Becoming a True Queer Role Model at the Real Camp Half-Blood
By Mya Tran
I was a theater kid in high school. Upsettingly basic bisexual stereotype, I know, but it’s true. Theater helped me find myself, my confidence, and the friends who got me through four terrible years of eating in the cafeteria and taking algebra classes. I quit theater after high school, bogging myself down with deprecating talk about how I “wasn’t good enough” to continue the hobby in college.
And then, I found the Acorn Players. It was a small, brand new theater company in my hometown, dedicated to providing a safe space for diversity to flourish in theater. I joined initially as a makeup artist for the youth show The Addams Family in June of 2023, and then later as an actor in Teach A Robot To Love’s midwest premier. This year, my second year and Acorn’s second year, we are producing a youth show of The Lightning Thief.
As a kid who grew up feeling inexplicably different from everyone else (and with ADHD), the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books were always close to my heart, and the second I heard we were doing The Lightning Thief, I jumped to become part of the production team. As I’m writing this, we are about two weeks out from opening night. We have about 20 or so cast members from ages 11–18. They come from different schools, different backgrounds, different levels of acting experience, but perhaps more importantly, they are unapologetically queer.
Last year, working with many of the same kids in Addams, I realized how important it was to be a pillar in these kids’ communities. This year, I’ve dedicated myself to helping the kids embrace who they are (they really don’t need much encouragement from me). We let them pick their prop weapons, their costumes, and I work so that their makeup makes them happy. Safe. The Lightning Thief strikes home for many of them, so being in a space where they can all share the feeling of being the odd ones out, different from everyone around them is incredibly important to them. In two short weeks I’ve watched these kids grow from strangers to friends who spend 25 hours a week together and then go home and have sleepovers and hang out on weekends. They change their pronouns every other week and no one laughs, no one judges them. They have inside jokes and they hold each other when they cry. They swap ADHD help tips and read out loud to those of them that have dyslexia.
It’s like I’m actually at Camp Half-blood. I could cry about it. I’m not much help for the actual putting together of the show, but I provide a listening ear about relationship issues, gender confusion, and concern about costumes and dysphoria. I work to make sure that the youth camp stays a fun and happy memory for them, so that after high school they don’t tell themselves “I’m not good enough to continue my hobby” and instead think “theatre was fun. I want to keep doing it”.
About the Author
Mya Tran is an incoming junior at Butler University, in Indianapolis, IN. They are currently studying English on the creative writing track and German. Growing up in a small college town with limited queer role models, Tran has spent her life with her nose in the books, looking for someone to relate to.
