The Student Theatre

And here I begin my final blog for this class. It feels weird… I feel like I’ve learned a lot this semester, even if it’s that writing may just not be my forte… oh well. You’ve got to try it to know you hate it. Anyway, this post is about the student written theatre I have seen. Over the course of the semester I have seen several student written plays, including Echo, IMF, and as of about an hour ago, Star Wars in 60 Minutes. Before I started this class I never really appreciated what it takes to write a play. This class has done two things for me when I see student written theatre: my mind is constantly in a critical mode, making note of things I wish were clearer or the things that I liked, and it has made me really appreciate the wide variety of things you can write a play about. All of the student written plays I have seen this semester have been written by my friends and its been very cool seeing how creative and talented they are.

What have I learned from seeing these productions? Well not much more than what we’ve talked about in class already, but I will give it a shot. I guess I’ll start at the beginning. Echo was an extremely interesting play. I thought it was a very interesting insight into the mind of someone who has experienced being in a war. I personally, do not have anyone close to me who has fought in a war that I know well. However, I really did want more military characters out of both Matthew’s character as well as Josh’s. My best friend from middle school’s father is a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army. Special Forces. Basically he is a big shot. Now this man is the most intense person I have ever met in my life. I think it may be how liberal I am, and how I could never picture anybody I love and know well fighting in the army, let alone myself… but I guess I just had a hard time believing that those characters would be so gung-ho about going to war. I think Echo was a great start to what could be a really powerful play… many of the characters need work. However, I thought the women in the play were very well written, especially Meredith’s character (Matthew’s wife). I thought the costumes were great, and the acting was very well done. I just wanted a little more from Matt’s Character.

IMF was definitely a collection of three extremely different plays. I really liked all of them, and I think they worked very well as a set. My favorite was definitely Megan Noyce’s one. It really rang true to my family and their history. Also I thought it was extremely well written and well acted. This play really reminded me of how hard it is to make sure that you are writing your dialogue the way people talk. I think Megan has a really rare talent for making her characters sound extremely natural.

Star Wars in 60 Minutes is brilliant. That is all to be said.

From this class, I think the most important thing I’ve learned is that the script of a play is just a building block. It needs to be a solid base, or the rest of the production will be shit. But like I said it is just a building block. The casting of your actors is so incredibly important. Actors that understand great comedic and dramatic timing, knowing when to pause and how to say things, how to move, etc is so important to portraying your dialogue the way you want it as a playwright. Sets and costumes are just as important. I guess my point here is you can’t have one aspect of theatre without the other. But you need to start out with a good script, because if you don’t…well then…good luck with that one.