It has been a very eventful and lovely week so far. On Tuesday playwright Tom Dudzik visted my Script Analysis class to talk about his career and the play Don’t Talk to the Actors, which we had read. He was very funny and interesting. Many of his answers to our questions were very surprising to us, most especially how he said that he followed dramatic structure very carefully and used books to help him with this. It was surprising considering a few of us, me included, had a problem picking out the inciting incident, it was very subtle. It was also very enlightening to hear how he developed his plot and characters.
Later that night, we were lucky enough to attend the very first preview of the play at Studio Arena. That was very exciting! The audience was extremely responsive, there were several points in which the laughter and clapping of the audience was so loud that the action onstage almost had to come to a standstill! Which, as Mr. Dudzick pointed out today, may have been because Kathleen Gaffney worked the audience up by telling them that this was the first time the play had been seen by human eyes, but it was still one of the most fun audiences I’ve ever been a part of. I really enjoyed the play, there were a lot of jokes that I missed in the script that almost had me in tears when it was performed. The set and costume designs were wonderful, the huge illuminated signs behind the set were a personal favorite.
Mr. Dudzick was in our class again today to ask our reactions and to answer any other questions we had. It was cool to hear how some people’s opinions changed a great deal after seeing it. It really goes to show how important it is to see live theatre, instead of just reading scripts or plays. It’s hard to get a feel for the play unless it is seen. A friend pointed out to me that that’s probably why so many kids in school dislike reading plays. It’s one thing to read and disect Midsummer Night’s Dream, it’s another to see it performed.
On Wednesday our lighting design class took a field trip! It was only to Upton (which I had been earlier that day), but still, it was fun. We got to go up on the cat walk and see the instruments and learn how to operate a light board, which I promptly forgot. I really have my work cut out for me this weekend … I have a project in that class that I’m sort of freaking out about.
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