Whether you were one of the after school club kids, on the summer camp vibe or one of the fully fledged, legitimate attendees of a Fame-style school for the Performing Arts, you’ll know how specific of an experience it was to have been a theatre kid. So many tears (not that you're entirely sure whether they were happy or sad ones), so many costume malfunctions and so many illegible pages of sheet music.
Oh, the glory days. Ringing any bells? So might these other things you only know if you attended any sort of stage school...
1. Every moment feels like a competition
Or rather a desperate bid to prove yourself. You try to tell yourself that it's not, but deep down you know it is. And whether you want to be in the spotlight or not, for some reason that you never really manage to pinpoint, you're really hungry for it.
2. Those drama kid stereotypes aren’t quite true
High School Musical style bursting into spontaneous song didn’t happen all the time, people. At least, not in public.
3. You’ve never wanted anything more than to be able to describe yourself as a 'triple threat'
Even though you knew deep down that of singing, dancing and acting, there was one that you were royally shit at but never really did anything about it because your mum always said you were fabulous.
4. Personal space isn’t a thing
And neither are boundaries. Check those at the door kids, things are about to get uncomfortable.
5. Casting day was emotional turmoil. No matter how ridiculous the play you were doing was
There’s no pretending that you don’t care in this game. You cross all your fingers and prey to the theatre gods up until the moment they call the cast list and openly show your dismay/demand to reaudition when you’re not given the lead.
6. The idea of sitting at a desk with a pen and paper all day every day always sounded like torture
Because if it can’t be expressed through song and dance is it even worth expressing?
7. There were two types of people in your drama group. The ones who wore black, and the ones who wore every colour on the spectrum
There is no in between. You were either stuck in that 'theatre creatives must only wear black' phases, or the 'I must relay to the world how many emotions I have to keep bubbling at the surface for my art so will wear every colour of the rainbow on my body at all times so I don't have to express myself' phase.
8. But then those 12 hour rehearsal days never saw anyone dressed in anything other than pyjamas
Or the same crusty old leggings that they'd worn through all of last week's rehearsals too.
9. No one outside of your stage school friends had a clue what you were talking about most of the time
'He was meant to do a Pas de Bourrée but did a double jazz square instead. Oh, my, god it was just *dire. *How we laughed and laughed...’, will literally mean nothing to anyone.
10. Voice rest was a blessing in disguise
That you often faked to get out of unwanted conversations with people you didn't like.
11. You developed a real love hate relationship with warm ups
Remember splat? Didn't go so well when people didn't have their heads in the game, did it?
12. Improvisation was the scariest exercise of them all
Because someone always had to be paired up with the annoyingly talented kid who could come up with comedy gold on the spot while your default 'bit' was to lie on the floor and pretend to be in labour... just me?
13. The phrase ‘quiet in the wings’ still winds you up
The four words spouted from the mouth of your power-hungry stage manager never cease to rub you up the wrong way because 'I WASN'T THE ONE TALKING, OKAY?!'
14. Turning up in the same outfit was an accomplishment, not a faux pas
Becuase it meant that you had managed to bring the right costume on the right day, much to the relief of your poor tired director.
15. You learnt to make friends with the stage crew
It was the difference between bad lighting and having a prop ready for you on the side of the stage, and having the spotlight shining a little bit brighter on you in that duet you didn't sign up for.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.