"What even is advocacy?" is a question that I tend to get a lot from student's who attend my N.A.P.S. workshop. Some people have never heard of the word before, and others are even scared of the word--but people should never feel this way. It's in the name of the workshop:
National Advocacy, Plain & Simple!
It's honestly as easy as telling the next person you see that your being involved in theatre has given you something to do after school, or maybe even as simple as wearing a shirt from one of your past shows on #theatreshirtthursday. The most important part of it is that you are telling others, who may not understand, how deeply theatre has impacted you.
I've been able to teach my workshop at numerous festivals like in Michigan, Connecticut, Maryland and the NorthEast festival (and also the North Carolina festival tomorrow which I am currently attending); however, I haven't always had such a good turn out. My numbers of attendees have ranged from over 80 students to my lowest number of 4 attendees. You may look at that lonely number 4 and think "Wow, how is anyone going to know about how simple advocacy is if not many people are taking this workshop?" But it's important to know that the numbers aren't truly the most important thing. My goal for this N.A.P.S. workshop is really about getting the message across to these students that it's important to keep this art alive and to start a huge ripple effect. I'm sure that those four students have already been spreading the word about how plain & simple it is to advocate for theatre along with its importance. Just imagine, if those four people each told 10 other people, then those 40 people go and tell 10 people each, then there would be 400 individuals who understand the importance of spreading awareness of being able to voice their opinions and being able to make actual change. It wouldn't just stop at 400, those numbers would keep on multiplying.Then, advocacy won't be a strange scary word and more people will realize that it is truly plain & simple.