Theatre Life Story, Essay Example

For my performance space, I would choose proscenium stage. I feel that a proscenium stage would be able to project my life story consisting of multiple dimensions, into a single dimension for the audience so that they may see all of the aspects of my life story on a simplified scale that they could comprehend and connect to. This stage also allows the entire audience to view my story from the same perspective. The performance space would seat 500 people in the audience. The number five has always been my lucky number and for the audience to be amplified by that number to a hundred seems fitting as this is a unique element of my life story.

The setting of my story will be taking place in New York City. Although I have only been to New York a few times in my life, it has always been a lifelong ambition of mines to one day live in the city. The few times that I did go to New York were remarkable. There were both good and bad experiences I had in New York, but they stuck with me and contributed to other events that took place in my life story. Also, I feel that New York City is the capital of the world, and because it is so diverse, everybody in the audience will be able to connect with this setting in some way.

All of the action of my life story will happen over the course of a few years. It will be a unique time line because the story will start off with a flash back in history years before the main story occurred. Then, as the present time line continues, there will be multiple small flash backs throughout the story all of which connect in the climax. What makes the time line even more interesting is that the present story line will be taking place all in one day, while the flash backs will comprise of different days throughout the few years leading up to the present day story. This will stimulate the audience to think about what is happening within each time line and how it relates to the present day story.

This play will begin on a summer day, during the summer that followed my high school graduation. I think this is a good starting point to my story because it is actually where I feel that my life started in the real world. I, along with my friends had been growing up in school together for years not knowing what awaited us in the real world. After we graduated, we were all very nervous about going out on our own and making a life for ourselves. Because this is the point where my life in the real world began, this is the point in my life where my play should begin.

The genre of this play will comprise of both comedic and dramatic elements. However, it will overall be mostly dramatic. This play is about how I built up the courage to enter the real world on my own but I also had some funny friends to make life a little easier along the way. To be able to express my life story, this will have to be a full length play with an intermission in the middle. I feel this is the most effective choice because the story line is structured to incline the audience’s interest as it goes deeper with every scene. There will be one musical scene that takes place in a flash back. I played the piano in high school and I will use this element of my life in a flash back setting.

The message of this play will be based on friendship. Life is not easy as there are many antagonists in the world that will take advantage of you. Over enough time living in the real world, it can become hard to trust people and very easy to become selfish and independent in an unhealthy manner or what some people may call a “loner”. I want the audience to know that they should learn to give people a chance to come into their lives because they never know who can have a positive impact. I want them to know that they should keep their guard up but also to welcome new friends into their lives. My message is to hold on to your friendships because they are more valuable than any tangible material in life.

This cast will consist of five people; I, my best friend, my best friend’s sister, my father, and my high school gym coach. The heroines are my friends and my father, with my father being the strongest. My friends are there to support me but we are going through the same life experiences. My father on the other hand, has already been through these experiences and he is there to guide us. The love and support we show for each other would represent a type of symbolic protagonist, our friendship. Although I am the main character, I do not consider myself a protagonist heroine, but rather an underdog that the audience can root for. The odds are against me but I’ll have heroes in my life to help keep me confident and overcome them.

The only character antagonist in this story will be my high school gym coach. He always claimed to be a realist, but he was more of a pessimist. He always shot our dreams and ambitions down and never gave us the opportunity to believe in ourselves. In our scenes we talk about the hardships in life that await us, which is a type of symbolic antagonist. The climactic scene is when I and my friends decide to make the hard choice of going our separate ways. It is a bittersweet climax because we finally overcome the obstacle of finding our courage. We could have stayed in the same place together, but it would have been selfish for us to do that. We had to ultimately show our support for each other by continuing on with life in our separate directions because we all got accepted to different universities after high school.

I would tell the designers to keep it simple. Keep basic stage lighting in every scene except for when my high school gym coach comes on stage. Then the lights will go dark with a spot light on him because he is the dark antagonist of the story. During the musical scene, the designers will need a piano on the stage. For the climax when we all split ways, there will be a bittersweet piano melody playing behind the scenes with soft flashing lights signifying our triumph.