Teaching ‘life skills through stage skills’
Starting Monday, I will spend eight weeks teaching Playmaking to hundreds of students at the Springer Theatre Academy. I’m very excited; it is my first time teaching the summer camp and the first time a playwriting class is being offered. I am also nostalgic.
I was part of the first class of Springer Academy students 20 years ago. I never fail to credit Academy with my love of the craft of theater-making. Those summer classes taught me how to be a good listener, how to utilize my strengths and how to step outside of my comfort zone day after day. They also taught me empathy, perhaps the most valuable lesson of all.
Empathy is not easy for any one of us to master. And in this self-interested and — centered age, it is an accomplishment to cultivate a generation of empathetic young people. To be empathetic is not only to hear the stories and witness the emotions of others, but also to feel them, too. It requires energy and stamina. Empathy may ask you to feel some pain and sorrow, knowing full well that these feelings didn’t originate with you. It requires you to bear burdens that don’t belong to you. It requires a degree of ego death and promotes the desire to help those in need.
In Playmaking class, we will learn craft. We will talk structure and character building. We will build conflict and follow traditions of narrative arc. But we will also create pieces that are completely original and rooted in empathy and curiosity.
I will ask my students to reveal their deepest fears and their greatest hopes. To talk about what they find unjust in the world and what they love most about life. They will find overlap with one another. They will learn new things about one another. And then, instead of going about their business, they will go about one another’s business.
They will dig deeper together into these hopes and fears and collaboratively create sympathetic characters with goals that are relatable and interesting. They will strengthen their empathy muscles. Whether they leave camp and begin careers as young playwrights or forget about theater entirely, I hope they will have a renewed interest in the world around them and a heart that opens up for others.
Springer Theatre Academy says often that they teach “life skills through stage skills.” Logic and a moral code can take society far, but the ability to empathize with one another elevates us from strangers to community members. I’m so encouraged by the chance to strengthen my own life skills alongside these artistic young people all summer long.
Natalia Naman Temesgen is an independent contractor. Contact her at nntemesgen@gmail.com.
This story was originally published May 27, 2016 at 2:31 PM with the headline "Teaching ‘life skills through stage skills’."