Why theatre matters to us

The Selfish Giant, 2019

Hello friends of Ghostlight,

As we approach the end of 2019 and Giving Tuesday, we wanted to share with you our personal stories of why theatre is so important to us and, in turn, to others.

We know this is the time of year you are bombarded with requests from very worthy organizations and some of them are literally making life or death differences in people's lives. But we’d like to take a moment to explain why the arts matter as well.

Supporting the arts is more nebulous. You look at Ghostlight and you think, "They put on theatre. That’s nice." And we do that, yes. We put on theatre that challenges the status quo, that asks probing questions, that doesn’t shy away from a fight. Through our Nightlight series, we bring engaging, yet meaningful theater to young audiences. We are trying to make them, not the consumers of culture that our society is so actively engaged in pursuing but, active participants in our culture and in our society in general. Theatre can do that.

But theatre can also sometimes make a life or death difference in a person's life. It empowers young people, gives them purpose, brings them friends, it helps them realize there are others like them and they are not alone.

It has done that for all of us here at Ghostlight and for countless other theatre kids around this world. It may be doing it right now for someone you know and love, someone you don't realize is struggling to understand why they are here on this planet at this time and place.

That is why you should support the arts and why we hope you will support Ghostlight, as we make a place for future generations of artist to tell the stories that matter to them and to help them find their purpose, their home.

Keep scrolling to read personal stories from our Ensemble members about how theatre made a difference in their lives and continues to do so to this day.

— The Ensemble

Chad Wise

Chad Wise, Managing Director, Ensemble Member

Chad Wise (center) as Chet in Ghostlight's 2016 production of Krampus!

"After being big fish in a little pond in high school, I got to college and didn't know what to do. My parents insisted I have a 'fall back on' degree so I chose to be an education major, with theatre as a focus. But because of the education requirements, I couldn't go deep into the theatre classes I really wanted to take. So while I performed a lot, I didn't really have much of a path or the opportunity to discover a path. Then came In The Flesh.

"For Christmas my sophomore year I was gifted my choice of tickets to a show playing in Chicago. Being a Central Illinois boy and not knowing what I was doing, I poked through the newspaper (this was 1992 after all). There was the traditional fare, musicals, Shepard, etc. But nothing reached out and grabbed me. Until I saw Clive Barker's name. I had discovered the movie Night Breed the previous year and was enamored. So I chose a production of In The Flesh at the Organic Theater (back when they were on Clark Street).

"Up until this show I admittedly hadn't seen or experienced much theatre. The usual high school stuff (Grease, Little Shop of Horrors) mixed in with some edgier stuff by a great drama teacher (The Diviners, Breaking the Code) and then a year and a half worth of college theatre. But nothing had really jumped out at me yet. This show did. Set in a prison with a supernatural undercurrent, the palpable fear and anxiety I felt in the small studio theater was a far cry from singing along to Greased Lightning. And it affected me deeply. More than anything, it showed me that theatre had the capacity to trigger strong emotions in people beyond the usual joy and sadness and empathy. That a small space could be a help rather than a hindrance. And that the only way to truly do a genre justice is to embrace it completely.

"That show informed most of my choices from then on. It led me into directing and producing. When it came time to start a theatre company it inspired our mission. And to this day, giving people a new and different experience in the dark is the guiding force behind what I do. An app on your phone will never truly affect you like an actor staring straight at you from a few feet away. This is why I do theatre. Life is about experiencing new experiences. Theatre lets me do that for a room full of people every time the lights dim."

Miona Lee

Miona Lee, Co-Artistic Director, Ensemble Member

Miona Lee, left, in Ghostlight's 2018 production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile.

"I’ve always struggled with allowing people to know the real me. Call it social anxiety, call it trust issues stemming from childhood, whatever. That fact is, I’m not comfortable around people and don’t share much of myself with others.

"I could tell you a cute story of how when I was in fifth grade I played a Marilyn Monroe version of Mrs. Claus complete with feather boa and caught the theater bug. But really, I found performing was the perfect escape from myself. I found slipping into someone else’s skin liberating. I didn’t have to bare my soul to others.

"Through the years I’ve played my fair share of Queens, fairies, villains, misguided actresses, sisters, wives, girlfriends and the occasional warrior. Each time, I burrowed into these characters to find out what it is they might be hiding from others. Sharing these flawed characters to an audience has allowed me to open up more in my own life. It’s OK that I’m flawed, there are people out there that will accept me no matter what.

"For me, theater is much more than telling important stories that remind us we’re all connected. It’s my way of slowly learning to accept myself and trust that others will do the same. "

Maria Burnham

Maria Burnham, Co-Artistic Director, Ensemble Member

Maria Burnham, right, as Beatrice the Weimaraner in Ghostlight’s live movie reading of Best In Show.

"Theatre and acting had been a part of my life in some way since elementary school, becoming more so once I went to a performing arts magnet high school and then studied theatre (and English AND journalism) in college. My attraction to the arts was always a sense of bafflement to my working-class family that excelled in technical skills and mathematics, but had never seen a play until I came along. Maybe it baffled me too. Who can say? All I knew was it was a way to lose myself in new worlds and adventures. It let me leave behind the boredom of a solitary childhood spent living where my parents worked with empty boxes as my playground and a chicken as a pet.

"It wouldn’t be until after college that I would discover that my mom too had used the arts to escape the horrors of a childhood marked by war, extreme poverty and a donkey as a pet. She used dance and later a film career to leave behind her village life for good. The revelation that acting was a hereditary trait, that there was this entire history of myself that I didn't know, was unsettling. But it was also comforting. Theatre connects me to my family history in a way that old photos do not. That I could literally be the same person that my mother had been by taking on a role, that we both understood what it meant to create new people and new worlds, that acting had led my mother to be in Athens when my father was in Athens resulting in my actual existence? Well, now, that's something that no other career could ever give me."