The classroom is unusually warm, and I, being in my dress pants, shirt and tie, don’t mind it at all. After all, it is below freezing outside.

The chatter betwixt friends comes to a slew of whispers, but for the most part, silence.

Enter Ms. Carver, our fearless leader, with a cardboard box. She opened the taped box to unveil pink pamphlets that read “Anne of Green Gables” on the front.

“This will be our play,” she announces. “We will be reading and acting out this play until April. Work on your lines outside of class, and do your best!”

We read the book cover to cover for two months, and then in March, we practiced blocking on stage. The word, “cut” has been seared into my brain.

“Face the audience, don’t let ’em see your butt,” is a phrase that has also been branded into my temporal lobe. Many empty after-school rehearsals were held. Students got off work as many days as they could to rehearse or to run lines. This play was hard work, but it was one of the most fulfilling works I have ever done.

In the first part of the year, Drama II was a friendly class, but it was a divided class. But then came Anne. People who I never knew became my fellow actors, my friends, my close friends. I never wanted class to end. I never wanted the rehersals to end. I wanted to be the first one to rehearsal and the last one to leave.

I will always remember shouting “ANNE!” in rehearsals when Megan (the actress who played Anne) wasn’t ready for a scene, or in Act 1, Scene 8 when I was supposed to whisper her name. I will always remember our awkward warmups before practice, especially Megan and I competing to be the one to lead. I will always remember the rehearsal that ran until 9:30 the night before the play, and the car-ride home: a strange mixture of emotions swirled within my spirit, it was like I was excited for the play, and yet I was dreading it because I knew that upon the closing of the curtain, that would be the end of the memories.

I will never forget the rehearsal the day of the play. From 8 in the morning until 6:30 that night, we ran lines, laughed, cried, and made memories. We missed cues and lines, scenes were almost ruined, but we always saved the performance from total destruction. And at 9 that night, we made our final bow.

The tone was funny, but it was serious. Every one said the play was great, and great it was. Not only because of the play itself, but because of everything it was made up of: close friends gathered together to act. But somewhere in the act, the act became reality. I hope to remain close with all of my fellow actors, or as Anne called them, my “kindred spirits.”