Apparel exceeded my expectations. I have been to several Broadway Lights shows in Charlotte over the years, and this production is one of the better ones I’ve seen, if not the best. The stage was designed very well for the show, the story was excellently written, and the play resonated well with a contemporary audience.
My immediate response to the layout of the theater was that I didn’t like it because I am not a huge fan of theater performances in the round. While I think it is a useful medium for presenting a play, it is a harder way to way the play because audience members constantly have to have their head turned at an angle which makes for uncomfortable viewing. That being said, I thought they used the space very well in the production.
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First off, this fit the rest of the design for this performance, as everything was not very ornate. Additionally, with this genre of play, I don’t think the effects should be designed to be particularly noticeable. Since this play was set in the early 20th Century, and is fully based in reality, there wouldn’t have been much room for dramatic lighting or sound effects. If there was some supernatural element or similar, then perhaps there would be room for dramatic effects. For example, when you watch a documentary, you don’t expect CGI or stunts, but when you watch an action movie, you expect there to be explosions and car chases. This play tends to the documentary side of that analogy, and I thought the lighting and sound reflected that …show more content…
Lynn Nottage is an exceptional playwright, and fully deserves her Pulitzer (Myrick-Hodges). Intimate Apparel blew my expectations out of the water. I her command of language is remarkable without being overt or obnoxious, and her ability to draw out the emotion of each character and present it to the audience was particularly impressive to me. I also appreciated the personal connection she has to the story. She is from New York, and the story is at least loosely related to the life of her great-grandparents. Knowing this factoid made the play all the more enjoyable. I could almost imagine her researching this play, and envision her thinking about her great grandmother as she writes. Personally, this visual added to the entertainment for
On thursday night I went to see Jerry Finnegan’s Sister. The play had two actors which were Morgan Fox and Genevieve Craven. They played the roles as Brian Dowd and Beth Finnegan. Brian is in love with Jerry Finnegan's sister (his best friend’s sister) ever since a young age, but can never tell her. He is in the conflict of wanting to tell her, but his window is closing.
Shelby wanted a child even after the doctors told her it would not be a good idea to have a child because of her health. The she got pregnant and she did not have a care in the world and just wanted to have the baby even when she was warned not to by multiple people. Her mom was the most worried about her because she knew that there would be a consequence on Shelby’s health if she did have the child. I see this play’s set on stage as a hairs salon just because while I was reading the play, I pictured a lot of the scenes in the hair salon. The effects would work because that’s exactly how the play started off and that is where a lot of scenes take
The other element of a successful play that stood out in this production was fluidity. This musical moved smoothly from beginning to end and was easy to follow. Overall, this production was a success and the performance was
The black box theater is a very intimate setting to begin with, and as I took my seat in the theater, I felt that intimacy. The theater was dark, and the audience was virtually silent before the production began. As I sat waiting for the performance to begin, I took in the lighting, the props, and the set as a whole, and I began to feel as if I were sitting just at the edge of a different time period. The design element that stood out most to me was the lighting of the river because the gobos and the selection of down lights made the river come to life, almost as if it was another character in this production. I was definitely drawn into the world of this play due to the intimacy of the black box theater and the lighting design of the
When an audience watches a play there are countless observations to be made, therefore it becomes unfeasible for every last detail to be noticed. While the audience quickly examines the backdrops and set pieces or the actors’ overall appearance, they often do not immediately notice the minute details which later prove to be vital to the play’s plot. For example, in August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, upon entering the stage for the first time, Levee reveals the new shoes which he has just purchased, but it does not become clear until much later just how important these shoes are. I feel that in order to maximize the impact the shoes have on the play, they must set Levee apart and look different than any other shoes seen on stage. In
The set was simple, and it had a lot old fashion furniture that you don't see that much unless you have grandparent that still have old style furniture. The theater was small and minimalistic and help the audience feel closer the
Give My Regards to Broadway Music brings culture to everyday life, it can be found anywhere at anytime. Music doesn’t have to actually be playing for people to hear it. The rhythm of the city is music in itself, everybody has their own unique sound and way to add into the beat of the city. Music expands in many different ways such as country music, which has it’s own unique sound. Country music can be slow with a love story, fast with a break up story to it, or it could be a moderate speed about a big purple dinosaur.
The actors’ portrayal of residents of Newtown as well as the use of the stage are what really engaged me as an audience member. I attended they play at The Human Race Theater Company on February 3rd. I had never been to this theater so I really had no expectations of it. The cast’s ability to really make the audience feel like he or she is actually in Newtown during the aftermath of the shooting is what really engages them.
Vivian, an English Professor focusing on John Donne, finds out that she has stage four ovarian cancer. Throughout the play, she communicates her thought process in the course of her treatment and death. She is a lonely character, without any visitors, and she is a very strict professor to the students. During the play, she changes her personality and regrets how she was while she recites John Donne’s poem. The audience can closely feel and understand what is going on with her.
Theatre 115 Response One Chapter 10 highlights the importance of the interaction between the audience and the performers. If the audience on a given night is altogether apathetic in regards to the performance they have gone to see, then it will serve as a negative impact on the overall confidence of the actors once they pick up on it. Theatre is often used to provide an insightful reflection of the way in which society is functioning at a given time. One example that was not listed in the book is Hair, which goes well with the other listed works critiquing the Vietnam War. Certainly, it is a piece that is capable, even today, of stirring up certain sentiments within an audience, even if the audience was not necessarily alive during the original
One use more set pieces during scenes with only two or three characters to make the stage more full and not as empty. The second thing I would add is more mics. Throughout the show audio was constantly at a low because of a lack of microphones and some dialogue and even singing was lost due to no one being able to hear the actors. One thing I would also change is some lighting clues, because at random points in the show a spotlight would appear on an entirely empty side of the stage while leaving actors on the other side almost completely in the dark. Secondly I would change the actresses playing Julia Sullivan and Linda.
Savannah Live was a musical preformance held in one of the oldest continuing theater halls in the nation. The theater, appropiately named the Historic Savannah Theater, origionally opened in 1818, yet do to years of wear and tear and several fires, the modern theater was retrofitted to look like its 1940s, art-deco self. Although the stage was in the traditional Proscienim style, the play was anything but traditional. The stage hall itself seemed like something right out of the hay day of Broadway, with lights surrounding the procienian arch, red velvet chairs and carpet, the hall was like a time caplse bringing me back into the 20th centry. Mimicing the transformations of the hall throughout the years, the musical took the audience on a journey through musical, and theatrical history.
The productions of this play were successful through stage design, lighting crewing, and acting. Those three aspects made the quality of the play stand out to me, as an audience member. The production of the set design of the play was a good effort. The set design for the play staging aims for the sweet spot between feeding adult nostalgia and satisfying a new generation of children.
The setting depicted elements of nature by using lights and water to create a calm, conscious atmosphere. The play began with rain sounds in the background, leading up to actual rain pouring onto the stage during the shrine and the funeral scenes. The lights gave off blue overtones in almost every scene. In the scene with Scottie and Bernadette, the blue lights contrasted with orange lights to give the audience a perspective of the sunset that Scottie viewed every day. The lights, subtle music, and rain helped me make sense of the setting and feel like I was a part of the show.
This can be exhibited when she states “..that a highly gifted girl who had tried to use her gift for poetry would have been so thwarted and hindered by other people, so tortured and pulled asunder by her own contrary instincts, that she must have lost her health and sanity to a certainty.” Woolf desires to validate the idea that “woman cannot write the plays of Shakespeare” but intends to clarify that this is not due to a lack of talent or ability equal to that of men, but simply because the societal structures at the time rendered it impossible for them to be equally successful. In the development of her argument, Woolf starts out by exposing the belief that it was impossible for women to “have the genius of Shakespeare” and she contextualises the reader with some basic information, given by an authority figure “Professor Trevelyan” about women’s conditions during the era. Woolf then provides the reader with a hypothetical situation to ponder on: What if Shakespeare had had a sister — that is, a female sibling of