For the Aunts and Uncles Who Believe in Theatre Kids

by Chris Peterson

There’s a certain kind of magic in being a theatre kid. You know the feeling: the nerves right before the curtain rises, the smell of sawdust and stage paint, the backstage whispers of “break a leg.” For those of us who grew up in the world of community theatre and school productions, the memories blur together into this colorful collage of costumes, lights, and inside jokes only our castmates would understand. But when I think about what really made those years special, it wasn’t just the performances. It was who was sitting in the audience.

Parents, of course, are often the ones driving us to rehearsals, ironing our costumes, and helping us memorize lines. Their support is priceless.

But there’s another kind of support that doesn’t always get talked about: the kind that comes from aunts and uncles. The ones who don’t have to show up, but do anyway. The ones who buy tickets, send cards, and clap like they just saw the next big Broadway star. There’s something beautifully selfless about that kind of love.

My Aunt Carolyn was one of those people.

She passed away last week, and I’ve been thinking a lot about her, about what her support meant to me growing up, and how lucky I was to have someone who believed in me so wholeheartedly. Aunt Carolyn wasn’t a theatre person herself, at least not in the way I was. But none of that mattered. What mattered was that she showed up.

When I was performing, she and my Uncle Tom were there every time they could be. They’d come to all my school musicals and community theatre plays.

That kind of steady, unconditional encouragement does something to a kid. It builds confidence. It tells you your dreams aren’t silly. It lets you believe that your passion, even if it’s something as unpredictable as theatre, is worth pursuing.

I’ve met so many creative people over the years, and when we start swapping stories about how we got here, there’s often a familiar name that pops up: a family member who played a small but mighty role in our journey. Maybe they came to every recital. Maybe they slipped us a little money “for new headshots” or “to help with gas getting to rehearsal.” It’s rarely the big, cinematic gesture. It’s the consistency. The showing up. They believed in us before we even really believed in ourselves.

Aunts and uncles occupy this special space in our lives. They’re family, but not parents. They have this beautiful freedom to just celebrate us, without the day-to-day responsibilities that can weigh parents down. They get to be cheerleaders, mentors, and sometimes the first people outside our immediate family to say, “You’re really good at this. You should keep going.”

My Aunt Carolyn was that for me. She made everything I did feel important, not because it was, but because I was. And honestly, that’s all any young artist needs to hear.

So to every aunt or uncle who has ever sat through a three-hour high school musical or cheered wildly for us under the spotlight, thank you. You make more of an impact than you know.