Theatre 101: Issues in Theatre

I took Theatre 101 with Professor Howieson during my fall semester in 2018. I was very nervous going into this class because I had almost no previous knowledge of theatre besides attending the performances at my high school. I am also a quiet person and do not like being the center of attention so acting in front of the class was my biggest fear.

Thankfully, this course did not involve acting, or even many presentations in front of the class. Instead, we learned more about the history of theatre and terms or concepts associated with theatre. We learned about Greek Theatre, Shakespeare, and various terms about sets or acting that we applied to the shows performed at Longwood.

In the class, we had many group activities where we put what we learned to practice. In one activity, we created a play with our group and used magazines to develop a board with the scene, costumes, and characters in this play. Another assignment required each group to research a certain regional theatre and create a presentation about this theatre. This allowed the groups to relate everything we had been learning to certain regional theatre and their current seasons. With this assignment we were also able to see some similarities between the goals of the theatre and the shows in their current seasons. Our last group activity in the course was to create and perform our own children’s play. As someone who does not like normal class presentations, this scared me. However, the play was only a few minutes long and everyone in the class was doing the same type of presentation and were supportive of all the other groups.

I was also required to attend the two shows that Longwood performed during the fall semester. For each show, we were asked to focus on a certain aspect of the show and then write a review of the play focusing on that aspect. For No Exit, the first show, we were asked to focus on set design, including lighting and sound design. This essay is attached below. For Translations, the second show, we focused on the acting. These essays were difficult because I was not used to having to analyze the aspects of a show. Every other show I attended I was just able to enjoy the performance and not have to pay too much attention to all the details. However, I found that with these assignments, I was still able to enjoy the performances while paying close attention to a certain aspect of the show. These essays were also difficult because I was not used to writing in this style, but with the set list of expectations and example questions to answer, the assignments were not as difficult as they first seemed.

This course has taught me a lot about the basics of theatre. I am now better able to analyze different aspects of shows that I attend and see the deeper meaning that these aspects have. I enjoyed this course and learning about everything that goes into a work of theatre.