PHOTO McKenzie Lookebill

“We have our show for IB Theatre this weekend, the Laramie Project, we had to go home early and all after school events were cancelled and it will be pulled off well, but with so many snow days and so many people sick, we get really stressed out. We have to relearn staging and reteach staging, we have to sub for people that are gone, but I have to keep my head strong. I have to trust that my cast and class can work on their lines outside of school, and try to be two steps ahead of the game even though we are two steps behind. I am casted Trish Steger and narrator. Everyone has a narrator line or two. I’m Romaine Patterson’s older sister. Trish is very upset about what happened to Matthew Shepard, but she has to be there for her sister and the rest of the community. I think that it’s important to learn a part because you are playing a different character that’s not you, but you learn more about yourself and the difference between you and someone else. You learn about humanity and how people function within society. In this show particularly I have learned to listen to other opinions on both sides of the spectrum, whether its politics, or just personal beliefs. Through the past couple of years I have learned to be more confident with myself, even if it’s scary to do, just go out and do it. The first step in being confident is to look and your fears and ask yourself why you fear it, how you can overcome it. When it comes to said fear, I count to three and do it. I have huge stage fright and any time I go on stage I do my breathing exercises, I stretch, then I count ‘one, two, three’ and go on.”