A series on the role of theatre in vocation, with a focus on how it supports community-building, the uncommon good, and vocational exploration and discernment for all our students.
STUDENT
Will you run lines with me for my acting scene?
ROOMMATE
Sure. What’s the part?
STUDENT
My character tells his best friend he’s in love with him.
(Roommate freezes, suddenly guarded.)
ROOMMATE
Wait—are you gay?
STUDENT
I don’t think so. I just want to get the scene right.
ROOMMATE
Never mind, I’m not running those lines.
(Lights fade.)
This scene is, unfortunately, not fiction. It is rooted in real student encounters. I’ve heard these stories whispered in the wings, muttered backstage, or offered between rehearsals when a student feels safe enough to speak. Often students don’t name these moments as trauma—because they’ve been trained to believe it is normal to be shamed. But they are traumatic. They are moments in which students begin to doubt not just their talent, but their belonging. And that doubt, left unspoken, corrodes the heart of their calling.
Geoffrey W. Bateman argues that if we are to encourage human flourishing for everyone, we need to reorient higher education’s approach to the work of vocation and cultivate queer spaces and practices that support the “uncommon good.” To embrace the uncommon good asks us to shift discussions about discerning the good life from what serves the majority culture to what serves students outside of it. For many colleges and universities, these groups include queer students, students of color, and international students.
How might this starting point open new definitions of vocation? Affirming the uncommon good means recognizing that people who fall outside the dominant narrative may discern their vocations differently or respond to callings that defy traditional expectations. This reorientation also empowers institutions to imagine new communal possibilities, in which we support queer students, and by extension, everyone else. Thus, we need to foster and protect spaces where we can encounter, engage, and support the uncommon good.
Similarly, Rachel S. Mikva asserts that meaningful discernment of vocation demands engagement with difference and diversity. For her, such engagement is a catalyst for addressing questions of meaning, direction, and purpose, prompting her to ask, “How should I live my life, and how does my engagement with diversity help me to answer that question?” For a person to figure out who they are, she argues, they must encounter and understand who they are not. Higher education, then, must support spaces that facilitate such encounters; and I would argue that, in responding to their own callings, theatre programs are situated to meet these two needs. On our campuses, theatre creates a space for fostering the uncommon good by bringing people of differing identities into direct empathetic contact with one another. Theatre is where vocational flourishing is at!
Theatre as a Supportive Space for the Uncommon Good
Bateman’s observation that we do not yet view queerness as integral to our flourishing is one that hits hard. I have regularly seen queer individuals of all ages walk into theatre spaces and noticeably relax. Without even having to be told “you are safe here,” people who belong to LGBTQIA+ communities often assume that they will encounter acceptance in the theatre, a reputation that often precedes itself. Historically, theatre has been a queer space, because it is one where all stories matter, a place that requires the inclusion of all identities so that these stories can be told. It is also a space where identities can be explored, played out, or even wiped away, reflecting an important part of our students’ experiences on our campuses. In this way, theatre is good for our common needs even as it supports the uncommon good.
Theatre Classrooms Engage Difference
Theatre is a means of storytelling, communicating the realities of someone’s lived experience. Often, participating in an acting class means watching scenes and monologues from plays telling the story of someone else’s complexities. This environment asks students to step into the role of another person’s life and bring it to their classmates, engaging directly with difference and diversity. Because some of our students—by virtue of their identities or backgrounds—might have fewer opportunities to brush up against people who are different than they are, our campuses can too easily perpetuate cultural silos and reinforce stereotypes. But theatre classrooms can offer an opportunity to move beyond these obstacles. While such shoulder-rubbing is arguably possible in any classroom, it’s inescapable in a theatre classroom.
As this post’s opening scene illustrates, simply by portraying a role for class, the student actor desires empathic truth in his performance. In his final classroom performance, we can imagine him pulling his classmates into his authentic portrayal. Prejudices rooted in fear-based stereotypes, like the ones his roommate may hold, can lose a little of their foothold when the actor and the audience experience the humanity of the character.
Theatre Productions as Encounters with Communal Diversity
Professional productions with trained actors, designers, and a director only deepen such transformative moments. When I take non-theatre students to their first theatre production, they’re often surprised by how emotionally moved they are. Before attending the show, many assume they will encounter something embarrassing, silly, or too shameful to tell their friends about. They prepare to hate it. Instead, they cannot believe how easily they are sucked into a story being pretended on stage.
The ancient Greeks were so moved by the reality of theatrical portrayals that Plato worried about theatre’s power. Is it a good thing, he wondered, to permit an art form that stirs up emotion by mere pretending? I grew up in a church that viewed theatre as dangerous; it convinced me that portraying someone I was not would cause a shift in my actual character or could do the same to audience members. These fears reflected an awareness that theatre introduces us to lives we might not otherwise encounter, revealing the inaccuracy of our world’s dominant narratives and diminishing its power over us. The fear of this kind of difference keeps us divided, but theatre facilitates a new kind of understanding and integration.
Mikva’s reflections on her encounters with difference help us understand what plays out between audience member and what’s acted on stage. Not only do viewers discover who they are through difference; they discover who others actually are through the actors’ honest portrayals of those others. In this way, the stage fosters the uncommon good: in this communal space, we become aware of one another, our dreams, our hopes, cultural expectations, and familial demands. Through theatrical storytelling, we grow to understand vocation through others’ experiences.
Local and regional theatre companies work hard to curate seasons to meet the vast needs of humanity, and many include education-oriented productions, facilitating an encounter with difference and diversity. These stories not only bring audience members into the complexities of people who have long been trapped by stereotypes; they also intersect with many curricular needs, infusing a human dimension into what may otherwise feel academic or sterile. Faculty looking for ways to help students humanize their fields and understand the real-world implications of what they study, might search for local productions of these plays: Proof is story about math; Copenhagen, chemistry; Glengarry Glen Ross is a glimpse into cutthroat business practices. Next to Normal engages with grief and mental health; Suzan-Lori Parks, August Wilson, Lynn Nottage, Dominique Morisseau and Anna Deavere Smith bring audiences into the Black American experience. Yellowface deals with Asian stereotyping, Disgraced faces Islamaphobia, Indecent covers Yiddish theatre, Jewish history, and lesbian joy.
Beyond offering students a human connection to an academic topic, stories like these show us ourselves—in our many identities—on stage. Students recognize their own identities and feel seen. When we feel seen, we feel less alone in the world. Less isolated, we believe we have purpose. Feeling purposeful, we attune our hearts to the calling that vocational discernment should make available to us all.
Tara Brooke Watkins is the head of Theatre Arts at Salve Regina University. She is a story circle facilitator and community engagement specialist with an emphasis on creating dialogue, action, and communal healing around charged topics like race, gender, gender identity, body image, sexual victimization, and homelessness. This work often leads to theatrical productions using communal stories, including the plays The Bible Women’s Project, Tulsa ’21: Black Wall Street, The Father Bill’s Play, Shatter the Silence, and an upcoming campus production about the impact of social media on college communities. At Salve, she is the chair of the Mercy Culture Commission, which seeks to create a welcoming environment for all students, staff, and faculty. She was a participant in the 2025 NetVUE Seminar, Enhancing Vocational Exploration. For more posts by Tara, click here.
