tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16876687.post28296490832145777..comments2024-02-27T16:59:54.089-05:00Comments on (The New) Theatre Ideas: Standards of EducationUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16876687.post-82797347637164484462009-12-04T16:35:43.671-05:002009-12-04T16:35:43.671-05:00There is a lot of money tied to college athletics,...There is a lot of money tied to college athletics, and perhaps that's why they receive so much immediate and useful feedback. I was blessed to have attended a very good acting program, where we developed the critical thinking and specific skill sets that you call for, but I know that most of the actors I know did not. <br /><br />I don't know that you can treat theatre the same way you can treat athletics, but every actor could use more, direct, and specific feedback. <br /><br />Thanks for this, and I'll be looking forward to more.A Good Husbandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05738145765148389379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16876687.post-61475233011961691002009-11-19T13:50:20.550-05:002009-11-19T13:50:20.550-05:00A bunch of student comments here:
http://cmuptm.b...A bunch of student comments here:<br /><br /><a href="http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2009/11/standards-of-education.html" rel="nofollow">http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2009/11/standards-of-education.html</a><br /><br />dbDavidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11980248848147600519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16876687.post-2882652582967286382009-11-16T13:38:24.410-05:002009-11-16T13:38:24.410-05:00ccematson at The Unicorn Triumphant recommended yo...ccematson at The Unicorn Triumphant recommended your writing to me, and I'm glad for that. <br /><br />I'm a college educator in the visual arts, and I share your concerns about the ideal balance of nurture and challenge in a higher-education setting. One thing I often consider in critique is how I can frame something so that a particular student will be best able to hear and receive it. Sometimes that means being bluntly and aggressively honest; other times it means framing criticism more gently: "Your ideas here are important, and they deserve a higher level of craft to best communicate them." <br /><br />Genuine encouragement and challenging criticism are a strong statement of confidence in a developing artist -- an honest critique tells the student that you take her work seriously, that you believe she has both the desire and the ability to continue learning and progressing, and that you believe she is worth an investment of your time and trouble. It's true that hard criticisms can be difficult to hear, but students won't get better at receiving and benefiting from them if we protect them from ever being critiqued at all.<br /><br />But it seems I'm preaching to the choir here, so I'll say thanks for your thoughts and sign off for now.<br /><br />Blessings.<br />Sarah JaneSarah Janehttp://www.faithandfoolishness.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16876687.post-34584115938683161222009-11-13T11:52:45.686-05:002009-11-13T11:52:45.686-05:00Do you think the professoriat should also have rea...Do you think the professoriat should also have real word experience before gaining tenure?<br /><br />I go back and forth on which is worse: lack of scholarship or no idea how the real world works. So a lot of young artists I meet don't really have a grounding in anything other than "academic" theatre.<br /><br />And even if your goal is to change how things work, that's tough to do without understanding what you want to change.<br /><br />Also the football analogy is very interesting to me. (not just because I played for a little while in college.) At that level players watch film every day. Some coaches might watch 6 hours of film a day. Every practice is filmed. So for ex a quarterback has continual feedback on his release. He can see what is working and what is not and usually why. <br /><br />I think that's a big thing that theatre can learn from.Tony Adamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02141675073979325374noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16876687.post-26187238089721541702009-11-12T13:19:12.384-05:002009-11-12T13:19:12.384-05:00Scott -
Funny you should write this. I've be...Scott - <br /><br />Funny you should write this. I've been thinking about valid criticism a lot lately. One of my part-time gigs is a reviewer for the local Weekly here. Lately, though, I've found I've been volunteering for less reviews, b/c of this exact problem: How can I give honest, "highly critical" advice of a piece when sometimes I'm not even sure what the problem is? <br /><br />And at an amateur production, there are lots of problems. I have seen enough to know what quality is. I'm sure everyone in the audience has seen enough to know what quality is -- and whether or not they just saw it. But how do you tease it out? If the actor doesn't make a character come alive, is that b/c the actor doesn't know how to make choices? Or is it b/c the director was dragging him down different paths? <br /><br />I found myself not wanting to be vague in my own reviews -- especially if all I'm given is 400 words. In that space you have to be surgical if you plan on saying anything at all. <br /><br />Furthermore -- and this relates, trust me -- I've also been thinking about failure a lot lately. <br /><br />Mainly -- how to risk failure, and, more importantly, how to learn from it. <br /><br />You can't really create anything worth making unless you risk. And most of those risks will fail. But those risks are USELESS unless you know how to evaluate failure. WHY didn't this work? How can I change in the future to make this better? If you don't honestly examine failure, then it's just a black spot, a horrible feeling, and you learn to avoid it, which leads to less risk, which leads to worse work. And it takes real skills and real honesty to examine failure. I'm trying to learn those skills myself. <br /><br />Criticism doesn't need to be mean-spirited -- but it does need to be honest. B/c if it's not, you can't learn -- and if you don't actually learn, you'll never advance your craft. <br /><br />And for every value of "you" in the preceeding paragraph, please submit "I." <br /><br />So yeah, I've got no answers, but I was getting impatient with my own inability to articulate and examine what the shortcomings were -- in others' work, and my own. <br /><br />Thanks for the read!Jacobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16172580706901225571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16876687.post-70500429160772479012009-11-10T10:52:09.595-05:002009-11-10T10:52:09.595-05:00Thanks for this post. There is much I agree with ...Thanks for this post. There is much I agree with here - the issue of non-critical criticism is an important one to address, as is the state of university theatre programs across the country. I have one quibble, though. I think it's disingenuous (and a little tired) to compare theatre to football. While I think that it's important to note that sports teams are rigorous and disciplined and we could certainly look to them for influence and inspiration it would be a more worthwhile endeavor to look at other arts to see how they foster scholarship, criticism and critique. What about architecture? What do those programs do with their students? Peers? Or dance or literature or....etc.<br /><br />Might we find something there?Melissahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10765752598575499336noreply@blogger.com