drama chapter 3

role of the dramaturg

-Assist in the selection of plays -Work with playwrights on the creation of new plays -Conduct research for productions -Serve as the in-house critic, attending rehearsals and offering feedback from the perspective of an "ideal audience member" -Provide links between the production and the audience through program notes, lobby displays, lectures, and pre- or post-show discussions

The Four Types of Critical Information

-Description -Analysis -Interpretation -Judgement

critics

-Technology has enabled a proliferation of amateur critics, particularly online on various websites and blogs -Critics may write for newspapers, magazines, or academic journals, or they may disseminate their criticism in books, on television, on the radio, and/or online. The audiences for these media outlets differ, and critics adjust their content accordingly. -popular criticism -"the art of evaluating or analyzing with knowledge and propriety works of art or literature." - A good critic explains the social and historical context of a work, how it fits within the playwright's lifetime of work, what individual artists are doing well or poorly, and how the piece has been influenced by its predecessors. Good critics—and good audience members—look at what a work seems to be trying to do, how well it does that, and whether that goal is worth doing. The best critics have extensive backgrounds in both studying and viewing theatre.

producer's job

-assemble and provide for the resources and talent necessary to produce the show. -Producers are responsible for hiring personnel for a show, including actors, the director, and designers. While producers retain considerable power over the production process, most turn artistic control over to the director. -Producers also oversee marketing and publicity, because they must ensure that an audience comes to the show, thus providing investors a return on their money.

Roman Empire

-audience had a thirst for violence, spectacle, variety - paratheatricals - Audiences' attention spans were short and spectators could be rowdy

theatre-in-the-round

-audience members that can see each other might share a more communal experience than other types of stages

cost of theatre

-costly -must have its actors, technicians, and other staff (except for some members of the production team) on hand at each live performance in order for it to continue existing—and making money. And those actors and staff must continue to be paid, night after night after night.

producer

-primarily in commercial theatre -The theatre producer, much like the producer in film, has the primary responsibility of raising money for the show, whether on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in the West End, or beyond.

willing suspension of disbelief

-they know that the events unfolding in front of them are not real, but for the time that they are in the theatre they react emotionally as if the events are real, laughing, crying, applauding, or, more rarely, booing.

commercial enterprise

-what theatre was for the first 2000 years of its existence in the western world -It was usually a communal, free event and frequently had sacred functions. However, since the English Renaissance, theatre has also been a business.

dramaturg

At its most basic level, it describes a specialist in dramatic analysis and literature, production research, audience engagement, and new play development. -"information designer" - designer who focuses on the text, context, history, and contemporary relevance of a play. - "questioning spirit" of the production

backers

Investors who help fund a theatrical production.

Classical Asian forms

Sanskrit theatre, Beijing Opera of China, and Japanese Noh, Kabuki, and Bunraku -have, as theatre in much of Western history, encouraged audiences to be vocal and immediately responsive with clapping, cheering, shouting, or booing. Audiences tend to be smaller, paralleling the theatre of the English Renaissance rather than ancient Greece. Eating and drinking in the theatre, as well as coming and going during what are often performances of familiar stories, have been the norm.

marketing and advertising

This role is crucial for theatre as business: its function is primarily to ensure that there is an audience. The marketing team must persuade people to come and see any show that its producer or theatre produces.

19th century Europe

With the rise of a working class that wanted to see theatre, the higher classes retreated to alternative forms as opera. The members of this rising class, looking for relief from harsh working and living conditions, attended the theatre in such high numbers that they shifted the nature of what appeared on the stages, making melodrama, with its escapist entertainment, and variety entertainment the most popular forms of theatre. These events led to the development and increasing use of more "democratic" auditoriums, and most theatres built from the late nineteenth century to the present abandoned the box, pit, and gallery for a fan-shaped configuration that supposedly creates equally good seating for all. Interest has also shifted to alternative configurations such as the thrust, arena, and flexible black box theatres, which each encourage different relationships between the actor and audience.

theatre's effects on society

affect morality, politics, religion—indeed, all aspects of that society. And because of this potential, those in power sought to control the theatre.

English Renaissance

all classes except the highest mingled together in such public playhouses as the Rose, the Fortune, or the theatre known as Shakespeare's the Globe.

postmodern theory

emphasis shifted to the relativity of truth and the importance of multiple perspectives in making meaning, as well as a perception of history as discontinuous and a breakdown of hierarchies and dualities

history of dramaturg

formal position dates back to eighteenth century Germany and the time of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. In 1767 Lessing declined an offer by the Hamburg National Theatre to serve as resident playwright.

feminist theory

has sought to explore the role (or lack thereof) of women in the history of theatre.

theorists

have sought to define and redefine such basic concepts as theatre, performance, drama, tragedy, and comedy. One of the first theorists in the Western world was Aristotle, who, in his Poetics, attempted to define comedy and tragedy (although his descriptions of the former are lost to us). In the non-Western world, Bharata Muni wrote the ancient Indian equivalent to the Poetics, the Natyasastra, in which the author attempted to codify classical Sanskrit theatre.

Agents

in theatre, like producers, serve a function similar to agents in film; they connect theatre artists with the producers and directors who hire them. They are the links between theatre as art and theatre as business. Although theatrical agents most often represent actors and playwrights, they may represent other members of the creative team as well. -the agent can help negotiate contracts or disputes, collect and distribute money, and network on the artist's behalf. -because they serve as gatekeepers, directing only appropriate actors, playwrights, and others to producers or directors.

African ritual and performance

intimate spaces have most often been valued, as well as the blurring of boundaries between performance and spectator; audience participation is even encouraged sometimes.

theory

is an intellectual construct created to explain or predict a phenomenon. A theatre theorist might explore the connections between theatre and the society in which it is situated.

liturgical dramas

occurring in the churches or cathedrals, audiences moved around from mansion (set piece) to mansion

corporate producer

such as Disney or Clear Channel Entertainment, brings an enormous investment potential to a production and can use the theatre as marketing for other products the corporation creates.

live theatre audiences

the audience can literally change the show. When a performance grips an audience in intense moments, or makes the audience laugh or cheer, the actors know. When a performance is too slow, or the audience doesn't get the jokes, the actors know. And when a few people randomly shout out epithets, take photos using flashes, or distract the actors by pointing lasers at them, the performance suffers.

three roles of the audience

the critic, the theorist, and the dramaturg.