Beja’s Journey of Overcoming Her Dysphoria Through Theater

by Beja Puškášová ‘26

This semester, I decided to audition for the Fall theater production. One of the reasons I was so excited to audition for this production was that it was going to be devised. That means that instead of following a rigid script, the production team (actors, director, and even designers) would collaborate, improvise, brainstorm and reflect to create their own original piece of theater. While I have previously performed at Macalester and had experience as an actress, auditions have always made me nervous. Even though I hide it very well, I do have a stutter and I speak too fast. I am an immigrant, I am not a native English speaker and on top of all that, I haven’t had the chance to get much theater training before getting here – back home in Eastern Europe, I was afraid that it was too gay to do drama. 

However, by far the scariest aspect of this semester’s audition was the singing. As a trans woman who has the kind of voice that is recognized as one of the deepest even among grown up cisgender men, I grew up with a lot of shame around singing and using my voice in general. Up till that point, I have only been able to sing to my closest friends and people I dated. Nevertheless, I chose a Hindi song called Alag Aasmaan that I often sing to my queerplatonic partner to sleep and performed it at the auditions. It was hell, especially when Bob Rosen asked me to sing louder, but I did it!

During the second round of auditions when I met the other students, I knew that I would absolutely love to work with whoever was selected, in case that I personally was. The space felt very safe, accepting, and to my pleasant surprise, was full of wonderful new students! When the members of the cast were picked by Bob, who was the director, it didn’t take us very long before we were able to start fluently collaborating and devising new ideas. In spite of being quite a diverse group of people, the ideas we wanted to present on stage often overlapped. At least in my experience, it never felt like anybody was left out of the creative process. 

One day, while we were improvising our scenes, Bob assigned me the role of a ship captain that only speaks in Czech. It made me really excited, since it made it possible for me to bring a part of my culture to the devised piece. Furthermore, it also took some stress off my shoulders, since almost nobody would know if I ever forgot my lines. 

Naturally, as we moved forward with the ship scene, the idea of having a sea shanty came to us. When we began brainstorming it, nobody had any clear answers, but I remember nervously thinking – would I be the one singing it? Would I be the only one? Would I even be comfortable with that scenario? Luckily, the same evening, I was overcome with an unexpectedly huge wave of courage, and emailed Bob and Justin D. Cook (the sound designer) about my suggestions for the song, my voice dysphoria and my willingness to compose the lyrics and perform it.

Both Bob and Justin were very sensitive and understanding about my concerns and very supportive of me challenging myself this way as a part of the show. And fortunately, so was everyone else. Contrary to my fears, nobody ever commented on my voice, and there was no pressure to perform beyond my ability. 

As I am writing this before the show even premiers, I have no idea how this all will actually go, but I am hopeful. I am infinitely grateful to everyone involved in the Fall production for allowing me to be me, and I sincerely hope that other trans people with voice dysphoria will find the kind of spaces and people that will allow them to expand what they are capable of doing.