Every year, SMU’s theater department produces a collection of plays written and directed by its senior theater studies majors. This past week, two one acts, two full-length plays, and two staged readings premiered as this spring’s “New Visions, New Voices.”

All the plays were remarkable. The playwrights showed us how they view the world and how they hope to reflect it through their art. The directors breathed life into them, offering their own interpretation of their colleagues’ work. The actors combined sensitivity and excitement to produce moments of extraordinary power and humor.

The final full-length play, “Where Pride Rides,” moved me in a way art rarely does. Freddie Beckley directed Kamelle Mills’ take on an ambitious young woman with all kinds of daddy issues, a gay boy unable to accept himself, and a father estranged from his daughter.

By the end of the play, the boy is dead, a victim of suicide after the person he trusts most in the world, a person who knows nothing of his sexuality, expresses her hatred for homosexuals.

The woman finally forgives her father and comes back to him, but too late. He has already died of AIDS.

Quite a bit more goes on and such a short synopsis can’t capture the deep currents of feeling and motivation that seethe beneath the surface, but you get the idea.

Towards the end of the play, the characters accept themselves and those they’ve hurt. The boy’s lover visits him in the hospital and finally sheds the bad boy attitude that caused him to deny his true feelings for so long. The woman comes to see her father and forgives him for leaving her mother years earlier. The characters accept the fact that people aren’t perfect, that the world is more complex than we’d like it to be.

I’m not very in touch with my feelings. My family and friends always ask me to open up, to be more comfortable expressing my wants and fears.

When something is wrong, I shut down my emotions, throwing myself into work rather than facing what’s bothering me. I almost never cry. It’s too vulnerable.

But when I saw “Where Pride Rides This Weekend,” a switch flipped. Seeing the characters realize who they are moved me. I lived with them, sharing their sorrow to the point of tears.

That’s what art should do. It should change how you see the world. It should touch you in ways more real than real life. It should burrow deep into your heart, get you in contact with parts of yourself you didn’t know existed.

This weekend reminded me why I am an artist. It’s not for the applause or the recognition. It’s not even for what I can do to an audience. It’s about knowing myself. With any luck, I’ll help someone else do the same.

For those of you who have never been to a Meadows performance, you should. College is a time for experiencing new things and learning about life. SMU has stellar programs in all the artistic disciplines. Take advantage of the cheap tickets and quality art available to you. You’ll leave appreciating the world just a little bit more.

Nathaniel French is a sophomore theater studies and math double major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].