Friday, October 17, 2008

Life...


...is completely crazy right now! I feel like I've reached the calm before the storm. The rest of UEA I have nothing scheduled except when we get back to school everything will come crashing down! I just realized the show, Sleepy Hollow, is in FIVE DAYS!!!! I can't believe our productions class is almost through with our first show this year. We've already been down to shakespeare competition at SUU and we did very well, placing fourth overall in our division and fourth in our ensemble scene. I had the oppurtunity to compete in individual events with a monologue and was almost able to perform in the performance showcase.
I absolutely love shakespeare and I was practically giddy with the amount of shakespeare and amazing theatre I was presented with. Every time someone mentions shakespeare I just can't help but get a little excited. There is something about the way he is able to present universal truths through his plays that allows him to still touch his audiences today. Thats what I find truly amazing about being a playwright; the ability to touch audiences you don't even know. Words on a page can live on past the writer. Its like a way of being immortal. Your life will come and go; and, actually is very short in comparison with the overall picture, but through a simple paper and pen you can live on. I find it amazing that things as simple as words can be constructed, molded even, into a thriving piece of work. That work can then be experienced over and over by others and its vitality remains the same. It doesn't decrease in value the older it becomes, on the contrary, it grows as more people connect with it. The more people that are able to realize something--whether it be big or small--and are able to connect with writing the more powerful it becomes. Then, the amazing part about theatre is that those words are able to jump off the page and be embodied by real, living human beings on the stage. It becomes something real, and yet somehow incomprehensible that it can be so powerful to combine human talents in such a way.
A man named Cary Tryvanovich (sorry thats probably not spelled correctly, but his website is manonstage.com) recently came to our school. When he was here he did the most amazing pantomime(yes I said pantomime, don't scoff) show I've ever seen; however, it wasn't the show that really moved me, it was his speech afterwards. He spoke about the arts in general. He said that entertainment pleases the senses, but art touches the heart. How true that is! Through theatre, dance, music, painting, or what have you we can reach a different level of understanding. It is just something that is pleasing to the eye, until you have placed a bit of yourself within the project and then it becomes art. When it touches someone else its art. When people are able to realize another part of themselves then its art. Theatre is something that I see as allowing people to understand a different part of themselves. To catch, if only for a moment, a glimpse of what its really all about. What humanity really is. After hearing him speak, I realized that this is what I want to do with my life. I mean, I've always known that I really enjoy theatre and I would stick with it, but this sort of cemented the idea. I will go on and do theatre. I don't even really care what aspect of theatre it is. I could write, direct, perform, or anything really and be happy. I will continue writing, but it will probably be integrated into theatre in some way because I don't really see them as seperate things. I talked to Cary after he spoke, because I couldn't let someone who had possibly changed my life just leave without realizing the impact he had made. While I was thanking him I almost started crying; I felt so ridiculous, but I couldn't help it. It was like a spiritually moving experience to realize that this is what I am meant to do with my life.
I know lots of people talk about going on and doing great things and being passionate about them, but never really pulling through.I won't be one of those people. This is something I feel so strongly about that it can't just be chance. I will work my hardest to bring theatre to those around me. I will do it. Really,I will! I will live my life trying to help others realize that deeper more eseential part of themselves. That indescribeable part of us we call the soul.