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Ngoc Nguyen
Professor Cantrell
TPS 1107
7 December, 2014
Personal Reflection
Coming into this class, I had no background history of theatre. I never took interest in
learning about it before. That is also one of the main reason I decided to take this class. Ive
watched several performances throughout high school from kids in my school and thought they
were really fascinating. I wanted to know more about theatre and its form of art. Taking this class
has broaden my horizon by so much. Since I had no knowledge of theatre, everything was so new
to me, and not in a bad way either. My first day in the class, the Atlanta Percussion Trio showed up.
Watching them play their instruments and teaching us all the ways the interments can be played
made me realize how fun this class will be. All of the in class performances made me feel very
inspired to be a part of it. Class lectures surprised me in that I did not realize there were so many
forms and types of theatre out there in the world. We covered over all areas of theatre as well as its
history and though it was puzzling at first, every part of it fascinated me.
Of course, the greatest challenge to enjoy theatre is to have a little appreciation as well as
knowledge for it. Because I had no prior knowledge of theatre, some performances puzzled me a
bit. In the beginning of the semester, many information we learned in class confused me and I had
a hard time understanding knowing what it is you meant. In theatre, every story has a moral, or an
underlying meaning behind it. Ive always thought theatre was mainly musicals and dramatic
plays, so it surprised me to know storytelling is a type of theatre. The Violet Juno performance was
very confusing, and many of my classmates agreed with me. I was not familiar with the appeal to

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storytelling so the whole performance was a bit blurry. I was unable to explain what the meaning
she was trying to get us to understand. A mistake I made prior to attending to the Violet Juno
Storytelling performance was not going over lecture notes for storytelling. There are many
elements to storytelling, like the gesture, tone, dialogue that I was unfamiliar with therefor making
the performance one of my least favorite. With class lectures and explanation from you, I started to
overcome the struggle of being confused and started to get a grasp into the different ideas of
theatre and all its form. After the first performance of Violet Juno, I saw The Doctor, The Devil,
and My Dad. That may be my favorite play that we saw. Reading over the power points before
attending the play really helped me to understand the absurdist part of theatre. Though it was
confusing at first, I was able to get the full concept of the play walking out of the theater. It really
made me feel accomplish because I was so amazed at how the story came together, and that I was
able to understand the whole meaning behind it. Many people say having prior knowledge of Dr.
Who would help aid my understanding of the play even more, but even though I was quite lost in
the beginning, it all came together by the end. Learning about musical theatre was one of the
lectures I had semi knowledge in. Professor Lewiss lecture opened my eyes to the history of
musical theatre and the different types of musical numbers in musicals. Because of the lecture, I
was able to understand the play Into the Woods, and answered the questions that accompanied it. I
really enjoyed the musical because there was a vivid story to it, and it was familiar fairy tales so I
was able to understand what was going on during the play.
Doing the final project, I was surprise to find out how much it takes for a production to
come alive. There are so many roles and work that comes with it. Ive never heard of the dramaturg
before, so that was interesting to find out that it takes a research crew to research about the play
before it happens. I was very happy with the group. We all work great together. Our greatest

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strength is our ability to support each other. We are very supportive with each other. If one person
needs to clarify something, another person would answer right away. We always had great
chemistry when we are working together. There are many laughs in between rehearsals but when it
came down for the action, everybody got serious. We needed a lot props/costumes for the show so
when Alicia, the costume designer, showed us her designs, Jon contributed to give Noah a shirt or
Maddie let Leslie borrowed a fur coat for her role. We tried hard to not make Alicia spend money
if we have the clothing she needs. We have a group message in which we communicate with each
other daily. My strength regarding the group project is that I act as the reminder for my group
members. I remind actors to update their journals after each rehearsals so they dont forget. I try to
keep everyone updated as to when things are due so they wont be behind.
My role for the group project is the webmaster. I have never made a website before but
since my group needed someone to be the webmaster, I said I would try to do it. I was very scared
because I didnt know how to do it but I also didnt want to weigh my group down. That day, I
watched plenty of YouTube videos on how to create a website. I started on it right away but it was
still confusing. It took me a while to figure out how to put the rehearsal reports onto the website
without you having to download the file. I also switched between many page layouts because I
wanted to find one that fits to our play of Anna in the Tropics. However, as soon I figured out how
to work the website, I was on top of my game. Now I can update the page in
about a minute. I figured out how to add the actors journals links to the website. I have added
slideshows of our group in mid rehearsals and it looks really good. I have also taken the role of
being the light and sound designer. It was a small part so I had little issues with doing it. All we
need was a gunshot sound effect for our play and two light changes, which wasnt too hard.
Our group learned a bit of Cuban culture while doing this project. I knew that before

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machineries came around, everybody had to work by hand and that made the process slower. Ive
never heard of the idea of having a lector, someone who comes in and reads to the workers while
they are working. The lector acts as an entertainment purpose as there were no TVs or radios at
factories during the time. The lector would read stories, usually passionate stories that would make
the people be intrigue. During the play, Marela speaks about a ritual that Cubans do after someone
dies. She speaks about writing the name of the death on a piece of paper, place it in a glass of water
with brown sugar, so the spirit knows that it is welcomed. Every culture has a different traditions,
so my perceptions of the different cultures has not changed. I know every culture is different so its
given that they will have their own traditions, which I think is pretty awesome.
My advice to other students who are planning to take is class is to do it. It will expand your
horizon of theatre and how its a form of art. The performances that we see are very interesting. In
the beginning of the semester, we can buy the tickets for the required performances for $5 each. I
did not know this and had to pay $10-20 a ticket so if you are planning on taking it, buy the tickets
in advance and it would save so much money! This class is very interesting as we learn about
theatre and watch cool in class performances, youll be inspired by all the performances youll see
in this class. Also to pay attention during class lectures because the quizzes are very similar to it.
As far as group project goes, be involve in your group activities, come to all the meetings and
class, and have fun, because its really an awesome experience.