Joung Hwan Park / Taking part in a play / Tues 9am

How good would you have to be if you wanted to perform in Broadway? You would first need to be good at performing, which is obvious I know. You would also need to be quite famous, and good-looking, too. Performing in Broadway, or in any other place for that matter, deals with the common aspect of taking part in a musical or a play. Now, other than the things mentioned above, let's think about the more practical aspects in terms of taking part in a play.

Plays are full of words and dialogues. That means one has to learn the script off by heart in order to perform in a play. Memorizing the script is probably the most basic aspect that must be taken into consideration when preparing for a play. Just imagine how embarrassing it would be if a person who was acting forgot their lines in front of a bunch of people, and the effect it will have on the whole performance. Thus, I would say that, when taking part in a play, memorizing the script would be first priority as learning the notes would be considered as of equal importance when, for example, performing music.

Plays have characters. Each person who takes part in a play has a designated character that they must perform as. Not all characters are the same, so there is a need for the actor or actress to analyze and be very familiar with their characters. If not, then the personality and emotion of that character would not be conveyed enough to in fulfilling its role within the play. Some people might think that the audience will not be able to notice something that minor, but actually they do. Hence, the audience's verdict in deciding whether a particular play was good or not heavily depends, not just on how perfectly a performer performs their lines, but also on how well the actual feel of the characters are conveyed, which maximizes the effect the audience gets from that play.

Plays require practice. I mean a lot of practice. Plays are not something where someone memorizes their lines, analyzes their character and forget about it until the day before the actual performance. Hence, a performance is not something that someone could just magically do even though they know everything in their heads. One must practice by saying the lines out loud, acting out specific scenes and top it off by adding emotion to all of them. Nobody is good at something from the beginning, so what I would like to recommend to people wanting to take part in a play is practice, practice and practice.

Everyone knows that performing in Broadway, or in any other place for that matter, is not easy. Just performing, on its own, is not easy. What was mentioned above are just some of the basic guidelines that are necessary for taking part in a play, but I believe the one thing that completes a person in becoming a good actor or actress is passion. Thus, I would recommend, know the theories and strive with passion.