What Theatre Means

Catherine (Confessions of A Crazed Musical Theatre Geek) posed a question at the end of her recent post What does theatre mean? Interested to see what other people say. Here are my thoughts





I have been involved in theatre since I was a sophomore in high school... haven't stopped since. It's become a really big passion of mine. I have more tech credits to my name than acting credits but I hope to eventually build my acting resume.



I think of theatre in the aspect of three CS

Collaboration- Theatre is the true art of collaboration. It's a bunch of people working together to put on a show for an audience. That is the one thing I took away from any show that i've worked on no matter where I was at. To provide an example I will post an excerpt from my reflection paper from my New London Barn Playhouse internship 3 summers ago
On the theatrical side of things I not only got to help out with technical work but I also go experience with acting and directing. I was an ensemble member in Annie Get Your Gun. I found it very beneficial to work with the other actors. They were very supportive of me. It was also fun to be able to watch the play form from the first rehearsal to the final dress rehearsal and how everything came together especially the choreography for Annie Get Your Gun. By being a member of the cast I was able to see how stressful and intense the rehearsal process can be. During the early rehearsals of Annie Get Your Gun it would take a long time to work the scenes because there were younger kids in the group scenes and it was hard to keep them on task. Once things got a little bit more organized between scenes, the scenes ran a lot crisper and cleaner. <~ this also can fit under the third C Comraderie

Cliques (this is most relevant to high school theatre) : The biggest issue I had in high school was dealing with cliques. That seemed to go away when it came to theatre. For example take my high school's production of Cabaret my junior year. In that show the quarterback of the football team was cast as the lead role. Now when you think sports you automatically associate the word jock with it. Bear in mind that the years I was in high school there were a lot of talented theatre kids... some who went to college in New York to study acting.. others who I am not sure if they actually went to do anything with theatre but with the case of the lead role in this show who was played by Jeff Farrington (yes I still have my program) you'd be surpised at how talented he was at acting. I know I was. The whole mentality of cliques kind of disappated once I went to college.



Comraderie: The thing that makes theatre most important to me is the bonds I make with the people in each show I work with both in the cast and in the crew. With each show I've done since high school I have found I have an impeccable bond with the people I have been in shows with. Over the past 15 years I have worked on over 20 shows ..while each cast I've worked with was made of a different group of people I've found the friendships I've made with these people to be most beneficial. The memories of each show are great but it's the friendships I've made a long the way that have truly made the difference in my life. It comes in handy for networking too.