Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The
producer is responsible for the overall financial and managerial functions of a production or venue,
raises or provides financial backing, and hires personnel for creative positions (writer, director,
designers, composer, choreographer—and in some cases, performers).
A 'theatre director' or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and
orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production (a play, opera, musical, or devised piece of
work) by unifying various endeavors and aspects of production.
playwright. A playwright is someone who writes plays. Playwrights are also known as
dramatists. Just as a poet writes poems, a playwright writes plays. If the spelling
of playwright looks odd, that's because wright is a word for a craftsperson or someone who
builds things (like a shipwright builds ships).
A set designer is in charge of designing and creating the sets that appear in films and
television programmes as well as in the theatre. The role involves working with and
communicating with directors, producers, costume designers and other members of staff.
Lighting designerA set designer is in charge of designing and creating the sets that appear in
films and television programmes as well as in the theatre. The role involves working with and
communicating with directors, producers, costume designers and other members of staff.
A costume designer is a person who designs costumes for a film, stage, production or
television. The role of the costume designer is to create the characters' outfits/costumes and
balance the scenes with texture and colour, etc. ...
The Sound Designer is responsible for obtaining all sound effects, whether recorded
or live for a specific production. He/She is also responsible for setting up
the sound playback equipment and must make sure the board operator is properly
trained. Sound Design is an artistic component of the production.
Production designers are responsible for the visual concept of a film, television or theatre
production. They identify a design style for sets, locations, graphics, props, lighting, camera
angles and costumes, while working closely with the director and producer.
Production Manager. A production manager works with designers, the technical crew, and
the management team to make sure the technical elements of a show are completed safely, on
time, and on budget. Production managers are often full-time staff members at
large theatres and work on every show during a season.
aact.org
A technical director is a highly trained, skilled theatre professional with deep
knowledge about the design and technical aspects of the art form. This person is
responsible for working with designers, design technicians, and production managers to
make sure all technical aspects of a production are safe and organized
Sensory:
Eyes
Ears
The history of theatre charts the development of theatre over the past 2,500 years. While
performative elements are present in every society, it is customary to acknowledge a distinction
between theatre as an art form and entertainment and theatrical or performative elements in other
activities. The history of theatre is primarily concerned with the origin and subsequent development
of the theatre as an autonomous activity. Since classical Athens in the 6th century BC, vibrant
traditions of theatre have flourished in cultures across the world.[1]
Origins[edit]
Theatre arose as a performance of ritual activities that did not require initiation on the part of the
spectator. This similarity of early theatre to ritual is negatively attested by Aristotle, who in
his Poetics defined theatre in contrast to the performances of sacred mysteries: theatre did not
require the spectator to fast, drink the kykeon, or march in a procession; however theatre did
resemble the sacred mysteries in the sense that it brought purification and healing to the spectator
by means of a vision, the theama. The physical location of such performances was accordingly
named theatron.[2]
According to the historians Oscar Brockett and Franklin Hildy, rituals typically include elements that
entertain or give pleasure, such as costumes and masks as well as skilled performers. As societies
grew more complex, these spectacular elements began to be acted out under non-ritualistic
conditions. As this occurred, the first steps towards theatre as an autonomous activity were being
taken.[3]
European theatre[edit]
Greek theatre[edit]
The best-preserved example of a classical Greek theatre, the Theatre of Epidaurus, has a
circular orchêstra and probably gives the best idea of the original shape of the Athenian theatre, though it dates
from the 4th century BC.[4]
Main articles: Theatre of Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek comedy, and Satyr play
Greek theatre, most developed in Athens, is the root of the Western tradition; theatre is in origin a
Greek word. It was part of a broader culture of theatricality and performance in classical Greece that
included festivals, religious rituals, politics, law, athletics and gymnastics, music, poetry, weddings,
funerals, and symposia.[5][a] Participation in the city-state's many festivals—and attendance at the City
Dionysia as an audience member (or even as a participant in the theatrical productions) in
particular—was an important part of citizenship.[6] Civic participation also involved the evaluation of
the rhetoric of orators evidenced in performances in the law-court or political assembly, both of
which were understood as analogous to the theatre and increasingly came to absorb its dramatic
vocabulary.[7] The theatre of ancient Greece consisted of three types of drama: tragedy, comedy, and
the satyr play.[8]
Athenian tragedy—the oldest surviving form of tragedy—is a type of dance-drama that formed an
important part of the theatrical culture of the city-state.[9][b] Having emerged sometime during the 6th
century BC, it flowered during the 5th century BC (from the end of which it began to spread
throughout the Greek world) and continued to be popular until the beginning of the Hellenistic
period.[10][c] No tragedies from the 6th century and only 32 of the more than a thousand that were
performed in during the 5th century have survived.[11][d] We have complete
texts extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.[12][e] The origins of tragedy remain obscure,
though by the 5th century it was institutionalised in competitions (agon) held as part of festivities
celebrating Dionysos (the god of wine and fertility).[13] As contestants in the City Dionysia's
competition (the most prestigious of the festivals to stage drama), playwrights were required to
present a tetralogy of plays (though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story or
theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play.[14][f] The performance of
tragedies at the City Dionysia may have begun as early as 534 BC; official records (didaskaliai)
begin from 501 BC, when the satyr play was introduced.[15] [g] Most Athenian tragedies dramatise
events from Greek mythology, though The Persians—which stages the Persian response to news of
their military defeat at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC—is the notable exception in the surviving
drama.[16][h] When Aeschylus won first prize for it at the City Dionysia in 472 BC, he had been writing
tragedies for more than 25 years, yet its tragic treatment of recent history is the earliest example of
drama to survive.[17] More than 130 years later, the philosopher Aristotle analysed 5th-century
Athenian tragedy in the oldest surviving work of dramatic theory—his Poetics (c. 335 BC). Athenian
comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, "Old Comedy", "Middle Comedy", and "New
Comedy". Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven surviving plays
of Aristophanes, while Middle Comedy is largely lost (preserved only in relatively short fragments in
authors such as Athenaeus of Naucratis). New Comedy is known primarily from the substantial
papyrus fragments of plays by Menander. Aristotle defined comedy as a representation of laughable
people that involves some kind of error or ugliness that does not cause pain or destruction.[18]
Roman theatre[edit]
By the Early Middle Ages, churches in Europe began staging dramatized versions of particular
biblical events on specific days of the year. These dramatizations were included in order to vivify
annual celebrations.[33] Symbolic objects and actions – vestments, altars, censers,
and pantomime performed by priests – recalled the events which Christian ritual celebrates. These
were extensive sets of visual signs that could be used to communicate with a largely illiterate
audience. These performances developed into liturgical dramas, the earliest of which is the Whom
do you Seek (Quem-Quaeritis) Easter trope, dating from ca. 925.[33] Liturgical drama was sung
responsively by two groups and did not involve actors impersonating characters. However,
sometime between 965 and 975, Æthelwold of Winchester composed the Regularis Concordia
(Monastic Agreement) which contains a playlet complete with directions for performance.[34]
Hrosvitha (c. 935 – 973), a canoness in northern Germany, wrote six plays modeled on Terence's
comedies but using religious subjects. These six plays – Abraham, Callimachus, Dulcitius,
Gallicanus, Paphnutius, and Sapientia – are the first known plays composed by a female dramatist
and the first identifiable Western dramatic works of the post-classical era.[34] They were first
published in 1501 and had considerable influence on religious and didactic plays of the sixteenth
century. Hrosvitha was followed by Hildegard of Bingen (d. 1179), a Benedictine abbess, who wrote
a Latin musical drama called Ordo Virtutum in 1155.
High and late Medieval theatre, 1050–1500[edit]
Stage drawing from 15th-century vernacular morality play The Castle of Perseverance (as found in the Macro
Manuscript).
A 1596 sketch of a performance in progress on the thrust stage of The Swan, a typical Elizabethan open-roof
playhouse.
Calderon de la Barca, a key figure in the theatre of the Spanish Golden Age
During its Golden Age, roughly from 1590 to 1681,[43] Spain saw a monumental increase in the
production of live theatre as well as the in importance of theatre within Spanish society. It was an
accessible art form for all participants in Renaissance Spain, being both highly sponsored by the
aristocratic class and highly attended by the lower classes.[44] The volume and variety of Spanish
plays during the Golden Age was unprecedented in the history of world theatre, surpassing, for
example, the dramatic production of the English Renaissance by a factor of at least
four.[43][44][45] Although this volume has been as much a source of criticism as praise for Spanish
Golden Age theatre, for emphasizing quantity before quality,[46] a large number of the 10,000[44] to
30,000[46] plays of this period are still considered masterpieces.[47][48]
Major artists of the period included Lope de Vega, a contemporary of Shakespeare, often, and
contemporaneously, seen his parallel for the Spanish stage,[49] and Calderon de la Barca, inventor of
the zarzuela[50] and Lope's successor as the preeminent Spanish dramatist.[51] Gil Vicente, Lope de
Rueda, and Juan del Encina helped to establish the foundations of Spanish theatre in the mid-
sixteenth centuries,[52][53][54] while Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla and Tirso de Molina made significant
contributions in the later half of the Golden Age.[55][56] Important performers included Lope de Rueda
(previously mentioned among the playwrights) and later Juan Rana.[57][58]
The sources of influence for the emerging national theatre of Spain were as diverse as the theatre
that nation ended up producing. Storytelling traditions originating in Italian Commedia dell'arte[59] and
the uniquely Spanish expression of Western Europe's traveling minstrel
entertainments[60][61] contributed a populist influence on the narratives and the music, respectively, of
early Spanish theatre. Neo-Aristotelian criticism and liturgical dramas, on the other hand, contributed
literary and moralistic perspectives.[62][63] In turn, Spanish Golden Age theatre has dramatically
influenced the theatre of later generations in Europe and throughout the world. Spanish drama had
an immediate and significant impact on the contemporary developments in English Renaissance
theatre.[47] It has also had a lasting impact on theatre throughout the Spanish speaking
world.[64] Additionally, a growing number of works are being translated, increasing the reach of
Spanish Golden Age theatre and strengthening its reputation among critics and theatre patrons.[65]