New Project: Acting Techniques Applied to Life

What Happens when You Apply Theatre Acting Techniques to Your Life?

In short, you get much better at life. After all, if you are not performing for an audience, you are performing for yourself, friends, family, and everyone in some sense or another. This is my journey of what happened to me when I began applying some what I was learning in my acting classes to my life and how this journey is inspiring me to launch a project called, "Life is a Play."

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players..."
- Shakespeare, Jaques in As You Like It

Improved Performance Through Fictional Character Development

I fell in love with theatre performance after high school while studying theatre at American River College (ARC). This wasn't my first experience with performance. I had performed in several church plays throughout my childhood, as well as the Rio Linda High School broadcast team, and a couple short movies I made). However, ARC was my first experience with the concept of character development.

Fictional character development exercises were sometimes exhaustive. For example, exercises would include answering 20 questions from the perspective of my character in a play or scene that I would be performing: likes, dislikes, favorite food, passions, etc. Exercises like this made my performances richer, my characters rounder, and my overall stage presence fuller. Performing well, became a skill that I wanted mastery over.

Performance has loyalty to NO stage

While in the theatre program, I met an older gentleman in an elective class called Introduction to Digital Video Editing. He told me about a friend of his who was a stage actor and moved on to become a prominent business man by treating the corporate world as a stage. This was inspiration for me to take my acting talent to the next level. Unfortunately, I neither remember the names of my classmate or the businessman. But it did get me thinking more about the versatility of performance.

Performance on stage is no different from performance on the job, or life for that matter.

Slowly but surely, I began to apply everything I knew about theatre to my real life. Relationships blossomed, job performance grew, and my life changed for the better.

Applying acting technique to my own life

When it came time for me to apply for a job at Best Buy, I thought I might try applying that same 20 question character development exercise that I had done so many times for theatre scenes and plays. My fictional character would be "The best Best Buy employee ever." This character was friendly, helpful, respectful, eager to do well, and very sharp. The exercise worked wonders for me. It was as if I became an instant professional within the interview. I got the job. Though getting a job at Best Buy is hardly an amazing feat, but the exercise process I went through was amazing. It felt as though I had figured out a secret to life.

A Commitment to Character Development

With an Associates of Arts degree in Theatre - Acting and later a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration - Entrepreneurship, two practical degrees for creativity and performance, I became committed to applying everything I learned to life. And it doesn't stop there. I am still so hooked on developing my performance as a human being, that I’m constantly chewing through books to become a better husband, friend, worker, and person.

More about Performance

A few years ago I read a book called The Three Laws of Performance by Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan. They paint a beautiful analogy about life being a three act play. It goes like this:

The first act is the past.
The second act is the present.
And the final act is the future.

The past cannot be changed. However, the present and future can.

Because you have control over your choices in the present and the future act, you have control over your destiny. You are like an author of your own life. You are the main character in your own play. And you write the script. Of course you can’t write the script of your entire environment, but you do have much more control than you might originally think.

After all, you have a choice to become anything you want. You have the ability to take hold of your destiny and shape your life into a great character. Steven Covey says it well in a quote that I couldn't help but commit to memory when I first heard it in an audio book.

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness."
- Steven Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

My First Encounter with Scripting My Future

Speaking of destiny and scripting the future. Choices are simply steps toward our destiny - our respective and collective future.

When I was a child, I didn't care much for performing well. I just liked goofing off. Needless to say, I didn't have much appreciation for some of the rules of adults. They didn't always make much sense. For example - no laughing, no running, no making your fingers into guns. I was just a child. I simply wanted to do my own thing. However, there comes a time in every young man’s life (for me it was age 7), when purpose calls out.

This purpose stemmed out of an adult’s reaction to my playful spirit. Apparently my playfulness was interpreted, by my Sunday school teacher as a problem. Maybe I was disruptive. But whatever it was, she made sure that I knew of her disapproval with a scowl and sharp bitter words of discouragement.

Her disapproval was my stimulus. Now I had a choice. I could have allowed myself to believe that I was indeed a problem, but instead "purpose" saved me. I got an enlightened idea that I could change the world. I told my teacher that "when I grow up" I will treat children like they were people. I said that I will be an adult that gives rights to children.

Consequently, I did grow up. And I became a man who treats children like they are people. And because of this, I find it easy to connect with children. This experience was my first encounter with scripting my future. I made a choice and it has definitely impacted my growth and happiness. I wrote part of my future and developed myself as a character in the process.

Putting it all together - Developing My Character

I just discussed two examples that stem from the world of the theatre stage. The first was a character exercise from my theatre class, and the other was a concept from a book. Both of which have empowered me through scripting my own life. In the first, I meditated on playing the best role that I possibly can at Best Buy. In the second example, I reached into my past and identified a single moment where a life changing choice was made that helped to develop who I am today.

I’m not just another character in a play. I am the main character in my own play. And I write the script. I’m convinced that the stage can be a powerful and beautiful teacher if we allow it to teach.

I really enjoy real life character development in the sense of "Personal Development" - gaining personal skills in communication, goal setting, productivity, willpower, relationships (romantic, friendships, and leadership dynamics), emotional intelligence, finances and budgeting, as well as job skills. I love these topics.

And it started with my deep desire to make more sense out of school and apply as much as I could to life.

Now what?

You have many choices in life. And I believe wholeheartedly that all the choices you make in life shape your destiny and future. So it’s important to ask yourself about who you want to become. What character do you want to play for real. If you are having trouble pinpointing who you want to become, start with your priorities. What are your passions? What’s important to you? How do you want to interact with other people? Use priorities to guide you as you develop your own character.

Life is a Play concept

I want to explore and share more about techniques within acting that can be taken and applied to real life. I’d like to take these ideas, techniques, and exercises and make them applicable to real life character development.

This project is called, "Life is a Play" - inspired by the analogy in The Three Laws of Performance.

I don’t exactly know what this project will blossom into, but I have a good idea that it will empower people. A friend of mine and I have been developing ideas for this project, and I’m excited to have gotten started by sharing about it within this post. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the launch of "Life is a Play."

As always, I would love to hear your feedback about this in the comments section below. Thanks.

Samuel Hatton is passionate about entrepreneurial activities. He builds,  implements and runs marketing programs at Endsight, SF Bay Area's choice locally outsource IT support provider. He also creates ventures like Life is a Play, a program dedicated to professional development motivation. You can find him on Google+ and Twitter. Samuel is always up for good discussions and activities regarding careers, marketing, entrepreneurship, performance, and dancing.