Writing, Theater, Professionalism, and Who Really Did All The Work...

I'm still riding high: my students did fantastically today. We still have another show to get through.

But this got me thinking. My students wrote their original script and one of the comments: they wrote in TV fashion because the scenes were short and sweet. But that is actually not an affect of having not enough theater. My students who pursued this project are well versed in theater. But the short scenes lent itself to a lot of different information.

One of the things that are struggled with is professionalism, and teaching it to the students. And classes like Theater are direct links to professionalism. All skills I have to demonstrate make them stronger people in professional life: ability to problem solve in real situations, demonstrating the difference between leading and following, knowing when to lead and let someone else take the lead, and simply: the accountability to someone else.

Another random musing: everyone congratulates the director and the actors separately. The way I've always been taught: the director gives the boxes that the characters need to fit into and everything else is with the actor. The director is responsible for the final product over all, but the details, even when the director is working through the details and making the show complete, the director isn't the one who takes the final bow. The director is the one who comforts, who frames, who makes the impossible plausible. 

So what does this really mean to me as a writer: it's another experience. And I know one day, I hope to be in the thoughts of my students when they receive an award for the amazing things they've done.