- What is your essential question? What is your best answer? Why?
My essential question is "What is most important in creating a successful theatrical performance?" My best answer is "Having a cohesive vision between the director, cast, crew, and designers throughout every aspect of the play." It deals the fundamental aspect of theater. Our goal as performers and a production is to tell a story, and we must be able to cohesively tell the story all the way to the end as a unit. In order to do that, we must communicate to each and every person in the production and that's actually a lot more difficult than it sounds.
- What process did you take to arrive at this answer?
This answer was the answer that was always under my nose but never considered it until the very last minute. Toni Lynd, the director of the
The Nerd, scheduled a rehearsal just for discussing the play and making whatever changes we wanted right up front. I asked her why on earth would we have a rehearsal devoted to JUST this? I never did this in high school. She said countless times people had other interpretations of the play and they never really voiced what we all thought of the play and the production got lost in all these interpretations. So she makes rehearsals to clean it up and she finds success much more likely this way.
- What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?
I had a couple problems I had to deal with throughout the year. First was the bust of my first senior topic. My first topic was video game design. I had everything planned out for it: science fair, independent components, 2-hour. But mentorship was getting increasingly difficult to get that fit the category of VG Design. So, before it would get harder for me later, I decided to change it now to theatrical performance. Theater and video games share their most common aspect: the need to tell a story. Video games with technology and theater being live. I have also been in iPoly's drama club since freshmen year so I considered using this time to hone my skills.
My other problem was science fair. Theater is a very emotional, physiological topic. Actors' biggest goal is to manipulate your feelings with the stories we tell. There is no effective way to measure the feelings or emotions of another person. For weeks, I struggled with finding a topic that would include cold hard facts until one day Julie, our house manager, was explaining the box office to the ushers. Money makes the world go round. Even in theater. I decided from then on that my science fair was going to be the financial side of theater.
My third and final major struggle was my Independent Component 2. Not because I couldn't find something to do or anything of that nature. The hardest struggle was actually learning it. I was recruited to come back to Chino Community Theater to do sound for
The Great American Trailer Park: The Musical. Now, the most technical aspects of almost any production is lights and sound. If you don't understand the technology, you are basically a chicken with your head cut off. I had no idea what I was doing. I had to learn on the fly while constantly getting yelled at by Josh Himes, the musical director, for doing it wrong. I would go to the theater extra early in order to learn sound programming from some really nice people and by the end of a long, grueling week, I finally got it.
- What are your two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?
My first significant sources is Chino Community Theater. And I say Chino Community Theater because I cannot choose one person that has taught me the most in theater. I know Purther is going to ding me on this but each person I was mentored by helped me immensely in my senior project. Toni Lynd for directing, Emerald Gonzales for Stage Managing, Paul Larson for QLab and sound, Alex Huie for lighting and spotlight. The cast for both
The Nerd and
The Great American Trailer Park: The Musical on acting. I owe all of them so much to how well my senior project went.
My second most significant source is a book called
Second City: The Almanac of Improvisation by Anne Libera. I find books and articles particularly difficult to find quality wise in my topic. Especially, if you use one if you are just starting out. Acting isn't a linear equation with a formula. You find what works best for you and you build off of that. Most books that I have found either a.) Force a technique on you and say "THIS IS THE RIGHT WAY TO DO IT." Or b.) Sappy, over dramatic and filled with actors are complicated masters of art. This book is the rare book that made the exception.
It gave the perspective of the players of Second City Improvers and how they approached certain aspects of acting and performing and why. It's a great book because it doesn't force one opinion on how to approach things. It was such a helpful book for me because I could pick and choose what would work best for me as and actor and what wouldn't. Out of everything I read, article or book or whatever, that book helped me progress as an actor the most.
- What is your product and why?
My product has to be finally having the confidence to perform in community theater. Before this senior project, I refused to audition in community theater. From past experiences, I was too scared to even step foot in a community theater if I wasn't seeing a performance. You can even see this in my early blog posts. This project forced me to work at one. Even though I wasn't performing, I got to see what it's like. See their rehearsals, their hell week, how they do performances. I gained connections from not only Chino Community theater, but almost all theaters in the Inland Empire. They taught me skills and techniques to help if I ever wanted to audition there. I learned community theater isn't as scary as I thought it was and I met a lot of really nice people along the way. I'll try out community theater in college and hopefully something even more one day.
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