English theatres
Theatre is that branch of the performing art concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinations of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound and spectacle - indeed any one or more elements of the other performing arts. In addition to the standard narrative dialogue style, theatre takes such forms as opera, ballet, mime, kabuki. classical Indian dance, mummers plays and pantomime.
Theatre is a remarkable world. It enriches our inner world, it's a prolific source of enjoyment. Theatre consolidates the foundation of our moral.
Theatre is a live performance before an audience. It includes every form of entertainment from the circus to plays. In more traditional terms, theatre is an art form in which a script is acted out by performers. The performers, usually with the assistance of a director, interpret the characters and situations created by a playwright The performance takes place before an audience in a space designated for the performance.
The word ‘theatre’ comes from a Greek word meaning a place for seeing. In this sense, the word refers to the space where performances are staged. However, theatre in a broad sense includes everything that is involved in a production, such as the script, the stage, the performing company, and the audience. In addition, theatre refers to a part of human culture that began during primitive times.
The theatre is one of the most complex of the arts. It requires many kinds of artists for its creation. These specialists include the playwright, performers, director, scene designer, costumer, lighting designer, and various technicians. For many productions, composers, musicians and a choreographer creator of dances are needed. The theatre is sometimes called a mixed art because it combines the script of the playwright, the environment created by the scene designer, and the speech and movement of the performers.
In the earliest theatrical performances, the dramatist performed all artistic ^ functions, including acting. Gradually, specialists developed and the various theatre arts emerged. The actor and the playwright gained recognition first, partly because they needed each other in order to bring their arts to life.
In the modern theatre, a director is used to integrate all aspects of production, including scenery, costumes, lighting, sound effects, music and dancing. Perhaps the most important job of the director is to guide the performers in their creative process and to aid them in their interpretation of their roles.
The Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre, London, England, is generally known as the National Theatre and commonly as The National. It is located on the South Bank in the London Borough of Lambent, England. The National Theatre's building was designed by architect Sir Denis Ladson and its theatres opened individually between 1976 and 1977. In the years from 1963, before the company's permanent home on the South Bank was completed, the National Theatre Company was based at the Old Vic theatre in Waterloo. Since 1988, the Theatre has been permitted to call itself the Royal National Theatre, but the full title is rarely used. The theatre presents a varied programme, including Shakespeare and other International classic drama; and new plays by contemporary playwrights. Each auditorium in the theatre can run up to three shows in repertoire or repertory, thus further widening the number of plays which can be put on during any one season.
In September 2007, a statue of Sir Laurence Olivier as Hamlet was unveiled outside the building, to mark the centenary of the National's first artistic director. Laurence Olivier was the first Artistic Director of the Royal National Theatre, in 1963.
The Shakespeare Memorial Theater
For the original theater, which was opened in 1879 with Much Ado About Nothing, we are indebted to a Stratford citizen Charles Flower (1830-1892) who struggled for years against the apathy of the general public, undismayed by the jeers and spiteful attacks of the London critics. He gave the site, headed the first subscription list with a gift of a thousand pounds, and issued a public appeal for funds. Confident that all cultured men of means and goodwill would give financial support to the project, he built a modern Gothic theatre at a cost of twenty thousand pounds, but to his amazement the Queen's loyal subjects remained blandly indifferent. The general attitude in London may be summed up in the words of a writer in one of our national newspapers at the time: "To my mind, the whole business of the Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon is a solemn farce calculated to puff up a few local nobodies with a mistaken idea of their own importance".
The greater part of the twenty thousand pounds was therefore paid by Charles Flower out of his own pocket, and it is worth nothing that this public benefactor whose munificence and tireless efforts established one of the greatest
English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance Theatre is sometimes called ''Elizabethan Theatre. The term "Elizabethan Theatre", however, covers only the plays written and performed publicly in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603). Renaissance theatre derived from several medieval theatre traditions, such as the mystery plays that formed a part of religious festivals in England and other parts of Europe during the Middle Ages. The mystery plays were complex retellings of legends based on biblical themes, originally performed in churches but later becoming more linked to the secular celebrations that grew up around religious festivals. Other sources include the morality plays that evolved out of the mysteries, and the "University drama" that attempted to recreate Greek tragedy. The Italian tradition of Commedia dell'arte as well as the elaborate masques frequently presented at court came to play roles in the shaping of public theatre.
The Globe Theatre
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613. A second Globe Theatre was rebuilt on the same site by June 1614 and closed in 1642. A modem reconstruction of the Globe, named "Shakespeare's Globe", opened in 1997. It is approximately 230 meters (750 ft) from the site of the original theatre.
Drury Lane
The Theater Royal, Drury Lane was built by Thomas Killingrew under royal charter and opened in 1663, It was burnt down in 1673 but rebuilt and reopened by 1674. In the new theater Dryden was resident playwright but it soon ran into difficulties over the management. Wrangles continued, with occasional periods of distinction, until 1746, when Garrick became joint manager of its theater, where he remained for thirty years of glory. The theater was rebuilt several times. From 1880 onwards the theatre was under the control of Augustus Harris, who specialised in large- scale productions of opera, the elaborately-staged Drury Lane melodramas, which made the fullest possible use of the theatre's technical resources to show horseraces, train wrecks, waterfalls and all manner of spectacular highlights in popular drama. In 1923 the theatre became the regular home of large-scale musicals, among its biggest successes being Rose Marie, cavalcade, a succession of Ivor Novello shows including Glamorous Night, Careless Rapture, Crest of the Wave, and The Dancing Years, also Oklahoma Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and My Fair Lady.
The Haymarket Theatre
The Theatre Royal Haymarket or Haymarket Theatre or the Little Theatre is a West End theatre in The Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use. Names of many talented actors are connected with this theatre. A lot of wonderful plays were staged in the theatre, such as “An ideal husband”, “A woman of no importance” by Oscar Wild.
The Old Vic
The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. It became a Grade II listed building in 1951. It was also the name of a repertory company that was based at the theatre. The company formed the core of the National theatre of Great Britain on its foundation in 1963, under Laurence Olivier.The Old Vic is a home for classic and new drama.
Covent Garden
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in the London district of Covent Garden. The large building, often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House.
The original Covent Garden theatre was opened by John Rich in 1732; Handel used it for operas and oratorios, including the first London performance of Messiah. In 1808 the theatre was destroyed by fire, reopening the following year and from 1847 housing the Royal Italian Opera. It burned down again in 1856; the present building designed by E.M. Barry opened in 1858. The dominant conductor during the first part of the 20th century was Beecham, while more recent musical directors include Solti and Davis. After the Second World War the theatre became home to the permanent Covent Garden Opera Company and Sadler's Wells Ballet. The Royal Opera House seats 2,268 people and consists of four tiers of boxes and balconies and the amphitheatre gallery. The proscenium is 12.20 m wide and 14.80 m high.
TRADITIONS AMERICA