Peter McPoland, rising indie folk artist with over one million monthly listeners on Spotify, started in a community theater. He starred as Joseph in ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,’ and my friends and I still cannot take him seriously after seeing him shirtless with heavily draw-on abs. This is an experience I can only attribute to my love of live theater, and many of the funniest moments of my life were formulated in rows of red auditorium seats. More than just a laugh or a lifelong memory, theater is a comedic, artistic, entertaining expression of humanity that has inspired change and lifted spirits throughout history. 

With the Hillsdale College Department of Theatre and Dance’s play season starting, and Hillsdale’s fortunate position an hour and a half away from the best musical theater program in the country, every student should make it his or her mission to see more live theater. 

Theater has driven history as an artform that has fostered creative ways to call people out from their worlds since its invention in 6th century B.C. Theater took over the world of epideictic speech — oratory that assigns praise and blame in the public sphere — when that area of rhetoric was suppressed under the Roman Republic’s government. As an act of resistance during the Nazi occupation of France, Jean Anouilh’s adaptation of “Antigone” was widely performed. Shakespeare himself, the greatest English writer in history, chose playwriting as his medium, and his plays are still widely performed, adapted, and studied today. 

Just by going to watch any of these plays, audiences were a part of historic events. 

Sometimes theatrical inspiration is not even about change; it’s about busy students, stressed-out parents, and tired professors taking a break from their roles and settling into their place as an audience member. 

A 2017 study found “as well as alongside individuals’ emotional responses, the audience members’ hearts were also responding in unison, with their pulses speeding up and slowing down at the same rate.” 

Theater is a communal activity: a way to connect and share in the human experience with complete strangers. Not only are humans social creatures, but they are storytelling creatures. The prevailing presence and importance of theater throughout history clearly reinforces and illustrates that. 

Being a patron of the performing arts is an essential human activity, and thankfully, Hillsdale is blessed with numerous opportunities to engage in it. 

Next week, “Silent Sky” will be staged in Markel Auditorium from Oct. 2-6. The tickets are free (or at least covered by student fees); tickets to shows, ranging from community theater to Broadway, are almost never free.

Another auspicious theater opportunity for Hillsdale students is our proximity to the University of Michigan, which has the best, most competitive musical theater program in the country. The program consistently ranks in the Top 5 for Playbills annual assessment of Musical Theater Programs most represented on Broadway, and, unlike the Big Apple, their stage in near byAnn Arbor. The performers one would spend $20 to go see now are likely going to end up costing a lot more after they graduate. Notable alumni include composers of “La La Land” and “The Greatest Showman,” Justin Paul and Benj Pasek and Broadway performers Celia Keenan-Bolger, Taylor Louderman, and Gavin Creel. All of these names are hugely influential and recognized in the world of the performing arts. 

Whether the current University of Michigan students perform on Broadway or in movies or in TV shows, these are some of the future faces of the entertainment industry. How cool would it be to have a Playbill that proves that you “knew about them when”? 

Performances are not only worth seeing when they promise to be good. As a person who has seen upwards of 100 musicals in my lifetime, I can confidently say the musicals that were the most worth my time were the ones that were the very worst. The ones where the mics didn’t work, and the ensemble didn’t know the choreography. Not to mention the starfish in “The Little Mermaid” with a homemade costume that was literally just a backpack, which he made sure to thank his grandma for in the musical’s playbill.  

From improv comedy shows to gut-wrenching tragedies to large-scale musical extravaganzas, there is a performance for every kind of patron. One does not have to like singing or dancing or monologuing to appreciate the importance and creativity that goes into telling a story on stage. Theater is not just for “theater kids,” and even if it was, maybe it would be worth it to become one.