First-year Aquila journalist Alisa Tran started her stage career at elementary school Christmas musicals as a part of the choir. Seeing older kids act inspired her to audition for plays. As a current sophomore, she has UPA performances like “Emma,” “Suite Surrender,” “High School Musical,” “Robin Hood” and “Broadway Night” under her belt, though her favorite role was acting as Murphy in “Suite Surrender” because of the stage combat involved. As an anxious person, acting allows Tran to break out of her nervousness and step into someone else’s shoes. She thinks that because of her more introverted personality, people may be surprised to learn she is an actress. During the summer of 2020, Tran kept up with her acting passion by searching for monologues online and reading them to herself in her room; she hopes she did not scare her parents by talking to herself too often. Although Tran reads monologues from cinema, she ultimately enjoys live performances much more, citing the difference in feeling when you see a live performance and are reminded of the actors’ humanity. For example, she feels the Disney+ version of Hamilton did not do the musical justice having seen it live in San Francisco. Broadway might be Tran’s dream, but because of its lack of stability, she sees herself becoming a drama teacher in the future. She thinks back to how impactful her teachers were in elementary school and hopes to positively impact others in the same way.