History Of English Theatre

Our presentation mainly focuses on the understanding of English Theatre. In the presentation, we introduced the history and aspects of the English theatre by giving several examples. Also, interesting questions were used to catch the audience’s interests and illustrate a clearer idea of English theatre for them. Our group presentation focuses on the six main aspects of the English theatre, which are:

History

Types There are three major types of theatre: drama, musical theatre, and improvisational theatre. Drama can be further separated into three primary forms, including opera, pantomime, and mime. Interestingly, for British, the absence of the pantomime would not be a Christmas, as pantomime represents their national identity

It required a lot of hard work of a team of people as the success of the production only occurs through people working together. The main roles in the production team are the producer, director, music director, designer, choreographer, technical director, stage manager, and actor. There are also other staff members including running crew, publicity director, ticket manager and so on. Duties and skills which expected to be possessed of each role have been analysed and illustrated during our presentation.

Popularity in other countries

English theatres are most popular in regions where English is the first language, such as the Americas and the European continent. Three unique English theatres around the world are introduced, namely in Paris, Germany, and Hong Kong. In France, plays in top Parisian theatres are played in French, provided with English subtitles on the screen; while Germany has the largest English-speaking theatre on the European continent: the English Theatre Frankfurt. In Hong Kong, Fringe Club is where the plays produced are played in English.

The diversity and ethnicity of theatre in

According to Gardner (2014), a common phenomenon in English theatres is its lack of diversity on the casting, with the actors and playwrights mainly white in default. In the past, the black and Asian actors were not able to receive proper or equal training compared to the whites, their talents did not get promoted (Chrisafis A., 2002). In The Orphan of Zhao, a 4th-century play produced by Royal Shakespeare Company in 2012, regarded as the Chinese version of Hamlet, only three actors are of Asian heritage, causing controversy on color-blind casting. Often, Asian actors are only offered roles casting as foreigners or Chinese servants. Trueman (2012) suggests that this might indicate a deeper problem, that “the whole industry is kind of reluctant to cast east Asians in non-race specific roles”, only taking them as “Chinese takeaway man or the Japanese businessman”, hence causing the producers to unconfident in casting decent roles for them. However, the involvement of Asian in English theatre has increased in recent years as the diversity of cultures offers elements which can enhance the quality of performance or the art form. Gardner (2014) also points out that the real value in diversity is the different thinking generated by people from different backgrounds, making the plays more interesting, or even lead to the creation