Theater

B

5

Related Theater Personnel

In rehearsals and workshops, additional personnel may be on the theater's permanent staff or employed as required. The casting director is employed by the producer to assist in arranging casting sessions. In these sessions, agents send professional actors to audition for previously announced roles. In the United States, such auditions occur most often in New York City; Chicago, Illinois; or Los Angeles, California.

The dramaturge, or literary manager, has become a permanent staff member of regional theaters in North America and Europe. The dramaturge works with the director to select and prepare scripts for performance, advises the director and actors on the details of the play's history and interpretation, and prepares material such as program notes to help the audience better appreciate and enjoy the play. In addition, the voice and dialect coach and the fight director have become indispensable members of many theater companies. The voice and dialect coach advises actors on audibility, diction, and comprehension, while the fight director ensures the actors’ safety by choreographing and rehearsing any fight scenes. Staging a musical requires a musical director and a choreographer. The musical director oversees the performances of the musicians and singers, and the choreographer is responsible for hiring dancers and preparing dance numbers.

C

Theater Architecture

Throughout Western theatrical history, there have been six major types of theater buildings and basic arrangements of audience seating: (1) the proscenium or picture-frame stage, (2) the arena stage, or theater in the round, (3) the thrust or open stage, (4) the amphitheater, (5) the black box or studio, and (6) created or found space. All are still used but with varying degrees of popularity.

The proscenium or picture-frame stage is the most prevalent type of theater architecture in the West. The word proscenium, used by the Romans, originally referred to the area in front of the stage. Today, it refers to the wall with a large center opening that separates the audience from the stage. In the past the opening was called an arch or proscenium arch, but the shape of the opening is more rectangular than oval. In this type of theater, the audience faces in the direction of the proscenium opening and looks into the stage, which is framed by the opening. The auditorium floor slants downward from the back toward the stage to provide greater visibility for the audience. Often at least one balcony is above the auditorium floor, protruding about a quarter of the way over the main floor. A curtain located just behind the proscenium opening hides or reveals the events taking place on stage. The proscenium wall conceals the complicated stage machinery and lighting instruments required by modern theater production.

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The arena stage, also called a theater in the round, places the stage at the center of a square or circle. Seating for the audience surrounds the stage. This stage offers more intimacy between actor and audience, since the playing space has no barrier separating them. In addition, productions can usually be staged on relatively low budgets since a large, complex set would partially obscure the audience’s view of the actors. In the mid-20th century, American director Margo Jones initiated the development of modern arena stage design in the United States.

The thrust or open stage consists of a platform stage that thrusts out into the audience, which is seated on three sides or in a semicircle around a low platform stage. At the back of the stage are a proscenium wall and an opening. These provide entrances and exits as well as space for scenery and visual elements. In the 1950s and 1960s, a number of important thrust stages were built in the United States and Canada, including the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Stratford Festival Theater in Ontario, Canada.

An amphitheater is an open-air building with tiers of seats surrounding a central area, as in a sports stadium or an open-air auditorium. The term originated to describe a Roman open-air building with tiers of seats, generally oval in shape, which was intended for staging gladiatorial contests, wild beast shows, or mock sea battles. The Colosseum in Rome, the most famous amphitheater, was completed in ad 80 and still stands today. In the United States, outdoor theaters, another name for amphitheaters, are often used for historical pageants or other summertime celebrations.

The black box is a type of minimal performance space developed in the 1960s in the United States for inexpensive experimental work or new plays. Essentially a large, rectangular room painted a flat black or muted color, the black-box theater is usually equipped with a complex overhead lighting grid and movable seating (usually about 50 to 200 seats). The movable seating permits flexibility with the shape and size of the performance space. The Cottesloe Theatre, part of Britain’s Royal National Theatre, is a black-box theater with galleries (balconies) on three sides of the rectangular room. The galleries are permanent, but the risers of seats positioned along the floor are movable.

The search for alternative or environmental performance spaces, also called created or found space, although international, is associated in the United States with protest movements of the 1960s. In their revolt against society and the cultural establishment at that time, artistic groups created theatrical performances that rejected conventional stages and seating arrangements. Sometimes the audience became a part of the playing space. Streets, garages, warehouses, lofts, and halls became performance spaces. Jerzy Grotowski, a Polish director, introduced the concept of poor theater—theater without costumes, scenery, makeup, stage lighting, or sound effects. All that was needed were the essentials: the actor and the audience in the bare space. The Living Theatre, the Performance Group, the Open Theater, and the Bread and Puppet Theater were among the American groups active in the search for alternative spaces in which to convey new messages about American society.

V

World Theater

All cultures have theatrical performances and special places for viewing these events. In Eastern and Western cultures, the conventions of performance and production have varied in approaches to texts, subjects, acting styles, and production elements. The examination of African, Asian, European, and North American theater traditions that follows will reveal some of these differences.

A

African Theater

The earliest performance areas in Africa were used for rituals dealing with life and death. Like early performers in the West, the priest in African villages performed in an open circle, a hut, or an enclosure that he shared with onlookers. African theater today is a mixture of native traditions and European traditions, a mixture influenced by colonial educational systems and warring political factions within the individual countries. Most formal theatrical activity in Africa receives government funding and is encouraged as a means of preserving native cultures that continue to be threatened by urbanization and westernization.

African traditions of professional entertainment date back to ancient times. Storytelling, music, and dance have all played a central role in African culture, because they help preserve history and religious and social customs (see African Music: African Music in Society). Traditional drama in Africa combines storytelling, songs, and dances with costumes, masks, mime, and drumming. Another important part of that tradition are traveling entertainers, including griots (poets) and singers who praise tribal leaders and other important figures. Playwrights today draw upon these traditions for dramatic material. Contemporary social issues or political events, such as the struggle for independence or tribal warfare, also supply themes and plots for plays.

British and French colonists brought Western traditions of theater to Africa. Shakespeare’s Hamlet was performed on a British ship off the coast of Africa as early as 1607. The British encouraged amateur theatricals in all British-ruled territories as a means of educating Africans and spreading Christianity. The Donovan Maule Theatre in Nairobi, Kenya, was founded in 1947 as a modern professional company on the British model. Likewise, French colonialists laid the groundwork for Afro-French theater. Drama in French West Africa was fostered by French-language academies.

In West Africa, theater artists received their training in public schools and universities fashioned after European models. Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka of Nigeria founded the Orisun Theatre in Nigeria in 1963 to perform his plays and those of other Nigerian writers. East Africa has a stronger tradition of amateur and educational theater than West Africa, in part because of the involvement of East Africa’s large European population. Moreover, large numbers of East Africans speak the same language, Swahili, which facilitates theater production. See also African Theater.

B

Asian Theater

Rich traditions of theater practice thrive throughout Asia. Until the 20th century, geography, culture, and politics separated the theater traditions of the East from those of the West. Only in modern times have Asian theatrical traditions influenced Western directors, actors, designers, and theorists. Even though Western theater practices are known in Asia, the traditional staging of classical works of Asian theater remains popular. This section focuses on the theater of China, Japan, and India. For more information, especially on the theater of other Asian countries, see Asian Theater.

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