Portal:Theatre

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Theatre Portal

Ancient Greece theatre in Taormina, Sicily, Italy

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...)

Featured article

Proserpine, extract from Dante Gabriel Rossetti's painting
Proserpine is a verse drama written for children by the Romantic writers Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary wrote the blank verse drama and Percy contributed two lyric poems. Composed in 1820 while the Shelleys were living in Italy, it is often considered a partner to the Shelleys' play Midas. Proserpine was first published in the London periodical The Winter's Wreath in 1832. The drama is based on Ovid's tale of the abduction of Proserpine by Pluto, which itself was based on the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone. Mary Shelley's version focuses on the female characters. In a largely feminist retelling from Ceres's point of view, Shelley emphasises the separation of mother and daughter and the strength offered by a community of women. Ceres represents life and love, and Pluto represents death and violence. The genres of the text also reflect gender debates of the time. Proserpine is part of a female literary tradition which, as feminist literary critic Susan Gubar describes it, has used the story of Ceres and Proserpine to "re-define, to re-affirm and to celebrate female consciousness itself". However, the play has been both neglected and marginalised by critics.

Featured pictures

In this month

Punch

Featured biography

Joseph Grimaldi as Clown
Joseph Grimaldi (1778–1837) was an English actor, comedian, dancer, and the Regency era's most successful entertainer. He popularised and expanded the role of "Clown" in the harlequinade that formed a part of British pantomimes during the 1800s, and became a key pantomime performer at the Drury Lane, Sadler's Wells and Covent Garden theatres. While a boy, he appeared on stage at Drury Lane as "Little Clown" in the pantomime The Triumph of Mirth; or, Harlequin's Wedding. Other successful roles at the theatre followed, but he left in 1806 to take up theatrical residencies at the Covent Garden and Sadler's Wells theatres. As he matured, he began performing as Clown, for which character he created the whiteface make-up design still used in pantomime and by many other clowns today. The numerous injuries he received as a result of his energetic performances eventually led to a decline in his health and to his semi-retirement in 1823. Living in obscurity during his final years, he became an impoverished alcoholic. Grimaldi died at home in Islington, aged 59, having outlived his wife and his actor son Joseph Samuel.

Selected quote

August Strindberg
A playwright is a lay preacher peddling the ideas of his time in popular form.

Related portals

WikiProjects

More did you know

Chatham Garden Theatre

Topics

Recognized content

Extended content

Featured articles

Featured lists

Good articles

Featured pictures

Featured portals

Good topics

Featured sounds


Categories

Category puzzle
Category puzzle
Select [►] to view subcategories

Things you can do

Things you can do

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Discover Wikipedia using portals