For senior Peter Schaper, he learned that if he loves something, sometimes he must let it go.

“I remember my freshman and sophomore year, I loved music. I was in the marching band and thought that band and music was my life. Then I took Acting 1, and I knew that I liked acting a whole lot more than music,” Schaper said. 

While the experience of discovering new passions is not an uncommon one, Schaper’s road from music to acting and getting to where he is today was less than glamorous. After not receiving a role in a previous Lafayette Theatre Company (LTC) production of Footloose, he redoubled his efforts and tried again for the next LTC musical, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and for the LTC play Classic Mystery Game. He also is in Lafayette’s improv group, Undefined.

“So I actually auditioned for Footloose, and I worked my butt off, but I didn’t get in. So my first show was Spelling Bee. And now, I’m in Urinetown at Dayspring, which may sound disgusting, but it’s a great show,” he said. 

For Schaper, pushing himself outside of his comfort zone, past the security and promise of performing at Lafayette, was something that was very important. That’s why he ended up auditioning for Urinetown the Musical at Dayspring Arts in Maryland Heights.

“The thing is, at Dayspring, everyone there wanted to do it, and I know that people here would not have been committed to it, and honestly I like the musical a little better. I got the lead role down there, which is great and I felt like my chances were a lot better with that. They also have classes attached to the musical that I could take for acting, and it felt like a better opportunity for me to be in Urinetown, then to stick around and do SpongeBob the Musical,” Schaper said. 

Schaper said that while high school is stressful as it is, he knew that if he wanted to become better at acting he needed to grow in a different environment.

“Lafayette has a lot of security, so you know that there will be another show opportunity, and that was great. But I knew that if I wanted to push myself out into the real world a little faster, I could definitely do it and grow more being at Dayspring. I know that they have a lot of connections, and that it would be a lot easier for me to get myself out there and I wanted to really push myself as far as I could without going over the edge,” he said. 

Though Schaper will remain in Undefined, he said he is sad to leave the rest of LTC. However, he knows that leaving behind something is a part of life. 

“I knew that I was not going to perform with these people again, and that’s sad. But I know that this is something that I will experience if I want this to be my dream and my goal. So I just decided that I was going to live with that [choice] and relish in it. When it comes to performing, you have to love the failure and the sadness of it all,” Schaper said.