ISTA reflection

What were the most memorable experiences you had and what did you learn?

The ISTA experience was great overall, disregarding that I had a devastating cold the last day which made me miss the last day's classes.  Other than the shows we saw I really loved to see what life will be like in college for me when I'm doing my BFA. I know that it probably won't be the same but it really brought back that mindset of acting every day which I will most certainly do in College. All the classes we took except for the masterclasses involved using a script, the purpose was to create our own versions of them in groups. This was very fun and we saw so many different ways a script can be interpreted depending on the different actors and directors. This really reminded me of how a script is just a guideline to your performance. Meaning that you create what you want with what you are given. The most memorable experience for me was the master class with tectonic. We learned about how a director looks for ways to capture an audience and how one gets the message they want to deliver across to the audience as well. Then he (the man from tectonic) talked about how we create magical moments in theatre. Those moments were your heart just fills up with warmth at the end of a play. And the answer to that was to really focus on the plotline. We have to focus on the goal of our characters, why do they need to do this or that. There has to be a clear sense of accomplishment and failure if you want to capture as many people as possible. Yes ending a play without closure is an artistic choice but it will leave many viewers mad, confused or disappointed. So we learned a lot about the meaningful aspects of theatre as an art form from tectonic. This was not the case with the regular classes, they focused only on the acting and performance aspects. We acted out the scripts we were given but never really broke down the meaning behind each one of them. Because there was no meaning, they were simply (to me) acting exercises. Stuff I've been doing for almost my whole life. That does not mean that it wasn't fun tho ;) What I would have wanted would to be thought and criticized on my acting abilities. I really want to grow as an actor and doing exercises is a way to stay in "acting shape" but it is hard to develop as an actor without being given directions on how to better my acting itself. But I did learn about how and why we do certain things at different times in different plays to capture an audience. And to sum it up, creating a good play is all about finding the right emotions at the right time and showing a clear goal/mission that the characters are striving for. Thanks for making this happen and letting us go on such a fun and cool trip, peace.