In our recent school play, Romeo & Juliet, I had two friends that participated in it as background characters. Background characters are not main rolls. They don’t have many lines in the actual play. They don’t come up to the front of the stage often, but they walk and/or dance in the back of the stage.

In this play, all they had to do was walk around and dance in Act 2 for the masquerade party! As of respect from their wishes, they wished to not be named and mentioned in this article, but gave me permission to share their stories.

While participating in the play, they said they had fun by dressing up in costumes and getting to meet new people. They wish to be in more plays and get more prominent roles in the future. They also said that the directors were really nice. They loved to watch the actors play their scenes, but wished they could watch the play all the way through since they had to sit backstage until their cue to come on stage.

They shared some cons they had to go through with not being a main character.  As understanding as it is,  the directors were focused more often on the main roles. One friend stated, “It was hard when we had questions when we were sort of stuck or confused because the directors were always really busy helping the others.”

However, both friends said it was a great experience and they had so much fun! They would like to do more plays in the following years. They appreciated everyone there, and hope that everyone had a great time like they did. They encourage others to try out for future plays, as well.