Portal:Theatre

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...)

• ...that the audience of the Dorset Garden Theatre (pictured) in Restoration London found it fashionable and convenient to arrive by boat, thereby avoiding the crime-ridden area of Alsatia?
• ...that Takemoto Gidayū's contributions to the form of bunraku (Japanese puppet theatre) were so influential that all chanters (narrators) in bunraku are now called gidayū?
• ...that, before building the landmark Gandy Bridge, George Gandy was known for building a large successful theatre, originally derided as "Gandy's White Elephant"?