Theater has impacted me immensely coming to Northbrook. I want to thank Mr. Rivera, Mr. McEwen, and my friends. They made these past two years in theater an unbelievable and mind blowing experience for me. I have found to be comfortable, expressive, and extroverted with society. At the end of my junior year I realized all the amazing opportunities Mr. Rivera has helped not only myself but the entire theater department as well.
I got to find my dedication for organization, planning, and communication through stage management, a role I can't imagine not having. Stage management has opened my eyes to my future career and college decisions. I got to go on a theater competition trip to Dallas with my best friends and got a chance to get closer with my teachers as well, from there qualified to compete at an International level with my best friends in Indiana and received recognition for my hard work.
Since attending Northbrook I've always heard how we've gotten 8th place and have not shown any improvement in our UIL competition, however, the past two years with Mr. Rivera moved us from 8th to 4th place beating all the other Spring Branch schools. With that jump not only did we appreciate the hard work we have all been putting into the department, but the school did as well.
Junior year was a maturation for my personal development but for the Northbrook theater department as well, until we got the news that Mr. Rivera would be transferring schools. The news broke our whole department. We were dreading May because that would be the last time he would be our teacher. Now fast forward to August, the first month of school, we had to work on the musical, work on our class theater production, but with what teacher? Theater felt so empty without him, his presence was like color changing LED lights, you felt so energized around him, now all we saw were fluorescent lights from the ceiling, yellow and dull.
Although the department still does not feel the same as it once did with him, we are still moving forward. As president of the theater department I want people to find their contentment and hope as the previous year. Even if some lost theirs, I wanted to bring it back. I want to continue all the work we’ve done without a teacher, without his presence. I have changed drastically this year for the benefit of our department and for my friends because at the end we will need to put on a show, we need to prosper our acting and technical skills we developed from last year, we need to guide new people and keep the legacy we started going.
No matter if our teacher is gone or not we need to keep ourselves going, we need to expand the department, “ The show must go on”.
This is my personal creative writing that has really changed not only my senior year but my friends as well. I wanted to write this essay because not everyone has the chance to find an inspiring teacher that they can feel close to and can change their lives. I wanted to share my story and give my thanks to a teacher that has changed my life for the better. I wanted my piece to move dramatically as much as his transfer to another school was to us. The message I wanted to send with my piece was that we all go through changes that can make change us for the better or worse, and I also wanted to express that no matter how much life changes you still have to keep moving forward there is no giving up just like the expression we use a lot in theater “The show must go on.”