Healing in the spotlight

The theater bug bit Casey Norei Funderburk ’24 early.

“I loved the play and dress-up portion of it,” said Funderburk of her stage debut in the first-grade musical “How Does Your Garden Grow?”

Her appreciation became more refined as she continued acting in high school and community theater in the Columbia, South Carolina, area. “It really shaped my personality,” said Funderburk. “Some were very strong female roles, and I internalized a lot of those strengths. It made me a lot more confident and extroverted.”

She also saw similar forces working in others. During one theater workshop in Columbia, participants were challenged to write and perform a monologue in the persona of someone they had unresolved disagreements with. One of Funderburk’s friends cast herself in the role of her own mother, exploring their strained relationship from the opposite perspective.

“Seeing where her mom was coming from opened her eyes so much,” said Funderburk. “They got into the best state they’ve ever been in because they’ve learned to see each other’s point of view. It was amazing to see that work. And that was before I even knew there was such a thing as drama therapy.”

Therapeutic theater

This summer, Funderburk is diving deeper into drama therapy as an intern with the Applied Theatre Center (ATC) in Greenville, South Carolina. The nonprofit uses theatrical methods – storytelling, improvisation, role-playing and other creative expressions – to help people understand their challenges and rehearse solutions.

Traveling with ATC to workshops throughout the area, Funderburk is learning more about how drama therapy can help individuals recovering from substance abuse, children in foster care group homes, and migrant communities. A theatre arts and psychology double major, Funderburk sees a natural interdisciplinary connection between her two fields of study.

“They’re both about understanding people – understanding different perspectives, understanding how people’s backgrounds shape the way they are,” she said.

Creative meets clinical

Among roles in several Furman Theatre productions, a favorite for Funderburk was last season’s “Project Dawn,” which was based on a real-life court rehabilitation program for sex workers with repeat offenses in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

“I loved that show, because the summer before, I had worked on a helpline for a domestic violence shelter,” she said. “It wasn’t directly related to sex trafficking, but there are a lot of similar themes and lessons. I was talking to women every single day who were trying to work around a system that’s kind of set against them. I also learned a lot about how hard it is for advocacy workers to not take their clients’ problems home with them.”

Before the next theater season starts, Summer 2023 finds Funderburk, who hopes to get a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, working with Kerstin Blomquist, an associate professor of psychology, and several other students on a research fellowship to help counteract social media’s negative effects on body image.

After Furman, Funderburk’s overall long-term goal is to keep helping those struggling with disordered eating, substance abuse and other mental health challenges – and she knows there’s more than one approach.

“Ideally, I’d love to advance in the clinical realm and work in research, but I would also love to still work with nonprofits and do drama therapy,” she said. “I want to find a way in my future career to be able to reach out to vulnerable populations. I feel like most of the time the people who need help the most are the ones that don’t have the resources to be able to do so.”