I have loved performing since I was a toddler. (Ask the supermarket shoppers at Fareway in Oskaloosa, Iowa when I stood up on a counter and sang “Tomorrow.”) Theatre came into my life when I was seven. The linchpin for me, when I was 9, was unconsciously and naturally doing something that made my day camp summer theatre teacher @erinsalem laugh. The laugh startled me, hit me right in my fucking heart. Tears filled my eyes. And suddenly, miraculously, right then and there, for the first time in my life after a few years of being bullied, I learned the difference between making someone laugh and being laughed at. And a smile crept across my face. It is easily one of the most pivotal moments in my life. Then when I was 14, another day camp summer theatre teacher @nicholausgarcia55 taught me how to take playtime seriously, that there was a whole world unlocked if you blend the comedy with tragedy. Full human beings could be made. You can have a space to release all of your frustration and hurt and heartache and grief and rage where it is not only allowed and welcome, but encouraged and championed. And for a tender hearted young boy, who had more intense feelings than he knew what to do with, this was freedom. I love theatre so much. I love acting, and writing, and directing, and composing. There is no where I feel more free than when creating. Creation is freedom to me, freedom from everything you want it to be free of. It’s elation and regurgitation of life amassed. It’s tension and release and therapy and growth, extension of empathy for yourself and others. It’s witchcraft, and rebellion, and battle, and anarchy, and gut-punch grief, and resurrection. Its poetry. It’s endless possibility. It’s love and rage in the shape of energy. And it’s all yours and it can’t be taken away by government. It is what I have dedicated my life to studying and sharing. And there is absolutely, undoubtedly no fucking way I would rather be spending my one life than as a theatre artist.