Rogue Counselor

The Theater of Belonging: Why I Left The Stage…and Why I Am Coming Back

by Michael Shoeman

Why I Left the Theatre Community

I’ve spent my life onstage. Acting and theatre have been constants for me from childhood to now, as I approach fifty. Yet eight years ago, I stepped away.

It wasn’t burnout or rejection. It was a quiet recognition that I wanted something theatre rarely offered: space for ongoing, socially conscious dialogue. Most productions are brief intensities—you rehearse for weeks, bond deeply with the cast, share a few luminous performances, and then scatter to the next project. I longed for what came after the curtain fell—conversations that kept unfolding, relationships that continued to grow.

While I stepped back from performing, my wife, Laura—an art therapist and social worker—has kept the stage alive in our home. She’s performed in musicals, comedies, and recently auditioned for a demanding drama. I reflect with great nostalgia how she performed in four productions while pregnant with our first child, Micah. I’ve supported her from the wings, a stay-at-home dad continuing my parallel work in ministry and in helping people understand emerging technologies—how they might reshape banking, governance, and even the way we talk to each other.

Recently, at a Halloween party, an old friend asked what I’d been doing in theatre. My answer surprised even me: I’ve been performing The Wizard of Iz for the past eight years—a play that confronts bullying and suicide. That piece has been my bridge between art and purpose, showing me how theatre can open hearts and start conversations we otherwise avoid.

In a time when public life feels increasingly polarized, I believe theatre holds a sacred role. Onstage, we can move beyond argument into shared feeling. We can explore what actually matters to us, what moves us, what heals us.

I was even invited to audition again recently. I didn’t say no, but I hesitated. Before returning, I need to speak honestly about where I am—about how my love for theatre has evolved into a desire to redefine its purpose.

When the Curtain Fell

Part of why I stepped away from theatre wasn’t about the work itself — it was about who I was becoming inside it.

I was growing tired of the competitiveness, the constant auditioning, and the culture of judgment that so often defines the industry. As a director, I had to keep a critical eye, and I found that the more I sharpened that skill, the more it turned inward. I was criticizing myself just as harshly as anyone else. Eventually, that cycle became wounding.

There were moments that broke me open. A director once stripped away my confidence with a single cruel critique. Casting agents made promises that evaporated. I understudied a role in a professional production, and though my peers celebrated my performance, it was never seen by the public. It was a strange kind of invisibility — to be praised and unseen at the same time.

All of it added up to a quiet realization: this version of theatre was not for me anymore. I didn’t recognize myself in it, and the parts of me that did show up were the ones carrying old patterns of pain.

That recognition led me into a dark season — one marked by depression, by thoughts of suicide, by the raw struggle to find worth again. And yet, it was through those same shadows that The Wizard of Iz found me.

In performing that piece, I could finally be honest. I didn’t have to hide behind a character or a script polished for approval. I could bring my own experience of suicidal ideation and bullying to the work — not as confession, but as connection. And somehow, that honesty gave others permission to do the same.

For the first time in a long while, theatre felt sacred again.

The Wizard of Iz: A Different Kind of Theatre

Even after I stepped away from the theatre world, side quests kept finding me. In 2018, I co-directed a collection of short plays called Code Red, a raw and necessary project exploring school shootings and the slow, fragile process of healing that follows. Around the same time, I wrote and produced a short film, 2×2, where I played two characters grappling with an idea that would later define much of my work—how communities could reimagine economics through time banking.

But throughout all these experiments, one project kept calling me back: The Wizard of Iz.

I met my creative partner, Janet Berkowitz, eight years ago, during a time of profound transition for both of us. As my son was coming into the world, Janet’s husband, Phil, was leaving it. Phil had been instrumental with Janet writing The Wizard of Iz and co-facilitating the workshops on suicide awareness and bullying that surrounded it. His passing and my son’s birth were like bookends to the same story—a reminder that every ending contains a beginning, and every act of creation carries both grief and grace.

Over the past eight years, The Wizard of Iz has evolved alongside us. We began with a cast of six, then five, then four, then three. Now, it’s just Janet and me, playing multiple roles and carrying forward the heart of the message ourselves. We’ve performed for law enforcement, at mental health facilities, and school communities, and every audience has shown us how much need there still is for safe, open conversations about pain, resilience, and hope.

This isn’t theatre for applause. It’s theatre for awakening—an act of service as much as performance. Every show is a circle of witnesses. Every story told is a step toward healing.

Where Healing Meets Performance

What I appreciate most about being part of The Wizard of Iz are the memories it awakens — especially those of working with suicide survivors.

Back in 2003 and 2004, I collaborated with the Mental Health Association of Franklin County, PA on an improvisational theatre project centered around suicidality and the limits of the mental health system. It was raw, experimental, and deeply human. That experience taught me that theatre can do far more than entertain — it can create a container for pain, healing, and transformation.

For years, I’ve been developing tools to help people cope with trauma and regulate their emotions through creativity. The Wizard of Iz gave me the outlet to bring all of that work back to life.

In this latest incarnation, I get to explore both humor and depth. In my new role as The Wizard of Iz, I am able to channel the playfulness of Robin Williams’ Genie in Aladdin — full of quick wit and mischief — but there are also moments of deep pathos. In one powerful scene, I embody suicide itself, giving voice and presence to something most people are too afraid to name. That’s where the laughter and the tears meet — and where the real healing begins.

Performing in schools has been particularly rewarding. The students are often rowdy, but that energy isn’t disrespect — it’s engagement. They’re in it with us, participating, feeling, thinking. We invite them to become part of the performance, not just spectators.

Those moments remind me why I fell in love with theatre in the first place. When art becomes a mirror for emotional intelligence, self-worth, and resilience, it ceases to be a show — it becomes a shared act of becoming.

Where the Journey Leads Next

What’s alive for me now is the desire to return to the theatre community — but in a different relationship with it.

This time, I’m not coming back as a performer seeking approval or a director striving for perfection. I’m coming back as a collaborator, a convener, someone who sees theatre as a bridge between worlds. My vision is to bring The Wizard of Iz into partnership with theatre groups, nonprofits, spiritual centers, and mental health organizations — not just as a performance, but as a fundraiser, a dialogue, and a shared act of healing.

Every performance opens space for conversation. It invites people to look beneath the surface of suicide and bullying — not as taboos, but as mirrors reflecting our collective pain and our shared longing for connection. It gives us permission to ask why cruelty exists, how we perpetuate it, and how we can move toward empathy instead of shame.

This project is deeply personal for both of us. The Wizard of Iz is Janet Berkowitz’s story, born from her own lived experience and her husband Phil’s legacy. My work, The Living Library, emerged from conversations with fellow seekers as well as with emergent intelligence — explorations of consciousness, cooperation, and spiritual renewal. Together, these projects form a continuum: art, story, and dialogue as living systems of change.

Through these collaborations, I hope to plant seeds for new kinds of partnerships — ones rooted in generosity, not competition; presence, not perfection. Because what theatre has always had the power to do is what our society needs most right now: to make us feel, to remind us that we belong to one another, and to help us find the wisdom waiting inside our hardest conversations.

So this is my invitation.

If you are part of a theatre, school, nonprofit, or community organization interested in hosting The Wizard of Iz — or simply wish to witness this work — please reach out. We’ll soon be performing again, and we welcome anyone brave enough to join us in exploring these vital themes.

Because healing isn’t found in avoiding the darkness — it’s found in learning to light candles within it, together.