Trite But True: From Theatre Kid to Attorney
Writing my career retrospective miniseries has certainly taken me on an enlightening journey from 2016 to the present. For this reflection, however, I am going back even further in time—back to my childhood and young adulthood, to the absolute height of my theatre kid days in South Florida. I want to express my gratitude for a few of the skills being a theatre kid gave me, and how those skills still show up in my professional life.
When I was very little, around 5 years old, I had an intense stutter. It felt, to me, like my brain was moving faster than my mouth could possibly keep up with, and I sometimes struggled to communicate verbally with others. It’s part of why I read so much as a kid; books didn’t need an audible feedback loop. So, my parents put me in a drama class to see if that might instill in me some confidence and poise. All I remember of that class was staring at an enormous chest that held costumes and props of all textures, and the feeling of relief in getting to pretend to be someone else—someone without the anxieties or shortcomings I felt plagued my own short life (if you haven’t caught on yet, the histrionics began early). I continued taking drama and acting classes during elementary, middle, and high school and via extracurricular programs. I immersed myself in the world of musical theatre, singing, dancing, acting, and studying the arts of stagecraft, costuming, and make-up design. I blended my love of writing and theatre by participating in the South Florida Cappies, where I led our school’s team of student theatre critics in writing reviews of other high schools’ productions, reviews that were often published in the Sun-Sentinel. My time in the world of theatre felt all-encompassing; I was surrounded by creativity, beauty, and challenge. It’s deeply unsurprising that so many theatre and debate kids end up in the legal profession—perhaps it borders on the stereotypical—but it just makes sense. Here are some of my favorite skills and lessons gleaned from a young life spent on and around the stage:
Leave a place better than you found it. My high school theatre teacher, Lori Sessions, ran a tight ship. Ms. Sessions reinforced the notion that discipline should rule the world for every cast and crew member. No one was above certain tasks and no task was too menial; things simply had to get done! While other schools or drama programs may have benefited from outside funding or professional costumes and sets, we built almost everything we used from scratch. Our entire drama department designed and built our sets (with power tools!), sourced our costumes from various places including thrift stores and eBay, created props out of what felt like thin air, and much more. I mean this without exaggeration—our blood, sweat, and tears went into each production. Our acting cast and stage crew mingled constantly, and actors in particular needed to learn every piece of what makes a production tick. It instilled an unmistakable sense of pride and ownership in our collective work, and made the magic that we created onstage even more impressive. On set breakdown days, we all scrubbed, mopped, vacuumed, and dusted our theatre until it looked even better than we found it. I learned the meaning of “labor of love,” and the heady potential of what can happen when you improve the spaces you occupy, no matter how you found them.
Don’t take yourself too seriously—have the confidence to play! You cannot survive an improv class, or an improv game, if you take yourself too seriously. My childhood in theatre classes and programs made it very easy for me to laugh at myself, and to somewhat neutralize the idea of humiliation. In flubbing lines, or being silly on cue, or wearing ridiculous costumes, or messing up a dance move, or making funny voices, I found a temporary comfort and a relief from the pressurized world of puberty and ultra-self-consciousness. In the theatre, the human condition was clear: no one truly knows what we’re doing, but every once in awhile we stumble upon something genius. I now have the confidence to play in my professional life—to be fallibly human, to lower the stakes, and to make things less personal wherever possible.
Pivot, improvise, and keep it moving. My mother likes to tell a story about how, in an elementary school play, I had memorized not only my own lines but everyone else’s too. When other kids would forget their lines or miss their cues, I was right there to mouth or whisper their lines or directions to them. How incredibly helpful and not obnoxious at all! In the world of theatre, things will go awry—a missed cue, mixed-up lines, a broken prop, costume malfunctions, you name it. What we learn, though, is to pivot, improvise, and keep it moving. In the best of all possible worlds, an audience may not even catch on to a mess-up because you, as an actor, have done such a brilliant job of recovering in the moment. If a scene partner misses a line, you improvise questions or sentences to lead them to where they left off. If a costume malfunctions, you try to incorporate that into your character—perhaps it even becomes a funny bit you keep for the next show. In the moment, there’s no time to wallow in the problem or meditate on the roadblock; the scene has to keep going! I appreciate this little mantra in that it frees me up for self-reflection and introspection later, but it does not freeze me in place in the moment. This has come in handy more times than I can count in my professional life.
Embrace the physicality of presentation. As a theatre kid, I learned so much about my connection to my own body: how much space I can and should take up, how I can alter the way I move to convey different messages or character traits, how posture is paramount, or how the strength of a voice supported by deep, diaphragmatic breath can fill a room. We learn to use our bodies as tools; they are part of the costume our character wears. We learn that a slight change in cadence, volume, or diction can communicate 1,000 different thoughts in just one line. I remember being told that even when silent, I tended to have a certain “presence” as a young actor. I didn’t really understand it then. But as an attorney, the act of “public speaking” becomes a nearly everyday occurrence—whether in small meetings, during presentations, or when testifying before a governmental body. I rely so heavily on what I learned about the physicality of presentation during my theatre days to be an effective communicator in my professional life, and to hopefully rekindle that “presence” I once had.
You can find beauty even in the banal. I was blessed with a childhood spent dreaming up fantastical worlds that don’t exist, and reading about times long past (or times that never were), and deciphering spoken language that seemed very far away. My childhood and young adulthood in the theatre showed me that beauty can be found anywhere—yes, even in the seemingly banal or the mundane. As a kid, I didn’t always get the roles I wanted (I rarely did, actually), but you learn to make the absolute most of the role you are given. You learn to deepen what may appear shallow, even if just for yourself. This practice gets harder, as my current work gets farther and farther away from the worlds I used to occupy. But I still find myself searching for a fleeting glimmer of the utterly gorgeous in the work I do. Theatre gave me that yearning.
I don’t know if I’ll ever physically return to the stage. It’s odd to reflect on a universe of activity that seemed so all-encompassing before, but does not occupy much—if any—of my daily life these days. Nonetheless, I am often comforted by the many gifts growing up as a theatre kid gave me. I hold the lessons close, as they are an indelible part of who I am and always will be.
