Sprouts

She was 17 years old, a high school senior. Petite, intelligent, disciplined, and persistent girl, she joined our group in late September 2014. She was assigned executive responsibilities. She was the assistant stage manager. She tirelessly welcomed every responsibility. At first, she would make her way to the performance venue three days a week despite all the difficulties of commuting and her family's disapproval.After a while she decided to quit. She wrote to me: "This work is boring for me, and I have decided to quit." But it wasn’t long before she returned and wrote: "I realized that theater is the only means that allows me to detach from the outside world and all its concerns for a few hours. I can stop thinking about them and be calm, and this is a feeling I have only experienced here. I realized that theater is turning me as a lazy person into a responsible one. It helps me connect with people I might never have been able to talk to or relate to otherwise ."Later, she also attended acting exercises and would sneak a peek to see if I was noticing her. I noticed that she was asking actors and the acting coach questions on acting techniques during her free time. She had also memorized the lines for actors’ parts. I started casting her for minor roles. From one performance to the next, she learned diligently and progressed. Her performance of the monologue "My Dear Mother" by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy was her masterpiece.Later, we put a play by Ivo Breshan on the stage in which she played Hamlet. One night, early in the second act we noticed that something was off. She was in a state of nervous shock. She was trembling, and her fingers were frozen. This was something only we could notice because it all somehow fit the act. I was ready to stop the performance at any moment. But she stayed on stage and carried on until the end. Her colleagues backstage had burst into tears by the end of the fifth scene. She showed that being professional is not about age and experience, but about commitment to principles and love for the work. She wrote to me: "Theater proved many things to me and made me see that everything can change, and so can I..."