Senior and Design Editor, Aniah Ross, joined “The Rosette” Newspaper purely because she didn’t want to live without Ms.Sidhu’s energy (and to learn how to make newspaper entries). Aniah’s hobbies consist of dancing, acting, and being a certified queer. She was also the mascot here at Horn from her freshman to junior year. She believes being a furry is harder than most would think (she claims she isn’t a furry by the way). Aniah also participates in theater. She has been acting for around 13 years, she was born for the stage. Aniah hopes to become a world renowned actress, because she loves to entertain people/she loves being the center of attention. She also wants to make music in the foreseeable seven years. She looks forward to having grammatical battles in Newspaper more often.
Lights. Camera. Action!: Ross shares her burning passion for acting.
Reported by: Simone Townsend
The performance is about to start. As she runs her lines one more time, she remembers all of the things she’s been practicing for the last several weeks. She remembers her stage positions and the cues she learned in practice. The lights begin to dim as the announcer tells the audience the show is about to begin. Curtains open and as she takes her first step out on stage she remembers that only one thing matters, to put on a good show.
Senior Aniah Ross has been in the performing arts world for 14 years now. Along with theater, she was also in dance, so she was always on stage.
“I feel like there wasn’t a specific reason I joined theater,” Ross said. “My mom was in theater when she was growing up and when she was pregnant with me, she was in theater. After doing it since I was three, I realized the stage is where I need to be.”
Throughout her years of performing she has made many wonderful memories. Out of all her memories, she looks back on her first big role for one of the school’s plays.
“My most memorable show is Descendants to Musical that we just did last year, because that was my first time getting a huge role in a musical,” Ross said. “It was definitely a little bit out of my comfort zone because I’ve never sung in front of anybody, a day in my life.”
With both good memories and bad memories being on different sides of the same coin one of her least favorite memories was the Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley.
“I think we did a pretty good job,” Ross said. “I just am a firm believer of doing my best when I get up there and that was not my best. It’s just being on stage. It means a lot to me. So when I go out there and we don’t give crap, it just doesn’t sit right.”
When getting ready for a performance she looks forward the most to roles that give the audience a more comedic relief.
“If you’re given such a role where you can be funny, you can do little looks to the audience, and I think I just like getting the reactions from the audience,” Ross said. “My favorite part of performing is really getting the non -verbal and verbal feedback from the audience.”
Theater has been her entire life, and she plans on going to either Oklahoma State, University of North Texas, or Oklahoma City to continue her path of theater. If the theater world had not stolen her heart first then the world of dance would have.
“I’m just so passionate when it comes to theater,” Ross said. “Coming second to what I’m passionate about would be dancing. I find dancing to be my escape. I can’t always just bust out a monologue if I’m crying or something, but if I’m upset I’ll find myself learning a new dance, or do one I know.”
At the end of the day, even if she was on a different track of life Ross feels that she would always find her way to the theater world no matter what.
“The stage has always called my name,” Ross said. “I like presenting myself to everybody, like being loud. I like putting on characters for no reason. I think I am the theater in a sense.”
One of the major skills she has learned since being in the performing arts world is memory, it is almost like she has a “photographic memory now.”
“If you tell me something, I know it,” Ross said. “I know everything about you now. I remember in middle school, it was a lot harder for me. I asked myself why can I read scripts but not books, but nowadays all I do is read books. I think it’s helped me in an educational sense, like memorization, reading literature, all that. It’s also helped me express myself more.”
When you think of most people performing on stage you can imagine them getting nervous and trying to find ways to calm their nerves, but in this case she is the complete opposite.
“I’m not really the type to be like a super calm and collected person,” Ross said “I’ve always had high energy up there. I’m always really calm before a show. Before every show we do a senior circle since obviously every class has a senior. All the seniors we all hold hands and all the seniors talk about everything. It doesn’t quite calm people down because you know people cry since it is seniors’ last time doing something, but I think it’s a therapeutic thing, sharing emotions with each other.”
Because she has a deep connection with theater there is a piece of theater within her.
“It represents me in the sense of how I present myself,” Ross said. “I’ve never been the type of person that’s ever had just one side to them. I’m an open book. I let it all out there. I think with theater, it’s a way to express a lot of emotions at one time. I do that a lot. I think that’s my twin.”
Over her years in the performance arts world she has gained a lot of wisdom and advice. Advice she offers to anyone thinking about choosing the performing arts as their path of life.
“I say reach for the stars,” Ross said. “A common misconception about theater is oh, but everybody’s going to see me and everybody’s like, oh, what if I do bad? You can’t do bad in theater. It’s not always about being on stage; there’s a TV element to it like film and there’s also improv. I don’t think theater is like you have to be on stage, you have technical theater also. If you want to be techie backstage working the lines building the set you do you girl, go for it. There’s nothing that could ever really go wrong.”
