“My first experience at the Jewish Community Center (JCC) was an acting class for ages 3-5 where we would play theater games. I remember it was in a room where we would put on little plays every class, and I was always a dog.

My mentor is Ms. Eva. Although she didn't run my first theater class, she ran the class I took in first grade called Spotlight, which was a program where we auditioned and developed a small 30-40 minute show on the stage. This program was intended to help us develop core theater skills, like acting, singing and dancing.

Ms. Eva has been my director for every show I've ever performed in at the JCC. She has taught me how to act, dance, sing, work backstage, interact with children, as well as how to be more confident in myself.

She also taught me to interact better with people of different ages and backgrounds, which allowed me to meet the friends I still have today. I also learned how to bring light to everyone’s lives by putting my best foot forward and supporting my castmates and the children I work with. She also taught me basic life skills, like how to work customer service, have a job and how to pay a check.

My favorite thing I've done was being a [theater] camp counselor. I got to teach children, and help with all the tech aspects of a show. I got to learn more independence while getting to be my stupid, goofy self for three weeks straight. I was put in charge of a group for an hour a day, and our job was to make props for the show. I not only designed the props, but also developed a process that allowed students to create them themselves, keeping them engaged throughout the activity. I enjoyed that because I got to look at things through the eyes of a child and connect with all the kids.

Being able to mentor kids has helped my leadership skills. During my job I'm put in charge of kids and I'm given very little direction, so I get to make choices. In my role, I am responsible for supervising students, and am given minimal direction, allowing me to make independent decisions. I really like working with the kids because it's really interesting to interact with kids who haven't seen the whole world yet, and it's opened my eyes to new and different perspectives.

Now, I take on a variety of responsibilities at the JCC. I act in the mainstage high school productions, I work backstage for the middle school and I am a production assistant for the third through fifth grade shows. I also work on Sundays to help teach the rehearsals and classes, and I work backstage for all shows and during tech week.

Since starting out, the most impactful show I've done was Something Rotten, which I performed in the fall of my freshman year. Something Rotten is a comedic musical about two brothers who try to put on a show to compete with Shakespeare. They ultimately put on a a musical called Omelette: the Musical. In that show I played a character named Robin, who is a man who plays all of the female roles since in the times of the Renaissance, there were no women in theater. Robin liked playing female characters a bit more than the average man. It was the hardest production for me physically and vocally, because it was the first time I had to do a four part harmony, and I really had to practice them. There was also a 10-minute dance number, which was difficult because of how tiring it was. But, this show was also when I made a lot of the friends I have now.

That was the first show I did in the high school cast, and was the first time I really had to balance my schedule. I was acting, [attending] high school and working as a production assistant. This show was really my only time to relax. In the theater, I didn’t have a care in the world, and didn’t have to stress about the rest of life.

The most recent show I did was Alice by Heart, which takes place during World War II in London — specifically in the underground bunkers during the London Blitz. It is about a girl named Alice Spencer, whose best friend Alfred is dying of tuberculosis. To make him feel better, she reads him the story of Alice in Wonderland by heart, hence the name Alice by Heart.

In a desperate attempt to keep her friend alive, Alice twists and turns the story so that Alfred never dies. The story is really about her dealing with the inevitable loss of her best friend.

I was cast as my dream character of the Mad Hatter, a soldier suffering from PTSD who’s basically gone crazy. I got to act the most as the soldier, but I also played the maniacal character who resembled the Mad Hatter.

The Mad Hatter was a really fun role because I got to make some weird choices and really make the character my own. I struggled with trying to make sense of the more serious parts of the show, but I really learned how to apply it to my interpretation of the character.

I learned about Alice by Heart three years ago when I saw a clip on TikTok of someone singing it. It's probably the deepest show I’ve worked with, because most shows we do at the JCC are more lighthearted. However, this one is very thoughtful and much deeper, exploring themes of loss and grief.

The JCC theater program is where I've met almost all of my friends, and it has given me such a large community where I learned to be my own person and be confident. JCC theater has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and I don't know where I'd be without it.”