#theater major

[yokai-girlie]

theater major is arbitrarily assigning songs from musicals to characters from whatever media i’m fixated on at the moment

[doseofnohemy]

Finished my college career on the Tuesday before Christmas at 3:09 pm. This is the only documentation I have of that day. Thanks UNR.

[valenthetines]

An Introduction To Valen:

HELLO! i am valen!!!!

i am an ongoing Musical Theater Major

Im Aro/Ace ill be posting about a lot of different things i like, and that includes: Animation, Minecraft, MUSICALS, Splatoon, random games, books, my life i guess, Movies??, and Probably much much more So Thankyou and have a nice day - Valen

[studyingsocialjustice]

can you give any theatre/acting related advice that you have learnt through your studies as a theatre major? thanks

Anon I am SO sorry - this ask is from a year ago and I literally JUST saw this and I have absolutely no idea how that happened. I hope that you are still following me and will see this!

EDIT from May 2023: Haha. Oops. This ask is now from maybe like two years ago? Possibly almost three? I genuinely don't know. But I am so sorry that it's taken so long. I remember exactly what I was doing while typing my original response to this: I was folding laundry and trying to get ready to move back in to school, and I was procrastinating doing the folding by typing my response to this, and then my parents came in and were like "why aren't you folding laundry" and I remember saying to myself that I would come back to this ask and then I never did. But you probably don't care about that much, so here we go:

My top three things I have learned, in order:

Number One: Script analysis is everything. It will help you connect to and understand your character, it will help you to connect to and understand the world of the play - it is the foundation for understanding everything. Look at the historical context of when the play was written and where it stands in the playwright's repertoire chronologically. Look at word choice. Look at how the characters interact with each other. My favorite books I recommend for this are A Practical Handbook for the Actor by Melissa Bruder, Lee Michael Cohn, etc. and Backwards and Forwards by David Ball. I read these books in my senior year of high school, so four years ago now, and I still use their methodology for all of my script analysis. Their methods are incredibly useful and I highly highly recommend reading them. B&F was also required reading for my Script Analysis course at my university this year, and it is still just as useful. The books are old enough that they aren't too expensive to buy, and you could probably also find copies online, though I'm not sure of that.

Two: One of the best, and in my opinion most accessible methods of script analysis (especially if you don't want to read a whole book) is the Question Words Method: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? This works for monologues as well as general script analysis, and is usually applied to one character at a time.

For monologues: Who is speaking? Who are they speaking to? What are they trying to achieve by speaking? Where are they while they're talking? When in the course of the story is this happening? Why are they talking about this now? Why not later, why not sooner? To quote one acting teacher I had, why are they opening their mouth? And finally, how are they going about getting what they want? What tactics are they using, what's their word choice? What actions are they taking as they speak?

For characters: Who are they? This includes, name, title, relationships, basic biographical information. What do they want? What is their goal throughout this story? Where does this story take place? When? For a particular scene, where and when does that scene take place (general setting) and when in the course of the story does it take place? Why do they want whatever it is that they want? And how are they working to achieve it?

The most essential part of this, in my opinion, is what does the character want, and how they are going about achieving that. It's the objective and the tactics.

Three: This comes from one of my professors from this past school year. There is this idea in the world of theatre that if there's anything else you can see yourself doing, you should go do that because acting is only for people who can see themselves doing nothing else and just really really want it. Which is stupid because just because you might be able to imagine yourself taking a different career path doesn't mean you would be happy doing it. So, from my professor: "If you could see yourself doing anything else, do this anyway, because it's better." Again: If you could see yourself doing anything else, do this anyway, because it's better. If this is what you love, who cares about what else you could be doing? Do the thing that is fulfilling and makes you happy. It doesn't matter if other people think that it isn't a good career or won't make you enough money. If this is what you love, do it, because it's better than anything else.

I sincerely hope that this advice was helpful to you! Again, I'm so sorry that it's taken me so long to answer your ask; time unfortunately is not my friend and I've had a lot of - for lack of a better word - bullshit happen to me this year. Best of luck going forward, and please know that although it may sometimes take me a while to respond, my inbox is always open! I love giving advice, and am always happy to provide it!

[inatyzzy]

my mom just sent me a tiktok that went something along the lines of "i was today years old when i found out they say 'break a leg' because they hope you get cast"

it is taking every fiber of my being to not explain the reasoning of where the phrase came from

[lyrebird-sings]

I think I'm holding my happiness prisoner.

I'm no longer trapped in my past no, but in some twisted manner, I'm trapped in my present. And I'm running, and running and running but getting nowhere.

Am I unable to feel happiness or am I not letting myself be happy?

I have planned my life to the very last second and for some reason I have decided that I will be happy only when my life is the way I've planned it out to be.

I tell myself I'll be happy tomorrow. Tomorrow when I'm living better, tomorrow when I'm loved, tomorrow when I love.

And deep down, I feel that maybe I'm not letting myself be happy in my now.

Is it okay to be happy now?

Do I have to wait for every last wrinkle in my life to be ironed out and dealt with, before I can allow myself to smile and live and walk towards my good future?

Am I running and running and not reaching the future I have in my mind because I'm not letting myself be happy along the way?

I don't know.

I'm not happy now, but I think I'd like to be.

[jtem]

Badly worded, if you ask me, but thus far I’ve been too lazy to make my own version...

“The world owes you 15 minutes of fame. It’s time for you to collect.”

[brinlyisasleep]

Thinking about that post that’s like “it’s makes so much sense that the hottest, yet most annoying people you went to high school with are the people who moved to New York”

[remmixx]

THEATER PEOPLE: I'm finally in the final semester of my Master's program and I'm doing a research project about how theater participation contributes to leadership development.

If you've ever been in theater in any capacity, please take 5-10 minutes to fill out this survey.

Hopefully this research will provide the rationale for more funding allocations towards theater in schools.

Share this with your other theater friends, please! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[e-major-and-ipa]

Happy Holidays 2020!

Happy Holidays everyone! Hoping that you’ve all been having a safe and wonderful holiday season. I’ve taken a bit of a break from posting since my semester really started to pick up, but now that it’s over and I’m on break I can’t wait to share all of the lovely things I learned with you. I’ll be entering my final semester of undergrad come January, and I’m excited to see what the future holds. As always, I’m open to questions and any conversations you’d like to have regarding the world of theater! Stay safe and have a Happy New Year! 

[thestudyofdrama]

Acting Masterclasses on Youtube

Michael Caine Teaches Acting in Film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZPLVDwEr7Y

Ian McKellen: Acting Shakespeare (one man show/masterclass) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6eztyfrWo8&t=523s

Uta Hagen’s Acting Class Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SseJhOPV9nY

Uta Hagen Acting Class Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfeAcUyZk0I

[bumb1e-vee]

the best part of being a theater major is that we can justifyibly watch In The Heights without doing work just beacuase we’re theater majors

[shade713]

Broadway Unpopular Opinions Pt. 1

Theatre majors ruin Broadway for non majors. It is like there is no room for opinion.

Andrew Lloyd Webber is overrated. 

Not everything should be a musical.

Tony Awards should stop neglecting the real theatre actors over Hollywood people. It is a disservice to those who invested their soul into theatre on their own award night. 

I can’t get into Newsies anymore tumblr has ruined it for me. 

[wenamedthedogkylo]

i dID NOT COME HERE TO BE SCALPED WITHIN AN INCH OF MY LIFE IN THE SANCTITY OF MY OWN HOME (x)

[nik-creates]

14 Mar 2019

Well, since last time I checked in on here life has been extremely crazy. I honestly feel so burnt out from classes and all the theater work I'm doing, BUT I have one more day of classes then it's SPRING BREAK BABY! I'm so ready for this break. I'm gonna be going back home for a few days, but then it's on to USITT!