Being an understudy actually helped my imposter syndrome

In 2017, I was cast as an understudy -- and it was the best thing for my life performance.

Any theatre kid knows audition anxiety is real. Even as I think about the concept years later, I can smell my high school’s musty choir hall, hear my friends sing under their breath (or even shamelessly at the top of their lungs), and feel the crinkled sheet music beneath my somehow simultaneously sweaty and freezing fingertips. I wish I was one of those people who embraced auditions as a challenge or new adventure, but my nerves somehow always got the better of me.

“You perform in front of 80+ strangers come opening week, including students/ faculty and you don’t falter,” my mom pointed out as she drove me to school the morning of my sophomore year musical audition, interrupting my unusual silence with her encouragement. “And these are your closest friends and choir directors you know already!” She said with a smile in her voice, reaching over to pat her right hand on my thick, plaid skirt.

While my mom thought she was pointing out the irony to make me feel calmer, she targeted the root cause of my nerves. I have to perform in front of people who know me.

My choir director was also my freshman theology teacher who knew me first as his tightly wound student who put her notes in ziploc baggies in the shower so I could prolong my study sessions for his notoriously impossible final exam (I was insane, I know).Part of me always knew he’d perceive me as the nerdy girl in the front row who likened the Old Testament to Kansas and the New to the land of Oz (I was a stan before the Wicked movie).I’d audition in the same plaid skirt and white polo shirt I wore in his class and then choir room every day.

Onstage, however, I could fully immerse myself in a character by melting into a costume, wig, and heavy makeup. The stage lights made it impossible to look into his eyes and try and decipher whether his subtle squint was a sign of approval or adverse reaction. Onstage, I was in my play pretend universe. Reality could – had to – melt away for the production and my performance to succeed. If I looked to the back of the house, above everyone’s heads, it gave the illusion I was looking at everyone – it cemented my escape. An audition didn’t have that same freedom – I had to lock into my director’s eyes, which just felt like a nerve tripwire.

Onstage, I had already earned my role – my responsibility was to the character, to the audience. In an audition, I had to come as Christina. And especially in high school, that was a role I was still struggling to nail down.

Having attended public school in the suburbs of Houston for nine years, I came into my private high school feeling somewhat like the “new kid.” While everyone was technically starting fresh in high school, most girls came from a feeder school or knew each other from neighborhood or church activities. I felt like I was continuously “auditioning” in high school for the role of friend, to get into honors classes, or even for a stable lunch table. I luckily joined the dance team, which gave me an immediate group of people, but immediately felt at home when I participated as a dancer in the spring musical.

Me as a dancer in the Spring musical, Anything Goes.

While the dance rehearsals were kept relatively separate from the rest of the cast, I observed and admired how the “theatre kids” were all unapologetically themselves. And yes, there was plenty of off-stage drama, but it seemed to mimic a family dynamic – ultimately, everyone showed up for and supported each other. Coupled with the joy I felt for performing onstage and sneakily singing the chorus songs (dancers weren’t supposed to whoops) and the chance for a role in the tight-knit theatre family, I made the choice to pursue choir and theatre over dance team at the end of my freshman year.

While happy with my decision, sophomore year felt like one long callback. I had re-written the script for my high school self in ditching my pointe and jazz shoes for voice lessons and sheet music. I was headed into another unknown. I was asking yet another group for acceptance.

Despite the initial difficulty, I started to gain confidence at the end of my sophomore year. I developed my voice and relationship with my vocal teacher, made incredible choir friends, and even earned a spot in the varsity choir. Overall, I had metaphorically and literally felt I found my voice.

*Jump scare warning* me as an ancestor in The Addams Family at the end of my sophomore year.

Until it came time to audition for the musical. As a rising junior, it was my first chance to get a legitimate shot at a leading role. And for me, a lead role wasn’t just a chance for attention or an ego boost. It was the validation that my uncomfortable growth – my shedding of a former character to become another – my loss of friendships and success of making new ones had been worth it. Betting on myself had paid out.

As I sat in the passenger seat of my mom’s car watching the sky slowly shed its darkness and reveal pale streaks of yellow and soft orange, I didn’t feel a new beginning. I felt scared. I remember thinking, “If I fail this audition, I’ll think I have failed myself.” Instead of vocalizing my fear, I let it consume me. I let fear be my voice that day. And I choked... literally – in the middle of a high note. I disguised the worst of it through my vibrato, but the minute the last piano note ended I could see in my choir director’s distant eye gaze and slow scratch through his white beard that I’d blown it.

Somehow, my singing failure served as fuel during the audition’s acting portion. I’d always felt acting was number one in my triple threat repertoire.

I could hide whatever fear I had behind someone else’s words, mindset, and voice. And I think that’s the reason I often gravitated towards playing big characters. I longed to play the comedic relief over the typical heroine. I identified with Glinda over Elphaba, Ado Annie over Laurey, Adelaide over Sarah. I found these characters highlighted and even honored my own “Christina quirks” that were often perceived as “too much” or “dramatic.” These characters made my expressive eyebrows, bold hand gestures, and voice that crescendoed with excitement funny, entertaining, and transformative. It was joyful instead of “a lot” or “cringe” or derogatorily dramatic.

Bold characters highlighted and even honored my own “Christina quirks” that were often perceived as “too much” or “dramatic.”

I did the same while auditioning for Letitia Primrose – the quirky religious “nut” and supporting lead in On the Twentieth Century (no, you probably have never heard of the musical – it was a deep cut). I fully sunk into Leticia, hiding from my embarrassing vocal audition and watched my director’s eyes light up. I didn’t just recite her lines, but I harnessed my dance background to choreograph her movement. I gave her a “bless your heart” vibe with a real housewives of New York accent, and I looked my director in the eyes to land every punchline. I had the whole room belly laughing, and the applause I received after delivering my last line drowned out my gut feeling that it wasn’t enough to fully recover.

My gut was right. I didn’t land the role.

Instead, I was made the understudy.

At that time, I understood understudy to mean “almost, but not quite.” I wasn’t good enough, but I could’ve been. I accepted my role, but I refused to be viewed as subpar or even adequate. It was like getting an 89 on a test – I questioned every move that could’ve added up to that one small point that made the difference between good and great. I had my foot in the door, but I wanted to barge through.

However, myself and the other lead understudies were promised to perform one show. That one show was enough for me to prepare as if I had officially landed Leticia.

And it was lucky I did.

A month before opening the beyond talented senior who was officially cast as Leticia announced she couldn’t do the performance. So, I was there to fill her role. While I had ended up where I wanted, it somehow felt wrong. I felt my part wasn’t wholly earned but rather defaulted to me by circumstance.

As I stood on the stage on my first day as an official lead, I dared to look into my castmates’ – most of whom were double-casted as my best friends in real life. To my surprise, everyone looked excited. I was expecting them to have an “Oh God how is she going to mess this up?” look, but everyone’s anticipatory cross legged position in front of the stage told me “you got this.”

I still felt I had something to prove to myself, to my castmates, to my director, and to the concept of an understudy. But with a bit of encouragement I didn’t feel I was starting at a negative chance.

Rehearsing and performing in On The Twentieth Century as the whacky, slightly problematic, Leticia Primrose is to this day, one of my most favorite experiences.. In my short-haired wig, heavy makeup, chunky pearls, and satin gloves, it was easy to immerse myself in a character I had no direct similarities with. I pushed myself vocally, hitting notes lower and higher than my usual register, and channeled Leticia’s unhinged nature to take performance risks the pre-Leticia Christina would’ve been too shy to take.

Me as Leticia Primrose in 2017

Every night, during my solo I’d pull one unsuspecting audience member onto the stage and make them part of my act. It wasn’t in the stage directions, but it felt within my character’s nature. And every night after I’d belt out the last note, the audience would roar with praise and laughter.

That applause didn’t just scratch my chronic people pleasing itch, but confirmed that I had gained something I didn’t start the audition process with – not just a lead role, but a good intuition. I could read both my characters along with the audience and I knew how to make the two come together. While I knew my musical theatre days were limited, my new skillset helped me to develop the role I ultimately left the stage with: The storyteller.

After the show ended in February, I experienced my usual dose of post-show depression but something was different. I was more sure of myself. I had proved that I wasn’t adequate, but good even. I had surprised people – surprised myself.

The greatest surprise of all, however, came on March 30 2017 – a solid month after our last show. As I made my usual 45 minute drive, listening to another unsuspecting cheating boyfriend get caught on Roula and Ryan’s roses, I dreaded the colder than usual day ahead. I had an AP Bio test, a before and after school choir rehearsal, and a Spanish vocab quiz first period. As I repeated the 25 Spanish nature words in my head, I heard my phone incessantly rattle against my cup holder. Stopping at the last red light before the school entrance, I glanced to see the musical group chat was popping off. “Weird,” I thought. “Must be the resurgence of an inside joke that decided to make the rounds at 7:00am.”

When I pulled into the school parking lot, it was already 7:19. Choir rehearsal started promptly at 7:20 and my director was a stickler for time.

“If you’re not early, you’re late,” he constantly reminded us. I adopted that mentality not only for prompt arrivals, but in my personal life. I felt I needed to be ahead of the game. Wise beyond my years. A resumé that made me look 4 years older. Success at a young age.

I shoved my phone in my oversized blue backpack and ran for the double doors.

To my breathless surprise, everyone was still gathered in the musty, cigarette scent-infused choir hall. When I walked through the door, everyone was staring at me with an anticipatory face, grinning as if they knew a secret that I didn’t. All this cause I was almost late? I thought. Jesus.

“Oh my gosh Christina!” I heard my best friend Maddie giggle yell, lifting the “a” at the end of my name as she flung her arms around me in a rare embrace. “Mads,” I said against her shoulder accompanied by a staccato“What. Is. Happening?” She pulled away and looked into my confused expression, realizing I hadn’t been let in yet. I was still waiting in the wings.

“You were nominated,” she said plainly. “You were nominated for a Tommy Tune.”

The Tommy Tune Awards is the Houston area’s high school musical theatre award show. Named after iconic choreographer, actor, singer, ten-time Tony award winner, and native Texan, Tommy Tune, the event is like a high school version of the Tony awards. For those really in the musical theatre lore, it’s one of the regional competitions that feeds into the national Jimmy Awards, which has catapulted the careers of performers like Reneé Rapp and Andrew Barth Feldman.

I knew that a Tommy Tune judge was coming to one of our shows, and a year earlier when I was a chorus member of the Addams family, my director had told me a judge took notice of me. However, nothing came of it and memorizing my lines, choreography, and stage directions took precedence over impressing a judge. Plus, getting nominated was a long shot. Out of all 45 schools that participate, only nine performers are chosen per category. I wasn’t even the ninth best singer at my school, let alone one of the best nine performers in the Houston area. And only one person had been nominated (and won) from my high school before – and she was royalty not an understudy.

I stood in the choir hall frozen, awkward, and just feeling the effects of my morning coffee as my choirmates flooded me with hugs, pats on the back, and excited exclamations.

“Didn’t you see us blowing up your phone when the article dropped this morning?” Maddie asked.

Taking my phone from my backpack, I looked at our musical group chat – it hadn’t been an inside joke. I scrolled through the thread congratulatory texts and slew of emojis, my cheeks pulling so tightly into a wide grin they were starting to hurt. A text from my mom flashed on the screen with her usual checkup “U get to school ok?”

With the choir hall still a commotion, I called my mom to tell her the news as everyone filed into the choir room. I could hear the smile in her voice as she shrieked “Oh Cici, I told you that you were great.” Of course she always believed in me. Even when I didn’t.

My aunt, myself, and my mom at the Tommy Tunes awards show.

When I walked into the choir room only a minute after the last thankful and clueless straggler to sneak in, I was greeted by crescendoing applause. Strangely, I remember feeling so vulnerable. There I was in my everyday uniform, my blue Asics and J Crew socks as my only differentiator from my other classmates, no makeup, no lines to hide behind. No harsh lights washed out the crowd’s faces. It wasn’t an abstract blob applauding a character as part of a performance, but rather my actual friends and peers acknowledging me as Christina.

While I didn’t give them a performance that morning nor go on to win the Tommy Tune award, that applause remains the most meaningful I’ve yet to receive.

Seven years later as the curtain fell on 2024 and 2025 debuted, I found myself reverting back to my initial understudy mentality. Two years post undergrad and finishing my first semester of grad school, I felt like I was starting over.

I was auditioning for a solid GPA, internships, opportunities, and even friends. I wrote a script I felt I needed to adhere to, afraid to veer so much that I wasn’t looking up enough to go off book, let alone take creative risks.

Like in an audition, the pressure of perfection loomed over me so much that I couldn’t just let go. Like in an audition, I left no room for the play. Even worse, if I faltered my lines, I casted myself as the understudy. And not in a “you’re talented and need to be prepared” sense, but that I wasn’t yet ready. That I was only wherever I was by default.

And maybe that’s true. Maybe I am in certain rooms or interviews or circles by chance. Maybe I didn’t work as hard as the person next to me. Maybe I’m not the smartest or prettiest or most naturally gifted in the room. Maybe I’m not the first choice.

My self doubt spiral started with identifying the negative parallels in my life then and now. And in a rare plunder my series of “buts” and “what ifs” (for once) reminded me of a positive reality.

But that didn’t stop me from succeeding. It didn’t impede my confidence. It didn’t deter my desire to put in the hard work even before the official understudy veil was lifted. And it didn’t make a difference when I was listed as a Tommy Tune nominee.

And it doesn’t make a difference now.

There’s a thin line between understudy and main character – one that I’ve breached before. It wasn’t a straight shot, but rather a cocktail of circumstance, hard work, luck, confidence, and willingness to lean in.

While I’m not officially on the stage anymore, a famous writer once made the claim that all the world’s a stage. And I intend to play my role at every stage – from audition to ensemble with main character energy.

I’m not adorned with heavy makeup and my costumes take the shape of work slacks and chic blue light glasses, and I find the dim office lighting more intimidating than any spotlight. But as I write my own lines and start the audition process for a new career, it’s healthy to revisit my understudy roots to grow into this ever-evolving character.

And I may not be early, but I’m starting to realize that when things are meant to be, they happen right on time.