Dear Theatre Class of 2026: Do Not Become a Brand Before You Become a Person

by Chris Peterson

Not that any school would ever ask me to be a commencement speaker. But if, by some administrative error, a school did ask me to speak to the theatre Class of 2026, this is what I would say.

Good evening, Class of 2026.

First of all, congratulations. You made it.

You survived auditions, callbacks, cast lists, wait lists, crew calls, quick changes, questionable rehearsal snacks, and at least one production where someone said, “We’ll figure it out in tech,” (dramatic pause) and then, tragically, tech arrived.

You learned how to stand in a room full of people and be vulnerable on purpose, which is either an artistic gift or a very specific form of temporary insanity. You learned how to take direction, miss a cue and keep breathing, pretend not to be crushed by a cast list, and smile politely when a relative says, “So are you going to be on Broadway?”

And now you are graduating into the world.

I wish I could tell you that world is waiting with open arms and emotionally healthy audition rooms. It is not. But it is waiting.

And here is the advice I would give you: be authentically you.

I know that sounds like something stitched onto a decorative pillow in a drama teacher’s office. But I mean it.

You are entering a world that is constantly telling people what to be. Be more brand-friendly. Be less difficult. Be less strange. Be less whatever makes someone else uncomfortable.

We live in a time of political division and influencer culture where everyone is encouraged to turn themselves into content.

Theatre cannot survive on that. Theatre needs real people.

It needs your weirdness, your questions, your point of view, and your refusal to become a watered-down version of someone else’s idea of acceptable.

That does not mean every room will know what to do with you. Some will not. Some rooms reward sameness. Some institutions talk about new voices while hoping those voices do not make rehearsal last longer.

Do not confuse their limited imagination with your lack of value.

You will be rejected. Many times. But rejection is not an instruction to disappear. Learn from it when there is something to learn. Let it sting when it stings. Then keep going.

Because your job is to keep becoming more fully yourself. That is what will make you an artist worth watching.

Not perfection. Please release yourself from that. Perfection is boring, and in theatre it is usually impossible anyway because someone will always lose a prop, miss an entrance, or discover five minutes before curtain that.

What people remember is presence. The feeling that the person onstage, backstage, in the room, or behind the table is actually alive in the work.

So be alive in the work.

Theatre does not need another generation of performers and makers trying to sound like everyone else. It needs artists willing to bring truth into rooms that have gotten too comfortable with polish.

So, Class of 2026, take the note. Hit your mark. Thank your teachers. Hydrate. For the love of Sondheim, learn your music before the first rehearsal.

Now go make something only you could make.