Chapter 1 The Physical Space

trend that shows no signs of slowing. Many theatre artists believe that found spaces are the future of theatre. Behind the Scenes Today, most permanent theatres need more than just an auditorium in order to function. Many people don't realize the number of people and services a theatre requires. Larger professional and educational theatres need various offices, construction shops, storage spaces, and more to bring their shows to life for an audience. Control Booth Inside of nearly every auditorium is a small room that is vital to running a show. Generally located directly behind the audience, this room has large glass windows that provide a view of the entire stage. This vital part of most theatres is called the control booth. Inside of it are the lighting and sound boards used to make all of the technical cues happen during a show. It is from the control booth that the stage manager and the board operators make most of the technical magic of a play happen. You'll learn more about the stage manager and board operators later in this book. Box Office This auxiliary space is quite familiar to most audience members. Usually found in the lobby of the theatre, tickets are reserved and purchased at the box office. The idea of the box office and even its name comes from Elizabethan England, where Shakespeare lived and most of his play premiered. In Shakespeare's day, theatre patrons dropped coins into a box to gain admission into theatre. In order to make sure this box full of money wasn't stolen, Elizabethan theatres had a special office where it could be safely locked away. Shops The large rooms where scenery and costumes are created are called shops. Most theatres have a scene shop and a costume shop. Tools, equipment, and space for construction can be found in these rooms. There is also usually a nearby electrical room where lighting instruments can be repaired. Theatres tend to be fairly thrifty. With each play presenting a whole new environment, theatres try to reuse as many materials as they can. Scenery, costumes, and props are often kept when a production closes and then repurposed and altered for future plays. For this reason, most costume and scene shops require significant storage space.

Dressing room. Dressing Room Most modern theatres feature dressing rooms for the cast. The dressing room is easy to identify because of its bright lights and mirrors. This is where the actors get into makeup and costume before going on stage. The dressing room is usually buzzing with energy before a performance as the cast frantically prepares to perform for each new audience. Green Room This unusual room is a common feature in many theatres. Where there's a stage, there's usually a green room. The green room is a lounge area where the cast and crew can relax when they aren't needed on stage. It might seem odd that there is a specific "chill" room for theatre artists, but the wings, dressing room, and other backstage areas can get crowded and frantic during a show so it makes sense to have a safe place where people can "get out of the way." Today, many of these rooms are not painted green, which leads people to ask why this lounge is called the green room. There is no easy answer to this question. We know that the name for this room goes back to at least the 1600s, although some believe it could go all the way back to ancient Greece. Theories abound regarding the origins of the name. Here are a few of the more popular ones: Dating back to at least 1599, London's Blackfriars Theatre included a backstage room for the actors to rest in. The walls of this room happened to be painted green and the nickname stuck. In medieval times, the acting area in an outdoor performance space was called "the green." In present-day London, many cast and crew members still refer to the stage as the green, so the resting room en route to the stage could be considered the green room.

Advantages of the Proscenium Because of all of the storage space and places to hide things from the audience's view, the proscenium is often the type of stage you want if you're doing high-tech shows or plays with large casts. These stages lend themselves well to speculate. With the stage removed from the audience, many prosceniums also feature state-of-the-art equipment like hydraulic lifts, elevators, turntables, and automated tracking systems. These devices can make scene changes and actor entrances and exits even more spectacular. Because they also make great use of vertical space, it is no surprise that this is the type of theatre preferred on Broadway and London's West End-two cities where real estate is forever at a premium. Disadvantages of the Proscenium The main drawback to the proscenium stage is its lack of intimacy. Of all of the different stage types, the proscenium is the one that most separates the audience from the action. This can lead to actors having to project their voices by speaking at an unusually high volume. Often actors will also feel compelled to make broad, sweeping gestures and large movements as a means of communicating information and emotion to the viewer. If the actors are less experienced or lack the proper training, their proscenium performances can seem unrealistic and forced. Nearly 500 years after its inception, the proscenium remains the most popular type of stage in the world. It is so popular, in fact, that many audience members are often caught off guard when they first enter a non-proscenium auditorium. As technology makes entertainment increasingly immersive, it remains to be seen how long the popularity of the proscenium stage will endure. Other Types of Stages A few types of stages currently used for theatrical purposes don't fit neatly into any of the previously mentioned categories. Advanced architectural technology now allows theatre companies to build performance spaces as diverse as the productions staged in them. The last 60 years of theatre have also seen an increase in plays staged in nontraditional spaces. The Black Box Many newer theatre buildings feature what is called a black box theatre. A black box theatre is an intentionally flexible space where the actor-audience relationship can be altered from production to production. The stage and seating can be moved and reconfigured in a myriad of ways. One can walk into the same theatre and see a play staged in proscenium, thrust, arena, or other style. Black boxes have become increasingly popular for a number of reasons. Producers, directors, and designers like them because they can shape the staging environment to reinforce the themes and atmosphere of a particular play. Schools use them to help train young actors in the different styles of performance that each stage type demands. These flexible spaces are also popular with audiences not just because of the variety they provide, but also because black boxes tend to be intimate venues, generally holding between 50 and 200 people.

Found Spaces The last several decades have seen a dramatic increase in theatre companies performing in what we call found spaces. A found space is really any place a performance is done that isn't a traditional theatre. Innovative and imaginative theatre artists have staged plays in basements, warehouses, store fronts, parks, museums, factories, tents, houses, bars, hotels, and even on buses. Sometimes called site-specific or environmental theatre, these productions have helped reenergize the art form by challenging the audience's expectations of what theatre is. Plays in found spaces provide the viewer with a tangible experience that is almost impossible to achieve in a conventional theatre where settings and environments must be fabricated. Environmental theatre is almost always intimate and is often quite interactive. Many of these productions completely shatter the fourth wall by making the audience an active participant in the story. Some found space productions have the audience members physically move through a series of locations rather than simply sit and watch the play from a static position. Here are a few well-known examples of theatre happening in found spaces: Sleep No More, a play based on Macbeth, was staged in hotel in New York City. Audience members moved independently through the different floors and rooms of the hotel, following whichever characters they wanted. This wildly popular experiment in environmental theatre premiered in 2011 and was still running at the time of this writing. The Iris Theatre company in London performs Shakespeare's plays and children's theatre on the grounds and within the walls of the world-famous St. Paul's Church in Covent Garden. The actors guide the audience from location to location on the church grounds, setting certain scenes in the gardens, others on the steps of the church, and still others within the church itself. In November of 2007 Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot was staged in the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged Ninth Ward of New Orleans. The production starred Wendell Pierce and helped to raise national attention and funds for a part of New Orleans that was very slow to recover from the storm. In 2017, This Is Not a Theatre Company staged their new play, Pool Play 2.0, in a public swimming pool. The audience came and sat at the poolside, feet in the water, watching the show. Hopefully, these examples give you a better sense of the growing popularity of found spaces in theatre. As strange as this type of theatre may sound, you might be more familiar with it than you realize. One very common form of environmental theatre is a haunted house attraction. Haunted houses pop up all over the country every October as people gear up for Halloween. Very few of them are actually staged in theatres, and yet they require actors, costumes, makeup, scenery, lighting, and sound effects. As audiences walk from room to room in these spooky spectacles, they are very much experiencing a form of interactive theatre. The idea of using a found space for performance is probably as old as theatre itself. The origins of arena stages and amphitheatres can be traced back to ancient artists seeking out natural spaces that enhanced what they were doing. The modern use of the found theatrical space is a growing

"Imagine a huge wall across the front of the stage, separating you from the audience, and behave exactly as if the curtain had never risen."-Denis Diderot, On Dramatic Poetry (1758) The whole idea of the fourth wall is actually very new in the history of theatre. It only became popular a little over a hundred years ago because of realism, a style of theatre that was very popular beginning in the late 1800s. The types of stages and performance spaces used are shaped by the society in which they are being used. Plays are written based on the time and place a playwright is living in. The stages built or the spaces used to perform plays are equally a reflection of time and place. Some are glamourous, some are crude; some are intimate, others are more formal. Today, most stages can be broken down into three types: arena, thrust, and proscenium. We will take a closer look at the history, purpose, and structure of each of these stage types, but we will also take a look at a few other types of performance spaces that don't fit nearly into one of these categories. The Arena Stage A Greek amphitheatre. The arena stage is very likely the simplest and oldest type of stage. An arena stage can be set up almost anywhere; in fact, it doesn't even have to be an actual stage. With this type of stage, the audience completely surrounds the action. If the stage is square or rectangular, the audience sits on all four sides. If the stage is circular, the audience wraps around the entire circle. Usually aisles, or vomitoria, run from the stage through the audience to allow the actors and crew access to the stage from offstage areas like dressing rooms.

The term vomitorium, plural vomitoria, comes from an ancient Roman addition to theatre architecture. Some scholars believe these aisles were designed for drunken audience members to vomit into, but most believe the name simply comes from the Latin meaning, "to spew forth." History of the Arena If storytelling really is the oldest form of theatre, then surely the arena is the oldest type of stage. It isn't difficult to imagine early humans gathered in a circle around aa campfire watching and listening to someone tell and probably act out a story. The ease of setting up an arena stage is another reason why this is likely the oldest form of performance space. Nothing is really needed except for actor and audience. A fairly level patch of land with enough room for the performer and the spectators is sufficient to create an arena stage. Nothing needs to be built. In a time long before electricity, and likely even before any sort of indoor structures, the arena stage lent itself well to performances lit by sunlight or an open fire in the event of a nighttime show. The ancient Greeks are often credited with "inventing" organized theatre around the fifth century BCE. Prior to this time, the ancient Greeks very likely used a modified version of the arena stage for religious ceremonies and theatrical performances. Greece is very hilly, so the people would find a flat space nestled between some hills. The audience would sit on the surrounding hillsides and look down at this flat space where the performance would occur. Over time, the Greeks added a small structure behind the performance space where the actors could store costumes, masks, and props. This structure was called a skene. Today, we get the term scene from this structure because it housed the components needed to "set the scene." This took away the full arena effect because now the audience could only sit in a semicircle on the hillsides to view the show. People sitting behind the performance space would have their view blocked by the skene. This form of outdoor theatre, with the audience sitting in a semicircle looking down at the stage, is called an amphitheater. Many ancient amphitheaters made out of stone still stand today, and newer amphitheaters are common stages for outdoor concerts and other events. The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles is a very famous contemporary amphitheater in the United States. It is important to remember that amphitheaters aren't true arena stages. They fall into that class of stages that do not fit neatly into our three main types of stages. Because amphitheaters grew out of ancient arena-style performance spaces, we have included them here. Advantages of the Arena Arena stages have many advantages, which may be why they continue to be so popular. The arena really is a storyteller's stage. It is intimate. Everyone can hear the performer without him having to unnaturally project his voice. Everyone can see the performer, with few or no set or architectural features restricting the audience's view. Because of the close proximity of the audience to the actor, the acting can be very realistic. Overblown emotion and exaggerated gestures are not needed. Most actors and audience members will tell you that in the arena there is a tremendous exchange of

Chapter 1 The Physical Space "All the world's a stage."-William Shakespeare It is quite likely that you will be required to attend a play as part of your Introduction to Theatre course. Most of us think we have an idea of what it is like to step inside a theatre as an audience member, but unless you frequently watch plays (and not just on Broadway or London's West End) you might not realize that there are many different types of theatres and various types of stages within those theatres. Each one is unique and alters not only how the play is presented to you, but also how the audience affects the actors. This chapter will introduce you to the many types of theatres and stages you might encounter. It will also give you a bit of history on how each came into being. Along the way, you will learn how these various physical spaces can impact your experience as a member of the audience. Key Terms amphitheater A type of outdoor theatre built into a hillside. First created by the ancient Greeks. apron The portion of the stage in front of the proscenium arch. arena stage Style of stage in which the audience completely surrounds the performance space. black box theatre Intentionally flexible performance space where the stage and seating can be rearranged from production to production. center stage The exact middle of the stage. control booth Small, windowed room at the back of the auditorium. This is where the stage manager and lighting and sound operators work from during a show. downstage. The part of the stage closest to the audience. fly space The area high above the stage where lights and scenery can be stored and lowered to or raised from the stage as needed. found space Any place a performance is done that isn't a traditional theatre.

fourth wall The idea that the audience is like a voyeur, peering through an invisible wall at the action within. green room A lounge for the cast and crew. masking Any objects such as curtains or walls that are used to hide things from the audience's view. proscenium stage The most common form of stage. The audience faces the stage from only one direction, and the performance area is framed by a large arch. skene A structure directly behind the stage in an ancient Greek amphitheater. It was used to house costumes, masks, and props. stage left The part of the stage to the actor's left when the actor is facing the audience. stage right The part of the stage to the actor's right when the actor is facing the audience. thrust stage Style of stage where the audience is seated on three sides of the performers. upstage The part of the stage farthest from the audience. vomitoria Ancient Roman term for aisles running from the stage through the audience. wings The backstage areas on either side of a proscenium stage. Before you Continue... Picture yourself sitting in a theatre preparing to watch a play, what do you imagine the inside of the theatre looks like? How is live theatre different from watching a great film or television program? Have you ever seen a play that wasn't performed on a stage? Most people think watching a play is the live equivalent of watching television or a movie. The audience sits on one side, facing the stage. It's almost like a tennis or volleyball court. You have the audience on one side of the net and the stage with the actors on the other side. Only there is no net. Instead, an imaginary line separates the actors from the audience. This line is often called the fourth wall. The idea behind the fourth wall is that the audience is like a voyeur, peering through an invisible wall at the action within. You sit safely in the auditorium on your side, watching the actors do their thing, and they don't bother you and you don't bother them. Sometimes, as a way to shock or surprise an audience, an actor might break the fourth wall by suddenly talking directly to the crowd or even stepping off the stage and into the aisles. This technique is even used in film and television. Films like Deadpool and television shows like House of Cards frequently break the fourth wall.

audience. Staging can also be tricky on a thrust. Unless you are lucky enough to have one with trap doors, actors can only really enter and exit from one direction. Most of the thrust stage is also rather narrow. Again, think of a fashion runway. Directors often struggle with large casts on a thrust. Things can get crowded in a hurry. Today, the thrust is probably the least common of the three main types of stges, but it is still used in theatres around the world. Many theatres that specialize in producing the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries have thrust stages within them. Perhaps the hope is to give the audience a more authentic taste of what theatre was like in Elizabethan England. It is interesting to note that in the last 15 to 20 years many popular musicians and bands have reintroduced the thrust stage as part of their touring shows. Apparently, they felt like their big stadium shows were isolating them from their audience. Once again, history comes full circle. The Metz Opera House in France features a proscenium stage. The Proscenium Stage The proscenium stage is by far the most familiar and recognizable type of stage. It is the kind of stage used today by most professional, high school, and university theatres. Even the auditoriums in movie theatres are configured like proscenium theatres. In fact, when movies first came around, people converted older proscenium theatres into movie houses. In a proscenium theatre, the audience faces the stage from only one direction, and the performance area is framed by a large arch. It is because of this arch that prosceniums are sometimes called "picture frame" stages. Much

like in an amphitheatre, the audience fans outward from the stage but, unlike amphitheatres, many proscenium auditoriums also feature balconies and even luxury boxes. Much of our modern stage terminology comes from the proscenium. In addition to the main playing area of the stage, most prosceniums feature an apron, which is a smaller portion of the stage that extends beyond the proscenium arch but does not thrust out into the audience. The backstage areas on either side of the stage are called of the wings. Actors can enter and exit from the wings, and scenery, costumes, and props can also be stored in them. The wings and often the stage itself are masked. Masking is when objects (usually curtains but sometimes walls) hide things from the audience's view. Masking is important in a proscenium theatre because it prevents the audience from being able to see backstage into the wings. Most prosceniums also feature fly space directly above the stage. Fly space is where many of the stage lights are hung. It is also used to hide scenery that can be lowered onto the stage as needed. When set pieces decend onto the stage from above, we call it "flying in" the scenery. When elements of the set seem to magically rise straight up and out of the audience's view it is called "flying out" the scenery. The lights and scenery in the fly space are attached to a series of pipes operated by means of a pulley system, much like the rigging on an old sailing ship. History of the Proscenium The origin of the proscenium theatre comes from the Italian Renaissance. In the 1500s wealthy Italians who loved theatre wanted to build performance spaces in their own homes. This was a big deal, because for the entire history of mankind up until this point theatre had been an outdoor art form unless it was being performed in a church. To create these new indoor theatres, the Italians drew upon the relatively new concept of perspective drawing and painting. This technique allowed an artist to create the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface. The Italians looked at a play as a painting brought to life, so they framed their indoor stages with an arch. They also added a ranked stage. On a ranked stage, the stage floor gradually gets higher as it moves away from the audience so that the back of the stage is actually higher than the front, thus giving directors the ability to create more depth on a flat playing area. On a ranked stage an actor can stand directly behind another actor and still be seen by the audience becuase he is higher off the ground. The ranked stage also gives us our modern stage direction terminology. It is because of this type of stage that we call upstage the part of the stage farthest from the audience, while downstage is the part that is closest to the audience. Because the audience faces the stage from one direction, this is also where we get the terms center stage, stage left, and stage right. Center stage is the exact center of the performance area. Stage left is the part of the stage on the actor's left when the actor is facing the audience. Stage right is the portion of the stage on the actor's right when he is facing the audience. Although the term was coined much later, the actor-audience configuration of the proscenium also gave us the fourth wall.

energy between those on stage and those watching the performance. The audience really feels like they are a part of the show and can see every bit of subtlety the actors weave into their performance. Disadvantages of the Arena One of the main disadvantages of this type of stage is the pressure it puts on the actors and the director. Scenery is limited because it blocks sightlines for the audience. This means that the focus is on the actors for every single moment of the performance. Most actors will tell you that acting on an arena stage is the most frightening because of how exposed they are to the audience. If you drop character for a second, the audience will know it. You can't turn away to hide a laugh or fix your costume because the audience completely surrounds you. The director must also be careful to stage an arena play in such a way that none of the actors keep their back to a section of the audience for too long. This can also be an advantage though. Arena performances tend to be very high energy because the actors are never static. From early man to the present day, the arena stage has remained a mainstay for live performances. If you have ever been to a professional football, baseball, or basketball game or an indoor concert, you are probably quite familiar with an arena space and vomitoria. This is a form of stage that has become very popular beyond the world of theatre. The Thrust Stage Of the three main types of stage, the thrust stage might be the oddest and least familiar to you, yet it also remains popular in present day. The thrust is considered by many to be a happy medium between an arena and a proscenium stage. The audience is seated on three sides of the stage, as they would be along a fashion runway. This allows the audience to still experience the intimacy they would in an arena space, but it also allows the rear side of the stage to be used for more scenery and as a place for the actors to enter from and exit into. The thrust may seem similar to the ancient Greek amphitheaters, but it is actually quite a bit different. In a thrust the audience isn't usually fanned out in a semicircle because the stage tends to be more rectangular in shape. The thrust stage was invented much later in history and was actually developed as an alternative to amphitheaters. History of the Thrust In the ancient Greek amphitheaters the landscape created a fascinating and wonderful phenomenon. By building a performance space at the base of a hilly area, the hills themselves provided incredible natural acoustics. The drum-like shape of the entire amphitheatre provided natural amplification for the actors' voices. It it said that if you go to the ruins of an ancient Greek amphitheatre and sit at the highest point of the audience, you can still clearly hear someone whisper on the stage. These amazing acoustics, along with theatre's increasing popularity, allowed the Greeks to build larger amphitheatres, some holding well over a thousand people. While this was in many ways a wonderful thing, theatre lost its intimacy in these enormous venues. Whereas spectators at an arena stage felt like they were a part of the show, many of those in a giant amphitheatre felt like they had nosebleed seats at a stadium concert. The Greeks tried to make up for this with increased scenery, spectacle, and special effects, but in the end the solution was to

literally thrust the stage deeper into the audience. Now the actors could once again be close to the audience. This new style of stage would remain popular for over a thousand years. Shakespeare's Globe Theatre features a thrust stage. Advantages of the Thrust Besides providing a still-intimate style of staging, the thrust configuration also allows for more design elements to support the actors. The entire back wall of the stage can be decorated to help give the audience a sense of time and place. This rear wall also gives the actors a good place to store costumes and props and to disappear from the audience's view so that they can make costume changes. In some cases, the thrust also provides additional levels for the performers and director to use. For example, the thrust stage in William Shakespeare's Globe Theatre has a second level with a balcony built into it. Many believe this handy new bit of architecture helped influence Shakespeare to write the now-famous balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet. Because the thrust-stage is nearly always built off the ground, some theatres with thrusts also install trap doors into the stage floor, providing a dramatic way for characters to enter and exit. Disadvantages of the Thrust A thrust stage does have a few disadvantages. The first is that, although it allows for more scenery to be used, much of that scenery has to be of a more two-dimensional variety. You can't put a lot of furniture on a thrust stage because, just like with the arena, it would block sightlines for the

UNIT 1 Entering the Theatre "Humans had built a world inside the world, which reflected it in pretty much the same way as a drop of water reflected the landscape. And yet...and yet..."-Terry Pratchett A crowd gathers for a performance at the Minack Theatre in Cornwell, England. The first unit of this book will take you inside the theatre. You will enter it the way most of you are accustomed to enter it-as an audience member. Once inside, you will learn about the different

types of theatres and stages you might encounter depending on where you see a play and perhaps even what play you are seeing. Each type of stage and each type of theatre impacts how the actors engage with the audience and even what types of lighting, scenery, and effects can be used. Knowing these things will give you an advantage over other audience members because you will already have an idea of what to expect from a production based solely on your understanding of the space you are entering. You will be introduced to the unwritten contract between actors and audience members as you learn the "rules of engagement" that apply within the walls of a theatre. Most of us are far more accustomed to being audience members at a movie theatre or a concert. The etiquette for being part of an audience in the theatre is a bit different. Perhaps most important, this first unit of the book will make you an informed theatre critic. Whenever we attend a play, we are sure to voice our opinions about the production as we exit the theatre. How you express those opinions and how you support them makes all the difference between being a critic or just another person with an opinion. Not only will this impress your friends and family; it might even start you on the path toward a career as a theatre critic.