Thursday, May 6, 2010

Relate Theatre to your Life

One of my major passions in life has always been participating in sports. Mainly softball, volleyball, track, and football in the backyard with my brothers. Theatre can be seen as a part of these because, for instance, when a football player gets a touchdown the dance or whatever they do at the end can be seen as acting. They are performing a little skit in front of an audience that is there to see them perform, as it is with any sport really. My family is not the type of family to really go out and see a production on Broadway anytime soon. My father probably would never have even dared to consider seeing a musical until I was in them for high school, it is just not his scene I guess you could say. I am from a really little town filled with farms, cows, and not much money to go around. The people in my community have never really been involved in musicals much at all. Until this one young man from my church decided to put on a cantata, small musical for Easter, at my local church. It was a huge success and everyone who was in it and came to witness it loved everything about it. This got a lot of people in my community to see what the theatre can do for you spiritually, it can literally change you form the inside out. Mostly all of my friends from high school were involved in theatre in some aspect or another. Many of them were even more passionate about it then I am, if that is at all possible to believe.
I am also passionate about worshiping God through singing and dancing, I absolutely love it. Singing is one of my greatest passions above everything else, I do it as much as I possibly can. Anyone that is around me enough knows this. Theatre can definitely relate to worship through singing because when you are singing your facial expressions show the emotions that you are feeling. If you are singing a depressing song that is expressing the loss of a loved one, your face is going to be solemn. Also, when you are excited and singing a very happy song, you are going to be smiling and dancing around. The way you present yourself through acting while singing makes the song come across to the audience so much better than without it. I at one time thought about becoming a gospel singer legitimately, but I decided against it. For the reasons that I am not that good of a singer in the first place and I would not like to be in the spot light like that. Although who knows where my life is going because that could still be a possibility, but for now I am content on not being in the limelight.
I am also very passionate about shopping, call me your typical girl. When you are shopping for clothes you are usually looking to buy clothes that are going to express your individuality. Clothes that you like and catch your eye are the clothes that you are going to buy when you see them in a store. Likewise, theatre is expressing your individuality as well as shopping is. When you are acting, singing, decorating a set, you are expressing you and how you view things. You can either buy bright colors and act in a bright and cheerful way or you can wear dark colors and act in a depressing way. Both of these mainly consisting on your mood and how you are feeling at the particular moment of course.
Another way to relate theatre to life is the example of people watching. Everyone does people watching AT LEAST once a day, whether they will admit it or not, everyone does it. We are Americans, we are always in each other business and gossiping about it. Everyone cares what the person next to them is doing and then we “act” like we were not watching them. This is where the aspect of theatre comes into play, we act like we were not watching them and that we did not do anything at all. There are so many different ways in which theatre is involved in out lives, we just have to take the time to realize that it effects all of us equally and greatly.

Concluding Statement

There was so much information that we learned in this class that I do not honestly know where to start. I liked the definition that you gave us of postmodernism which says that we live in a world of contradiction and instability. This is so true when you think about it because even with issues that most of us think are black and white, such as abortion, there are always grey areas. For example, if a women was raped should they be able to have an abortion? Everything always contradicts itself within our society today. There is no set way of doing anything no guide book in which to set our lives by.
Theatre has always been a big part of my life because I love it and being apart of it. I think that everyone should experience it at least a little bit. When I was reading through my classmates work for this particular blog, I have been noticing that so many people have never been involved with theatre at all. This shocks me for some reason because I always just assumed that people were involved and understood music and musicals. I think that being involved with music in general can help you to become a better and more well rounded person. I know it helped me be more responsible and disciplined, I just wish everyone could experience it and what it has done for me and my life.
Although many students in this class were not apart of theatre and did not understand how it fully worked before, many of them said that taking this class has helped them a lot in these aspects. I think that to have students understand how theatre can impact your life on such a great scale, and from an online class nonetheless, is pretty amazing. I think it was really awesome how the kids in this class have realize what theatre has and can do for them within their own lives, and what it has done with others. No one will they see people who love musicals as “weird” or “geeky,“ hopefully now they will give them a better chance and no judge them based on what their passions are. Now if there was just a class that could teach the musical students not to judge the sports jocks as much, I think high schools could be a better place for students to get along. This class really helped me to see that we are all actors and actresses and we are all always acting. No matter where we are or what we are doing we are always entertaining someone or trying to be to be a certain someone, other wise known as, acting. Every time, for the majority of the time, that we are around anyone, whether we are putting on a presentation or in front of our closest friends, we are acting.
Even with my history of being involved in theatre this class still taught me so much in the world of theatre. When you are involved in a musical and even when you are watching one, you forget all of the work that goes into making the production possible. For example, you never think of all the hard work that the director actually does. They are the ones who have to take everyone’s needs and wants into accordance of the whole production; lighting, sound, visuals, acting, singing, dancing, costumes, set, etc. Directors have to deal with scheduling all of the endless rehearsals, deal with everyone whining to them about everything pointless, and dealing with all of the publicity and getting the shows name out there in order for people to come to it.
To be honest this class made me realize how much I truly love and appreciate the arts. Being in band since fourth grade and choir since fifth, you never realize when you are in it that it is shaping your life. I have such as huge passion for music and I did not even know that I had it, as crazy as that sounds. I only realized it now because I am not doing it anymore and this class brought all of that to my attention very quickly. Art in general is a huge, or should be a huge part of everyone’s life. Even paintings, there are so many people who enjoy drawing and are very talented at it, but do not even realize it. It changes you in the deepest ways possible and it can help you throughout many troubling times in your life, especially music, and I think anyone can attest to that statement.