Powerful theater combines intellectual ideas and artistry of language with the visual power of movement and physical strength. The theater I most appreciate involves the actors’ equal commitment to their bodies as to their voices. This theater makes art of the entirety of our evolution—biological, linguistic, and cultural—and represents the ultimate artistic elevation of the human spirit. This is the theater I strive to create. I believe the director is ultimately responsible for providing the distinct, guiding perspective of a production. A strong director brings the audience a cogent, well-reasoned interpretation of the play and ensures consistency among the actors and design elements to create a production that is clear and effective. To do this well, a director must explore the history of the play and the playwright's inspiration as well as look for corollaries to the play’s style and subject in other media, culture and intellectual ideas, and ultimately, compile this information into a coherent blueprint for realizing the world and presenting the themes of the play. It is precisely this studied, integrative aspect of directing that I am most attracted to, and, I believe, that makes me a strong director.
I began my collegiate theater studies, at Reed College, wanting to be an actor, and, in fact, adverse to the idea of directing. I had considered directors little more than acting coaches and blockers, but in my first year, I worked with a director, Stepan Simek, who significantly shifted my understanding of directing as an art form. The production was Frank Wedekind’s Spring Awakening, which was staged on a pair of raked platforms that served as chalkboards. The set pieces in each scene were drawn on the platforms by...
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...s at the school. I believe that my experience with new media production as well as my work in traditional theater speak to my ability to create ambitious, interesting work. I believe the School of Theater, Film and Television will provide an environment that will challenge and encourage me to grow artistically, while providing strong critical feedback and exposure to new ideas, to say nothing of the cultural opportunities that the Los Angeles community offers. I greatly enjoy collaboration and analytical exploration, which I hope will make me an asset to your program and my fellow MFA students in directing and other disciplines. I am confident that my drive and focus will make me an excellent director, but I think that the MFA program at UCLA offers an opportunity to grow beyond my own ideas and to become a superior artist to that which I can become on my own.
The specialization and individualized professions in the field of Technical Theatre are relatively new to the stage in comparison to the period of time in which the art of Theatre has grown. Aiding in the development of concentrated professions such as scenic design has been a plethora of talented, skillful, intelligent and highly driven individuals. Among these influential fountains of creativity have been John Lee Beatty, Eugene Lee, Boris Aronson, Ming Cho Lee, Jo Mielziner, Tony Walton, Robin Wager, John Napier, Santo Loquasto, Heidi Landesman, and Julie Taymor along with many more.
In Dialogue: Theatre of America, Harold Clurman said, “we make theatre out of life” (27), and it was precisely this view that motivated him to help create a uniquely American theatre. Clurman, considered one of the most influential directors of the modern American theatre, had a unique vision of what the American theatre could become. One of the founders of the quintessentially American troupe, the Group Theatre, Clurman was a contemporary of Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg, and even married to Stella Adler for twenty years. At a ceremony honoring Clurman, Elia Kazan stated that Clurman’s “greatest achievement [was] himself” (Harold Clurman: A Life of Theatre). An important figure in our theatrical past, Clurman’s theories on theatre and directing require close attention. In this paper, I will first provide a brief biography of Clurman, second, examine his theories of theatre and directing, and lastly, I will explore his criticisms of the then-contemporary theatre, and draw conclusions to the current state of the Broadway theatre.
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a comedy that has been interpreted in different ways, enabling one to receive multiple experiences of the same story. Due to the content and themes of the play, it can be creatively challenging to producers and their casting strategies. Instead of being a hindrance, I find the ability for one to experiment exciting as people try to discover strategies that best represent entertainment for the audience, as well as the best ways to interpret Shakespeare’s work.
Lisa Cholodenko grew up in Los Angeles and she began her film careers working as an assistant editor; however, she then moved to New York and earned an MFA in screenwriting and direction at the Columbia University School of arts. At Columbia University School of Arts, Cholodenko filmed her first short movie Dinner Party. Besides being a director, Lisa Cholodenko also was a film professor at Columbia University, an advisor and is currently on the Board of Governs of Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science. It was surprising to be able to find out how active Cholodenko is in the film industry and in the university she attended. This portrays how committed Cholodenko is to creating successful movies and to be a part of others film victory.
In each and every culture theater exists. However, they are not always portrayed in the same way and could take up many different forms. What differ them from others is influenced by the convention of what governs them. What happen on stage depends on the conventions of the theater. Convention is define as “Rules governing a given style of theater, such as fourth-wall verisimilitude or bare stage. These rule should not be violated, but often are, as when actors “break” the fourth wall by delivering a line directly toward the audience” (Altshuler and Janaro 208). The condition governing the staging and performance are known as theatrical conventions, in which what the audiences agree to accept as what is real (Altshuler and Janaro 173). In comparing an Elizabethan and a modern theater to each other there are many differences and similarities between the two. By comparing William Shakespeare “Hamlet” to Lorraine Hansberry “A Raisin in the Sun”, we can see that there is a major difference between the two
College Admissions Essay If someone asked me where I am going to be in ten years, this would be my answer. I have a great, high-paying job, and beautiful wife and family, and a nice sports car parked in front of my lovely house. When I look into the future, I see myself being successful and happy. Even though I always pictured myself this way, I never worried too much about how I would get there.
In the world of theatre, there is a lot of work that goes into the preparation and execution of a play/production. There are several tasks that must be done in order to provide an audience with top notch entertainment. Among these tasks, there are the producer, the actor, and the director just to name a few. But none of these people would have anything to act, produce, or direct if it were not for the most important job of them all: the playwright. The playwright is the “the man with the plan”. The play starts with the ideas and the imagination of this man or woman. These all ultimately morph into the script. The job of the playwright is not just as simple as coming up with the first thing that pops into his or her head. No, play writing is
In the context of this essay I will be thinking from the perspective of the director in order to explore a breadth of design choices the director of a company has the privilege of making. This would be a primarily text-free interpretation of Angels in America and a highly physical-theatre driven work. The title of t...
Lazarus, Joan. "On the Verge of Change: New Directions in Secondary Theatre Education." Applied Theatre Research 3.2 (July 2015): 149-161. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1386/atr.3.2.149_1.
While growing up, Aronofsky had the great pleasure of seeing the greatest movies being released for the first time in theatres. Spielberg’s Jaws and George Lucas’ Star Wars were great successes that triggered a further liking of film for Aronofsky. Coming from a strong household and educated with an MFA in Directing, Aronofsky’s great successes were becoming f...
“The theatre was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation,” says Stella Adler. Theater is unique and intriguing because it blends literary and visual arts to tell a story. Throughout the course, I have learned that understanding aesthetics and sociopolitical history is essential for appreciating and applying theater in the real world. Brechtian and musical theatre styles, such as applying musical theatre in RENT, are effective methods to convey crucial historical and social messages, utilizing theater as a platform outside of the arts and for a greater purpose of positive social change.
“The theatre was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation,” says Stella Adler. Theater is unique and intriguing because it blends literary and visual arts to tell a story. Before Theater 10, I viewed theater on the surface level: cheesy plot lines with dramatic scenarios for entertainment purposes. Throughout the course, I have learned what it means to appreciate theater, such as understanding Brechtian and Chinese theatre; however, I believe understanding theater’s ability to convey crucial historical and social messages, such as in the production of RENT, is more relevant and important for theater appreciation.
Applied Theatre work includes Theatre-in-Education, Community and Team-building, Conflict Resolution, and Political theatre, to name just a few of its uses. However, Christopher Balme states that “Grotowski define acting as a communicative process with spectators and not just as a production problem of the actor” (Balme, 2008: 25). Applied Theatre practices may adopt the following “theatrical transactions that involve participants in different participative relationships” such as Theatre for a community, Theatre with a community and Theatre by a community Prentki & Preston (2009: 10). Whereas, applied theatre one of its most major powers is that it gives voice to the voiceless and it is a theatre for, by, and with the people. However, Applied Theatre practitioners are devising educational and entertaining performances bringing personal stories to life and build
“Theatre makes us think about power and the way our society works and it does this with a clear purpose, to make a change.”
The survival of theatre lies in the very nature of humankind: its inner voyeuristic drive. The desire to watch other people dealing with their conflicts and fates challenges as well as reinforces values and the morality of society. The theatre provides an exciting opportunity to watch stories and situations as if they were real life, showing us the truth of our nature.