Reflective Essay: Why I Fall In Love With Technical Theatre

I will be better, I will grow, I will learn Four years ago, I fell in love with technical theater. I stage managed, designed lighting, ran an audio board, organized backstage, created props, and moved set pieces. When I was younger I acted in school plays and community productions but they stressed me out beyond belief. Stage managing stressed me out but I absolutely loved it. It was a different kind of stress. It was a physical and emotional pressure that felt more like a challenge or a dare. I felt more rewarded when I was running a show and calling cues, or designing the lighting, than I ever had when I acted. Long story short, Tech stole my heart. So, on the first day of class I was very uncomfortable. For more reasons than the fact …show more content…
In my journal on October 24th I titled the entry “I Went Today”. This was in reference to my presentation of my book/Pledge of Allegiance project. I wrote, “The first time I did it I was so quiet. But then she made me do it again and made me face the class. It felt like torture. I now know that I really don’t want to be an actor. I’ll stick with tech.” I remember this because I was told in rehearsals when we were working on things before and critiquing each other both of my partners said I was too quiet. I remember hoping that she didn’t make me go again because I was so nervous with my work. I didn’t like how it turned out and I hated working on it. Even somedays in class during some warm ups I recall Kym telling me to use my voice, to not hold back. She said that if I commit to it with my voice it would be easier to get into than if I didn’t. She said this to me many times, during the circling of energy warm ups, the scale of energy warm ups, and whenever I rehearsed my monologue. There was always a war in my head because I completely believed her when she said it would be easier if I committed my voice to it but I never wanted to be the loudest in the room or to not blend it. It wasn’t until we started to introduce props into our group skits did I finally break my pattern. I told my group that we should grab the wine glass and keep the knife to work with but everyone wanted the baby doll. I hate baby dolls I think they are creepy. They made me get rid of the knife and grab the baby. I stayed as far away from it as I could. Until Kelly threw it to me so I threw it to Grace. In the end Marlee started to scream in my face, so I screamed back. No, I didn’t scream, it was more of a shriek. After I shrieked back Marlee went silent. I felt so riled up I just wanted to run away from that weird situation and scream for four hours. But, I was very proud of myself, I committed fully