When I read the reviews of Hamilton, I still don’t see how it is a game-changer. The review from Rooney says that Hamilton is original, but what even counts as original anymore? The same article even says other works have done the same things before, just not with as much success. That doesn’t make Hamilton “original.” It just makes it “good.” Is the “game-changer” the one that first pioneers a concept or is it the one that is first to obtain success?

I’ve never felt theater to be a big part of my life. If I ask someone, “What is Broadway?,” it isn’t meant to be a thought-provoking or rhetorical question. Literally, what is Broadway? I don’t feel that one-hour long trek through the rain with our intent mainly focused on finding theater rather than studying was able to answer my question, but it did help. I, at least, see now that New York has a ton of theater crammed into a relatively small part of the city.

Because I knew nothing going in, almost every find was a learning experience. What was of most interest to me was the thrust stage, mainly the fact that there was a specific name for it, but also because image searches on google brought up some really beautiful pictures. The most amusing find, though, was when we stopped at a random street corner to plan out next move. We had a short chat with a policeman there, and on the wall of the building next to him was painted comedy and tragedy masks—one of the items on the list, just sitting on the wall of a random building.

My train ride home was a really surreal experience. I came across two separate performances. One was a magic demonstration involving nerf balls. The other was a dance routine. I’ve always had a rather one-dimensional view of these performances. Magic shows were entertainment. Dance routines were an annoyance. Simple. That was the first time I linked them to something else—the theater of New York. It may also be the last time I do so, but nonetheless it was a new experience of an old experience.

The reading seems to want to make a distinction between film and performance theater, but what is the line that separates these two media? Is it the presence of a live audience in theater and not in film? But in that case, can the director and staff members during the production of a film not technically be considered an “audience”?

How do you think the audience of the 19th century would have reacted to this play, especially in regards to its critique of marriage and women’s rights?

According to the text, high modernists, being more interested in written dialogue than in performance, attempted to reduce actors to merely their voices. Would the lack of actors on stage undermine the works’ classification as “theater.”

Aesthetics such as Appia and Craig made use of technological innovations in order to integrate various elements–music, scenery, lighting, props–into a production. With technology having advanced further, are there any new and viable elements that are not made use of in today’s productions?

From the reading, it seems that most theater productions of the past have been heavily influenced by contemporary issues. Does that still hold true today, or do creators now  tend to exercise more creative freedom? If the former, what kind of themes and subjects are distinctly prevalent in modern productions?

What is it about philosophy and theater that makes the two concepts so closely related? Even if we look at their origins, they are often said to have come from the same place: Ancient Greece.

The exhibit I found most interesting (and probably had spent the most time on) was the one about the Adler family, although I can’t specify exactly what I found interesting about it. Aside from that, it was nice to get a general sense of how Yiddish theater initially came about and later flourished in New York City.

Having been quite late to arrive, I missed out on the first part which I assume was a brief guide through the library’s theater division. Fortunately I did make it for the discussion on how to utilize the library’s website for archival purposes, which I found very informative, and which would likely be a huge help for the coming projects. I also now know how to get there.