Freshman Taylor Gonzalez emerges from the cheer room dressed in her work out clothes. Already 15 minutes late to rehearsal, she frantically walks to the Performing Arts Center.

Gonzalez started cheering in the seventh grade and started acting at the age of three.

“At first I thought I’d have to choose between cheerleading and acting but I decided that I was going to try my hardest to balance it out,” Gonzalez said “The practices with theater and the practices with cheerleading interfere, but I try and go around it by being a little late to one thing.”

Gonzalez friends convinced her to tryout for cheerleading in the seventh grade.

“It’s just fun and it has to do with the school, and I like to be a part of the school,” Gonzalez said.

At the beginning Gonzalez thought the group wasn’t acting like a team but after working in stunt groups and accomplishing a Extension Liberty they began to come together as a family.

“Whenever we get something and we accomplish it, we go to a higher level of technique, and it gets harder and harder, and it gets fun,” Gonzalez said.

At the age of 10 Gonzalez remembers looking down into the audience during a performance and seeing her mom in the front row crying.

“Its just so much fun,” Gonzalez said. “You get to act like people you’re not and coming together as a cast is so much fun. Preforming in front of everyone is just a blast.”

Gonzalez has loved acting since she had begun because it’s something different and not everyone does it.

“I think it’s just like when you’re on the stage you have no other feeling,” Gonzalez said. “I just love being onstage. I’ve always loved it.”

Gonzalez acts more reserved in theater than she is in cheerleading because she feels more comfortable in theater.

“In cheerleading I learned you have to be more demanding and stand your ground like telling people what to do,” Gonzalez said. “In theater I’m more chill and I don’t really say much and everyone is nice to each other.”