Drama and Theatre by Job Shiach

I think plays are the best type of visual entertainment. The difficulty in a play is that there is no room for mistakes, since the audience is live. I was in theatre throughout High School, and the amount of work and time put into every scene is outstanding. One if the most important, and difficult parts of a play is the blocking; blocking determines the movement and position of every character throughout the play. The most exhilarating part of a play, for the actors is the moments of improvisation. That moment when you or another actor messes up, and you have to improvise quick enough to keep the audience unaware of the mistake. Improv is what makes each showing of a play unique. Another difficult aspect of drama is conveying emotions. Unlike movies, plays have no close ups, so it is very difficult to show a person sitting fifty rows back that you are sad by frowning. Commedia dell’arte, a favorite style of mine, is a Italian style of drama which uses masks to convey character and emotion. This will probably be my favorite part of English 1302, although Frankenstein is a close second.