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A Night at the Theater

A Night at the Theater

By ishaani_dhanotra

Ishaani Dhanotra

Ms. Bennett

WLH, 5th period

September 14, 2021

A Night at the Theater

“Can you believe it?” I asked again. I couldn’t hear a thing but my heartbeat in my ears. “I’m actually gonna sing. In front of people!” At age 11, I was finally making my stage debut.

“Yeah,” my dad murmured, preoccupied. He patted my shoulder briefly and added, “Don’t screw up.”

He always did know the exact wrong words to say.

My reply was swallowed by the mass in my throat, and he was swallowed up by the crowd.

A sea of people, floating in groups and heads all bobbing. Suddenly, the performance I’d been working up to for months was right here. I massaged my temple, hoping nobody noticed me standing like a shadow in the corner of the auditorium entrance. The sun above slowly melted behind the mountains, leaving deep shadows all around me.

You haven’t even gone on stage yet. Snap out of it. Grow up. You’re being a child. My internal monologue berated me, and I cringed at the harshness of my own words.

“Ishaani! Are you ready?” Brooklyn jumped out, a jumble of red curls. She hopped from foot to foot with a twinkling smile. Even in day-to-day life, she was the embodiment of Ariel. I wiped the irritation from my face- there was no need to play Ursula offstage.

“Ready to throw up, you mean?” I offered her a weak grin.

“No, no. You’ll be fine,” Brooklyn responded airily, dismissing my panic with a flutter of her hand. “You’ll be great.”

My stomach churned like a storm-tossed ocean, as though my chest was filled with clouds and thunder. She would be great, there was no doubt about that. But in rehearsals I felt gangly and awkward, and like I’d break a mirror if I sang too loud.

Performing was my dream, the type of dream so personal that you can barely say it out loud. How many hours had I spent singing and crying to Disney and Broadway songs, reenacting scenes from famous movies and plays? Memorizing lines from A Streetcar Named Desire, singing “Man in the Mirror” alone in my room. Finding heroes and wanting to be like them.

And tonight was my shot! A burst of excitement hit my chest, almost knocking my breath away. For months, I’d been practicing my Ursula smile, slippery, sneaky, something akin to The Cheshire Cat, and reading lines for months to my little brother while he napped.

I wriggled into the oversized costume, a purple monstrosity with huge green tentacles, and a purple wig with beads in it. People dressed as seagulls and wearing sparkly mermaid outfits walked around, rehearsing lines and gesturing wildly. Props were strewn across the floor.

“Okay team, it’s almost showtime,” our director called over the flurry of activity. The air smelled like springtime, tickling my nose. “Remember, guys: it doesn’t matter if you mess up. It’s about doing your best!”

Her words snapped me out of my trance. Doing your best? It was easier said than done. What if that wasn’t good enough? Performing was my dream, but what if I failed?

The truth was I’d never been one for public speaking, or addressing large crowds, or even talking in class. My childhood performances and presentations had been a sight to see.

“Ishaani,” my mother warned. “I don’t want a repeat of third grade. Don’t get up there and start crying.”

“It’s been years,” I scoffed in return. “Move on!”

“You can do it,” she continued. “You better do it.” But the memories crept into my mind with their long, spidery legs. I was a meek 8 year old again, too shy to stand up in front of a crowd.

It was the third grade Famous American presentation, where my mother put me in a gray, drab costume dress with a bonnet and a wooden basket. All the eyes on me felt like needles and I forgot my speech; tears sprung into my eyes as my mom just about got up and left. And I’d never gotten up in front of a group since then.

“It’s time!” Brooklyn squealed. Backstage was dark, an endless chasm. People hustled back and forth between the stage all around us. I was scared to even dip my toe in.

“Aren’t you nervous?” I breathed, watching shadows dance under the curtains. They swooshed with the wind, daring me.

“We’ve been practicing for months. If something goes wrong, it’s not your fault,” Brooklyn reassured me as our castmates finished their number and silence covered the room. Like ghosts, the tech crew rearranged the scenery onstage, pushing the multi-hued set and fake seashells out of the way for a darker one for Ursula and her minions. The stage was now deep purple and black. My body tingled with anticipation as I realized it was time to go on.

“You’re on,” Brooklyn squealed to me with a poke as I stumbled towards the stage. This was one of my favorite stories of all time, a remnant of my childhood. The characters, the sounds, the dances and lines, were all so familiar to me. My stomach was a bundle of butterflies that flapped against my rib cage, unrelenting. Lights were perched high above the crowd and blinded me as I walked onto the wooden stage. I took in the pack of people all watching, finding my best friend and brother in the dark.

“Hail to the Ssssssea Witch, hail to Ursula,” Flotsam and Jetsam hissed as music began to hum in the background; the sly song that everybody knew belonged to Ursula charged the air with mischief.

As I started to sing, the story I knew by heart came alive. My voice boomed throughout the auditorium loud and clear. At that moment, everybody in the room was feeling the same thing.

Being on stage was one of the most beautiful forms of expression: sharing emotions, stories, humanity, with an audience. Everybody was rooting for the same beloved characters, everybody was dancing in their seats to the same music. We were all underwater, bound by the thread of imagination, watching the story unfold.

“And don’t underestimate the importance of body language!” I sneered at the audience, the way I’d practiced to myself in my room. Our dance moves were striking and all in sync, one foot after the other. “HA!” Ariel whimpered behind my ruthless gaze.

“Flotsam, Jetsam, now I’ve got ‘er boys, the boss is on a roll! You POOR, UNFORTUNATE SOUL!” I belted out in the finale, raising my arms and feeling in that moment, like I wasn’t Ishaani, and I didn’t get nervous about anything. After months of trepidation, I didn’t want the performance to end.

After the show, we walked on stage and bowed, sweaty faced and smiling. My heart was surfing high on a wave, and although it had to come down again sometime, I savored the moment.

“See!” Brooklyn hissed through the roaring in the auditorium. “They’re clapping for you.” The lights were still blinding my eyes as I nodded.

“It was over so fast,” we both laughed. Friends ran up to us, holding flowers and looking at me, just barely, like they were seeing me differently for the first time.

I was finally on the other side of a looming mountain that had taunted me for years. It was like jumping into an ice cold pool- for a split second, it seemed like there was nothing worse. But the joy I felt that night, stars in my eyes, outweighed it all.

Dreaming is what you do when nobody is watching. Lying awake, and thinking about what could be, imagining yourself through rose-colored glasses. But acting on it, making something beautiful out of nothing, takes time. I knew I wasn’t even close to there.

Yet there’s a quiet dignity in being able to fail at something but get back up without a care in the world and try again. I’d screwed up so many times throughout the years that I felt I couldn’t do anything different. But whatever happened in the past didn’t matter. The future was unknown, a blank canvas. It was whatever I wanted it to be.

Like a mermaid testing out their legs on land for the first time, I’d finally made it to shore.

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ishaani_dhanotra
ishaani_dhanotra
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Posted
26 Mar, 2022
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