Unlike other forms of art, acting requires a type of skill that can only be found on stage, one that is unique and unquestionably magical. All successful artists manage to express their unprecedented creativity and captivate their audiences while demonstrating imagination at its highest degree. What actually separates actors from other artists is their imagination.

The imagination that theatre inspires is unlike any other. I earned my first major role in the drama Korczak and the Children as a 50-year-old nanny in the 1940s. I lived in a different era, was a different age, and worked a different job. The drama was rough and disheartening, and I found being someone so unlike myself quite difficult. As rehearsals for the show progressed, I realized that in order to become my character, I had to temporarily forget who I was. If my own internal logic continued to guide my acting, my character would never thrive or even exist anywhere other than on the page. Indeed, theatrical ingenuity is much different from any other sort. Using my regular imagination, I form new ideas and concepts, but when engaging theatrical imagination, I am those new ideas and concepts. Actors do not see their creations as improbable; imagination simply becomes a reality. The question is not “how do I make this performance believable?” Rather, one asks, “How do I become this person? How do I capture the essence of this imaginary character? What must I do to be a new person?” When I transformed from a high school teenager to an elderly nanny from the 1940s, it was a beautiful, magical moment. All of a sudden, I was not pretending to be a stranger anymore: I was the aging nanny. I was living another life.
Just because a person can create a character, make a past for the character, and bring the character to life does not make him or her an actor; in fact, such simple feats should not be praised. The hard part requires engaging the audience. An actor must force the audience to believe in something that is inherently false. When I was six years old, I saw The Lion King on Broadway and instantly fell in love with the theatre. My parents chuckled at my excitement of the extravagant costumes and flamboyant set design, but I really fell in love with the theatre was that the actors genuinely made me believe that they were lions, gazelles, zebras, and hyenas. I believed the story they told and the lessons they taught. Mostly, I felt like I was in the Sahara with them, enduring their pain and rejoicing in their moments of joy. As the curtains rose and the orchestra started playing, I forgot about the dark cold night in New York City that was just outside the stage doors. I was completely engaged in the lives of Simba and his compatriots. Only the brilliance of acting can take a person’s logic and reasoning, dispose of it, and transport him into a beautifully complex apparition, one in which he is forced to use this special kind of imagination and forget all he knows about the laws of nature. What other way could reasonable people find themselves empathizing with talking lions?