1. If you're a drama geek in school, you'll audition for the school play every year.
2. Always the optimist, you hope that maybe this will be your year, and you'll finally see your name on top of that cast list.
You think to yourself: "For ONCE can the main part not go to Kimberly, the popular girl with the Britney Spears voice? She's already got a million friends and she's really good at maths. She doesn't NEED this."
3. You hurry to the drama corridor once the cast list has been put up. You're there before anyone else because you may have sort of been stalking your teacher the entire day.
You scan the names of all the principal parts.
Bummer, you're not on there.
What about the secondary parts?
Nope, your name isn't listed.
Okay, no big deal, how about the chorus?
No.
And then, there you have it.
You see your name.
4.
5. You plummet headfirst into the first stage of dealing with finding out you're a tree: utter despair.
6. Then you go home and drive your family crazy because you can't stop talking about how UNFAIR it all is.
7. And then you hit stage three, where you decide: "Fuck this, I’m going to be the best tree there ever was."
8. Being a tree isn’t easy: You need great upper body strength to hold out your arms for hours on end.
9. So you start working out to get in top tree shape.
10. You also need to learn how to take your mind to a happy place, so you don’t get bored when you're standing still on stage for ages.
11. You need to develop great hearing if your costume covers your ears, in case you miss your cue.
12. Of course, you also need to deal with envy. Especially if the other trees have slightly more important roles than you.
13. While all the principal characters are rehearsing and singing and dancing, you just kind of have to stare at them having a fun time.
14. But there are little tricks you can do to make your tree part the best tree part there is.
I did this on the opening night and our director told me to cut it out in the interval: "Why are you trying to be a sexy tree? Trees aren't sexy."
15. But as a tree you learn that no matter what, you have to hold your head high.
16. Plus, as Stanislavski once said:
17. So remember, trees, be the best tree you can be.
