A little rain, and some singing to match, is all it takes to appreciate the sun and its radiant energy. Sydney Quintana got her start in theatre after falling in love with “Singing in the Rain.” The production she saw as a child, put on by her uncle, a theatre teacher.
“I loved ‘Singing in the Rain,’” Quintana stated. She “listened to it nonstop, would copy the characters on stage.” And she would excitedly reenact the characters for her family.
“I was like, ‘Who am I? Who am I?’ And my mom was like, ‘You’re so good at that,’” Quintana recalled. She decided to take a theatre class, “You know what I’m gonna do that. I’m gonna go into theatre,” she said.
Ever since those rainy skies have cleared and she’s taken up the mantle of “triple threat” as singer, dancer and actor, Quintana has found herself imbued with that spirit of production.
Having sewing skills under her belt from high school, one of the first things Quintana did on campus was go to see professor “W.G.” or Denise Weatherly-Green. All of her peers urged her to put her skills toward building costumes for productions.
“I come here and I’m costumes for everything. So I act, I dance, I sing, I sew costumes, I paint, I do a lot,” she said.
In Las Mas, Quintana makes a point of working together with her fellow officers.
“It’s just our team coming together, like a little huddle, and we’re like, ‘OK, this is the plan. We’re gonna say this and do that, and yes, it’s gonna be great guys’,” Quintana said. “When the whole group gets together, it’s really fun, because we’re all just here. Just have fun, and laugh, and support each other.”
It was important to be an officer for Quintana, not just for the title or the honor, but to set a standard for what being and having fun can look like for everyone who comes after her at Las Mas.
“I wanted to join the officers, just because I wanted to be that, like, role model in the community,” Quintana reflected.
All that hard work pays off for this community Quintana and the other Las Mas officers cultivate, and the members of the theatre productions. Even when things go wrong, too.
“It was ‘James and the Giant Peach,’ our last musical that we did in the fall, and one of our male ensembles brought like this, I’m talking big bag of Skittles–you can see where this is going–backstage. We were all just like, ‘ooh, Skittles, ooh’,” Quintana reminisced. “I went on the opposite side of the stage to go get ready, and all I hear is the ppshpshpshps [spilling noises],” she said. Through a smile, Quintana remembered, “I was just trying not to laugh, but I was smiling the whole dance.”
It’s not uncharacteristic of Quintana to see a silver lining in a mess like Skittles spilling during dress rehearsal. She also came around on being a monkey in the dance department’s “Wizard of Oz,” even after the part left her legs with an aching burn.
“I was also a flying monkey, which is one of my favorite dances I’ve ever done, surprisingly,” she said. Back then she had thought “I’m gonna be mad if I have to be the freaking monkey. But then I was like, ‘wait, I love it’,” Quintana said.
Those silver linings extend far enough for Quintana to take up the role of a Las Mas officer, which she does as seargent at arms. Quintana takes attendance, makes sure people are showing up to meetings, and acts as a sort of mediator between the general population of Las Mas and the officers.
Quintana is the “person that people come to,” she said. When a Las Mas member is out sick, misses something, or needs to update the group, she’s the person to go to.
Secretary Soda Walker affirmed Quintana’s dedication to her role, and to keeping the club a fun environment.
“Sydney stays on top of her stuff. She’s good at her job,” Walker said. “She knows how to laugh and she knows how to joke about things.”
Quintana breaks through the rainclouds and gives her energy to the people around her. TJC theatre lives on, and while she’s in Las Mas or in theatre productions, she’s helping make that happen.
“I would probably want to just leave a legacy of energy. I just want to radiate my energy to other people, and so they can just have that same drive and but also that fun in them, you know,” Quintana said.
That way the next group at the 100-year mark can pick up where she left off.
