EXPLORING PASSIONS
SPORTS AND THEATRE
Do They Get the Same Amount of Attention?
December 2016
BY ALEXANDREA BECKER
The stage curtain opens as the show begins. As
the actors look into the audience, they can see the
people in the Nechita Center eagerly anticipating
the performance that took so much work and
preparation to put together over the course of
several months. Hours of the tiring rehearsals,
finishing homework late in the night, and the
possible injuries throughout the process are all
part of the show the actors worked so hard on.
The only focus of the actor now is to put on the
best show and have the audience going home
with great memories of the show they just saw.
Pulasky, junior, said, “The energy of the crowd
affects the energy of the performance.”
There are many things that are different between
sports and theatre, which makes each activity
special in its own way. For theatre, “It is the
camaraderie of meeting people that you wouldn’t
normally talk to if you had not done the show,”
Pulaski said.
In theatre, actors are “able to actually see people
laughing and smiling and having fun and can be
more interactive when [they] are on stage, rather
than [players] on a football field [that] look up at
the people in the stands,” Garcia said.
Just like athletes playing on a field or a court,
actors and actresses give their all when they are
performing for an audience. Charlie Battaglia,
senior, said, “When you are acting you give all of
your emotion, you are totally vulnerable on
stage.”
Battaglia says he thinks people can find out more
about themselves through theatre and through
the characters they play in a show.
Not only do actors put their whole emotion into
the show, actors have to be physically fit as well.
“You can’t be dancing and singing this whole
number and then act and sing and be all huffy
and puffy,” Battaglia said.
Charlie
Battaglia
played
George
Wickham in
OLu’s
production of
Pride and
Prejudice last
year.
Sydney Garcia, sophomore, said, “you are
using every muscle in your body to sing, to
perform, to dance, to do everything and you can
pull muscles and get hurt just as easily as you can
during sports.”
There are some similarities between sports and
theatre. “You’re performing no matter what,
whether you are on a court or on a stage, still all
eyes are on you,” Battaglia said. Injuries are
possible in both. Both have a team to work with,
even though in a show it is called a cast.
Photo
courtesy of
Orange
Lutheran
Also, when people are seen in the audience or in
the stands, the energy of the crowd fuels the
game or the show they are watching. Gabriella
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