Importance Of Community Theater

Theater has been the driving passion in my life since I was 10 years old. The amazing thing about my love for theater, however, is that it allows me to volunteer and be active in my community. While I love doing community service like Feeding South Dakota or Project Warm Up with the Serve and Learn Student Association at my school, the most rewarding type of community service always stems from being able to use your personal strengths and talents to the benefit of the community.

Every year, our community theater hosts auditions for a group called Plays For Living, a cast dedicated to performing social awareness plays for youth in the area. For 4 years now, I have been lucky enough to be a part of this cast, tackling issues from bullying and

I’m filled with pride every time I get to explain that it was my friends who started this program, my friends and I who are making such an impact on the lives of those with Friedreich’s Ataxia. At the root of the problem, FA is a disease most people have never heard about, let alone give any level of importance to. That changes when 1 of the 1 per 50,000 individuals diagnosed is your close friend - it is slowly but surely attacking Raena’s nervous system, leading her to a wheelchair at 15. Her life will not be cut short at the age of 30, however, if my friends and I have anything to do with it. Through FA4FA, we put on a yearly musical theater showcase featuring local high school students and donate all the proceeds to the Friedreich’s Ataxia Research Alliance. It is not an easy undertaking, requiring over 100 hours of rehearsal and coordinating 20 different kids’ schedules – it becomes even more stressful as the choreographer and one of three student leaders, handling all the marketing, promotion, auditioning, finances, and anything else that pertains to running a non-profit at the age of