On November 4th, 2016, my best friend and I went to see the play at the Charles Winter Wood Theatre. This play is set during the 1950s, and the scene takes place in a night club in Chicago. This play was sponsored by FAMU’s Essential Theatre, and it was quite entertaining. It presents realistic situations such as the affairs, jealously, and debt in relationships. The director, Maurice Kitchen, wrote this play to present the Black artists who used their talent to escape the difficulties they have faced. The main character, Billy Gamble, was a show host and performer, who used his patients with musical talents to be on his show. Important aspects seen in the play were love and fame. The musicians expressed their feelings within their music. …show more content…
In my opinion, this was the most humorous scene. My friend and I enjoyed seeing the characters such as Etta James, Billy Gamble, Louie Jordan and Lena Horne fight during the investigation. This is because it reminded us of our constant fights throughout or friendship. During hardships such as the death of friends, one should stick together and not blame each other. We also learned to share our feelings toward each other rather than hide the rage. For example, Lena Horne hid her feelings for Billie Holiday because Billy Gamble claimed her to be the star performer. However, my least favorite scene was the death of Billie Holiday. I disliked that scene because it was upsetting to see the characters blame each other and selfishly worry about themselves. Whether Etta James felt jealous of Billie Holiday, she should have not resorted to killing. In this scene, Etta and Billy truly made the play a mystery by spreading the evidence on others. In fairness, Billie’s attitude was not pleasant towards the other performers. Nevertheless, it was still hard to see revenge occurring within the musicians. In my opinion, I enjoyed when they sang together as a team. Overall, I would rate this play a five because of the wonderful humor. I would absolutely recommend this play to others. This is because it is very comedic and interactive. It is also an insight into the way one should value their
Lively theatre is a live production that never stops. Lively theatre can happen anywhere. Lively theatre can be displayed when you're having a conversation with friends or even when you're speaking to your teacher. Lively theatre can make you think, be vulnerable, and can bring out emotions that you did not realize you had or was felt about a particular subject. Just like in a production , lively theatre has a plot , lighting, costumes, makeup and many other aspects. There is always a stage around us whether it is the classroom, house, in your car, and many other places. Our conversations and dialogue can be categorized as a specific type of genre. A conversation could make someone possibly laugh, cry, empathize so, just like actors and actresses , we can affect someone's mood in a instance.
The Globe Theater was a theater that was built and owned by Shakespeare and the group he belonged to called the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Although it is not known exactly when the theater was built, the first record of it shows that it was built before the end of 1599. The Globe Theater was built using lumber from a theater that was not very far away. Even though the Globe Theater was built with wood from a dismantled theater, it was not the same as the previous theater. In fact the globe theater was much larger than the previous one. The theater was a great success for many years; nevertheless, it was burned down in summer of 1613 during a play of Henry VIII. During the performance something happened to a theatrical cannon to cause it to misfire
Theatre is a collaboration of various forms of fine art which utilizes live performances presenting before the audience on a stage at a specific place within a scheduled time (Dugdale 10). The message is communicated through a combination of various channels like songs, speech gestures or dances. Stagecraft skills are combined with elements of art to make the performance more physical and near to real life experience. Theatre is categorized broadly into drama, musical theatre, comedy, tragedy and improvisation. Any form of these accepts integration of various production modes and collective reception to influence the artwork being presented. As a result of this cooperation of items in the theatre
The evolution of musical theater in America can be viewed through many lenses. Through the lens of hindsight, it is easy to reflect on the treatment and portrayal of African-Americans in the contextual fruition of live entertainment in the United States. Dating back to the later half to the nineteenth and into the early twentieth century, ethnic representation in musical theater underwent a gradual change paralleling a shift in societal opinion toward racial equality. Though by today’s standards, its depiction of African-Americans may seem archaic at best, Show Boat changed the way audiences viewed musical theater through its success as the first show to deal with racial issues in the United States.
For our critiquing assignment in our Introduction to Stagecraft 1, I ventured to downtown Toronto, to a small indie theatre called, The Unit 102 Theatre. There I saw the production of MISS; written by Dora Award-nominated playwright Michael Ross Albert who wrote such works as Tough Jews, The Spadina Avenue Gang with the Storefront Theatre. The set takes place in the aftermath of a shocking accident in a boarding school classroom, the story explores the tenuous connection between a high school teacher, her fiance, and a troubled student whose lives have been irrevocably changed by tragedy caused by a miscarriage, an affair, and the fear of the consequences that are not yet revealed, and finally, murder. This is a one act showdown between three
Staging Race is a book that focuses on black performers between 1890 and World War I. During this time period blacks were dealing with many social events which included: the Jim Crow segregation, the Niagara Movement, and heightened racial tension. The goal of this book is to show the way that black performers were able to use public entertainment to present their political ideas and use them to appeal to the white audience and at the same time entertain and educate the black people in the balcony seats.
Black Broadway provides an entertaining, poignant history of a Broadway of which few are aware. By focusing a spotlight on both performers long forgotten and on those whom we still hold dear, this unique book offers a story well worth
The Pulitzer prize-winning play Disgraced explores the difficult topics of race, religion, and identity through the events of an explosive and unforgettable dinner party. The tension in this play is electric and masterfully intertwined with snippets of comic relief. Combine these elements with a set of accomplished actors and the wonderful location of the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, and you have an excellent thought-provoking and entertaining play. During the performance, I paid specific attention to the acting skills of the performers, the arrangement of the set, the lighting techniques, and the directorial choices, most of which added to the performance as a whole.
The theme of power is also established through the examination of the relationship between black artists and the world of mass communications in the early twentieth century. This relationship mirrors the position of black people in the society at large—a society dominated by white racism. Wilson establishes this early in the play through a series of musical imagery and idiomatic language, in which he uses both the style
The Charles theatre is a Beaux-Arts building designed by architect, Jackson C. Gott in 1892, that did not originally begin as a movie theater, but as a street car barn and powerhouse known to locals as the Baltimore City Passenger Railway Power House and Car Barn, only later becoming a popular dance club hosting national acts such as Tommy Dorsey and the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Although, the Beaux-Arts buildings were originally designed to be a cable car barn on the north side and a powerhouse on the south side and is now known to many as a movie theater. The original buildings served as cable car facilities for four years after which they became a streetcar barn, a bus barn, a library for the blind, and a Famous Ballroom. The Times Theatre
The play has edge, humor and a significant powerful meaning that relates to the black community. “The Director of Theatre Arts, Jonathan McCrory, TAP mounts a season of three full productions each year, including two main stage productions and one workshop production” (NationalBlackTheatre.org). The workshop allows TAP to engage with the community through feedback and discussion bringing the community and the theater close together.
This plays show just showed the value of African American in a society that oppresses them. By providing detail about the mishaps that occurred on this day shows how the American way exploited African Americans, while laughing at white people because they could not survive without African
My limited experience with Broadway suggests that musical theatre has its own special beauty. However, it is different from that of ballet! Broadway-themed ballets, therefore, are less appealing, and programs focusing on such works--any pragmatic reasons behind them notwithstanding--problematic. The second week of NYCB's Spring Season is not comparable to the first. With such talented performers the "Tribute to Robbins" program (I did not attend "All Robbins No. 1: Bernstein Collaborations”) nevertheless could not be devoid of any delights.
As the lights dim in the theatre, I know that my husband is in for an interesting experience, as he has no background knowledge (other than the quick Cole’s notes version I gave in the car ride to Grand Bend) about the iconic Broadway sensation Chicago.
At the Abbey Theater in Dublin, Rory O 'Neill, a LGBT activist and drag queen known as Panti, confessed that he was a homophobe like everyone else. Panti explained that "to grow up in a society that is overwhelmingly homophobic and to escape unscathed would be miraculous.”