Ben Thomas

It's a pleasure to be here, Tim.

I'm glad you could join us.

I'm going to start basically the same place I start with everybody else.

And I call it the elephant in the room.

How did you get started in theater?

Okay, that's a great question.

So you could technically say that it started in eighth grade because my sister, a few grade levels above me, was doing drama at our high school.

And she had me help her read lines for stuff.

And whenever I was doing these reads, I gave my everything into it because I was a little kid.

I was uninhibited.

And she told me, hey, you're pretty good at this.

Maybe you should do drama.

And I was like, I don't know.

I have stage fright and I really did not have stage fright.

I love being the center of attention.

I was just just starting to develop some of those insecurities until I realized I love when people pay attention to me.

But the truth is, ever since I was about three, four years old, my sister would make me learn the dances with her to movies like High School Musical and stuff like that.

And I was an enthusiastic participant there.

And you would think the younger brother would be like, you know, that kind of stuff is gross.

But no, I kind of snapped to it.

I liked the direction and the self-expression.

And in elementary school, we were one of those schools where all of the kids had to participate in a sort of music sort of demonstration where we learned a series of songs and maybe told a bit of a story, not unlike musical theater, but a little bit more rigid and kind of on rails.

And I found myself even then being like, wow, I really got excited for that every year.

I was excited for it to be that grade level's turn to put on a show for the parents.

And then, you know, middle school happens.