Is Theatre Still Considered So Important?

Theatre is a relationship between the performers and a live audience. There is an invisible yet tangible energy that exude throughout the theatre, reaching the actors and audience. Both the performers and the audience bring their own energy, but once the two forms of energy meet up in the same space and intertwine then become a radiate experience. The natural excitement of anticipation and excitement of the audience can be intoxicating, they come with hope of being entertained and if the audience is lucky

“Audiences today want a real experience in their live performance, because they can get great script based entertainment at home, through various new media sources. Traditional theatre, which appeals on a mental, and hopefully also emotional level, has not been enough to compete with other media, and audiences have been declining. Physical theatre, by contrast appeals to the audience on a physical and emotional level, providing a much more immediate experience than traditional theatre” ~ (Artmedia Publishing in Zen Zen Zo’s “The Tempest” Teacher’s Notes)

A craft that was thought only for the rich has been marketed to children in schools, to their parents and tickets are now more affordable. People are drawn to this style of entertainment. There are theater lingo’s like break a leg, the show must go on, dim the lights and curtain calls. I believe in times of struggle the theatre is a form of escape for the masses and has been an escape method throughout history. Theatre has continued to live on from the birth of American theatre to modern theatre and continuing on now to the future through the progression of acting, design and technology.

When the rest of the world is becoming consumed by technology and constant interruptions, theatre has the ability to connect a group of strangers by having them watch completely real moments of life, or some form of it. Even if the play is not like real life at all, it is more really than anything we call connection that happens through a screen. This is one reason I believe theatre will always fit into our society is because people have a need for connection, which is becoming less common through our use of technology. I hope theatre will always be able to help push connection in our society.

The nature of the theater audience has changed throughout history, cyclically evolving from a participatory crowd to a group of people sitting behind an imaginary line, silently observing the performers. The theater scene of Washington D.C is no exception. Much like politically-influential Athens, Rome, and London before it, this great city also ranks as one of the extraordinary cultural capitals of the world. The main topic studied in class was the naissance and realization of regional theater in our nation’s capital. Zelda Fichandler, D.C’s regional theater forerunner observed that “[O]ur descendants will ask how we came to do this with our theatre and why we waited so long and labored so confusingly”. The honest answer to these questions

In Scott McCloud’s “Understanding Comics,” he defines art as both “any human activity that doesn’t grow out of EITHER of our species two basic instincts: survival and reproduction” (164), and “the way we assert our identities as individuals and break out of the narrow roles nature cast us in” (166). Although McCloud was discussing graphic novels in his work, I think that these quotes and his argument apply to any type of visual rhetoric. As a former theatre minor at Marquette, I have had the opportunity to be privy to this argument in the form of theatre. Watching a play unfold onstage has an effect on the participating audience, largely due to the intricacies of each scene. While a good play must start out

What is theatre? Most people are blind to what it really is and what it can actually make you feel. It is more than just some people on a stage. when you're in the audience you feel and can actually sympathize with the people who are there on stage because they are there they are in front of you. Theatre is becoming another person to the extension where you become them. you can think in the moment of what they would think. It is countless hours of character analysis. But most importantly it is an art. An art that will never die. It is the oldest form of art. From cavemen

The William Penn Foundation has a history of sponsoring local theatres in whatever endeavors they might have. However, perhaps the organization would reconsider the potential value of its generosity. If it were clear that the Walnut Street Theatre was indeed the most productive, proactive, and effective in its outreach program, then perhaps the William Penn Foundation would offer a larger grant. But what kind of proof could contribute to such a case? It was my responsibility to acquire this evidence, for it alone was the answer to expanding the outreach program and reaching more kids. Therefore, I created an extensive spreadsheet that contained information about every theatre in the most theatrically focused thirteen states of America. I researched for hours on end to gather the data that included: names, contact information, student discounts, specials; number of kids annually impacted through performances, classes, and schools toured. As my internship was coming to an end, I was proud to present a complete spreadsheet that I had the pleasure of titling The National Theatrical Outreach Statistics. The Walnut Street Theatre is by far the most proactive theatre nationwide in its endeavors of reaching out to schools across the Delaware Valley. I am sure that the William Penn Foundation will be pleased to hear that the Walnut Street Theatre has impacted a total of 180,129 students and teachers through its outreach programs. Thus, my arguably most influential project was complete, and left me with confidence that the Walnut Street Theatre will indeed receive a larger grant to benefit the children of all

In the words of Gay McAuley, “for an activity to be regarded as a performance, it must involve the live presence of the performers and those witnessing it…” (McAuley, 2009, cited in Schechner, 2013, pp.38). This statement recognises the importance of both the actor and the audience for something to truly function as a performance. In addition, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones highlights the significance of the theatrical space and how it can influence an audience stating that “on entering a theatre of any kind, a spectator walks into a specific space, one that is designed to produce a certain reaction or series of responses” (Llewellyn-Jones, 2002, pp.3). The relationship between actor, audience and theatrical space is no less important today than it was at the time of theatre during the Spanish Golden Age and the creation of Commedia dell’arte in Italy. Despite being very close geographically with theatre thriving for both in the same era, sources that explore the social, cultural and historical context of these countries and the theatre styles will bring to light the similarities and differences. This essay will analyse the staging, the behaviour of the audience as well as the challenges the actors faced, and how this directly influenced the relationship between actor, audience and theatrical space.

Louis E. Carlton quotes Sam Shepard in his book, ‘Elements of Playwriting,’“..theatre transforms the invisible into the visible. It can be ...more magical than any other form of writing.” What Shepard does not tell you with this quote, is that it is also one of the hardest forms of writing. In a novel, an author tells a reader about plot points while a movie tells the story through dialogue and actors on camera. Live theatre exists at the intersection of these mediums. A play tells a story like a novel, but must do so using the dialogue of films, without a film’s editing or ability to show minute

For as long as there has been someone valiant enough to grace the stage, there have been people willing to stop and watch. Though this stage has evolved over the centuries and become a metaphor, alluding to new media such as television and the radio, there is no form of entertainment more direct and authentic than that of the original platform. Thus being where the experience is live and therefore more direct. Although this can quite clearly be said for theatre, this essay will look to argue that of all the live experiences there is no experience more natural than that of the stand-up comedian, which is why clear when you examine the relationship between the performer and their audience.

I believe the biggest reason Appalachian State University has theatre as a general education option is to enforce the critical thinking ability in their students. Appalachian is a liberal arts school and critical thinking is a major part of liberal arts. In fact, I think this was the main intention of the course was critical thinking, with this being the first assignment we did in this course. Along with critical thinking skills, we developed a higher skill for analyzing and creativity. I believe throughout my college experience these skills will be very useful to me. I mainly find this type of critical thinking, analyzing, and creativity better useful for English majors or majors that require an abundance of writing. Being a math major myself,

It is no doubt that the film industry has grown exponentially and changed drastically since Pittsburgh enjoyed its first theatre dedicated to motion pictures in 1905 (McNulty). Where graceful starlets and noble gentlemen once ruled the silver screen, we are now subjected to crude, juvenile humor, an endless pool of remakes, and as much action as writers can fit into a two-hour feature. +After having read excerpts from Roger Ebert’s “Great Movies” and Richard Corliss’s essay on films, I am going to analyze the current status quo of theatre going/film watching. *A good portion of filmgoers nowadays lack the awareness of “classic” films; dramas with male and female leads are almost extinct, seen as corny, old-fashioned, naïve or outdated; super hero or “frosh/frat house”/”bromance” type films (Hangover, et al) films dominate the marquis since the main target audience now seems to be teenage boys.

The history of theatre in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries is one of the increasing commercialization of the art, accompanied by technological innovations, the introduction of serious critical review, expansion of the subject matters portrayed to include ordinary people, and an emphasis on more natural forms of acting. Theatre, which had been dominated by the church for centuries, and then by the tastes of monarchs for more than 200 years, became accessible to merchants, industrialists, and the less privileged and then the masses.

On reading Christopher B. Balme’s The theatrical public sphere, the concept of theatre’s role in the Public Sphere is explored. Balme traces the origins