Making the Emotional Argument

"When faced with potential cuts [in arts programs], the response is often rational: Quoting studies and statistics, for example. But this recent post by Steven Tennen on the ARTSblog made me think that there’s a better approach. Maybe a connection on an emotional level would have more impact." --- from What do you remember?, a post at the Theaterfolk Weblog.

After I read the Theaterfolk post, I read the one by Steven on the ARTSblog, too. And I agree: we need to make the emotional argument.  So here are a few of my memories, cued by my editor's questions in preparation for our Twitter Chat last week:

• Cheryl: Ideas about theatre and improv are very important to OPERATION YES. What's your theatrical background? Favorite production you participated in?

Sara: I discovered drama much later than the sixth-graders do in OPERATION YES---I was already in high school. Some of my favorite roles were:

Alice in You Can't Take It With You---as one of the few "normal" characters in the play, it was challenging to hold my own against the wild antics of the other actors. And I kissed a boy on stage.

Rosalind in a scene with Orlando from As You Like It. We took that to state drama competition, and I believe it was the first time high schoolers had taken Shakespeare to a state-level competition in Tennessee. What I remember most was the sheer delight of saying Shakespeare's witty and intricate words---and the fact that I had to learn to do a cartwheel to enter the scene.   (And now I have a necklace with words "Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?" I wore it to the National Book Festival.) More in my post here.

Queen Elizabeth I: One of my favorite moments was being in a reader's theater production about the queens of England. I got to give a knock-em dead speech by the Queen to her troops, and as I said in my earlier post about it, "Every time I delivered it, I found my heart exploding."

• Cheryl: Did you have a teacher who changed your life as Ms. Loupe did?

Sara: My mother was a first grade teacher and she taught me to read, so that was life-changing!

Also, my high school drama teacher, Ms. Linda Lyle. She let me try anything---Shakespeare, a one-woman Emily Dickinson show, portraying Queen Elizabeth, directing other students, stage managing...

I remember her taking me for a private session with a professional actor at a stage company in Knoxville, too. The actor's name was Lucien Douglas, and yes, it was as amazing as it sounds. I could hardly breathe.

Also, I remember very distinctly that in her "space"--she didn't tape it like Ms. Loupe in OPERATION YES does, but she definitely owned her space---everyone in the school was welcome and no one was allowed to be cliquish or put in a certain box like jock or nerd. We were ALL theater people.

Theater taught me to take risks, and that creating trust among members of a group is at least as much fun and hard work as creating the play itself. But most importantly for me as a writer, theater taught me to reach for a deep, emotional connection with other people---and that words, even when delivered by a lone character on a bare stage, can change the world. 


Don't our kids today also deserve to have a deep connection to the arts and to each other? 

• For one last memory, that of my introduction to improvisation, I'm directing you to this post at the Operation Yes site:  They Called Me Pricklebutt