Relate theater to my life

Before understanding theater I would not be able to relate it to my life. I would just say I'm not an actress so theater has nothing to do with my life. But I learned that there is a lot more to theater then just acting. In my life I play many different roles, like an actor, I play the role of a friend, a student, a daughter, a sister, a listener, a talker. I use many emotions every day, I laugh, I cry, I get mad, and upset. I know that my past with cheerleading and coaching can relate to an actor and a director. Also my interest in fashion relates to costumes in a play. I think that without realized it theater can relate to anyone's life.
I can relate theater to my many years of dancing and cheerleading. I can relate to an actress with the preparation and hard work they put in to one performance. I practiced every day and trained outside of practice to make sure I was doing everything right. I know that like an actress goes over her lines, I went over my moves. I can remember a performance where I dropped my flyer in a stunt, I learned that if something goes wrong to keep going. So we played it off like nothing happened and kept going with the performance. Everything ended up going very well and we still placed. I know that in a performance if someone messed up their lines they play it off like nothing happened and would keep on going. Or if someone happens to get hurt they work with what they have to complete the play the best they can, just like in cheerleading if someone is sick or hurt we may have to work around that and plan something new. But in the end we know it was for the best. There were times when I was nervous to get up in front of a crowd, afraid something would go wrong. I can relate to stage fright, because even though I wasn't on a stage, I was on a mat in front of hundreds of people. The spotlight has been on me before and after I know how rewarding it can be. I know that a director is also like a coach, which I have been too. It takes a big responsibility to try and have everyone listen to you as well as perfect a performance. The director is in charge of putting everything together, they see what others might not see and try to fix it. Just like a coach who stands on the sidelines and watches the players, and is able to help fix what he or she might see that is wrong.
I am also interested in fashion and think it can relate to costumes in a play. There are days that I want to dress up and other days I just want to be casual. Sometimes I add jewelry to my outfit or fancy shoes. Just like in a play an actress can have many costumes and she changes her clothes with the mood of the scene, similar to me changing my outfit depending what mood I am in.
I think theater relates to everyone's life. Everyone goes through hard times and wishes they could get away, or be someone else for a day. I think that being an actress allows them to play another role and pretend to be someone else for a short time. I know that sometimes when I am upset I try to hide it and act like nothing is wrong, just like in a play.

Concluding Statement

Now that I have completed this class it's hard for me to write a concluding statement because I learned so much and my view was completed changed. Coming into this class I knew little about theater, and didn't really care to know just because I didn't think it would benefit me in life. I knew nothing about theater besides having seen a few plays before. I thought this class was going to be boring but easy, I was wrong on both. I found the class to be a lot more interesting and was not easy. With it being an online class I had to manage my time better because I wanted to space each assignment out so I wasn't doing all of them the last week of the semester. I found the quizzes took a long time and I took each quiz 4 times. The discussion boards were a lot easier and I enjoyed doing them. I have see a few plays on Broadway but they were easy to understand without the knowledge of theater. But now that I have learned what I did from this class, from the quizzes and discussion board posts I have a lot more knowledge. I can go see a play and understand the set, costumes, lighting, and techniques used to put a show together. I can see how theater can relate to everyone's life without them even being aware. That everyday people play different roles, and one can change the role they are playing and chose a new one. I learned about the history of theater and how it is different in other cultures. I learned a lot from the discussion board posts, because this was an online class and there were no lectures this came the most useful to me. I was able to research and do my own post, but also read other classmates posts which had different information and views that opened my mind to other things. I think each classmate shared their own opinion and were able to be create with the posts. I found them to be very helpful and that they taught me a lot. With my major being communications media and thinking about maybe working in advertising and public relations, I found this class useful because it allowed me to use my creative side with writing posts and blogs. I also learned about advertising through the theater field when I had to research popular theaters and shows, and learn how to persuade people to come see these plays. I found that taking this class really did benefit me with my major. And after reading everyone final post I found we can all relate, that we may have come into this class thinking it was going to be easy and that we wouldn't learn anything, but this class took a lot of time and thoughts. I think everyone walked away with more knowledge about theater, and many had little experience before taking this class which I liked because I knew I wasn't the only one. I enjoyed the discussion board posts that had you create your own play with two characters, and the one that was the creative interpretation because it allowed you to open your mind and write whatever you wanted. I found these posts more beneficial then the posts that you had to read and reflect on because I felt like I was just being very repetitive. There were only so many ways I could say I enjoyed reading other students discussion posts. I really enjoyed that seeing a play was mandatory because I like to see a play on Broadway whenever I can. I was able to write a review on a play I saw and enjoyed, I chose Wicked. But I was also supposed to write about the play I went to go see, Into the Heights. It was exciting to go to New York and see a professional play. Overall I am happy I chose intro the theater because I learned new things, it would have been easy for me to take intro to art because I have been taking art classes since I was 10. But I didn't want to learn things I already knew, and with the theater class I knew it was going to be a creative class.

Design costumes for Chicago

I chose the musical Chicago to design costumes for because it is very fun and colorful. The musical has a lot of dancing and signing, costumes range from dresses to corsets and fishnet stocking, high heels and pearls. The music made it easy to picture which costumes would go with each scene. I have been a dancer since I was little and enjoy the unique costumes we had, so I thought this would be a good play to chose costumes. Since the play has a sexy side, I chose costumes that showed off some skin, yet were classy. I kept the theme going of black white and red because they were easy colors to work with. And red is a fierce yet sexy color. I liked the idea of glitter and feathers to add to the costume to give it more of an effect. Jewelry and shoes were also very important to add to a costume, I chose pictures with high heels because their more eye catching. All the costumes are very form fitting so that the actresses are able to move around and dance easily. The theme that goes along with the costumes is a jazzy effect, flapper dancers, mixed with burlesque dancers. When choosing which play to design costumes for this was the first one that came to mind because it is very girlie which stood out to me. I am interested in fashion as well as dancing so this musical was a combination of both. I would add a few more sparkly dresses and more colors such as gold, silver, and white. Fishnet stockings add to each costume as well as lace. I think sticking to the same colors is a good technique. This musical has a dark side which is why some costumes are all black, while the louder scenes have louder colors such as bright red and silver.