Onstage, the lights are everything. They change the mood, the style, the emotions.
They're also like barriers. Like in those cars with the tinted windows…you can see out, but they can't see in. It's reversed onstage. They can see in, but you can't see out.
I remember in the first show I was in, I was so scared to look out into the audience, so I never did. I looked in the aisles, the ceiling, and the lights...but never at the people.
But in opening night of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, where I was playing Charlie Brown (the only time I've had a better part than Sharpay, who was Sally), I looked out at the audience. But I didn't see anyone.
Well, I saw people…but Charlie Brown didn't. All his friends and family were right behind him. Telling him, me, what a good man I was.
"The only thing wrong with my big brother Charlie Brown is his lack of confidence…his lack of confidence and his inferiority…"
That was the first line of the whole show. Said by my little sister Sharpay Evans, Sally Brown.
And I always hated that first line. Cause I thought, hey! I'm up here, singing, dancing and giving this show my all! Screw lack of confidence! But the inferiority? Who got a standing ovation for her one and only song in the show? And who didn't even get a yell at the end? I wanted to turn to her and yell at her to shut up about her stupid philosophies. But of course, My New Philosophy was the show-stopping number.
Which is why I love the lights. I'm not Ryan Evans under those lights until curtain call, and that's when I finally spot my ungrateful parents in the audience waving at my sister, or when I see my friends pointing to Sharpay next to me.
But that's when I close my eyes, flash a smile, and take a bow. And thank God for the lights.