Balancing Stage and Servers
During my theatre scholarship, most of my classmates were memorizing lines or rehearsing scenes. I was doing that too — but between classes and late-night rehearsals, I was also tinkering with a Raspberry Pi, setting up Plex servers, and trying (and failing) to run a Minecraft world for friends.
On stage, timing and presence mattered. Behind the screen, so did uptime and configuration. Balancing both worlds meant I was constantly moving between scripts and scripts — one in Final Draft, the other in Bash.
The Juggling Act
Coursework wasn’t light. Theatre demanded long hours, group rehearsals, and emotional energy. IT projects demanded patience, documentation, and trial and error. My weekends became experiments in context switching:
- Plex servers: Organizing media libraries and teaching myself networking basics.
- Minecraft hosting: Learning about ports, memory allocation, and why uptime matters.
- VPN setup: Wrestling with routers, firewalls, and the joy of finally connecting remotely.
“Theatre taught me how to perform under pressure. IT projects taught me how to debug under pressure.”
Lessons from Both Worlds
Documentation Matters
Just like keeping a prompt book in stage management, writing down configs and commands saved me from repeating the same mistakes twice.
Empathy in Tech
Theatre is about understanding people. IT support is the same — whether it’s helping a peer connect to my Minecraft server or calming a frustrated classmate when the VPN broke.
Systems Thinking
Plays only work when the lighting, sound, and actors sync up. Servers only work when networking, storage, and security play their parts. Both taught me to think about the system, not just the piece in front of me.
Looking Back
At the time, it felt like I was just splitting myself in two — drama kid by day, IT tinkerer by night. But looking back, the overlap was clear. Both disciplines required patience, presence, and the ability to keep calm when things went off-script.
Those early side projects weren’t just distractions from coursework. They were the beginning of a systems mindset that carried into later work in IT and DevOps. And honestly? Hosting a Minecraft server that didn’t crash was just as satisfying as pulling off a standing ovation.