I recently met with my academic advisor to begin planning my courses for the spring semester. In this meeting, we discussed my recent wish to double major. The major I’m adding on is Theatre Performance. The subsequent comment was, “I find it very interesting that you’re so quiet and introverted, but want to major in theatre performance.” This is not the first time (or even the second or the third) that I have heard something of this caliber. And I admit, it is an oxymoronic combination. However, it is not an impossible combination.
Standing outside the realm of theatre, it may make very little sense why the quiet and shy student would choose to pursue performing arts. Inside the realm of theatre, at least to me, it makes perfect sense. I struggle to think of the right words to say in a casual conversation and relax to comfortably be myself in most social situations.
On a stage or in the context of a show, I don’t need to think of the right words to say because they have already been written. I do not need to be myself because the art of performing theatre is being someone else. I am an introverted actor, but when I am acting, I am not an introvert. I am not even me.
My freshman year of high school, I agreed with the spectators of theatre that being introverted and being an actor simply did not go together. I could entertain the role as a hobby, but it could never be something I could truly excel at. I will never be the personality that can make everyone in a room laugh in seconds or befriend a group of people in one day and I thought this meant I did not have the personality of an actor.
My personality lacks charisma and instantaneous likability, so therefore my life would eventually lack theatre. At least, that was what I thought. Then, as I was struggling to accept and embrace my introversion and all its accompanying awkwardness, my freshman year director told me something that will always stick with me: I may be quiet, but I am not invisible, on a stage or in real life.
Theatre performance is not a craft for the meek or afraid, however, it is not a craft that is exclusively for extraverts as I once believed. Perhaps I am a walking, talking, oxymoron, but I am a self-proclaimed introverted actor. It is a possible combination.
