“I learned not to fight feelings that felt uncomfortable but…release it. Make it art.”

I’m writing this from backstage of the production I’m currently in, waiting to go on. The play is The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe. I play Soccer Mom, the one adult amongst a girls high school soccer team. Our characters are all moving through their daily activities, trying to figure out the world, moment by unpredictable moment.

It’s been a brutally cold winter in New Jersey. Congestion pricing has gone into effect (though that’s under threat by the federal government), my 19-year old son who is profoundly affected by autism recently received his disability benefits (though that’s under threat by the federal government), and our family celebrated the culmination of Black History Month (though that’s under threat…well, you get it). ICE is opening up a detention center in the city next door. I whisper my lines while applying my makeup. There is a deep ache the size of our country cocooned in my stomach. It is not nerves, at least not for this production. But when I get on stage, my body releases it – it metamorphoses into something beautiful, a truth that connects me to my cast mates, the audience, my soul.

It becomes part of a story that unites everyone in that room. It becomes art, we become a community, and for a moment, I feel free.

In 2023, when I first applied to the Atlantic Acting School Evening Conservatory, I did not feel free. For health reasons, my family and I quarantined hard during the pandemic; afterwards I felt like I had lost my community and much of myself. I was still grieving the loss of my sister. That grief, plus the constant worries for my loved ones – loved ones who are Black, immigrants, female, and people with disabilities – affected me so deeply, I had trouble breathing. Before the lock down, I had been performing my one-woman show and doing speaking engagements all over the country. Afterwards, I couldn’t figure out how to step outside and take a breath of fresh air. I’d been a published writer for 15 years but writing in solitude wasn’t what I needed. I felt isolated and depleted.

The life I’d had, filled with the joys of creating art and community, was gone and I didn’t know how to resuscitate it. Then, one day, the Atlantic Acting School ad popped up on my screen. “This,” I said. “This.”

At Atlantic, I learned how to channel everything inside of myself into a character who is not only telling her truth, but mine. Our teachers were fantastic:  in Script Analysis and Performance Technique, we broke down a script to evaluate the writer’s intention as well as the characters’. Using the technique of Practical Aesthetics, we uncovered the beats of the script, and explored essential actions that made both the character and story feel truthful. In Voice, Katie Bull taught me how to let go of the tension in my body through roll downs, mindful stretching, and vocal exercises; I learned how to use my voice and keep it healthy, but in so many ways, she taught me how to breathe again.

In Moment Lab, I learned not to fight feelings that felt uncomfortable but include them in my character’s action, apply them to benefit the story. Release it. Make it art.

My community of peers was extraordinary. My classmates are a diverse, eclectic, funny, enthusiastic, and brilliant bunch. Their talent and encouragement added to the sheer joy of creating new worlds with them.

We shared our challenges, hopes, fears, and successes – it felt like the most truthful place to be in a society in which honesty is increasingly devalued.

In life, sometimes you know exactly where you need to be at a given moment. During orientation the first day, sitting next to Chloe and one empty seat away from Surya, I knew that place was Atlantic.

That generous community spirit didn’t end with graduation.  In the productions I’ve been in since then, many of my classmates have crossed a river – sometimes two – to journey from Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan to see me. We go out afterwards to talk about the show, ourselves, the world. We lament and we laugh, we gossip and we plan. We breathe.

There is so much in this world to make into art. We can do it. We.

Doreen Oliver