Break Away
the role theater played in taking me from a shy, bottled up child to being a drama director
Right now, I am in the crux of directing the musical, Aladdin (with two separate casts of students performing on two separate weekends). Costumes are being decided upon, set is being built, rehearsals are getting more crucial as we approach our show in a few short weeks.
I am the director of The Family Room Theater, a Christian drama group primarily for homeschoolers. It began back in 2009 in the basement of my Dad’s auto shop, fondly called “The Family Room,” born out of a desire to provide theater experience for my own dramatic children!
Theater opened me up to a whole new world. As a young child, I was very shy and introverted. Although I had a few close friends and cousins that I hung out with regularly, when in public, in school especially, I didn’t feel comfortable to talk at all, I wouldn’t utter a word.
In middle school, while being involved in a gifted music program, we were asked to write and perform our own musical. The music part I was good with, but acting and singing in front of people scared me.
I was appointed to be a cop and to write a song that I would sing. I can still hear the melody of it in my head as I type the lyrics, “That’s it, you’re busted, you’re going to the clink. Your time is getting shorter and you’re right upon the brink of messing up your lives to the point of no return. (Chanted -) Drugs hurt you and others too, have you no concern?” 😆
After writing the melody and lyrics, the next step was to sing it to all of the junior high students! Even though I was part of my Mom’s children’s choir and regularly sang in front of the church family I grew up with, singing in front of my peers in school felt very different.
Although scared out of my wits, I went onstage, put on the persona of a cop and sang the song I had written. It was a success, I did it! Something inside of me shifted that day. Those parts of me that had felt stifled and bottled up were instantly uncorked and released. I felt different, like my voice had become unlocked.
After that first experience with drama, I continued auditioning and getting small parts in our school plays and local community theater. I loved it! I also enjoyed making new friends who shared the same interests of acting and singing.
I was discovering myself, even while acting like another on stage. My confidence was being built, unfolding like a bud that gently opens up, petal by petal, never to go back again.
My senior year in high school, I got the lead role in both our fall play and spring musical, it was a dream come true! I sang the song, Beautiful Candy from the musical, Carnival. “Break away, kick your heels up and spend a day buying a feather, a fig or a bead, buy yourself something you really don’t need. Something sweet like beautiful candy, too pretty to eat.”
I had certainly broken away! Away from the shyness and awkwardness, away from the fear, away from being stifled and bottled up. I felt free! I could bring a part of myself into every role.
Theater played a key role in my developmental years! And now, as a drama director, I am helping home school students, some, shy like I was, to “break away” from their inhibitions and fears. To watch them go from bud to blossom, like I did through theater, brings me great joy!
It has been a bonus to be able to direct each and every one of my 9 children over the past 17 years! Only my youngest son, 14 year old Sam, is still in my theater group, as the others have aged out. I have loved being able to introduce each of my children to theater and watch it transform their lives, as it did mine!
I’m a strong advocate for the value of theatre in kids’ lives. And I’m involved with a community theatre that has a great children’s program, thankfully.