Some people get their start in the dramatic arts by performing in local drama-related activities, including parades, plays, and festivals. Actors need talent, poise, and the ability to affect an audience by creatively portraying different characters. They also need to be able to follow a director´s lead and be open to criticism.

Q: Are high school and college plays considered important experience for an aspiring actor or director?
A: Since so few people get the opportunity to display their talent, most aspiring actors and directors are encouraged to take part in their high school and college plays or work in small theaters and other acting groups. Building on local opportunities is often the best way to start.

Sparks fly onstage in comedic ´Never Get Smart´
Salvatore Bustebrizzio is one very biased Italian so, when his son brings home a non-Italian girlfriend, the sparks fly in the Shoestring Theatre´s latest production, "Never Get Smart With an Angel."

In ´toon with his pupils
Star Wars, superheroes, the comic-strip dog Snoopy and Shakespeare are equally welcome in David Finkle´s classroom-turned-stage.

Career Advice: Technical Theater
I am interested in technical theater, and I am thinking about majoring in it. My concerns are what type of steady occupation could I work in after college?

1. Go to your career section. Then, explore one or more of the web links related to this job. Make copies of web pages you find interesting and organize them into a reference file or notebook to share with others.

2. Search recent copies of The Daytona Beach News-Journal for evidence of this occupaion. Clip examples from display ads, classified ads, news articles, features, editorials, and the comics.

3. From the pages of The News-Journal, identify people and organizations that can be contacted for more information about this occupation. Investigate one or more and organize your findings into a scrapbook to share with your class. Please feel free to add useful ones to the Resource List for this occupation in the Job Center.

4. Clip words from The Daytona Beach News-Journal that describe, or are used in, this occupation. Define each and then, using Puzzlemaker, create a crossword puzzle to challenge friends or classmates.

5. Visit NewsVoyages.com and search for information about this job in online papers from other parts of the U.S. Print out pages that you find interesting and share them with your class or family.

Arts Education: Training Your Brain Right!
The arts include music, dance, theater and the visual arts. Research indicates that students benefit from opportunities to create and perform in the arts. Unfortunately, too often these subjects are viewed as "frills" and are cut from school curricula. Many experts believe that arts opportunities help students with knowledge and skills in other areas.

Career Browser: Dramatic Arts/Theater Major
Theater is both a collaborative art and a practical skill. In the dramatic arts/theater major, students gain breadth of knowledge about past and present culture, art, literature, politics, psychology, and philosophy. They also learn the skills needed to become actors, directors, playwrights, designers, technicians, and managers.
http://www.collegeboard.com/apps/careers/majors/0,3480,33-045,00.html

Department of Career Services
Dramatic arts at the University of Connecticut combine the elements of performance, design, and literary traditions into one major. Acting, Design and Technical Theatre, Puppetry, and Theatre Studies are areas of study in the Dramatic Arts program.
http://www.career.uconn.edu/majors/dramatic_arts.html

The Juilliard School on the Web
The transforming role of Juilliard is to help talented students harness their dedication to become communicative artists, imbued with the passion and understanding to reach within themselves to affect and move audiences. It is this process that prepares our students for a life in the arts.
http://www.juilliard.edu/

UCSB - Bachelor of Arts Degree
The Bachelor of Arts degree is a more broadly based degree, with a liberal arts orientation, which allows students wider curricular choices.
http://www.dramadance.ucsb.edu/drama%20BA.html

Discovery School´s Puzzlemaker
Puzzlemaker is a puzzle generation tool for teachers, students and parents. Create and print customized word search, crossword and math puzzles using your word lists. (www.puzzlemaker.com)

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