Personal Essay: Theatrical Directing

Maybe my love for the power of words is why I joined theater in high school. Ever since seeing Danny and Sandy fall in love while singing their hearts out, I knew theater was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be an

What is the background of this art form? (where does it originate from? What important political, cultural and/or environmental things were occurring in this part of the world that would affected the creation of this art form?)

This past week-end, nineteen Dutchman Creek Middle School students attended the SC Junior Thespian Competition in Summerville, SC. After an intense day of performing, competing, and participating in educational student workshops, six of our students emerged as top of their craft and have been invited to attend the National Thespian Competition in Lincoln, Nebraska. They are:

I discovered that I loved building, painting sets, working with costumes, and creating props for our production. That experience let me see that I can use my art in a professional way and not just for fun. Although I have acted on stage in several community and school plays for the past six years, I am discovering that I am just as excited about technical theater production as well. I just love to get my hands dirty and let my creativity take me away with great ideas, for example, I use polymer clay to create original charms, I make my own scented slime and

Theatre has always been my passion. Nobody told me to pursue theatre, it was a choice that I made my freshman year. I knew I had a fondness for singing, so I figured theatre would be a good opportunity for me to participate at a new school. After being one of two Freshmen chosen to be in the musical, I knew I had something special. I continued pursuing performing, and I became infatuated with getting up on stage and performing for crowds. I plan on pursuing a BFA in Theatre Performance to further educate myself and to give hope to young girls and boys who are told they won't make it doing what they love. This is my main goal, and I would also be able to give people this hope by teaching children! So I am going to double major in theatre performance while also pursuing an MST in

When I was three years old, I could be found standing on fountains at the local mall and putting on concerts for passers by. Now, at 18 years old, the same joy I felt singing in the middle of a mall is what I feel crafting stories on stage and pursuing a character’s truth. Throughout the years, theatre has been an immensely important creative outlet for me, and the confidence I have found on stage has translated in my real life, making me a stronger person. As I pursue higher education in this field, I am excited at the prospect of continuing my studies at the University of Michigan, and being able to take advantage of all the opportunities I am so passionate about.

"Gin and guns—either one is bad enough, but together they get you in a dickens of a mess, don 't they."—Accused murderer Belva Gaertner, 1924 (National Geographic, N.D)

My other field of interest is “Theatre.” I love to tell stories, to feel, to

Since the age of nine, I 've had a dream of becoming a screenwriter, and a movie producer. Where others only want to see a show or a movie, I have always wanted to be behind the scenes in the creation of the art. Being behind the scene and being involved in the creation of the film has always fascinated me.

In the fine arts community there are many options of occupation from drawing and painting to singing and instruments and even the Theatre. In theatre there are many options past acting. You have lights, sounds, makeup and costume, set, stage manager, assistant stage manager, house manager, ushers, and director. As a theatre technician I would want to do it all but mostly costume, set, and sound.

I think there's something really magical about uniting several people's visions: the writer, the director, the actors, the costume designer, the art director, etc, and manifesting it into a shared, cohesive finished product and story is an exciting prospect.

Musical theater has always been something I looked at in a positive light because it was somewhere I could be who I wanted to be, and I could play different people. There are many reasons as to why I have chosen to go into theater as a career and they include the freedom to create characters, the chance to meet new and exciting people, and the opportunity to get up on stage every night and give a performance. The possibilities are endless as to what can happen in theater, and sometimes people get lucky enough to live their dream.

The stage is dark, and not a word is spoken in anticipation for the performance about to be given. A group of actors stroll into the slowly growing lights and begin reciting lines with near pinpoint accuracy. Suddenly the the lights cut out while a mix of confusion and terror spreads over the entire auditorium, and after several seconds that seem to last minutes the lights return and the show progresses, with my feelings towards the show ruined. This is not the retelling of an audience member’s Saturday entertainment, but the memory of myself as a young and inexperienced stage manager learning one of the hardest lessons of calling the shots, that being that no show is without problems. The experience of stage managing has allowed me to gain an in depth understanding of working with people and how to work under the pressure of potentially hundreds watching.

The intention of this essay is to discuss the romantic notion of a film director who has etched their own cinematic vision into the body of their film work, and whether the theory and practice is dead and an infringement of the spectator’s imagination and is it the spectator who finds meaning in the film. I will be closely looking at critical material, primarily André Bazin and Roland Barthes and applying them to several case study films directed by Christopher Nolan including The Following (1998), The Prestige (2006) and Inception (2010), to examine whether Nolan possesses the qualities of an auteur and if so, does that imply an ideological view of what the auteur resembles or an artistic one.

The history of theatre in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries is one of the increasing commercialization of the art, accompanied by technological innovations, the introduction of serious critical review, expansion of the subject matters portrayed to include ordinary people, and an emphasis on more natural forms of acting. Theatre, which had been dominated by the church for centuries, and then by the tastes of monarchs for more than 200 years, became accessible to merchants, industrialists, and the less privileged and then the masses.