Dsc Presents: A Night with the Bard

Audience Experience:

I attended the Sunday performance and as always, there were not a lot of people. On the way to the show, I was kind of confused at how it was going to be because I never attended a performance at the Daytona State College theatre building. The play at the News Journal Center was one of the first plays I’ve actually seen that was performed by college students. The show began at 2:30pm and I arrived before 2:00pm. I did not like the fact that there were no signs or people to tell me where the performance was taking place. I ended up walking up to the actual theatre building and finding out that the doors were locked. Luckily, one of the maintenance men was riding around and informed me. There was a woman seated outside the auditorium and she told me that the theatre doors don't open until 2:00pm. She was kind of blunt so I decided to wait outside until the doors opened. The atmosphere was somewhat awkward because besides the performance area, the entire campus was empty. At first, I thought that maybe the performance was canceled. I felt kind of under dressed just because the ushers made the performance seem like it was very formal. I was expecting it to be more casual considering that it was a production performed by college students. As the people arrived, the mood was somewhat boring. No one was excited and most people entered the theatre silently. I suppose this is because Sunday is normally a rest day when people do errands and relax for the upcoming week. I think a lot of people were coming straight from church considering that it was in the middle of the day.  There were no cameras or cell phone use permitted inside the theatre and everyone was instructed to silence all of their electronic devices.  During the play, I was looking mainly to see if I knew any of the performers since I attend the same college as them. I enjoyed the performance because it was not just one specific play. I enjoy watching Shakespeare plays because they are usually very dramatic and have an underlying message. However, I find most of the productions of Shakespeare plays to be too drawn out and I tend to lose interest by the intermission. With so many different plays and monologues being performed,  I wasn’t bored with the same old story the entire performance. I was happy that they did perform the old classic, “Romeo and Juliet” because that is my favorite play by Shakespeare.  With only scenes being performed, the performance didn’t seem as long as past performances that I’ve watched. During the ride home, I spoke with my boyfriend that also attended the show about our experience. We agreed that we enjoyed seeing many different scenes from different plays over watching one entire play.  We also like the fact that the performers were students who attend our same college because it kind of makes us think that if we really want to, we can be in a play also.