Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. It is the oldest form of drama, though live theatre has now been joined by modern recorded forms. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. Places, normally buildings, where performances regularly take place are also called "theatres" (or "theaters"), as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, "a place for viewing"), itself from θεάομαι (theáomai, "to see", "to watch", "to observe").
A theatre company is an organisation that produces theatrical performances, as distinct from a theatre troupe (or acting company), which is a group of theatrical performers working together. (Full article...)
Thespis is an operaticextravaganza that was the first collaboration between dramatist W. S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan. It was never published, and most of the music is now lost. However, Gilbert and Sullivan went on to become one of the most famous and successful partnerships in Victorian England, creating a string of comic opera hits, including H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado, that continue to be popular. Thespis premièred in London at the Gaiety Theatre on 26 December 1871. Like many productions at that theatre, it was written in a broad, burlesque style, considerably different from Gilbert and Sullivan's later works. It was a modest success—for a Christmas entertainment of the time—and closed on 8 March 1872, after a run of 63 performances. It was advertised as "An entirely original Grotesque Opera in Two Acts". The story follows an acting troupe headed by Thespis, the legendary Greek father of the drama, who temporarily trade places with the gods on Mount Olympus, who have grown elderly and ignored. The actors turn out to be comically inept rulers. Having seen the ensuing mayhem down below, the angry gods return, sending the actors back to Earth as "eminent tragedians, whom no one ever goes to see".
Frank Matcham (1854–1920) was an English theatre architect and designer. During his 40-year career, he was responsible for the design and construction of over 90 theatres and the redesign and refurbishment of a further 80 throughout the United Kingdom. Matcham was best known for his work in London, under Moss Empires, which included the designs of the Hippodrome (1900), Hackney Empire (1901), London Coliseum (1903), London Palladium (1910), and Victoria Palace (1911). According to the dramatist Alan Bennett, there was a Matcham theatre in every corner of the UK. Matcham's use of cantilevers for the galleries allowed him to discontinue the use of columns, which would otherwise obstruct the audience's view of the stage. The auditorium decorations were often mixed with Tudor strap-work, Louis XIV detail, Anglo-Indian motifs, naval and military insignia, rococo panels, classical statuary, and baroque columns.
... that the Richard Rodgers Theatre has hosted 11 Tony Award-winning plays and musicals, more than any other Broadway theater?
... that a showing of the 1914 film Lord Chumley on the roof of a New York City theatre was canceled with an on-screen announcement due to its 40-minute runtime?
... that although only one member was fluent in English, the cast of The Mongol Khan learned the entire script before the play's West End run?
... that the runway at the Winter Garden Theatre was nicknamed the "bridge of thighs" after lightly clothed showgirls paraded down it?
... that the Neil Simon Theatre, a New York City landmark, was the first Broadway theater renamed after a living playwright?
...that Burning Bright by John Steinbeck was an attempt at a new form of literature, the "play-novelette"— but both the play and novel were savaged by the critics and Steinbeck never wrote for the theatre again?
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Amédée Forestier - Illustrated London News - Gilbert and Sullivan - Ruddygore (Ruddigore)
Anna Fernqvist, rollporträtt - SMV - H1 122 - Restoration
Annie Oakley shooting glass balls, 1894
Arizona - 1907 poster
Atelier Nadar - Fly scene from Offenbach's Orphée aux enfers with Jeanne Granier as Eurydice and Eugène Vauthier as Jupiter, 1887 revival, wide-angle shot
Atelier Nadar - Galli-Marié in Bizet's Carmen
Atelier Nadar - Jacques Isnardon, Vaudeville
Auguste François-Marie Gorguet - poster for the première performance of Édouard Lalo's Le roi d'Ys (1888)
Barbier, Jules, Nadar, Gallica
Bernhardt Hamlet2
Big White Fog
Bon-Ton Burlesquers2
Boris Kustodiev - Portrait of Fyodor Chaliapin - Google Art Project
Carl Nielsen c. 1908 - Restoration
Carloz Schwabe - Vincent d'Indy's Fervaal
Caroline Hill as Mirza in W. S. Gilbert's The Palace of Truth
Charles Frohman presents William Gillette in his new four act drama, Sherlock Holmes (LOC var 1364) (edit)
Charles Gounod (1890) by Nadar
Charles Motte - Rossini et Georges IV - la soirée de Brighton
Charles-Antoine Cambon - La Esmeralda, Act 3, Scene 2 set
Charles-Antoine Cambon - La Esmeralda, Act III, Scene 1 set design (Version 2)
Charles-Antoine Cambon - Set design for Act V, Scene 2 of Fromental Halévy's La reine de Chypre
Charles-Antoine Cambon - Set design for the première of Rossini's Robert Bruce, Act III, Scene 3
CharltonHestonCivilRightsMarch1963Retouched
Cherubini, Luigi - Medea - Restoration
Chicago Theatre blend
Christine Nilsson Nadar
Cody-Buffalo-Bill-LOC
Colette and Maurice Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges, 1st scene
Colette and Maurice Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges, 2nd scene
Collina presso Nagasaki, bozzetto di Alexandre Bailly, Marcel Jambon per Madama Butterfly (1906) - Archivio Storico Ricordi ICON000079 - Restoration
Colosseum in Rome, Italy - April 2007
Composer Rossini G 1865 by Carjat - Restoration
Célestin Nanteuil - Jules Massenet - Don César de Bazan
Danny Lee Wynter
Donald Pleasence Allan Warren edit
Dudley Hardy - Poster for His Majesty
Elliott & Fry - photograph W. S. Gilbert
Elsie Leslie (1899) by Zaida Ben-Yusuf
Ethel Smyth
Ethel Waters - William P. Gottlieb
Eugène Du Faget - Costume designs for Guillaume Tell - 1-3. Laure Cinti-Damoreau as Mathilde, Adolphe Nourrit as Arnold Melchtal, and Nicolas Levasseur as Walter Furst
Eugène Du Faget - Costume designs for Les Huguenots - 2. Julie Dorus-Gras as Marguerite, Adolphe Nourrit as Raoul, and Cornélie Falcon as Valentine
Eugène Grasset - Jules Massenet - Werther
Eva Le Gallienne (mnwp.275003, cropped restoration)