Theatre Appreciation

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Theatre Appreciation

• Main Entry appreciate Function verb1 a
  to grasp the nature, worth, quality, or
  significance of
• b to value or admire highly
• c to judge with heightened perception or
  understanding be fully aware of
• d to recognize with gratitude
• 2 to increase the value of

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What is Drama?

• Main Entry drama Function nounEtymology
  Late Latin dramat-, drama, from Greek, deed,
  drama, from dran to do, actDate 15151 a
  composition in verse or prose intended to portray
  life or character or to tell a story usually
  involving conflicts and emotions through action
  and dialogue and typically designed for
  theatrical performance

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What is Theatre?

• The artistic practice of live performance with a
  live audience
• Theatre is a story that comes alive.
• Theatre shows us lives like our own and speaking
  our language as well as shows us a world that
  never was.
• Theatre is an unique art that calls for an
  audience to react to a lifelike experience.

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What is Theatre?

• At its fullest power, theatre provides a shared
  experience that calls upon all our senses.
• It is a sensational medium that offers an
  audience an image of life possessing unusual
  excitement and, at times, a great and strong
  simplicity.
• When fully mobilized, the power of theatre is
  almost irresistible.

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SCRIPT PERFORMANCE
AUDIENCE
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What is Performed

• Many types of activities may be considered
  Theatre
• What is the essence of theatrical performance?
• Possibilities
• The staged performance of a text
• Storytelling
• Entertainment such as juggling or improvisation
• Since Theatre has a broad range of possibilities,
  the essence of What is Performed is difficult to
  define
• Therefore Theatre, as a performing art, is
  difficult to define

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The Performance
The Performance translates the potential of a
script, scenario, or plan into actuality.

• Key Components of the Performance include
• Performance Space
• where the performance takes place and what the
  relationship is between the performers and the
  audience
• Artistic Collaboration
• how the playwright, director, designers and
  others work together to create the Performance
• Theatrical Elements
• Scenery, Costumes, Music, Lighting and other
  effects that contribute to the Performance

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The Audience
The only thing that all forms of theatre have in
common is the need for an audience. Peter Brook

• The Audience
• Completes the cycle of Creation/Communication
• Provides Immediate Feedback to the Performers
• 3-Way Interaction
• Performers Audience
• Audience Performers
• Audience Audience

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Theatre in YOUR Life

• List the events in your life fit the SCRIPT,
  PERFORMANCE, AUDIENCE model?

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Forms of Dramatic Presentation
MOVIES
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TV
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THEATRE
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Live Theatre vs Movies TV

• Live performance
• 3-Dimensional, real depth of performance
• Ephemeral each performance is unique, existing
  now and never again
• Audience is a part of the performance
• Wide focus audience chooses what to look at
• Handcrafted product any particular production
  is only available at a certain time

• Recorded performnace
• 2-Dimensional all depth is an illusion
• Static each viewing of the film is exactly the
  same
• Audience doesnt effect the performance
• Camera has tight control of focus and controls
  audience P.O.V.
• Mass produced product available anytime

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Is theatre Art?What is Art?
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Types of Art

• Useful
• Health Medicine
• Engineering
• Agriculture
• Home Economics
• Management
• Chemical Engineering
• Manufacturing
• Manufacturing for Specific Uses
• Buildings

• Fine
• Civic Landscape Art
• Architecture
• Sculpture
• Drawing Decorative Arts
• Painting
• Graphic Arts
• Photography
• Music
• Recreational Performing Arts

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Aesthetics

• Main Entry aestheticFunction noun1 a branch
  of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty,
  art, and taste and with the creation and
  appreciation of beauty

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World TheatreIndia
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Japan
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China
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Purposes of Art

• Art as a means to understand ones world
• Like other disciplines, such as history, Art
  seeks to discover and record patterns in human
  experience.
• While historians, scientists and other scholars
  appeal to the mind/intellect, Artists appeal to
  the senses.

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Value of Art

• Art has the capacity to improve the quality of
  life by
• Bringing pleasure
• Sharpening our perceptions
• Increasing are sensitivity to others
• Suggesting that moral and societal concerns
  should take precedence over materialistic goals

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Theatre as an art form

• Theatre has great potential as a humanizing force
  because it allows
• Audience enters lives of others so as to
  understand their aspirations and motivations
• Helps us to see who and what we are.
• See ourselves in relation to others.
• Understand and feel for others as human beings

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Elements of Theatre Spectatorship

• Willing Suspension of Disbelief
• Term from Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• We know that the events of the play are not real.
• However, we agree, during the experience of the
  performance, not to disbelieve the events of the
  play.
• Example
• When a character kills another character onstage,
  we do not rush to the stage to help the victim,
  yet we may still weep or feel an emotional
  response to the action.

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Elements of Theatre Spectatorship
Willing Suspension of Disbelief enables
Esthetic Distance We are detached enough from the
performance to view it with some objectivity
Empathy Feeling of involvement with the
performance
Esthetic Distance and Empathy seem to be
contradictory concepts, but they balance each
other in Performance through the Audiences
Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
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Special Qualities of Theatre
Lifelikeness Theatre recreates everyday
experiences. Ephemerality Theatre is live
performance, and becomes a part of the past
immediately after it occurs. Objectivity Theatre
presents both outer and inner experience through
speech and action.
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Special Qualities of Theatre
Complexity Theatre combines varied elements such
as movement, lighting and sound while also
drawing from all of the other Arts. Immediacy Thea
tre is psychologically immediate, because it
transpires in the simultaneous presence of live
actors and spectators in the same room.
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How Many Plays

• Make a list of the plays you have seen including
• Title
• Producing organization