The San Diego Fires

San Diego Fires

What do they have to do with young performers? Yesterday, I taught two acting classes with teenagers. I mentioned to one class that- although I do ban cell phone usage in the theatre while we were working - I had mine on because my cousins had recently been evacuated from their home in San Diego and I was awaiting news of their safety out of the city and the status of their home. An outpouring of connections to the area followed. Some had lived there, visited there, had family and friends there, were going there and many were trying to connect to loved ones there the same way I was – with e-mail and the phones. Connections. Everyone was trying to connect. Which is what we do in theatre. We connect with the world, ourselves and often try to make sense out of things that have no sense. We work collaboratively to produce art, entertainment or at the very least – an interesting experience! We seek to connect as a cast and later to our audience. Six degrees of separation. Decried as an urban legend, my classes and casts of young performers ram home to me that we are often closer to each other than the “six degrees of separation.”

Over the past year while working with young performers, discussions of Virginia Tech, the I35 bridge collapse in the Twin Cities, and now the Southern California fires have occurred. We are at war. These tragedies, events and world news encroach into the theatre classes. A connection is made with an incident in a play – a quirk of a character – comes from a previous sadness or a narrow escape. Katrina and Iraq creep into an improvisation or a game of Freeze Tag. These young performers do not shield themselves from events but give them careful thought. And sometimes use theatre class as a way of working out their complicated feelings from dealing with events in which they have no control.

By Candlelight (about teens connecting directly after 9/11) was developed in a middle school during the aftermath of Katrina. 9/11 and Katrina are distinctly two very different events. But the ability of the students to want to make a difference and help whatever corner of the world was suffering was a common theme that cropped up. They maintained that both occurrences created great need that the world needed to address.

As current events unfold, there is always a student with a story connected to the event. It can be far-reaching but it shows a personal involvement in things that do not directly affect their day-to-living. “It could be me.” And the magical “what if” - widely used to figure out characters and why they behave as they do – is used by the students as they discuss the world.

In theatre, we look to connect to the world of a play. In most cases, this goal also keeps us connected to the world. An acting class is a wonderful forum for expressing frustration and ultimately finding hope in small corners. It is certainly possible that the more connections these students make to events close to home (the bridge collapse) and further away (the San Diego fires), the more empathy they will have in years to come toward world events. Already they see the world as much closer to home than I did as a child.

Performers - young and old find themselves drawn into acting stating that, " it helps them get away from who they are and become someone else." The reality is the good ones wind up revealing themselves in untold, vulnerable ways and discover things about themselves they did not know. And as they throw themselves into new new worlds as dictated by a play, they find themselves with ever-increasing knowledge of their present world.

I am rambling. My cousins are safe. Miraculously, they still have a home. But as I waited for news, the reality of “what could have been” and what has occurred for scores of people became a reality. Because of a connection. So, I am privileged to count my blessings – the safety of loved ones and work that enables connections instead of severing them.