When I was a young boy Mom used to drag me to play rehearsals. I’d sit around and watch the initial blocking all the way to final dress rehearsal. When I was a sophomore in high school, teachers were begging for students to audition for a one-act play.  Our class was putting on The Lottery, by Shirley  Jackson. I signed up and got the lead, Mr. Summers, the man who conducts the lottery. The play is about a town that picks someone’s name out of a hat every year and kills them to ritually save the crops. Not only did it do well, I received the award for best actor. After that, I really got the acting bug and was in a number of plays and musicals: Crawling Arnold,  Once Upon a Mattress, Guys and Dolls, The Crucible, and Li’l Abner, most under the direction of Mr. Robert Sine. During one rehearsal Mr. Sine stopped the action by telling me I used my hands too much. “Make the point, and put them away,” he’d say. For some reason I kept overusing them. Frustrated, he stopped the rehearsal again and took off his belt. I thought he was going to beat me with it. Instead, he told me to put my arms at my sides and he wrapped his belt around me. “Now,” he said. “Let’s do that scene again.” Embarrassed, I made sure I never overused my hands on stage again. In The Crucible, I played the male lead John Proctor. It was a very trying role that required me to be on stage the entire play. Even though the rest of the cast had understudies, I did not have one. So it was up to me to deliver. My reward at the end of the show was not only hugging the girl who would end up being my life-long soul mate, but getting an offer to apply for the Yale School of Drama from their Dean. I’ve heard it said that the most entertaining shows are ones that people can relate to from an emotional standpoint. A good show is one that reveals how people face adversity. And in the process of overcoming the obstacles, become stronger and wiser because of it. From Shakespearian plays to situation comedies, it is a universal topic that grabs our attention. We have a hard-wired part of our brain that looks for problems to solve, and allows us to grow from the experience — making us less likely to make stupid mistakes and more likely to live another day. I believe this is the reason why I’m here: To overcome a set of challenges, to make mistakes, but to learn from them, and to become a better person in the end. It is the essence of drama, and the essence of life.  Shakespeare is right when he wrote, “All the worlds is a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts …”