Dramatic Voice

I spent the majority of my life being the quiet guy who sits in the corner of the room listening to other people talk and nodding my head in agreement, such a liming. After I graduated high school I found myself with lots of time on my hands. A friend of mine wanted to goto the drama team meeting at the church. As I said before, I was the quiet one. I thought that it would be interesting to watch so said that I would go too.
We drove up to the drama directors house. The house was dimly lit as we walked up to the front door I could hear the muffled sound of conversation on the other side. It sounded like listening to a busy room with cups on you ears. We rung the bell and a few moments later the door sprung to life. The drama director opened the door and welcomed us in. He was one year younger than me, in fact we were in choir together in school. He seemed surprised that I was there, but he thanked my friend and me for coming.
To my surprise the rules were that if you came you had to participate. I seemed strange that I wasn’t nervous. In looking around the large livingroom I saw people who I knew would never attack or judge me. Being around them gave me comfort and besides, everyone was going to be doing the same thing. If we go down we go down together. We started by doing an ad-lib skit. He assigned us our general motivations. It was then that I realized that I had an advantage. I had spent so many years watching other people and listening to them speak that the character just came to me, when I opened my mouth I became an entirely different person. The quiet reclusive young man became a brash, insensitive, shallow, friend. It suited the skit perfectly. The mouths of the crowd looked like plants poised to catch insects. After we had completed the skit, the director asked me if I would be willing to do the skit for the church service. Still I felt no aversion to speaking in front of other people. I accepted and it was a good experience for me.
Now I look back to that as a defining moment. Because of that small drama club I was able to use my voice. I discovered that by using my voice I could evoke change in the way people thought. It was like becoming addicted in liberated all at once. I have since directed many of my own drama teams to teach others the same power of dramatic voice. A great deal of the work I do involves me speaking. The degree that I am now pursuing I plan on using to become a teacher. I went to that drama meeting looking for something to for the night and I turned out that I found something that I wanted to do for life. You never can tell how one event can define change.