Penn State Altoona professor brings stories of courage from research to stage

ALTOONA, Pa. — There are endless adages, quotes, stories, songs, poetry and artwork about courage.

It is something people have been trying to understand, define and explain across generations and cultures the world over. There may be a general sense of what it is, but it’s something often experienced and expressed in different ways.

Amir Marvasti, professor of sociology at Penn State Altoona, began his deep dive into the complex concept after observing an interaction between his daughter and his grandfather-in-law, Roy C. McKinney Sr., a World War II veteran who was awarded a Purple Heart for his bravery during the Battle of the Bulge.

For a middle school project, Marvasti’s daughter interviewed McKinney and asked him about the most courageous thing he did during the war. He answered simply, “Not get killed.”

After listening to this exchange, Marvasti became curious about courage.

He thought about his personal history as an Iranian immigrant to the United States in 1983, which allowed him to pursue an education and avoid being drafted into a war between Iran and Iraq.

“I wondered if it was cowardice to flee the war, or if I had been courageous to leave and start a new life in a new country,” he said.

It was a question that continued to intrigue him through the years even as a broader one grew in his mind. He wanted to know how other people viewed courage, what they considered courageous. He wanted to know their stories of nerve and bravery.

Marvasti has conducted research on a wide range of sociological topics for decades, often using narrative analysis. This involves soliciting stories and analyzing them thematically. Marvasti said he’s typically interested in both the substance of the stories as well as how people tell them and the conditions or context of the storytelling.

His questions about courage fit perfectly with his research interests and methods. Marvasti developed a qualitative exploratory study — a kind of first-step investigation intended to begin to understand a topic rather than test established theories — to distill how people define courage in narrative data.

He explained the project to college students and asked them to write personal essays about the most courageous thing they had ever done. The essays needed to address four specific points including the events leading up to the act and how the student felt afterward.

The stories, with the information that could identify the writers removed, became the data; the research question was how those stories were put together and what they revealed about courage across different respondents. In other words, Marvasti said, the point was to look for social patterns or structures in the stories rather than individual traits.

Marvasti received essays from about 70 participants.

“I was impressed by the range of stories, from physical acts to emotional acts to those about people trying to do the right thing in difficult circumstances,” he said.

As Marvasti began exploring publication options for his research based on the essays, he was surprised at the direction he found himself taking.

He said researchers become very intimate with their data because they must spend so much time with it, reading through and mining it.

“As I read the stories repeatedly, I started to visualize the storytellers and hear their unique voices and styles,” he said. “Some of them are really engaging. They're exciting, they're funny, and they're also very insightful.”

By the nature of the assignment the student submissions were already in narrative form, practically scripts.

“So, I started to think, why not actually bring them to life on a stage,” he said.

Marvasti took his idea to Penn State Altoona’s theatre department in 2022, but the timing wasn’t quite right for all of the pieces to come together.

The project finally got some wheels under it in fall 2025 when Marvasti was connected with Things Unseen Theatre, a local production company.

Emily Evey was a volunteer at the company then. With her degree in theatre, communication and social justice, she was drawn to the possibilities for the project.

“I’m passionate about using applied theatre as a tool to share real stories,” she said, explaining that applied theatre is a wide field of theatre techniques used outside of traditional stages to address social issues, promote healing, foster education and drive social change within communities. “Many times, the end result helps communities make progress toward collective justice and conflict resolution.”

Serving as playwright and director, Evey assembled a production crew and cast to create a staged reading. They read through the anonymized and edited essays and selected pieces for inclusion that were further edited for length and put in a logical order by theme.

“Stories of Courage” premiered in November 2025 with a run of three shows.

Marvasti had been consulted throughout the process but did not see the finished product until opening night. He pointed out that showing up for the performance was an act of courage on his part, noting that, after all, it requires a willingness to lean into uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.

“It was exciting, but nerve-wracking at the same time,” Marvasti said. “In my business, when you submit a paper, you wait months for blind reviews. But this was in real time with people who may not like it right in front of me. The emotional investment is different with something like this.”

But Marvasti said it appears to have been well-received, and he was impressed with the work and dedication of Evey and her team.

“I could tell they worked really hard, and I am grateful for what they accomplished,” Marvasti said, noting that seeing “Stories of Courage” as a theatre piece shifted the way he looks at some of his current research and research ideas.

He said most of his research findings and analyses are published, read by a small group of people, and except for the occasional citation, largely forgotten about, the stories lost. But now, he has a new way to bring some of his work into a literal spotlight for a fresh audience. He said he thinks seeing stories played out on a stage could make them more memorable than as words on a page in a journal or scholarly book.

“It's a new realm, and it’s exciting to think about collaborating with others,” he said.

Perhaps most importantly to Marvasti is creating conversation and connection between people. He said he sees “Stories of Courage” and further theatre projects as ways to unite people, believing the kinds of stories he has to share will resonate with anybody from anywhere.

“They show us a common humanity and our common struggles with the things we're trying to make sense of in our lives,” he said. “This opens space for people to validate and share their own experiences. Sharing our stories brings us closer as people.”

Evey agreed.

“I love doing this work, and this experience has shown me that I need to do more of it,” she said. “People who worked on and came to see Amir's collected research onstage walked away with a broader, more meaningful understanding of courage. I hope the performances allowed people to go about day-to-day life with more courage themselves and more empathy towards others’ experiences.”