The authors suggest that theater activities can be used as a helpful approach to initiating more complex reflection about death among university students as well as hospice volunteers. Included in the article is an activity description and accompanying texts from a death-contemplation exercise which support this advocation. This performance skills activity produced serious student responses which were varied, articulate, and rich. Imagining and rehearsing death allows people to “act as if” and fantasize the circumstances surrounding one's death in a removed and relatively safe manner. These presentations can make the performance of life more meaningful, and the drama of death perhaps softer and more acceptable.
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