By Madeleine Taylor-Gregg
Ever since I was a small child, I had a flair for the dramatic. From playing “hers talks to hers” (Barbies) to imagination games, I always had the desire to story tell. Adults in my life often fondly referred to me as the “Sloppy Princess”, adorned in some sparkly, oversized costume gown and some fairy wings while simultaneously always covered in adventurous smears of dirt. I was bold, ridiculous, and supremely sensitive: traits that often interfered with one another. My fierceness often preceded my logic, getting me into some embarrassing situations where my sensitive side would take over, leaving me feeling like sensitivity was my weakness.
Second grade was my first experience with a bully. A boy who would take any small embarrassment and magnify it just to get a laugh. And, as an infamous Sloppy Princess, I had many avenues to pick on. All I knew was that this boy was making fun of my drawings in class, making fun of what I would wear, yanking on my pigtails, and making me feel small and upset. My feelings would brim to the corners of my eyes and spill over in bursts of tears, often only making matters worse and giving my bully yet another thing to make fun of. I didn’t know how to navigate what was happening.
At seven years old, I walked into my very first drama camp. Cinderella was the inspiration for our play, and all the boys were too embarrassed to play Prince Charming. So, I volunteered, unafraid to find the journey of a character others were unwilling to give a chance. There was laughter and a bit of teasing, but after witnessing my commitment to the role, all little whispers were hushed. Boldness and emotion clasped hands and I realized my love for storytelling was a pathway to success, a yellow brick road to strength. This was a channel for my big emotions, a place where sensitivity was valued and somewhere I could figure out how to give words to those big bubbling feelings. I was encouraged to understand the emotional states of characters in different scenarios, to trust my sensitive gut. This began to help me frame things in my everyday life which gave me the tools to empathetically deal with my bully at school. It also gave me the tools and the words to reach out to an adult for help. With the support of my parents, and the courage from my new-found confidence at theatre camp, I stood my ground and voiced to my bully how he was making me feel. Because I had such assuredness and because I had new tools, my bully ceased to illicit a desired response from me and so he lost interest. You could say becoming Prince Charming helped me slay my own dragons.
After Prince Charming, and after slaying my dragon, I was hooked. Theatre was my connection to a community, and a place I could feel safe to experiment and fail. I went on to play Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, Kevin in Time Bandits, and later an Ugly Stepsister in Beauty and the Beast, Louisa in the Sound of Music, Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and many more. It was drama camp as a seven-year-old that gave me the opportunity to discover that I was meant for the theatre, and to discover that my passionate sensitivity was indeed not a weakness at all, but a ferocious strength. So, it certainly feels full circle to now be working with Quest Theatre and witnessing the journeys of young people as they discover the invaluable tools drama education has to offer their lives. Quest changes the lives of young people and gives them the strength and confidence to slay their dragons, just as drama camp gave me the strength to slay mine.
