My first memories all take place in an alternate universe: Snow White’s forest, Cinderella’s castle, The Little Mermaid’s lagoon. I play the princesses while my dad fills supporting roles, transforming from a talking teapot to an evil queen, an ally to an enemy. Acting out fairy tales at the playground was my first foray into creating a world, but it was far from my last. Long after most kids abandoned “make-believe,” I drafted friends for re-creations of...

In tenth grade, my school’s Mock Trial team was composed mainly of seniors. That meant we were a strong, experienced team, capable of winning city championships. It also meant that when those seniors graduated, our team really felt their absence. As the lawyer captain for the 2016 season, it was my job to guide the team through what I knew would be a difficult year. I worked late nights and lunches, training novice lawyers while struggling with my own closing...

There are few things I love more than making gingerbread houses. I’m a master at melting butterscotch into stained-glass; I pride myself on my ice-cream cone trees, my powdered sugar snow and my lifesaver wreaths. Every year, my mom and I devote days to baking, assembling and decorating a candy winter wonderland, and every year our houses get more and more elaborate. I like making gingerbread houses because they’re cute, because they’re my favorite family tradition and...

I have an irrational hatred of red peppers. I’m not allergic to them, and I have no problem with green or yellow peppers, but their red relatives I find completely intolerable. So a few months ago, when I was having dinner with my best friend Izzy and her family, I was dismayed to see her mom dicing red pepper. Then Izzy leaned over. “Don’t worry,” she whispered, “I told her you didn’t like them and she’s...

The moment I walked into my math class, I could tell something was wrong. My friend Ashley, always cheerful, looked anxious. Nina, the diligent note-taker who sits in front of me, hadn’t even opened her backpack. And Matthew, goofy, go-with-the-flow Matthew, had his head on his desk. After class, Ashley told me what had happened: our classmates had seen the Facebook group chat that Matthew and eight other boys had been part of. They said the chat was filled...

Midway through my Swarthmore tour, our guide was asked what she does for fun. “I go to my friends’ clubs and concerts and games,” she answered. “Fun at Swarthmore is supporting your friends’ passions.” I had already fallen in love with the outdoor amphitheater, the tiny class size and the idea of the honors thesis, but it was at that moment that I knew I wanted to go to Swarthmore. My elementary school best friend and I first became close...

Right now, my mythology class is debating whether the truest myth is simply the most detailed one. In English, we’re studying how creation stories impact power dynamics. My physics teacher argues that scientific theories are forms of just-so stories. And in International Relations, we wonder if the clearest visions of global politics are those that most resemble myths. As my classes have converged, everything I’ve learned feels more relevant and exciting. I love Brown because it’s a...

To be an effective director, I have to be able to communicate with designers, actors and dramaturgs. To do that, I need to speak their languages, to understand their approaches to building theatrical worlds. Even more importantly, because I view theater as the study of why individuals and communities behave the way they do, I believe that to be a good director I need to study the people and communities I depict. More than any other place I’ve toured,...

I want to spend my life as a theater director, and so I want to go to a school that has both a theater major and a wealth of student-driven extracurricular theater. I first approached my college process with only this narrow goal, evaluating schools based on yes or no questions: do they offer a wide range of theater courses? Are there several established student theater groups? Do sophomores and juniors have directing opportunities? The University of Chicago was one...

Every time Sarah DeLappe, one of my favorite playwrights, is interviewed, she talks about her Yale professors: the ideas they exposed her to, their influence on her work, the courage they gave her. I love Yale’s focus on undergraduate teaching and its residential college system, but most of all I want to go to Yale because its theater program is unparalleled. I want to spend my days learning and my nights putting my knowledge to work in a Dramat...

I never feel as powerful as I do when I’m cross-examining a witness. I’ve memorized the rules of evidence, practiced for hours to be ready for almost anything the other team throws at me. I’ve even rehearsed the smile I flash witnesses just before I hit them with my climactic question. My confidence in Mock Trial does not extend to the rest of my life; in fact, my friends make fun of me for constantly obsessing over...

Many times in my life, plays and books have been my closest companions; because they allow me to see inside peoples’ homes and heads, to witness them at their most vulnerable and honest, I know I’m never alone. More than that, theater and literature give me the distance I need to make sense of the world. Midway through the musical Sunday in the Park with George, a fictionalized Georges Seurat describes painting as “studying a face, stepping back to...

My mother and her sister spent their childhoods trying to appease their violent, unpredictable brother Martin. Although my cousins and I have never met our uncle, our lives have been shaped by our mothers’ fears of his uncertainty. To compensate, we’ve become a community of predictors. One cousin is a professional poker player who excels at calling his competitors’ bluffs; another is a therapist; I use theater to try to anticipate other people’s actions. In different ways, we...

Although I’ve lived in the same house my whole life, I have moved rooms many times. As a little girl, terrified by monsters I’d imagined, I spent most nights in my parents’ bedroom. When I turned eight, I vowed that I would sleep in my own bed, asserting my big-girl independence. After my dad moved out, I poured hours into decorating our attic with posters and pictures, creating a safe-haven for myself at a time when my world...

Daniel Naumov has soft, blonde curls that orbit his head like a halo. He weighs, at most, ninety pounds and dresses like he’s on Father Knows Best. He’s got bright eyes, rosy cheeks, and an angelic smile. He’s twelve years old. And he’s pure, unadulterated evil. I first met him last year, when he had just started 7th grade and I had just started 11th. I was working in my school’s Writing Center, helping my...

I’ve never been athletic. Other than a stint on my middle school’s basketball team, I’ve avoided playing sports, and watching them is even worse. Yet when I think about who my hero is, the first person that comes to mind is an athlete. That athlete is fencer Galen Cadley, my classmate and the strongest person I have ever met. Her accomplishments alone are impressive: she racks up metals and has college recruiters fighting over her. But it...

I have an irrational hatred of red peppers. I’m not allergic to them, and I have no problem with green or yellow peppers, but their red relatives I find completely intolerable. So a few months ago, when I was having dinner with my best friend Izzy and her family, I was dismayed to see her mom dicing red pepper. Then Izzy leaned over. “Don’t worry,” she whispered, “I told her you didn’t like them and she’s...