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A year ago, Miami Palmetto High School rising senior Yitzchak Shapiro had surgery to deal with severe scoliosis.
“It was such a shock.” he says. “It wasn’t noticeable at all. I had a spinal fusion. It was really scary.”
Part of his fear was whether he wouldn’t be able to dance again, which is something he enjoys and needs to be able to do for theater.
“I still went through it. It started getting worse the closer I got to surgery,” he says. “It was rough. It was life changing. I started working on dancing again. Carefully. That was the main goal for me. There are limitations that I have. I work around it.”
The surgery went well and while there are days where he still has aches but for the most part he’s back to normal. He finished physical therapy in April.
From the experience, he created a service project called From the Heart to the Back. It was a donation drive to help patients who are undergoing spinal fusion surgery.
Shapiro says he worked on the project with the spinal surgeons at Nichlaus Children’s Hospital.
“I had a box where people could drop off donations. I asked for fuzzy socks, soft blankets, neck pillows, stress balls, small fidget toys, encouragement cards or notes,” he says.
He donated more than 100 items to Nichlaus Children’s, which was far more than he had expected.
“I’m planning on doing it again around when school starts,” he says.
Because of his surgery, he had to cut back on his extracurricular activities because he didn’t know if he was going back to school. He recovered well and did go back on the first day.
One of his fears pertaining to the surgery is that he might not be able to get back into gymnastics and dance.
Sports had always been a huge part of Shapiro’s life as he did gymnastics when he was younger. He was good enough that there was talk of having him home schooled so he could practice even more.
“I did it when I was eight to twelve,” he says. “It was getting a little too busy. It really wasn’t fitting into my schedule. I was doing theater in middle school. I’ve always loved theater.”
Since then, he has taught himself how to dance because there are a lot of dance elements involved in acting.
“I do hip hop and contemporary,” he says.
He joined the theater program at Palmetto High his freshman year. That year, the big spring production was Legally Blonde.
Sophomore year he was in The Twenty-fifth Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee where he played Chip Tolentino.
This past school year, the play was Curtains where he played Randy.
“Which was super super fun. Each show we had four nights. I got to play all four,” he says.
He’s president of the Thespians Honor Society and a member of the Improv Club that works closely with Thespians.
He’s also a member of the student council where he is Voice of Palmetto.
“The role that I have is unique,” he says. “Like a hype man. Me and two other people. We basically write scripts, host pep rallies, and host shows. We work closely with the events chair.”
For college, he’s looking at majoring in marketing. He considered taking theater because he wants to become a singer or be on Broadway but thinks he should have a backup plan.
His college list includes Florida State University, the University of Florida, New York University, the University of Central Florida, and Syracuse.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
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