A 17-Year-Old’s Foray into Theater and Journalism

Growing Up in an Era when Inquiry is Increasingly Challenging

By Ysa Madrigal

Ysa Madrigal (left) applying makeup in her high school theater. (Phot0 by Niko Miramontes)

Within the car-bustling, medium-paced city of Ontario, California, few playhouses exist. Within them, tightly-knit communities of thespians and patrons alike subsist, escaping from everyday life with implications of life—which is not to purposefully add to the age-old question of life and art, and which imitates which. 

My name is Ysa Madrigal, I am 17 years old, a senior at Chaffey High School in Ontario, the city I have called home for most of my life. The arts have infatuated me since birth, and I have found ways to keep myself involved in local arts communities and the theater.  Hands-on crafts and art media are my arts of choice. My favorites are printmaking, embroidery, oil pastels, painting, and collages. I have many hobbies and keeping focused on just one at a time has proven difficult— minus my mainstays of theater and portraiture.

I was born an introvert and shied away from performance. Still, I was curious and craved its proximity. I remember watching my first live musical on a school trip and becoming obsessed with theater. Soon, I forced my family to engage in this obsession too. I can confidently say Hispanic families do love Shrek the Musical. All I wanted to do as a child was study each performer that danced across my family room’s 50-inch TV, mimic their speech patterns, copy their bold gazes, and have my minimalistic mannerisms romanticized in the same way. It makes sense that there is some fascination that lies in projecting emotion and sound for someone whose personal enemy was all of the above.

I spent many years of my youth yearning for some Broadway poltergeist to up and possess me, for the fibers of my being to erupt into full-fledged dance and song. Unfortunately, to the ten-year-old me, that never happened. Instead, I refocused my involvement and inspiration on activities that would perhaps paint my hands and clothes red rather than my face: makeup design and theater tech. My involvement ended up opening more doors and welcoming more life lessons than I expected. 

My start was in our winter 2023 production of Xanadu, and let’s just say that working backstage for the first time twisted me up more than the roller disco happening on stage. My friend desperately invited me at the last minute to assist with show’s final performance because they were short of “techies.” Mic tape, lash glue, safety pins, dancing around cords, cast member whispers of “Can you zip me,” and, every few seconds, “Can you move,” accompanied by sweaty taps on my shoulder in darkness. 

After surviving my first closing night, my knees buckled the second I walked into my bedroom. That night I could not focus on debriefing my experience because the talent and professionalism of the cast members constantly circle back in my mind, continuing to amaze me, especially since most of them were kids you couldn’t pay to popcorn-read a chapter of a book in class. In those fleeting moments of thought before I drifted off to sleep, I knew I was approaching some pivotal life lesson, the air around me felt hopeful and I could not stop smiling. The next morning, I darted to the theater and reserved my spot as the makeup artist’s assistant for the spring show, conveniently my favorite musical of all time, Little Shop of Horrors. 

At the top of that spring, just in time for Little Shop, I showed my instructors a quick example of my makeup work and was promoted on the spot to head makeup artist – I can thank my degree from “YouTube University” for that! I practiced aging, bruises, and glam on different cast members, their faces akin to the canvases for the portraits I was used to painting. Eventually I started building closer connections with the people with whom I was working.

Whether I had realized it at the time or not, an overarching change was progressing. I was becoming much more outgoing than before. Working with a class full of big personalities and being rewarded with creative direction for my talent emboldened me and I began to feel more confident in my actions. The duality of my peers showed me how I can comfortably situationally adapt and adjust my communication styles to each environment I exist in.

As of this spring, I have been the head makeup artist and makeup designer for my high school’s theater company for one year. My experience pushed me and my talent beyond my limits until I started to get growing pains pushing at the box in which I confined myself before I decided to apply myself to activities. 

During the day I have my theater tech class period, a class I had been excited to explore but never got around to joining due to my COVID-impacted freshman year. In class we build sets and props on our stage or outside, gathering materials from our basement’s warehouse-like rooms–the furniture room and the wood/metal shop — where I learned to use more power tools than my dad, a new milestone for me. As my work has improved over time — and as I worked on more diverse sets — I have been given the chance to paint most of the set for our current spring show, Sweeney Todd. This was the result of advocating for my skills and demonstrating how we can embellish our sets, with the cast behind me vouching for my talents as well. In total this past year, I have worked on designing the interiors of set pieces and shops, like Mr. Mushnik’s plant store and Mrs. Lovett’s pie shop. 

“Life is Truly Just Performance”

This past fall along with working on our production of Happy Days, I assumed the position of News Editor in my school’s newspaper. I conducted numerous interviews around town and school thanks to the practice ensuring my voice was heard in theater and when talking to people over summer, selling my art at farmers markets and local punk shows. The experience I gained from my different hobbies and communities inspired other aspects of my life to shine brighter as well, like my community organizing. I can channel my peers when I need some confidence for public speaking or when making program suggestions. 

I convinced my instructor to increase the coverage in our newspaper about the ongoing production and teased our theater company’s ideas for Sweeney Todd. Along with our upcoming musicals, I advocated for including more diverse topics in our paper. While most of our staff identifies as LGBTQ+, we had virtually no foundation of support or advocacy in our recent issues of the paper. I took that opportunity to lead and sooner than I knew it, I was directing projects, reporting, and investigating the ongoing rise in transgender-targeted policies in education. Along with translating legal documents into more accessible language, I directed a series of interviews with volunteer self-identified transgender students about their opinions on how our school is handling the policies enforced across the nation. This specific section of interviews generated mixed feedback that I was nonetheless happy to hear, considering many states do not allow the topic to even be discussed. 

Because of my work, I have finally been able to hear my voice when I speak –and occasionally also in the hallways. Working both in the theater and in a publication has helped me in more ways than I could have imagined. I credit them both for the leader I have become today. Combining my passion for the advocacy of journalism and love of arts and theater has been my perfect niche and helped guide my plans for my future as I approach college and adulthood. I will study English and Journalism in the fall at UCLA and plan on continuing to work close with playhouses and getting involved in the LA-scene I am relocating to. I am excited to continue satisfying that niche in working with both Stage Raw and the Unusual Suspects Theatre Company. The arts are a privilege to experience. Theater has taught me that life is truly just performance and attaining opportunities is a matter of gaining experience and having a kick-ass audition.