Relating Theater to my life

Relating theater is actually a fairly easy thing to do for me, at least after having this class. Theater relates to my life a good many ways, either directly by watching plays, or indirectly by being in things like athletics and public speaking that are performance much like theater. Even my wife’s’ and my wedding could be considered a type of theater as there are lines we had to say, movements we had to do, and a large, and by large I mean over 300 people, crowd watching. Theater is linked to my everyday life whether or not I realized it before.
A wedding is definitely a great example of a performance everyone will be involved with somehow at some point in their life. It relates to me very well, as do many things. I have been involved in many sporting events and public speaking events and theater definitely relates to them because you have an audience, you have things that you need to do, and you need to perform. Theater also relates to other areas of my life that may not be so obvious.

I am a security officer at a large hospital in the north of Pittsburgh region, and I am also a Volunteer Firefighter. When it comes to those two things, my role as an everyday guy changes to one of a guy with some authority and knowledge, and someone that people turn to for safety. As we discussed in discussion posting earlier in the class everyone plays different roles in their life and those roles are ever changing. I would have to say however that the two roles I mentioned above come with the most stress, as depending on how I act could mean the difference between life and death. Now that is easy to see with firefighting but probably not as easy to see in the security role. Most people think of a security guard as the mall cop type, that is a rent- a - cop and kind of useless. In a hospital setting we deal with potentially violent and violent situations almost everyday, and when it comes down to it a lot of time we are the only thing able to diffuse a situation. So when it comes to the role of a volunteer firefighter and a security officer I need to be serious about those roles when I am in them, and need to be able to change into those roles in a split second.

I discussed in an earlier blog post how theater can relate to my major and or future career of criminology and law enforcement so I won’t beat the dead horse and go over it again. However theater can relate to my everyday life just as a regular guy. Some of my hobbies include hunting, fishing, camping, and shooting. Theater can relate to these in that when I go out in order t have a successful hunting or fishing trip or have a fun and safe campout or target shoot there are certain things I have to do and I have to be able to adapt to anything. I would relate these things to Improv theater because no two outings are ever the same, therefore I have to improvise and adapt to any situation that may arise. Now most of the time these are small and just deal with having a good time, finding the right spot to be at, or changing calls or lures to be more successful. However I have to be able to adapt to literally anything when I’m in the woods or along the river. There are so many different situations that could arise such as getting lost, a storm rolling in, being attacked by animal or human, getting hurt, loosing important gear, getting sick, and a wide variety of pretty much anything you can think of. Like an improv actor I need to be able to adapt to whatever is thrown at me and be prepared. My training as an Eagle Scout helps me with this, just like training helps an actor adapt.