The Theater Arts Program At Pius Hacked My Music Playlist

The dramatic arts have had great influence on my life and on my perspective of the world. Through this artistic expression, I can take on any persona, freeing both my mind and my heart. The understanding of people’s actions and emotions has shaped me into the young woman I am. Performance and the study of performing, I find, are enlightening, priceless, and eternal. So long as life persists, the timeless themes found in plays and works will persist.

Through the use of techniques and themes, a composer is able to create distinctively visual images when describing the setting and characters in detail which help us to understand and form meaning of what the composer is trying to convey in their texts. The use of techniques such as body language, symbolism, lighting, music and photographic background slides create distinctively visual images same with themes that are being used within the texts such as truth which is evident in the dramatic text ‘The Shoe-Horn Sonata’ by John Misto, the song ‘Lose Yourself’ sang by Eminem, and the film ‘The Eye’ directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud featuring Jessica Alba. These three texts demonstrate how the responders are impacted and what is

A distinctly visual aspect of demonstrating the experience of the characters kindles curiosity in the audience to involve and instill emotional understanding of the context. Through the use of distinct and unique techniques, composers create an emotional response that can have a significant effect on the responders’ attitude on the world. The play ‘The shoe-horn sonata’ explores the crisis of circumstances as John Misto depicts the forgotten history of the women captured and imprisoned during WW2. Misto explores the experiences of the Australian nurses and the government’s response to their pleads of salvation, to emotionally bind the audience and the characters. Likewise, David Douglas Duncan involves the audience by evoking a feeling of pity and empathy in his Korean War photograph. He creates sentiment for the loss of innocence and employs distinctly visual elements to convey the horrifying nature of war. He profoundly highlights power in the photograph to explore the despair felt by the weak fleeing Korean citizens. Hence, both authors elevate the context with a visual representation of the individuals’ struggles to create curiosity and emotional rapport with the audience to improve the understanding of the characters experiences.

Newsies, a classic musical based on the late 1800’s is a very entertaining and family friendly musical-- except for the few profane words. On a cloudy, partially rainy saturday morning, I laid out on the couch and watched the movie from the comfort of my own home. I was hesitant to watch this movie because I am not much of a musical person. About midway through I found myself at the edge of my seat hypnotized by the movie. As the movie drew to an end, I was completely sucked in and waited for something more. The movie I so dreadfully did not want to watch became something I did not want to end.  In this movie the director and composer correlated their scenes and music perfectly together to touch the thoughts and emotions of the audience watching.

The conveyance of distinctive visuals within texts draw profound significance to the various aspects of life poised within their stories. Performed with the aim of elevating the audience’s understanding, this can suggestively nurture the common response amongst them of the significant aspects of life, thus, referencing a deep awareness of the composer’s concerns. This is clearly evident within John Misto’s play ‘The Shoe-Horn Sonata’ in accompaniment to the listening stimulus of John Misto’s Interview and Peter Skrzynecki’s poem ‘Crossing The Red Sea’ through the exploration of delicate notions such as the journey through times of hardship and suffering as well as the hope of survival and sacrifices.

In the play, there are a few considerable concepts explored such as the importance of significant relationships, whether our lives are controlled by fate or we have control over it (free will), and how emotional attachment can change the way we perceive things. These concepts are present throughout the whole play and show the meaning of love from various angles.

Texts are cultural artifacts that reflect the thoughts and values of the composer’s context; they serve as a social barometer through which an individual can examine society’s changing ideals. This is evident in a comparative study of the novella Maestro by Peter Goldsworthy, and the film Pay It Forward, directed by Mimi Leder, By exploring the ways in which textual form reflects the context of these texts, audience members are able to draw distinct connections between the concerns expressed and the values of the time. The meaning of these texts can be shaped and reshaped by considering the nature of the connections between them — they both explore the multifaceted nature of transformations in character by contrasting the disparities and commonalities

With only three actors, a chair each and a room of space, Brisbane based theatre company Zen Zen Zo has redefined what we know to be a classical Shakespeare tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, and has created a modern interpretation of this tale through dynamic physicality, specific actions, the elements of drama and both classic and modern texts. The physicality used in this performance manipulates the most common viewpoints of society, to draw in the younger audience and to relate and combine the youth of modern times to that of hundreds of years ago. Throughout the performance, multiple elements of drama including movement, action, language and physicality were used to explore the topic of the strength of love and the rejection of authority, to refer to relatable topics for a younger modern audience.

The stage directions in A Streetcar Named Desire rely heavily on the music to set the mood of the play. Tennessee Williams play about a mentally unbalanced woman, and her complicated relationship with her younger sister, is punctuated by the resonating music. One almost feels like they can hear the music simply by reading the engrossing text. The combination of the “blue piano”, along with the Varsouviana set the tone for the play, and without these elements of sound, the play would not be as well understood or imagined.

I watched this production on Thursday, March 9th, at 7:30 p.m. In this paper, I will address three topics of interest to me after seeing this play. My personal reaction to how seeing this play was different from watching movies, television, or videos, the major strengths and how this play is responding to life today.

Over the course of this discussion and analysis the hope is to convey not only the social influences and meaning behind the song, but also the musical

This play shows us the tale of two centuries, shifting flawlessly between 1809 and the present day. The love versus intellect. In 1809, a curious young Thomasina Coverly interrupts her lesson by asking her tutor Septimus Hodge what carnal embrace is. Her ideas about mathematics, nature and physics theories are way ahead of her time. The setting shifts to the

In Ruhl’s essay “The necessary,” she uncovers that often the detail that seems awfully unnecessary in a play is veritably the item of uttermost importance. This theme in her own plays is found in the ways in which she brings up complex issues. Tendencies such as lack of intimacy, loneliness, and use of lightness in her plays are frequently displayed to us in ways we do not even pick up on. In my eyes, that is what renders Ruhl fascinating. I will have read an entire play of hers, not realizing the emotion she is dragging out of me until after she has already accomplished just that. I have confidence that she has never set out to manipulate us into laughing or into feeling the shattering pain of a certain prodigious tragedy—and that is precisely how she yanks it out of us. For example, I read In The Next Room comically, which is a sliver of what she may or may not have intended for us as readers. As I read, my brain was

Antonin Artaud was an artist who was cursed physically, tormented emotionally, and was constantly walking in the shadow of his childhood ailments. Though his illnesses set him back in many ways, Artaud was ever persistent and dedicated to expressing himself artistically, even if it meant he had to work twice as hard as anyone else to be heard and understood. As such, Artaud’s work in the theater gives us a sense that anything is possible. His writing, directing and conceptualizing are evidence of his inability to be bound or limited in any sort of artistic way. Artaud’s theater is one full of possibilities and unexplored territories. As Artaud himself said, “If there is still one hellish, truly accursed thing in our time, it is our artistic dallying with forms, instead of being like victims burnt at the stake, signaling through the flames.”1

The technical elements of a play – lights, scenery, sound, costumes, etc, - are not random selections made without purpose. These elements work in tandem with the words and actions of the characters to express an overall theme of a production. One of the themes of the play The Illusion is love. This theme of love was expressed particularly well in USM’s 2017 production through the lighting design, the scenic design, and through the sound design.