James J Rojas-Taylor

All Your Best Selves

A curious little bastard I'm a child of many passions but one of my more important ones is an idea that I happened to trip over and find. It's an idea connected to the transcendence of the art forms of acting and improvisation from the realm of illusion to one of realism and naturalism. To live truthfully in imaginary circumstances. Using real human emotions and a real human mindset. The thing is, we don't have two different sets of emotions. One for the stage and one for life. Nor do we have two different minds for the same purposes. Therefore all the skills actors and improvisers use to build themselves for their performance can also be used by non-actors to build themselves for their actions in life. This isn't merely a simple idea, it is well supported by science. The following is the Introduction to a book I wrote that is currently in the editing process. If I were to win this contest I would put the money towards publishing and marketing. The title of the book is All Your Best Selves: How the Performing Arts Toolkit Can Help You Thrive Anytime, Any Place and with Anyone.