Since I launched Fantasy Friday, I’ve talked a lot about my own fantasies. This Friday, I want to do something different and draw attention to Dad’s Garage, a theatre company currently running a Kickstarter campaign to buy their dream home, a church in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward. While they’ve already met their initial goal of $116,000, they’re now aiming to raise $150,000 (donations up to this amount will be matched by an anonymous donor).
On their Kickstarter page, you’ll find video testimonials from a lot of really cool people in support of their campaign. I thought I would go ahead and share my testimonial here.
I started taking improv classes at Dad’s Garage in January 2013. At the time, I hated getting out of bed in the morning and cried every day about how much I disliked my job. I didn’t have a lot of hope for the future. I enrolled in classes at Dad’s because I’d enjoyed doing improv when I was younger and thought I might be able to reconnect with something that brought me joy.
It worked! Better than expected actually. Dad’s classes not only fulfilled me creatively and connected me with a group of people struggling with the same sort of existential issues I was facing, they also empowered me to take greater control over my life.
See, improv offers the opportunity to role play, to experiment with being different characters and to experience emotions and situations one wouldn’t necessarily be comfortable with in “real” life. In playing different people and allowing myself to feel things that scared me, I began to see that I wasn’t defined by the image I’d created for myself–a nerdy, prudish academic. I got more comfortable with the possibility of taking risks and being able to recover if I failed. I got the courage to change my life, pursue happiness, and write math romance novels. And for that, I’ll be forever indebted to Dad’s Garage.
I’m headed over to their Kickstarter page now to pay back some of that debt 🙂
Sarah Zureick-Brown 