By age four, Keely Crocker was singing on stage. Not long after, she was playing the guitar, learning piano, and wanting to be a performing artist. By nine, she was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. The future she had envisioned involved stepping on and off theatre stages, not in and out of hospitals.
Despite the pain and serious treatments, Keely was determined to pursue her dream. As a high schooler, she continued to sing her heart out in local performances, lent her voice to educational roadshows, and even got a once-in-a-lifetime chance to go to New York to participate in a talent competition and workshops in Broadway and with the New York Film Academy.
Though she appeared to be coping, Keely went into complete kidney failure in May 2022, with a transplant being her only hope. “We were worried, 24/7,” she says. “There was not a day where it was never in the back of my mind.” Despite her dad being an organ donor match, Keely had to wait two agonising years until she could undergo the transplant. “Even though you know there's a kidney, you don't know if you're going to get to that date or not,” she says. During this time, Keely turned to music to get her through. “Listening to music helped with the healing process, just to get me through those rough moments.”
To celebrate a successful kidney transplant, the student at the Luitingh Alexander Musical Theatre Academy is now rising to new heights as a performer with her debut in the Tony Award-winning musical production of ‘Dear Evan Hansen’. “I hope my journey can inspire others to pursue their dreams, no matter what life throws at them,” Keely says.
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