Michael Arden

Oh, I can't wait.

But I hope, you know, it's like that kid.

I have a picture that I guess one of my grandparents took of me watching that show.

And I have my hands clasped together.

As if in prayer, and my eyes are just like enormous, I'm looking at the stage like in wonder.

I keep it on my desk because I never, ever want to lose that.

Yeah, that's when you became you.

Well, yeah, and it's when I'll become not me if I lose it.

Yeah.

At 10 years old, you play Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol at Midland Community Theater, and you've said that that's a place that was life-changing for you.

100,000%.

How so?

And how did you find your way there?

Well, my grandparents, I think, took me to see a show, Big River, there.

I saw Sesame Street Live, but then this was like the next thing I saw, which was a narrative piece.

So then it was like, okay, then here's the next step.

Not just this dimensionality magic.

There's also story magic.

oh my god mind blown yet again and i fell in love with it and so i wanted to see everything and there was a youth theater group called the pickwick players that i had to wait what seemed like an eternity to be old enough to audition to be in and then i got in and you know it just that changed my life i would say i think it like probably saved my life i mean i grew up with my mom and

We lived in a trailer park and she had struggles.