal.

I won’t try to defend myself. It isn’t possible for that many people to be wrong over that many years. Something about me is too much. Or was, maybe. I don’t know that I’ve ever figured out what it was exactly, but I think, hopefully, over time, I’ve at least learned how to reign it in a bit. Although there were similar instances throughout all my years participating in theater, I noticed them becoming less frequent over time.

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These days, the critique is all but moot. The last time I was involved in a theatrical production was the summer of 2017. I was a stagehand for the one production I always wanted to be involved with – Hairspray. It was a great show that holds a lot of heartbreak for me today. Our technical director passed away during our run of the show in a car accident. I keep a photo of him in my glove box and remember him every time I see a pink lemonade or worry about ensuring egresses (exit pathways in case of fire) are clear.

We humans are social creatures which means we are mosaics, constellations of all the things and people that came before us. Theater will always be a large piece of who I am. I was so committed to the craft that I double barred in theater in high school. I still wear my letterman jacket with pride on occasion. The only reason I stopped doing theater at all was because my undergraduate university didn’t have an option for casual theater. You had to fit it into your course schedule, which for me as a transferring sophomore wasn’t possible. I always planned on going back to it someday. For a long while, I kept a resume on my computer. I even joined a Facebook group to learn about acting and technician jobs that cropped up while I was in graduate school.

At some point, though, I stopped even enjoying going to shows. Something about the magic of theater had been, if not lost, maybe at least tainted a bit. When I go to shows, I can’t help but think about all the rehearsals that go into it. Even when I’m not trying, I find myself giving notes to the actors, little things about their inflection, or to the lighting designer about a look that didn’t land quite right. I want to enjoy them, but deep down I’m just not sure if I do.

I think maybe it’s grief that keeps me from enjoying the theater as much as I used to. All of those thoughts have nowhere useful to go except memory lane. And walking through my memory reminds me of everything I’ve lost in the time from then to now. It doesn’t seem possible nowadays, with the hours I work and the perpetual projects I have going on, to do theater in any meaningful way again; It’s a craft that consumes you. The thought of donning my stage blacks or auditioning again feels overwhelming. The thought of rejection, of trying and not getting to, seems even worse. Yet, if I’m really honest, I think I’m even more scared of trying, and getting to participate in a production, and realizing it isn’t something for me anymore.

I spent the first 20 years of my life involved in theatrical productions. I slept it and ate it and breathed it.

And then, one day, I didn’t anymore.

There wasn’t a hard stop, a grand decision. It was simply a product of time going by. By the time I really looked back, I realized I couldn’t see the stage lights anymore.

In the decade that’s followed, I’ve been forced to wonder where the theater kid inside me gets to live in my grown-up body, what place he can stand, if any, in my grown-up life. When I see other grown-up theater kids, there’s something in them that still feels theatrical, something I suppose I don’t see mirrored in myself. This makes me wonder if I can still say I am, or was, a theater kid. I’m asked, from time to time, by the family who patiently sat through every show, many of them probably not that good, if I ever miss the stage. I find myself unsure of the answer.

I miss parts of it, undoubtedly. But the me who last did theater, and the me I am today, don’t even feel like parts of the same person. When I initially started writing this piece, I imagined I would end it with an inspiring challenge to myself to get back to the theater in my 30’s, at least audition or sign up to work behind the scenes of a show. Now, I feel less certain what I want the future of my life in theater to be. In my 30’s, though, maybe I will find peace with my identity as a grown-up theater kid, a way to manage who I was for so long with who I am today. I would also like to learn to enjoy theater again, to watch a show and think about it critically, but not have the thoughts force me into an identity crisis.