The Rialto Theatre located in El Dorado Arkansas was first built in 1929. The Clark-McWilliams Theatre Company commissioned the Rialto to be built by the local architectural firm of Kolben, Hunter and Boyd. It was commissioned to be built in response to the demand for high-class entertainment by the enlarged population due to the oil-boom. The construction cost was the most in South Arkansas at $250,000. The Rialto Theatre as stayed in the hands of the McWilliams family of El Dorado. Today it is owned by Richard H. Mason. Although the Theatre closed in the late 1970’s, it was reopened in 1987. It was used as a three screen movie theatre as well as live Arkansas performances. Not much has changed from the original design. The main differences
Theatres and How We Had Fun." Little, Brown, and Company. (Boston, Toronto, London); 1991. P. 139, 144.
Motion pictures from Hollywood had taken Broadway’s place as the king of entertainment. The main reason behind this was that because it was culturally relevant and coming out with new flashy techniques such as Todd-AO and Cinerama.
The inventors for the first movie theater are John P. Harris and Harry Davis. John P. Harris was born in 1871 in Pittsburgh and Harry Davis was born 1861 in London. Harry Davis moved to Pittsburgh in 1870, he went at the age of 9. Harry Davis was one of the most successful theatrical managers in the country 1890-1920.
Canadian identity has always been difficult to define. This definition is essential in order to evaluate theatre in Canada. French Canadians appear to have no difficulty in establishing their own identity, both on and off the stage, as they share a distinct tradition. We, as English-Canadians, have continued to define ourselves by reference to what we are not, American, rather than in terms of our own national history and tradition. For English Canadians, this tradition comes not from the nation but instead from community and region. Because English-Canada has such a great cultural diversity, nationality and relevance to our outstanding values and attitudes must define the Anglophone Canadian identity, both on and off the stage.
One of the very first electrified streets in the United States was Broadway. This gave it many opportunities to become a large icon for our nation. As we know now it is one of the most well-known places for great entertainment. However Broadway was not always the iconic entertainment center it is today; it was stolen, had New York City emerge around it, and persevered through many difficult economic and cultural times.
Millions of people across the country roamed the streets in search of jobs, hoping to find some way to get the money they needed to feed their families. The Great Depression in the United States during the 1930s affected not only those who worked in jobs requiring physical labor, but those involved with theatre and the arts as well. The Federal Theatre Project was one of the Works Progress Administration (WPA)'s projects that was created to help deal with the economic turmoil caused by the Great Depression. Thousands of artists, whether it was in the form of writing, music, or performing arts, were put out of work. The Federal Arts projects were created to reinstate jobs for unemployed artists as well as create displays of art for the public. "The Federal Theatre Project, directed by the former head of the Vassar College Experimental Theatre, Hallie Flanagan, was the most important, the most controversial, and hence, the shortest-lived of the Federal One Projects" (Gerdes, 155). Though the Federal Theatre Project caused a large amount of controversy among people in America, it was very important because during its short life it supplied jobs for many people working in the arts and it brought free theatre to America.
Documentary theater, sometimes referred to as verbatim theater, attempts to bring social issues to the stage. Many times, theater has a hard time staying current and discussing the issues of today, and although some might argue that theater should an escape from the problems of the world, documentary theater’s aims to bring to light. If given the opportunity to create a documentary theater piece, I think it would be really interesting to talk about immigration to the United States. The United States was built, in part, by immigrants—and the nation has long been the beneficiary of the new energy and ingenuity that immigrants bring. Today, over 13 percent of the nation’s residents are foreign-born.
The rejuvenation of the area also meant the rejuvenation of old buildings. The Rialto Theater, once an old crumbling cinema in need of work, was one of the many buildings in the downtown area to be renovated and is now home to plays and various musical productions. An old church was turned into a blues parlour for the Olympics and following the games became a music venue for live bands.
First of all, Broadway is the heart of the American theater. The only other theatre district in the world that compares to Broadway is the theater district in West End of London, England. Just how big is Broadway? “Located in and around Times Square, the roughly thirty-five legitimate Broadway theaters form the backbone of one of the most highly concentrated entertainment districts in the world along with London’s West End” (Simonoff). The city of New York has had a professional theatre district since the eighteenth century. As time went on, the district slowly moved uptown to Broadway. In the early 1900s, the Time Square theatre district had a total of seventy theaters. These theaters were “scattered roughly in the area between Thirty-ninth Street, Fifty-ninth Street, Sixth Avenue, and Eighth Avenue” (McNamara). Today, there are approximately thirty-five theaters in the Time Square area. It’s true that today, the number of present day Broadway theaters has been cut in half from the number of theaters there once were. However, this decrease in the number of theaters does not mean that Broadway is extinct.
Community theatres throughout the Memphis/Shelby county area, from Midtown to Collierville, produce a variety of plays throughout the season. Members make up about 60% of the audiences, who have high level of education and value arts. Theatres compete in the leisure/entertainment industry, with Orpheum Theatre, movie theatres and sports events. Opportunity and issue analysis is followed the current market situation.
Brockett, Oscar G., and Oscar G. Brockett. The Essential Theatre. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976. Print.
Elizabethan times in the 1600s was a progression for the world of the theater. A period named after Queen Elizabeth I of England, it is from this period that modern day society has its foundation for the entertainment industry. From the violence that was prevalent because of the Black Death, people turned to the theater for its poetry and romance. During this time period, there were two types of theatrical performances that were available for the people’s viewing, comedies or tragedies. These two genres were never really intertwined until the time of William Shakespeare. His play, Romeo and Juliet, is an example of both a comedy and a tragedy. It starts off as a comedy with Romeo weeping like a baby because of his love Rosaline, who did not love him back and ends as a tragedy when Romeo and Juliet, a pair of star crossed lovers, commit suicide because the lost of each other. It was also during Shakespeare’s time that writer were finally acknowledged by the people. Before this time, writers were not considered upper classman. Another group of people that began to rise into a higher social class were the actors. Actresses were not present back then because women were not allowed on stage. It was considered unladylike to have a female actor. Men played all the parts. Theater owners were dependent on actors to make them a profit. Rehearsals for the plays were fairly short, only lasting for about a week. The performances themselves would only show for three to four days.
In this paper, I will be focusing briefly on my knowledge and understanding of the concept of Applied theatre and one of its theatre form, which is Theatre in Education. The term Applied Theatre is a broad range of dramatic activity carried out by a crowd of diverse bodies and groups.
Theatre as we know it now was born more than two thousand years ago and has gone through many streams until it reached the current modernity. Among these streams is the avant-garde theatre. This theatre achieved a break in the traditional theatre and became the forefront of a new experimental theatre. Therefore it is necessary to ask how this theatre started, what impact it had on society and if this type of theatre is still common in our modern era.
My experience watching a live theatre performance on stage was a fascinating one, most especially since it was my first time. I attended a staged performance of “The History Boys” in a small theatre called “The Little Theatre of Alexandria” at 8:00 pm on Wednesday June 8, 2016 in Alexandria, Virginia. The overall production of the play was a resounding experience for me particularly the performance of the actors and the design of the scene made the play seem real.