Lights flooded the stage as voices rang out, cheering. Junior Madelyn Morris heard her name as well as those of her bandmates being called loudly. Amid the noise, she listened to the instrumental beginning of the song she had been practicing for months. Her own voice drowned out the crowd’s as she started to sing along.
“You see these cliché high school movies with a band, but this is living it. It’s a wonderful experience. There’s really nothing like it,” Morris said. “I don’t believe in being a side effect. I want to be known. I walk down the halls, and I see all these people who’s names I don’t know; people who exist without standing out. I don’t want to be like that.”
Morris left behind more than just her home when she moved from Los Angeles, California to Texas, the summer before her junior year. She also was no longer able to sing in and manage her band, Sea What She Seas.
“When I left, these people only lost one friend,” Morris said. “But I lost all of mine.”
Morris spent one year with the band. After moving in 2013 to her school in LA from Lake Balboa, she participated in a talent show. The band members asked her to join once they heard her sing.
“They’re a cover band, so they’re not the next big thing,” Morris said. “But they’re really good.”
The band received school financial sponsorship as it was considered a school club and made money from shows they played at. In the 2013-2014 school year, the group participated in four school concerts and at six parties and revenues.
“I guess I have a good sense of music,” Morris said. “I have a good ear, so when I wasn’t helping them out, I would sing.”
Morris’ love for the stage brought her to her first independent theater classes and performance in fifth grade. Since then, she has performed in more than seven productions, and received the role of the caterpillar in the play, Alice in Wonderland, presented Oct. 16th through the 18th.
“Theater is not a replacement for my band, but it is something I love doing,” Morris said. “I’m new [to the Legacy Theater Department,] and my acting skills are okay but not fantastic, and I accept that.”
Along with theater and singing, she plays four instruments. For the most part, she taught herself, with help from her father.
“Some people have stage fright,” Morris said. “I have the opposite. Being on stage is like going home. It’s like I belong there.”
