Theater
There's no business like show business! Nothing quite matches the immediacy and electricity of a live dramatic performance, a fact which may help explain why the art form has persevered from its ancient origins up through the present day. During the 20th century, live theater demonstrated an unexpected tenacity in the face of tough competition from film, television, video, the Internet, and other media.
Theater Encyclopedia Articles
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Korean performing arts
Korean performing arts, the dance and theatre arts of Korea, tied from the earliest records to religious beliefs and customs. These date to 1000 bce, and they describe magnificently costumed male and female...
Broadway
Broadway, New York City thoroughfare that traverses the length of Manhattan, near the middle of which are clustered the theatres that have long made it the foremost showcase of commercial stage entertainment...
Western theatre
Western theatre, history of the Western theatre from its origins in pre-Classical antiquity to the present. For a discussion of drama as a literary form, see dramatic literature and the articles on individual...
acting
Acting, the performing art in which movement, gesture, and intonation are used to realize a fictional character for the stage, for motion pictures, or for television. (Read Lee Strasberg’s 1959 Britannica...
David Merrick
David Merrick was a prolific American theatrical producer who staged many of the most successful plays in American theatre during the 1960s. Though he earned a law degree from St. Louis University in Missouri,...
Lindsay and Crouse
Lindsay and Crouse, were an American duo responsible for coauthoring humorous plays and collaborating on theatrical productions. Howard Lindsay (b. March 29, 1889, Waterford, New York, U.S.—d. February...
Chinese performing arts
Chinese performing arts, the dance and the theatre arts of China, tied from the earliest records to religious beliefs and customs. These date to 1000 bce, and they describe magnificently costumed male...
Japanese performing arts
Japanese performing arts, the varied and technically complex dance and theatre arts of Japan. Among the most important of these are Noh theatre or dance drama, Kabuki, and Bunraku. From prehistoric times,...
theatre
Theatre, in architecture, a building or space in which a performance may be given before an audience. The word is from the Greek theatron, “a place of seeing.” A theatre usually has a stage area where...
Betty Comden and Adolph Green
Betty Comden and Adolph Green were an American musical-comedy team who wrote scripts—and often the lyrics—for many Broadway shows and Hollywood film musicals. They were paired together longer than any...
theatre design
Theatre design, the art and technique of designing and building a space—a theatre—intended primarily for the performance of drama and its allied arts by live performers who are physically present in front...
stagecraft
Stagecraft, the technical aspects of theatrical production, which include scenic design, stage machinery, lighting, sound, costume design, and makeup. In comparison with the history of Western theatre,...
theatre
Theatre, in dramatic arts, an art concerned almost exclusively with live performances in which the action is precisely planned to create a coherent and significant sense of drama. Though the word theatre...
theatrical production
Theatrical production, the planning, rehearsal, and presentation of a work. Such a work is presented to an audience at a particular time and place by live performers, who use either themselves or inanimate...
African theatre
African theatre, effectively, the theatre of Africa south of the Sahara that emerged in the postcolonial era—that is to say, from the mid-20th century onward. It is not possible to talk of much African...
puppetry
Puppetry, the making and manipulation of puppets for use in some kind of theatrical show. A puppet is a figure—human, animal, or abstract in form—that is moved by human, and not mechanical, aid. These...
Lew Grade, Baron Grade of Elstree
Lew Grade, Baron Grade of Elstree was a Russian-born British motion picture, television, and theatrical producer. The son of a Jewish tailor’s assistant, he immigrated with his family to England in 1912...