09/02/2022
https://mattfotis.medium.com/yes-you-should-major-in-theatre-a868d9733957
William Shakespeare said, “all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts” (“As You Like It”, Act two, Scene seven).
Within the realm of academics, theater is an often misunderstood or overlooked discipline. Many fail to see that skills acquired on the stage directly translate to skills required by today’s workforce. Consider this: what is a job interview if not an audition? Many downplay theater as just an exaggerated form of playtime, but at the end of that day those fun and games can lead to a promising career, and not just on the stage.
Simulations are an educational tool that are increasing in popularity and demand, but they are also, at a foundational level, a form of theater. A common use of the simulation tool is to place students into a mock interview scenario. They put their acquired skills and know-how to the test by role playing opposite an avatar who is considering them for the job. In this situation theater becomes reality, and the right theatrical skills beget success.
We sat down with Dr. Alicia Corts, the Associate Dean of Florida, as well as curriculum and instruction and Associate Professor of theatre and film at Carson Newman University in Tennessee—formerly an Associate Professor of theatre at Saint Leo University—to learn how she helped her students translate theatrical skills into real-world soft skills through the power of the Simulated Experiences at Saint Leo.
1.) Speaking from your experience as a thespian and an educator, how do you feel that studying and or majoring in theater prepares you for life in the real world and for position in today's workforce.
“So, theater is a really interesting discipline, because we encompass a lot of work skills. So, when I talk about theater, we can talk about it in terms of like, ‘I feel that all you really do is play’ and ‘I am, like, a character’, and it gets very sort of hippy woo-woo kind of strangeness that people don't understand. They think it's somehow some kind of almost divination, like some kind of witchcraft that we make. The truth of the matter is, what we do is we utilize an incredible amount of skills that employers are actually looking for. So, when you start breaking down what we do in the theater into employable skills—which is exactly what I arranged the theater major at Saint Leo to do—then what you have are people who are enjoying, again, a process that is play, but at the same time are learning something that is very deeply embedded. It actually creates a way of learning something in your bones, not just in your head. It feels more like an experience, and because of that experience you actually know how to apply the skill in a way that gives you the confidence to go out and do that.
So, for example, a director in the theater needs to be a project manager, they need to have all the details in place, they need to have all the personnel issues in place, they need to have all the things, but we don't talk about it as project management, we talk about it as directing your show, producing a show. As a director, I also have to make sure the actors are comfortable and understand the goals for their character. That's human resources. That's about talking about goals and expectations for employees and how to set those job descriptions.
So, that's really how theater becomes an amazing experience. You can learn about project management at the business school, or you can read books about it. You can even maybe even do a class exercise a case study. But you haven't actually stepped out on the high wire to see if you can actually walk across it until you walk through the theater.”
2.) Using the simulated experiences that St. Leo, you directly placed your students in a situation where they must rely on their theatrical skills to overcome a specific challenge and accomplish a set goal. So could you elaborate in your own words, how you came to the idea to use the simulations, to educate your students, but as well as to forge the link between theatrical performance and an everyday experience.
“So, one of the things that I discovered by teaching our Intro to Theater class at Saint Leo is that students really need to make the liberal arts make sense to their lives. At first I had been doing monologues when we got to the acting unit. They did monologues and then hated it. ‘What's the point? Why am I doing this?’ And when they started to ask those questions was when I went, ‘Yeah, how does this apply to every major?’ Not everybody's going to do a monologue and frankly, they don't. And that's not what this course is supposed to be. It's supposed to be about giving them theatrical skills for life. So, when do we act and when do we perform? And that became a conversation about, well, you have to go to a job interview and your performance is what will or won’t get you the job. You're performing as someone that they want to hire, and you're trying to figure out who that character is. And that’s all the things we do as actors but applied in the real world. So, we did that in the on-ground classroom. I would be their director and they get up, I would ask them a question, and they would respond. And then as a director, I would tear their performance apart. And I mean that gently, obviously, as a theater director, but it would be things like, ‘you tap your toe the entire time and what that tells me is that you're nervous or you're probably lying,’ and ‘you touched your nose, which is definitely a sign of lying. And then you kept playing with your hair, which was incredibly distracting, and shows me that you didn't really care about the job,’ that kind of feedback. It's a feedback loop theater does that tells you what it is you’re doing, you get responses back from the community, and then you can strengthen it. The Simulated Experiences at Saint Leo gives online students the ability to experience that same idea in a very real-world possibility. It gives them all of those skills, a chance to perform, and then a chance to get feedback.”
3.) So, would you say that the simulations did prove an effective teaching tool?
“Something that I noticed about the students who went to the class for the first time was that they were really nervous going into the simulation. I have met a lot of professors who are like, ‘Hey, I don't want them to be nervous, I want them to approach this with confidence.’ You have to be nervous before you can be confident! And what a wonderful place to experience the nerves and get over them than in a simulation that's safe and controlled within a classroom environment? So, I love that these simulations give them the opportunity to fail well, not to go in and just nail it the first time, but to go in nervous and jittery and then be able to review their performance with video, see where they went wrong, and fix the problems before they go to a real interview. That process was beautiful.”
4.) Would you say that your students’ theatrical skills met your expectations and that utilizing the Simulated Experiences helped them to succeed?
“Absolutely! So, one of the things that you commonly see in a course is kids who come in and go, ‘Well, this is the only thing that was offered. I don't really care.’ And there was this one kid I can’t forget—we’re just going to call him ‘Jim.’ Jim was a business major; he was going to set the business world on fire. But when he would come to the live sessions, Jim had a really hard time speaking in front of the class. He wasn’t about to set the business world on fire unless he could present ideas effectively.
One of the things that I had set up was before they go into simulation, they would actually do it with me first so they have a way of practicing before they go into the simulation. And I was pretty blunt with him. He showed up in a raggedy old t shirt coming straight out of a workout. He couldn't talk he would, you know, ‘right, like, yeah, uh-huh,’ and all of that all the way through the interview. He didn't perform effectively for me, but when he came to the simulation his costume was on point and he had set up his background in such a way that it looked professional. He hadn’t totally gotten rid of his nerves, but he presented 100 times better than the first time he did it. And that was with a total stranger rather than me, his professor! Did he still have some room to grow? Yes. And did he know the process of how to do that? Yes, because the simulation guided him through that process.”
Theater is a beneficial subject for any discipline. Regardless of the career field you are entering, some time well spent onstage will imbue you with a universal set of skills. Simulations are a just one of the newest and most successful examples of theater shaping young minds for the work force. Be it hospitality, marketing, education and beyond, theatrical soft skills have a part to play in landing you the job and helping you perform it to the fullest.
No Other Major Better Prepares You for the 21st Century Workforce
