Theatre 101 (Issues in Theatre)
Background:
I took this course the spring semester of my freshman year. This was one of my favorite courses of my spring semester. My parents and older sister have shared the love for all things theatre since before I was born. However, I do not share the same love of theatre as they do. I like to watch it but not participate in it. While learning about theatre in this course, I felt like I had finally understood a little portion of their world. In this course, my professor heavily emphasized the importance of two things that are essential to theatre: participation and being on time.
The Importance of Being On Time:
I don’t think I will ever forget zooming across campus (from Grainger to Bedford) during the small ten minute window I had (from 12:50pm to 1:00pm) to make it to class on time. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I strictly wore tennis shoes. It was definitely a workout speed-walking across campus with a ten pound backpack on my back. Being late was not an option because of our special classroom door. The door only opened if a student (who was registered for that class) scanned their card to unlock the door. The door also automatically locked 5 minutes after class began and stayed locked until class was over. The university’s policy is that if you miss 10% of the class, the professor is allowed to drop your grade a letter. If you were late, there was no way you were getting in; therefore, you would be counted absent. The self-locking doors, my seat in the very front row, the university policy, and my professor’s attitude about being late were all strong factors that made me horrified of being late. My professor said two things that I replayed over in my head while speed-walking to class: “If you’re five minutes late, don’t even bother coming to class” and “the theatre waits for no one.” I will always remember the importance of being on time to theatre class. Hopefully, this experience will continue to motivate me to come early to class.
Why Participation Matters:
Participation was one of the major ways to earn points in the class, and I can understand why. To learn certain aspects of theatre, one had to actually experience it. I found that the more I participated and volunteered in class, the better I retained the information we had learned that day. Although I normally sat quiet in my other classes, this was the one class where I was willingly raising my hand to volunteer. I had participated in various activities including reading scripts while wearing replicas of ancient Greek masks, participating in silent foam sword-fights, playing charades, and practicing lines in different voices. It was one of the classes that had brightened my day and where the professor had my full attention at all times. Hopefully, I can participate more in my future classes!
Speaking of participation, one of the larger grades in the class was seeing Longwood’s musical and writing a report on it. Although I was accustomed to seeing my sister’s plays for four nights in a row, I hadn’t seen a play since she graduated college and I had never done a report on one. It was a nice assignment for me to get back into the theatre’s audience. To my delight, the musical I saw was Chicago! I had always wanted to see the musical after my dad and sister had seen it and raved over the “Cell Block Tango” number. I have posted my review of Longwood’s production of the musical down below.
This was a piece that focused on analyzing the performance aspect of the musical. I was required to write about the best actor and best number and why I had thought it was the best according to the terms we learned in class. It tested my reflection and analyzation skills, as well as, my ability to be on time (which means arriving 30 minutes early to secure a good seat).