#like yeah great lmfao This Isn't It....but then going off oneself to some pwyw shakespeare show where you don't know what's going on but

[unproduciblesmackdown]

with the recent like self-analytical framework of [putting hand on own shoulder] "are you looking for the external validation of value in this which would never be guaranteed, and you don't even think it should be contingent on this anyways" it's like, that also speaks more to like "yeah i did really enjoy live performance / theatre-adjacent and -overlapping stuff"

like i have my sense of how much i loved things and none of that involves any memories of having enjoyed it b/c of any feedback i got, from peers or instructors or anything. memories of curtain calls don't stand out much. like fun Specific Feedback was a kind older (relative to me) performer with the central role telling me that my literal leaping onstage (dance performance. grande jete entrance) despite a technical difficulty that would have to be improvised around was Inspirational/Motivating lol. i stopped having any particular stage fright (although is that when you're onstage? more like, anxiety beforehand about messing up. being onstage was the easier, enjoyable part) thanks to just having to yolo through those technical difficulties lol....anyways and then that same show actually, some relative to me younger audience member's dad was like "she's your (role's) biggest fan" and we nervously take a pic together lol. these things were fun & standout but Not Even It; not at all like "this is what makes it all worth it" like this is largely beside the point but a fun little bonus outlier event or two

like there was also no "i loved it b/c of Being In A Cast" nor b/c of any particular like, hanging out having fun Social Element. i loved rehearsing, though. loved being backstage (or in green rooms, or dressing rooms) but not because of any particular company or goings on. loved waiting & practicing / warming up & getting things together like your own costuming & being summoned to backstage & whatall. loved all the technical elements of getting a show together, when things were being assembled / worked out, though i didn't get to have much of any active hand b/c i'm like this twelve year old just learning the part, but it was fun to witness. none of my sense of what contributed to having a great time entailed any particular praise or anything; there was some implicitness in how all at once i graduated from [ensemble performance, back row for tall people] to [roles with solos] and the like, but there was just like, being busy, doing things well enough that it just wasn't Impeding anything lol, and in other arenas where i might've gotten more comments about being like, an outlier per whatever measure of success, it was definitely like, it's all just [successfully avoided negative attention] and ofc people think good grades are good but i'm not particularly moved by the awareness that that in turn is what's good or impressive about me, or something. or that i have to have anything like that for [successfully avoided negative attention]

and i wouldn't have like, done a monologue to an empty room and been like wow magical. i'd do my thing for rehearsal, and then for an audience, but you can't really see the audience and you're like ten doing local ten year old recreational stuff so it's like, the curtain calls you don't remember much (by you i mean me) and then you're done, and for me it was the fun of just like Everything Before. no like classic memories montage of great times socializing, it was me sitting in the green room equivalent, me warming up in the hallway, enjoying being in an auditorium for like 7 hrs of rehearsal, etc, we didn't do any like social events like high school performance afterparties or anything; i wasn't like Friends w/even the occasional person i also knew from school, and that didn't matter or diminish things in the least. performing A Show and for whatever Audience and that abstract is completely good enough. any of my parents' involvement, unavoidable b/c i couldn't even get places without being driven, was a major downside; i didn't like any like post performance [congrats] from them b/c that stuff was just its own unconstructive Performance that you, by which i mean me, were required to be sufficiently like Oh Wow about when it's like, the focused attention from you here means i want to leave; being left all amongst other adults during rehearsals was the good shit, while it also wasn't the case i needed like support or hype from any of those adults either.

there was Some tradition of like, older students in some program who'd take a trip to nyc / do some performance or other, and that seemed exciting but it stopped existing before it could be relevant to me lol. also for the first like, show that was like "audition for parts" vs "class recitals" they gave us like a relevant keepsake for it, and that was a nice surprise, since i had a great experience and all. and one of my main [not dance, with lines and everything] experiences being this fourth grade english class scenes from julius caesar, auditioned again, i'm like hell yeah that this has to be nongendered b/c it's all a bunch of guys, so i play a guy, and an antagonist yippee who doesn't die midway through and sounds easy-peasy to be like [be the dictator assassin] lol. it's funny how already i Cared about like, wish we had Effects instead of awkward silence for the drama of that assassination. wish i like, knew fuckall about acting. but the teacher just focused on telling us all to talk louder b/c nobody could be individually mic'd, and in the end you really couldn't hear fuckall of other performances so that was a win. and we got to do it twice b/c some people's parents got stuck in traffic. all i remember of my parents' presence was being like "omg yes i get to stop being here talking to you b/c we get to do that Again hell yeah"

like it's social but in a Parallel way. i'm contributing my part, i know my role, you know yours, i'm fondly remembering sitting in some school lobby having mini muffins with hours to go before our performance, amongst other people but not at all hyped abt interactions with them or at all disappointed abt the absence of any. i enjoyed it all being in front of people, others involved in the show, or the audience, but i wasn't there for any specific feedback, just being Part of that group constructed experience there. truly this case of like....loved all of that exactly as it happened, was on my own shit, did not need any external validation, didn't need a specific kind of Socializing that's supposed to look like having individual interactions with personal friends, had this passion for it that i also was having a perfectly good time exploring on my own, whilest also enjoying working with / learning from whatever instruction i got. like sure wishing i knew fuckall about acting but that it turns out no not everyone necessarily all loves stage acting as The Peak like that, and this comfort and interest with it that comes from like, you have all the practice of Having to perform and mask and act in life against your supposed incorrect abnormalities, but here's this constructive and creative and expansive edition of that art and science. good enough for doing it all through like fourteen