<p>I am the cofounder of my high school's only student-run theatre troupe, and the Assistant Student Producer of our big musical. For the musical, I've raised over 2K through selling advertisements in our playbill, by myself. I'm cofounder, stage manager, and have acted in a main role of one of our productions. We're very successful, having won local awards for our performance of The Laramie Project last fall.
However, I've fallen out of love with high school theatre. Most of my friends, who were also 95% of our talent pool, have graduated. The kids that are left are freshmen who try to undermine me and take my position at every turn. I'm going into my senior year, and I want to enjoy myself. I don't want to spend it coaching a bunch of Divas without a Cause. Besides, there won't be enough of them to put on a show up to our usual standards, anyway.
I signed up for cross country and track, instead. I've never played a sport in my life, so I plan on being the worst on the team. Everyone on XC and track is nice, though, and I feel like it will be a genuinely fun place to spend my senior year. My one concern is that colleges are going to see a red flag with my abrupt un-involvement in all things theatre, especially since it's an EC I want to pursue in college. There is absolutely no way I'm going to stick it out another year; I'm definitely doing XC. I would just like to know in advance how badly it's going to hurt me by going against my guidance counselor's rule of "make sure you have an EC from all 4 years on your resume".
Thank you.</p>
<p>I honestly don’t think it can hurt you too much. If questioned, just explain that you wanted to devote some time to pursue another interest once you had helped establish a theatre troupe and system that is now relatively self-sufficient. It will help if you remain involved in a theatre production outside of school or something, that will show that you haven’t abandoned your interest of it entirely and that you do have a passion for it, but wanted to use the time to explore your school’s other resources. Concentrate on all the accomplishments that you made in the school’s theatre department and not as much on the fact that it’s “not what you’re doing anymore” 
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<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Thank you, LydiaSofia! I wasn’t worried until everyone else started telling me it was a bad decision, but I agree with you. I think I’ve done enough that now I can branch out more. This is just what I needed to hear; now, I can start the cross country season without being so worried :)</p>
<p>Happykid (Theater Tech) has a number of friends who out-grew her HS drama program, and found interesting and rewarding theater projects with other organizations. If you feel that you have done everything that you wanted to with the program at your HS, it is perfectly OK to move on.</p>
<p>This makes me feel so much better about my decision! Thanks, happymomof1 :)</p>