When Bridget Donovan started her freshman year at Framingham High School, she didn’t know where she fit in.

“I felt so lost, I thought that I was just like a number, like a nobody,” she said. “But I stepped into the theater, and I was surrounded by so many caring, funny people who just appreciate me for me, who can accept me and support me and guide me.”

After three years of working in tech theater, Bridget found a sense of self that she was excited to pass on to the new underclassmen starting their own high school journeys.

But with the pandemic limiting school to at-home classes and Zoom calls, Bridget has struggled with feeling isolated, anxious and depressed. She misses her theater family. She is doing whatever she can to restore the sense of community and belonging that theater gave her, working hard — despite everything — to be the mentor she needed so desperately when she was a freshman.

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