As the new school year officially begun, numerous students were anxious to walk into the theatre room as there would be a new face in charge. However, it wasn’t long before the students heard a familiar voice greeting everyone at the door. The beloved Ms. Sanford was officially back on Charter grounds teaching what she does best.
The biggest question that everyone was dying to know was “Why did Ms. Sanford leave teaching?” Her answer to that is “sometimes you have to prioritize your own mental health and happiness to make yourself not only a better human but also be a better teacher for them,” she explains. After a lot of consideration and thought, Ms. Sanford realized that she also had other factors in her life that made her who she was. One is that she appreciates being on stage and doing her performances. So, she took a year off to do just that and “It was the best time of my life.”
Legally Blonde the Musical performed at Actors Playhouse in Miami was the production that Ms. Sanford was fortunate to be a part of. “It was hilarious and awesome. I had like 6 different roles and 8 different costumes,” Ms. Sanford reveals. This show typically ran for about 2 hours and was held earlier this year for people to watch. The more time she spent doing this, Ms. Sanford quickly noticed how drastic her lifestyle changed and how “[I was] driving all over Florida for auditions on [all] the highways and having late-night jobs.”
Once her production was over, Ms. Sanford took it one day at a time, navigating through what would be the best job for her and that suited her needs. She wholeheartedly shares, “It ended up being to come right back here.” Ms. Sanford believes that the Charter staff and school are very understanding and encouraging which made her want to commit to teaching even more. In addition to that, “I love watching the kids make all these discoveries and realize that theatre does have a positive impact on their lives.”
Walking through the M building hallway, Ms. Sanford reminisced on all the feelings that theatre brings to her. Going from exhaustion to pride, Ms. Sanford has felt it all through her journey as an actress and teacher. She has also slowly normalized that life contains all different types of challenges each day and that “I am still always learning about myself and who I am now versus when I was in my twenties.” Life will also always contain elements of change which can become very overwhelming and stressful, especially when making big decisions that you are not necessarily guaranteed a good outcome.
In past years, Ms. Sanford often took care of everyone else before herself which caused her to always be busy and have to do all the work. Knowing that going into this year, one of her biggest goals is to balance her workload more efficiently and to not be afraid to make decisions that she knows will benefit everyone.
With the year already being full of immense creativity and fun, Ms. Sanford is so pleased to be a part of it all. Regardless of the year she missed, she will always, “Love teaching but I also love performing, so I am going to find a way to do both.”
