Fynn Horst saw Phantom of the Opera live in February, and he's still not over it.

"I was mesmerized," the sixth grader said. "I was watching with my jaw open."

He's been in love with musicals for as long as he can remember. Phantom sits at the top, but he lights up talking about Hamilton too — especially Lafayette, whom he couldn't name off the top of his head but recognized the moment someone reminded him. He plays clarinet in band, sings in choir, and describes himself as more of a humanities kid than a STEM kid. "I've never been really good in STEM," he said, unbothered.

What Fynn is good at — what he gravitates toward with real intensity — is performing.

Last year, he auditioned for Finding Nemo Jr. at the Effingham Performance Center. He wanted the role of Nemo. He got Gil instead — the tough, commanding fish who runs the tank. In hindsight, he wouldn't change a thing.

"I think Gil was ultimately the right choice," he said. "I just felt very comfortable in that role."

The production was forty minutes long. He was disappointed they cut Darla — "She was the most iconic part. She was an icon from the moment she walked into the room" — but everything else was, in his words, amazing.

Here's the thing about that experience, though: Fynn went alone. None of his friends from Vandalia were interested. He's tried to recruit them since. "I've been trying to convince some of my friends to do it with me," he said, "but I think they're all doing stuff already."

So he went by himself. And what he found there surprised him.

"It makes me feel very comfortable," he said. "I feel like I'm with my people."

He paused, then explained: "Because it's like we're all interested in the same thing. That's what I think is really cool about going there."

That phrase — my people — may be the most important thing Fynn said all day. It's the kind of recognition that matters enormously when you're twelve, and your interests don't quite match the world around you. His brother Rhoades, a fourth grader, is into gaming. "He does not like musicals," Fynn reported. "A very different vibe." Most of his classmates are into sports or other things. Fynn is into theater, music, and storytelling, and he had to leave town to find others who share that.

He's going back this summer for Madagascar. He wants to play King Julien. "Everybody wants to," he admitted.

During the conversation, someone told Fynn the story of Christopher Jackson — the actor who played George Washington in Hamilton and the longest-running Simba in The Lion King. Jackson grew up in Cairo, Illinois, a small, struggling community at the southern tip of the state, about 125 miles from where Fynn was sitting. He joined his high school drama club as a freshman. The rest is Broadway history.

Fynn took that in quietly. Then, when asked what his own path might look like: "Maybe go to a college that does music… try to find some sort of record label… and then that will probably open more doors for Broadway."

His dream role? Phantom of the Opera. On Broadway. He says it plainly, without hedging.

"I would just love for that to happen for me," he said.

He knows Vandalia isn't Broadway. But he also knows what he has here — familiarity, stability, people who know him.

"Everybody here knows everybody," he said.

For a kid still finding his way toward the stage where he belongs, that kind of ground beneath your feet matters. Fynn Horst knows who his people are. He's already shown he's willing to go find them.