Theater and Life

Relate Theater to your LIFE! (Your passions, family, hobbies, community, religion, friends, aspirations, biography). As you’re learning, theatrical language, practice, technology and theory pervade all aspects of life. Talk about how what you’re learning this semester is relevant to your life. We’ve talked extensively about how theater relates to sports, politics, history, culture, ritual, psychology other art forms and so on. You can certainly go more in depth thinking about theater in the above contexts, but how does theater relate to “gaming”? To musical performance? To movies? To “people watching”? To worship? To fashion? To philosophy? Ask yourself a simple question: what am I passionate about and how can I connect my theater learning to this passion? (500 words min).


My Life and Theater

Family and Friends:
My family is quite unique. Each one of us has our own story and each story has so much impact on each other’s. If someone were to sit in a room and watch a Thanksgiving dinner at the States residence, there would never be a boring moment. There is conflict, there are relationships, there are changing events, etc.
 
My friends and I are also quite a scene to watch. For example: I took two friends from the theater department to see my high school’s talent show. I could tell by the looks on their faces that watching me with my old friends from high school was such an entertaining experience. We are all so bubbly and full of energy and we never stop going.
A lot of my play analysis relates to my family and friend life. I relate characters to family members and friends. I relate situations to situations I have been in or my friends and family have been through. I can also envision scenes from plays happening in my real life.

Hobbies:
I absolutely love to create scrapbooks and redesign rooms in my house. Both of these relate to the design aspects of theater. It takes a lot to take your own designs from your head and put them down on paper. It also takes certain skills to be able to create ideas that complement each other in color scheme, shape, practicality, style, genre, and many other subjects of design.

Community:
In my community, we all support each other and we are all there for one another. If someone is sick, people send food and flowers. If a family member or friend has been lost, people are there to cheer them up. If a pet is lost, people look for it. In theater, if you have a costume malfunction, the designer and manager are there to help. If you can’t do a dance move, the choreographer is there to help. If you need to run lines, your fellow actors are there to help. In a community there is often a mayor. In theater there is a director. In a community there are construction workers. In theater, you have electricians, stage hands, and other workers. In a sense, a theater is its own community.

Religion:
I am not a very religious person, but I do go to church every Sunday to play piano. In my church, there is a choir and there is a children’s praise team. Both are like watching theatrical performances (more so with the children’s praise team.) Also, listening to my pastor give sermons and read scripture, I feel like he is doing a monologue. There are stories, conflicts, morals, and resolutions.

Musical Performance:
Musical performances are also like theater. They are interacting with the audience on an emotional level. Often times, the songs the singers or instrumentalists perform, tell a story.

People Watching:
People watching is the most basic type of theater. If you sit on a park bench or look out a window, you see people walking with friends, family, interacting with others. You can see conflict between some, you can see reconciliation, and you can also begin to make up a back story for the people in your head. I love to sit and watch people and wonder what they are thinking or doing. I also think it’s good for actors to sit and observe people because it allows them to observe relationships and mannerisms of people that they can use in their acting. When I attended the New York Film Academy, for my acting technique class, we had to sit somewhere in the town and people watch for three hours and take notes. We then applied this to scenes we did with neutral masks


What am I passionate about and how can I connect my theater learning to this passion?
Theater is my passion. I love learning about theater and being involved in theater 24/7.