Senior Aditya Dhar comes alive on stage. When he steps in front of a crowd, his natural charisma and humor easily capture the audience’s full attention. In the moment, it seems as if Aditya could belong nowhere else but the spotlight.

Throughout his four years in high school, Aditya has explored various interests, but debate and performing arts have evolved into his two largest passions.

For Aditya, one of the most engaging parts of both debate and performing arts is the opportunity to connect with an audience, even if the purposes of both activities is to convey different messages.

“Something really interesting about doing both performing arts and doing acting is that you do have an audience in both of those things,” Aditya said. “While I think in performing arts you definitely are trying to play a particular character, I think that most of the time in debate, you still have the same responsibility to engage with your judge just like you engage with your audience.”

Over his high school career, Aditya also learned that succeeding in debate requires not only an argument rooted in strong evidence but also a magnetic personality on stage.

“I think all level of debate is actually something of a performance. You can’t just have content, you can’t just be right, especially internationally, there’s always some performative aspect,” Aditya said. “Because at the end of the day, debate is about convincing someone, and there are merits to both sides of the argument, but I think one of the ways in which you do really get to convince people is by engaging with them.”

Regarding why he loves being in front of a crowd, Aditya cites a simple reason: laughter. He has always enjoyed entertaining others, and debate and performing arts allows him to do just that.

“I like to make people in the audience laugh; I like to make the judges laugh,” he said. “I think humor is always a great way to connect with people, and I think it’s a great way to get your point across much more easily.”