Many young people strive to become big-shots in Hollywood or on Broadway. Some get their start at future stardom right here in Tallahassee, some even at Lincoln.

Currently there are 79 students enrolled in drama classes with at least 20 more involved in the International Thespian Society.

“We would have more (students) if we didn’t have a cap on Improv and Drama 1,” drama teacher Karen Romant said.

Romant has been at Lincoln for six years. During that time she has directed three musicals — “Anything Goes,” “Oklahoma” and “Two by Two” — and many full-length plays, most recently, “Arsenic and Old Lace.”

Romant feels that Lincoln has some amazingly talented students, not only actors, dancers and singers, but writers and artists too.

“I think most of the students who sign up for a drama class want to perform, but some of them discover the other artistic sides that theatre can offer — the design and technical fields,” Romant said. “Those are career choices that can actually pay well and welcome new talent.”

Junior Allie Thagard decided to join drama because she heard that it was a lot of fun. Someday she hopes to have a career in acting, maybe on Broadway.

“Drama has helped me to be more outgoing and not care about what other people say about me. It has helped me to laugh at myself,” Thagard said.

Alumna Colleen Maroney went to New York in 1996 to attend the American Musical and Dramatic Academy with plans of becoming an actress. She was involved in drama all four years at Lincoln and at Young Actors Theatre of Tallahassee.

“She and I were very excited when she went up to New York,” said mother and English teacher Sheryl Maroney.

Colleen stayed at AMDA for a semester and then came back to Tallahassee to go to Florida State University to major in marketing communications. Currently, Colleen is earning her master’s degree at FSU while holding a job in advertising.

“She realized it was more about luck and opportunity than talent, but there is a lot of talent out there,” Sheryl Maroney said.

One Lincoln student who has gone on to the professional theatre is David Reiser. He graduated from Lincoln in 1998 and is now acting in a Broadway show called “Good Vibrations,” based on the Beach Boys, and playing at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre.

Another student who has had some professional success is Lucy Harrison. During her senior year in 2000 she won a playwriting competition. Her play, “Gorgeous Raptors,” has since been published by Playscripts, Inc., and has been professionally produced. She is now in New York, acting in another play she wrote called “Mommy Says I’m Pretty on the Inside.”

Although she is not a Lincoln student, Maclay graduate Allison Miller hopes to one day be an actress. She was recently on VH1’s “Partridge Family,” where she competed for a spot as Laurie. She is now at the University of Florida and plans to go to Russia this summer with the UF production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“I am more excited than words can say,” said Miller in an e-mail interview. “In the far future I want to eventually work with my favorite director, Wes Anderson, and have enough money to open up my own youth community theatre like Young Actors.”

Romant feel that theatre is an important part of human life.

“Theatre can show us how to feel what another person feels, and the audience can share that journey. An actor learns to walk in another’s shoes and to tell stories that need to be told about the dreams and hopes and tragedies of people from long ago, far away or make believe,” she said. “When the actors do their jobs well, the connection with the audience is a wondrous thing: Hundreds of people are experiencing the same emotional journey that the actors are, as they tell the story the playwright wants us to see. Good theatre reminds us of our common human condition, and we all need to be reminded of that.”