Notes On… Lessons from the Stage

(A few lessons on what Musical Theatre taught me about being a therapist)

Before I became a therapist, I trained in musical theatre. I spent years studying story, voice, movement, dance (dance belt and all), and presence. And while I no longer perform for an audience, the stage is still with me. It shaped how I listen, how I attune, and how I sit with another person’s truth.

Acting taught me to ask: What does this person want? What are they protecting? What are they not saying? These questions didn’t disappear when I left the theater. They became central in the therapy room. Both therapy and acting require attention to subtext, timing, and what lives between the lines. I learned when to speak, when to pause, and how to let a moment land. That sense of rhythm came from performance, where listening with the body was just as essential as listening with the ears.

Musical theatre expanded my relationship to rhythm. How to slow down. How to build. How to hold. These instincts still guide me in sessions. I learned timing onstage, attuning not just with my ears but with my whole body. And long before I understood what therapy was, I had Sondheim. His lyrics captured parts of my inner world before I had the words. I often say he was my first therapist. More on that later ;)

What surprised me most was how the vulnerability required in acting prepared me for the intimacy of therapy. You rehearse being fully seen. You walk into a scene with your whole heart. That’s the work we ask of our clients every day. And of course, the voice; its tone, cadence, softness, or strength, all carry valuable emotional weight. Sometimes the quietest line, in the gentlest whisper of a voice, is like experiencing thunder and lightning all at once.

The stage taught me to trust the moment, which continues to be a daily practice for me. That unpredictable, unguarded flash where something real breaks through. As Brené Brown writes, vulnerability means risk, uncertainty, and emotional exposure. And that is where truth lives. Whether in a scene or a session, I wait for that unscripted instant. That is the magic I live for.

So yes, I trained in performance. But really, I was always studying humanity. Today, I do it from the therapist's chair instead of the theatre wings.