Today I am going to talk about theatre.

A theatre is a building with a stage in it, on which plays, shows, and

other performances take place. There are a lot of theatre types, but I will mention just a few because it
would take a lot of time to present all of them. Proscenium stage, it is what we usually think of as a theatre.
I would say it is the basic one. Thrust theatre – a stage surrounded by the audience on three sides. The
fourth side serves as the background. Another one is arena theatre – a central stage surrounded by the
audience on all sides. Lastly, black-box or flexible theatres, these platforms are often big rooms painted
black, the floor of the stage usually is at the same level as the first audience row.

Speaking about audience and seating, there are different sitting areas. The most expensive seats are stalls –
they are right in front of the platform. The cheapest seats are in balcony or in other words, gallery – the
view from there is pretty bad, because the seats are far away from the staging, and it is not the ideal choice
for people that are scared of heights, of course, it is okay to sit there, as long as you’re not standing and
have good eyesight.

I do not go to the theatre that often – I think only once or twice a year. I have seen several plays. One of
them was a parody of the popular series ‘Friends’. An interesting thing, it was in the French language. Me
and my classmates who learn French went to see it with our French teacher in seventh or eighth grade. We
did not understand a lot, but we enjoyed it. The second one I remember was a comedy about the family. I
do not remember much, but I know that my family’s friend played the priest there so my family did not
have to buy the tickets in the box office – we got them for free and we sat in the stalls. One more thing, we
could meet the actors after the performance in the dressing room. I did not like the play that much,
because I would say it was more for adults, not teenagers.

If I had to choose between cinema and theatre, I obviously would choose cinema. The actors in the theatre
have more possibility to make a mistake and they will not be able to fix it during a play. Two performances
of the same play are never the same. In a live play, if you miss a moment or a dialogue, there is no way you
can rewind it, and the next performance might have a different effect. However, if you go to the cinema, it
is most likely that the movie will be shown on TV’s after a year or less, so it is possible to watch the same
scene repeatedly. Thank you.