“Canyon High School… Lake Travis High School… Hays High School.”

The sound of our defeat still burned my earlobes like a numb pain, as my cast and I began the long bus ride home at 1 a.m. Some cried, some cursed, some sat unable to fathom our loss, but all felt the terrible strife of not advancing past this year’s one act play bi-district competition.

I get it. No one likes to lose. (Especially theater people, who soak up the stage light like its vitamin D. Believe me, they are the epitome of every artistic endeavor – myself included…) But guess what? We lost. And it sucks.  

We all wanted to go to state, but considering that’s never happened for this school’s theater department, it was just about as close to a pipe dream as you can get, and this year’s competition play, Widows by Ariel Dorfman, was no different.

Don’t get me wrong. I wanted it just as much as the next guy, but the cards were never in  our favor: competitions are hard, judges are biased, art is subjective. But we are good people. And that’s why it sucks.

I was never in theater for the accolades or achievements. Sure, the medals are shiny, but the friendships and memories formed are much more valuable. The experience of performing, winning and losing with the people I love is what it’s all about.

We always say we are a family, and we always talk about how it’s really more important to act together, not win together. But competitive streaks like to rear their ugly heads, and most people can’t stop them from coming out.

However on this bus ride home, things were different. Yes, people were sad, and mad, and down right upset (they’re actors, they’re emotional). But at the end of a long competition and the beginning of an even longer bus ride, we were more than losers, more than defeat… we were a family. One that wasn’t just for show; one that was for life. We were a family for life.