Tuesday, July 23, 2013
BA in Professional Make-Believe
HowlRound: “Yeah, but what do you want to do in theater?”
I’ve been plagued with that question since I decided to leave the comfort of my quaint Iowan home and head out East to pursue a career in theater. Of course, the question came from extended relatives whose relation to me I wasn’t even sure of, but somehow they knew my choice to do something “artsy” was going to come back and bite me in the ass. The worst part was there was roughly an eighty percent chance that they were right, especially considering I was not sure exactly what I wanted to do with said artsy career.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
This article brought up a really great point. As theatre-lovers, sometimes we don't want to choose what we love best. As the author points out, sometimes it is easy - someone wants to act and they act. Someone wants to be a lighting designer and they do that. But there is a whole other group of theatre people who love doing theatre and making theatre but don't really care or want to choose specifically what they want to do from production to production. These people should not be punished for loving it all. If anything these people could be more valuable at times because they understand what other people are doing and why they're doing it.
However, one reason I really like this article is that the author does not condemn anyone, nor say that everyone should do the same thing, and I agree. Theatre and the arts are about being creative - so why should we be bound into doing one thing or bound into doing it all? People in the arts should be able to not only be creative in their work but in their job description as well. But only if they want to.
The author of this article has, to an extent, a point. It is very easy to get lost in the semi-ridged theatrical hierarchy. The actors are separate from the technicians who are separate from the designers, and in most BFA programs, each aspect rarely meets. These programs also require that a person chose just one aspect, which if fine for some people but others just love everything about theatre and they wish to explore all of its aspects. Although I think that people should be allowed to chose between specialization and dabbling in it all, I would disagree with the authors criticism of the system. Yes, a BFA and a BA are different degrees, but I also feel like there is a reason for that. Its great to chose to learn about everything in theatre, but the choice between everything and specialization is also a choice between knowing about everything and understanding one thing really well. In theatre, I feel like someone who knows one area, like technical direction or design is more useful than someone who just understands the overall of theatre.
Post a Comment