“My son would be much better in that role.”
I had that thought watching a professional actor in a leading comedic role. Yep, I’m a stage dad.
This is the kind of trouble that unschooling and curiosity can get you into. My wife and I had no theatrical history except for being casual fans. By the time they could walk and talk, my sons were putting on sketch comedy and air guitar rock shows at family gatherings. They could not be kept off anything resembling a stage.
My elder son was one of the chattering Bandar-log in The Jungle Book when he was six years old and took on a small role in Macbeth at age eight. Two years later, both sons have completed multiple performances of Julius Caesar and Much Ado About Nothing, read Shakespearean lines in all three of Delaware’s counties, improvised in the galleries of Delaware Art Museum, and appeared on stage with Delaware Shakespeare (DelShakes).
There was never a plan nor a theater curriculum. A rainy day put us in a library watching Gnomeo and Juliet. A sunny day put us in a city park to meet Delshakes actors as they performed community outreach. Story times at museums put us in front of paintings representing The Tempest, Treasure Island, and innumerable tales. Everywhere we go there are stories. We read them, tell them, and act them out.
I had no idea this would lead to a couple of actors in my midst. That’s the wonder (and terror) of an unschooling approach. The work comes in not only observing their curiosity, but emulating it and employing all reasonable (and some unreasonable) resources to feed the hunger for knowledge and experience. I have to be creative, broaden my community, and learn a lot about myself.
That’s why I call it a Learning Lifestyle. We are each learning different things at varying paces, but the focus remains on the discovery of new ideas, places, and people.
God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason