Somewhere along in my high school
career I developed an interest in theater. It seems strange, as I was always
terrified of being in front of any group of people. I am still not sure how he
did it, but my Youth For Christ Director, Pete, was the first get me in front
of anyone one.
I hated public speaking. I only
passed a speech class because of the paper work. I never appeared at school to
give a single speech. I got physically ill. I could even make myself throw-up.
I was terrified. Part of it was that I never believed I had anything worth
saying or that anyone would benefit by from hearing me speak. I was terrified
of being laughed at. Those concerns make my entering the ministry even
stranger.
What Pete did was ask me to make
announcements at our YFC club with a supportive audience of only 18-20. He
handed me this book of humorous skits to use to present announcements. I
usually had a partner so was not facing everyone alone. Practice helped
especially with someone saying we were doing it right. In time it got to be fun
and practice ended.
I loved the school plays and
musicals. I thought they were all spectacular. The acting was incredible and
the sets amazing. I had a hard time believing the stage could look so good. I
heard the set designer had worked on Broadway stages. It looked professional to
me. I wanted to do that, but knew I could never get on that stage.
Two of CHS Shows
Mr. Murray, my English teacher,
was also an influence. We would read Shakespeare in class while verbally acting
out the various parts. Since good ole’ “Shake” wrote like they did in the
Bible, I could read it with a degree of ease. That didn’t mean I understood it
any better. It was just as confusing as the Bible. Rather than coming out of
the class with a love for Shakespeare, I was beginning to think acting was
cool.
When Pete showed a film at an YFC
banquet that had been filmed and produced at his college, I was willing to give
up becoming an architect and wanted to go to Bob Jones University to learn filming.
That didn’t happen.
The outcome of all of this was the
beginning of a love for theater. I reached the point that I could not only do
the announcement skits, I looked forward to doing them and got confident enough
to do them on my own adlib and write my own. The thought of tackling a serious
subject in front of a crowd, never improved, but acting and writing got better,
2 comments:
I remember working with you on skits at CBC.
Dave
I also remember. I think that by those days, I was somewhat addicted. As you may know, that let to plays and more terror that anyone should put themselves in front of.
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