Mike F.'s essay

My trip to Boston was very well worth it. I also had the experience of
staying in a hostel, which I have never done before. The subway was a
first for me and felt very much like the underground trains at some
airports. Some of the places that I enjoyed the most were Shear
Madness/Blue Man Group theatre and The Wilbur Theatre. All having to do
with some form of entertainment they were all slightly different from one
another located close together. From what we observed, the public had the
choice of going to see a formal theatrical performance at the Wilbur
theatre or a wacky and wild show with the Blue Man Group.
Shear Madness was in a building off of an alley and down in a basement
where there’s a bar and countless small squared tables with a red tabletop
with chairs for seating. The set consisted of a floor that looked like a
checker board, chairs that swiveled and were hydraulic like the ones you
see in a salon or barbershop, sinks to wash hair in, and countless bottles
of shampoo, and hair cutting utensils. The set was very real and had
everything a normal barbershop could ask for. What I liked most about
Shear Madness was that it had a bar and appealed to me as a relaxed and
laid back feeling for the audience. Shear Madness is for those who don’t
like to attend a formal theatre performance held in a theatre such as the
Wilber theatre.
When seeing a performance at the Wilbur theatre you cannot have food or
drink in the theatre and you have to dress casually or formal for shows
held at the Wilbur theatre. Finding entertainment in the Theatre district
in Boston is not hard thanks to the wide range of performances offered.
The Blue Man group has their own set and theatre to perform their shows in
which is very much like Shear Madness but a different style of
entertainment. It is interesting to see how a group like them can stay in
one place and experiment with the set and lights and not have to worry
about renting a theatre or some type of arena to host their shows. At the
Wilbur theatre, an older theatre and not very modern but set up like a lot
of modern theatres today was a constructed uniquely well served for its
purposes as a theatre. What amazed me the most was the amount of lights
the theatre had. If you were to stand in the pit next to the stage and
look back like your looking at the audience but more up almost towards the
ceiling you
would see lights everywhere you looked. The lights ranged from small
lights to large long looking devices securely fastened way above the
audience for use to light various parts of the stage. What’s significant
about these lights in this particular type of theatre is that in a modern
theatre the lights are more hidden and organized in such a way where the
Wilbur theatre’s lights were mostly exposed everywhere.
I also enjoyed visiting the Institute of Contemporary Art of Boston. This
is probably the most extraordinary museum I have ever been to. This museum
appealed to me more probably because of my age group and generation. I
also realized how new this museum was and that this was an experience that
I was lucky to have. What I also liked about the museum is its location.
It seemed to be in a new part of Boston and you could see the Boston Logan
International airport from the museum. It was also located right on water
in a harbor. This setting made it really unique because you can observe
the airplanes, ships, helicopters, and anything else that was going on.
Going to this museum made for quite the experience and just so happened to
be the last thing we did as a group before heading back to the hostel to
board the buses and come back to New Hampton. I was very pleased with the
things I saw and experienced in Boston on the Junior Urban Adventure and
felt that everything that we got to do turned out a lot better tha
n I thought it was going to.