Dear Archbishop Carroll underclassmen,

My favorite memories at Carroll were made in ACTS. If you know me, you know this is the kind of thing that I never stop talking about. To be honest, I don’t think I would have enjoyed my time here if I wasn’t a part of the ACTS stage crew. The theater department has suffered a bit through my years here. There have been some changes in staff, and there are some generally negative stereotypes about students that participate in theater. Yet, season after season we work together and consistently produce amazing shows. My advice to underclassmen is if you’re interested in any aspect of theater, then I highly recommend ACTS. If, however, you’re not interested in theater then don’t make fun of it. That is rude and mean. It’s either a really good experience where you make many friends, or it’s a bad experience and you get to complain about it to your loved ones. 

Thanks to the ACTS stage crew I have determined that technical theater is my passion. I really enjoy building sets and working behind the scenes, operating the light board, managing the back stage crew, and stage managing. I have worked on every ACTS show from Godspell to our most recent, The Addams Family, and I have loved every minute of it. In fact, all of the great experiences I have had in ACTS have allowed me to earn a scholarship to continue studying technical theater in college. 

So thank you to everyone in ACTS and to everyone who has supported ACTS through the years. Thank you to all of my teachers in high school as well. The majority of them were very good teachers. I will be leaving this school now, but a part of me will stay here in the form of my name written on the walls backstage. 

Sophie Rutan