Wednesday 5th May 2021 – Why I Love The Arts Industry So Much

This isn't new news, there seems to have been a lot of speculation around it for years, and if anyone has been affected by artistic studies being cut from their school curriculums, then I am so very sorry. But I am also incredibly angry. 

The arts have always been important to me. I was in my first musical at the age of eleven, and I've been writing ever since the age of fifteen. Both have been ways for me to escape the real world. And when I say escape, I mean it. 

I have never been the most confident person, and my years at school were probably the hardest. I absolutely hated school. Mainly because I didn't like a lot of my teachers, or the subjects, or the students at school. I always felt so incredibly out of place. My memories of school are mostly surrounded by little grey rainclouds; the days were dull, miserable, and not really worth remembering. There were the odd days when I felt like something had clicked in my life; I did well in my drama lessons, or my English teachers were happy with my work. Those moments made me happy. 

When I first started being in shows, I don't think I loved them for any other reason other than it was just so much fun. I could spend my time on stage singing, and dancing, and wearing some silly, and sometimes awful, costumes. How does that not sound appealing? (Though if you get stage fright, I can understand how it's not appealing.) I don't think I realised how much it actually meant to me until people started to point out my confidence on stage. I still get incredibly nervous standing up in front of people and doing presentations but put me on a stage, tell me to create a scene from scratch, and I will jump right in. It wasn't until I had decided to study Theatre at school, and was in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream that I realised how much it meant to me. 

In year 12, we had the whole of our year come to see a piece of theatre we'd created, and I can remember my german teacher saying to me that he didn't realise how much confidence I had. He expected me to be more vocal in class afterwards, but that wasn't the case. 

When I played Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream, it was never me, Lisanne, who was on stage. It was Hermia, a young girl who was desperate to break free from her father's (or mother's in this production) hold. Theatre has always allowed me to become someone else, to live their lives and tell their stories. I've always grown as someone else. 

And when it came to writing, it initially started out as writing stories for my friends. I wrote fanfiction that included my friends as characters and they all seemed to enjoy it. Then I turned to writing when I needed to work through my thoughts and feelings. When I went through a bad breakup, writing was my way forward. I wrote endless stories of characters who were feeling the same way I was, I wrote letters that I was never going to send. This is still something I do to this day. If I ever feel like I am overwhelmed by emotion, I write a letter to someone addressing all my thoughts and feelings about a situation and it reduces my worry and hurt. It's my way of letting go completely. 

How can you face taking away these resources when they bring so much light to people's lives? Writing and theatre bring me comfort. They make me a better person. They bring me joy. Why is it that we are still fighting for people to realise how essential the arts are to people? Not just as forms of entertainment and jobs, but in helping people to grow. We will forever need the arts industry. Please don't ever let it go.