Theatre Educator as Role Model

Careful the things you say. Children will listen.  
Stephen Sondheim From Into the Woods

The question of role modeling in educational theatre takes on different dimensions than in other areas of high school academia because of the intimate nature of the working environment.  The drama room, black box, theatre, or stage provides an alternative to the traditional classroom with its rows of desks. The space allows for the necessary freedom to create.  I have watched the glee in the eyes of students when they enter a theatrical space.  Liberated from the rigidity of their day, the theatre or drama room provides an escape from linear thinking and invites the controlled chaos of creativity, exploration, and discovery through play. The theatre educator is the facilitator of that exploration.  Sometimes beginning theatre students confuse freedom with a lack of discipline. It is imperative that the theatre teacher nurture a disciplined artistic environment that is both safe for exploration and respectful experimentation.

One way I have seen this break down is when the teacher has not established clear objectives for the class. If you look at Viola Spolin's improvisation exercises, you see a clear example of how play is directly tied to purpose, objective and diagnostics. Beginning theatre teachers need to become masterful practitioners of their techniques so that they may be employed with clarity and focus. This takes time to master but it begins with intentionality.

When considering the theatre educator as role model, I often find the biggest hurdle to be the teacher's discomfort with psychologically being in the role of adult.
Erik Erikson, (1902 - 1994) the German psychoanalyst, identified an eight stage life-span theory of identity and psychological development.  Based on the impact of external factors, personality development and influences, Erikson believed that a person must pass through these eight stages throughout one's life cycle. Briefly summarized, the eight stages are:

1. Infancy (Birth - 18 mos) During this stage children develop basic trust or mistrust which establishes a sense of security or mistrust of their world. (Basic Trust vs. Mistrust)
2. Toddler - Early Childhood (18 mos - 3 Years) During this stage the child has the opportunity to build self esteem through the acquisition of skills . (Autonomy Vs. Shame and Doubt)
3. Pre-School  (3 - 5)  During this stage the child plays roles about what they perceive as being grown up. Parents are still the most important influence on the child at this stage. (Initiative Vs. Guilt)
4. School Age ( 6 - 12) During this stage, the child is developing new skills and will either experience a sense of competence and self-esteem or a scense of inferiority and inadequacy. Parents are no longer the primary and only authority in the child's life.  Socialization among peers takes on greater significance. (Industry Vs. Inferiority)
5. Adolescent (12 - 18) At this stage, development depends on what a person does. The primary task during adolescence, is discovering one's identity.  During this stage, the determination of moral right and wrong and understanding of one's beliefs is central.  (Identity Vs. Role Confusion)
6. Young Adult (18 - 35) Developing relationships with other people is the primary task of this stage. (Intimacy Vs. Isolation)
7. Middle Adulthood (35 - 65) Work and Parenthood dominate this stage of the life span.  Establishing a sense of usefulness and accomplishment that will outlast them. (Generativity Vs. Stagnation)
8. Maturity (65 - Death) Older adulthood provides opportunities for wisdom and a sense of fulfillment.
 (Integrity Vs. Despair) 

Psychologically speaking, the theatre class can be considered  ground zero for adolescents and adults. Given that the primary task of the adolescent is focused on identity versus role confusion, it is critical that that the theatre educator recognize that these "stages" impact the relationship between themselves and their students.  Because theatre is collaborative and the environment more informal, the need for the educator to be clear about his role is even greater than in a more traditional classroom.

Many theatre educators enter teaching during their young adulthood where developing relationships is a primary focus.  Like with anything, the foundation must be solid in order to build a secure structure.  The unprocessed theatre teacher who struggles with unresolved esteem issues based on his or her perceived success or failure is at risk for unconsciously looking for that fulfillment through his students. This often is characterized in the "Teacher as Friend" model.   I am not suggesting that there is anything wrong or pathological in what is the natural human experience and capability of developing deep relationships with one another. I am, however, saying that it is the teacher's responsibility to be clear about his or her role and to establish appropriate boundaries.  I have been known to say, "The grown ups need to behave like grownups." Directly put, this is not a peer to peer relationship. The theatre educator must recognize that the needs  of both teacher and student are based on their respective life stages and are influenced by previous experiences that have either resulted in a strong sense of self-esteem or insecurity. When one considers that in the educational theatre environment, adolescents who are struggling with their identities and sense of industry are looking for healthy, well balanced adult role models, the importance of the theatre teacher's own conduct and self awareness is obvious.

This is where I believe the Theatre On Purpose (T.O.P.) philosophy  is critically important. Theatre educators are on the front line of fostering well-balanced, high functioning, thriving human beings using artistic methods. For the T.O.P. practitioner, the focus need always be on facilitating the growth of the student - and while in theatre this often means performance-based skills, when viewed through the lens of psychological development, it is rather evident the performance skills are only part of the work being done by the adolescent.
As we know, the artistic personality is sensitive. Emotion and empathy contribute to the actor's ability to step into the skin of another on stage.  If not channeled, molded, and guided carefully, the student can be subjected to symptoms of psychodrama.  The development of acting skills and the focus on the creative work in rehearsal or class develops a student's confidence and affirms that hard work and discipline can result in a sense of accomplishment.
Just as we teach students that one must be "off book" in order to truly be free to become the imaginary character, the theatre educator must be free of confusion about his or her calling.  The T.O.P. practitioner approaches theatre education with an understanding that the theatre is a tool and role modeling needs to come from the inside out.

Copyright Amy Luskey-Barth 2014

To Thine Own Self Be True

Many years ago, my therapist told me that if you don't take responsibility for your own pain, you will spew it on everyone around you.
Taking responsibility for your own pain begins with getting in touch with your story.

 When I was eleven-years-old, I got bitten by the theatre bug.  I remember it as if it were yesterday.  I was playing Brigitta in Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The Sound of Music." One afternoon, I walked into the gymnasium where we performed our shows to find the set of  the Von Trapp veranda awash in a blue light.  The transformation brought about through the magic of stage lighting captivated me and from that moment on, the trajectory of my future was before me.  I knew I was going to be an actress.
At eleven, that dream fueled and dominated my life. Encouraged by supportive parents, with enough natural talent to make it seem like a possibility, I pursued my passion through high school and into college as a drama major.  Frequently cast in leading roles, and blessed with a good singing voice, things looked promising for me through graduation from college.
  And then life struck.
Two months after I graduated, my father died suddenly and unexpectedly and my life course abruptly switched direction. At twenty-two, I abandoned my dream of becoming an actress and went to work helping my mother and brother in our family business.
Over the next eight years,  I gained a lot of executive skills. I worked in sales, public relations, customer service, and dabbled in video production.  But life had not gone in the direction I had "planned."

One day, I was perusing the local newspaper's "help wanted" ads and saw that a local all girl's high school was seeking a drama, musical theatre, and choir teacher.  Something stirred deep inside of me.  My abandoned "actress" was calling out to me.   I had not ever set out to be a theatre teacher. However, my theatre and music training through high school and college had given me access to some excellent teachers, including my father who coached me until his untimely death at sixty-four. With no teaching experience,  I decided to apply and was hired for the position.

My career in educational theatre began. I sought out opportunities to learn classroom management, teaching techniques, and exercises.  I devoured books like Viola Spolin's Improvisation for the Actor and endless books on directing, theatre history, techniques, and styles.  I joined the Educational Theatre Association and attended conferences and workshops for theatre educators.
I entered the profession of teaching hungry and determined to learn.
As my program grew to include two other single-sex high schools, I found that the executive and business skills I had developed during the eight years I'd worked for our family business helped me to build a nationally recognized, award-winning theatre program.

I also began to recognize that the profession had "chosen me."  While my dreams of being a Broadway star died the day my father dropped dead, I was able to bring the many different experiences of my life together with a greater sense of purpose.  I had grieved my losses and had sought counseling and mentorship.  Through therapy, journaling, and hard work, I grew to know myself well.

So often, I hear parents express concern that their son or daughter wants to pursue theatre arts in college. They worry that the business is too risky or that their child will not be able to earn a living.
They often say they want their child to have something to "fall back on."
I understand those concerns and acknowledge there is validity in that line of thinking.
I also hear the voice of my father who believed that theatre skills are life skills.  What one learns in theatre can be used in other areas.

By the same token, the actor who decides to "fall back on teaching" because his or her career hasn't panned out needs to carefully examine that choice.
My circumstances were different and while my dream was reshaped by life circumstances, I entered teaching seeking to be not only a skilled practitioner, but a role model for life.
I took responsibility for my pain and channeled my creative talents in a different direction with intentionality.

One of the greatest concerns I have is when I see theatre teachers who clearly are not over their own loss and decide to take up teaching without the true sense of calling or purpose.  Their unprocessed pain and disappointment over their unfulfilled dreams gets "spewed" on their students.  The ego-centric theatre teacher is still like the character of Paul in A Chorus Line  who sings "Who am I anyway?"
When the theatre teacher is still pining for his or her fading star, the journey can not be about their students.
The profession of educational theatre is as much a calling as any other teaching profession.
Just because one was an actor does not make that person a good theatre teacher.

A Theatre Teacher needs to be emotional mature. Theatre On Purpose, at its core, is about recognizing  unprocessed pain and using theatre as a means to facilitate  healing and wholeness.
The Theatre on Purpose practitioner has taken responsibility for processing his or her own pain and disappointment, so that his work with students can be fully about the student's growth.

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst then be false to any man.


 Copyright Amy Luskey-Barth 2014

Take It From the T.O.P.

INTRODUCTION

I have been developing Theatre on Purpose (T.O.P.) for my entire career but began to articulate the philosophy during my graduate training as a Pastoral Counselor in 2001.  There are a number of dimensions to the approach, including a foundation of psychological theory.
I adhere to an integrative model of theatre education that begins with the personality of the student actor. My work with students is motivated by an understanding of the creative personality but more specifically, the actor's personality.

Shakespeare said, "All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players." For the actor, this is more than a metaphor.  It becomes a confusing internal conflict that blurs the boundaries of the foot lights and real life.

In my over twenty-six year career as a theatre educator, I have found a commonality of experience among student actors that has led me to study and examine various personality theories and to seek methods that can help young students overcome some of the common anxieties, insecurities, neuroses, and behaviors that can lead to unhealthy, self-defeating, and destructive choices. By
using theatre arts as a means to help students develop a strong sense of their "real" selves, they are able to apply their gifts and talents with a sense of confidence, purpose, and direction that is not confused by the inherent messages found in the entertainment industry - a message that thrives on grandiosity, powerlessness, and narcissistic behavior.
Ironically, in a profession where the vocabulary is ripe with images of "mask" and "persona," Theatre On Purpose strives to help students take off the mask to discover their actual self.

The stereotype of the insecure, needy actor was never so poignantly portrayed than in the 1975 Michael Bennett Tony award-winning musical, A CHORUS LINE.
Stylistically ground-breaking, A CHORUS LINE is comprised of a series of character monologues and songs designed to tell the personal stories of the actor/dancer's lives and what led them to a life in the theatre.

Who am I anyway? Am I my resume? That is a picture of a person I don't know. What does he want from me? What should I try to be? So many faces all around and here we go.... I need this job. Oh God, I need this show. 

Sung by the character of Paul in the opening number of A CHORUS LINE,  these lyrics are pertinent to the discussion of the development and perception of self.  Paul's interior monologue is prompted by a question posed by the director in the context of an audition.

Because actors are caught in the perpetual world of auditioning, the need to win approval through performance to get the job can create a sense of self-loathing and failure.  The actor's destiny lies with the all-powerful casting director.  In this example from A CHORUS LINE, the actor, Paul, becomes confused - "Who am I anyway?" and "What does he want from me? What should I try to be?"
This question leads inevitably to the conclusion that the real Paul in his unique "who-ness" may not be enough and so a fictionalized self may become necessary to "get the job."

The anxiety that develops from the incessant need to perform according to someone else's standards renders the actor powerless over his own destiny. Competition, comparison, and fear of failure dominate and becomes fertile breeding-ground for self-doubt, criticism, and inferiority.

Theatre on Purpose begins with the premise that through intentional awareness, intervention, and practices at the early stage of a young actor's development, this confusion can be thwarted.  The goal of the theatre educator using T.O.P.  is to help the student actor understand his own unique gifts and to have a sense of self that can overcome the dominant forces of a profession that thrives on insecurity and inferiority.

Copyright Amy Luskey-Barth 2014

Living the Questions

Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything.

From Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

Patience has never been one of my strong points. It seems I was born in a hurry and haven’t stopped racing since that day over a half century ago. I have lived my life with a sense of urgency and intensity. Lately though, something has been happening slowly from within. My full throttled outward productivity level is downshifting. I am learning about containment. I am learning about restraint. I am learning about silence. I am learning about listening. I am learning about selectivity. I am learning about patience. I have spent twenty-six years - over 40% of my life, focused on producing and directing other artist’s work. My contribution to the artistic world has amounted to interpretation, analysis, and attempts at communication of a playwright’s intent. The stage, my canvas, the materials borrowed. The required energy is focused outward, driven by the demands of production. The ephemeral nature of theatre leaves but a memory, an imprint of an experience. A moment here or there. Transcendent moments perhaps – even transformative experiences - but lasting only in the minds of an audience.

Recently, I walked the festival grounds in Laguna Beach, taking in the artwork created by local painters, photographers and sculptors. I read the artists’ statements next to their work. Their work. Physically present for me to look at. I was struck by the uniqueness and individuality of each artist’s style and their attempt at saying something through their art. Only patience could create such art. I found myself genuinely inspired. And I began to ask myself what it is that I have to say? What is it that is uniquely my own? What do I need to do in what Sara Lawrence- Lightfoot calls, “The third chapter?” It is not an answer I seek. It is a new question. In her essay, Coming to Writing, Helen Cixous says, “what misfortune if the question should happen to meet its answer. It’s the end!”

With each answer, a little death - stagnation. With each question, a new birth - vision. Is this what Rilke means by “ripening?”

I believe one of the most important gifts a theatre educator can give one's students is to continue to live the questions. Staying open to what inspires. Listening deeply to the stirrings of the creative orphans inside. 

Ask a different question. It is the only path to relevance.

Copyright Amy Luskey-Barth 2014

Performing Arts in the Digital Age

In today’s world, where instant is everything - where we seemingly are more connected than at any other time in history, as an arts advocate, I would assert that in many ways we are more distant than at any other time. We don’t talk to one another, we email, text, tweet, snapchat. In the digital age, Youtube, facebook, and instagram are the sources of entertainment, discussion, and information. While all of these technological advancements have made an indisputably positive contribution to our society, their power has also made the role of the arts all the more important and vital to the culture. There is no replacing the experience of a live performance - whether it be in the theatre, at a choir performance, or in the concert hall listening to an orchestra – each of these art forms is brought to an audience by living, breathing human beings.

Students of the performing arts learn what it means to practice, to commit to a discipline, to rehearse and to channel the energy necessary for artistic expression. They understand that there is nothing instant about achieving excellence – but rather, it is the very opposite – time - that allows the musician, singer, artist or actor to develop in her craft- and it is a life-long pursuit. Passion, desire, drive and love are at the heart of this commitment. Creativity is the divine, God-given energy that flows through every human being – and the artist is the channel for that energy. Imagine a world without beauty. A world without the music of Mozart, the poetry of Shakespeare or the biting societal commentary of Arthur Miller. The musicians and the dramatists reflect our world back to us – holding “the mirror up to nature” as Shakespeare so eloquently wrote.

Social networking cannot replace the authentic relationships, respect, and community that are created in a performing arts ensemble. The teamwork required for collaboration transcends technology and relies entirely on interpersonal communication and emotional sensitivity. High touch may have been replaced by high tech in most areas of our life today – but not to for the cellist, guitarist, or singer. Not to the actor or dancer – To the artists, it is all about high touch.

And the greatest touch of all – is the one that touches our hearts – makes us feel and, as Arthur Miller said, become “more fully human.”

Resources: Educational Theatre Association

Copyright Amy Luskey-Barth 2014