By Gianna Jacobs / Staff Writer

Q: At what theater do you currently perform?

Q: Are there any shows that you are in currently?

A: Since I began directing at SMFHS, I keep my acting to the summers. Directing three shows a school year alongside Mr. Hinman is a time consuming (but very fun and rewarding) gig, so I’m not in any shows currently. I am currently working on directing our upcoming production of Into the Woods! I encourage everyone to come check it out April 17-19.

Q: How does your experience as a theatre actor influence the way you teach English?

A: I always like to add a little theatrical flair to my teaching. For student birthdays, I encourage my classes to stand on chairs and belt out the birthday song; when reading a literary text, I like to use different character voices and inflections and when standing in front of the class at any given time, I like to try to be as engaging as I can be.

Q: What has been your favorite role to perform?

A: Oooo, what a mean question! Every role I’ve gotten to play has a special place in my heart. I guess I have to say getting to play Ariel in ‘Footloose’ was my favorite because it directly led to me becoming a director. It was the summer after my first year of teaching (at a different school), and some of my administrators came to see me perform. After the show, they asked me if I would like to run the school’s drama club and direct the school’s play. A castmate from that show also asked me if I would co-direct a show with him. I said yes to both and ended up directing two shows at one time, which was a wild thing to do for my directing debut! Fast forward a few years, and here I am now. Had I not had that role of Ariel, I’m not sure I’d even work at SMFHS, and that would be tragic because I love what I do and the people here so much!

Q: How do you prepare for a character on stage?

A: I’m a big believer that character’s motivation should drive them–I always ask myself, “What does this character want in this scene, and how are they going to try to get it?” I think the answers to those questions help with building the nuances of a character.

Q: What’s the biggest lesson theatre has taught you?

A: They say there are no small parts in theatre, and it is 100% true. Every single person matters. Theatre is a collaborative effort, and everyone contributes to creating something that is larger than the sum of its parts. I’ve been in leading roles, I’ve been in ensemble, I’ve run tech, I’ve moved a single bench in a production–every part I’ve ever played has mattered. This lesson is true of life, as well. Everyone matters. YOU matter. As my boy William Shakespeare once wrote, “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts.” The part you are playing right now is an important one, and the ones you’ll play throughout your life will be important, too.

Q: Do you get nervous before performing? If so, do you have any techniques to help?

A: Oh for sure! Fighting those nerves starts the second I get my script–being prepared is the best way to combat the nerves. I try to learn my lines and my blocking as soon as I can. When the nerves creep up, I can remind myself that I am prepared. There is also something to be said for the healing elements of a deep breath or two before stepping on stage.

Q: How does performing help you better understand the characters in plays you read for teaching?

A: Can I tell you a secret? I hate simply reading plays. To sit with a script and just read it in my head is so boring to me. I think plays are meant to be performed (or read aloud at the very least). Through my experience with performing, I find that I want to hear a character’s voice–I want to think about what inflections they would use when saying any given line. I also want to hear how different people interpret that character–there’s often not just one “right” way to do it. When I teach a play in class, I’ll assign roles to students, and it’s always neat to see how different students approach the same character. In one class, a student may be shouting Hamlet’s lines, where in another, they may be whispering. Theatre truly is an art, and art is driven by the artist.

Q: What advice would you give students interested in theatre or the arts?

A: DO IT! At the end of every show, Mr. Hinman and I ask seniors to give a speech at our cast parties, and so many of the students say the same thing: “I wish I had joined sooner!” There are so many opportunities to join at our school alone–we have Drama Club every Wednesday from 2:45-3:45 in the auditorium, there’s the All-Class Play in the fall (keep an eye out for auditions and crew applications around September), the Senior Class Play (for senior actors and all grade-levels of crew members) and the All-School Musical (watch for auditions and crew applications for the latter two around late November). When in doubt, reach out to Mr. Hinman or me (Ms. Kyser).

Q: What first made you fall in love with acting?

A: When I was four years old, I started dance classes. When I was nine, my parents told me I had to choose between dance or sports. I decided on the latter, but I missed dancing. I saw a flyer in my elementary school for auditions for a production of Babes in Toyland, so I tried out and the rest is history.

Q: Who was your biggest inspiration when you started performing?

A: My friends, hands down. I learned so much (and still learn so much) from my friends when acting with them. There’s something so special about collaborating with the people you love on a creative project.

Q: Was there a specific moment when you realized you wanted to pursue theatre seriously?

A: I think theatre pursued me, not the other way around. There were so many times in my life when I thought I would be done with theatre, but it always found me again and again. I’m a person of faith, and I truly believe every time theatre popped back up in my life it was God directing me to here and now.

Q: What was your very first role?

A: I had the esteemed role of Toy Soldier #25 (or something like that) in “Babes in Toyland” when I was 9 years old.

Q: How do you prepare for a new role?

A: Aside from attending rehearsals, I study. I quiz myself on my lines and my blocking, I dig into the character’s motivations and I read over the script often.

Q: What advice would you give students who are nervous about auditioning?

A:  Some of the best advice I’ve ever heard is to “do it scared.” Life is filled with opportunities that make us feel nervous or scared–we should never let that keep us from trying. We have big feelings about things because they matter. If you want to audition, go for it! If you want to fight off some of those nerves by being prepared, make sure you know what the expectations are for the audition so you can correctly prepare. Need to perform a monologue for the audition? Pick one that aligns with the character you’re auditioning for and start memorizing early. Not sure where to start? Reach out to the director(s), and ask for advice. Just don’t miss out on being a part of something you want to be a part of because of nerves–you’ll thank yourself for your bravery later. 

Personal Narrative

By Zoey Davis, Editor

     In 2021, I was going into seventh grade. I had no friends; I had lost touch with my old friends over the summer because of conflicts and growing apart. I felt very lonely and embarrassed, and everyone had already built their own friend groups. 

     I experienced extreme worry and self-consciousness walking into school, being in class and sitting alone at lunch. I had only a few people I would talk to, and none of them on a personal level. 

      As school continued, people started to talk to me. A girl who sat beside me in my science class complimented my makeup. This same girl sat behind me in the homeroom, as we had similar last names. She introduced me to her friend group. I finally made friends of my own after losing all my previous ones.

     Throughout seventh grade, I noticed I would get awful stomachaches and horrible anxiety. In turn, I started talking to the guidance counselor at Kimpton and spending more time in the nurse’s office. I spent months complaining about the stomachaches I was having, how they affected my sleep, my appetite and my ability to even get up some days. 

     After a few months of missing school days and spending back-to-back periods in the nurse’s office, my mother finally scheduled a doctor’s appointment. My doctor told me it was probably just normal anxiety and that it would pass. 

     I continued feeling this anxiety and extreme pain in my stomach until freshman year. My condition got worse, and I dealt with harsher anxiety, more stomachaches, heartburn and even shakiness in my legs. I was put on anxiety medication and medicine for both heartburn and stomachaches. 

     My condition stayed constant, and I started experiencing extreme anxiety attacks. There were days when I couldn’t even get out of bed–I was stuck in pain. The medication they had me on wasn’t working, including my pain medication. I started using larger amounts of Ibuprofen, amounts that would surely kill my liver. I completely abandoned my prescribed medications, filled with rage about the ineffectiveness of the medication.

         There were many days I struggled with the motivation to get out of bed, grappling with the mental and physical frustrations.  I felt too anxious or sick to get up, too overwhelmed by even everyday tasks. Other days, starting an assignment, cleaning my room or something as simple as talking with friends, felt like an impossible task to complete. 

     I felt as if no doctors were listening to me; every doctor’s appointment felt the same. Between Psychologists, Gastroenterologists, MFM’s, Neurologists, Cardiologists and Immunologists, I felt hopeless. Doctors kept ordering tests. I’ve gone through MRIs, scopes, brain tests, asthmatic tests and blood tests, and I continued to receive the same news, regardless of the specialists to whom I went.

     Fortunately, I was finally given one diagnosis among all those doctors and tests: Functional Neurological Disorder, also referred to as FND. Unfortunately, research on this disorder is scarce, and there isn’t much I can do to help with the diagnosis. FND is a disruption in the brain and body; simply put, my brain is sending signals to my body that it isn’t supposed to be doing. 

     I went through therapy to try and help my symptoms, ways I could ‘calm’ myself down when experiencing an ‘attack.’ Therapy did nothing for me, as there was no reason why I was having these symptoms. I couldn’t calm myself down when experiencing a symptom, as I wasn’t anxious, and it happened all the time. Again, my condition dwindled to anxiety. 

     I got angry about being diagnosed with no resolution, at therapy being a waste of time, at doctors for not listening to me and for being taken on and off medications I couldn’t even be on long enough to remember. I stopped taking all my medications and stopped going to therapy and doctors’ appointments. I gave up on my health, deciding to just work through it. 

          When you lose the complete motivation and physical capability to do most things, this also includes personal hygiene. Recently, I’ve been getting better at keeping up with my hygiene, but in earlier years, it was shameful. I was very embarrassed and riddled with guilt at the state I was in most days.

     I had days and weeks without showering, brushing my teeth and hair, etc. On days when it was physically impossible for me to get out of bed, my hygiene was the least of my concerns. Days where even just changing my clothes would be considered a win, showering seemed so far away. 

     My attendance also suffered immensely; I went the whole school year of my sophomore year without going a full week once, sometimes missing an entire week. My relationships also suffered with my friends and family. I stopped hanging out with friends, feeling too ill to go or stopped full communication. I felt as if my family couldn’t understand, that they didn’t believe me–I had arguments about my attendance, my social life and even my own condition. 

     I felt isolated, so I started throwing myself into my school work. I figured if I had anything, it would be education. I tried so hard to keep up with my classes, making up work as fast as I could, or studying harder to make up a test in two days. I achieved my goal; I ended my sophomore year with a 4.3 GPA, although I had 200 absent hours, not including medical absences. 

     Going into junior year, my stomachaches became less of an issue, and heartburn turned to once a month. Although new issues arose, the shakiness in my legs became worse, my heart rate was elevated above normal rates, and I couldn’t go a day without feeling like I was about to pass out. The shakiness developed into constant pain in my legs. At night, I can remember crying because the pain was so bad I couldn’t sleep. 

     I had to go back to the doctors; it was all too much to ignore. As I sat down for the first appointment back, I felt listened to, I felt heard. After many visits back, I was also diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, commonly known as POTS.  POTS is a cardiovascular disorder that makes my heart jump to high rates and makes me feel lightheaded, dizzy and nauseous. 

      Anxiety, FND and POTS all share symptoms that can make it difficult for doctors to diagnose, which is why it took my doctors 4-5 years to diagnose me, alongside ongoing health problems that haven’t been properly diagnosed. Chronic illness on top of a mental disorder that makes it hard to function mentally is exhausting.

     With the recent diagnosis, I didn’t know how to feel. I felt like it answered some questions but left others unanswered. I was glad for the diagnosis, as it would help my symptoms become more serious and real to others.

     Currently, I still suffer from chronic leg pain; I can’t stand up without my vision going blank, and the lightheaded feeling of passing out haunts me every day. I still have many specialists to see just to get some idea of my ongoing health and mental concerns.

     I live most of my days in constant worry about my grade, my family, my friends and especially my health. I can feel the strength of my legs deteriorating. I’m scared that one day it’ll get so bad I can’t walk anymore. I live in fear that I’ll never be healthy, and I’ll be stuck on medication for the rest of my life. A life that I thought would never happen to me is closer than I think. Actively feeling my own brain and body work against each other is terrifying.