Moíses Kaufman's Work

Merriam-Webster defines change as “to become different”. It happens in different ways and for various reasons. It can alter people’s perceptions of the world and even define who they are, like the Emancipation Proclamation redefined the lives of millions of African-Americans. However, there are those who oppose it to preserve a detestable status quo. The play The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project introduces some of those people who live in the quiet town of Laramie, Wyoming. It has been 18 years since the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay resident of Laramie. After that tragedy, has anything changed? One answer comes from Laramie resident Rebecca Hilliker who states in The

Robin Williams was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 21, 1951 and, after his time studying at Juilliard in New York City, he had a successful career as a stand-up comedian alongside a few small parts in TV shows. He did not become widely known and beloved as an actor until his role of Mork in the sitcom Mork & Mindy. From there, his career took off and it is well known that he had an expressive and comedic personality both as a person and as a performer. It is not as widely known, however, that he was extremely passionate about and successful in his charitable work nor that he struggled with many health issues, both mental and physical, to go along with his success.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, born January 16th, 1980 in New York. Growing up in New York he had a chance every summer to visit his grandparents in Puerto Rico, which he is mostly of Puerto Rican descent. Also growing up he created jingles including one for a gubernatorial campaign in 2006. Then in college at Wesleyan University Lin co-founded a hip hop

On january 16, 1980, Lin-Manuel Miranda was born in Manhattan, New York to his lovely parents Luz Towns-Miranda and Luis A.Miranda jr. Growing up him and his sister, Luz Mirnada-Crespo, took piano lessons together, inspired by their parents. Both of his parents were born in puerto rico and happily married. His father was also a political advisor for a living. He went to exposed to different types of genres while growing up. While growing up he went to hunter college elementary and high school. He performed in the students performances in this preteen and teenage stage.

June 6, 1952, Harvey Fierstein, the American actor and playwright is birthed to Jacqueline Harriet and Irving Fierstein of Brooklyn, New York. Harvey Fierstein’s screen success came in a few highly acclaimed films: “Mulan”, “Independence Day”, and “Mrs. Doubtfire”, just to name a few. This list of movies has captured the attention of many, but his initial claim to fame is his playwriting ability. The playwright turned actor began his writing career in high school, where he enrolled in creative writing. It was at this time his frankness for being gay was no secret. He performed in numerous drag events growing up. These events ultimately pushed him into his Broadway success and being an activist for the gay population.

Improv was always an intimidating faction of theater. Though there is no planning or scripting, no matter when or where the show was it always seemed a labor of love. Something that was worked on for an extreme length of time but really it was formed from the performer's mind only a second before the audience saw it. Even though I have done theater and dance in the past, improv always seemed something that I was never good at. From watching performances, tv programs, or improv workshops, it always looked like an art form that I could never learn or use besides the stage. With last week's class, that all seemed to change. I saw that improv could be used in many different factions of life. Providing new life skills and practices that cam

Most teens go through high school waiting to graduate and see what life has in plan for them, however they go through all four years because the teachers give them patience that anything can happen by waiting. In the poem “What Work Is” by Philip Levine the author uses a lot of techniques to display how impatient it can be standing in a long line of other potential employees outside an automobile plant. Not really knowing if the wait will have something good in store for you. Similar to the poem the song “Waiting” by Green Day also uses techniques to show how the narrator is waiting for his fame and glory, and he feels as if it is just around the corner. Though he is waiting for all this 'fame and glory ', he doesn 't seem to know what is

Sidney Poitier was born on Febuary 20, 1927, in Miami, Florida. Although he barely survived the first months of his life due to premature birth, his family loved him very much. However, his family was very poor, and his family was very big, so it was hard to take care of the newborn baby. Once he was seven, Poitier's family decided to move to Cat Island in the Bahamas so they could earn money working on his father's tomato farm together. There, he started school at the age of ten in a one-roomed schoolhouse. Between working at his father's farm and trying to get an education, he only got about two years of school before he had to stop at the age of twelve to help his family through a crisis at the farm. Once he got to his teen years, he started causing trouble. During his mid-teen years, Poitier's parents finally decided to send him back to Florida to stay with his older brother. Poitier then stayed with his brother until he was sixteen, when he experienced much racisim, such as ridicule and rejection from high paying jobs and good shcools.

George Gershwin, born in Brooklyn, New York on 26 September 1898, was born the second of four children of Morris and Rose Gershovitz, Russians who immigrated to New York in 1891. George and his family lived on Manhattan's lower east side in a poor Jewish community. After settling down in New York, his father changed the family name to Gershvin. It was George who later altered his last name to Gershwin when he entered the professional world of music. Most of his family was not musically talented, but his brother Ira became a wonderful well-known musician.

“We’ll start by talking honestly, and from that a piece of theater will evolve. I’ll begin, I’ve been thinking a lot about dying lately. … Regardless of how this particular thing works out, I will be dying, and so will you, and so will everyone here; and that’s what I want to explore”(Synecdoche, New York). Synecdoche, New York is not just any ordinary film, Charlie Kaufman has created a movie in which the level of detail is so high that this movie will always be more after each watch. When discussing major pieces of a film, what happens a lot is that people get caught up on acting and cinematography and overlook smaller, yet just as important elements such as mise-en-scene, editing, and sound, which are the leading factors on what makes this

Talmud was a unique and fun class. We learned about judicial court rulings and laws of the court, the verdicts for certain cases involving theft, murder or accidental crimes. A big case brought up was cases of lying witnesses. The class itself was very laid back due to the teacher, however, this was a very good thing because the teacher was amazing. Rabbi Kaufman was a school favorite and me and my good friend, who took the class with me, became his favorite students. He acted as though he didn’t like us but it was all harmless joking. Class often took a spin into a political discussion and relating it to Judaism. The teacher was very right wing and the class would wind him up a lot about it. Students in the class were those I usually wouldn’t

Franz Kafka, born on July 3, 1883 in Bohemia, in the city of Prague, has been recognized as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. His works have been called "cloudy, mysterious, inexplicable" (Oates ix). Most people hear the term Kafkan or Kafkaesque and think of dark, fantastic tales with almost no basis in our known reality. But what of Kafka's sense of humor? I personally laughed out loud several times while reading Kafka's Amerika. Were these snippets of humor part of Kafka's plan or mere accidents?

A swath of videos titled “Why Action Movies Suck” have been buzzing around the internet for the past few years. They have discussed surface details of some of the practical and obvious reasons why so many big time action movies released over the past few years have been such a massive disappointment.

No person that leads a normal life is likely to write a metaphorical yet literal story about a man transforming into a bug. That being said, no person that leads a normal life is likely to alter a genre as much as Franz Kafka did. With the unusual combination of declining physical health and a resurgence of spiritual ideas, Franz Kafka, actively yearning for life, allowed his mind to travel to the places that his body could not take him. In his recurring themes of guilt, pain, obscurity, and lucidity, are direct connections to his childhood and daily life. His family dynamic, infatuation with culture and theater, and his personal illnesses all shaped his imagination into the poignant yet energetic thing that

Rank, deadly pessimistic, a disease, evil to be deprecated (Bordman and Hischak 1). Who would have thought such words would be used to describe the work of the man who swept modernism into theatre? Henrik Ibsen’s life was not one to envy. The shame the surrounded his childhood and seeped into his adulthood greatly impacted his writing. Infusing his plays with highly controversial themes, which lacked the current sunny air of Victorian values which Europe held in such a high regard, which led him to make a lasting impact on theatre. However despite the depression and poverty that surrounded Ibsen’s life, as well as having his work often dubbed pessimistic and unwanted, he left an every