2/27/25 - Elliott's Memoir Conception

 2/27/25 - 3/10/25

This was the moment and opportunity that I had been waiting years for, to act and perform in a stage production. Sophomore year.

Years earlier, I was waiting anxiously in the seemingly packed library of Hickory Ridge Middle School, talking with several other kids I either knew or had hardly met prior to this occasion- was this an opportunity to finally prove myself alongside my ambitions? Everyone I went to school with knew that there were things different about me in regard to what it was I was good at, but I had never quite the chance to really show that yet, at least I thought.

It was clear that my personality was big and that I had developed an impressive knack for visual arts in illustration, but the entire "performance" side of me that I had try to hone in on via acting classes in Charlotte had really not been visible in school, as I had never been presented with the opportunity to act in such an educational setting. But one day, the opportunity for such a venture occured. Auditions for some sort of comedic, subverted crossover of fairy tales was searching for actors in this middle school production.

I remember waiting with several other students in the middle school library, gazing at the printed monologue I was given to audition with just moments earlier, reading it over and over, trying to memorize it. The choice to sing during the auditions in addition to the monologue was solely up to us. 

We would try to perform our "practice runs" with each other, but would always wind up talking about several other topics that were unrelated. I even recall speaking to a girl about what sources we got our favorite memes from, so, just a middle school-equivalent to talking about the weather, I suppose.

Finally, my turn came. My shoes were heavy, I could swear it. Dragons. That's what it was. My monologue was about dragons... Daydreaming about dragons...

It wasn't required to have it memorized, as we received it on such short notice, but it was preferred. I glanced at the paper sparingly as I read it, unsure what the staff was writing down on their clipboards. Then came the song. Yes, I had chosen a song to sing. "I'm Still Standing" by Elton John was what it was, and boy, did I deliver quite the performance,

I had never really sung in front of other people for a means such as this before, so granted, I was a little nervous. They determined that I could sing just outside the door if seeing their faces was what brought me insecurity.

The karaoke track on my phone started. I had heard the song so many times before, but I must not have really practiced it because the words came flying out at an alarming pace of which I wasn't prepared for. It felt as though my tongue had fallen from my mouth in a large, Looney-Tunes-like knot that just dangled in place. I managed to make my way to the chorus, but the rest was just a blur. They said their thank-you's and I left.

I didn't get a part in the show, to put it bluntly. Sure, there was a sense of disappointment, but my mother led me on to shift my priorities to my academic grades-- the stomach-turning reason why I didn't get a part, for sure. My motivations academically were lacking during those years.

___________

Back to my sophomore year in high school, I had gotten much better at prioritizing my grades than I had been in previous years. Besides, theatre was an actual course in high school, not just a program, so my chances of participation were already heightened. The show I had managed to secure my debut role in was interesting, as it was a dinner theatre performance, meaning that it was to be done on a much smaller stage, with limited seating availability, and an audience that was to be watching us while eating. Seemed pretty eloquent to me at the time.

    "Alright, so, we said that we weren't going to do this. We are not going to stop and call for line every two seconds like last week. You know these lines, Elliott, stop telling yourself that you don't."

Mr. Tucker will forever have my respect as a determined, hard-working man, but it was times like these where he was often found to be an intimidating force. But it was always with care, though, like any mentor providing guidance. He pushed his expectations.

I can remember feeling overpowered by everyone else in the show, who had actually acted in shows before this one. It felt unfair- not that they were able to act in shows much earlier than me, but how I was being treated as a newcomer. It felt merciless at times. Several friends were sympathetic and actually helped me out, but it had been established that once you were in, the expectations were high.

Mr. Tucker was right, though. I had known my lines. Some moments in the show still needed work, but I had proven to myself that I was, in fact, capable. The show itself wasn't that difficult to memorize, but it was the comedic moments of improv where I found myself troubled. My sense of humor has always been much more conservative and reverent than most other people in high school, so if some sort of innuendo was brought up for me to suddenly bounce off of, I fell silent. Not knowing how to respond. Those moments seemingly killed me... Earlier in the year, I had died in class. An improv exercise.

"Elliott, how many times do I have to tell you, "I'm lesbian!"

That was the opening line, so wonderfully provided by Eden, a senior player at the time. There was probably seven seconds of awkward silence at best, but it felt almost like an eternity. Was this okay to say? How could she start it out like this? Should sexual orientation be a matter of public discussion?

I quickly realized that my expectations of theatre had to adapt, along with my perceptions of what style of humor the drama crowd was interested in. My rather wholesome, Dick Van Dyke Show-like taste manifested as a bare canvas that nobody took interest in throwing paint at. I distinctly remember feeling like a lamb that was caged with a pack of wolves, my innocence being seen by few as something to exploit, sometimes to humor or destroy. My taste for the more optimistic Broadway shows also seemed to set me apart... everyone else liked the gritty, the dark and morbid... 

Now, Elliott certainly liked his own fair share of dark material, but for the most part... he liked feeling happy.

The play itself was a murder mystery, so, you'd make a correct assumption that each character was shady in their own way, to throw around audience expectations, to toy with them.

My character, for instance, had several fake identities, changing to a total of three different names in the show, Brit, Brian, and Seth. This forced me to form some good ground for improv... to answer for these "identities within an identity."

 Brit/Brian/Seth was a hippie- so one night, my justification for these fake identities was the realm of "protesting" and how dangerous of a venture that could be sometimes, making these false identities necessary. Seemed like a pretty solid explanation, right? Well, sixteen year-old me tied the whole explanation together with something along the lines of "Protesting is a dangerous business, y'know... You can get shot."

A grim attempt of humor, I know, but it was done. I improvised what I considered to be a reasonable explanation, AND stepped out of my comfort zone... 

How you like that? I can almost hear myself thinking, How's that for cynical humor?

Sophie, Mr. Tucker's daughter, who was also the star of the show, was not amused with Elliott's choice of improvisation... Perhaps it was the social timing of the early twenty-twenties and the desire to be politically correct that drove this dissatisfaction, or perhaps, it was the "show mood" that she had described herself to having... An excuse for ill attitudes towards others? Elliott didn't understand... 

Suggesting sexual connotation despite the youthful age of high schoolers-- OK -- Making a quick jab at the commonly complicated, sometimes taboo, outside world-- FORBIDDEN.

Brit/Brian/Seth had managed to create a visual representation of time and place, though. Nobody is the exact same with every single friend group, they usually adapt and adjust themselves depending on who it is they are talking with. What I had come to realize was that I didn't need to change my entire character for the sake of fitting in with this crowd, but rather, to find what similarities I did have with them so that a common ground could be established...

I had quickly found myself not lingering on whatever hypocrisies the players had brought to the table; however, the thought of some of the things said to me in private that year still manages to rile and stir my emotions to this day-- writing about even the suggestion of quoting the obscenities Sophie threw at me after unknowingly skipping a page of dialogue during a performance makes it hard to sit still...

I must have been difficult to work with... A newcomer, one of the only men in the entire theatre program... I luckily found solace in Izach, another young man in the program who was a senior that year... He, too, had his own fair share of troubles... the expectation of a man in a mostly female program had a weight advertised as unbearable, when in actuality, being genuine and honest with yourself was what led you to perseverance. I quickly learned who my friends were, and they mostly consisted of cast members who didn't get huge starring roles- it was this group I found be the most genuine about themselves. No ego, nothing much to hide. I preferred that.

This particular show, as all shows do, eventually ran its course over the two-weekend run and closed with the players bearing an eagerness awaiting for Spring- the musical season.

Over that time I had met much more people, some great, others with less flattering tales as found here, but there was a large picture found in my years in theatre, which was that you're going to run into all sorts of people in your life that will leave an impact. Some challenge your perceptions, while others guide them. Some people may resent you, and that's okay. Keep your head up and look sky high.