In a small Minnesota town, at the other end of the block from our house, a friend started putting on plays in his family's basement when we were like 8 years old. He enlisted neighborhood kids, including my sister and myself.
We performed in plays for the neighbors.
A senior class high school play, ignored the juice and went to and worked in Chicago and NYC, lived theatre in Sarasota, background film Dallas, community theatre Santa Fe, couple backgrounds in Santa Fe and thus it is.