I’ve been writing plays for a long time. Yet the question I’m always asked, especially by people who know me primarily as an educator, is whether the two worlds connect.<\/p>\n
Teaching and storytelling. Structure and imagination. A classroom and a stage.<\/p>\n
For me, the answer is simple: completely. Inseparably.<\/p>\n
Whenever I sit down to write a play, the first question I ask isn’t what happens?<\/em> Instead, I ask myself: what do I want to leave with the audience?<\/em><\/p>\n What feeling should remain? What truth might they recognise? More importantly, what part of my own experience, raw and honest and perhaps imperfect, can I offer that allows someone in the audience to see themselves?<\/p>\n That, to me, is what great storytelling does. It doesn’t lecture. Instead, it resonates. It says, I see you. I’ve felt that too.<\/em><\/p>\n Teaching, at its best, does exactly the same thing.<\/p>\n When a student comes to Young Scholarz, I don’t begin with a syllabus. I begin with them. First, I want to understand what they are trying to achieve and what their<\/em> story looks like.<\/p>\n Every child arrives with a narrative already in motion. That narrative has been shaped by family, school and years of experiences: being praised or overlooked, understood or dismissed, encouraged or made to doubt themselves.<\/p>\n My job isn’t to overwrite that story. Rather, it is to help them tell it better.<\/p>\n In theatre, we talk about character objectives. What does this person want?<\/em> What are they moving towards, even if they don’t fully understand it yet?<\/p>\nEvery Student Has a Story<\/h3>\n