Listen up reader, it's my history with theatre

As the first year CreComm students embark on their mini-theatre unit in Creative Writing, I thought I'd take a look back at my history with theatre.

Now, considering two of my biggest interests are sports and rock music, it wouldn't be a surprise if theatre was not really a priority in my life.

And it still isn't really a priority, but for an 18-year old who loves Metallica and watching grown men run around after a football and beat the crap out of each other , theatre has actually been a pretty big part of my life the last 3 years.

Grade 11 was where it began. In our english class, we were required to attend a few performances at the Manitoba Theatre Centre. Upon hearing the news at the beginning of the year, there were mixed reactions from myself. The only "theatre" I had seen before that were high school plays which I only enjoyed because we got to get out of class for 2 hours to go watch them.

But we were going to see the "big boys and girls" of theatre. And they didn't disappoint.

Out of the 4 plays I saw that year, Our Town, The Importance of Being Earnest, Fiddler on the Roof, and Shakespeare's Dog, I actually enjoyed myself thoroughly not only because we got out of school, but because of the humor involved in these plays. Minus Our Town which was more of a serious play, the other 3 were all sprinkled with a significant touch of humor. For some reason, I always pictured plays as being serious events with people speaking in British acccents while the audience cried throughout. Not the case.

And the next year, our English class attended 4 more plays at the MTC. Pride and Prejudice, Medea, Jitters, and The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead. With Medea being the serious out of the bunch, the others featured more humor and more enjoyable moments.

In January of that year (2009), I was given a great opportunity from my english teacher to participate in a blog for the upcoming yearly Playwright festival which would feature the works of Arthur Miller. The blog, along with about 5 or 6 others, would be seen on the MTC website. Rob Ring, the director of the festival, told us straight up not to review the plays. It was more of a blog to discuss our thoughts and feelings. And so that's exactly what I did. I entitled the blogs "Kevin's Random thoughts on......" and proceeded to ramble on about the things which went through my head during each performance I attended. And I don't think it was a disaster. Rob Ring told me he enjoyed the concept of my blog as did a few others.

And when CreComm attended In the Chamber earlier this year, I knew what to expect. I knew that there would be students bitching and moaning and falling asleep. I had seen it happen in high school. I knew the plays might not be the most exciting things in the world. I had sat through some of those before.

I'm not saying I'm a theatre expert. In fact, I'm far from it. But I've sat through enough plays during the last couple of years to confidently say that theatre is something that I will always be willing to check out and attend.

Whether it's the acting, the humor, the props, the music, I have never walked away from a play without having learned something about theatre. And as long as that keeps being the case, I will always attend when I get the opportunity to.