theatre
Tonight we open our production of Oliver at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre.
This is my 4th show here since I moved from NYC to WPB in 2016.
This month I have worn the hats I wear of therapist and soul care leader less,
and I brushed the dust off another familiar hat… my performer hat.
I love this hat. It’s one of my most favorite hats.(look, I made a hat) iykyk.
I have been trying to find voice and language for what theatre has meant to me in my life… this is my attempt.
I want to start with the importance of arts oriented spaces in my life ages 4-22.
Ballet studios. Church choirs. Show choirs. Community theatre’s. Acting classes. Performing arts grade school. Performing arts hight school. Musical theatre shows. Broadway tours and shows. Exposure to these things was deeply forming for me. I started ballet and dance classes at age 4 and never stopped. I started performing with a local community theatre in middle school and there wasn’t a year that went by until 2017 and 2021 (because of grad school and covid) that I did not do a show or perform. Wild. I had a vagabond life in my 20’s because of this but it was worth it.
I had diverse exposure to the arts that formed me and inspired me in more ways that I think I have ever given it credit. This is my attempt to give credit where it is due.
Theatre gave me the gift of empathy and eyes to see beauty, struggle, and resilience in humanity.
The stories I was exposed to in the theatre filled me with curiosity about being a human.
BECOMING A THERAPIST
My deep curiosity for how people work and what’s really going on with them started young and eventually led me to this career as a therapist.
But I believe this started earlier…in the theatre.
Being a therapist is a second career for me that I began when I was 30 years old. I hit the big 3.0. and I felt something new was forming inside of me that needed to be birthed. But this meant leaving behind the career that made built me. The only life and occupation I had known (other than teaching theatre, waiting tables, and nannying in order to keep performing.) I received a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre from Florida State University and I spent my adolescence and my entire 20’s working as a performer.
Then, I told stories from stages all across the nation to those sitting in the audience.
Now, I listen to stories and help people make sense of their own and turn towards themselves with curiosity and compassion.
"Theatre is like a gym for empathy. It’s where we can go to build up the muscles of compassion, to practice listening and understanding and engaging with people that are not just like ourselves.
We practice sitting down, paying attention and learning from other people’s actions. We practice caring."-Bill English, SF Playhouse
STORY
Story has always been a part of me but I never knew how deeply I was formed by the ones that were told to me through the craft of Musical Theatre…
I lived through the story of 1950’s America through the eyes and heart of a Latin girl who moved from Puerto Rico to the West Side of New York City and fell in love with a boy with lighter skin than hers. Her experience of racially motivated violence and loss of her loved ones, yet still found space in her heart to imagine that there is a place for us all… somewhere a place for us. - West Side Story
I wept and soared with the story of a young plain black girl named Celie who was chronically abused by her father (and others) and had two children by him and had to give them away. I wept with her in her journey of abuse, and soared with her was she found connection, love for herself, and confidence. Her story of seeing that she was truly beautiful and finding forgiveness and hope in God and appreciation of the color purple will be with me forever.
I carried with me the story of a poor man during the French Revolution who was imprisoned for his efforts to survive and the kindness and grace of one man that changed his life. The story of a woman caught an unjust system as a woman and unable to raise her own child. I was moved by his love that motivated him to raise her daughter as his own. This story of war, forgiveness, faith, transformation, redemption, and passing his love legacy on marks me to this day.
And now… a boy, orphaned, abused, dismissed in Dickens era London. A boy who dared to ask for more. A system that continued to hold down the lowly and that was nearly impossible to transcend. A rag tag of children finding community in their plight of being orphaned. A group in search for a place and people to call home. A glimpse into the deep reality of classism, struggle, survival, community, love, and home. I find myself at home in this story.
The craft of telling stories through acting, singing, and dancing cultivated things in me the I am still discovering. In my entrance essay to grad school I wrote about how empathy and curiosity were birthed in me through theatre it felt seamless to transition to work as a therapist.
Theatre introduced me to my emotions. My longings. Artistry. Community. Diversity.
In the theatre I could express myself. I could play roles that would make my parents cringe and find utter compassion for them and truthfulness in them. I could explore other personalities and stories that were different than my own with freedom and curiosity. I was drawn to the heartbroken characters. The ones struggling to be seen and heard. The stories of redemption and deep and wild love.
Little Sarah Claire was a sweet one who, from the outside, it may have seemed like she was always happy, always cheerful, always sunny and was charged to bring that to everyone else. But inside she was developing a real spectrum of other feelings and often used musical theatre as a midwife to help birth something truly honest.
In my world growing up there was so much love. There were also many walls.
Walls around what was happening inside. Walls around who was in and out. Who was right and who was wrong. Walls attempting to keep me from pain… from being fully human.
Later in life, because of theatre (and therapy, spirituality, and community) I started to see the gift of my own humanness… my own vulnerability and valuing it in others.
I started to learn that our unmasked, honest selves are more valuable than a “performance.” I even learned that bringing my own vulnerable self to the work made it more compelling and vibrant.
I started to lean into the importance of Story and Stories, mine and others.
I started to see the deeply spiritual nature of emotions, pain, struggle, and story.
THEATRE AS MY MENTOR
(and tormentor at times)
Theatre has been a valuable teacher to me.
Musical theatre and acting taught me that emotions were okay, celebrated even, and that in order to really give a moving performance you have to practice this thing called Vulnerability. Authenticity. Honesty. That without it you were simply “bull shitting and making pretty faces.” iykyk.
Theatre taught me about diversity. Empathy. About people, places, and experiences far from my own but with shared humanity.
Theatre taught me about hard work and consistency.
Theatre taught me the importance and gift of relationships and connection even if they were 6 week contracts or life long connections. Each person, artist, I work with is a gift to my life. Another color added to the canvas.
Theatre taught me is there is no story that is without pain and love that is worth telling. Each story that compelled me to tears watching it in a theatre or being in it on stage was a story of pain and love. When I was young, I felt deeply with each character I played and actor I watched, but there was a disconnect with my own pain. My own story. It wasn’t until later in life when I started to acknowledge and feel my own pain and deepen my own love and become curious about my story that I noticed a deepening within my experience of myself. My life. My love.
Theatre taught me about love. How to feel it in my body. How to sing it and dance it and be it. How to see it in others.
Theatre spaces also taught me things I had to unlearn such as:
how tied my enoughness and worth was to my work.
how deeply detrimental comparison my journey /career to others can be.
how I learned to judge, control, and value myself based on how my body looked.
how I valued myself and others based on my resume.
how I wanted to become a chameleon to get cast or be liked.
Some of these things got in the way of my freedom and flourishing and therapy and balancing things out has helped me relearn some things…
I am learning to celebrate all journeys instead of compare mine to others.
I am learning to love my body in all forms and shapes, not just Broadway body expression.
I am learning to value people based on their kindness and integrity first and talent and resume later, myself included.
I am learning to accept and love myself deeply as I am and not as I think others think I should be.
I am learning to embrace my talent as it is and strive for excellent not perfection.
Okay so what am I trying to communicate here?
I am so grateful I have had the privilege of doing this with my life.
Being a listener and teller of stories.
Each show for me now feels like a precious gift. Fleeting. Never to be recreated.
A treasure found and then returned to the sea. The older I get and the changes of life stage I experience allow me to lean into it even deeper.
Can I let myself be fully present here in this even though I know the show will close?
Can I let myself love these people even though the will disappear again as quickly as they came?
Can I let myself sing each note and kick each leg with the knowing it may not happen this way again?
I’d like to try.
Thank you show people. I am better because of you.
Thank you theatre gods. Thank you God God. Thank you Love.
I am beyond forever grateful for the hours I have spent in the theatre.
I am better because of them.