Sarah Tomek
Alumna
BA, theatre, 2010
Pursuing master’s degree in drama therapy at Kansas State University, while working in prison outreach
Manhattan, Kansas

I started out as a theatre major at Michigan State through a couple of programs, the present outreach program in the theatre department.

My career path has moved toward drama therapy, and I will be going for my master’s in drama therapy soon.

When I tell people, they’re shocked that just a girl like me could go into prison and work with all the—and it is all male prisoners too that I work with. We have to be careful about what we say and what we chose to do with the inmates, but you build a comfort level with them over time. And by the end, you get to give them a handshake. But I wanted to congratulate them and really give them my thanks, give them a hug goodbye. But you have to be really professional and constrain your emotions because theatre is you let go.

You have the stereotypical version of a prisoner in your head, like any bad guy from a movie. Maybe some of them look like that, but they don’t necessarily act like it. And some of them look like your uncle, or your grandpa, or your neighbor—just anyone.

It is kind of a weird situation because we work with them, and we are doing all of this great work that really digs deep in some cases, but we don’t see so much of their lives behind bars. We get to leave at the end of the two-hour lesson and they don’t.

I have done a lot with theatre. I acted and stage managed. I didn’t know what I really loved. I wanted to try theatre education as well.

I came to Michigan State. I knew that I could explore that and I came up with something that is even bigger than the program that I worked on here is drama therapy. And that is really what I love, and I found it here. Sometimes it is a slow process. Sometimes it is a frustrating process. You think that, gosh, it is never going to happen.

I think that happens in all theatre. You get down to the wire, and you are like it is not going to work out. But it always ends up clicking at the very end, and you come up with something fantastic in performance.

They are proud of their work—especially the one guy that I worked with; we did a scene from Macbeth. And I got to play Lady Macbeth, which is a great role, I would love to play the whole part some day. But the guy that I was working with during Macbeth had some really great moments. He understood what was going on—the stakes behind what he was saying, the motivations of the character, the character’s psychological states—and it was huge. It was a great accomplishment for someone who went from not acting at all to performing one of Shakespeare’s greatest roles.
You put in the hard work and dedication and put something positive into the world, and you will change it one person at a time, one group of people at a time.

I am doing something good and that is what I take the most joy in.

The humanities directly touches lives and just makes me so happy and excited about what I do every day. And being at State and getting to do that—I found it here. I found that theatre can connect people to each other. And I think that’s how I change the world.

Theatre has done good in my own life, and it will do good in the lives of many others. And I am glad if I can play a small role in that.

For me, personally, it is “Spartans will create.” I think that is what I value most in myself and in others is the creative mind and bringing something into the world that wasn’t there before.