Setting Myself Free: My Journey Through Emotional Abuse
“We’re a very sex-positive company,” he told me.
I’d never heard the phrase before, but it seemed useful. A good description of a mindset less to do with labels and more to do with openness, exploration, and acceptance. No shame. I liked it.
He was the director and show runner of an immersive theatre company and had just cast me in one of his shows. Immersive theatre is quite a bit different than ordinary theatre in that audience members come through the show one at a time (or in small groups on rare occasions) and are allowed to interact with the characters they come across. As they go through the experience, they become part of the show themselves, making for a more powerful, intimate, and custom-curated experience. It’s a unique opportunity for an actor, as almost all of the scenes must be improvised and an enormous unpredictability is brought in with each audience member. Not having done it before, I was thrilled and had no idea what to expect.
In this first show of mine, I was to play a young HIV-positive sex worker, and was going to have to get fully nude nearly right away. I was excited by the challenge, but slightly nervous to be so physically vulnerable, and the director was doing everything he could to calm my nerves and make me feel more at home with the material. He walked me through the…
