6 Ways Acting Taught Me Courage

In Memoriam

Wheelice "Pete" Wilson, Jr.

My first & favorite director

~

     Sometimes courage begins before you even need it.

     My brother and I began participating in our local community theater at ages 6 and 8, respectively. We played the roles of chicks/goslings, which required one costume change of a yellow pillowcase (chick) to a purple pillowcase (gosling). From opening night, we were hooked . . .

     We went on to do a combined twelve shows at the same theater, seven of which we were both in.

     Our longtime theater director, who we first met in 2007, passed away last month, and today we honored him with a celebration of life at the new black box theater that was his long-held dream.

     I wrote the following post the week he passed away as I reflected on all he had taught me.

6 Ways Acting Taught Me Courage

1. No stage fright. This is the one you were most expecting to see on this list. So I've put it first for your convenience. Working on stage for so long and from such a young age, I got used to being in front of people, so my high school speech class was a breeze with eight roles already behind me.

2. Suspension of disbelief. As a child, when watching other forms of media that could easily be terrifying, I could recall that, just as I was an actor, they were just actors in costumes with props and special effects. These theater terms gave names to the otherwise scary combination of effects. This reassurance has shaped how I view entertainment in its various forms.

3. Slow growth. Theater builds your courage by not throwing you into the biggest role as your first. This kept me humble and allowed me to slowly work up to being on stage alone narrating the opening of a show (Beth in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever). This is just like life, where you start on a small stage (your family, school) but may find yourself with a larger (college, adulthood) and larger (CEO, President, etc.) platform over time.

4. People skills. I owe a huge part of my current extraversion and confidence to being around a myriad of actors of all life stages, beliefs, and lifestyles. Theater was where I first interacted with people who openly smoked, drank, etc. It was where I was first asked out (as a dare! silly boys!) and turned down a date (his loss).

5. Humility. Acting taught me how to work hard, do my part, and learn my lines. Theater showed me how I was just a cog in a larger system. Instead of being told that I could do anything I set my mind to, I developed another kind of confidence—less me-centered and more team-centered. We could do hard things, and we could help each other get there by running lines or doing each other's hair and makeup.

6. Emotional intelligence. Through his many nights and many decades of directing, my director pushed us to be better. This often came through in passionate outbursts, but he wasn't angry. He was simply trying to get us to be the best that we could be. This taught me how to read others' emotions more analytically and interpret them more diversely than I had in early childhood. I didn't need to be scared.

     . . . Back to that very first show I was in: Charlotte's Web. I remember the very moment when my director said, "I need someone responsible to lead the other goslings onto stage for curtain call." And then out of all the purple-smocked children, I was chosen to lead the way onto the stage in that very first performance. I was elated to be recognized for my evident firstborn gifts, but I had so much more to learn over the next decade.

     While my friends may think that my confidence sprang from nothing, it really came from the theater!

~Madeline