Let's get one thing straight:

I CAN, therefore I teach. I don't believe in this "Those who can't are the ones who teach" mentality. It is the passion of a teacher that creates ardent students and ultimately human beings that we actually want to know.

Consider every 'cool' person you've ever met, I guarantee they had an amazing teacher behind them.

All that said, I fell into teaching, and as I fell, I kicked, screamed, and grasped onto anything I could find. Not because I didn't want to teach, but basically, because when you're falling into an unknown abyss the natural reaction is to kick and scream and fight. One day in the near future, I will recount the the journey of that fall, but it is the discovery in that journey that kindles my passion. That discovery is the impact of theatre on every person who crosses its path--from the naysayer to the enthusiast--theatre engages all of us and makes us better human beings.

How does theatre do this? After all, theatre is simply there to entertain us, right?

Yes. Theatre does entertain, in the same way life entertains--with all the ups, downs, sideways, slams, falls, screams, laughs, fights, and guffaws life entertains us with on a daily basis.

Theatre gives perspective. At its heart, theatre not only forces us to walk in another man's shoes, but to breathe and live in those shoes. Whether you're portraying the character or simply watching his life unfold on the stage you are living in his space, breathing his life, and experiencing his world. There is no separation when you are in the same room of the event.

Now translate that into a theatre classroom. A place where trust is at the core and risk is essential. In each class, students jump into a variety of lives from all walks of life. In order to do so the students ask and answer questions.

Questions like:

Why is are you saying that?
How do you feel about the person you are talking to?
Why are you angry right now?
What do you want?
What are you doing to try to get it?
What do you want that person to do?

Here's the beauty. The conversation inevitably leads to the student exploring her own past and thinking about what she would do in the character's situation.

The student begins to think:
Why would I say that?
When have I felt this way?
Why did I feel this way?

The student then gets to explore and work through that emotional field in an environment that not only encourages it but demands it.

So in one class, you have student considering another person's motives as well as her own. The perspective is experienced on a personal level.  The student walks out in her shoes having just lived for an hour another's shoes.

In the classroom, for a brief moment, they see the world and the people in it a little differently.  And hopefully, that carries over into the world outside the classroom.

That is why I teach. I am passionate about the craft of acting because it helps me balance and understand my world, and teaching it gives me the opportunity to share that passion, that perspective, that heart of theatre.