“Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.”

It was those lines that hooked me into drama. Instead of acting out a 25 line soliloquy from Macbeth, as was assigned… I ended up doing the entire scene 5 (act 5) with a little help from a classmate in 12th grade.

“If thou speak’st false,

Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,

Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,

I care not if thou dost for me as much.

I pull in resolution, and begin

To doubt the equivocation of the fiend

That lies like truth: ‘Fear not, till Birnam wood

Do come to Dunsinane:’ and now a wood

Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!

If this which he avouches does appear,

There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.

I gin to be aweary of the sun,

And wish the estate o’ the world were now undone.

Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack!

At least we’ll die with harness on our back.”

By the time I hit my last line, I had the adrenaline of 5 men inside me. Pushing out every last word with such emotion. I exited stage and turned around to find my class fervently applauding me, with my teacher standing up and rushing towards me with his hand out to shake mine. He did so vigorously and thanked me with an excited smile, not unlike the face one might have after being told they just won the lottery.

It was one of the best moments of my life.