*For the purpose of anonymity, I will refer to myself as “J”, and my two best friends as “G” and “R”*

“If you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy and colorful and lively.”
- Mel Brooks

It wasn’t until the final curtain was coming down at the end of Tappan Zee’s production of The Producers that I realized that this was truly the final time I would perform as a Tappan Zee Player.

During my four years at Tappan Zee, I’ve dedicated most of my time at Tappan Zee in the  arts; singing, playing, conducting, and arranging. I’ve been involved with the school Band, Choir, Orchestra, Acafellas, Mixed Choir, and Jazz Band. But in my four years at Tappan Zee High School, the group that has had the biggest impact on me is The Tappan Zee Players. Even though the group has a natural ebb and flow with seniors graduating and freshman entering, the  Players have always been like a family to me; a group of people I could rely on, and be myself with.

The minute you are cast in a show, the other members in that cast become your family. You not only rehearse with them constantly, you spend crazy amounts of time with them, especially towards the end when tech week (where all the technical kinks are worked out) and hell week (where you’re rehearsing until about 10 at night every night for a week) come along. You start to notice every single detail about them, their personality, and by the time the show comes along, everyone in the cast has become a single entity.

My very first show with the Players was the drama Robin Hood. I remember auditioning with my two best friends, G and R. After being cast, during the first week, we managed to mess something up, and became known as “The Three Stooges.” The name stuck for the next year and a half. The show was so much fun, that we decided to come back for our first high school musical, Me & My Girl. We (The Three Stooges) had the chance to meet new people, especially the dancers who don’t do the straight plays, and work with the music director for the first time.

The next two years were just as exciting. With each production came more fun. My fellow class of 2016 castmates & I paraded through Candide, marched in The Music Man, ran in Dracula, and went to Wild West’s Ball in Annie Get Your Gun.

The 2015 school year began with a production of The Pink Panther Strikes Again, a theatrical adaptation of the 1960’s Peter Sellers film. G was cast as Inspector Clouseau, and I was cast as Professor Fassbender, a crazed scientist who invents a doomsday device. It was a wacky show, but it was definitely my favorite drama at Tappan Zee. It was my favorite not only because my friends and I were the leads, but because the show was so crazy, we were practically given free range as to what we were allowed to do with our characters. We were allowed to make them as crazy and eccentric as we pleased. G and I were excited to be in the drama, but what we were really excited about was our senior musical. What would it be?

We had one musical, one we knew all the words to, one we would have both probably given our right hands to perform. This musical was The Producers. We had badgered our director and music director to do this show since our Freshman year. When the Tappan Zee Players met to discuss the Spring musical, we found out the musical was The Producers. G and I were ecstatic. Our Sophomore year, we had performed a scene for the Drama Club’s Night of Scenes from The Producers, and to this day, we think that’s what convinced our director to do it.

After auditions and callbacks, G got the role he was born to play, Max Bialystock, but I had not. I had wanted the role of Leo Bloom, an accountant turn producer, partner to Max, but instead, I was cast in the role of Franz Liebkind, the Nazi playwright. At first, I was concerned. How was I going to be able to play a man who was supposed to be comedic (I had never played a comedic character a day in my life), and who was a Nazi, the very people who tortured people of my own heritage? I went to my music director to ask why I was given this part, and he calmed my anxiety when he wisely said,  “J, this character is what you make of it. You get out what you put into it. You can do great things with it.”

The Producers became one of the most popular musicals that this high school had produced in years. Full houses every night, lots of roaring laughter, and I eventually accepted that wearing a swastika was a part of the reality of my character, and that in doing so, I was able to serve the playwright in satirizing and making fun of the very thing I hated most. I (and the cast) did not condone what Hitler did. If there was any show to go out on, this was the best one there could have possibly been. I still remember the last number, “Goodbye!” The minute the curtain went down, G and I found each other, and started crying; not only because this was a show we had wanted to perform since our freshman year, but also because it was our last show.

My time as a Tappan Zee Player has not only made me who I am today, but been one of the best things I have ever done, and I’m positive the same can be said for not just others who are graduating with me, but past graduates, and people who will be graduating in the future.. From the bottom of my heart, thank you to all who made The Tappan Zee Players an amazing experience.