A friend of mine told me once that she wanted to see her son expand his capacity for empathy and his willingness to work hard.
My mindwent immediately acting, since those are two of its fundamental components.
I explained to her why I thought acting class could help her son cultivate both of these attributes.
In an acting class, students learn how to imagine what it's like to live their characters lives.
They spend time considering what it must feel like to live with their set of given circumstances.
A student in an acting class when playing a character that is very different from him or herself not only spends time investing his or her heart and mind into the things that are near and dear to the character that he or she plays, but he or she might even do research on the character's set of given circumstances.
If the character lived in Italy in the 1800's, for example, the student would learn about that part of culture and start to develop a soft spot, as it were for it.
If the student was playing an extremely wealthy or extremely poor person, his or her preconceived notions would be subject to changing as she gets more knowledge about some of the challenges her character faced, and how there could be similarities in their lives.
All of this empowers acting students to take the practice of imagining what it is like to be someone else into the world and greet people with empathy and perhaps a bit of understanding.
Oftentimes, when acting students commit themselves to working on the craft, something magical happens: they enter the land of their imaginations and lose track of time.
Acting warm ups and exercises in the areas of improv, monologues, scene work, and movement allow students the opportunity to really invest in their work and to learn what it is to work hard at something through practice and determination.
When actors "get to know" their characters well, it is usually after spending hours and hours in their worlds, investing their time and energy into this world of make- believe.
When putting up a play, whether it's being part of the stage crew and building sets or making sure that all of the needs of the production are carried out, or rehearsing scenes week after week, acting class really allows students to invest in what they do and love it!