I didn't choose the theatre, the theatre chose me

At five years old my mother took me to the park

Dressed like the 19th century

She whispered to me a sentence

Then gave me a shove and said "repeat"

My five year old eyes widened at the faces of strangers

Waiting for me to say the words my mother told me

Legs as weak as Bambi's

Heart punding like Thumper

I stuttered through the passage I was told to say

Thunderous applause rained down on me like a spring storm

And that was my first taste

 

The theatre chose me

Becasue sometimes you're all in

When life descides to deal you a crappy hand

You just have to crawl inside someone else's skin

The theatre chose me

Because my family

Wasn't just the people inside my home

They were friends I hadn't even met yet

The theatre chose me

Because this much weird

Needs an outlet that is not athletics

Where it is called creativity

 

I didn't choose the theatre to be judged in high school

By people who don't know me and can't understand

I didn't choose the theatre because I woke up

One morning and said, "I should be poor for a living"

I didn't choose the theatre to be ridiculed by my father

Becauses he wanted me to be a doctor or a laywer

And I'm being irresponsible because this life

Isn't one he'd choose, so he cut me off

I didn't choose the theatre to feel like an outsider 

In my own family because they don't get that this is my dream

And I refuse to kill it just so I can sit behind a desk

Of misery and what ifs that will cage me down

When all I was ever meant to do was fly

 

But the theatre chose me because it saw my potential

It recognizes my gifts and just wants me to be loved

The theatre chose me because we are both

On the outside begging for a place to belong

We understand that other people's stories are more important

And we want to be the vessles that spread those stories to the world

The theatre chose me because no child

Should feel they don't have a place in this world

So thespians unite and we can be alone together

Making sure every misfit has a place where they belong

And I thank the Lord every day

Because the theatre chose me