You enter the hot, cramped, dark auditorium of Cab Calloway School of the Visual and Performing Arts. You put away your ticket and playbill you were given at the entrance when you paid for the show. There is a buzz of chatter in anticipation of the middle school production of The Wizard of Oz. The historic theatre has had over 300 productions in the past 50 years and is in much need of repair. Young children are climbing on the worn seats, making the holes bigger. Fathers are checking their recording devices, while mothers are discussing their child’s role in the play. Your seat has chipping paint and an annoying 5-year-old behind, but you sit quietly and wait for the show to begin.
The lights flicker as a warning to the audience, and everyone takes their seats. The lights go completely dark and the only thing seen is the red exit signs and LED displays of video cameras. As the show begins, there is complete silence and the stage lights illuminate the faces of the audience. Everyone’s eyes are fixed ahead. Some parents sit quietly, others cheer loudly, some even stand up to clap at certain times. At the intermission, the theatre empties completely and everyone goes to the atrium of the school for refreshments and conversation. All are smiling and talking with enthusiasm about the show. Some of the children are sleeping in their parent’s arms, while others are running around and playing with each other. There are many tables set up around the atrium giving information about the school and organizations as well as local support groups and arts outreach programs. You get a drink and take your seat before the second act begins.
At the end, the entire audience stands up and cheers. Cameras are flashing and flowers are being thro...
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...acle alone. I believe that to truly understand and appreciate an event, you have to actually attend it. The more you experience something, the more you will understand it. If you go into events with preconceptions and a closed mind, you will never know its value to the people who love them. Perceptions are personal, but sometimes the judgments we make are not accurate. Sometimes we do not perceive the entire picture. Sometimes distance from a situation can also alter perceptions, what seems normal to those who are close could seem unconventional or strange to a foreign observer. When a person is familiar and connected to an event, they don’t think about how others potentially perceive the situation. When a stranger tries to understand the meaning of an event, the audience gives them clues that they don’t always know how to put together and what conclusions to make.
If there is truly tradition to be found among the great theatres both on and off Broadway, then certainly the Sullivan Street Playhouse and its long running production of The Fantasticks rates as one of the most celebrated of New York theatrical traditions. Maintaining its place as the longest running production Off Broadway, The Fantasticks remains an enchanting and insightful tale of both young love and bitter disillusionment. It also reminds one, in this age of spectacle and the mega-musical, how powerful and truly inspiring theatre itself can be. Clearly, one of the great strengths of this production and a large part of its appeal for audiences over the last four decades lies in the fact that both the story and the style of presentation compliment each other so completely. Here we find the non-essentials are stripped away, and we are left to rely simply on the imagination of both the audience and the performers to create a magical evening.
Theatres and How We Had Fun." Little, Brown, and Company. (Boston, Toronto, London); 1991. P. 139, 144.
Throughout the play, there is a level of intensity that can be seen. Sound effects, lighting and props help make the story seem intensely realistic. It helped engage the audience's attention and emotions throughout the entire play. It is as though we are living vicariously through these characters. With these characters, there is a life lesson to be learned.
He also greets and dismisses the audience at the beginning and end of each act. The stage manager interrupts daily conversation on the street. The Stage Manager enters and leaves the dialog. He is also giving the foresight of death in the play. His informality in dress, manners, and speech, connects the theme, universality, of the production to the audience.
The Old Globe Theatre had many rules, but most of them changed after it was destroyed in a fire in 1613. One of the rules that dramatically changed was the system that...
Lights, camera, action! The light switches on, and shines brightly in the center of the stage. Two people walk towards it, these are actors that were told to come out at this exact moment by the director. After days of intense rehearsals. The two young actors burst. “We are tired of working for you” the two participants yell towards the director. The director in a surprising manner walks up to the stage, stares down at the performers and laughs. “You are going nowhere; I have your contract and your pay, now back to your positions!” The performers stand and continue their roles with no opinion in the matter. The camera turns off, the shadows of the actors disappear. The common person stands up and is face to face with the director. The director
First impression of the play when I first walked in was one of confusion. The stage design was not distinguishable. I could not tell what was going on or what it was supposed to be. One thing I could
The audience, for the most part, seemed to be made up of college students attending for the same reasons as myself. However, there were some audience members who are part of older age groups in the audience. They were there only seeking a good performance and a great time. These older age group audience members were located mostly in the center section of the theatre seated in the first few rows. The dress was more casual among the students but dressier for the older people. Some people were in jeans and a T-shirt, including myself, while some wore nice clothes. The audience rewarded each soloist with a warm ovation of applause after their turn was finished. This led me to believe the audience enjoyed the performance and was very respectable to the performers.
“Theatre is like a gym for the empathy. It’s where we can go to build up the muscles of compassion, to practice listening and understanding and engaging with people that are not just like ourselves. We practice sitting down, paying attention and learning from other people’s actions. We practice caring.” (Bill English of the SF Playhouse). This quote accurately summarises the purpose of Children’s Theatre, to help the growth and understanding of children whilst also keeping them entertained through theatrical techniques. The National Theatre’s Cat in the Hat, along with our performance pieces of Cranky Bear and Possum Magic all showcased these techniques in a number of ways, whilst also subconsciously coinciding with the child development theories
When the lights come up the audience is immediately thrown into an old and dingy movie theatre complete with popcorn strewn across the floor. It is within this set that deep social commentary is made throughout the
Brockett, Oscar G., and Oscar G. Brockett. The Essential Theatre. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976. Print.
Actors were expected to memorize hundreds of lines at a time. While one play could be performing, actors would be practicing lines for their next show. Play writers also began to make roles for the actors in the theatrical pieces. The theaters that actors performed in were roofless so that the sun could be used as lighting. Theatrical shows were held in the afternoon because it provided the best amount of light for the show. When the people gathered into the theater, the different classes of people were separated by where they could afford to sit and watch the show. The lower classmen were situated on the bare earth where it was dirty and smelly because it was never cleaned. The owners’ of the theaters found it less expensive if they did not keep high maintenance of their establishments. Higher classmen sat under a roof and for a penny more, they could buy cushions for their seats.
On stage, these points were, looking at the opinions of a majority of both the audiences and the critics, presented successfully by Brook and the cast he worked with. From the prison guards who loomed in the background, clothed in butcher aprons and armed with clubs, to the half-naked Marat, slouched in a tub and covered in wet rags, forever scratching and writing, to the small group of singers, dressed and painted up as clowns, to the narcoleptic but murderous Charlotte Corday, Weiss and Brook offered a stage production that both engaged and amazed the audience, while at the same time forced them to question their role as the audience; no better exemplified than at the very end of the play, where the inmates, standing menacingly at the edge of the stage, actually begin to applaud the very people who applaud their performance, aggravating and confusing some, but forcing most t...
“The theatre was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation,” says Stella Adler. Theater is unique and intriguing because it blends literary and visual arts to tell a story. Before Theater 10, I viewed theater on the surface level: cheesy plot lines with dramatic scenarios for entertainment purposes. Throughout the course, I have learned what it means to appreciate theater, such as understanding Brechtian and Chinese theatre; however, I believe understanding theater’s ability to convey crucial historical and social messages, such as in the production of RENT, is more relevant and important for theater appreciation.
In times, we often see things, but we don't really capture what is beyond it. In some cases, there are people who are artistic and are prone to see what other's cannot visualize. Every individual has a talent which can be expressed and processed differently. Something you see can mean entirely divergent things to someone else;for example, some may see thing's that may seem simple, but in the eyes of an artist, it can be perceived with a whole new definition, dimension, and a potentially new discovery. As a photographer, my view of the world, can be skewed towards looking at everyday objects as potential art, but it wasn't always like that.