The Life Of Kristin Welk And How Theatre Ties Into It

Have you ever taken the moment to think about how theatre connects to your life? Most people probably have not; however, I was lucky enough to take a theatre class this past semester that enlightened me on the fact that we are all actors. Many people think of actors as the people who actually get up on a stage and play the role of another person, but in reality everyone plays different roles throughout their day. For example, I am a student, a daughter, a sister, a friend, and an employee. Depending on the environment and the people that I am around determines what role I play.

I strongly believe the fact that everyone is an actor in their everyday life by playing different roles is one of the best examples of how theatre relates to my life and everyone else's; however, you can relate it to so many other things that most people would never think about. Take something as simple as the Nintendo Wii. On the Wii you are able to design your own character that you use in the different games available on this system. You can make your character resemble yourself or you can make them look like someone completely different, say a celebrity you admire. You can even give them any name that you want, it doesn't' have to be your own. The fact that you are able to create a character on the Wii and become that character in the games relates back to theatre. In theatre, actors are continuously given different characters to transform into for the performance. This character could be someone completely unlike them just like the character that you might create on the Wii is completely different from you.

In my downtime I enjoy watching movies. For the longest time I thought that movies and theatre performances were very similar; however, I have recently seen a play that changed my mind about this. Theatre performances are live and as we learned in class no one performance is ever the same as the previous performance. For example, a main actor might get sick and you then have to have the under steady step in. This changes the entire play. The whole cast must slightly change their way of performing their character to make the play work with the under steady. Other changes that actors might make in a performance is possibly saying their lines different or speaking at a different pace. All of these minor changes make the performance different from the previous one. With movies, no matter how many times you watch them you will always see the same thing. The actors will always say their lines in the same manor as before. With movies you have rewind, fast forward, and pause. In the theatre once something has happened you will never be able to see it that way again unless you video record it but than isn't it a movie?


Besides watching movie's I also like to go to the beach during the summer and since summer is approaching very soon what better of a topic to talk about. While I am sitting on the beach I tend to watch the people who are around me. People watching, even though is somewhat creepy, is also interesting. People at all times are putting on performances for the people around them. For Example, you can always tell the new couples from the couples who have been together forever by their body language. Body language is a way of performing. You are performing your feelings through your body. Think about the last theatre performance you went to. The body language is key and makes you understand more about what is going on. For example, people who are in love have different body language towards each other than those who are just friends. Another thing that i tend to notice while people watching on the beach is the the little kids. Lets face it, little kids love attention and do anything for it. It is very entertaining to watch the little kids on the beach rolling around in the sand, burying each other, building sand castles, and playing in the ocean. If you ever notice while they are doing all of these activities they always are saying "Mom, Mom, look at what I'm doing". This is because they are putting on a performance through these activities and they want their parents to notice.


Overall, it is very easy to relate theatre to your life. The concepts of theatre are used in pretty much everything you do and it is very interesting to take things that you are passionate about and see just that.