“Theater’s ups and downs”

Sumukh Cadpakar

“Honestly, when I do theater, I sometimes feel attacked by my peers. Being a small little Indian, vegetarian boy, it has ups and downs, to an outside view [and] having bug-eyed glasses kind of put me under the radar in the theater industry. It’s struggling to the point where you sometimes have to do almost double the amount of work, in order to just get the same role as any other person could. Instead of taking the easier way out of things, I need to make sure to put as much as effort as possible. I’ve just been applying this to my life, instead of taking the easy way around, I try to push myself as much as I can. The experiences that you get in theater are not only the kind of attention that you get on stage, it’s really beneficial to you, and it’s not many kids that get to stand on a stage, where the audience is more than 1,000 people.  It’s a really liberating experience, and also the community that revolves around it. They’re really passionate but the industry itself, it’s huge, it’s pressurized, and I think it could be a beneficial experience for some but as someone that’s going deeper into the industry, it can be a hassle.”