Science Fair Proposal

• What's your topic?

Theatrical Performance

• What is the driving problem behind your experiment and the quote by an expert to support that problem? 

My driving problem is what is it that community theaters do that gives them good or bad AACT (American Association of Community Theatre) scores, and how can you improve your community theater to reach those scores and consider themselves "successful"? Some say it's budgets, some others say experience. 

"In an effort to deal with its current financial crisis, St. Paul's Penumbra Theatre - one of the country's highest-profile and most honored African American theaters, is suspending programming and will not produce any plays for the rest of the year.

A decision to cut $800,000 from its $2.7 million budget, along with the elimination of six full-time staff positions, including associate artistic director Dominic Taylor, was announced Thursday, Sept. 6. Most of the cuts are coming from the programming portion of the theatre's budget." (Gustafson, Amy C. "Penumbra Theatre Suspends Programming, Cuts Staff." TwinCities.com. Pioneer Press, 06 Sept. 2012. Web. 08 Nov. 2012. http://www.twincities.com/life/ci_21480558/penumbra-theatre-suspends-programming-cuts-staff.)

• What is your hypothesis? 

If community theaters are in the black for production budgets and have been running for at least ten years, then they are more likely to get better AACT scores than those who are not.

• Write a paragraph summary of how you will perform the experiment.  Include the tools you plan on using.

I will go to as many theaters in the Los Angeles area that are a part of AACT and ask how long they have been in business and their budget along with their profits from each production. Then research their AACT scores and connect their scores with their budgets and experience. If their budgets and/or experience reflect on their scores and how to improve that score. 

•  Select one of the following Project Categories for your experiment:

Behavioral/Social Science

Blog 9: Working EQ and Possible Answers

• What was the working EQ you used during your presentation?

What is the most important aspect in becoming a successful performer? 

• Did you decide to revise your working EQ after your presentation?

I am not going to revise my EQ at this time. (Although, I probably will later.)

• What are possible answers to your current working EQ?

I have come up with good foundations for possible answers. 

Audience- Often overlooked especially with the newbies. When you start out, you're often told to ignore the audience, but I think that the best way to give your best performance is to establish a "connection" so to speak with the audience. It becomes easier and more natural when you acknowledge the audience and use them to your advantage.

Setting a goal- It doesn't have to be going to broadway or hollywood or earning tons of money. Learn a new accent once a week, or find different voices in yourself. Small little goals that help you improve in the long run. 

The prospect in loving what you do (even if you totally suck at it) - Totally cheesy I know, but hear me out. A lot of people go into theatre, or dance, or any type of theatrical performance wanting to make it BIG. They want fame, fortune, name in nice lights. One of my mentors said that you aren't going to get it here in theatre. "Once it starts looking like a career and stops being fun, quit. There is no point after."