If I’m being honest, I can’t remember a time when I was in school and wasn’t stressed. Even in middle school when I really shouldn’t have been so worried about schoolwork, I was fixated on being the best of the best. There were some days where I felt overwhelmed, overworked, and utterly helpless. But there was always one thing that was able to help me through whatever I was going through — the arts and, more specifically, theater.
To give a little background, I’ve been acting since I was in first grade. My first show was Cinderella in which I had a blast dancing as a mouse and saying my single line as “young Cinderella.” Over the years, I’ve been in a plethora of other shows, the most recent being Stevens’ production of Much Ado About Nothing (come see the show this weekend in DeBaun!)
I’ve done happy, uplifting shows (Once on This Island) and dark, cutting shows (Chicago). No matter the type of production, the one commonality between all of them is that they’ve been an escape for me when I’ve most needed them.
On the surface, acting is simply pretending to be something you’re not. That’s the shallow side of it. We put on costumes and makeup and put other people’s words in our mouths for an audience’s entertainment. But the show gets good, and the acting becomes therapeutic, when we’re able to work through our own emotions in a production. It’s kind of hard to explain, but I’ll do my best to describe it.
As an example, I’m going to use a show I was recently in called Godspell. In it, I portrayed a character that was accused of being disloyal and was shunned by the people around her. There’s one scene where the other actors are rearing up to throw various objects at me and I’m cowering in the middle of the stage. I then go on to sing a song about longing and wishing to be by someone’s side. While I was rehearsing, it was the middle of my senior year of high school. I was extremely excited and stressed and was feeling so many emotions that I could hardly work through them all. It was hard to describe the way I was feeling — until Godspell. When I was in the scene and the people around me were preparing to attack from all sides, I could finally put an image to what I was feeling. And when I was able to sing the song that followed, I was able to finally release all those pent-up emotions. When I stopped shying away from what I was feeling and decided to embrace it instead, the song took flight. I was told I moved people to tears.
After over 20 productions, I’ve learned that theater is much more than a hobby of mine. It’s a way to work through things from an outside lens. The characters provide an opportunity to portray a variety of different scenes and circumstances that would otherwise be impossible to picture unless they occurred in real life. Not every show lines up to what you’re currently going through in life, but when it does, it allows a different type of release that can really change the way you see the world.
There are other passions that offer a release of emotion, but I would argue that there is none quite like theater. I cannot express the opportunities that acting has provided me and the friends that I have made along the way that share this ability to conquer what we’re feeling and leave it onstage. Theater forces you to be honest with parts of yourself you may not have even guessed were inside you. There’s a vulnerability required in good acting that you can’t find anywhere else on Earth. I still have so much to learn when it comes to theater, but for now, I’m just enjoying the relief it offers me from life’s burdens.
A good performance can leave you riveted and moved beyond words. And when you act your part well, it provides an escape like no other. That, truly, is what theater is to me.
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