How to Be Present

Above: teen students in rehearsals for Winnie Holzman’s My So-Called Life episode 15: So-Called Angels, 2023. PACK’s Performance Company project produced with special arrangement from Winnie Holzman.

How To Be Present

“There is only one interesting difference between the cinema and the theatre. The cinema flashes on to a screen images from the past. The theatre, on the other hand, always asserts itself in the present.” —Peter Brook, The Empty Space, 1968. 

During 2020 lockdown, there was an undeniable hole in our culture. Something electric was missing. When a large group of people come together to focus, an intensity is created. The reaction is unmistakeable, and it’s important. It’s beautiful, and it’s necessary! When the theatres were closed because of quarantine, that magic, intensity, and electricity were gone. 

One could argue that we, as a culture, turned inward for a similar artistic experience that resembled attending a play: we stayed home and enjoyed films on our screens. Same thing, right? Storytelling, artistic expression, catharsis, comedic timing, relief, making sense of the present; all this can be found in movies. We are still getting the same thing from films, aren’t we?

As Peter Brook points out in the above quote from one of my favorite books The Empty Space, cinema is created in the past. Theatre is created in the past, but performed in the present. This will always be the defining feature between the two mediums, and my favorite reason why I love theatre. Engaging in rehearsals and performances is one of the only things that can truly make me feel present. My brain stops wondering and worrying about the future or the past. I become simply still and here. In the Now. It’s glorious!

Peter Brook also says there is almost zero difference between actors and audience. They are all in the same space for the same reason: to experience a journey together in real time. The journey will reveal itself in different ways to different people because that’s the beauty of being diverse humans. But they are all in the room together with the same goal. The only difference between actor and audience is that actors prepare before the showing, and audiences do not. The audience comes into the space ready to receive the creation, and the actors come into the space having rehearsed the creation. But all participants are experiencing presence, nowness, and true being.

In the theatre, there are zero opportunities for editing. There are no takes. There is not one artist who goes back through the footage and strings together the best moments for the final interpretation of the story. In live performance, all participants are gathered for the search. They are searching for meaning, manifestation, ideas, emotions, clarity, and presence, whether audience or actor.

How to teach presence in the classroom:

Teaching this philosophy to young people today means establishing practices that draw them into the gorgeous NOW. 

—In my classroom, the first thing we collectively do to signify a coming together and being present for the purpose of rehearsing is we take off our shoes. Feeling the stage floor beneath our toes has a grounding quality that brings the attention in to the current moment. There is also a peeling away of everything else that happened that day when one removes their shoes. It’s almost like saying “good morning!” or “welcome home!” when shoes come off. It’s a fresh start, no matter what else happened that day.

—We also leave our phones outside of rehearsal. Nothing takes a person out of scratching, discovering, and excavating meaning from the script or shapes like a buzz from a text or a social media notification ping. 

—Another valuable practice in teaching presence is creating an optimal performance simulation. This means some of us watch from the audience and observe silence while other company members engage in scene work, choreography sessions, or vocalization/music sessions. If rehearsal is a simulation of the performance, we must observe silence during scenes that don’t involve us. In an ideal performance, we do not expect the audience to scroll on their phones or talk to each other during the show. Young students are capable of simulating performance and exhibiting high concentration, and this is good practice for the level of focus that will inevitably be needed to pull off the production. 

—As we (young actors and faculty) prepare on our end for the performances, we are also preparing to be good audience members in future shows we attend. All of these simulation elements go a long way in creating curious, focused future theatre-goers. 

—There are always opportunities for collaboration in a theatre classroom, but teaching collaboration to young artists means teaching respect, listening, and waiting your turn. 

A fun lesson plan:

Once of my favorite things to do in my classroom is to take a story that has been told through film, and stage it. There is a clear curriculum through-line in this exercise that reveals further truth and insight when the story is rehearsed and performed in the present. It’s such an exciting way to show students the power and magic of the presence of theatre. Students have seen the filmed version in all its edited, final-cut glory, and now they get the opportunity to tell the story in real time, armed with their discoveries and fresh perspectives from rehearsal.