There are people who believe that artists live in a fantasy world, so encumbered by their own imaginations that they don’t see the world as it really is. We at Artists from Suburbia ardently oppose this idea. What, we ask, is life but a multitude of ways in which individuals experience and interpret it?
With the current political climate, it has become ever more imperative that we, as a society and as a community, think about the struggles of other people. This requires imagination and this requires listening to one another: these two things together are the fundamental aspects of an artist in the theatre community. Actors, playwrights, directors, and everyone collaborating within a production team and contributing to the creation of a work in theatre, is called to have a greater understanding of their own experience in order to equally understand others’ perspectives so that the story being presented to the audience is genuine and affecting. For an actor to realistically embody a character, they must imagine what that character was doing before they stepped into that scene. They must think about what the character wants in that specific moment and they must distinguish the intentions of each singular sentence their character speaks. To act is to participate in a psychological exploration of someone who is not one’s self. To spend the time outside of one’s own head is the very definition of empathy. Audience members attend theatre to witness a narrative separate from their own. Many people turn to performance as an escape from their own world, yes, but those who truly delve into and understand what is being represented to them cannot stop themselves from connecting parts of what they are seeing to themselves. They can sympathize and empathize with the characters they see on the stage, no matter how different their own background may be. The theatre is a great equalizer in this sense. It reminds us that we are all human after all. This is why theatre is such a valuable weapon now - and has been ever. Ally Madden is a frequent collaborator with AfS and will be serving as dramaturge/ assistant director for this summer's new play workshop.
4 Comments
Simona Duquette
2/2/2017 06:22:42 am
Ally, thank you for writing this. "To spend the time outside of one’s own head is the very definition of empathy." I hope we, as country can all start being more empathic than we have been over the past few months!
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Ethan
2/2/2017 03:25:52 pm
Love your perspective Ally!
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Allison
2/10/2017 11:55:00 am
Ally <3 this is beautiful. Good job!
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Josh Pinilla
3/5/2017 10:37:18 pm
You keep saying your gonna respect "every voice" but then all of these posts are written with the same political slant. This company does NOT represent the majority of Americans. Most of us are done with the complaining and happy with the man WE eclected.
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AuthorBlog posts are written by various members of Artists from Suburbia's productions and staff. Archives
July 2017
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