My Black-Box House free essay sample

I have a home away from home. It’s not a friend’s house or the strip mall on Dixwell Avenue or the narrow trail on the Farmington Canal that stretches through my town. It’s my school, Hamden High, with a student population of about 2,500. I know it sounds odd aren’t teenagers supposed to hate school? I don’t, because in a strange way it’s the perfect refuge. Sometimes my friends and I after 13 hours of school, sports, and clubs contemplated staying overnight. We imagined how we would shower and change in the locker rooms, grab a bite from the cafeteria, and sleep on the cots in the nurse’s office. In reality, I have come close. During my years here, I have slept on the chairs in the band room after class, changed for badminton practice in the bathrooms, and snacked inconspicuously in almost every class. But during my high school career, I have felt most at home in my school’s black box, Room C103, the place that the drama queens, acting fiends, and crew machines of Hamden High call home. We will write a custom essay sample on My Black-Box House or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The old, comfy couch there has been a second bed for me. In theater, I have always been a backstage participant, like a shy child who prefers to stay in her room the room being the costume shop. I have been on the costume crew for four years, and in that time, I have felt most at home with the actors, crews, and directors who have led the black-box bunch. I remember my first play: Shakespeare’s â€Å"Much Ado About Nothing,† set in stylish 1960s Italy. With the help of my costume supervisor, I made my first costume from scratch: an evening dress. Lavender and purple with white and purple gems on the bottom, it fit the actress like a glove. When I saw it on stage, sparkling in all its glory and making the character of Leonata come to life, I felt pride. I realized then that I wanted to do this forever, to help create characters through cloth, color, and texture. Now I am the head costume designer for Hamden High’s Mainstage Ensemble. My costume supervisor has put all her trust in my abilities to research and select designs, colors, fabrics, and trims that will fit each character. Though a daunting task, I welcome and love it! I love the long nights when I run to Panera for a bite to eat, and return to cut patterns, sew fabric, hem raw edges, and fit actors. Sometimes I feel like an older sister or even a mother to the younger actors, telling them to come in for their fitting, reminding them to say â€Å"Please† and â€Å"Thank you† to us costume girls, and whispering â€Å"Shhh! Keep quiet!!† backstage while a show is running. In a way, theater is like building a home atmosphere, putting together a brand-new house complete with sets, props, lights, sounds, and finely clothed people. Through my four years of theater, I have built a family of friends and mentors in this strange black-box house. I have seen my theater family come and go moving on to bigger and better things and I have felt a lump in my throat each time I see them go. I remember during closing night of â€Å"The Crucible,† the actor who played John Proctor cried, knowing that this was his last night in our theater hall, the last time he would see his theater â€Å"family† running to change sets and help put on costumes. I know that I will have more than a simple lump in my throat when my last play comes. Though I will miss my Hamden High theater family, I am excited to make my new home at a school like UCONN a place where I can experience these feelings anew in a vibrant and spirited atmosphere. I look forward to learning new skills in something I truly love and wish to do for the rest of my life. In Storrs, I will wake up every day hoping for 13-hour days behind the scenes, making the actors on stage look as if their characters have come to life. And, hopefully, I will find a comfy couch in some new black-box house to sleep on and call my own.

Cameron Crowe essays

Cameron Crowe essays Cameron Crowe is one of Hollywood's premier filmmakers. He began his cinematic career by penning the screenplay for the wildly popular 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and he made his directorial debut in 1989 with Say Anything . . . , a sophisticated teen romance. Crowe is perhaps best known, though, for the 1996 film Jerry Maguire, which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, and Almost Famous, which earned the Academy Award in 2001. Crowe was born on July 13, 1957, in Palm Springs, California. His father was a real estate agent and his mother was a teacher, activist, and all-around live wire. He had two older sisters, but one died during childhood. Crowe was a sickly child, suffering from the kidney disease nephritis, but he was also very bright. He skipped kindergarten and two primary grades. For this reason, Crowe never really felt comfortable with his school peers throughout his adolescence. Crowe did enjoy writing for the school newspaper. By the time he was thirteen, he was also writing for the San Diego Door, an underground newspaper, and he soon began submitting articles to the popular-music magazines Creem and Circus. Crowe graduated in 1972 at age fifteen, and on a trip to Los Angeles met Ben Fong-Torres, the editor of Rolling Stone, who hired him to write for the magazine. During his seven years with Rolling Stone, Crowe profiled such artists as the Allman Brothers Band, the Eagles, Peter Frampton, King Crimson, and Led Zeppelin. At age nineteen and still boyish, Crowe came up with the idea to pose undercover as a high school student and write about his experiences. At the school he made friends and began to fit in. Crowe described his assignment as "the senior year I never had." Fast Times at Ridgemont High: A True Story is the book that resulted from Crowe's year in high school. It focused on six main characters and chronicles their activities in typical teenage settings such as school, the ...

Refection on Call Girl and readings Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Refection on Call Girl and readings - Essay Example It also offers society a mirror to construct a desired reality. However, this differs with Hedlong’s perception who believes that films mainly achieve an aesthetic value and this revolves around explicit mystery and murder notable in most Swedish movies (Miller et al., 2008). Overall, the two authors agree that films have role to play in the wider society. Notably, Hedlong continues with this trajectory by asserting that the location of Swedish Media is largely influenced by regional aesthetics as demonstrated by the Call Girl film. This shows that filmmakers have a role in transforming society while also entertaining the masses. Similarly, cinema as a modern invention of technology, according to Sundholm, should manipulate people’s thoughts, views, and perceptions toward a positive direction. Alternatively, Miller in his paper Global Hollywood attests on the muzzling culture of Hollywood of foreign cinema. Consequently, this curtails the growth of other forms of cinemas with creative and innovative messages as notable with Call Girl that castigates bad political behavior (Reijnders, 2008). In other words, artistic success is a challenge if industries do not allow cooperation. Hedlong, O. et al. (2010). Murder, Mystery and Megabucks?: Films and Filmmaking as Regional and Local Place Promotion in Southern Sweden. In Hedlong, O et al (Ed.), Regional Aesthetics: Locating Swedish Media (pp.263-290). New York, NY: