Thesis Project Essay Example for Free

Thesis Project Essay My senior year of college required me to do a thesis project.   As a drama major I had to choose and direct a full length play.   From the moment I began choosing this project, until its completion; I learned a lot about myself, mainly how I approached and solved problems.   I had two primary goals to focus on while working on this.   The first and biggest, I had to satisfy the panel of reviewing professors before opening night.   The second, I had to please a college audience of savvy theatergoers, in addition to making good changes requested by the professors.    As one might imagine the road to completion came with some bumps. First off, I had to choose my play, and then the cast of characters.   Choosing it came more easily to me than most.   I wanted a contemporary play and found one I liked very much in the library quite easily, David Rabe’s Hurlyburly.  Ã‚   Finding the right cast proved more difficult than I imagined.   We had a few good actors who I knew I wanted for the principal roles.   Generally the department frowned on having more than one set of auditions. However, I could call myself a friend of several of these key players; so I approached them before auditions and begged them to try out for the play.   I had an open mind to any surprises, and some occurred, but I ended up casting my preconceived choices in the main roles.   I never had high hopes for some of the lesser roles, but luckily the right people auditioned for those.   So with some luck and begging, I had my cast. It turned out that casting the play was the easiest thing I had to do, next part editing.   If I had not edited this play it would have gone on for well over three hours, which I could not accept, nor could the professors.   I had an editing assistant who simply started crossing out pages haphazardly.   I basically ignored her recommendations and made edits of my own.   I stubbornly kept the play too long, which I regretted later. Lastly, came directing.   I quickly found that conceiving an entire play differed greatly from directing a single scene for a class.   Mainly, with all the time on our hands until opening, I had to get the most out of my actors.   At the same time, actors do not enjoy a director telling them how to do their job.   One simply needs to elicit more out of them.   I learned to do that over the course of rehearsals, by asserting myself more, coupled with having a clear vision of how I wanted things to look. Luckily the play opened to good reviews.   I learned a lot about myself in the process.   I met each of my challenges choosing a play, casting, editing, and directing head on.   I enjoyed it, but would give serious thought before doing it again.