CREATING A CHARACTER & SOCIAL WORK, BY BENJAMIN GREGG

Since I officially moved back to Ohio after completing my MSW degree at the University of Michigan a few months ago, it has been an absolute delight to reconnect with Seat of the Pants as an ensemble member for the ’25-’26 season. I’ve previously worked as an actor for the company (appearing in Ripcord and Our Country’s Good) in addition to serving as an ensemble member during the ’23-’24 inaugural season of company expansion. This time around, I’m working in a more behind-the-scenes capacity as producer of our Salon Series and assisting on grants and fundraising. At some point, I hope to venture out into the performing side of the craft once again, but reconnecting with the community of artists involved in this company I so fervently believe in has been a joy. I’ve missed these people.

On the surface, you most likely wouldn’t connect acting with social work, but there is actually quite a bit of overlap. In terms of developing a character, it’s essentially actor malpractice to place too much of an emphasis on morally judging your character. You have to justify their existence and do your best to understand their motivations, their aspirations, their personhood.  In social work, a hallmark of the profession is “meeting the client where they’re at” with the core value of upholding the dignity and worth of the person. Essentially, it’s social work malpractice to come from a judgmental and prescriptive lens in the helping process which subverts a client’s right to autonomy and self-determination. We’re tasked with collaborating with the client and harnessing a strengths-based approach. Social work jargon aside, you need to empathize with your character and if you’re not empathizing with your client, you most assuredly should not be in the helping profession.

All of this sounds pretty intellectual, but I think another aspect that needs further investigation is, of course, behavior. 

Behavior is the window into the character. We talk about nonverbal cues quite a bit in the social work profession and as we all know, discovering a character’s behavior is one of the core tasks of the acting craft. Over the last year, I’ve thought A LOT about the concept of congruence. Essentially, does a person’s behavior match what they’re verbally expressing? Often times, we may say we are “fine”, but nonverbal cues and behavior writ large express otherwise. After all, the body is the vehicle that stores trauma. 

At some point, I’m excited to see if these social work principles translate into my acting work. In the meantime, I continue to appreciate the various acting approaches our company embodies in the development of the plays we put on stage. I suppose what draws me to social work is the same as what draws me to the work we do at Seat of the Pants. We place high value on collaboration, competence, process, and intentionality in the work. These are values I carry with me in all facets of my personal, professional, and artistic ventures in my life. 

Seat of the Pants’ blog is sponsored by a generous gift from Audio Plays.