ground shaking than you 'd expect. I am an African American baptist Christian that was raised in gospel and contemporary Christian music. I have never been to a play before and the closest I 've been to something of that style is an opera when I was about ten years old. Believe me, it was a culture shock. This play was at Triad Stage in Downtown Greensboro and it was titled Arms and the Man by Bernard Shaw. The play itself (in writing) didn 't include any music at all but, through the prompting of the director and the sound designer, Triad Stage turned the sort of dry writing into a very musically driven and powerful performance. Because I 'm interning at Triad Stage I was able to see behind the scenes at the production of the show and even talk to the director, actors and sound designer for their reasoning and inspiration to what they did with the show. It was pretty cool. Before I even arrived at the theatre, I stood in my room fretting over what to wear. All the people…
Bonger, produced by the Plasticine Men and performed by Martin Bonger. The specific performance to which I am referring was at the Bike Shed Theatre, Exeter on 29th September 2016. This performance is a one-man show where the actor, Martin Bonger is narrating a story to the audience. It is a dramatic production, there is a set, music, the performer has a costume and yet it also clearly storytelling. This reading will explore the signs that might define where this performance is storytelling and…
as an American society, we don’t like to discuss often. That’s what theatre does. It puts controversial and entertaining work on stage and causes people to talk, thus generating an interest in not only the play itself but the issues as a whole. This can be seen in performance art as well, most clearly seen in the work of Marina Abramovic. Her pieces serve as a form of commentary on society and how people will react in certain situations. One notable and very controversial example was her piece…
September 18, 2016 at 6:30pm, I had the privilege of attending Dirty Dancing, the classic story on stage written by Eleanor Bergstein at the Memphis, Tennessee Orpheum. Bergstein is an American writer who wrote and co-produced the popular film Dirty Dancing back in the 80’s. She wrote the story based partly off her own childhood. James Powell was the director, Trinity Wheeler was the producer, and Michele Lynch was the choreographer for this musical. With this being a musical there were many…
It seems that everywhere you turn these days, new actors are emerging in the world of entertainment. All too often, young people have ambitionsto enter this world of glitz and glamor, but they don 't understand the amount of work that goes into such a venture. Thankfully, this is not the true in the case of Lauren A. Campbell, an aspiring, young actress who posseses talent, brains, and determination. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Lauren about her foray into the world of acting,…
Miller creates characters they can empathize with. Because Death of a Salesman is a play, most characters are actors with a physical presence and capacity for human emotion rather than merely printed names. The theatrical realist movement inspired plays about middle-class characters and encouraged natural acting. Miller took this movement further; to maximize the chance of the audience identifying with his characters, he created characters that were almost anonymous in their genericity. The most…
Actors, directors, playwrights, set designers, costume designers, lighting and sound designers all come together to mount this spectacle of theater. The theater has to pay these employed artists. Not only are artists involved, but stage managers, technicians, dramaturgs, marketing directors, ushers, stage hands, and janitors are all examples of the endless other individuals essential in the collaborative execution of a show. The nature of theater is collaboration in almost every aspect of art,…
so that the emotion takes center stage to the action. In retrospect for its visually shocking creature effects, it isn’t entirely the centerpiece to the film. It serves more to heighten how perpetually indescribable the thing is in both the eyes of the men and the audience—which is verified by how much screen time is given to the reactions of the characters as opposed to simply boasting grotesque body horror. Either the creature design is too vague to clarify like in the book or to distort it to…
However, the renowned Sanford Meisner offers, rather eloquently, a definition to which I agree with: “[acting] is living truthfully under imaginary circumstances.” Through my studies I have discovered that in order to be a good actor one must read, translate and further transform the text into actions driven by emotional states of being. Acting takes patience and vulnerability, that is, to turn inward and discover and accept the truth of one’s own human experience, emotions and psyche. The…
Grace Kelly: An Iconic Actress Acting her way through her success, Grace Kelly, an American actress, caught her audience’s attention with her direct symbol of excitement in the film The Country Girl (Gevinson 659). She was known for all the shows she was in. Kelly changed the acting communities by her various performances and created the iconic characters that she was known for. After retiring her profession, she continued to help America through her fame. Grace Kelly, a talented American…