“I went to Meyerland Visual and Performing Arts Middle School (MPVA) and there, you had to be in two fine arts areas. For one of those, you’re kind of just placed into a musical area, and I was placed into guitar. When choosing my secondary, technical theatre was the only fine art area that involved computers.
I didn’t know anything about technical theatre, but I knew that they used computers to control the sound and the lights.
In eighth grade, I really fell in love with doing tech. Once I knew I was coming to Bellaire, I made sure to apply for the intermediate technical theatre class, and I got in. My freshman year in theatre was really special, because it exposed me to so much more—not only technical theatre, but theatre in general.
My favorite memories from freshman year are my experiences volunteering for all of the small events that get put on—different cultural festivals, music concerts and dance concerts, that sort of thing.
Some events call for one technician, but many call for a full flight of eight technicians running all of the different technologies backstage. I was always one of the first people to volunteer to work at an event.
In my freshman year, a senior who I did things with all the time who was the tech vice president at the time as well for [Red Bird Productions] was Madelyn Carrillo. We built a great connection, but she also served as a sort of student mentor to me, helping me through my first year of high school, but also serving as a great friend and a teacher of technical theatre.
I didn’t know a whole lot about theatre at the time and when I encountered something new, I would ask and she would be one of the first people to answer.
As a freshman I didn’t have a car. I didn’t have a ride home, so the seniors and the juniors served as that ride for the underclassmen in theatre. One time, right before we got in her car when she was about to drive me home, Mrs. Underhill sent us a message that there were two shopping carts that were right next to the dumpster of her apartment building. We had been looking for shopping carts to put our supplies and our props in for our UIL One-Act Play. They’re great to have backstage because they’re really easy to move around and we decided to make a pit stop and picked up both the shopping carts.
We put them in the back of Madelyn’s car and they took up so much room that we had to fold down the back seats. We drove home with me just wedged in between the shopping carts in the back seat.
Some of my best theatre memories come from when you have to work really close with the people you know best to solve a problem when something goes wrong.
My sophomore year when we put on our musical production of “Peter and the Starcatcher,” I was one of the assistant stage managers backstage during the production. Probably 30 minutes into act one, all of our lights that were attached to the underside of the set flickered and flashed and then started spazzing.
We were talking to our lightboard operator and they couldn’t control them. The lights underneath the set, which were pointing straight at the audience, were changing colors and causing a huge distraction. So, in a moment of executive decision, we decided that I would have to crawl underneath the set in the middle of the show and turn off the lights.
I refer to this as my “Mission Impossible” moment, where I’m inchworming on the floor under the set trying not to be seen and trying to turn off the lights as quickly as possible.
I had a blast doing it, but I thought it was really obvious. But when I asked people after the show, they thought the lights were normal and didn’t notice me turning them off either.
I think my favorite memories are the relationships and connections I made with the upperclassmen from all the time after school working things. Those personal connections are still something I value very much to this day.
Even though I’m a senior now and most of them have already graduated, when each semester ends and they go on break, we’ll meet up and have another family dinner like we used to have when everyone was here.”
