A Love Letter to the Aiken Community Theatre
Your community theater is doing a lot more than just putting on productions.
As this month’s character trait is enthusiasm, I started thinking about the things in life that I’m enthusiastic about, and it wasn’t difficult to realize that theater undoubtedly tops my list. I love watching theater and ogling over the sets, the costumes, the actors — it’s one of my favorite things to do. This love and passion is largely because until I left for college, theater was at the absolute center of my life for seven years. While I was ready to move on to bigger and better things, figuratively speaking, it wasn’t easy to leave.
As a teenager, it can feel rare to find a place where you belong, but when you do, it’s magical. The Aiken Community Theatre was that place for me. By the time I left for college I had spent countless hours (days!) in that building. In the seven years I was involved with the Aiken Community Theatre and its Youth Wing, I was involved, onstage or off, in close to twenty shows, not to mention attending every Youth Wing meeting I could go to and working at their theater camp in the summer when I got too old to participate in it myself. I had even written and directed a show for them by the summer of senior year. I had laughed, cried, and taken a few naps in the building in between rehearsals and shows. It was my entire life, my second home. My parents joked that I was there more often than I was at home. The whole reason I even wanted to drive on my own (other than the obvious independence) was so my parents wouldn’t have to wait for me in the parking lot if rehearsal ran late. And I did it all because I loved it wholeheartedly. If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t have spent 11 hours at the theater on a Saturday when I was involved in three shows at once and they had rehearsals back to back. I even came in on the day of my junior prom in curlers so I could help with the set build for Sister Act for a couple hours. The following year I went directly from my high school graduation to a Legally Blonde tech rehearsal, as the show was to open the following Thursday. And that may sound crazy to some, but it’s easy to give that kind of commitment to a community like that when everyone involved is completely and fully devoted to the craft.
Theater has taught me so many skills. If you asked me today to help you build something with electrical tools, I could definitely help you out. When I first started out in theater, I could barely operate a handheld screwdriver. Now, I can take out screws with an electric screwdriver, no problem — it’s honestly my favorite part about taking the set apart after the show ends. I learned to paint correctly at set builds, which became very helpful when I was hired to help paint a rental property for a woman at my church, and will be very useful again when I get my own home. And I’ll know how to clean it too — I knew how to fold and do laundry before, but now I’ve been taught how to swab the deck like a Marine.
Theater also taught me to be creative in non-theatrical ways. When I helped kids create costumes for theater camp, we turned foam visors from Hobby Lobby into beaks, bonnets, and all sorts of things. With a hot glue gun and a roll of felt, I could turn any kid into a duck at breakneck speed. And that creativity has seriously stuck with me. Last Halloween I was my friends’ fairy godmother, adding costume pieces and altering dresses with safety pins. When my friend told me she wanted to be Belle for a children’s event, I told her to pick up a pillowcase at Goodwill and a ribbon and I could make her an apron in a minute flat. Because of the number of times I’ve had to do my and others’ makeup, I’m now sought after for makeup help, though I certainly didn’t start out that way. I still look back at photos from Auntie Mame, my first main stage production, when I had incredibly dark, unblended makeup and no one had the nerve to tell me I looked ridiculous! But after many years of practice and finesse, I can do winged eyeliner on another person in thirty seconds — a great feat, and one that I’m honestly really proud of. I can trim and apply false lashes in the same amount of time after helping backstage with makeup for my high school’s production of Honk! when almost all of the girls bought lashes but none knew how to put them on. I’ll never be the same.
But theater didn’t just teach me practical skills; it trained me to be a professional, to handle responsibility, and to be an effective leader in my community. When I was young, I learned how to deal with rejection when I wasn’t cast in shows. But I went back. I was resilient. As I got older, I started learning how to be a leader, a role model. In high school I started getting put in charge of younger kids, set to work cleaning the dressing rooms or the black box during strike. Eventually I was voted Vice President, and later President, of the Youth Wing by my peers, and suddenly I had a bucket load of responsibilities — overnight I had become an official leader of the group. That same year I was given the amazing opportunity to help direct The Giver, working alongside the adult team as an equal. By senior year, I had one visiting adult legitimately ask me whether I was a parent helper because I seemed so put-together. I entered the theater an awkward and insecure girl, and left it a self-assured woman.
Because of the theater, I am fearless. I owe the person I am today to the theater’s fruitful lessons, and I will enthusiastically support community theater until the day I die. I encourage you to do the same.
