Category — Drama

I enjoyed the reading much more than I originally thought I would. I mean, how entertaining is it to see a bunch of people just sit there and read the play? Well, I was wrong. Most of the actors brought depth and personality to the characters of the play, depth that is lost when you read the play yourself. The woman who played Alice was phenomenal. She brought the frustration, confusion, and helplessness of Alice’s situation to life, even going as far as to cry during the final scene, which was very powerful. I also loved who played Terry; his voice boomed and echoed with the pervasive bigotry of Gerritsen beach. He commanded the stage. Little Joe, Allie, and Joe were excellent as well. Who I didn’t like so much, though, was Kelly. Granted each actor brought their own interpretation to the characters they played, I didn’t care for Kelly’s character in this reading. She came off as purely recalcitrant, obnoxious, and rude, all seemingly unjustified. She is standoffish from the start. I didn’t imagine Kelly would be this way; I felt Kelly would be more serene, spiritual, and passionate. Overall though, this reading showed how powerful and moving Mohammed’s Radio can be, when performed. I hope to see it staged soon, preferably at Brooklyn! Something else I really liked was the Q&A at the end, where the playwright answered all of our burning questions. I loved how he provided insight into the making of the play and what he intended to mean with each character. This added even another layer of depth. I feel that Mohammed’s Radio is going to be an excellent show.

Mohammed’s Radio was a great play. I absolutely love how it managed to touch upon women’s rights, the disadvantages of being close-minded, unfair stereotypes, and family morals in just a few short scenes. The plot was fantastic. I was never bored or confused by what was going on, and when I read it for the first time everything clicked and seemed to make sense. The staged reading of the play was also nice, but I didn’t enjoy it so much. The acting was believable and it brought the play to life, but I would rather just read the play to myself or see the full, finished version of it. I think that I would have been able to offer more insight if I saw the play being physically acted out instead of just listening to actors as they sat in front of us on chairs. I did, however, enjoy the Question and Answer panel at the end. It was exciting for me to learn about a work of art from the person who poured so much of their talent into creating. I figured that we would only be talking to the playwright, so I was pleasantly surprised when all of the actors started chiming in to the discussion.  I was also excited to learn that my theory on Little Joe representing hope for the future was correct!

Although this was not my first round table reading of a play, it was the first time I was not a part of the round table reading I attended. Upon reading “Mohammed’s Radio” I was immediately interested in the story and the many weighty topics that it tries to address. I was even more interested in seeing how the actors would interpret the characters and in seeing the characters come to life before my eyes. One thing that surprised me about the reading was that the story was acted out even more than I thought it would be. I expected all of the actors to be sitting at a panel in front of me and read from the script with emotion and skill. However, this reading had a little more theatricality in it than I expected. The actors entered and exited when they were supposed to and even changed their posture and gestures to match what they were saying. I expected the physical aspect of acting to be more for a stage production and not really included in the reading of a play. I was also surprised to learn that the character of Little Joe had much more significance to the play than I originally thought he had. During the Q&A after the reading, the writer explained that Little Joe embodied the hope of the play and was the only character that had not been tainted by the neighborhood and had a chance of “escaping.” It was also interesting to see Little Joe portrayed by a college freshman. When asked the question of whether Kelly’s conversion to Islam was genuine, the writer combined the ideas that we suggested in class on Tuesday. He said that yes, it was an escape, but after finding this very convenient escape, Kelly really was starting to find spiritual connection and faith with the ideas of Islam. She just needed to continue in her journey on finding out what Islam is really like.
I was really pleased to find out that a lot of the people who worked on and acted in the play are current Brooklyn College students and alumni! In fact, I knew the actor who portrayed Little Joe, who is a freshman in the BFA program.

I genuinely enjoyed the play Mohammed’s Radio and when I read it, I felt like I had fully satisfied how I wanted to view each character in the story, so I didn’t think seeing the play act out in front of me would make a huge difference. I was wrong. I really enjoyed the reading of the script of each character in front of me. It was very intimate, because it wasn’t the set that was being shown or the over the top stage and lighting, it was just the talented actors all sitting together and acting out this wonderful play and giving the spotlight to each character. Very beautiful. A distinguishing aspect that I discovered from how I read the play and seeing it played out in front of me was how different I pictured the “high and low” of the dialogue. It’s not really something I can explain by typing, but the way the character decided to stretch out the sentences was very different than how I read it, so that was very interesting. All in all, even though I had already read the play I was fully engaged throughout the whole performance and even teared up when Alice was talking about Joe being the first one to say sorry, it got to me when I read the play, and I told myself not to but I caved. I couldn’t help it, that part was so important to me. My favorite part of the trip however was after the performance when all the actors came out of their character and began to explain the significance of each character. I loved that we got to ask questions and have a one on one with the writer and director, it made the performance all the more memorable. I had a lot of fun and there were some funny moments. I even got Stephen Gracia to sign my program! I’m actually going to look into these kinds of events and see if I can go in my free time because I got so into it, I would definitely go to these “script-reading” aka work of art sessions again. This and the Juilliard Jazz Quartet are neck to neck the best trips so far in my Macaulay journey. Thank You Professor Ugoretz.

A few weeks ago, on my birthday, my mother and I went to see the musical “Big Fish” on Broadway. The entire afternoon was pretty exciting! Being that we’re both college students, we decided that we would try to get student rush tickets to see the performance. We got to the box office about twenty minutes before the performance, and got a great discount on last minute tickets. I highly recommend that everyone take advantage of student rush tickets. They’re great!

The performance was spectacular. Having performed in about six musicals when I was much younger, I developed a strong appreciation for the over the top-ness of a Broadway musical. The story is about a cynical son who seeks to learn the truth behind his father’s imaginative life stories. He is about to have a son of his own and wants to make sure that he has his family history straight before his father dies from a terminal illness.

While I was watching the musical, I was transported into a fairy tale world. Every aspect of the performance was mind-boggling. I watched giants, mermaids, witches, and werewolves sing and dance, and the extravagant, dynamic scenery blew my mind away.

However, what I appreciated the most was watching every single move that the performers made be filled with emotion. Every lyric, dance move, and even background movement was jam packed with emotions so tangible that for a second I thought they were true. Big Fish is a fantastic musical that I hope you all get a chance to see!