Drama’s Conventions
Dramas conventions are a set of time-honored tools for communicating with audiences. Discuss how they affect you as viewing audience and the perceptions that it leaves you with. Do they help forward the story and if so how?
first post need to be reply: Bianca Robles :Drama conventions are a set of different techniques used in the creation of dramatic performances. Drama conventions affect the viewing of the audience in many ways. Some of these ways are to engage the audience, help the audience understand what’s going on, and to help the structure of the play. The perceptions that it can leave on the audience is making the drama more believable, some suspense and curiosity depending on the theme of the drama, and possibly an emotional connection. Drama conventions do help forward a story. They help forward a story by adding structure and clarity. These two things together help the audience follow along. But along with those two things there is also flashbacks, narration, and even chorus. Flashbacks help with providing any information and context that would help explain any events that are happening or even the characters behaviors. Narration helps give the audience the details that are not being told in the story to potentially not ruin the flow of the story. And lastly, the chorus plays a huge roll. The rolls that the chorus play are being able to summarize events, highlight many themes, and lastly help guide the audience in a different way.
Second post: Melonie Miranda: Dramas conventions affect the viewer such as myself in how I perceive and view the story. because of the traditional tools used to deliver points to the audiences it helps us see where the story is going, what the message is, who the characters are and why they do/are doing the things they are doing. Drama conventions help get the story going faster and make it interesting to keep the viewer hooked. One of the strategies that they use is time, time is important to the story, the viewer and the crew and actors. It is important to tell the parts of the story that is relevant that progress the story so that time isn’t wasted. another important strategy of dramatic convention is complication and resolution, without using these real world settings we would never know how the characters came upon these problems and then solved them. It’s also another great way to keep the viewer drawn and focused but also another great way for character growth because a lot of the time there ends up being character development in the story when problems occur and it sometimes is a learning lesson for both the viewer and character. Seeing these characters go through a crisis period helps the viewer connect to the character. Resolution is when the viewer finds peace of mind for the character. Climax is another important dramatic convention for the viewer because without these characters going through these certain emotions it would make it a little difficult for the viewer to connect to the character.
Third post: Whitney Becker: Conventions are necessary for communicating with audiences effectively. If you think about it, us as performers or techies have only a couple of hours to develop characters, introduce the plot, reach a climax, and then to reach a resolution. These conventions make it easier for everyone involved to tell the story in its entirety within the time restraints. As an audience member, I think these conventions make the story easier to follow. The performers, writers, and techies have read this story multiple times and have been able to fully digest it, whereas the audience is experiencing it for the first time. These conventions are also so the audience doesn’t get lost, confused, or bored while being thrown into this story for the first time. The perception it leaves the audience with is understanding. If the audience leaves confused about the plot or the development of the story, the conventions were probably not executed correctly. It’s another way of communicating information to the audience that is necessary in the context of the play. I believe that these conventions do help to forward the story. Writers are able to manipulate the story in such a way that keeps it progressing, without going too fast or too slow. Without them, the play might go into too little, or too much detail. Similar with time, it could be really fast and hard to keep up, or it could drag on. These conventions keep the performers and the audience on the same page, so that the play can continue at a pace that everyone is comfortable with.
