"Getting Back Into Theater" by Faith Miller

I live for the stage. 

I’ve loved to act ever since I was 8 years old.  If you ever have a conversation with me, you won’t find that hard to believe.  I was in all of my middle school plays, and then in high school, I joined a community theater for children and teens that put on Broadway-caliber stuff.  I’m not that good, so I was always ensemble with the exception of one show where I got to have two whole lines!  I had a mic and everything!  I loved every single show I did there, even if the rehearsals were long and hard and it was very challenging to do this on top of all my schoolwork and extracurriculars.

When I went to college at Liberty University (Go Flames!), I went in as a theater major.  It sadly ended up not working out, but I did graduate with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies with concentrations in Theater, Cinematic Arts, and American Sign Language.  After graduating, my sole focus was on finding a job, and after I was hired full-time at Liberty, all my focus was then on learning the ropes and adapting to a brand-new field that I had zero experience in.  Theater was the last thing on my mind.

At this point, I had not been able to be in a show since my senior year of high school in 2014.  I’d helped out as part of the crew for a couple, but I hadn’t been in anything.  But early in 2021, I received a catalog in the mail from my local Parks and Recreation department about upcoming events, and I saw that a small local community theater was about to hold auditions for a production of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  I am a HUGE Narnia fan, and I felt that I was in a good enough place with my job to at least try out.

Auditions are truly the worst part of theater and anyone who says otherwise is probably lying.  It is SO stressful to see all the wonderful talent around you and wonder what the outcome is going to be.  But unlike my college years, I tried very hard to be supportive of everyone in the room and prayed that everyone did their best and that the directors were given wisdom to choose the best people for each role.  A couple days later, I got a call that I had been cast as Mrs. Beaver!  I was so excited to finally have such a solid supporting role after so many years of being in ensemble, especially in a story I loved so much!

The show ended up being so much fun from beginning to end, and I loved every second of it as I made so many new friends.  That snowballed into me performing in four more shows over the next year and being part of the crew on some of them as well.

Then in 2022, my health took a massive dive.  Doing theater before had been difficult with CF, but the plunge made it almost impossible.  Over the next four years, I did a couple auditions, but I couldn’t trust my body any longer, and I had no idea if and when I was going to end up in the hospital.  I would absolutely hate to be part of a show and then not be able to be in it because I had an exacerbation.  That would be truly terrible for everyone involved.  So instead, I used the time to start getting plugged in at my church and putting my skills to use there.

I started Alyftrek in 2025, but it gave me a full-coverage case of hives after only a week.  I decided to try it again later that year at a tiny, tiny dose and very slowly work my way up.  My health was in such a bad spot that I was desperate to try anything.  I started taking only 1 pill once a week and eventually got up to where I am now which is 1 pill every other day.  And to my sheer surprise and delight, it actually started to work and the hives didn’t pop up again (at least so far).  I was coughing SO much less!

After I’d been out of the hospital for over a year, I felt it was safe enough to try to get back into theater again after so long.  One of the community theaters a little bit away from me was putting on a production of The Diary of Anne Frank.  I’d studied the show extensively in college and loved it, so I put the audition date tentatively on my calendar, still on the fence up until the last minute.  But I went ahead and took a chance and auditioned.  I’m 30 years old, so while I really wanted to play Anne Frank, I believed that I was just too old now and fully expected to be cast as one of the moms or Miep Gies who helped hide the Franks.  But being five feet tall and looking 10 years younger finally paid off because I got cast as Anne Frank in the show!  Of course, I got sick the day the cast was announced, and I didn’t have time to wait around and hope I didn’t get worse, so I ended up having to do the first couple rehearsals with a PICC line in.  Home IVs are terrible and I don’t know how people do it for longer than two weeks.  But even with that, I absolutely loved getting the chance to be in the show.  It truly felt absolutely amazing to be on a stage again. 

The show was so hard, both physically and emotionally, and I would still do it all over again in a heartbeat.  I’m not sure when I’ll be able to do another show, but now I know that I can and that the theater has excitedly welcomed me back with open arms!